by Sharon Shinn
There was a moment’s silence. Rebekah had finally forced herself to open her eyes, but Jordan couldn’t meet her gaze anyway. He was standing before her, his head turned away, his hands—his whole body—shaking like a sick old woman’s. She realized for the first time that he was taller than she was, though he was still slim and eager and childlike in so many ways. Not a true Jansai man, not yet. Not one of them.
“What did you do then?” she asked, her voice oddly calm.
“I took Shem back to Ezra’s house, and I told Ezra’s cousin what had happened. Shem was sick, throwing up on the side of the road as we came back. Ezra’s cousin—he started swearing, and then he sort of pushed me out the gate. I guess—I guess he’s going to tell Martha’s mother—”
Rebekah nodded. “Have you told Hector yet?”
He shook his head. “No, I—I just wanted to—I just wanted to find you, I wanted you to hear it from me before—I wanted you to—”
He couldn’t complete a sentence. His trembling grew more pronounced, and then he started crying. Rebekah put her arms around him and drew him down to the stone bench where she had been sitting. He sobbed and sobbed, making no attempt to hide the shameful emotion, clinging to her as he had never clung to their mother, even when he was little. She shushed him, stroked his hair, talked to him in the same soothing tones she used with Jonah, but she knew there was no comfort. She knew there was no way to make him whole again.
“What will—what will they do to her?” he hiccuped, his face still against her shoulder. “Will they stone her to death? Why did they need the wagon? Why will they be gone till tomorrow night?”
Almost, she didn’t want to tell him. But someone else would—Ephram or Ezra or Hector, or one of those jeering Jansai boys who imagined themselves men already. “They’ll drive far enough out in the desert that she can’t find her way home,” Rebekah said quietly. “They’ll leave her there with no food or water. They might stone her, or kick her, or hurt her in some way, but they won’t kill her outright. And they’ll drive away, leaving her to wander in the desert for however many days it takes her to die of thirst or exposure. It’s cold now, of course. It might not take her very long.”
He raised his head to stare at her, horror breaking through the blotchy red and the streaks of tears. He looked like he, not Martha, had been pummeled by men in the marketplace. “But she’ll—but—but Bekah—”
She pushed the hair away from his forehead. She was so calm. Her hands weren’t even shaking. “I know,” she said quietly. “She will die, Jordan. They will leave her to die. Our uncle and our cousin and their friends have taken Martha in the desert to die.”
His face crumpled, and he started sobbing again. Rebekah held him as tightly as she could, rocking him as she would rock Jonah, and wondered how she could be so composed, so detached. She could picture it, every detail Jordan had described, and those she could not stop herself from imagining. It was too warm tonight; Martha would survive this first day in the open. But tomorrow might be colder—and, perhaps, if Jovah was kind, it was already colder out in the desert, closer to the Caitanas, than it was here on the very edge of the sea. Maybe those frigid winds would blow down from the mountains this very evening, wrap their chill, kind arms around Martha’s tense body, and carry her off to sleep and death. That was the best to hope for.
Rebekah prayed for ice.
“She’s dead,” Jordan was sobbing into her jeska. “Martha’s dead.”
Yes, Rebekah thought, suddenly realizing why she was so serene. And I will be soon.
Chapter Twenty-six
There was never any denying Rachel. If she wanted to know something, you might as well tell her right away, because she would not stop harassing you until you told her every detail, answered every question. Obadiah had tried evasiveness before. It had never worked.
But he was determined not to tell her about Rebekah. So instead, because he was not good at fabricating lies, he told her about Zoe.
“So where did you meet this woman?” Rachel asked him.
“In Breven.”
“In Breven! No one meets women there.”
“I’m unique, then.”
“Under what circumstances did you meet her?”
“There’s a hotel. She helps her family run it.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. It was three days after her arrival, three days after the lavish dinner party thrown in her honor, and Rachel had only waited so long to grill him because she had been preoccupied with Magdalena, who had gone into early labor. But Maga had stabilized, though she seemed to require a great deal of rest, and Rachel had taken the opportunity to hunt Obadiah down.
“You became friendly with a Jansai woman in a Breven hotel?”
“Ah. She’s not Jansai,” he said. “She’s Manadavvi.”
“Well, you could have made that clear earlier!”
“Pardon me, Rachel, but what I could have made clear earlier is that I don’t really want to be discussing my romantic life.”
She grinned. A happy marriage and enormous responsibilities had not really tamed the defiant child in her. There would be something of the street urchin about Rachel till the day she died. This despite the fact that she wore her golden hair pinned back with sapphire clips and dressed in the finest Luminauzi silks. “Who cares what you really want,” she said. “I want to determine if this woman is good enough for you.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” he interposed. “How’s Gabriel? Is he disappointed with me? I’ve made so little progress on this Jansai issue.”
“Actually, he seems quite pleased with you. He’s never managed to get Uriah to agree to see him on two consecutive visits, and all of the Jansai hate him without reservation. Well, he hates them, too. Well, so do I. Who doesn’t? So you’ve done better than he hoped.”
“We haven’t reached any resolution.”
“I say, let’s call down thunderbolts and destroy the whole city of Breven,” said Rachel, always the extremist. “That would solve everything.”
“But realistically, how many Samarian landmarks can Gabriel annihilate during his tenure as Archangel?” he teased. “First, Mount Galo—”
“That was not Gabriel’s fault!”
“Then, Windy Point—”
“It deserved to come down.”
“And now Breven? After a while, the people in Semorrah and Castelana and Luminaux will start to wonder if they are next on the Archangel’s list.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing Semorrah go up in flames, but I suppose I’m the only one,” Rachel grumbled. “But no one would miss Breven.”
Obadiah thought of the bright markets, the rowdy street festivals, the difficult, obstructive men, the silent, secretive women. “I would miss Breven,” he said softly.
Rachel shook her head impatiently. “Oh, we’d make sure your innkeeper’s daughter was safely out before Gabriel prayed for lightning.”
“No, I’d miss the whole city, I think,” Obadiah said. “There are many things about the way it is run that I find hard to understand—appalling, even—but there is a great deal of energy and beauty in the Jansai culture. It is very fierce, very pure. Exotic. The whole time I’m in that city I feel like I could be on a different world altogether. I would miss it if it was gone.”
Rachel was watching him with that predatory intentness she brought to anything that interested her. “You lied to me,” she said.
He showed surprise. “About what?”
“That girl you love. She’s no Manadavvi. She’s a Jansai.”
He could not think of a facile answer quick enough, and his silence betrayed him. “How is that possible?” Rachel asked wonderingly. “That you could meet a Jansai woman, and often enough to come to love her? How have you managed that? Even you?”
“The story is too long, and I don’t want to tell it.”
“How does it end?” she asked. “Or has it ended already?”
“Jovah, I hope not,” he said.
“When will you see her again?”
“As soon as I can get back to Breven. But Nathan has interdicted the trip, and I think Gabriel supports him.”
Rachel was unimpressed. “Go back,” she said. “Right now. Tomorrow. If you really love this girl, don’t wait another day. Bring her back to Cedar Hills with you.”
“She’s afraid to leave her family—everyone she knows. She says she won’t have any friends in Cedar Hills.”
Rachel gave him that radiant smile, always irresistible. Even now, it warmed him through from eyebrow to wing tip. “I’ll be her friend,” she said. “And when the angelica is your friend, you are never lonely.”
“You hate Jansai,” he retorted.
“Even if I hate her, I will love her for your sake,” she said. “I would bring down Breven for you. I would spare it for you, too. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for someone you loved.”
“If I can convince her to come—”
“Don’t ask her. Just bring her.”
“Oh, yes, like such coercion always worked so well with you.”
She smiled again, mischief in every line of her face. “But perhaps she is more tractable than I am,” she said. “Anybody would be.”
In fact, it was another two days before he could leave for Breven. He wanted to check on Maga, who was pale but determinedly cheerful when he finally saw her, and he accepted a few nearby commissions from Nathan. But finally, early one chilly and overcast morning, he set out for the desert city, arriving well after full dark.
Uriah would not welcome him at this juncture, so there was no need to advertise his presence. He made one brief stop, landing silently on the rooftop of a certain well-maintained mansion, and left a signal behind on the skylight: a colorful scarf weighted in place with a flat stone. Anyone working in the room below might glance up and see the strange bounty blown in by a playful wind; only one woman in the house would recognize it for the message it was.
Then he checked into the Hotel Verde, flashing his bracelets at the Manadavvi clerk who was stationed at the registration desk. Zoe was nowhere in sight and this young man—not her brother, Obadiah thought—did not seem inclined to gossip. Indeed, he looked quite grim. Obadiah asked no questions, just showed himself to his room.
Unreasonable to expect Rebekah to get his signal and be able to join him that very night, but he could not help himself: He felt an incandescent excitement shimmering through him, lighting the interior surfaces of his bones, shining a candle inside the cathedral of his heart. He was nervous, actually, pacing the room like a young boy preparing to meet his first lover, rehearsing what to say. But there were only a few words, after all. I’ve missed you so much. I’m so glad to see you again. I love you.
He ate hastily, showered even more quickly, and headed back out into the night. He flew low enough over the city that he would spot Rebekah if, by some miracle, she had found his message and was already on her way. But there were very few people abroad at this hour, and most of them were walking in groups or riding in horse-drawn wagons. No fugitive girl flitting down the unlit back streets, heading for an illicit tryst. Indeed, the whole city seemed deserted, as if it had been visited by tragedy and no one wanted to stray far from home.
Obadiah arrived at Hector’s house and set his feet quietly on the roof, wings outstretched to take his weight so that no untoward sound clattered down to the sleeping inhabitants. A few steps over to find the right vantage point, and then he gracefully folded himself into a seated position, right in front of the trapdoor. He would find himself in an embarrassing predicament if anyone else lifted that door and stepped onto the roof, whether for legitimate or unauthorized purposes. He didn’t know how he would explain away his presence, since voyeurism would be almost as unpalatable as the truth. He just had to hope that everyone else in the household was asleep or engaged elsewhere, and he settled himself in to wait.
It was a cold night, growing steadily colder as he sat there, but Obadiah rather enjoyed the chill. He was dressed in his flying leathers, and the air on Hector’s roof was no more frigid than the air at high altitudes, and considerably less windy. He leaned back on his elbows to survey the sky, gaudy with constellations. If he reached out his hands, he was sure he could swipe his fingers through the stars, come away with diamonds between his fingertips.
The hours passed, and Rebekah did not emerge from the winter stairwell. Obadiah had eventually lain flat on his back, wings spread carelessly across the roof, hands clasped under his head, and given himself up to waiting. But by the time midnight was an hour gone, he was fairly certain Rebekah would not be coming. He pushed himself to his feet, shook his head to focus his thoughts, and drove his wings down hard to make the stationary takeoff. He was back in his room a few minutes later, and sleeping shortly after that.
The next day he didn’t rise till noon. He had no incentive to get up earlier: There was little he could do till evening, and he did not especially want to show himself around the city. Angels rarely had the luxury of completely unstructured time—particularly lately, when angels were in such short supply—so he hardly knew what to do with himself. He leafed through a novel that some other guest had left in the room, and he spent about an hour quietly practicing vocalizing exercises, but he didn’t really feel free to sing aloud, since he didn’t want to disturb any of his neighbors.
Not until dinnertime did he leave his room, heading downstairs to the hotel restaurant. He was pleased to see Zoe stationed at the registration desk, and he crossed through the atrium to greet her.
“Angelo,” she said, showing a certain faint pleasure at seeing him. “When did you arrive?”
“Last night, late. You weren’t around.”
“How long will you be staying?”
“I’m not sure. A day or two. Depending on—” He shrugged.
Zoe glanced quickly around the lobby, but no one was near enough to overhear. “I’m not sure your friend will be able to get away to meet with you,” she said, keeping her voice low. “There has been such a disaster here.”
He felt his heart immediately bound with worry. “What?”
Zoe, he noticed suddenly, looked as tense and unhappy as the young man who had watched the desk the night before. “Five days ago. There was a Jansai girl who apparently had taken a Manadavvi lover. No one I knew. His family ran a freighting caravan out of Monteverde country. Apparently they were here every few weeks, and somehow this girl had come to know him. And all the usual circumstances unfolded.”
“Yes,” he said, for he knew about those circumstances.
“And five days ago, she went to see him during the day, and they were in a tent behind one of the booths in the market square. And—how could the god allow such a dreadful mischance?—that same day her brother and some of her cousins went strolling through the market, and they came to this very booth—”
“They found her.”
Zoe nodded. She looked both sad and infinitely angry. “They found her. They dragged her screaming from her lover’s arms. The whole market came alive with Jansai men, running over to beat this one poor girl—this girl they didn’t even know, whose face they had never seen in their lives—came over to make sure that their barbaric form of justice could be served on her. Well, of course, the Manadavvi did what they could to save her—my brother has talked to the men of the caravan, you can imagine how distraught they are—but there were too many Jansai. They dragged her off.”
He could hardly bear to ask the words. What happened to this nameless Jansai girl could happen to any other disobedient woman. “Dragged her off where?”
Zoe stared at him, both sorrowful and implacable. It was strange to see such conflicting emotions on one still, serene face. “Off to the desert, so my brother says. Where they left her to die.”
Obadiah recoiled as if he’d been slapped. “But she—certainly they—you mean, they gave her food and water, so that if she is lucky, and encounters some other merchant caravan—”
Z
oe shook her head and said nothing.
Obadiah began pacing. “Sweet Jovah, sweet lord of the heavens,” he muttered. “Then, if they will treat one girl this way—”
“I’m afraid your friend could be in some danger,” Zoe said.
“Yes! Great danger! She always was, and I knew it, but somehow I managed to convince myself—” He shook his head and paced some more. “I must get her out of Breven.”
“I don’t think you’ll accomplish that any time soon. My brother says there have been no women on the streets these past few days, not even the poor women from the tent circle, who come in from time to time to buy produce. Not even going from house to house under the protection of their men. He says he thinks every Jansai woman in the city has been confined to her house—locked inside—probably guarded more closely than ever before. I don’t think your friend will make it out tonight.”
Obadiah stopped his striding and stood before Zoe’s desk. “I would not even want her to make the attempt,” he said bleakly.
But Rebekah would not have to go far. Just up the stairs. Just to the roof. He would carry her to safety if she could just make it those few steps.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I wish there was something I could do to help you.”
He nodded. “I will stay a day or two anyway,” he said. “Just in case she—just to see what might happen.”
“We are always happy to have you in our establishment, angelo,” she said formally.
He nodded. “Thank you for the information. It is horrifying, but it comforts me a little to know what her circumstances are, and that if she does not come to me, it will not be because she does not want to.”
Zoe allowed herself to smile. “If I were you, I would not permit myself any doubt.”
He made his way to the restaurant, suddenly stripped of all appetite, but he forced himself to eat anyway. He did not know how quickly or violently he might be forced into action, and he wanted to keep himself fit and fed against the possibility of sudden flight. It was possible—quite possible—that the house doors and garden gates were guarded at Hector’s house, but that no one had thought to post sentries in all the interior corridors. How much ground did she have to cover, anyway—perhaps a hallway or two, a couple of stairwells? If she could just win free to the roof! Even if her stepfather was chasing after her madly, even if the whole mansion was roused to fury, she would be safe if she could just get close enough to be swept up in the angel’s arms.
