An Arrow In Flight (Seven Archangels Book 1)

by Jane Lebak

Angela and Raguel's mother watched. "And?"

  Gabelus said, "And amid all that political maneuvering, one of the kings throws his son out of his kingdom because of a small infraction. How does that make him look to the other kings?"

  Tobias nodded. "If a king threw his son in prison, no one would think twice. But if he forced his son out bodily and made him find a home in another one of the city-states, a living reminder of his intolerance, that makes him look especially harsh and unmotivated by sentiment, and less likely to be backstabbed."

  Angela said, "That's obnoxious!"

  "Of course it is," Tobias said. "But let's broaden the picture. Gabriel says he has a lot of brothers and sisters. Who do kings' daughters ordinarily marry? They marry the children of other powerful people. Why wouldn't Gabriel stay with one of them?"

  "He could be afraid he'd be killed by his father's enemies," Gabelus said.

  "Or maybe," said Angela, "he resented being on display as evidence of his father's power."

  Tobias pointed at her. "Now that would explain why he's all the way in Ecbatana rather than somewhere closer to home."

  Raguel's mother said, "That doesn't fit. He doesn't resent his father. He worships him."

  Tobias squinted at her. "It's funny you should say it that way. I noticed that too."

  Gabelus said, "More likely he's trying to save his reputation in case he assumes the kingship later."

  Raguel's mother said, "But he's one of the youngest."

  They turned to her. "He is?"

  She nodded as she stirred the beans in the pot. "If his father managed to hang onto power under Ninevite rule, then his father was probably king before then, meaning he's old. His likely heirs would be our age."

  Tobias said, "His father might suspect he's dying, and he might have sent Gabriel away to keep him safe from the backstabbing and relay seizures of power among the older brothers."

  Angela said, "Have we ever nailed down how many consanguine brothers he has?"

  "But that doesn't matter. He acts like a youngest," Raguel's mother said. "You just saw he has no idea how wages accumulate. Ordinary interactions are a revelation to him. He's uncomfortable around more than three people. He's clearly educated, but he's not wise about the way the world works."

  "He doesn't act like a prince." Angela turned to Gabelus. "Has he ever objected to anything you asked him to do?"

  "No, and I've asked him to do pretty much everything," Gabelus said. "At the most he'll ask for someone to get him started until he learns, but then he finishes without a protest."

  Tobias was frowning. "I'm not sure how this makes him not like a prince."

  Raguel's mother said, "He didn't grow up with servants. He leaves a place exactly the way it was when he arrived. If you check his room after he's left for the morning, everything is folded and stored. I've noticed Raguel's side of the room gets straightened as well, and I assume it's Gabriel's work because that never was Raguel's way. It's a matter of straightening the blankets and the pillows, no more, but he does it."

  Angela said, "And he's not arrogant."

  Tobias chuckled. "But you can see he's got it in him. Ask him sometime about the Law and he'll start a lecture that has no end in sight."

  Raguel's mother laughed out loud. "Any Levite could do as much."

  "But he knows the answer to whatever you're asking, and if you contradict him, he knows you're wrong." Tobias had a sparkle in his eyes. "He said his father called him arrogant, and I went digging around until I found it."

  Gabelus said, "Sometimes when I tell him how to do something, he'll have an odd reluctance, and if I ask about it, he'll tell me that isn't the best way to do the work—work which arguably he's never done before. But he'll be insistent until either I let him do it his way or order him to do it mine." He shrugged. "I guess I'd call that arrogance."

  Raguel's mother said, "But if you don't ask him, will he volunteer the information?"

  Gabelus shook his head.

  "And is his way more efficient?"

  Gabelus admitted sometimes it was.

  "I have a bigger issue," Tobias said, "What are the two things you would expect a prince to talk about? And what two things does he never talk about?"

  Raguel's mother said, "Politics."

  Angela said, "War."

  "We did ask about politics the first day he showed up," Gabelus said. "We asked what the little city-states were doing about Babylon, and he answered about a couple of them, and then said whatever happened, he was sure his father would be involved in it. But no details."

  Raguel's mother said, "You always tell us a king's secret is prudent to keep."

  "Which might be another reason he's this far from home," Angela said. "His father's enemies would pump him for information."

  "He's very circumspect," Raguel's mother said. "And maybe he never talks about war because he's been sheltered."

  "But he should have been trained to fight," Gabelus said.

  Tobias winked. "When he's feeling better, why don't you try him out with that?"

  "I'm not that good with a sword," Gabelus said. "But Azariah trained soldiers, and he loves to show off."

  Tobias chuckled. "When you get to Ecbatana, send word to him." Then he took a deep breath. "I still suspect there's more to the story."

  "Add it up," Angela said. "A prince younger than the others, not trained to take over the kingdom, raised in the king's household but not with servants, a mother with no political power, educated thoroughly in useless skills, and not imprisoned when he disobeyed. Clearly he was born on the wrong side of the bed."

  Tobias's eyes widened. "That's a twist I hadn't thought of. He did refer to himself as an embarrassment to his father."

  Raguel's mother said, "What were you thinking?"

  He shrugged. "Just looking for another explanation, but Angela's will do." He looked at Raguel's mother. "Will the letter work? I don't think so. But I wanted to see what he would do if we forced the issue, and at the very least, his family ought to know he's safe."

  - + -

  In his room, Gabriel made sure the journal scroll was gone, put away the quill and the ink, and then lay down with the blanket tight to his shoulders. He was shivering again, but the next thing he did was call for Michael. Saraquael came instead. Michael was involved with an issue in Rome.

  "There's a letter I need you to intercept," Gabriel said. Saraquael promised he'd take care of it, then laid a hand on his head.

  Gabriel felt himself coming back to the surface of his consciousness, hearing small movements in the room, but his brain was churning over the contents of the letter, wishing he could change printed words after they'd vanished, wondering if Tobias still had the letter in the house, then going back over the whole letter again, from the greeting right down to the—

  "Oh, no!" He bolted up in bed.

  "Gabriel?" It was Raguel in the room with him. "Are you all right?"

  Gabriel blinked—he was so careless—why had he done that?—

  Raguel moved over next to him. "What's wrong?"

  "I'm okay." His heart was hammering. "I just remembered something."

  The light had changed in the room, so while it wasn't dark, Gabriel assumed it was after dinner. He still didn't feel hungry. In fact, he wanted to lie back down again, and that's what he did. The room wobbled.

  "Would you like something to eat?" Raguel said.

  The thought of food wasn't a happy one. "I just want to sleep."

  Raguel nodded. "I'll be in the barn repairing some equipment, but there are folks downstairs if you need anything." And he left.

  Gabriel closed his eyes and berated himself, because when he'd finished the letter, he hadn't signed his name. He'd drawn his insignia.

  Careless, careless, careless.

  If Tobias hadn't noticed, Gabriel had no one to thank but God. Tobias had read widely enough that he must have seen angelic insignias, and each was distinctive. If he'd noticed what Gabriel had drawn, it wouldn't take him
any longer than the time to walk to his study, pull out the right scroll, and unroll it to "Gabriel," and there would be the same sigil.

  Do not—do not—do things that close to home when battling a fever.

  God, he prayed, please don't let that lapse have revealed who I am. Please. I'm so sorry. I wasn't even thinking when I did it.

  The problem was, you didn't have to be thinking in order to make a life-changing mistake. Wasn't this whole year a monument to that?

  A moment later, he felt a presence in the room. Remiel.

  She sat with her feet tucked beneath her and her earrings sparkling in the sunset. She opened her hands to reveal his letter. "Look what I've been paid to deliver."

  Gabriel sighed. "Thank you."

  "This is the kind of thing angels were made for." She grinned. "Also, I have a message for you. Tobias didn't make the connection, whatever that means."

  Gabriel let out a long breath.

  She sat back. "So I'll deliver this, then." She paused. "You're still not feeling well, are you?" Without waiting for an answer, she laid her hand on Gabriel's shoulder, and she frowned. "This isn't any good—it's still rising."

  Remiel guided him back to lying-down, leaving Gabriel feeling unsettled, as if he needed to say something he hadn't even thought of yet. But her hands rested on his head, and her electricity hummed through him from his head downward, and as she worked everything turned liquid to his mind, ungraspable, comfortable. He breathed deeply, his body safe, less unpredictable with an angel at his side striking out all the bad things. She had reached his upper chest when the static overwhelmed him, and when he awoke again, she had made it down to his knees, and she told him to go back to sleep, all was well. Lacking the strength to do more than obey, he faded out again, and the next thing he knew, there was daylight.

  He sat up, knowing the temperature was just right, there was no cotton in his head, and his body felt tame.

  Tell her thank you, he prayed.

  At breakfast, food had never tasted that good before. The bread was filling, the fruit juicy. He insisted he could work a full day in the fields, and he did.

  That night, the family had a surprise visit from Tobias's son Azariah. The women brought out the special wine and fruit to make the meal more festive. Gabriel watched from the sidelines as Azariah regaled the family with humorous stories about his service in the Ninevite army. Raguel sat right next to him during the meal, and he hung onto every word the way he had when traveling with Gabriel.

  After dinner, Azariah offered to show Raguel some moves with a sword, and Raguel all but jumped in place.

  Gabriel headed toward the barn for his after-dinner work, but Tobias pressed him to stay. "Raguel wants you to watch."

  Gabriel laughed. "Raguel doesn't care." But Tobias insisted, and it was better than muck-raking, so Gabriel sat on the fence. Azariah pulled out two training swords, wooden and blunt-edged.

  Gabelus stood near Gabriel. "What do you think?" When Gabriel looked at him in puzzlement, he said, "About Raguel learning to fight."

  He shrugged. "I would hope he never needs to."

  Azariah gave Raguel a few pointers, and they knocked swords together, but nothing intensive. Then Azariah turned to Gabriel.

  In a loud voice, he called, "Hey, why don't you give it a go?"

  Gabriel looked around for someone else he might be talking to, but no, Gabelus, Angela, Tobias, and Raguel's mother were all watching him.

  Oh, for crying out loud. He'd been set up.

  "I'd rather not." What could they hope to accomplish? He could come up with ten possible outcomes without thinking too hard, but none that made any sense.

  Raguel ran over to him with the training sword. "Please? Let's see!"

  Climbing off the fence as slowly as he could, Gabriel recreated Azariah in his mind: taller and stockier, and based on that lesson with Raguel, a fluid familiarity with the sword. Of course Gabriel had used a sword before, but that was in his angelic body, using a sword forged by God from Gabriel's own angelic will. And angels didn't use swords to kill. When they fought demons, they fought to restrain. Half of what he knew in Heaven would be useless on Earth, and half of what remained would be laughable with a sword not part of his makeup.

  Raguel pushed him forward, and Gabriel found himself before a man who had killed in the service of Nineveh.

  "Let's go," Azariah said.

  Gabriel did know how to defend with a sword, and he managed through the first few volleys. Azariah never landed a direct hit, not even when he stopped treating Gabriel as a student. Gabriel's human body wasn't conditioned for this kind of fight, all the more reason to escape being struck. Although the swords were blunt, he'd parried several blows forceful enough to break bones.

  From the fence, Tobias called, "Gabriel, your continued employment is not contingent on letting my son win."

  Azariah charged, and Gabriel defended against a full onslaught, each strike traveling up his arms all the way to his shoulder until even his teeth hurt with the repeated blows.

  "Now we've got something," Gabelus said behind him.

  With a shock, Gabriel realized—Azariah wanted to test himself against a warrior prince.

  In that distracted moment, Azariah attacked, and Gabriel blocked, blocked, blocked a third time, and at the fourth blow he panicked, took a step backward to brace himself while he slid his left hand to the tip of the sword. He grasped it lengthwise in front of him as a focus for his angelic power—which he couldn't access.

  Azariah's sword cracked onto the center of the blade, ripping it from his hands. Gabriel darted back, knocked to the ground.

  His sword tip in front of Gabriel's chest, Azariah laughed. "What kind of move was that?"

  "Sheer desperation?" offered Gabriel.

  "I could have taken your head off." Azariah extended Gabriel a hand. "Not to mention you'd have sliced your palm down the middle."

  "That's why I'll never march off to war." Gabriel let Azariah pull him to his feet.

  Brilliant—first he signed a letter with his real name, and then he tried to use a wooden sword as a power-focus. He should just glow like the sun and ascend into Heaven to save them the trouble of figuring it out for themselves.

  But when he looked up, Tobias and Gabelus were only murmuring to each other, and Raguel's mother wanted to see his hands. She offered to help him bandage his right one, red and tingling.

  As he passed Tobias, Gabriel heard him murmur, "Clearly some training" and Gabelus replied, "His father must have ordered him to strike an unarmed man."

  Gabriel chilled. Was that what they'd been after?

  Inside the house, he said to Raguel's mother, "I wasn't a soldier."

  She patted his arm. "Don't let the men get to you. They think they know what princes should be able to do."

  "I'd think that would be obvious." Gabriel stared at the table. "Princes should be able to speak ten languages and not disobey their fathers."

  He returned with his hand dabbed in ointment and wrapped in a loose bandage, wondering whether he'd be able to write in the journal or if he'd better leave well enough alone. He could compose this entry in his head without writing it: "Dear God: In the past day and a half, I made a fool of myself twice." Perhaps he'd just leave this one out of the permanent record.

  Outside, Tobias was standing at the fence. "You're a good sport. Thank you for letting my son hack into you." He reached into his pocket. "Here."

  He handed Gabriel a heavy fruit, red but with a crown. Gabriel beamed. "Really? A pomegranate?"

  Tobias chuckled. "Have you ever tried one? Here, they're tricky to open." With his knife, Tobias cut a line into the rind, then popped off the top. Gabriel watched as the man cored out the heart (a feeling all too familiar) and then found the intersection of each membrane and slit the rind toward the base. A little pressure in the center, and he'd opened it into six chambers.

  Tobias handed it over, but Gabriel gave back half. He picked up one of the chambers and
took a bite.

  Sweetness burst from the fruit, and then—a wall, a temple, cedar—then came the tears.

  Sweet. It's sweet and bitter together.

  "Gabriel?" Tobias put his hands on Gabriel's arm. "Are you okay? Is the fruit bad?"

  "No, I—" Human senses linked to memories, nothing like he'd expected. "My Father… I was so much younger. I was out at one of his building sites." He closed his eyes, but he couldn't block the tears. The flavor. Raphael and Michael, talking about antioxidants. "Sitting on a wall, watching the men work." He pulled another pip from the white membrane and re-lived the contradictory flavors. "I was with my friends. My Father gave me a pomegranate." Sweet. Bitter and sweet at the same time. "He wanted me to taste it. I'd never tasted one."

  A man in danger. An idol. A fruit he'd known everything about except why it was important.

  Tobias hugged him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you miss your father more. That's a wonderful memory."

  "You didn't know," Gabriel whispered. "I didn't realize either. Thank you."

  Gabriel ate some more. Sweet juice. Bitter seeds. His stomach clenched.

  "You didn't ask about your letter," Tobias said. "Gabelus found a family traveling near where the letter needed to go, and for four drachmae they took it. It should take them a couple of weeks to make the trip, then your father a couple of weeks to get word back."

  Gabriel nudged a rock with his sandal. "He's not going to send for me. You and I both know that. Please don't pretend, and I won't pretend."

  Tobias said, "There's always hope."

  "Not always." Gabriel ran his fingertip over the pomegranate pips. "For me there's only time."

  Sivan 19

  Sabbath. Private prayer time after the family's morning prayers. Kneeling by the creek out behind the barn, Gabriel closed his eyes.

  In his native tongue, Gabriel sang. He didn't have the range of his angelic voice, and he didn't have an orchestra, but he had a hymn. Raphael had written this one, and in some crippled fashion it was a way they could be together right now.

  He tingled as he sang, acutely aware of the world around him, and realized another angel sang with him. As he moved through the words, the voice became Michael's, and then afterward he felt what might be Remiel.