A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Burned Man told me that women are treated dishonorably in the cities,” she said unequivocally. “Everyone in my village would consider it so except Bastard, and Bastard could be one of you citymen himself.”

  “But in the gangs, getting a woman pregnant is a good thing!” asserted Abasio. “To make the gang stronger. To make it grow.”

  “Is that a fact?” she said. “They must be very strong, then.”

  Possibly they were numerous, she thought, though according to Burned Man they died young. She did not think of them as strong. Burned Man had not spoken of them as strong, merely as willful.

  Except with his ma, who had mostly talked at him, Abasio had never conversed with a woman except as gangers did, to tease or to give them orders. Actual conversation was troubling, and he wouldn’t have done it with anyone but Olly. Even with her, he tried the more familiar patterns of teasing and flirting and bragging, only to find that phrases meant to sound seductive came across as ugly and unenticing, the meaning muddy and uncertain, even to him.

  “You’re talking and talking,” said Olly, angrily. “Words come out of your mouth like water out of a pump, all gush and splash, but you’re not really thinking about me and you.”

  “How can you say that?” he’d demanded.

  How could she say it? She simply knew it. It was part of the pattern of his life, and she could see that pattern as clearly as she was beginning to see the patterns dye blocks would make, one thing leading to another, certain as sunrise. Things she had been told. Things she had seen. And this man saying words he knew too well.

  She spoke softly. “Listen, Abasio. I don’t know who I am I don’t know anything about me. Do you know anything about me that I don’t know?”

  He didn’t.

  “What I’m saying is this: You see two frogs mating, do you think they love each other?”

  He stared, not answering.

  She went on doggedly. “Or if it was two people, but one of them was drugged unconscious? Seems to me, the only way people can make love with each other is if they both know who they are and who the other one is! Otherwise it’s just the bodies coupling, like two frogs! And I can’t respond to your words, because I don’t know who I am yet, even if you do know who you are, which I doubt!”

  “Suppose I do know you better than you do?”

  Oracle had told her about that one. “You know more about sex than I do According to Oracle all women have a hen-crouch part, so you know more about that part than I do. Burned Man told me how ganger men make up these struts and crows, and cock-a-doodle back and forth, just like a rooster showing off his feathers to get the hens to crouch for him. Doesn’t matter to the rooster which hen he jumps! Hens are interchangeable, like socks: Wear out one, put on another. If she won’t crouch, peck her until she’s bloody Rooster doesn’t care what the chicken thinks! Rooster doesn’t care if the chicken thinks.

  “Sure, I’ve got a hen-crouch part, just like any other female, but that’s biology, not brains. Which is why you gangers are breeding down and breeding down. Burned Man says you men have a saying about quick cuckle: When a man’s in a hurry, there’s nothing like quick cuckle. So you take the women who spread their legs quickest, they’re the ones with the least brains, and every generation of you is dumber than the last!” Burned Man would never have used those words to her, but then, he had never been as angry as she was now! She yearned toward this stupid, stupid man, and all he did was cock-a-doodle!

  “I’m not just crowing! I mean what I say to you,” he said, matching her anger with heat of his own.

  She turned her back on him, tears in her eyes. “Well if you do, the more shame you, for it’s nothing but cockcrow, Abasio. Nothing but habit. You’re not talking to me any different than you’d talk to any other chicken!”

  She left him there and went back to Wise Rocks Farm. He didn’t see her again for days.

  And she was right. His talk had been only habit. Now. But when he had seen her first, he’d been on fire, wanting her, Olly, separate and distinct from all other women. He wanted … he wanted … he didn’t know what he wanted!

  He lay abed, summoning sexual fantasies that plodded flaccidly to no perceivable conclusion. He snorted and bellowed around the house, trying to stir himself.

  “What’s the matter with you?” old Cermit asked. “You’re acting like a ram-lamb with a burr up his tail.”

  “I’m afraid that drug has … altered me,” Abasio said, using the phrase his grandpa had used when he spoke of gilts and steers. “I can’t—that is, I don’t—”

  “Wouldn’t that be interesting,” said the old man reflectively, without the least tone of sympathy.

  “Damn it, Grandpa!”

  “Shh. I doubt you’re permanently altered. That would be too much to hope for!”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you!”

  “It would be one way of keeping you out of trouble and alive. Possibly.”

  The old man looked after him with a troubled frown when Abasio turned and stalked away. Some men, in this age of IDDIs, took a knife to themselves to stay out of trouble and alive. Others said they would rather die, and did. Among the farms, betrothal of infants was coming back, with marriage taking place as soon as boy and girl were sexually mature, or even before Cermit had no idea how Abasio had avoided infection all those years in the city. Or if he had. Because he didn’t know, and because Abasio wouldn’t tell him, he gave the boy less credit than he deserved.

  Came a morning there was ice on the horse trough, ice in the chickens’ watering can, and over the hoarfrost on the lane came Originee on hurried horseback, looking distraught as she called to Cermit and Abasio.

  “I’ve just come down from the Chyne Farm. Farmwife Chyne was weeks late about it, and the child was born dead.”

  “Ah, that’s sad news,” said Cermit, brow furrowed at her expression.

  “It was those walkers that did it. They touched her. She says the baby stopped moving the moment they touched her and never moved again.” Farmwife Suttle wiped her eyes. “And Farmwife Chyne was not unscathed. She shivers and cries and worries over Olly, for the walkers were seeking the girl. Farmwife Chyne knew who they were after, even at the time.”

  “Ah,” grunted Cermit, distressed but unsurprised.

  “They asked for a certain girl. Farmwife Chyne told them she’d seen such a girl and had directed her toward the city. Abasio said they were seeking in the city, and that was sometime ago. Now we know they are not looking at random. They are following a particular trail. When they don’t find Olly in the city, they may well backtrack here. They’ll return, I fear, and it could be soon.”

  “Time then,” said the old man heavily. He had grown accustomed to having Abasio about the place, and even though they argued constantly, he did not want his grandson to go.

  “Time for Olly,” she agreed. “Which means time for them both. I should get back to Chyne Farm, but someone must go to Whitherby to fetch the girl.”

  “I’ll go,” said Cermit, and he turned purposefully toward the barn.

  So Olly was fetched, she and the angel, with barely time to say good-bye to the dyer and pick up the books and supplies she had bought from him. She fretted, sure of her decision to go, but troubled by this haste, barely able to keep herself from howling. Now that the time had come she felt as much fear as anticipation.

  “Take these,” Wilfer told her, offering a neat bundle. “It’s the neckcloths for the women of Wide Mountain in Artemisia, also the printed silk you did. It’s for a Fashimir Ander, and he ordered through the Artemisians. He’s ordered from us before. In case you need one, the bundle gives you a reason for traveling south.”

  She took the bundle, put herself together enough to remember to thank him, and perched herself on the wagon seat next to old Cermit, forcing herself to breathe calmly and not show her agitation. They started down the village street toward the outskirts but had scarcely arrived there when three men came striding from behind a f
ence to catch the horse’s harness and stop the wagon. The man who held the horse was huge, the other two were fierce; and Olly’s heart rose into her throat in fear that these were the ones looking for her!

  But no. They were not dressed as Abasio had described the walkers, or as she had seen the oddmen in the village. She made herself stop trembling.

  “A moment,” said one, a man with a hammer at his belt. “We’re looking for a man!”

  “Ayeh?” said Cermit, letting his jaw drop open. “What you want with me?”

  “Not you, old socks,” laughed the smallest of the three, a man with whips at his belt. “A young man. Black brows, dark skin, purple tattoos on both hands. A knife scar on one shoulder, a bullet pucker in one calf. Seen him or anybody could be him?”

  “I hardly ever come to town,” old Cermit whined. “I hardly see anybody. Most folks travelin’ through, they don’t even come into Whitherby. They stay over ’long the highway.”

  “How ’bout you, girly?” the man asked, laying a heavy hand on Olly’s thigh.

  They were not looking for her, but she felt no relief. How could she distract them from Abasio? Could they know old Cermit was Abasio’s kin? “There were some strange young men in the village yesterday,” she said in a frightened voice. “I saw them down by the tavern.”

  “Up close?”

  She shook her head, mumbling from a dry mouth. “I was in the loft at the dyer’s when I saw them.”

  “We’ll ask around,” said the whip carrier, stepping back.

  Olly sat as though paralyzed. Cermit nodded and clucked to the horse.

  “It’s Abasio they’re after!” she cried, when they had gone far enough not to be overheard. “Cermit, they’re after Abasio!”

  Cermit nodded heavily. The three were gangers, pure and simple, and there was no doubt at all they wanted Abasio. He put his hand on the girl’s hand and drove for a time in silence, letting. Olly swallow her fright and breathe normally once more.

  Then he murmured: “Doesn’t really matter whether it’s you or him they’re after. You’ve both got to go quickly.” He gave her a look intended to be comforting, though he could not keep his distress from showing. “Abasio and I haven’t been idle. We’ve made a house-wagon ready, such as itinerant craftsmen travel in. We’ve worked on it in the barn, secretlike, where no one would hear or see and wonder. Originee’s used your coin to buy all the stuff you need, here and there, a bit at a time, so as to start no talk.”

  “We’ll need dye pots,” mumbled Olly, as full of panic at the idea of leaving as she was full of fear at staying.

  Cermit went on implacably. “She got you pots, both for dyeing and for cooking. She laid in a stock of woven cloth. I’ve added some bits and pieces I think you’ll need.” He patted her clumsily.

  Orphan nodded, her teeth clenched. She wanted to go but she wasn’t ready to go. Nonetheless, the threat was imminent and she was not a fool, to balk at necessity. She could spare no time questioning who or what the oddmen were, or why she was being hunted. Or why Abasio was being hunted, for that matter. He who had talked about everything else had been strangely reluctant to share this with her.

  “Where will we get a horse?” she asked.

  “You have a horse. Big Blue. Abasio says he dreamed of riding away on Big Blue. Seems like it was meant to be.”

  It was late afternoon when they arrived back at the farm. The little time before dusk was spent in packing and collecting things together, and when dark came, Big Blue was hitched to the new wagon and driven out of the barn. They were ready except for filling the water barrel mounted on the back.

  At the last moment, Originee came riding down from the Chyne place to say farewell. She muttered her dismay when she learned there were searchers hunting Abasio as well, but she spent no time lamenting. Instead, she made a final tally of what the wagon carried, assuring herself the two young people could live in reasonable comfort. Olly’s belongings were few, and during his struggle to get home, Abasio had lost everything he’d brought from Fantis except his weapons and his money. The wagon held everything they had and all that had been provided for them; nothing was to be left behind.

  “It was meant to be,” On whispered to old Cermit as she closed the wagon door and folded the steps against the side for the last time. “Meant for them to go together.”

  “Could be.” The old man sighed. “But I fear for them both.”

  Olly did not hear this exchange, which was just as well, for she was quite fearful enough already and was holding herself carefully quiet for fear she would start crying. Despite her fear, what troubled her most was her feeling of leaving friends, of being uprooted and lost.

  As she turned from the well with a last bucketful of water for the water barrel on the back of the wagon, she saw on Abasio’s face the same expression she could feel on her own.

  “You don’t feel ready to go, either,” she whispered to him, tears running freely from her eyes.

  He shook his head. “If it weren’t for them—for the danger to them, to you—”

  She nodded. “At least you know why somebody’s after you. I haven’t any idea why they’re coming after me. Or who.”

  He tried a fairly successful grin. “If it makes you feel any better, Olly, I can swear it’s no comfort to know why.”

  “What am I to call you?” she cried. “You can’t go on being Abasio.”

  He hadn’t thought about it. He turned to the Farmwife, asking, “What’s my name, Farmwife Suttle? You named Olly, now you should name me.”

  “Samson,” she said without a moment’s pause. “He was in an old story my ma told me. All I remember about him was he got strong when his hair grew out. So you’ll need to do.”

  Cermit stopped in his tracks. He knew the tale. Destruction had followed debasement in that story, and he did not consider it a good omen.

  Unwitting of this, Abasio ran his blue fingers across the bristles on his head. Perhaps he would grow strong. Perhaps he would even be strong enough to keep them both safe.

  “Samson,” he said, with a wry twist to his lips. “Sammy?”

  “No, Sonny,” said Olly with a fairly successful chuckle “Sonny Longaster. Burned Man told me the kind of names gangers favor. No gang member would ever be called Sonny Longaster.”

  They made their farewells, then Olly crawled across the wagon seat to hide herself and the angel inside the lower box bed in the wagon while Abasio drove them away Cermit’s instructions had been clear as to which back roads would keep the wagon well away from Whitherby. The lurching and rocking of the house-wagon lulled Olly to sleep almost before they reached the bottom of the valley, though the angel sat wakeful upon the slowly swinging door of the box bed, talking quietly to itself.

  In Fantis the Old Chief, his thirst for vengeance only whetted by sending assassins after Abasio, had put certain other inquiries into motion. All rumors had branches and twigs that had to be followed back to the main trunk, and it took some days before his people found the doctor. Once they had the doctor, however, they had Nelda within the hour.

  “You can tell me now,” the Old Chief whispered to her. “Or you can tell me when you’re half-dead. I don’t care either way.”

  Nelda, on her knees before the Old Chief, held by two strong men and driven by absolute terror, shouted the first thing that came into her head.

  “He was your son! Just as much as that other one is! More. More your son!”

  Silence. The two men who were holding Nelda looked at each other in confusion. The Old Chief sat back, his mouth fallen slightly open.

  “He is your son,” Nelda asserted again. “You think I don’t recognize your get when I see it? Abasio’s just like you were at his age. He’s got your forehead, your eyes, everything like you. Bigger and handsomer than either of your sons who died, and he’s yours!”

  “How old?” asked the Old Chief after a long silence.

  “Over thirty,” she said. “And it was that long ago you sold me,
Old Chief, because all my babies miscarried, and you found you a new concubine you liked better. Remember her? The tall, slender one? From somewhere else, she was. You told me she’d never used drugs. You told me she’d never been sick, so she’d have healthy babies. And didn’t I hear she ran off first time she was pregnant?”

  The Old Chief’s mouth shut with an almost audible snap. There had indeed been a conk who’d run off from him. He’d never forgotten her. Elisa Young—only fifteen or so. Strong and healthy. She’d been hysterical when he’d first taken possession of her, but after he’d disciplined her a few times, she’d turned quiet. She got pregnant and after a time seemed reconciled. He thought she’d settled down. She went to the clothiers one day and was not seen again. Somehow lost herself and was never found, was presumed dead.

  “She died,” he sneered. “Otherwise I’da found her. She had noplace in this town to go!”

  “Not if she got clean away from this town. Not if she was a farm girl, with someplace else to go. And she was, Old Chief. She was. When that Abasio was all drugged up, he talked about the farm country. Talked about his ma. Talked about riding, riding, going somewhere in the country.”

  Silence again. Greatly daring, Nelda decided to press her momentary advantage. “So when that Sybbis comes to me, I think, what the Old Chief wants is a good grandson. And here’s his own son, his own blood, his own lineage, even his own gang to pass it on. To do what maybe—somebody else can’t do.”

  “Take her away,” said the Old Chief. “Put her somewhere. Put her with the doctor. Don’t hurt her yet.”

  It was a reprieve, for the moment.

  The Old Chief sent for Soniff. Soniff, who reported eagerly that the assassins were on their way.

  “Get them back,” the Old Chief commanded.

  Soniff gulped “Back?”

  “This Abasio. He’s my boy.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Abasio and Olly drove southward along the eastern edge of the mountains, the undulating flatness of Long Plain to their left and the promise of Artemisia somewhere ahead of them. Grandpa Cermit had told them if they followed the ruts they were on, avoiding all side roads, they would eventually come to a wooded pass through the mountains. Then would come desert, and finally Artemisia and the library. Grandpa hadn’t been there himself, but so he had been told, so he had read. All they had to do was follow the trail they were on.