by Sharon Shinn
She glanced down at the embroidered cotton shirt and the plain, full skirt. “They’re Susannah’s,” she said.
“So I guessed.”
“I spent the night in her room so I didn’t have any of my own clothes with me.”
“Oh, is that where you were?” he said innocently. “I did stop at your door this morning, but when there was no answer—well, I thought maybe you’d gotten up early. Since you so often do.”
And that was meant to annoy her on a couple of counts, so she frowned again. “If you’re hateful to me, I won’t let you take me with you when you go sing prayers,” she said with dignity.
“Well, then, I’ll try to mend my manners, since I certainly don’t want you to forsake me now,” he said. He came to his feet, smiling down at her. It was like being smiled at by a mountain—it made you feel very safe, but it still made you want to jump off the peak just to prove you could. “Can you be ready in an hour? I have to write a note to Neri and then I’m ready to go.”
She nodded, eating even faster. He turned to go, paused, and turned back long enough to lay his hand on the top of her head. She looked up at him, but he didn’t say anything. Just pivoted away and left the room.
She quickly finished eating, hurried to her room, decided to keep on Susannah’s clothes, though she would have to apologize for this before the day was out, braided her hair back, put on some warmer shoes, and rummaged around for a jacket. She had flown with enough angels to know that, no matter how considerate they were about staying at lower altitudes to keep their mortal passengers from freezing to death, the longer the flight, the colder she would be. Summer or no summer.
She was on the plateau a few minutes before Gaaron was. She could tell her promptness pleased him, because he smiled when he joined her. He had a canteen strapped over one shoulder, and a small leather satchel strapped over the other—food for the day, she guessed, though it hadn’t even occurred to her to bring provisions.
“Ready?” he said and caught her in his arms. She bounced once from utter happiness, then squealed a little as he took off fast. That was to give her a little thrill, because he knew she liked the plunge and lift of a sudden takeoff. He was usually more sedate when he was carrying cargo. She snuggled against his broad chest and enjoyed the feel of the wind against her face, and the dizzying, exhilarating sense of great height and motion.
They had been flying in companionable silence for more than an hour before she remembered Jesse, back at the Eyrie awaiting her decision about flying to Monteverde. She supposed that once he realized she had gone off with Gaaron, he would have answer enough. She felt a little bad about it for all of ten minutes, and then she forgot about him in her undiluted happiness at the unfolding of the day.
They flew west and south for about three hours before stopping for a light meal. On their way again without much time wasted, continuing on in the same direction. When they finally dropped out of the high, chilly atmosphere for a layer of air that was more habitable, Miriam peered down, trying to make out landmarks. She couldn’t imagine how angels could fly anywhere without getting hopelessly lost. To her, it all looked like the same stretch of rolling green land and undulating river, dotted with the occasional, identical range of squat mountains.
They were low enough now that she could make out a few buildings—a farming community, she thought, set in the middle of some of those legendary fertile acres of southern Bethel. There were a few silos, some structures that might be barns, a house or two, a patchwork quilt of fields and fences . . . and a plague flag, hanging dispiritedly in the faint wind.
“Illness?” she asked. “That’s what you’re here for?”
He nodded. “I don’t want you to get too close—”
“Nonsense! I came here to sing with you and I’m going to sing.”
“That’s fine, but I still don’t want you to get too close to anyone who’s sick. I’m going to set you down here, go over and tell them I’ve arrived, and then come back to get you. We’ll go aloft and sing, and you’ll never have to be exposed to anyone.”
She thought this over. “That seems a little rude.”
“I assure you, they’ll think it’s practical.”
“And I suppose they’re not worried about you getting exposed. Or maybe they already know that angels never get sick.”
He grinned as he came down in a perfect landing. “Yet another divine gift from Jovah,” he said.
“Nothing in life is fair,” she grumbled as he set her on her feet and waited a moment to make sure she had her balance.
“No, nothing is,” he agreed. “Stay here. Move from this spot and I’ll leave you here to be a farmer’s sister the rest of your life.”
Before she could think of a retort to this, he had stroked his wings three times and taken off for the farmhouses. She turned her face up to the sky and unbuttoned her jacket, hoping for a little of the sun’s warmth to seep through to her skin. She felt chilled all over, her nose a little red block of ice, but she didn’t mind, of course. She would have flown twice as high and twice as far, and not complained once.
Dropping to a seat on the thick grass, she took a moment to look around her. Pretty countryside here, if you were happy with only slightly rolling land covered with all manner of cultivated vegetation. There was a narrow line of trees visible in the distance, and the snaking brown contours of a road, but not much else to clutter up the view until you turned to look at the farm buildings themselves. The air was thick and still, laden with rich scents that made her think of variants of green. What little noise wafted her way seemed distant, unimportant, and peaceful—the droning of insects, the lazy calls of workers in the fields, an occasional cry from a passing bird. She pulled up a stalk of grass—or possibly a cash crop, she couldn’t tell—and ran its long flat length through her fingers. It was such a rich satiny color she expected it to be smooth against her fingertips, but instead it was rough and sharp-edged, almost keen enough to cut her. She liked that; she pulled it through her fingers again.
Nonetheless, the charms of the still countryside paled within about five minutes, and she was thoroughly bored by the time Gaaron reappeared. “Jovah be praised, you’re back,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I’d go mad if I was here very long by myself.”
“Ah, then I know where to threaten to send you the next time you misbehave,” he said gravely.
She smiled at him and raised her arms to be lifted up. “But I’m not going to misbehave anymore, remember?”
He caught her in an easy embrace and, with no effort at all, lifted both of them off the ground. “You remember the songs I taught you? Plague songs?” he asked as they headed upward.
“There are about a dozen of them, I think.”
He nodded. “We need the piece that begins like this”—and he softly crooned a few bars. “Remember that one?”
She was starting to get cold again. To sing to Jovah, apparently, Gaaron needed to be even higher off the ground than he had to be when he was merely flying. “Perfectly,” she said. “I am ready when you are.”
He glanced down at her. “It’s too high for you, isn’t it? Sorry. We’ll drop a little.”
She protested, but he banked and descended into air that was only slightly warmer, though even that little bit helped. “Now are you ready?” he inquired. When she nodded, he began the song.
Miriam came in on the third note, balancing her voice above his as she would balance herself on a bridge over tricky water. All of the prayers had been designed to be sung as solos, by angels needed so desperately all over the realm that sometimes they were too busy to go off in pairs. Therefore, the harmonies were generally simple, unimaginative descant lines designed more to please the ear than to rouse the god. Gaaron’s voice was so strong that Miriam did not even try to match it; she just decorated it with pretty trills and graceful ascending thirds. It was as if he were a deep-dyed purple robe, and she were bits of gold embroidery fashioned at the throat and wrists. Her voice ma
de his more beautiful, but he was gorgeous enough on his own.
They sang for perhaps an hour, Miriam growing colder despite the lower atmosphere, before the prayer was answered. She could see the signs of Jovah’s kindness, small colorful tablets pelting down like solid rain, showering all the land around the farmhouses with bright confetti. Excited, she pointed, and Gaaron nodded, but he did not stop singing until they had brought the prayer to its conclusion.
“Gaaron! Did you see? The god sent down medicine to make the farmers well again!”
“Yes, I saw,” he said, amused. “It’s a sight I have often seen, but it still remains amazing to me.”
“I have seen you call sunshine and bring rain, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you ask the god for medicine before,” she said. “I think I like these prayers best.”
He quickened his wingbeats, which all this time he had held at a slow and steady hover, and then spiraled down. “I like the prayers for rain the best,” he said. “For great crashing thunderstorms. Those are my favorites.”
“Why are we going back down?” she asked. “Can’t we just leave?”
“I promised I’d return to make sure they had gathered as many tablets as they needed,” he said. “I’ll just set you down right here again, but I’ll be back in a few moments. And then we can go home.”
She couldn’t help a small pout, but she tried to suppress it. The day had gone so well for so long that she did not want to jeopardize good relations now. Still, it was with something of a flounce that she sat down again in the field, crossing her arms and staring stonily off into the distance as Gaaron headed back toward the inhabited buildings.
After a moment, she unfolded her crossed arms and tilted her face back up to the sun, which felt even warmer this much later in the afternoon. Maybe they should stay another half hour or so, eating a light meal here in the sunshine before taking off for the Eyrie again. Maybe then she would be able to face with equanimity the prospect of another long, cold flight.
She opened her jacket a little, then flopped down to lie on her back. Her knees were updrawn but the rest of her was flat against the ground. The grass was warm against her spine and the back of her head as if the green itself was radiating heat. She splayed her fingers on either side of her body and felt those rough-edged blades hold their tiny knives against her palms. The scent of the field rose all about her, pungent and layered. Somewhere a low buzzing stopped abruptly, guttered twice, then resumed its coarse monotonous tone.
When Gaaron’s shadow fell over her, she smiled without opening her eyes. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you sent me here for a little while,” she said. “I think I’d be so lazy and sleepy all the time that I wouldn’t have the energy to cause any trouble.”
He didn’t answer, so she squinted up at him, backlit against the slanting sun. But it wasn’t Gaaron who stood over her. Too small, and sporting no wings.
For a moment, she thought it must be one of the farmers, carrying his pestilence out to infect her despite all Gaaron’s precautions. She sat up, brushing her hair back and preparing to introduce herself. But once she could see clearly without the golden interference of the sun, she realized that this was no farmer. This was no one she’d ever seen before.
He was about the same height and build as Nicholas, though he held himself extraordinarily still, as Nicky could never do. His skin was darker than Susannah’s, a rich brown so saturated it almost looked black. His hair was a blazing orange, bright as flame against his dark face, and his eyes were such a light blue that at first they seemed to be no color but white. He was staring at her as intently as she stared at him.
She opened her mouth as if to scream, but no sound came. She could not tell if he carried any weapons, though Gaaron had told her the Jansai girl’s tale of black men with sticks of fire. She could not believe that, throughout the girl’s whole recitation, she had not once mentioned that fiery hair or those unnerving eyes. But perhaps the Jansai girl had not been as close as this.
Miriam put a hand to her throat, an unconscious gesture of pure fear. “Who are you?” she whispered, but, of course, he did not reply. Her eyes dropped for a second, checking for danger, but she still could not see anything that looked like a stick. Under one arm the stranger held a round, shiny object as big as a mixing bowl. Could that be a weapon? Was he about to destroy her where she sat? “What do you want?”
He moved so suddenly that she did cry out and drop back to the ground in terror. But all he did was settle the shiny item over his head, covering both his hair and his eyes. He spoke one word, and flattened his hand across his chest.
Then he disappeared.
Miriam sat there a moment, staring at the place where he had been, sure that the thick summer air must still be vibrating with the suddenness of his passage. But there was nothing to indicate that he had been there or where he might have gone. The bees droned on. The grass continued sunning itself under the bright blue sky. The scent of hay and fertilizer pooled all around her, completely undisturbed.
She jumped to her feet and ran toward the compound with more speed than she had ever mustered in her life.
“Gaaron! Gaaron! Come quickly!” she shouted even before she got within hearing range. A worker coming up from a far field saw her wild approach and waved his hands as if to warn her away.
“Plague here!” he called. “Go back!”
She ignored him. “Gaaron! Gaaron! Come here now!”
The narrow farmhouse door burst open and Gaaron pushed himself through, squeezing his wings to his sides and ducking his head to avoid injury. “What’s wrong? Stay back!” he yelled. He turned to say something to someone in the house, then jumped off the porch and came over to her on a run.
“What’s wrong? Why didn’t you stay where I left you?” he demanded, his voice caught somewhere between anger and fear.
“Gaaron—I saw one—in the field—he was right by me,” she panted. Her hands plucked ineffectually at his arm, as if she could draw more of his attention, as if she could convey more of her alarm. “I thought it was you, but he—and then he just disappeared.”
He stopped dragging her away from the farmhouse. “You saw who?” he said sharply.
“One of those—a black man—like the Jansai girl said.”
“Here? In this field?”
She pointed to the spot. “Right over there! I was just lying there with my eyes closed, and suddenly he was standing beside me. I sat up and looked at him, and he looked at me, and then he—Gaaron, he just wasn’t there anymore! I swear by Jovah’s mercy, he disappeared. Came from nowhere, went to nowhere.”
Gaaron stared in the direction she indicated as though he would see the ghost of that unwelcome visitor still lingering in the grass. “And he was alone? Just one?”
She nodded. “I only saw one. But I was afraid to look away. I couldn’t see anything but him.”
Gaaron’s gaze swung back to her. “And what did he look like? A black man, that’s what Kaski called him. Black clothes? Black skin? What?”
So she described him as best she could, emphasizing the bright hair and the pale eyes. “But he looked like—I mean—except for the coloring, he could have been any man you see on the streets any day,” she finished up. “He looked like a mortal.”
“No wings?”
“I would have mentioned it by now if he had had wings,” Miriam replied sharply.
Gaaron spared a small smile for that. “Yes, I’m sure you would have.” He stared down at the ground for a moment, lost in thought. “I’ll have to go back inside and ask them if they’ve seen anything in the past few days,” he said. “And to tell them to be on the lookout in case one of these visitors comes back.”
“Are you going to tell them to be careful of fire?” she asked.
He trained his sober gaze on her face. “I will,” he said quietly, “but I do not see how they can protect themselves against that. If indeed this man is one of the same ones who burned Kaski’s camp, and from y
our description, he sounds as if he may be. I don’t know how such a thing can be guarded against.”
“But Gaaron . . .” she said, and then couldn’t think of any way to end the sentence.
He nodded. “I know. Now you stay here. I’ll be outside again in five minutes, and we’ll go home.”
She stayed where he left her, too drained by panic and her mad dash across the field to spare much energy for unnecessary movements. He was, of course, inside for longer than five minutes, and he emerged looking very somber. He headed in her direction, stopping a few yards away to bend over and scoop up something from the ground.
“What’s that?” she asked immediately as he pocketed his find and came to a stop before her. “What did you pick up?”
“Medicines. In case you get sick,” he answered.
She could not help a small laugh. It would never have occurred to her to be so foresighted. “Is there nothing that you don’t think of?” she asked.
“Many, many things,” he said. “Come on. It’s late. Let me get you to the Eyrie.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt his arms go around her and lift her up. For a moment she felt weightless, and then—which was even better—she felt light as silk bedding, a small, easily protected scrap of a girl in the custody of an invincible protector. “Yes, please,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
C hapter T welve
Susannah couldn’t remember exactly when it was that Kaski first started sleeping in her room every night. One day Zibiah had asked if she could turn over the Jansai girl, because she would be gone overnight on a weather intercession near Castelana. Naturally, Susannah had agreed. Another evening Zibiah had had an assignation of some sort, though she did not offer details. And Susannah had gladly taken in the silent girl that night, too. And fairly soon after that, every evening, she would find Kaski awaiting her inside her room, sitting in the middle of the floor, doing nothing, staring at nothing, just waiting with that terrible patience.
“Hello, mikala,” Susannah greeted her every night. “Do you plan to keep me company again? I’m so glad.”
