by Sharon Shinn
This man. This Manadavvi. Did Martha imagine she loved him?
Had Martha squealed and sighed over every detail of Rebekah’s rendezvous with the Cedar Hills angel, all the while keeping a much more incendiary secret to herself?
Had this been the reason she had insisted on coming to the fair and had threatened to come alone if Rebekah had refused to accompany her? Had she headed straight for the music stage to keep an assignation, not caring if her brother or her cousins saw her in conversation with the most dangerous of companions? Rebekah felt shock and dread alternately heat and freeze her heart. The questions tumbled from her brain into her chest, bouncing between her ribs like rocks set loose by a mountain catastrophe. This could not be occurring. Martha could not be so wanton with her life. This was a crime she could die for.
Rebekah took another step closer, though her feet felt so stiff and heavy they almost refused to move. As if sensing her approach, Martha jerked her head around, and her eyes fixed on Rebekah’s through the swaying, surging crowd. Impossible to read her expression at this distance, in these circumstances, but Rebekah caught the message as clearly as though Martha had shouted it in her ear: Come no closer. I am no responsibility of yours. Rebekah halted where she stood, moving only when buffeted by the restless revelers. Martha returned her attention to her companion, who smiled at her with an unfeigned delight. Martha, or so Rebekah imagined, smiled back.
As if it was possible for the evening to get worse, that was when Rebekah saw the angel.
Chapter Thirteen
Music flowered from the stage the instant that she saw him, a hallelujah of brass from some itinerant band that had just now set up its chairs and scores. He was walking through the crowd, approaching the clearing around the stage from the opposite direction of the route that Rebekah’s group had taken. He was accompanied by a handful of Jansai merchants, all dressed in bright, flowing robes and pushing each other aside to get a chance to argue with him. He was laughing. Torchlight spangled his yellow hair and threw glitter across his white wings, held narrowly behind his body as if he wanted to keep them from being soiled or stepped on. He looked regal and beautiful and fashioned of pure divine light.
Obadiah.
It was not the night, Rebekah felt certain, for her to have been left unattended by her brother and her cousins in a sea of indifferent and drunken strangers.
But she would not talk to him. She would not follow Martha’s reckless example, oh no. She was an engaged woman, a dutiful daughter, a fool who might carry the image of an angel in her heart but who knew better than to reach her hand to that image and see if she could startle it into existence.
Besides, he was surrounded by powerful Jansai men who had no interest in indulging the whims of gawking young boys who wanted to step close enough to see the angel, marvel at his wings, wonder aloud why he had wandered into Breven, where angels were far from welcome. Those Jansai men would be even less tolerant of a Jansai girl in disguise, come creeping into the city by night to sample the delights of the harvest fair.
The brass band played ecstatically on, pumping a rhythmic surge of adrenaline through her veins. She would swear by her love of the god that she had not expected to lay eyes on him again. She had come to the fair knowing he might be here, would be here, he had sworn he would attend and begged her to do the same, but she had not really thought she would see him. Had not thought she would be standing this close to him, had not realized that her mutinous feet would carry her, unordered, through the maze of the crowd so that she stood only a few yards from him. Close enough to see his face. Close enough to see the sweetness of the smile he turned on the fat, greasy Jansai leader whom she suspected was the merchant Uriah. Close enough to hear the timbre of his voice when he exclaimed, “I can’t imagine I’d be very welcome! But you flatter me.”
If he looked over her way, if his eyes had the power of stripping away disguises, he would be able to count the cadence of her fluttering pulse by the way the color came and went across her cheeks. He was that close. She took a step nearer.
The brass band came to an exultant conclusion, and the crowd broke into enthusiastic applause yet again. “More! More! Another song!” the listeners cried out. But this was a night, apparently, that musicians took the stage for only a single number, then yielded their places to the next performers. The players gathered their horns and trumpets, bowed to the horde, and made a rather untidy exit. Rebekah dragged her eyes from Obadiah’s face long enough to see who might be ascending the stage now, but it remained empty while the concert masters debated who should take the next turn. The crowd, trading insults and tossing back drinks, waited happily enough.
Rebekah looked back at Obadiah. He was laughing again, hands flung up, palms out, as if to offer a physical protest. Uriah scowled, then laughed, then stomped away from the angel and up the open, rickety steps that led to the stage.
“So!” the Jansai bawled out to the crowd. “We’ve got an angel here, and he thinks he’s too good to sing in our competition.”
“That’s not what I said!” Obadiah called, but his contradiction was drowned out in the roar of the mob’s disapproval.
Uriah held his hand up for silence, and the crowd subsided a little, still muttering. “I told him, we’ve no love for angels, but we appreciate when a man does us honor. Is that right?”
Every voice in the crowd shouted back a confirmation of that fact.
“And we’re Jansai! We can gauge the worth of every item bought and sold across the three provinces! We know what an angel’s voice is worth, do we not?”
“We know!” the men cried out.
“So we know the value of an angel’s voice, lifted in celebration at our humble fair, do we not?”
“We know!”
“And we’ve got an angel here! And we want to hear him sing! Do we not?”
“We do!”
Now Uriah pumped both fists in the air. “So let’s have him sing! Angelo, take the stage!”
The throng responded with a stamping, shouting, surging howl of anticipation. Rebekah felt herself carried forward a few feet by the motion of the revelers around her, and in a moment’s panic, she was afraid she would be crushed by their enthusiasm. Or hatred; it was hard to tell. Emotions were certainly running high, and the crowd was as liable to stone the singer as to cheer him. Breathless and a little frightened, she fought free of the press of people and moved a little away from the main area in front of the platform.
She could still see the stage, though. She could see Obadiah calmly mounting the steps and crossing the dais with the white, orderly grace of a god. Away from his Jansai companions, alone on the stage, he took on even more poise and incandescence. His wings, spread out fully behind him, created an aureole of brightness that wrapped his entire body in luminescence. He stepped to the edge of the stage and looked down at his audience. Incredibly, he was smiling, a winning and infectious smile that invited all listeners to like him. He must know that they all hated him, that they only shouted him onstage so they could humiliate him. He must know that he had never in his life sung for a less appreciative audience.
“Thank you for your kind invitation,” he said in a clear, carrying voice. He sounded utterly relaxed and at ease. “It will be a pleasure for me to sing for you tonight. I will not trouble you with formal masses and prayers to the god. Instead, since it is a night of moonlight and magic, I will sing to you of love.”
Oh, loving god of the skies and waters, it could not be worse.
Rebekah looked around wildly for the only person she knew, hoping Martha would realize that now, of all times, she must come to her cousin’s side and provide strength and support. Martha would instantly know that this angel was Rebekah’s angel, and that Rebekah would be cowering in the shadows, torn between bliss and agony. Martha would come to her side, grab her hand, give her a squeeze of sympathy.
But Martha and her Manadavvi friend were nowhere in sight.
A different kind of panic drove Re
bekah’s heartbeat for a moment as she considered where Martha might have disappeared. Well, the Manadavvi might have traveled to Breven with a contingent of Gaza merchants, and he might have his own sheltered pavilion set up on the far side of the fair. Chances were he had a brother or a father or a cousin working the booth with him, but perhaps there was a wagon out back, a covered cart holding the unsold merchandise, and two determined people might be willing to call that privacy. Rebekah’s face went hot and her hands went cold at the thought.
She wished she had never come to this thrice-damned fair. Everything was poised to go awry, balanced on the crystal edge of disaster. What would she say when Jordan returned, and Ephram? Martha, no doubt, was counting on both boys being absent for much longer than the promised period, but what if she guessed wrong? What if they reappeared in ten minutes, or twenty, with Martha missing and the whole fair to search? Rebekah felt her stomach knot and her hands clench as she turned this way and that, searching the crowd with her eyes, still hoping to catch a glimpse of the gold-feathered mask and the rich, intent features of the Manadavvi lordling.
And then the angel began singing, and Rebekah forgot everybody in the world but him.
He first sounded a single pure, sustained, wordless note, a featherlight gong of music that brought the entire audience to still attention. Longer than it was possible, so long it was clear he could not have the usual human requirements to breathe, he held the note, seeming to draw it out of the stage and the soil beneath him. When, abruptly, he shut it off, the silence he left behind was so surprised the night itself seemed to shake itself and look around in bemusement. Everybody in the crowd merely stared at him, openmouthed and stupid.
And then the true song began, riffs and trills of melody so light and sweet that it seemed either dawn or spring had arrived early. His voice laughed and beckoned, pausing so briefly on each note that it seemed to spring up behind him like a blade of grass released by a running foot. Rebekah had no way of judging if the song was sophisticated or simple, difficult or easy, but that he was an absolute master of his material there could be no doubt. The music swirled around her like a light breeze, lifting her heart like a pile of fallen petals and spinning it into the infinite heavens.
She was not even listening to the words.
He had called it a love song, so she tried to concentrate, to make out the story line or the text of the refrain. It was not that he did not enunciate, for every syllable was clear as a spoken word; it was that the music itself haunted her so completely that she could not pause to analyze its components. But the words must match the melody, frivolous and fun, for everyone around her was smiling, and these were not men who were easily moved to delight.
A quick-rising series of notes, two sharply dropped ones, a sudden nod of his head, and the song was done. Once again, the silence caught everyone totally unprepared, so that there was a moment’s stunned and empty stillness. Then the mob broke into such a wild, sustained ovation that the stage trembled with it. Rebekah saw the angel put out his hand as if to rest it on a support, but there was nothing but bare wood beneath him and it was looking none too steady. He spread his feet to improve his balance and laced his hands behind his back. As the cheering went on and on, he bowed his head again, this time more deeply, and then took a pace back as if to exit the stage.
Uriah was right back up there with him, putting his hand on Obadiah’s shoulder as if to hold him in place. It was Rebekah’s imagination, maybe, but she didn’t think the angel cared for the Jansai’s touch. Uriah shouted something at him, and Obadiah shook his head. Uriah shouted something else, and Obadiah reluctantly nodded.
“Quiet!” bellowed the Jansai, and the crowd simmered down, though there was still a murmur of excitement bubbling under the surface. “The angel has agreed to sing a second song!”
At that, the response threatened to bring the platform down again, and Obadiah looked as if he was seriously considering waiting out the uproar on solid ground. But he stood before them all, white and gold and magnificent, showing a courtly patience.
When the noise died down sufficiently for him to be heard, he took one step forward and began to sing. This was a completely different song in a wholly different style, slow, looping, and beautiful. It was not sad so much as wistful, a meditation on a lost love or a vanished home or a dream abandoned long ago. Obadiah’s voice easily made the long, elegant sweep from the low notes of the melody to the high, pensive elegy of the chorus. Each time one verse ended and the refrain began, Rebekah felt her heart make that leap with his voice. His music molded her body, sculpted her into so much tense, mute longing. She stood absolutely motionless on the edge of the crowd, but every nerve, every sense, was agitated and primed, pointed straight toward him. If she had been an arrow nocked on the bow, her release would have driven her directly into his heart.
This song did not end as abruptly as the last; rather, its last clear, mournful phrases faded and repeated, faded and repeated, till the very last note merely melted away. Again, the crowd greeted the performance with first silence and then clamorous approbation. The angel bowed again, so low that his blond hair swept the raw lumber of the stage, and then he straightened with an air of great determination. He was down the stairs and onto the ground while the throng was still cheering and chanting.
If Rebekah had had attention to spare for anyone else, she would have felt a wave of pity for the next performers. But she didn’t care about those luckless unfortunates, and she didn’t give Martha more than one quick thought as she took another cursory look around the crowd. All her energy was concentrated on the angel, visible in patches of glowing white through the unstable construction of the stage, surrounded by the dull, heavy, mundane bodies of Jansai.
She had to get next to him.
She had forgotten all her vows, her responsibilities, the risks she ran of angering Hector or disgracing Isaac. She had to move closer to Obadiah, had to be able to truly look at him, to see the strength and kindness of his face. She would not talk to him—no, she was not that foolish—and, anyway, how could she, surrounded as she was by a sea of pushing, shoving Jansai men? They would have no chance to talk, Rebekah and Obadiah, Jansai girl and Cedar Hills angel, but she did not need to say a word. She merely wanted to see his face, remind her heart of its lines and contours. She asked Jovah for no more than that.
Accordingly, she drifted through the crowd, willing herself to be invisible. There was no shortage of men pressing in the same direction, determined to shake the angel’s hand—or, who knew, to tell him all his fancy love songs would never change their opinion of angel laws and angel ways. But fewer than she had thought. She would have expected the whole world to run in his direction, breathless with wonder, and for all men to throw themselves at his feet in adoration.
In truth, there was just a handful of Jansai pooled around the angel as he stood behind the stage. Only a few sputtering torches lit the trampled area behind the platform, so it was hard to make out all the bodies congregated there, but Obadiah was easy to see. His wings clung to him like his own shadow, but constructed of light, moving when he moved, trembling when he gestured. What glow the torches could generate was all concentrated on his face. He was laughing.
“Not at all—thank you, indeed—ah, I am glad to hear that I gauged my audience correctly,” he said, handing back graceful replies to the compliments that Rebekah could not catch. In fact, the only sound she could hear in the world was his voice. She knew that fresh musicians had taken the stage, and she believed that they had started playing, but their music did not register with her. Only Obadiah’s voice.
“Tomorrow night? The fair goes on another day? Yes, so you did. Listen, that’s nice. A Semorran harper, I have met him before. No, but I do not want to monopolize the stage. . . .”
She supposed that the Jansai were asking him to perform again tomorrow, and she found herself wondering if she could make it here again, slip from the house a second night without being caught. Surely Ma
rtha would come with her, or Jordan—or did it matter? She could come alone—anything to hear the angel singing one more time.
She had continued to move forward with a ghostlike stealth till she was as close to the angel as she could manage without coming into the flickering light. The group around him had thinned out now, so that only three or four men remained by him, and these seemed to be arguing among themselves. One was Uriah, but his attention had been claimed by a young man who looked enough like him to be his son, and both of them looked furious. The other two men appeared surly and distant, no friends to Obadiah, but waiting on his pleasure now because they were allies of Uriah’s and this was what Uriah had required them to do. None of them were paying any attention to the shapes in the shadows, though Rebekah felt she must be hard to overlook. There must be a glow to her, emanating from her hair and her skin and her fingertips; she would not be surprised to learn that she flared and fluttered like one of those backstage flambeaux.
None of the Jansai looked her way. But the angel did.
She didn’t know if it was a gesture or a noise that caught his attention, but his eyes turned indifferently her way—and then caught, and held, as he considered the indistinct form crouched beside the support beams of the dais. The faintest smile crossed his face and he looked away, and she was able to breathe again. She guessed that he had seen her and drawn his own conclusions, imagining her to be an awestruck boy too shy to approach the star of the evening’s entertainment.
