by Sharon Shinn
“None,” said Obadiah. “I am universally beloved in the three holds.”
“Then you think perhaps it was a Jansai who shot you down?” Uriah asked with great astonishment. All feigned, of course, but Obadiah gave him credit. He did not show the slightest inclination to laugh.
“I think that must be considered as a real possibility,” Obadiah said gravely.
“A shocking turn of events, if it proved to be so,” Uriah said.
“Yes, I have to think whoever took aim at me did not think very far ahead,” Obadiah said. He leaned back on his chair (specially made for him since his last visit, for which he gave Uriah great credit), and sipped at his wine. “For, just think if I had died. There are not so many angels in the world that my disappearance would have gone unnoticed. And once my mutilated body had been found—”
Uriah made a slight, fatalistic moue with his hands. “Yes, but, how to reconstruct the event? If no one saw an enemy lift this weapon up and sight it upon you, how could anyone be sure who exactly had brought you down?”
Obadiah smiled at him. “An angel felled over the desert not fifty miles from Breven?” he asked gently. “Who else might be blamed for such an act?”
“So you think Gabriel would have pointed to the Jansai, whether or not we were guilty?” Uriah asked.
“Whether or not you were guilty,” Obadiah repeated. “Yes, I very much fear so. Which is why I am telling you now. I certainly do not expect you to make yourself responsible for my safety, but I would like you to realize that the Jansai will come under suspicion if anything happens to me while I’m anywhere near your city. It’s regrettable, but there it is.”
“And yet if a reasonable man could prove the Jansai had nothing to do with something so calamitous—”
“I think you overestimate Gabriel’s ability to be reasonable on a subject about which he feels passionately,” said Obadiah, even more gently. “I love Gabriel like a brother, but I would not want to cross him on a matter of such magnitude. If something were to happen to me—or any angel—anywhere near the city limits of Breven, I fear that Breven itself would not long survive the event.”
Uriah stared at Obadiah from dark, narrowed eyes, trying to weigh the sincerity of the threat as well as the likelihood that it could actually be carried out. Neither man spoke for a moment. “But angelo—” Uriah said at last.
“Furthermore,” Obadiah interrupted in an urbane voice, “Gabriel believes that a Jansai who once would use such a weapon to attack an angel might be incautious enough to use it a second time. Against an angel. The Archangel made it very clear to me that he would not be happy until such a weapon was in trusted hands.”
“His own, you mean?” Uriah said sharply.
“Or yours,” Obadiah said, nodding his head graciously. “He is quite sure you would not do anything so reckless as offer harm to an angel. He said he would be quite satisfied to know that you had located the man who might possess this device—asking no questions about how he may have used it!—and confiscated the weapon for your own.”
“And if I cannot find him? Or cannot persuade him to give it up?”
“Then I am not sure how much longer Gabriel will be willing to hazard my person in the pursuit of an alliance between us.”
“You would leave Breven.”
“I would have to.”
“With all our claims left unsettled.”
Obadiah shrugged, feeling his wing tips lift and settle over the braided silk rugs that covered the canvas floor. “But I would happily return once you took charge of this firestick,” Obadiah said. “I believe that you, at least, intend no harm to me.”
Uriah gave a sudden, cracking laugh and slapped a hand along the arm of his chair. “No, for I like you. You’ve a scoundrel’s heart behind that face of a pious saint,” he exclaimed.
“Have I been complimented or insulted?” Obadiah wondered.
“Complimented—the Jansai love a scoundrel,” Uriah retorted. “But enough of this dancing about! Talking is hungry work, don’t you find? Come join me for dinner, and meet my ruffian of a son.”
“I am happy to accept your hospitality,” Obadiah said. “But we have talked very little business, and we have, as you know, much business to discuss.”
Uriah waved a hand and heaved himself from his chair. “There is time,” he said. “But for now, I want food, not negotiation.”
This second meal in the company of the Jansai chieftain was a little more restrained than the first one Obadiah had sat down to more than three weeks ago. Perhaps that was because it was a little more formal, though still held in some business-district tent and not in Uriah’s home. Obadiah was beginning to suspect that until he was actually invited into the man’s house he would not be considered trustworthy, and until he was considered trustworthy, no progress would be made on their negotiations.
It seemed like he was about to become a fixture on the Breven social scene.
There were maybe twenty-five men in the big tent this night, most of whom Obadiah did not remember from that last dinner. The brooding, unfriendly Michael was not here, which first pleased Obadiah and then made him nervous. Because if the Jansai wasn’t under Uriah’s watchful eye, he could be skulking around somewhere in Breven, just waiting to haul out any variety of weapons to bring the angel down.
Though Obadiah was pretty sure his threats would keep him safe, for a while yet. Everyone knew Gabriel was capable of calling down thunderbolts in a moment of extreme displeasure. No one really wanted to find out what events might provoke him.
Uriah was introducing the angel, in a haphazard way, to the other men at the table. “And that’s Mark, my son—looks like me, doesn’t he? He’s a rascal. Over there, Zebedee. Oh, and Simon. You must congratulate him.”
“On what?”
“His son has just gotten betrothed to the daughter of a wealthy man. Watch my words, they’re going to open up the route to Luminaux like you’ve never seen. You want luxuries in Velora? They’ll get them to you, Simon and his partner.”
“I want luxuries in Cedar Hills,” Obadiah said.
Uriah gave his sharp bark of laughter. “Well, and you’ll have them there, too! They’ll make a good team.”
“I thought it was the daughter and son who were making the alliance?”
Uriah waved a dismissive hand. “Same thing. They are all extensions of their fathers. Until the boys learn to be their own men and the women bear the next generation of sons.”
The food was heavily spiced, the wine was strong, and the conversation covered virtually no topic but trading. Obadiah kept the smile on his face and tried to conceal his thoughts. He did nod and comment when someone asked his opinion on a trade route or a weather pattern, but he only made one unsolicited contribution to the general discussion.
“So I understand there’s to be a grand fair here tomorrow evening,” he said. “Is anyone allowed to attend?”
“Yes! The harvest festival!” Uriah exclaimed. “I didn’t know you planned to stay for it, angelo! You must come as my guest. The crowds can be a little rowdy from time to time—hard to imagine, I know—and I would not want some unwary Jansai treading on your wing feathers.”
This was something of a setback. Impossible though it was, Obadiah had been hoping fervently that Rebekah would sneak from her house and make her way to the fair in some kind of disguise. He would not be able to spot her, of course, but she would have no trouble identifying him, and he had thought if he made himself visible enough, wandered through the booths restlessly enough, she might see him, and she might take her courage in hand and approach him. . . .
Not a chance of that if he had Uriah and his minions by his side.
“I appreciate your concern,” Obadiah said. “But I would not wish to intrude on your own revels. The presence of an angel might—inhibit—some of the activities of you and your friends.”
Uriah roared with laughter and slapped Obadiah on the arm, a gesture the angel endured with only the s
lightest grimace of distaste. He did not care much for casual contact, certainly not from half-drunk Jansai, and Uriah’s hand had come perilously close to brushing against Obadiah’s wing. Such a mishap and Obadiah would not have been able to refrain from jerking his feathers back, reacting as violently as if he had been stabbed or, again, rent with fire.
“There’ll be no inhibitions among us, I promise you!” Uriah roared. “Come with us to the fair tomorrow, angelo. You shall enjoy yourself, never fear.”
And, in fact, Obadiah had rather enjoyed the evening, though he deeply regretted losing the chance to walk the overrun streets and hold himself up as a beacon to catch a girl’s attention. However, a mere half hour among Uriah and his friends in the crowded bazaar led him to believe that Rebekah’s chances of being at this event were very close to zero. For one thing, it was a rough and boisterous throng, and individuals faced every chance of being shoved or harassed. For another, he was getting a pretty fair measure of the outlook of the typical Jansai male, and he couldn’t believe anyone as dependent as a Jansai daughter would risk the anger of her husband or her father by slipping out into such a melee.
For another, he didn’t see anyone, masked or unmasked, who looked like a woman in disguise. Everywhere, in every booth and alley and gaming pit, boys and men as far as his gaze could wander.
There were plenty of other distractions, but Obadiah’s presence itself was drawing no little attention, mostly from those boys. The fat, satisfied, older merchants paid him no heed at all, unless they bothered to throw him a look of appraisal or dislike. The restless young men watched him from edgy groups badly lit by torchlight, sneers on their mouths and hatred in their eyes. Those were the times Obadiah was glad for Uriah’s escort, though even alone he would not have been afraid, exactly. It was just that he knew the firestick was still at large, and he was not entirely sure all the Jansai had yet gotten the message that the angel was to be left unharmed while he roamed their city, or dire consequences would fall to all.
The young Jansai boys, however, didn’t seem to have realized that they were supposed to despise him, and they came tripping up to Obadiah all night. They bombarded him with questions—“How high can you fly?” “Do your fingers and toes ever freeze?” “Can you fly at night?” “Have you ever gotten lost?”—and came so close it was clear they were dying to touch his interlaced feathers. But Obadiah was nimble enough to elude most of those cautiously extended fingers while smilingly answering even the silliest of questions. Uriah alternated between showing great irritation at the constant interruptions and a certain amount of pride in indomitable young Jansai manhood that had no fear of angelic messengers.
“They swarm around like rats in a sewage hole, but how can you tie them to their mothers’ jeskas once they’ve reached such an age?” Uriah shrugged, minutes after chasing off two impudent boys who asked how much an angel’s wing feathers might sell for in the open market.
“I don’t mind them,” Obadiah said. “They’re friendlier than their fathers, at any rate.”
Uriah laughed. “Give them time, angelo,” he joked.
The crowds and the ale and the merchandise and the gaming Obadiah had expected from the harvest fair. What he had not expected was the music stage set up on the far edge of the gathering, and it had not even occurred to him that Uriah would ask him to sing. Or rather, bully him into it, despite Obadiah’s protests.
“I can’t think your average Jansai merchant will be much impressed with my voice,” he said seriously. “They’re more likely to stone me than applaud me.”
But Uriah was determined, and Obadiah thought he knew why: It gave the Jansai leader a certain amount of prestige to be seen in the company of an angel, especially if that angel appeared to be doing his bidding. But Obadiah did not really mind being constrained to perform, even in front of such a hostile audience. If, by some remote chance, Rebekah were in this crowd tonight and had failed to mark him as he made his slow progress across the fair, she would be almost certain to see him when he stepped onto the stage. See him or hear him. He had that much faith in the power of his voice.
Accordingly, he took the stage and smiled at the crowd, and gave them two songs that could offend nobody. He was rather proud of both his rendition and his reception, since it was obvious the audience had not expected to be moved by his performance. He wondered how many of them had heard an angel sing before—had made the pilgrimage to the Plain of Sharon to observe the Gloria, or visited Raphael’s debauched hold back when the Jansai and the Archangel were close allies. Some significant percentage of them, surely. And yet all of them appeared to be more moved than they had expected.
He bowed and exited the stage, trying not to give in to an irrational disappointment. Well, admit it, then, he had hoped for some divine reaction, a mark of the god’s favor. He had not been able to erase from his mind the tales of how Gabriel’s singing had always woken the colors in Rachel’s Kiss. He had hoped for some sort of similar miracle, fashioned just for him: a flare in the crystalline heart of his own Kiss, proof that Rebekah was near and had overheard him. And that the god approved.
Ridiculous. How could he have been so foolish? Even if the god had made some effort to bring together Rachel and Gabriel, Nathan and Maga, it was hard to believe Jovah could have such interest in the doomed romance of a minor angel and an unimportant Jansai girl.
He joined the conference held behind the stage and graciously accepted the compliments of the men who pushed back here just to give him their praise. Slowly that crowd dispersed, leaving only Uriah and his attendants, and Uriah’s energy was mostly directed to an argument with his son. A little bored by now, Obadiah glanced around the underlit clearing and was amused to see yet another Jansai boy hiding under the overhang of the platform, mesmerized by angel wings but too shy to come out of the shadows. He scarcely heard Uriah’s curses and apologies, but willingly agreed to meet the Jansai again in the morning. He was just as happy when everyone left, and he could turn his attention to the lurking admirer.
“You can come out and talk to me if you like,” he invited, but he had to continue to cajole for another five minutes. It was quiet and strangely restful back here behind the stage, a welcome break from all the hell-bent Jansai machismo he’d been bombarded with for the past few hours. The Semorran harpist played a pensive melody, neither happy nor mournful, and the sputtering torchlight lent the whole scene flickering unreality.
“My name’s Obadiah,” he said, thinking to coax the boy’s name out of him in return. But no, that just sent his small hand up to cover his mouth, scarcely to be seen anyway under the feathered mask of black and gold. The gesture sent the bracelets jangling on the boy’s wrist, and Obadiah’s eyes dropped automatically to the sound of gold against silver.
It was the silver that he recognized first. When he lifted his gaze to meet her own, it was the eyes he recognized next.
Chapter Fifteen
“I can’t believe you’re here,” the angel said.
Rebekah had taken three steps away from the overhang of the stage because, after all, what good did it do her to hide in shadows now that she had been discovered? But she was still having a hard time speaking.
“I looked for you, but then I thought—it would be too dangerous for you to try to come to this event, even in disguise, and so I gave up. But then I thought—if I sang—and you heard my voice—”
Incredible. He sounded as nervous as she felt, his words disjointed and his beautiful voice strained. He kept peering down at her, as if he was still not entirely positive she was the person he hoped to see. He was so tall. Behind him, the white wings lay like untouched snow, drifted into miraculously exquisite patterns.
“But I didn’t really think you’d be here.”
“Obadiah,” she said.
He stood utterly mute.
“Obadiah,” she said again, just to feel her lips shaping the syllables again. “I wasn’t going to come tonight. I was afraid to see you.”
&n
bsp; “Afraid—of me?”
She shook her head. “Of—seeing you. Of learning I had remembered you wrong.” She smiled a little, behind the mask. “Or that I had remembered you right. Just as bad, you see.”
“Yes,” he said with such passion that she was sure he understood her entirely cryptic remark. “But which is it?”
That made her laugh. “I remembered right,” she said.
“I can’t stand being in this city and having no way to see you,” he said. “I’ve been to Breven a hundred times, and never felt so—how can people live like this? How can you be so close to me and yet completely out of reach?”
“That’s just how it has always been,” she said. “That’s just my life.”
“I have to be able to see you,” he said.
She shifted on her feet and changed the subject. “How are your wounds?” she asked. “I don’t see any scarring on your wing.”
He brought his left wing forward with a slow, sweeping motion. It draped from his shoulder to the ground like a carelessly thrown shawl. “Not a mark on me,” he said. “I’m completely whole. My leg, too.”
“So you made it back to Cedar Hills without incident?”
He gave a rather hollow laugh. “Not exactly. I was sick for a few days. But I mended. How was the trip to Castelana?”
She grimaced. “Boring. No more angels to take care of. And very little to do on the whole trip except argue with my mother and take care of the baby.”
“You’re wearing my bracelet,” he said.
So he could change the subject just as quickly as she could. “Sometimes I do.”
“So you can be reminded of me?”
“I like it. It’s pretty. I don’t have much silver.”
“Point out the booth. I’ll buy you whatever silver trinkets you like.”
“I don’t need any more of your gifts, thank you.”
“Do you want me to go away?” he asked. “Do you want to forget me?”
She stared up at him. The feathers of the mask imperfectly rimmed the eyeholes, throwing little wavering fronds before her vision, making the edges blurry. Or maybe she was just having a hard time seeing clearly, thinking clearly. “I won’t be able to forget you, even if you go away,” she said.
