by Sharon Shinn
“Yes,” Martha said. “Hold still.”
Ten minutes after Ephram had left her behind, Martha stepped back through the garden gate, Rebekah right behind her. It was exhilaratingly terrifying to saunter down that street with no companion except another woman, totally at the mercy of the god and the inattention of the other fair-goers. Even once she had tied her feather mask in place, Rebekah felt vulnerable and on display. Her first few steps were so shaky that Martha hissed at her to hurry up, hold her head high, walk like a man if she was going to walk down the street at all.
Rebekah took a deep breath, envisioning Ephram’s customary swagger, and caught up with her cousin.
This night they did not aim for the crowded makeshift boulevards of the festival but skirted the most populated part of the city and headed for the hotel district instead. “I’ll come back for you two hours after midnight,” Martha said. “Don’t be late! Be waiting for me outside in the shadows or just inside the door.”
“Wait—if you’re leaving me at the hotel—you can’t walk through Breven by yourself!” Rebekah exclaimed.
“Oh, I’ll be fine.”
“But you—where are you going? How far?”
“Not far. And I’ll make sure Chesed comes back with me to the hotel.”
“Why can’t he meet you at the hotel?”
“Because I didn’t know until last night that a hotel was involved,” Martha said reasonably. “So I couldn’t tell him where to meet me.”
“So you—if I hadn’t come with you—you were going to go out by yourself? At night?”
Martha rolled her eyes behind her mask and quickened her pace. “I’m going to stop telling you things if you act so shocked every time I open my mouth.”
“No—but—by yourself—it’s so dangerous—”
“And I don’t think you have any right to scold me, seeing as you’re scampering off to meet an angel, who is even worse than a Manadavvi, if you were to ask our fathers—”
“Yes, but I—that’s not it—walking around alone—”
Martha gave a little snort that fit very well with her costume. “I don’t think the world is nearly as dangerous as we have been led to believe,” she said scornfully. “We hide in our houses all day—all our lives—and what is there to fear outside their walls? Only the brothers and fathers and sons of our friends! Will they harm us? I—”
“Yes,” Rebekah interjected. “You heard that story. Two years ago. About the girl who was caught on the streets of Breven without an escort. She was stoned to death by the men who saw her, and her family never asked for reparation. They would have stoned her themselves, if they’d known where she was.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen to us.”
Rebekah wanted to ask her how she was so sure, but she knew the answer: Martha was sure because that was the way Martha wanted it to be. Rebekah was conscious with every step of the perils around them, but she continued on, determined as her cousin, because that was how she wanted it to be, too.
No, she certainly had no right to scold Martha.
The Hotel Verde finally materialized on a poorly lit street several blocks away from the fair. They could hear faint strains of music and catch the arching halo of torchlight over the market district, but this particular street was both quiet and dark. The hotel itself looked solemn and judgmental, built of thick white stone that was designed to turn away summer heat. Three steps led up to a banded wooden door. There were no hedges or ornamental buttresses behind which a runaway might hide.
Rebekah had never been inside a hotel before. She found it hard to guess what it must be like, though she imagined it to be a very big house with nothing but sleeping chambers. She hoped she did not walk through this door and into someone’s bedroom.
“Two hours after midnight,” she said, her voice wavering a bit. “I’ll be here.”
Unexpectedly, Martha leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. Rebekah drew back sharply, hoping no one was near enough to see. Jansai boys did not kiss each other under any circumstances. “Good luck,” Martha said, smiling behind her mask. “Enjoy yourself.”
Rebekah nodded and climbed the steps. The door resisted a moment before giving way to the pressure of her hand, and she stepped inside.
She was in a huge atrium, tiled in a creamy tan ceramic and filled with plants and vines. She could hear the sound of running water—there was an extravagance in a desert town!—though she couldn’t locate its source. Discreet gaslight rimmed the room to create a soft glow, easy to see by though far from harsh. A young woman was seated at a desk in the center of the atrium, looking over some papers.
She looked up when the door shut behind Rebekah and seemed to wait for the visitor to step forward. When Rebekah stayed frozen by the door, the young woman stood and walked over, a pleasant smile on her face.
“Yes, m’kash?” she asked in a quiet voice. M’kash, Rebekah thought. She thinks I’m a boy. Of course, Rebekah had gone to a great deal of trouble to make everyone think she was a boy, but she hadn’t been sure the ruse would work. “May I help you?”
“I’m looking—I’m looking for one of your guests,” Rebekah said, trying to pitch her own voice in its lowest natural register. “I have a message for him.”
“Would you like paper and ink? I can deliver a note.”
Rebekah shook her head. “No, I have to see him.”
“Is he here? Is he expecting you?”
“He is—he is possibly expecting me. I thought I might await him in his room if he is not here.”
The Manadavvi woman looked skeptical. She had huge eyes and perfectly slanted cheekbones, and she was scented with floral creams. Rebekah wondered why Obadiah would even be interested in seeing a plain Jansai woman again when he could gaze every day at the face of a Manadavvi heiress.
“If he has told me he is expecting visitors,” the woman said, “I can allow you to wait in his room. But if not—you understand—our guests value their privacy, and I cannot be certain you truly have business with him—”
“It’s urgent,” Rebekah burst out.
The woman nodded gravely. “And who is it you’re looking for?”
Rebekah took a deep breath. “The angel. Obadiah.”
Now the woman gave her a sharp look as if suddenly trying to see behind the mask of black and gold feathers. Rebekah wondered if something had given her away—a change in her voice, the sudden desperation that no Jansai boy would show—but the woman merely nodded. “I believe he is in his room, in fact,” she said quietly. “He returned shortly after dinnertime and has not left again. He must surely be awaiting your visit.”
“Can you take me to him?”
“Follow me.”
They crossed the atrium, passing by a low fountain of rocks and ferns that was the source of the gurgling noise. Hallways opened off the atrium in five spokes, and the Manadavvi led Rebekah down the one guarded by a blue marble statue of an eagle in flight. Luminauzi work, thought Rebekah automatically, since that type of stone was quarried only near the Blue City. Not that she cared where it came from or whether or not the artist had been any good. She noted it only so she would know her passage out—or her return course, should she ever be back here.
They passed five doors on the right and six on the left—Rebekah counting to mark her way—before the woman stopped at a door on her right. And knocked. And waited less than thirty seconds before the door was flung open, and Obadiah stood there, feathers making an aureole around his body, his face as eager and boyish as Jordan’s on a day he expected a rare treat.
“I brought you a visitor, angelo,” the woman said, but she might have been made of porcelain and fabric for all the attention the angel paid her. He was staring straight at Rebekah, and he looked as nervous as she felt.
“You came,” he said. “Jovah and all the angels rejoice.”
Chapter Sixteen
At first it was awkward. They stood in the middle of a gracious room crammed with riches, and just loo
ked at each other.
“Do you—are you hungry?” Obadiah asked suddenly. “I have food and—oh, or if you’re thirsty! Wine and juice and water. I didn’t know what you might like.”
“I’m not allowed to drink much wine,” she said, and then wished she hadn’t said it, because it made her sound like a stupid little girl. “But I like it,” she added quickly.
“Maybe one glass,” he said. “I could use it myself but—but maybe I shouldn’t be getting you drunk! I’m committing all sorts of crimes here. I suppose I shouldn’t add that one, too.”
She smiled behind her mask. “One glass, then. One small one.”
“That’s good,” he said and hurried across the room to a table where he had set out all sorts of delicacies. White cheese and fresh bread and small purple fruits that she did not recognize. Maybe they were cousin to those delicate crops that Martha’s Manadavvi friend harvested on his father’s land. He was beside her again in a few moments, two fragile wineglasses in his hands. He extended one to her, and then drew it back.
“I think—if you would—I mean, I don’t see how you can drink through the mask,” he said.
“Oh.” Of course it was silly to think she would leave this ridiculous mask on the whole time she was with the angel. She had done so many other more unpardonable acts that allowing him to look on her face would be the least of her sins. Still, she felt dreadfully self-conscious as she put her hands up to untie the strings. She slipped the mask into her pocket and then gave Obadiah a tilted, defiant look.
“Oh—” he said and started laughing, though he tried to stop himself. “You are—I remember the face and the eyes very well but—”
She was both humiliated and furious. “But what? But I am not so beautiful as you thought I was?” She clawed for the mask again, but he had set down both glasses and caught her wrists in his hands before she could even lift it toward her face.
“No, your face is perfect and I am so happy to be given the privilege of seeing it again. But you—there is—I don’t remember this sort of black dust being on your chin before.”
“Oh!” Now she remembered the charcoal and felt her skin flame under the flimsy disguise. She had had charcoal on her chin last night, too, but he had seen her face so briefly by such unreliable light that he might not have noticed. Now Rebekah turned her head from side to side, trying to conceal her features. “Oh, I forgot. This is awful—”
“It’s a different look, but not unattractive.”
She pulled away from him and he let his hands fall. “It’s supposed to look like a beard. If someone sees behind the mask. So no one suspects who I am.”
“Very effective,” he said solemnly. “Though I have to confess I am not quite fooled.”
“But you would be at night on the street,” she said. “Is there—do you have some cloth I can dampen so I can wipe this away?”
“Yes, but if you’re going back out later tonight, maybe you should leave it in place?”
She gave him one quick look of exasperation. “I am not going to sit here and try to talk to you knowing I have charcoal all over my face. It is too embarrassing!”
“Then let me get a wet cloth. I’ll be back in a moment.”
He slipped through a doorway, and she heard a series of small splashes. Surely that could not be a water room, his very own, attached to the bedroom? She could not imagine such luxury. He returned quickly with a damp towel in his hands. She reached for it but he pulled it back.
“Let me,” he said. “I am not yet accustomed to the thrill of stripping away your disguises.”
That made her blush again, but she squared her shoulders and turned her face up to him. “You don’t have to rub very hard,” she said. “But it will ruin your towel.”
“Not my towel,” he murmured. He had one hand under her chin, and with the other he slowly and pleasurably ran the thick cloth over her skin. She imagined the charcoal smearing, then wiping away on his second and third pass. His face was so close that she could see the whorls and texture of his skin, not as fine as hers and stubbled very lightly with a true beard. He smelled like soap and feathers, as if he had bathed recently, in anticipation of her arrival.
“There,” he said, backing away and dropping his hand. His eyes, blue as summer, scanned her face. He smiled. “All clean.”
“Thank you. Now I do need that wine.”
He handed her a glass, and she sipped from it as she walked slowly about the room. Her practiced eye priced the wall hangings, the furnishings, and the flooring. “I’ve never been in a hotel room before,” she remarked. “Are they all like this?”
He laughed. “Hardly. Most places I’ve stayed have been dank little taverns in some town so small it doesn’t have a name. Taproom on the ground floor, three musty rooms upstairs, and you’re pretty sure the bedding hasn’t been changed since the last guest stayed overnight.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand, and his wing rose and fell with the motion. “But this is a Manadavvi establishment, so you can be assured of every comfort.”
“I think I’d like to be a Manadavvi,” she said, pausing in her perambulations and turning to face him. Six feet of hand-woven rug lay on the floor between them.
He laughed again. “Well, they’re greedy, arrogant, and impossible to trust, but they are sophisticated,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to be one, and I’m not always at ease when I’m with them, but I certainly enjoy their hospitality.”
“But you’re only here for another day, aren’t you?” she asked, sipping from her wineglass.
He was watching her. “But I’ll be coming back quite often.”
She gave him a half-smile. “It was so easy to slip out of the house tonight,” she said. “I always thought more people would be watching. My mother or my aunts. But no one paid any attention at all. And we walked down the streets and no one even looked at us.”
“We?”
“My cousin and I. Martha.”
“Oh yes. I met her last night. The wild one.”
Rebekah nodded emphatically. “Wilder than I even thought.”
“I take it she was not shocked when she learned of your destination?”
“My destination! Her own is even more appalling. And the things she has been telling me—sometimes I wonder if I have ever known her as well as I thought.”
“People will surprise you every day,” he said. “You’ve surprised me tonight.”
She gave another little smile. “You didn’t think I’d come?”
“I didn’t think you’d even want to come.”
She started her measured pacing again. He pivoted slowly to keep his eyes on her, his wing feathers dipping and trailing over the sculptured pattern of the rug. “It’s confusing,” she admitted. “Part of me is shocked at my own behavior. I don’t even know you. What am I doing here? Why do I care if I ever see you again? And part of me—” She shook her head and continued pacing, keeping her gaze trained on the carpet. “Part of me is so happy and so excited that I can’t even think. That I can’t even weigh the risks and stop to examine my own behavior. It’s like I have two people inside of me, and one of them is someone I never met before.” She glanced over at him, then back at the rug. “But she seems more real to me than Martha, or my brother, or myself—the self I always thought I was.”
She fell silent then, not sure if she’d said too much, not sure if she’d said anything that made any sense. He waited a moment, seeming to consider his own thoughts, and then spoke in a similarly flat and quiet voice. “I am having some of those same battles,” he said. “You saved my life, and so I owe you something, but that doesn’t explain this great—this incredible need I feel to see you again. It’s like how you wake up in the morning and all you can think of is food, and until you eat you can’t think of anything else. Except it’s not just in the morning, and it’s not a craving I can explain. You are—what do I know about you? You’re a stranger. I thought you could only miss the people you already consider your friends.”
She gave him a swift look for that. “Exactly!”
He shrugged. “But that’s how it feels. Like I miss you. Like you are a part of my life that’s missing. I don’t know why that should be so.”
“I don’t know anything about love,” she said hesitantly. “Maybe that’s what it always feels like.”
He grinned a little. “I have played at love from time to time,” he said, “and sometimes I wasn’t playing. But this feels different to me.”
She stopped pacing and faced him. “I’m glad it’s different,” she said. “With me.”
“I imagine everything would be different with you.”
“But I don’t know what happens next,” she said.
He took a step nearer, and she did not back away. “Why did you come here tonight?” he asked.
“They fitted me for my wedding dress today.”
He smiled faintly. “That might be a reason not to come.”
“And the things they said—” She gave her head a series of little shakes. “I’m not so sure I will enjoy being married.”
He seemed to be choosing his words with care. “I don’t know what marriage to a Jansai man is like. Some people—people who are not Jansai—find marriage quite pleasant.”
“My mother seems happy enough.”
“Do you want to marry him? Isaac?”
She was surprised he had remembered the name of her betrothed—but then, not surprised. She thought she would remember the name of any woman Obadiah might casually mention. “It doesn’t have anything to do with wanting or not wanting. It’s what my life holds.”
He came another step closer. They were only a few feet apart now. “But if you could choose?” he said. “Would you marry him?”
She gazed up at him, aware that her confusion and longing must be showing on her face, not having any idea how to conceal them. “Not just yet,” she replied in a low voice.
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she could feel their heat and weight. It was like he was made of heat, fashioned of fever wrapped around solid bones. “If I kissed you,” he said, “would it frighten you?”
