Angelica (35 page)

Her voice had been perfectly pleasant, but he felt like he had been rebuffed. As if his suggestions had no merit but she was too polite to say so. This reunion was not going at all the way he had visualized. Instead of feeling more at ease with her as the minutes passed, he felt more clumsy, more stupid. “I meant to ask much sooner,” he said. “How was Miriam when you left her?”

She gave a little laugh, as if embarrassed that she, too, had forgotten the reason she had left the Eyrie in the first place. “She seemed fine. Frida was happy to take her in and treat her as one of her own daughters. Miriam behaved very well—she was quite polite—though that is no guarantee that she did not turn into a wild child the minute I left the bakery. She has promised to keep in touch, but I don't expect her to keep the promise. I expect . . .” She laughed again, a little more hopelessly. “I don't know what I expect.”

“We will have to wait and see,” he said. “I, at least, appreciate what you have done for my sister.”

“I would do anything for her,” she said. “I love Miriam.”

“Yes,” he said, and then his voice caught, and he had nothing more to add.

After a little pause, she said, “I'm glad you're back, Gaaron.”

“Yes,” he said a second time. “It is good to see you again.” And then he gave her a sober smile, nodded again in a formal manner, and turned to pace down the hall. He thought he could feel her watching him, but she made no move to follow, and did not call out his name as he walked away.

M
iriam watched Susannah stroll away, her head bent over Keren's, her laugh floating back along the cobalt cobblestones. In Luminaux, even the noises were blue; the laugh sounded azure, the color of a spring sky. It did not make Miriam feel at all mirthful.

Frida came to stand beside her. She was a generously sized woman, with the creamy brown skin and radiant black hair of all Edori, and there was a certain calm purposefulness about her. “You might find it hard to settle in, at first,” Frida said. “Would you like to have this afternoon free, to look around Luminaux, or would you like to come in and learn what we do in the bakery?”

It was kind of her to offer options, Miriam thought. She turned toward the door. “I've been to Luminaux,” she said, her voice indifferent but polite. “Why don't you let me see the bakery?”

So Frida took her to the kitchen and showed her where the flour was kept, the cool cistern where the butter and milk were stored, the pantry full of spices, the books full of recipes. There was also the sink full of dirty pans, and a pipe system as good as the Eyrie's for carrying water into the building and away.

“Looks like a lot of work,” Miriam commented.

“It is,” Frida said. “But I like it.”

“Do you want me to start on the dishes?” Miriam offered. “I don't know how to mix recipes, but I do know how to clean a pot.”

Frida smiled. “That would be a great help, thank you. We generally close the front of the shop in early evening, just after everyone's gone home for dinner, because we open so early in the morning. We come back here and clean up, then have our own dinners.”

“You live nearby?”

“Upstairs. My oldest daughter moved away last spring, you can have her room to yourself.”

“That's very kind of you,” Miriam said politely.

“We're happy to have you here,” Frida said.

Miriam said little more than commonplaces as she drew the hot water and filled the sink with soap. She could hear Frida moving around the kitchen behind her, wrapping up softened cakes of butter and scraping burned spills of dough from the stove. Even farther away, she could hear the voices of Frida's daughters from the front room, talking to customers and laughing with each other. It was a still and quiet place, redolent with aromas so rich they acted on her almost like wine; her mind felt relaxed and unfocused.

“What about this pan? I think it might need to soak overnight.”

“It always does. Just run some water in it when you're done with the rest of the pots.”

“Anything else before I dry off my hands?”

“Just this one little dish, if you don't mind.”

The girls came laughing in, taking off their aprons and telling some tale of a man who, apparently, dropped by every single day for a cherry-filled pastry. “We pretended we had sold the last one, and he was so sad! He said, ‘Really? But you didn't save one for me? Here, let me pay you now for the whole next week so that you will always save one for me.' Then I felt a little bad, but he looked so happy when we brought out the one that we had hidden that I stopped feeling bad.”

“Why don't you girls help Miriam carry her things up to
your sister's room? I'm sure she's tired, and we'll let her go straight to bed as soon as we've had our dinner.”

Miriam followed the sisters up a rather narrow staircase to a pretty set of rooms on the second story of the building. None of the rooms was very big, but they were all furnished with colorful Edori scarves and rugs as well as the pottery and glassware so readily available in Luminaux. The windows overlooked the busy streets still crowded with people hurrying home to their own dinners. The sunlight was beginning to fade and the gaslights were starting to come up, and even the flames in the glass globes burned blue.

Miriam's room was tiny, barely big enough to accommodate a small bed and a somewhat dilapidated dresser, but the scarlet bedspread and flowered curtains gave it a happy air. “Oh, I like this,” Miriam exclaimed. “It's so cheerful.”

“My mother said that at the Eyrie, every bedroom has its own water room, but here there is only one for all of us,” the oldest girl apologized.

“That should be fine,” Miriam said.

“Are you hungry? We usually eat right away.”

“Yes, I'm starved. Can I do anything to help get the meal ready?”

About half an hour later, the four of them ate a simple dinner around a small table wedged into one corner of the main room. The girls were still laughing and talking, though now they were talking about boys who worked at the studio down the street and not about customers with a yen for sweets. Frida appeared absorbed in daily sales reports, though she looked up once in a while to make a comment that showed she had not missed a word of the conversation.

And then, from time to time, her thoughtful gaze rested on Miriam and she considered the young hold-born girl as if none of this meekness and good nature fooled her for a minute. During those inspections, Miriam found it harder to maintain her expression of amiability and spent most of her energy finishing up the meal on her plate.

“Well, let's clear the table and then the two of you can be off, if you want,” Frida remarked eventually, coming to her feet. “Miriam, feel free to go with them—they're just
going down the street to meet some of their friends. They'll be happy to take you with them.”

Miriam stood up, too. “No—it's been rather a long day. I think I'll just go to my room and lie down.”

“Good idea,” Frida said somewhat dryly. “We rise well before the sun does to start the first round of baking.”

“Oh, surely
she
doesn't have to—not on her very first day,” the younger girl protested. “Let her sleep in just once.”

Frida shrugged. “Very well. Tomorrow morning you can sleep in, but I'll expect you down in the bakery before the sun's been up very long.”

Miriam smiled at her champion. “Thank you, I'll do both of those things,” she said. “And thank you for the meal. It was most delicious.”

She detoured to the very cramped water room so she could clean off the dust of travel and the invisible stain of abandonment. There was a small mirror hanging above the tiny sink, and she peered into it to see if she could read anything on her face. No; her brown eyes looked perfectly calm, her fair face serene and unpinched. No one who did not know her well would be able to read anything amiss in her cheeks and eyelids. Even Susannah had not been able to tell how furious she was.

But, of course, Susannah did not care.

Back in her room, she settled herself onto the hard, narrow mattress, so different from her luxurious bed at the Eyrie, and willed herself to sleep. She was indeed tired, exhausted from three days' worth of holding in her extreme sense of rage and injustice. She had not known exactly what she would to do punish Gaaron and Susannah, but she had been sure something would occur to her—and yesterday it had. It was perfect. She just wanted to make sure Susannah was safely out of the city before she put her plan into practice.

She slept the untroubled sleep of the righteous, and woke briefly when she heard the three women gather for breakfast. She allowed herself another hour of sleep, then rolled out of bed, rested and purposeful. A quick cleaning in the water room, an even quicker repacking of all her things, and she headed downstairs with her duffel bags over her shoulders.

Frida was in the kitchen when she emerged from the stairwell; the girls were no doubt at the front counter. The Edori woman looked her up and down, taking in the luggage, the travel clothes, the mulish expression.

“I'm going out to the Lohora camp before they move on,” Miriam said coolly. “I'm going to travel with them for a few months.”

Frida nodded. “Is that what it is?” she said. “I knew you had something planned.”

Miriam put her chin up. “I don't have to stay here.”

“No. You don't.”

“Although it was very kind of you to say you'd take me in.”

“Do the Lohoras know you're joining them?”

“No, but they'll be happy to have me. Susannah says the Edori will take in any stray traveler and make him welcome.”

“That's true. Well, let me give you some breakfast, and a few loaves of bread to take with you. Tirza appreciates my bread, I know.”

Braced for a fight, Miriam felt a little deflated by Frida's cheerful acceptance of her announcement. “And if anyone comes looking for me, you can tell them exactly where I've gone,” she said somewhat belligerently.

“I will, if they ask,” Frida said. “Do you have a canteen with you? Plenty of water? That's the worst part of travel, you know, the thirst. Here, I've made you a little plate with some cheese and fruit. You better eat now, build up your strength.”

Since it seemed stupid to refuse the food, Miriam accepted it with rather bad grace, and ate while Frida wrapped a few loaves of bread. “There. That'll go nicely with a little rabbit stew tonight,” she said with satisfaction. “Be sure and give Tirza my love. And Claudia and Anna and all the rest, too, of course.”

Miriam took the package and tucked it into a pocket of one of her duffel bags. “Should I say good-bye to the girls?”

“If you want. I'll tell them if you'd rather.”

“All right then. I'll just go. And—well—thank you.”

Frida nodded and rinsed her hands off in the sink. “I enjoyed having you under my roof the one night. Safe
traveling.” And she turned back to a huge roll of dough she was kneading on the counter.

Miriam picked up her suitcases and went out the back door.

The morning was cooler than she'd expected, after the heat of the bakery, so she stopped almost immediately to pull on a jacket. The suitcases were heavier than she remembered, even when she'd slung them over her back by their long leather straps. And the walk to the city limits was longer and more wearisome than it had been the other day, in the company of chattering women and free of any burdens. A few people jostled carelessly against her, apologized, and hurried on.

She was thirsty before she'd even left the city, but she couldn't remember how far the camp was and she didn't want to drink all her water before she'd made it a mile from the bakery. So she paused to buy an orange from a street vendor, flashing her wrist bracelet at him.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, lady, not for me. I don't keep no tally with the angel holds. It's coins and coppers I'll take, things I can count up at the end of the day.”

Her bracelets had never been rejected before; she'd never carried cash. Embarrassed, she backed away a pace. “Oh—I'm sorry—next time, then, I guess,” she said hastily.

He laughed again and tossed her one of the big bright spheres. “That's against next time,” he said. “Travel safely.”

She peeled and ate the orange as she walked, considerably heartened both by the friendly exchange and the taste of the sweet fruit. Still, she was frowning again soon enough. Her feet hurt, her shoulders ached, she was thirsty
again
, and the Edori camp was nowhere in sight. Could she have gone in the wrong direction? She thought not; she had paid close attention to small landmarks when she had followed Susannah and her friends here the other day. She remembered that misshapen tree and that spiky blue rock, perhaps a long-ago site of early mining efforts. She remembered that broken-down wagon, discarded years ago by its appearance, and the staved-in barrel on its side nearby. She remembered this stretch of half-dead wildflowers, giving up so early in the
season before true cold had really come. She was going the right way.

But perhaps she was too late.

She was sure Tirza had said they would camp another day or two; she was sure they had wanted to give that man, that Bartholomew, a couple more days to recover. But perhaps he had grown cool and healthy in the night. Perhaps he had leapt from his pallet this morning and declared, “I'm a well man, let's move on.” Perhaps they had pulled up stakes and headed off to—Breven—or northern Gaza—or western Bethel—or anywhere. Who knew where an Edori would go?

How would she find them? And if she did not find them, would she be able to find her way back to Luminaux before nightfall? Anxiously, she looked over her shoulder, but the Blue City was still visible, exuding a rich, satisfied azure glow just at the horizon line. Surely she would not walk so far that she would not be able to find her way back.

Surely the Edori were just another mile or two away.

She stopped, set down her bags, and was frozen by indecision. That way Luminaux, safe and easily reachable. The other way, the Lohora camp, or so she thought. She could return to Frida's, feeling foolish but fairly certain of a welcome; or she could keep walking until the sunlight ran out and it was clear that she had, through bad timing or bad geography, missed the Lohoras entirely. No doubt, if that occurred, she could nurse her food and her water to last her another day. She could find her way back to the Blue City before nightfall the following day.