by Sharon Shinn
Covel looked again at Gaaron, who nodded. Muttering some Jansai imprecation, Covel pulled back the canvas flap that hid the interior of the wagon, and motioned them forward. Susannah helped the little girl in and then, making the awkward climb look easy, pulled herself inside.
Gaaron and the other angels were left facing the four Jansai men. Covel took the few short steps back to the fire. “Wine?” he asked. “Water? You may make yourselves comfortable while you wait.”
Gaaron glanced back at his contingent. Zibiah seemed tense and uncomfortable, the lone woman now out of eight, but Ahio and Nicholas were looking about them with curiosity. None of them had spent much time with the Jansai outside of marketplaces where their wares were set up. It was interesting to see the arrangement of the tented wagons, the metal spit erected over the fire, the array of clay jugs and pans clustered in the shade of the nearest wagon. This camp was even more spare than the Lohoras’, though Gaaron credited the Jansai with a greater sense of luxury than the Edori. Maybe because they had traveled far and fast, they had pared down their traveling gear to bare necessities.
“I do not know if you welcome women at your fire,” Gaaron said gravely. “The rest of us would not be willing to take refreshment if she is not invited.”
Covel snorted. “She may sit with us, if she likes,” he said. “We are not interested in hearing her talk.”
That was too ungracious an offer to accept. “Then—” Gaaron began, but Zibiah nodded her head. She was willing. Gaaron shrugged. “Then, we will be happy to take refreshment with you.”
The eight of them disposed themselves around the fire, Jansai on one side, angels on the other, Zibiah carefully placed so that she was between the men of her party. There were no chairs, but the Jansai produced surprisingly comfortable leather-covered mats to at least shelter their clothes from the dirt. Gaaron spread his wings out behind him, unable to keep them from overlapping with Zibiah’s, and hoped no small creature ran up from behind and skipped through his feathers.
One of Covel’s wordless cohorts brought them clay cups filled with a steaming liquid. He handed two of these to Gaaron, so Gaaron passed the second one to Zibiah. Apparently the Jansai did not even want to risk accidentally touching a woman’s fingers. Gaaron took a sip. It was fruit-flavored but heavily spiced with cinnamon and other seasonings, and it tasted marvelous.
“This is excellent,” Gaaron said. “Thank you.”
“A good drink for a long journey,” said one of the heretofore silent Jansai.
Gaaron nodded at him gravely. “How did you find the roads between here and Breven?” The standard greeting to any traveler. The whole of Samaria was large enough that even angels from three holds, flying overhead constantly, could not monitor every mile of terrain. They often depended on Jansai and Edori for news of untoward conditions.
But the Jansai was returning a nonchalant answer. “No problems. The Galilee is high, but it has been higher. We saw no floods. No plague flags.”
“Good to hear,” Gaaron replied. “What villages did you pass through on your way?”
They continued making laborious travel conversation for the next half hour, while trying not to appear as if they were listening for any sound coming from the wagon. If the women were speaking at all, their low voices did not carry past the heavy canvas. Then again, it was possible that the child, who had uttered no coherent word for two weeks, was refusing to speak at all.
Finally, after another round of spiced juice and a discussion of the price of animal skins in the various city markets, the canvas flap folded back and Susannah appeared. She paused a moment, as if letting her eyes adjust to the brightness outside, then daintily stepped down. The girl did not follow her out.
Gaaron rose to his feet and she immediately came across the campsite to stand by his side. Her dark face was grave, and when she met his eyes, he saw that she had been crying.
“I take it she told you some of her story,” he said, offering her his juice. She nodded and took the cup.
“It is a frightening tale,” she said.
Gaaron pushed her to the inside of the angelic contingent, so that she was between Zibiah and his own body. “Tell us,” he said.
She handed back the cup, then folded her hands across her updrawn knees. “She had been traveling with her family and some of their friends. There were fifteen of them—only two of them men who were not related to her. She and her mother and her sister were in the wagon most of the time, though her mother would go outside to prepare meals. There were other women in another wagon—her mother’s sister and her daughters. When the men left to hunt, the women would come out and tend the fire and clean themselves.”
Susannah reached out for Gaaron’s cup again and took another sip. “On this day, they had decided to camp overnight, so they were all feeling relaxed. The men had hunted the day before, so there was no need for them to leave. Many of them were merely sitting around the fire, drinking wine and telling stories. Kaski and her sister—”
“Who?” Gaaron said.
“Kaski. That’s our little Jansai girl’s name. She and her sister had to relieve themselves, so they slipped out the back of the wagon so that they would not expose themselves to the gaze of men.” She glanced at Covel, who nodded. This, apparently, was common practice.
“They stayed out a while, running through the grass and trying to catch butterflies. But they were not far from the wagons and the fire. Close enough to hear had anyone called out their names or cried for help.
“When they grew tired, they headed back. They came in quietly, and bent low to the ground, so as not to draw the attention of the men. They were able to get very close to the camp and yet remain almost invisible. But they found they were not the only invisible creatures to come upon the camp by stealth. They were astonished to see three strangers—three black men—crouched in the tall grass a few yards from the wagons, watching the Jansai around the fire.”
“Three black men?” Gaaron interrupted. “What does that mean?”
Susannah shook her head. “I couldn’t tell. Were their faces black? Was their clothing black? Both? She just kept calling them ‘the black men.’ She kept looking at me, so perhaps their coloring was like the Edori.”
“We do not call Edori black,” Covel interjected. “Sometimes we refer to you with a word that means ‘men of bronze.’ Any child would know the difference.”
“Still, my guess is that their skin was dark, and perhaps their clothes were as well,” Susannah continued. “Other than that, she seemed to feel they were just like other men—shaped like us, like Jansai.”
“And they were crouching in the grass before the campsite,” Gaaron prompted.
“And while the girls watched, the black men stood up. They had—long sticks that seemed to be made of gleaming metal. She tried to describe them, but I could not understand what she was trying to say. The strangers pointed these sticks at the camp—and fire came out of the sticks—and the camp exploded with it.”
Susannah hesitated a moment, either trying to picture that scene for herself, or remembering what Kaski had said in a small, trembling voice. “She said that there were just a few short screams from the people in the camp,” Susannah went on slowly. “Like the fire caught them and burned them up so quickly they did not have time to call out in pain or terror. She said there were just those few short cries and then the sound of burning. Everything else was silent.”
Susannah, too, fell silent for a moment. No one else stirred. “Kaski and her sister at first were too stunned to react. So they hid in the grass as the three strangers stepped forward and went to inspect the burning camp. They were speaking a language that made no sense. One of them bent down to pick up some of the cinders and rub it between his fingers, and he looked up and said something to his companions. All three of them laughed.
“And then Kaski’s sister could stand it no more. She jumped to her feet and went shrieking into the camp, toward the laughing strangers. They whipp
ed around and saw her running at them, and one of them aimed his fire stick and shot it at her. She burst into flame and crumbled into ash before Kaski could even say her name.”
Another silence. Gaaron could understand why Susannah had been crying. Zibiah put her arm around Susannah and briefly pressed her pink cheek against the bronze one. Susannah closed her eyes and seemed to draw a moment’s strength from the angel. Then she opened her eyes, straightened up, and continued speaking.
“When her sister erupted into flames, Kaski flattened herself to the ground and covered her eyes. She was sure the strangers had seen her, so she was sure she would be the next to catch on fire. But though she lay there for a long time, the strangers did not find her. They did not aim their sticks at her. When she finally found the courage to stand up and look about her, the strangers were gone.”
Susannah lifted her eyes and gazed around the campfire at each of them in turn, Jansai and angel. “And Kaski stood there a moment, staring around her at all her dead. And she wondered when the black strangers might come back. And she started running. And she ran for two days before the angels found her. And she is afraid, even now, to sit here in this canvas tent, knowing the black men could return again with their fire sticks, and destroy every one of us, herself included. And she thinks it will happen yet.”
A moment longer Susannah held her head up, looking from face to face, reading—as Gaaron did—horror in the angels’ expressions and nothing on the Jansai features. Then she dropped her head to Zibiah’s shoulder. The angel lifted her nearest wing and wrapped it around Susannah, cradling the cramped body against hers. The dark head disappeared entirely under the folded wing, but Gaaron could still hear Susannah’s soft, bitter sobs.
“A grim tale to hear, but we needed to hear it,” Gaaron said, when he could find his voice again. “I take it none of you have seen these ‘black men’ in your travels? You have talked to no one else who has seen them?”
The Jansai all shook their heads. Except for Covel. “I’ve heard about campsites that burned, but I never heard about black men dressed in black.”
“She’s a child,” one of the other Jansai said. “What she saw and what happened might be two different things.”
“Terrible thing like that, though, you tend to remember all the details pretty clearly,” Nicholas spoke up unexpectedly. “She’s been going over it and over it in her head, I’d guess. Seeing it every night when she tries to fall asleep.”
“Better for her if she had died,” Covel said starkly.
“Perhaps now that she has been able to tell the story, she will heal,” Gaaron said. “And now that she is among her own people again—”
“What? She stays with you,” Covel said sharply.
Gaaron was astonished. Beside him, he felt Susannah stir and push herself up, though Zibiah’s wing continued to stay half curled around her. “But—she belongs to you,” Gaaron said somewhat blankly. “She is not happy with the angels. She needs to be among people she understands—”
“She has been tainted by contact with men,” Covel said clearly. “We cannot take her back. If you do not keep her with you, we will leave her here beside the road. An impure woman is a disease in the heart of the camp, and will spread contagion throughout. She is dead to us. She is yours.”
“But you—” Gaaron began, but before he could finish his sentence, Covel jumped to his feet and strode over to the wagon. He shouted out a few unintelligible Jansai phrases. There was a low moan from the tent, and a sharp cry that must have been Kaski’s. Covel impatiently repeated his command, but nothing happened. Nimbly, he climbed up into the wagon, which rocked a little at his sudden weight, and disappeared into the canvas tenting.
A moment later, the little girl came tumbling out, shrieking and shaking and trying to turn around to scramble back in. Covel did not reemerge, but his hands thrust out through the canvas flap, pushing her backward with brute force. Twice more she tried to reenter the tent, crying the whole time, and twice more he repelled her. The second time, he shoved her with so much energy that she fell, somersaulting off the flat platform to the hard ground below.
Susannah was on her feet and running to the fallen girl before Gaaron could think to do more than stare. She knelt on the ground beside Kaski, gathering the girl into her arms and rocking her against her body. Kaski continued to twist and shriek in her arms, trying to get free, trying to make the Jansai keep her.
“You had better go,” someone said in Gaaron’s ear, and he looked up to find one of the other Jansai standing over him. “Take her or not, it does not matter to us. But she will not be coming back to Breven.”
Gaaron nodded dumbly, enraged but powerless. He and the other angels came to their feet, Zibiah taking a few uncertain steps toward the huddle of sobbing girl and comforting Edori. Gaaron shook his head.
“I’ll take them both,” he said. “I don’t think Susannah will let go of her. Let me get aloft first, and the rest of you follow.”
It was five strides to the side of the wagon. Susannah looked up at him helplessly, but then she read the message on his face, and she nodded. She took a firmer grip on the writhing girl and rose to her feet, still watching Gaaron. He wrapped his arms around her, gauged the combined weight of the woman and the girl, and drove his wings down with one hard, muscular beat. In a few moments they were airborne, and ten minutes later they were back at the Eyrie.
C hapter E leven
Miriam was bored.
All her friends were gone—all of them, even that sad, silent little Jansai girl—and of the hundred and fifty or so souls who lived at the Eyrie, there was not a single one she cared to talk to. In fact, she’d had to leave the lunch tables early because Esther had spotted her from across the room and appeared to be coming her way, a purposeful look on her face. So Miriam had escaped out the side door and practically run down the halls, just to get away.
There was nothing to do in her room, so she wandered outside, up to the high peak that sheltered the singers performing their hourly harmonics. There stood Enoch and Lydia, older angels she never spoke to if she could help it. She hurried back down, crossed the plateau, entered the tunnels, and headed to the lower levels.
But two of the music rooms were in use, one of them occupied by that horrible boy Zack making monstrous music on a flute. Ahio claimed he had promise, but Miriam couldn’t for the life of her hear it. She didn’t like flute music, anyway—didn’t care for any music except singing, really. Maybe she should listen to the masses, or, better yet, practice one of the pieces she might attempt to sing at the Gloria this year. Gaaron had not asked her to perform, but she knew it would please him if she presented some polished piece at the very Gloria where he was installed as Archangel. She had thought about having Chloe or Zibiah or one of the men practice a duet with her, but then she had decided this was something she should do on her own, proof to Gaaron that she could stand there with the world staring and show her love for him.
Of course, she had to admit she was enthralled by the picture—the slender blond woman, dressed perhaps in frilly white, perhaps in saturated blue, standing demurely before the crowd of thousands and singing some impossibly sweet and heartbreaking song. The impact was lessened somewhat when she imagined some of the angels standing beside her, overshadowing her with their very noticeable wings and their outstanding voices. No, it must be a solo.
She had not yet decided what this solo should be.
She stepped inside the music room and fiddled with the control panel a while, selecting a song at random, listening to a few measures, and then impatiently shutting it off. Another song, another dozen bars, another quick disconnect. None of them sounded exactly right. None of them created the mood she was going after. None of them made her seem like the wronged and misunderstood little sister who, in reality, wanted nothing more in life than to make her brother happy.
Maybe she should ask Ahio to write something for her.
Of course, Ahio wasn’t here. Off with h
er brother on some mysterious mission Gaaron had not even paused to explain to her, even though she had told him how interested she was in knowing what he was doing at every moment.
It was enough to make even the calmest sister furious.
She shut off her most recent selection and skipped out of the music room. Sweet Jovah singing, what was there to do here? Making good on his promise, Gaaron had asked all the angels of the hold to refuse to take Miriam down to Velora for a solid week, and this was only the second day of that week. She thought she might lose her mind. Susannah had offered to teach her how to embroider and Zibiah had volunteered to play any game she chose, but Miriam had scoffed at both suggestions.
Anyway, they were both gone. With Gaaron, with Ahio, somewhere off the mountain.
Even Chloe and Sela had disappeared this morning, going up to the Lesh estate in Gaza on some errand. A favor to Neri, perhaps. There was no one here to talk to, absolutely nothing to do.
Miriam emerged back on the plateau and stood there, feeling as helpless as she ever had in her life. How did people live for months, for years, in Windy Point, with no distractions anywhere for miles around? How could they stand it? Why didn’t they go mad and jump from the mountaintop, ending their tedious lives in one quick, exciting plunge to immortality?
She crossed to the far edge of the plateau, away from the entrance to the labyrinth, and started to scale the rough side of the mountain. In a thin, full-skirted dress, she was not attired for climbing, and she almost gave up the third time her hem caught on a sharp rock. But she and Sela had scrambled up this short wall of the mountain hundreds of times when they were children; she ought to be able to manage now that she was a full-grown adult.
She made it to the top of the rocky rim that outlined the plateau, and she looked down. From here, she could see Velora, less than a mile distant, nestled up against the side of the mountain like the Jansai girl in Zibiah’s arms. It did not look so far. The side of the mountain did not look so steep. Perhaps, if she moved carefully and did not lose her patience, she could make it down.
