by Sharon Shinn
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’ve always been—a fairly conformable individual. Not much of a rebel. Easygoing. Dependable.”
“So maybe it’s been good for you to meet me,” she said.
“In so many ways,” he answered.
“That’s nice to know,” she said.
“I wish you’d let me see your face,” he said.
He could tell she was smiling even before she spoke. He had gotten that good at reading the small patches of skin he could see through her veil. “I think I need to keep it covered,” she said. “So there is still some mystery in your life. Since your life doesn’t hold many secrets.”
“But this is a secret I don’t want to keep.”
“You don’t want to keep a memory of me?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
She laughed and got to her feet. “I was teasing.”
He eyed her with a little scowl. “It seems to me,” he said, “for a girl who has spent most of her life around women, you have learned very quickly the art of flirting with a man.”
“It is because you are so skilled at flirting,” she said. “I cannot help but learn from you.”
“I’m not flirting now. I’m entirely serious. Let me see your face. Don’t go without letting me know what you look like.”
“I’ve already told you. You’re not supposed to know what I look like.”
“Does it upset you that I want to know?”
“Oh no. I like it that you keep asking. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to lift my veil. Because the question is so sweet.”
“Are you really leaving?”
She nodded and gestured at the horizon. “Almost sundown. My mother will have been watching for me these past two hours.”
“But not really expecting you.”
Rebekah laughed. “But not really expecting me,” she agreed. “But I must get back.” She glanced down at him. “If I can, I’ll return in the morning. But I can’t promise.”
“Then, if I don’t see you tomorrow—”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t even say it.”
“I might run into you accidentally in Breven.”
“I am never in the public places where you might see me.”
“Sometimes you are. At the festivals. You said so.”
“Only men are allowed at the festivals.”
“Are angels allowed?”
“I don’t know. Certainly other travelers come from time to time—merchants and farmers and Luminauzi. So perhaps an angel would be permitted to attend.” She glanced down at his outstretched leg. “If an angel wasn’t afraid of what might happen to him if he encountered a Jansai with a grudge.”
“I’ll be in Breven again in a couple of weeks.”
“I hope you enjoy your visit,” she said.
She would make no other promises or acknowledgments; she would not even promise to return in the morning to secure more water before the caravan got under way again. There seemed to be a certain restlessness in Rebekah that led her, once she had made up her mind to act in a certain way, to be completely intractable, and she had decided to leave without any more coquettish exchanges. So she responded politely when Obadiah spoke, but she went methodically about the business of filling her waterskins, gathering up her bundles, retying her boots, and glancing around the camp for anything she might have left behind.
“Don’t forget to eat,” she said as she knotted a bundle of tubers and marrowroot leaves around her waist. “And take another one of those pills before you go to sleep tonight.”
“I won’t sleep,” he grumbled. “I’ll be thinking about you.”
She laughed. “Then I hope you dream about me as well. Good-bye, angelo. Perhaps I will see you in the morning.”
“Obadiah,” he said.
“What?”
“Say, ‘Good-bye, Obadiah.’ Perhaps it won’t sound so final then.”
“Good-bye, Obadiah,” she said.
“Better,” he said, “but still chilling.”
“Sleep well. Heal quickly,” she said.
“Walk safely. Watch out for that mountain cat.”
“She is more likely to come looking for you again.”
“No, no, I have regained so much strength she will not waste her time on me.”
“I am glad to hear it. You will be well by morning.”
And with those optimistic words, she waved once and set out into the bright haze of the westering sun. Obadiah watched her for as long as she was visible, a sturdy figure against the flat, gold landscape. But it was not long before her shape slimmed and shimmered and disappeared into the indeterminate shadows of oncoming night. In a small fit of temper, then, Obadiah threw himself back on the ground, his wings incautiously brushing against the ceiling of his canvas tent and almost bringing the whole structure down.
He did not know how he would get through the night without the certainty of seeing her again in the morning. And he was far from sure that it was simply the great kindness she had shown him that made him feel so connected to her, so depressed at the thought that she might be gone from his life forever.
Ridiculous. The only angel who had ever married a Jansai woman had been the Archangel Raphael, and that had turned out about as disastrously as a marriage could. Not that Obadiah was thinking about marriage. Not that he was thinking about anything, or capable of thought, or capable of reason or even movement. He slowly eased himself into a more comfortable position, and he slept.
Chapter Eight
In the morning, he was ravenous. He had woken intermittently to drink water, rearrange his body, and check for night predators, but he hadn’t bothered to eat anything. Now he could hardly cram the food in his mouth fast enough to quiet his insistent stomach. The reskel roots Rebekah had left him were scarcely enough to satisfy him, but they did at least stop the gnawing in his belly.
It was only after he’d consumed every last scrap of food in the vicinity that he realized how well he felt.
Testing himself, he stood and fluffed his wings out behind him. Not so good, some weakness still in both the bone and the feather, but dramatically improved over yesterday.
He smelled like a barnyard, though, and his skin had the dull, matted texture of a sick man’s. He stripped naked and bathed himself in the warm geyser, splashing water all over his small camp. Sweet Jovah singing, it felt good to be clean again. He didn’t have soap or a towel, but the water itself was refreshment enough, and once he was done, he felt closer to human than he had for three days.
He donned a clean shirt, then looked with disfavor at the bunched-up trousers that had served as his bed. And at the pair he had been wearing ever since he was wounded, ruined by a tear and a smear of blood. Not possible to put any of these back on his body. So he rinsed out a pair in the fountain, then spread it to dry in the hot sand, under the hot sun. Hoping Rebekah did not arrive before it was fit to put on again.
Hoping she did arrive, whether or not he was practically naked.
He forced himself to walk a few yards in every direction around the camp, to readjust his muscles to the notion of movement and to test the strength in his leg. His wings felt good, powerful enough to lift him, but he didn’t think his leg would hold him when he came in for a landing. One more day of healing, perhaps—more salve, more medicines—and then he would take off in the morning. Surely he could get out of the desert, closer to civilization, even if he couldn’t make it all the way to Cedar Hills.
But he was still weaker than he’d thought. Even that brief bit of exercise wore him out, and he returned to camp to rest for a while. His trousers were still damp, but he felt foolish walking around without them, so he slipped them on and did not mind the cool feel of the wet fabric against his skin. He crawled under the shelter of his tent to get out of the sun and fell asleep without intending to.
When he opened his eyes, Rebekah was kneeling by the fountain.
He scrambled out from under the canvas and stood as quick
ly as he could, still favoring his hurt leg. “I didn’t think I’d see you again!” he exclaimed. “Hasn’t Simon come back yet?”
She turned her head to look at him and then stilled all over, regarding him through the veil. Something about her pose or her silence made him think she was taken aback.
“What is it?” he said at once. “Are you astonished at how well I’m doing? I told you angels heal fast.”
“No. I’m astonished at how—you didn’t seem so tall when you were lying helpless in the sand.”
He laughed now, pleased, because what man didn’t want women to consider him tall and strong? And she had already told him she thought he was attractive. “It’s the wings,” he said. “They add to the illusion of height and size.”
She nodded. “They do. They are most impressive.”
He couldn’t keep himself from puffing them up, just a little, fanning the feathers out behind him so that they looked even more imposing. His wings were not so white nor so broad as Gabriel’s, but they had a particularly graceful shape, perfectly belled, and he had always been just a bit vain of them. “Much more impressive than when they’re spilled out helplessly over the desert floor,” he agreed.
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better! I—”
But before he finished his sentence he was distracted by a gurgling sound coming from the small bundle of belongings Rebekah had dropped by the fountain. Glancing in that direction, he was astonished to see two small fists waving in the air. The gurgling laugh came again.
“You’ve brought company,” he said.
Rebekah looked over at the pile. “A chaperone,” she said with a laugh.
“Your brother?”
She nodded. “My mother said he fussed and cried all day yesterday while I was gone and that I was not to set foot outside the camp today. And then everybody needed water, so she was going to send Jordan, but I said I’d get water and I’d bring the baby with me. That made everybody happy. Even the baby.”
Obadiah was not much interested in babies, but he was curious to see this small creature of whom Rebekah had spoken with such affection. He moved forward a few paces so he could look down at the boy’s round, smiling face. “Goo-ah,” the baby said to him, and waved his fists again.
“He seems very happy,” Obadiah remarked.
“He likes movement. He just laughed and talked the whole time I was carrying him here.”
“Talked? Not—I mean, he doesn’t say real words, does he?”
Her laughter pealed out. “No, you silly man. He won’t talk for months and months. Haven’t you ever been around a baby?”
“Not really. There are always some at the holds, but—” He shrugged. “None of them ever belonged to people who mattered to me. I just never had occasion to—” He shrugged again.
“Would you like to hold him?”
“Hold him? You mean, in my arms?”
“Yes, of course that’s what I mean! Are you afraid to touch him?”
“No, of course not. I just don’t want to break him.”
“Well, you won’t break him if you don’t drop him. And even if you drop him, he’ll probably be just fine here on this soft sand. You don’t have to be nervous at all.”
As she spoke, she came to her feet and crossed over to where the baby lay. “Hey, sweet child,” she said fondly, bending over to lift the cooing boy in her hands. “Aren’t you being good! Are you showing off for the handsome angel? Maybe if you’re nice he’ll sing you a lullaby. Wouldn’t you like that? Angels have beautiful voices, they say. He could sing you straight into Jovah’s arms.”
She turned and offered him to the angel, and Obadiah took him a bit gingerly. But the bundle was warm and instantly familiar in his arms, as if the accumulated human memories of child-rearing had all crowded into his nerves and muscles at once. He was surprised at how comfortably the small form fit along his forearm, against his chest, as if measurements had been taken and they had both been designed, just so, to come together in this arrangement.
“What’s his name?” he said, automatically slipping into a slow, rocking motion, shifting his weight from foot to foot and allowing his shoulders to sway. He felt the trailing edges of his feathers drift first this way and then that against the sand.
“He doesn’t have a name yet,” Rebekah said.
That caused him to look up sharply from the round, sweet face. “He doesn’t have a name?”
She shook her head. “Jansai don’t name their children till they’re seven or eight months old. In case they die young, as so many babies do.”
“That’s horrible!”
She shrugged. “Not so horrible. Most babies, especially boy babies, bear the names of men in the family who are still living. It is bad luck for a baby to die while that man is alive, and carry both their names with him to Jovah. We don’t want to confuse the god.”
“I think Jovah is not so easily confounded,” Obadiah said, giving his attention back to the child. “I see he has a Kiss, though. He receives that before he has a name?”
“So if he does journey to Jovah while he is still an infant, his soul will find its way easily to the god.”
He looked over at her. It had not occurred to him to wonder about this before, and under her maze of garments he had not been able to see any personal adornments except the occasional flash of gold. “And you, too? You bear a Kiss?”
She nodded. “As do you, as does everybody.”
“Except the Edori,” he said. “Most of them don’t bother to get Kissed. They say Jovah knows their names anyway.”
She shrugged. “If Jovah is interested in the Edori.”
He did not want to get into a discussion about the Jansai and the Edori and their long history of hatred. Not now, not on the last day he might ever see her. “I’m glad you came today,” he said. “How long can you stay?”
She shook her head. “Not long. We’re leaving at noon. Simon returned last night, and they worked on the axle till midnight. The wagon should be ready very soon now.”
“Then I’ll give you your gift now.”
She had come a pace closer to smile down into the baby’s face, but now she stepped back warily. “You don’t owe me a gift. You have nothing to give me, anyway.”
He smiled. “I do. I thought of it last night. Hold out your arm.”
But she merely looked at him and did nothing.
“Wait, let me put the baby down,” he said, and laid him gently on a folded blanket. Straightening up again, he repeated, “Hold out your arm.”
“Why?”
Obadiah stripped the two bracelets from his wrist, the silver and sapphire one, the gold and ruby one, then slipped the gold one back over his hand. “Angels wear bracelets that identify them, that tell what hold they live at and what family they’re descended from. I used to live at the Eyrie, but I make my home at Cedar Hills now. So the bracelet I wore at the Eyrie is not proper for me anymore. But it’s a beautiful piece of jewelry, and I haven’t wanted to just lay it aside.” He extended his hand with the slim circlet sitting in his palm. “I want you to have it.”
She backed up a step. “I can’t take that.”
“Why not? The Jansai love jewelry, so I’ve always been told.”
“Oh, we do. I do, anyway,” she said. “But you don’t—I don’t—you don’t owe me anything. And even if you did, that’s much too expensive. I couldn’t take it.”
“Well, I don’t expect you to sell it,” he said with a grin. “So it shouldn’t matter how expensive it is.”
“But I can’t take something that matters so much to you.”
“You have given me my life, which matters to me even more,” he said softly. “I want to give you something precious in return.”
Still she hesitated, though he sensed she was torn. “But what will I say if my mother sees it, or Hector?” she said. “They will know that no one in the family gave me such a bracelet.”
“Say you found it in the stre
et.”
“People don’t usually lose something so valuable.”
“They lose their hearts all the time. Surely a heart is even more valuable than a bauble like this?”
“I shouldn’t take it.”
“Hold out your hand,” he said.
She hesitated, but then she extended her arm, the folds of her sleeves hanging gracefully from her elbow. She already wore three bracelets on this wrist, one a twisted gold rope, the other two flat circlets etched with patterns. She narrowed her fingers to a point and he slid the bracelet over her knuckles, letting it come to rest on her wrist. It made a small, smug clinking sound as she gently twisted her hand from side to side.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”
“It is a small gift to repay a great debt.”
She stood there a moment, hands now folded before her and head tipped down, seemingly lost in thought. “I have a gift for you, too,” she said, and raised her head.
“You of all people owe me nothing,” he said.
The smile was back in her voice. “Oh, but this is something you’ll like,” she said. And without another word of explanation, she raised her hands and pulled back the scarves from her face.
He stared at her, as much from astonishment as from a greed to take in every detail. Her eyes were dark as rich earth, her hair a glossy brown with a completely untameable curl. There was an exotic tilt to her eyes and her cheekbones; her chin was pointed and determined. He had never seen a complexion so rich and flawless, absolutely untouched by sun. And her full lips held a smile so hopeful and nervous that it almost broke his heart.
“That is the face that will haunt my dreams for days and nights to come,” he said slowly. “I could not have fashioned a more perfect set of features if I had sat down with the god to give him my specifications.”
Color rose through the creamy cheeks, and she cast her eyes down. “I am nothing out of the ordinary to look at,” she said.
He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face back up. “You are extraordinary to look at,” he said quietly. “And your gift is even more precious than the one I gave you.”
