by Sharon Shinn
“Not a finger’s width of difference between them, Chloe and Miriam and Susannah and that whole lot,” Esther had said with a certain malicious zest. “And her seeming so quiet when she got here.”
It had been with some misgiving that he had invited Susannah to join him the following morning, hoping she would not, after a few short days, appear debauched and reckless. But she had not. She had come into his chambers with an inquiring look on her face and the same pleasant demeanor he remembered, and he had been happy to see her. Not plunged into ecstasy, as a romantic new bridegroom might be, but pleased. He liked the strict, sober lines of her face, its dark complexion both exotic and restful; he liked the long black hair that she wore simply styled. It was so dark and so fine that, now and then, he found himself wanting to touch it, just to feel its shine against his fingers, as if a shine could actually have texture.
And he liked the way she talked about Miriam, as if she already cared about the impossible girl. And he liked how she listened to him, and he thought their chances of making a pretty acceptable match of it were better than good.
He had never really expected more than that from his angelica. It was, in some ways, a relief to get so much.
Having been gone more than a week, Gaaron found that there was much at the hold that needed his attention. First, of course, there were the petitioners who had waited for him all this time, taking hotel rooms in Velora until he got back, and exhibiting an inexorable patience because no one else’s counsel or mediation was good enough for them. One of these was a merchant who claimed that Gaaron’s sister had stolen three of his bracelets and demanded reparation. Gaaron paid it without even arguing.
Then, of course, there was the inevitable session with Miriam, who merely laughed when accused of her crime. “He saw me take those? I can’t believe it. Susannah didn’t see me, and she’s been hovering over me like a bird of prey. I did it more to see if I could trick her than because I wanted the stupid bracelets.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to return them to their rightful owner.”
“I thought you said you already paid for them? Then why can’t I just keep them?”
“I have a better idea,” Gaaron said. “You will give them as gifts. To three people you may have insulted in the past few days.”
She frowned mutinously. “What makes you think I—”
“Esther,” he said, because it was a certainty that something she’d done in the past week had offended that prickly old soul. “Enoch.” Esther’s husband, a prissy and grouchy old angel, who had even less love for Miriam than Esther did. “And Susannah.”
“Susannah! I haven’t done anything to hurt her feelings. I adore her.”
“You stole something to outwit her. I think that will make her feel bad when she finds out.”
Miriam eyed him with disfavor. “And who will tell her that?”
“You will, when you give her the bracelet.”
She argued a little more, but eventually gave in, and Gaaron was there at dinner that night when his sister presented the gift to his betrothed. He was watching Susannah’s face when the little scene played itself out, wondering if this fresh evidence of Miriam’s waywardness would turn Susannah against the girl. But it did not seem to. Susannah listened seriously to Miriam’s quick, laughing tale, nodded, thanked her for the bracelet, and slipped it on her wrist. She said nothing more about it, and Miriam seemed a bit deflated, having no doubt primed herself with a lot of excuses to turn aside Susannah’s wrath or sorrow. But when Miriam left their table to go lounge beside Chloe for a while, Gaaron saw Susannah watch her saunter away. The look on the Edori’s face intrigued him. She was frowning, as if she was trying to solve a puzzle, but she did not look as though she despaired of figuring it out.
In addition to Miriam, there were other youthful troublemakers at the Eyrie who had considered Gaaron’s absence a chance to behave badly. Zack, Jude, and their companions had disrupted the hourly harmonics one afternoon by coming through and yodeling completely dissonant and off-key music at the top of their lungs. They had stolen all the chairs from the dining room one night before dinner (though they were easily retrieved from the storerooms), and they had gotten drunk on the wine reserved for sacred ceremonies. All of these problems had been dealt with by Esther and Enoch, but Gaaron made sure to talk to the boys individually in the sternest voice he could muster, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Jude, at least, look a little scared.
Zack, of course, was impossible to overawe, but he did look a little apprehensive at Gaaron’s threat. “If I don’t see better behavior from you soon, I’ll have to send you away,” Gaaron said.
Zack sneered. “Send me where? To Velora? All my friends come there every day.”
“Actually, I was thinking more like Breven,” Gaaron said. The idea was borne of his conversation with Susannah. He could not really send Miriam to Solomon, but why not Zack? Or why not pretend he might send Zack? “The Jansai were just telling me they wish Windy Point was closer so that they could have easier access to an angel intercessor. Seems it was even drier than usual over Breven this summer, and they were hoping someone could be on hand fairly often to pray for rain.”
Now Zack looked slightly alarmed. “I can’t go to Breven! I can’t sing prayers to Jovah!”
Gaaron arched his brows. “You can’t? I thought you were studying your masses along with all the other boys your age.”
“Yes, but—I haven’t—not on my own I couldn’t—and Ahio or Nicholas always sings with me.”
“I’m sure you could perform the prayers,” Gaaron said. “I’ll come listen to you tomorrow to check on your progress.”
“But I don’t want to go to Breven!” Zack burst out.
Gaaron examined him with a look of interest on his face. “You don’t? Well, you don’t behave as if you want to live here.”
There was a short silence. “Well, I do,” Zack said sullenly.
“And why would that be?”
Zack hunched a shoulder. “All my friends are here. And—and I can do stuff.”
“Get drunk and steal the chairs. I don’t think I want you to ‘do’ that sort of stuff.”
Zack flushed. “That’s not what I meant. If I go to Breven, I won’t be able to play the flute anymore. Who would teach me? I don’t want to go.”
Gaaron hid his surprise at this artless revelation. “Well, I’ll think about it,” was all he said. “But if you keep acting the way you have been—” He shrugged, and his wings lifted and fell behind him. “I’ll have to do something with you. And you might not like what I choose.”
Naturally, as soon as this conversation was over, Gaaron had to hunt up Ahio and find out if Zack really was coming to the older angel for flute lessons, and how those lessons were going. Ahio, whom he tracked down in one of the music rooms listening to a mass that Gaaron would have thought he would have long ago had by heart, nodded in his usual careless way when asked about Zack’s progress.
“Good at it. A natural,” Ahio said. “I never did think his voice was much above average, but he’s got a feel for the wind instruments. I’ve tried him on the clarinet, too. I think you’ll like what you hear.”
“If I don’t banish him before I have a chance to listen to him,” Gaaron said.
“You can’t really send him to Breven,” Ahio said, though there was a faint questioning lilt in his voice.
“About a dozen people I’d pack off to Breven if I really thought it would do any good,” Gaaron said with a sigh. “But, no, I can’t. For one thing, he wouldn’t stay. For another—” He paused and considered. “For another, I don’t entirely trust the Jansai. I can’t really say why.”
“ ’Cause they’re a bunch of calculating and lying cheats,” Ahio said without heat. He was fiddling with the chrome controls of the machine. “Susannah doesn’t like them, either. And Susannah pretty much seems to like everybody.”
“She said you and Miriam were teaching her some masses.”
&
nbsp; Ahio touched a button and the music that had been playing noticeably slowed, the singers’ voices becoming low and elongated, as if their tongues had been stretched out and their throats had been choked. “What did you do?” Gaaron exclaimed.
Ahio grinned at him over his shoulder. “Cut the tempo. Way too much, but I’m trying to get the pitch to change.”
Gaaron came a step closer. “I didn’t even know you could do that. How did you figure that out?”
Ahio shrugged. “I spend a lot of time down here. Fool with the machines a lot. Did you know there are a couple of masses that you can play simultaneously? Note for note, beat for beat, they match up. You wouldn’t believe the harmony you can get—eight-part, twelve-part—and these amazing fugues, interweaving between the two pieces. I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“No,” said Gaaron blankly. “I didn’t know that. Could they be sung that way live?”
“Sure. Take a lot of rehearsal, but I bet you’d bring down the mountain if you tried that at a Gloria.”
Gaaron smiled faintly. “It’s the angelica’s task to choose a mass for the Gloria.”
Ahio nodded. “She knows. I’m helping her pick one out.”
It was something the angelica was supposed to do on her own—by tradition, in great secrecy—choose the mass that would set the tone for the entire Gloria. In practice, of course, the angelica often announced her selection in advance so she and the Archangel could practice the piece well enough to make a creditable presentation.
“That’s good,” Gaaron says. “I’m sure she doesn’t know the sacred music.”
Ahio fiddled with the controls again, and the tempo picked up a little, though not to concert speed. “And she’s an alto and she doesn’t like to sing solos,” the younger angel said. “We’re going to have to adapt something for her.”
“But—all the masses open with a solo. Male part or female part. All of them,” Gaaron said.
Ahio gave him a swift, sweet smile. “That’s why we’re going to have to adapt. Think you’ll be opening on a duet for your first Gloria.”
Gaaron didn’t have much to say in response to that, so he left, thinking it all over. Well, why not? There were only two unbreakable rules of the Gloria. One was that it be performed every year, on the Plain of Sharon, on the morning of the spring equinox. The other was that it feature representatives of all the peoples in Samaria—angels, Jansai, Manadavvi, Edori, and ordinary mortals. The Gloria was meant to be proof to the god that all these individuals were living together in harmony, that they had not—as the races on their home world had—begun to war on one another with a ferocity that would someday end in total destruction. As long as the Gloria was sung, the god trusted that they were living their lives in some kind of peace. If it was not sung, so the Librera told them, the god would send a thunderbolt to strike Mount Galo, the hulking peak that guarded the southern edge of the plain. If, within three more days, the Gloria was not sung, he would destroy the river Galilee that flowed down the middle of Samaria. If it was not sung three days after that, he would destroy the world.
Naturally, since the time Samaria had been colonized two hundred and forty years ago, the Gloria had never been overlooked.
In fact, as Gaaron had told Susannah, he had never even seen the god unleash a thunderbolt, though he did indeed know the prayers that would call one down. And he absolutely, in every sinew and tissue of his body, believed that the god would smite them if they failed to sing at the determined hour. But he didn’t think the god would be offended if the opening mass consisted of a duet. He thought the god might indeed be pleased by that, more evidence of harmony between races, between sexes, between Archangel and angelica.
He thought of Susannah’s smooth, sumptuous voice, and realized that he was looking forward to his first chance to sing in harmony with his chosen bride.
All these conversations occupied Gaaron for the first few days of his return, and the succeeding days were taken up with the ordinary tasks of running the hold—flying off to the four corners of Bethel to ask for rain or check out a report of plague. He returned from one of these missions to find Miriam pouting in his room.
“I don’t think it’s my fault if I always get in trouble,” she greeted him, her face stormy. “When you’re never here to help me.”
He stripped off his flying leathers and waited for doom to fall. “What happened?” he asked briefly.
She shrugged elaborately. “There were some men in Velora. I got to talking with them. I was just playing. Flirting a little. Usually when I mention your name, it makes them leave me alone. It’s like a game. Only this time—well, either they didn’t believe me or they liked the idea of making you mad. I don’t know. And I think they were going to—going to—well, one of them grabbed my arm and he was pulling me along and I couldn’t get free, I really tried, so I started screaming—”
He was standing in the center of the room, staring at her in pure horror. “What happened?” he said again.
“Well, I hoped that Nicholas or Ahio would be around, but they’d gone back up to the Eyrie after they dropped us off, but Susannah heard me and she came over—”
Making his blood run even colder. “Sweet Jovah singing. Did she get help?”
“No. She hit him with a rock,” Miriam said with great satisfaction. “Right on the head. And he dropped my arm. There was kind of a crowd gathered by then, too, so the men just ran off.”
“No one stopped them? Did anyone know who they were?”
“I didn’t ask,” Miriam said. “And Susannah was only paying attention to me. I don’t know if anyone knew them.”
Gaaron passed a hand over his eyes. “The god protect me,” he said under his breath. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Well, if you were here ever, you could protect me,” Miriam said. “Like you’re supposed to. As my big brother.”
He dropped his hand to stare at her. “If you would behave like a well-brought-up young lady, you wouldn’t get in situations where you need protecting. Miriam! Do you realize what kind of danger you were in? Do you realize what those men could have done to you? Do you realize—do you know—what am I supposed to do with you? How in the world can I protect you? You don’t want my protection. You want—” He stalked away from her to stare blindly out the window, where it was dark and there was nothing much to see. “I don’t know what you want,” he ended in a tired voice. “Maybe just my attention. Though when you have that, you behave even worse.”
“I just want—I’m just trying to make the days more interesting,” she said in a small voice. “Just trying to—just trying to figure it all out.”
He whirled around so quickly that his wings flared up behind him, belling out and flattening down like a skirt caught in a breeze. “So what do I do now? Confine you to the Eyrie for a month? I think I have to. You know that all your angel friends will refuse to take you down to Velora if I tell them to.”
She scowled. “Don’t do that. I’ll be good.”
He shook his head. “You will not be good. You have never been good. I am out of ideas concerning you.”
“I don’t want to be cooped up in the Eyrie for a month,” she said, her voice pleading. “Don’t, Gaaron. I only told you the story because I knew someone else would. I thought you wouldn’t be as mad if I told you myself.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
“Don’t lock me up here! I swear I’ll jump out the window and kill myself.”
He shrugged. “Solve your problems as well as mine.”
“Don’t, Gaaron,” she coaxed. “Let me—I know! I’ll stay in the Eyrie for a whole month—except for the times I go with you.”
“I don’t go down to Velora for fun,” he said stiffly. “I only go out to make weather intercessions and offer other prayers.”
“Yes, I know,” she said eagerly. “Take me with you! I won’t be any trouble. You carried Susannah for hundreds of miles when you brought her from Jordana. You can carry
me anywhere in Bethel.”
He frowned at her. This suggestion had come from nowhere. “Take you with me! To pray for rain or sun?”
“Yes, why not? I know all the music. I can sing harmony with you, and the god will respond twice as fast.”
“You will be a distraction, and you will probably sing the wrong harmony on purpose just because it amuses you.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I want to come with you. If I’m very good for the next week, and I don’t leave the Eyrie at all, can I come? The next time you’re called out on an intercession?”
He continued frowning at her, not sure how to answer. She sounded sincere, but Miriam could always be convincing. And why did she want to come with him? She had always been intrigued by the sacred music, it was true, and she had learned the pieces right along with him, even though, technically, only angels expected their voices to reach Jovah’s ears. But that was because only angels could fly high above the world, close to Jovah, crooning their music directly to the god. If he carried Miriam in his arms, why could she not sing, too?
“I’ll consider it,” he said neutrally. “But if, in the intervening week, you do a single thing to make me angry or mistrustful—”
“I won’t!” She jumped to her feet and came across the room to kiss him on the cheek. He was still disturbed enough by her revelations that he almost did not stand still for the kiss—but that much he had learned from his mother, who had had almost nothing to teach. Never turn away from a gesture of affection from someone you love, for you never know when that might be the last kiss you are ever offered. Miriam crossed the room, blew him another kiss from the door, and left with a jaunty toss of her hair.
He thought, No wonder both of our parents died so young.
C hapter T en
It was impossible to speak to Susannah over dinner, for Enoch and Esther joined them and talked of mundane matters the whole time. Naturally everyone else in the hold also dropped by their table for a few minutes just to say hello. But Gaaron gave Susannah a meaningful look, and she smiled and nodded; she knew he wanted to talk, and she could guess the topic.
