A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “You sound angry,” said the Farmwife.

  Olly shook her head, tears flying. “I—I am angry. It isn’t right, not knowing where one’s place is, not being someone!”

  “True,” the Farmwife said, as though from personal experience. “We all like to imagine we are something mysterious and wonderful.”

  Olly managed a wry chuckle, though it hurt her throat, which was tight and burning with tears. “Well, with me, Farmwife Suttle, I won’t insist upon wonderful, though the prophecy does make me out to be mysterious.”

  The Farmwife gave her a penetrating glance. “I should insist upon wonderful, if I were you.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because, child, if you believe you are capable of wonders, then wonders you can do. At least, so has been my experience.”

  Nelda, manager of the songhouse in Happy Street, had formerly been a hag working in the Renegade Headquarters. Before that she’d been nursemaid to the Bloodrun tots, and well before that time (at age sixteen) had been concubine to the man now known as Old Chief Purple. She remembered him well. She had seen him in the interim, here and there, from behind the veils women wore on the street. She recognized him when he came to her songhouse to drink and listen to the music, though he showed no signs of recognizing her. It was not surprising. Women came and went in the gang houses. A few were treasured into middle age and beyond, but it was more common to get a tot or two out of them and then sell them while they would fetch a decent price. Why should Old Chief Purple remember her, who had been his bedmate for only a year or so? Particularly inasmuch as she had changed even more than he.

  He had changed in several respects. Though he came now and then to hear the music and drink the wine, he did not partake of the women. He had acquired battle wounds that did not contribute to his appearance. He had spent some years in dissipation, which had disfigured him more than the wounds. Sometimes Nelda looked at him from her post near the door and grieved sadly for all the masculine beauty he had once possessed.

  Thus it was that very early on a Third-day morning, Nelda was astonished to see the Old Chief drinking at one of the small tables in a shadowed corner of the songhouse atrium. He looked almost as she remembered him from thirty years before. He was alone, which was unlike him, but in other respects he was completely himself.

  She had been on her feet for hours and was in such a state of troubled weariness that for a long moment she felt adrift, as though dreaming, believing she had somehow come loose from herself and her proper time to become young again. The illusion lasted until she had worked her way close enough to see that it wasn’t actually Old Chief at all. The ears were different, and the set of the shoulders. Even with the differences, this young man was very like the Old Chief. He was not the Old Chief, but she would bet what was left of her life that he was the Old Chief’s get!

  And what a pity that this one was not Chief of the Purples instead of the poor baby who had taken that office. If this one were Chief, then Sybbis would have nothing to complain of.

  The thought resonated: If this one were … then Sybbis would have nothing to.

  Well and well. How strange the workings of fate!

  She stopped beside the shadowed table, putting on her motherly face.

  “Are you enjoying the entertainment?”

  He looked up at her bleary-eyed. He was too drunk to be anything but truthful.

  “No,” he said. “Not. Not ennertained. Came looking for a girl … a girl. A girl like another girl.”

  To anyone but a songhouse keeper, it would have been gibberish. To a songhouse keeper, it was one of the melodies of life. He was here looking for a girl who looked like another girl, a girl he could have in the place of one he could not. And what kind of girl could he not? A girl who had been sold to someone else, perhaps? A girl caught dallying with the wrong man and disfigured by her rightful owner? A girl who had died? Or even a girl he had loved as a boy and not seen since? Nelda was often amazed at the sentimentality of men. They gutted other men all day, then wept over their mothers. They took payment in silver mice to disfigure some poor wench who’d offended their Chief, then they spent the evening weeping over the fate of a sweetheart they had last seen in the roof garden when they were eleven.

  “What did she look like, your girl?” Nelda whispered, drawing out a chair and sitting near him. Not so near as to intrude upon him, just near enough to hear without being overheard.

  “Hair all cloudy,” he said, nodding. “Like clouds at night, with the moon behind, you know.”

  “Black hair.” Nelda smiled. “What else?”

  “Legs all shiny.” He sighed. “Pretty knees. Pretty feet. Rosy feet.”

  Rosy feet But of course. “What else?”

  “Doesn’ talk like—like one of us No. Talks like my granpa use to talk Lots of words. Inneresing words …” His head sagged toward the table.

  Sybbis had a spoken vocabulary of a few hundred words, which were all she needed. Well, Sybbis would simply have to keep her mouth shut. The rest of it—the hair, the rosy feet, the shiny skin—was a simple matter of oils and lotions, of keeping the room mostly in darkness, of having her wear a mask.

  “I know the girl,” whispered Nelda. “She’s a friend of mine.”

  He looked up, wonder and delight chasing one another in his glance, too drunk to doubt her. “You know Olly?”

  “Oh, I do know Olly, indeed She’s from—”

  “Not from the city,” he whispered. “From … somewhere else.”

  “The farms,” she suggested. Where else but among the farms and in the Edge did they use many interesting words? Certainly this young man had not penetrated into the Edge to be fascinated by one of the women there. No, it had to be the farms.

  “Farms,” he agreed.

  “Oh, yes, I know Olly from the farms. She said she’d met you. She thinks you’re very handsome, you know.”

  “She she thinks.”

  “She’d like to know you better.”

  “She’s … she’s here?”

  “Close by. If you’d like to see her, I could arrange it. You’d have to meet her somewhere else. She wouldn’t want to come here.”

  “No,” he agreed solemnly, looking past her at the bedraggled women writhing wearily on the dais. “No. Not her. Not here.”

  Nelda raised a hand, summoning. Two of her stalwarts materialized beside her. “Take this young man to my house. See that he has some of my private stock to drink He’ll like that.”

  The man was struggling to his feet. “Where? Where’s she?”

  “Get some sleep.” Nelda smiled. “A little sleep. She’ll meet you in my rooms, later this morning.”

  The two stalwarts, silent as was their wont, took the young man away while Nelda summoned another man and sent him for the physician under contract to the house. “Tell him he’s to meet me at my private house in an hour,” she instructed. “Tell him I mean it. He’s to be there.”

  Three hours later, Nelda and the physician talked quietly in Nelda’s private sitting room while. Abasio slept a drugged sleep in the bedroom nearby.

  “So he’s got no diseases. You’re sure?”

  “I put his blood through the analyzer three times, and it says he has none of the diseases you’re worried about, Nelda. What are you up to?”

  “Never mind. Better you don’t know. You’ve got his hands bandaged, right?”

  “His tattoos are covered. That’s what you asked me to do.”

  “And his head.”

  “And his head. And parts of his face.”

  “And what was it you gave him?”

  “A dose of something to keep him disoriented, out of touch with reality, as you asked. Since that could interfere with what you have in mind, I’ve also given him a new drug. It’s called Starlight. It will assure … competence in the area you’re most concerned with.”

  “So he’s dreaming?” she asked. “But physiologically functional?”

  “Ma
dam, you have no idea how functional. The drug is expensive, however, and you’ll have to pay extra.”

  She put three silver rats on the table before him. “These are yours for today. There will be an equal number tomorrow, and perhaps the day after. By that time we should know whether your Starlight has worked well, and if it has, you’ll be paid for that as well.”

  “A sparrow,” he murmured.

  “That expensive? Well, even so. I hope you’re wise enough to forget everything afterward, friend doctor. If you find yourself remembering, don’t It could be very dangerous to remember.”

  He gave her a tight-lipped smile and departed. Remembering too much and telling about it while drunk had gotten him kicked out of the Edge. The Edge had its own rules, its own customs, just as the city did. Of course he wasn’t going to remember too much!

  Left alone, Nelda went into the bedroom and examined the sleeping form there. A handsome but anonymous figure. The bandages would keep Sybbis from seeing who it was. He was healthy, which was all that mattered.

  Nelda put on the heavy black veils worn by women who went unescorted on the streets, hung her street pass on her belt, bundled a spare set of veils beneath her bulky garments, and went down the street to the baths.

  Sybbis had come to the baths that morning in no great mood of expectation. She thought it unlikely Nelda could have acted in the brief time since they’d talked. Her only expectation was to enjoy her bath and the usual massage. The moment she arrived, however, one of the bath-girls whispered in her ear and led her down the corridor to a private room.

  “I hope you’re in the mood for dalliance,” purred Nelda.

  “Now?”

  “What better time, girl?”

  “Who did you find?”

  “I found a healthy young man moping for a girl he can’t have. If you’re clever, he’ll think you’re the girl.”

  “He’ll know—”

  “He doesn’t know his own name. He’s drugged.”

  “Then what good will he do me!”

  “He’ll be capable, never worry. Are you going to stay here and argue with me, or are you going to put on this blackie and come to my house, now, to spend a few hours?”

  “Hush,” said Sybbis imperiously. “Wait a moment.” She left the room and returned, after a time, with Posnia. There Posnia hung her red and green garb across a chair and dressed herself in Sybbis’s purple veils while Sybbis put on the black garb of the street. When the corridor was momentarily empty, two black-clad women departed. Behind them Posnia did as she had been directed, moving to and fro restlessly behind the ornamental grill in the door, now in purple, now in green and red, murmuring as she went, now high, now low. The colors of the two dresses could be seen by those passing by, as could the restless movement. Voices could be heard. So far as the bath attendants knew, Sybbis and her sister were having a lengthy conversation. Though it was not unlike the games they had played as children, Posnia sweated, nonetheless. All would be well, Sybbis said. Posnia agreed that all would be well, only so long as they didn’t get caught!

  In Nelda’s living quarters, the brothel mistress stripped Sybbis to the skin and set about making her look like someone else. “Your name is Olly,” Nelda instructed as she oiled and dyed, combed and fluffed. “Make up your own reason for wearing this little mask, but tell him your name is Olly and you’ve been thinking about him since … ever since the last time you saw him.”

  “When was that?”

  “How in hell would I know, girl? Now, go on in there and wake him up. The doctor says he’ll be most receptive And remember, the fewest possible words! Don’t talk!”

  “I don’t see why,” Sybbis whined. Now that the moment was at hand, she was having certain misgivings.

  “Because he knows her voice, stupid girl. A different voice might put him off. You’ve got a couple of hours before people start wondering where you are. Use the time as I taught you when you were a girl. I taught you how to bed a man, how to delight him.”

  “I’d need … and I’ve never.…”

  Nelda stood back to check her handiwork. In the dimness of the adjacent room, Sybbis would pass. Cloudy hair, shiny skin, rosy feet and all. It was unfortunate the mask was necessary, but behind it, Sybbis was safely anonymous.

  “Everything you’ll need is there, on the table by the bed,” Nelda directed her. “And I know you’ve never, more’s the pity. It may be a bit painful for you, but then, you knew that before you asked. So go! Exert yourself!”

  Neither Sybbis nor Nelda remembered the birthmark on Sybbis’s inner thigh, a red mark like a tiny crescent moon.

  One of the lobbies of the Dome had been chosen long ago by the Founding Families as an appropriate site for a Founders’ meeting room. The floor-to-ceiling glass had looked out then, as it did now, upon a dramatic panorama of the canyons. The carpets had been thick and sumptuous then and had been replaced with others almost as lavish. Furnishings, likewise, had been maintained to give an overall impression of age without senescence, stability without stuffiness, luxury without ostentation. At least, so thought the Ander Family, members of whom had invariably been in charge of renovation.

  The room still reflected, so the current Ander thought, his family’s unfailing good taste, and it was to this room that he invited several elder members of the other Families on a late autumn afternoon, fluttering from guest to guest with relentless charm as they wandered in one by one, The Berkli, as usual, being the last.

  “What wonderful news do you have for us?” Berkli asked, looking around for Ellel, who was not present. He strolled to the table where their preferred refreshments had been set out by Domer staff. “I assume it is wonderful news. You’d hardly have bothered with all this otherwise.”

  “All this” included the produce of the greenhouses and the apiaries, boughs in blossom and beeswax candles, as well as unusual munificence in the matter of food and drink. Berkli helped himself to both before finding a comfortable chair and arranging himself in it.

  Mitty was already at a nearby table, setting up the pieces for one of the interminable games he played alone if no partner presented himself.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Berkli inquired, biting into a succulent meat-filled pastry and licking the crumbs from his lips.

  “Later,” snorted Mitty. “After we see what Ander has to say.”

  “What have you to say?” Berkli challenged his host “What’s it all about, Ander?”

  Ander seated himself near the laden table, snapping open his fan, fluttering it with a pretty air of having a secret to share. “You’re so sure I’ve got something to tell.”

  “Indeed. Certain sure.” Berkli sipped at the wine, regarded his glass with amazement, and got up to look at the bottle once more. “Where did you get this?”

  “Out of the cellars, Berkli. Where your father put it.”

  “You’ve raided my private stock?”

  “Ellel wanted the occasion to be perfect.” Ander smiled sweetly. “So you’d have absolutely nothing to complain about.”

  Mitty regarded him from deep-set eyes, his fingers making a repeated ta-rum ta-rum on the arm of his chair. “You’re toying with us, Ander. What is it?”

  “You’re ready to listen, are you, Berkli? And you, Mitty?” He glanced around the room, receiving nods from the few others present, mostly his own family.

  “Oh, yes,” Mitty said, turning his massive body slowly to and fro in the swiveling chair. “Yes, indeed. What is all this?”

  The fan fluttered for a moment longer before Ander clicked it closed and laid it on the arm of his chair. “Ellel wishes me to announce that she is only days away from having in her custody the Gaddir child—no, the Gaddir young woman.”

  Ander simmered delightedly under their incredulous stares.

  “You’re fibbing,” whispered Berkli. “At the very least, you’re exaggerating!”

  “No, he’s not,” said Mitty, gravely. “Look at his face. Ellel is quite sure, or she wouldn
’t let him make the announcement.”

  “Quite sure,” Ander simpered. “Oh, quite sure, gentlemen. After all your doubts and jeers and sneers, you may be sure that she is sure. I don’t know how he did it, or when he did it, but it seems old Werra begot himself a child. At least, the genetic structure matches!”

  “He must have done it just before Ellel killed him,” muttered Mitty.

  Ander snarled at him. “Before she acted in our own best interests, to preserve our security,” he hissed. “You yourself heard him utter threats against us!”

  “I heard him say it was dangerous for Jark the Third to bring all those walkers out of storage,” said Berkli, tipping his glass to examine the lees of the wine. “I wouldn’t have called that a threat. And he called finishing the shuttle a foolish waste of resources, but that wasn’t a threat, either!”

  “You say!” snarled Ander.

  Mitty glared. Berkli gritted his teeth, then made himself relax as he put out a calming hand toward Mitty. The Werra matter had caused a level of enmity that it would not be wise to renew at this time.

  “That’s in the past,” he said calmly. “Let it go.”

  “How does Ellel know this person exists?” Mitty asked, forcing Ander to turn his outraged eyes from Berkli and onto himself. “How does she know?”

  Ander took a deep breath before answering. “The girl was in an archetypal village. A man left the village. For some reason, he disliked the girl. He had a notion that she was wanted, so he brought out with him a blanket that the girl had slept in. He gave it to a pair of walkers, and they returned it here. There were sufficient biological traces in it to identify the user as a Gaddir. Of that lineage, at least.”

  “Where’s the girl?” Berkli asked.

  “Ellel’s walkers are looking for her now.”

  Berkli could not keep himself from smiling. “So she doesn’t actually have the girl.”

  “No, she doesn’t have the girl But she damned well knows there is a girl! And she knows more or less where. The girl can’t fly away! She has to walk about like any ordinary person. She could only have gotten so far from that village, and Ellel’s walkers are all around it!”