Archangel (34 page)

“Sometimes when I was singing,” she continued, rolling over onto her stomach to stare more intently into the fire, “I would take my chains and shake them like tambourines. Make a joyful noise to Yovah. And on those days I wouldn’t even hate my chains, because they had been part of the music. And if I had not had the music,” she said, her voice dropping, and her head
coming down to rest on her arm, “I would have died there, before my first year was gone.”

“I understand why you will not sing for the angels,” Matthew said, “but will you sing for us? For your people?”

“I may,” she said. “But I am not sure.”

They went to bed late, slept late, and rose still in the content, calm mood that had possessed them since they entered the Blue City. Matthew wanted to stroll through the bazaars and look for bargains, but Rachel had a more definite errand to run. They agreed to meet again at the inn for supper, and separated.

It took Rachel nearly an hour to get to her destination, since she didn’t know where the craft hall was and, anyway, it was too fine a day to move forward with deliberate purpose. So she asked strangers for directions, and then paused to admire a view, or wander through a public garden, or buy a fruit drink from a streetside vendor and sip it where she stood. At noon the famous silver bells of Luminaux tolled out an Edori medley, in honor of all the nomads passing through the city, and of course she had to stay utterly still until she heard every last liquid note drift down.

But she did eventually make it to the place she sought, a long, low marble building with verdigris shingles on its arched roof and blue ceramic tiles leading up to its wide door. The air around the building hummed softly with each passing breeze, and she glanced around to track the source of the sound. Tall weathervanes planted in the ground, and layered mobiles hanging from nearby trees, were fitted with small pipes and flutes that caught each shift of air current and turned it into music. Rachel smiled, and knocked firmly on the painted door.

It was answered very quickly by a young girl wearing the unadorned white robe of the apprentice. “Yes, patron?” the girl asked, bowing very low.

“I want to purchase a flute,” Rachel said. “A gift for my husband. Who here can help me?”

She was taken to a small, perfectly constructed chamber with slanted panels affixed to the ceiling—a rehearsal room, she instantly realized—and told the wait would be just a moment. Indeed, very soon she was joined by an older woman dressed in the deep blue of the master flautist, who was followed by three apprentices carrying leather cases.

“I am Giselle, one of the elders here,” the flautist greeted her. “I am told you wish to make a purchase?”

“Rachel,” the angelica said, naming herself and returning the elder’s bow. “Yes. For my husband.”

Giselle nodded at the apprentices, who unfolded small wire tables and opened their cases on top. “And is he interested in playing the instrument or merely collecting it for its beauty? If he wishes to play, is he a novice or an adept? What is his musical ability?”

Rachel approached the cases and began to study the merchandise. She had not realized there would be quite so much variety. There were wooden reeds and brass pipes, silver flutes, recorders, piccolos; some had complex fretted stops and some merely had intricately cut holes to be closed by the player’s fingers.

“He is a singer,” Rachel said at last. “He has a spectacular voice. He has never played an instrument, but he knows music. I thought—something simple to play but pure in tone. It is the quality of the sound that interests me most.”

Giselle came to stand beside Rachel. “Well, for beginners I usually recommend one of the wooden pipes—”

“No,” Rachel said instantly. “It must be of the finest material.”

Giselle smiled slightly. “But, I was going to add, the silver pipes offer the sweetest sound.” She touched first one, then another of the long slim instruments lying in their blue velvet cases. “Of these, the recorder is the easiest to play and yet most truly conveys the ability of the musician,” she said. “The sound can be a bit unearthly, as if the music were created by the god himself, without any human intervention.”

Rachel glanced at her sharply, for in almost those same words Gabriel had described the appeal of the wind instruments. “Let me hear what one sounds like,” she said.

Giselle inspected her choices and then extracted a plain instrument with perhaps eight holes down its barrel. “Listen,” she said, and put the pipe to her lips. The song she played was simple, a country ballad, and Rachel liked the pure tumble of notes. But—

“Is there another one that is more beautiful?” she asked. “I liked the sound very well, but the pipe itself is so plain …”

Giselle smiled again. “Few of our artisans bother to spend much time creating recorders that are works of art,” she said. “As they are—comparatively—so simple to play, they are most often
used by novices. But one of our oldest craftsmen has always loved the recorder best, and he has created some fine pieces. Very expensive pieces, of course, but if you want the best—”

“I do. Let me see them.”

An apprentice was sent off. While they waited, Giselle demonstrated a learning pipe to Rachel, a curious little wooden instrument consisting of eight very small reeds bound together in ascending size from the smallest to the largest. The largest was no longer than the middle finger on Rachel’s hand.

“We often sell these to children who think they want to learn to play the pipes,” the flautist said. “They are also good for novices to begin on, because they do not require such great lung strength and yet they accustom the mouth and the throat to the exercises the flute requires. Perhaps you would like to give one of these to your husband as well.”

The learning pipe made a tinny, happy melody that did not remind Rachel of Gabriel at all, but the logic seemed so sound that she agreed to buy one. The apprentice returned just as Giselle was handing the reeds to Rachel.

“The master’s apologies, but there’s only one recorder he’s willing to sell,” said the girl, speaking very rapidly and softly. “The others he wants to keep for himself, but he thinks the lady will not be disappointed in the quality of this one.”

“Ah,” said Giselle, taking the instrument from the girl’s hand. “This may in fact be exactly what you’re seeking.”

She placed her palms on either tip of the recorder and held it up for Rachel to see. It was shaped much as the other one had been, but this was a thing of sheer physical beauty. The mouthpiece was accented with mother-of-pearl inlays; the brushed silver of the barrel was patterned with diamond-cut designs of vines and sparrows. A silver ring was soldered to its back about one-third of the way down its length, and a silver filigree chain was slipped through the circle.

“So you can wear it around your neck and not fear losing it,” Giselle explained, slipping the necklace over her head. “Listen,” she said, and played again the simple tune she had played before. Rachel closed her eyes. The music swirled around her head, making her briefly dizzy. Music Gabriel would admire indeed.

“That’s what I want,” she said. “I will take it with me.”

* * *

Rachel and Matthew spent two more days in Luminaux, hedonistic tourists. They shopped at the bazaars to buy beautiful useless things they had no way to easily ship back to Velora; they ate at different restaurants for every meal; they went to concerts or lectures each night. They paid in cash for everything, since Rachel had refused to bring the wristbands which would have served as currency even here. Everything was expensive, and everything seemed worth the price.

On the morning of the third day, they awkwardly repacked their bundles and turned their horses westward for the three-hour ride to the plain outside of Luminaux. Rachel was more excited and nervous than she had thought possible. To be among the people again … The Manderras were scattered, or dead, but there were many here who had known the Manderras. There were many here who knew her name, knew her face by sight, remembered Simon, remembered her adopted family. Or had these friends too been taken by the voracious malice of the Jansai? Who was still left, who alive, who reaped by Yovah in the intervening years?

Still a few miles out, they spotted the massed tents and intermittent campfires of the Edori wanderers. Haze from the immense double ring at the heart of the camp was immediately visible; soon they could also see the white smoke from smaller fires built before individual tents. A buried pulse seemed to shake the earth as they rode closer, a steady, accented rhythm that at first seemed no more than their own heartbeats, curiously magnified; but as they drew nearer, the sound grew louder, more insistent, and resolved itself into an unbroken percussive beat coming from a hundred tandem sources.

“The drums have started,” Matthew said, urging his black forward at a faster pace. “We’re almost late.”

They arrived at a scene of happy chaos. Everywhere were bodies, faces, children, campfires, knots of men in close argument, women laughing over embarrassing secrets, rows of tents raised so closely together that one set of anchoring stakes could be used for two. The fine cooking sent a tempting aroma through the camp. The drumbeats were overlaid with voices raised in the general welcoming chant. Snatches of conversation, song and laughter wove through the air with an actual texture.

Rachel brought her palomino to a halt and thought she would be unable to breathe.

“Ah, Raheli, it is good to be here,” Matthew said, Ms voice sounding faraway and strange. He spoke in the Edori tongue, which up to now he had not used, even back at the inn when they talked till midnight. “Now is not the time to lose heart and grow faint.”

She smiled, but before she could answer him, three small dark boys came running up to them shouting out questions. “What are your names? Which is your clan? How far have you ridden?”

Matthew answered them with mock seriousness. “Where are the clan elders who should be welcoming us?” he asked. “Where are your manners? You should be offering to take our horses and bring us refreshment before you begin asking us such personal questions.”

The children giggled and reached for their bridles. “But we cannot take your horses until we know your clans,” the oldest boy said reasonably. “I myself will carry your bundles to your clan leader, but how can I take them if I do not know where you belong?”

Before Matthew could reply to that, a gaunt, middle-aged woman hurried up. Her fine black hair had escaped its braid and her robe was splattered with gravy, but she smiled warmly at the new arrivals. “Welcome! I did not see you ride in. I thought we were all here, but Yovah be praised, there are more of us! Have you a clan campfire to go to, or would you like to share the meal with mine? I am Elspeth of the Barcerras.”

Matthew dismounted and helped Rachel from the saddle; she was still feeling shaky and terribly tense. “I am Matthew of the Cashitas,” he told her. “And this one is—”

“A guest,” Rachel broke in before Matthew could identify her. Her gold hair set her apart instantly; no one would think she belonged here by birthright. “I have no clan here, but I am looking for the Ghievens.”

“The Chievens!” Elspeth said sharply, fixing her eyes on Rachel’s face. Rachel felt her blood chill through each separate vein.

“They are not here?” she asked in a choked voice. “They—have been prevented from coming?”

Elspeth quickly laid a compassionate hand on the newcomer’s arm. “No, no, they are here, all of them, and very safe,” she said reassuringly. “But they did not tell me they were expecting
a visitor. Indeed, I did not know the Chievens had any adopted children, and I am Barcerra—we are cousins to the Chievens.”

“I used to ride with the Manderras,” Rachel said, her voice very low. Elspeth caught her breath. “But all those people are gone. A woman from that clan followed a man who belonged to the Chievens—”

“Raheli,” Elspeth whispered. “You are Raheli. I have heard Naomi speak of you. She does not know you are coming?”

Rachel’s eyes lifted quickly. “She
is
here, then?”

Elspeth nodded. Her seamed brown face still showed wonderment; clearly she knew every wretched word of Rachel’s history. “We are honored to have you among us, angelica,” she said, with a formality foreign to the Edori.

“Oh, please,” Rachel begged. “Do not call me that. I have traveled so far—I have been gone so long—I want nothing more than to be a Manderra among my people again.”

Elspeth put her hands to both of Rachel’s cheeks. Her face was sorrowful and beautiful, the look of the Edori elder who has seen much grief and much joy. “Child, you have been gone too long from our campfires,” she said softly. “Welcome home. I myself will take you to the clan of your sister’s family.”

Rachel made her brief goodbyes to Matthew, who set off under the guidance of the three boys. Then she followed Elspeth blindly through the camp. Edori voices called out general welcomes to her, knowing she was a new arrival by her packed horse and her weary step. She kept her eyes on the ground before her but she was aware of the achingly familiar scents, sights and sounds of the Edori camp all around her. The incessant drums drove her own heartbeat; when she was able to breathe, it was Edori camp smoke that filled her lungs. She did not attempt to speak again.

“The Chievens,” Elspeth said, drawing to a halt outside a loosely organized campsite. Rachel quickly counted ten tents, representing between thirty and fifty souls. The Chievens had grown in the past five years. “I believe Naomi’s tent is there, the fourth one down—”

“I can’t—” Rachel began, in a choked voice; but she did not have to. The tent flap swung back and a woman stepped out to check the stewpot over her fire. She was small but well-formed, and she moved with a brisk, efficient grace. She stirred her stewpot, then lifted her head, as if sensing some disturbance either in
the tent behind her or the camp around her. She glanced first over one shoulder, then the other, and then her eyes came straight to the edge of the camp where Rachel and Elspeth stood waiting.

Rachel’s lips formed the word “Naomi” but no sound came from her mouth.