Angel-Seeker (23 page)

But the strangest was: He was here, no more than a mile or two from the woman he was determined to see again, and he had not the faintest idea how he could go about contacting her. She might as well be dead and curled sleeping in Jovah's arms for all the good it would do him to be here and trying to find a way to see her.

Uriah affected to be suitably shocked at the news that Obadiah had suffered harm the last time he had left Breven. “And
what
was this weapon that brought you down?” he asked for the second time. “A—a missile of fire? That's extraordinary.”

“Extraordinarily painful, too,” Obadiah said serenely. They were drinking a very good wine in Uriah's pavilion, and all of the Jansai's disciples and sycophants had been ordered from the tent. Obadiah wouldn't have minded speaking in front of a handful of listeners, but he thought Uriah liked the cachet of special knowledge and extra privileges. “I have never felt anything quite like it.”

“What could such a weapon be made of?” Uriah asked in a marveling voice. “And who might have such a thing?”

“Both excellent questions,” Obadiah said. “Although there was talk, a year or two ago, that Raphael and some of his allies possessed sticks that could throw fire.”

“Aaahhhh,” Uriah said. “So at one time such a weapon was in the hands of the angels! How curious.”

“In the hands of the angels,” Obadiah agreed, “and in the hands of the Jansai. For Malachi of Breven was seen with such a firestick in his possession.”

“Have you any enemies among the angels?” Uriah asked innocently.

“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 slightest 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.”