Archangel (7 page)

“You’re in a foul humor,” Nathan observed, pouring wine for both of them without waiting to be asked. “I assume you have not found your angelica. Could Josiah not name her, then?”

“Oh, he named her. Rachel, daughter of Seth and Elizabeth. He even gave me the location of her dedication—some backwater farmland in the Jordana foothills.”

Nathan raised his eyebrows. He looked a great deal like his brother, though his eyes were a deep brown and his appearance was not so striking; yet the resemblance was impossible to miss. “Jovah has a sense of humor, I see,” he remarked.

“The theory, according to Josiah, is that my angelica will possess qualities I do not. Since, as Josiah so kindly told me, I am arrogant, she, apparently, will be humble. Whatever. I am sure Jovah had his reasons for picking her.”

“But you cannot find this plot of land, this farm in Jordana, where she is supposed to be?”

“Oh, I found it. A little community. Homes, farms, a cluster of buildings. All—” Gabriel swept one hand before him. “All leveled to the ground some eighteen years ago.”

“Leveled … By Jansai?”

“They say not. I went to Breven. Although why the Jansai should tell me the truth when a truth like that would cause me to call down Jovah’s wrath upon them—”

“Then, what happened? Where is she?”

“I have not been able to answer either question in the past three weeks. The Jansai say the Edori may know. The Edori say, oh yes, perhaps a girl from a certain tribe may know, but we do not know where that tribe passes the winter months. And no one seems to have heard of this girl specifically. And I can’t comb every cave and campsite in Samaria looking for Edori who may
know something about some vanished farm girl—but may not know a thing!—and I have about five months now to find her. And instead of continuing my search, I have to go play tame angel in Semorrah to prove that I can deal reasonably with the merchants, who do not like me much anyway—”

“And they have reason not to like you, since you do not like them,” Nathan said, smiling a little. “But back to the problem of this girl. If—”

“Rachel.”

“What?”

“Rachel. That’s her name. Josiah says she is twenty-five years old.”

“If there are Edori who know where she is, can’t we go to the next Gathering and ask all the Edori at once?”

“That’s my last hope. But the next Gathering is only three or four weeks before the Gloria. And if I wait till then, and no one knows a thing about her, my situation is indeed desperate.”

“How desperate?” Nathan asked, alarmed.

“Josiah says Jovah may not accept another woman’s voice. In which case—the end of the world looms. But I cannot credit that. If I am unable to find her, then I will sing and someone will sing beside me, and if Jovah has any mercy in him at all, he will accept who I bring him. But I would prefer not to make the experiment. Because Josiah seemed so doubtful—”

“We’ll go to the wedding,” Nathan said decisively. “And then we’ll organize a hunt. You and I and ten or so of our angels. And we’ll search for the right Edori until the Gathering. And then we’ll go to the Gathering. And until then we will not despair. And for now you need to rest, because we leave tomorrow for Semorrah and all the delights in store for us there.”

“Amen,” Gabriel said. “Let’s leave at first light.”

So it was not in the best of moods that Gabriel arrived at the magnificent home of Lord Jethro of Semorrah, and his temper was not improved by the opulence of the wedding itself. It was only in the past forty years—during Raphael’s reign and the tenure of Michael before him—that the merchants had come to accumulate such wealth and prominence, so that the cities rivaled the holds of the angels as places of importance. Gabriel believed in a more literal translation of the Librera, which said, “Whereas each man differs from the other as the rose differs from the iris,
yet is each one beautiful in his own way, and equal in Jovah’s sight.” Gabriel did not like to see one class of people gain dominance over another; he considered inequity a doubtful road to the harmony that Jovah required from his people. He had not troubled to hide his disapproval, which had made him unpopular with the merchants—and not a few of the angels.

Still, he was to be Archangel. Knowing his views, Jovah had selected him from all the angels of Samaria. And now Lord Jethro and the Jansai, and even the angels, were stuck with him for the next twenty years. So he had been invited to the wedding, and he had come.

He had even tried to be civil, although cordiality was beyond him. He found Jethro to be a shrewd, calculating, wholly untrustworthy sort of man, and the bride’s father cut from the same cloth. Young Daniel bid fair to follow in his father’s footsteps, and the lady Mary—sweet Jovah singing!—was small, shy, childlike and nervous, clearly a hapless sacrifice on the altar of intracity commerce.

Raphael, of course, had fawned over her, with that practiced grace that pleased the merchants so well. He had sat beside her at the dinner and smilingly complimented her on her looks and her hair. She appeared to be grateful for the attention, chattering to him easily after the first few moments, during which she had seemed overcome by the honor. Watching Raphael charm her, Gabriel had grimaced slightly, then glanced over at Nathan. Nathan was grinning.

So after dinner, Nathan had made his way to the lady’s side and paid her pretty attentions, and this had seemed to please her as much as Raphael’s conversation. Nathan was much more the diplomat and ladies’ man than his brother, and Gabriel was not above deploying him in this role, for it was one he was no good at himself.

“Your brother seems to have won the lady Mary’s heart,” said a smooth voice behind him, and Gabriel turned to find himself face to face with the Archangel. As always, the first thing he noticed about Raphael was his sheer physical beauty. Hair, eyes, skin, even wings, had a tawny color to them; he was leonine, powerful and sleek. Yet aging for all that. Close up, Gabriel could see the fine lines around the eyes and down the cheeks. The beautiful hair was thinner than it had once been.

“You did not fare so ill yourself” was Gabriel’s response.

Raphael smiled seraphically. “She is a sweet child with a gentle manner,” he said. “It is a pleasure to converse with her.”

“A pity to throw her into Jethro’s den,” Gabriel said, glancing around. The room was filled with landholders and bankers and petty burghers, most of them talking finance if Gabriel did not greatly miss his guess.

“She comes from just such a den, though I’m sure neither our host nor our guest of honor would thank you for describing it so,” Raphael replied in a purring voice.

Gabriel laughed. “No, indeed. I’m sure Jethro and all the others will miss your charming manner when they are forced to contend with me instead.”

“And the day fast approaches,” Raphael responded. “Tell me. I was hoping to meet your angelica here. But I have heard no word about her at all. Is it possible you are keeping her a secret until the day of the Gloria itself?”

Raphael spoke with his usual melodiousness, but Gabriel thought he detected the faintest hint of malice in the tone. “I thought to bring her myself,” he said. “It did not work out that way.”

“But you have found her? Jovah has identified her?”

“Oh, yes. He’s identified her.”

Raphael was watching him with those golden eyes. The direct question would be impossible to evade, but Raphael did not ask it. He merely gave Gabriel that sleepy smile that so many mortals found endearing. “Well, I look forward to meeting her,” he said. “Jovah’s choices are always instructive.”

Which comment did not improve Gabriel’s mood either.

He endured the hours in the ballroom, successfully pleading ineptitude to avoid having to dance (Nathan was one of the few angels who had mastered the art and managed to hold his wings close enough to his body to prevent their being trod upon by everyone else on the floor). Gabriel made polite conversation with the merchants who were standing near him, dodged the angel Saul most of the evening, and went to bed exhausted by the effort of trying to conceal his true emotions for hours on end.

He woke in the morning conscious of two things—excessive heat and a dull ache in his right arm. The source of the heat was quickly identified—Jethro’s admirable servants had slipped into the room while he was still sleeping and built a fire, an amenity that was completely unnecessary for an angel. For the pain in his
arm he could find no immediate explanation. He rubbed the muscles along his biceps, wondering if he had slept oddly during the night. In a few minutes, the soreness evaporated, and he forgot about it.

It was a busy day. The wedding breakfast was elaborate, the marriage ceremony itself extraordinarily long and solemnly performed. The only part of the event that Gabriel actually enjoyed was the singing. But he always loved to sing.

It was when he, Nathan, Raphael, Saul, Magdalena and Ariel were aloft and in the middle of the Te Deum that he realized why his arm had hurt so much that morning. The angels had joined hands to form a circle, Nathan as always managing to get hold of Magdalena’s fingers. Even as the swell of the music bathed him in a mild rapture, Gabriel watched them; he saw that Magdalena very properly had her face turned toward Jovah but Nathan’s eyes were fixed on the Monteverde angel. Angels could not intermarry—it was one of their few prohibitions—and it was a law that had never been transgressed. But Nathan had been in love with Magdalena these past three years, and time did not seem to be diminishing his affection.

And indeed, when they were near each other, if you watched for it, you could see the faint flicker in the heart of each angel’s Kiss, the divine reply of one to another. Jovah in all his wisdom had not foreseen that.

Gabriel tightened his grip on Nathan’s hand, and his brother turned his face upward to the god. Again, Gabriel was half-drowned in the glory of the music. His tenor note held firm against Magdalena’s descending alto line, and when Ariel’s soprano rose ecstatically above both, he felt himself tremble all the way to the tips of his wings. Then his own voice took the lead, while the rest fell back in choral harmony, and he sang the words of invitation and celebration with delight.

And at that moment he felt the stabbing pain in his right arm again, and he suddenly knew what it was. A response to the music, a response to his voice, a response to him. The Kiss on his own arm was alive with muted sparks, and he felt that heat down to its anchor in his bone.

Against all probability, Rachel was in Semorrah, perhaps even in the hall below them, near enough to hear him and attuned enough to react to the sound of his voice.

* * *

It became a matter of importance, therefore, to speak to every woman in the house. It was a very different Gabriel who attended to his social duties this day. At the luncheon, the following reception, the dinner, the second ball, he moved with great determination through the throngs and engaged each of the women in courteous conversation. He complimented them on their gowns, their hair, their jewels, asked them if they had enjoyed the wedding, and whether they lived in Semorrah or had just come for a visit. He was not conscious of flattering anyone until Nathan drew him aside at the reception and laughed at him.

“So you’ve become a flirt, now and very abruptly,” his brother said. “Are you planning to leave a trail of broken hearts among the merchants’ wives since you cannot find your angelica anywhere?”

“I’m just talking to them.”

“And a fine job you’re making of it. I heard Lady Susan tell her daughter she was half in love with you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But Gabriel, what has sparked this sudden amiability? I could have sworn you were bored out of your mind yesterday. And what’s more, so could everyone else.”

“I think she’s here.”

“Who’s here?”

“Rachel. I think—but I’m not sure.”

Nathan glanced quickly around him. “In this house?”

“Maybe. I felt—while we were singing, my Kiss flared up. And this morning—I think she’s in the house, or very near.”

“The Kiss has been wrong before,” Nathan said wryly.

“No, I don’t think so in this case. Josiah told me— But I must talk to all the women of the house, you see that, and I feel very clumsy about it. Unfortunately, it’s not a task you can help me with.”

“And you’ve had no response since the Te Deum this morning?”

Gabriel was silent. Nathan exclaimed, “You have! Is the lady married? Is that the problem?”

“It was very faint,” Gabriel said. “When I was speaking to the lady Mary—” Nathan laughed aloud, appalled. Gabriel grimaced. “I know. I complimented her on—her hair, I think it was— and she blushed, and I felt the slightest heat in my arm. But surely not enough—”

“That would truly be the greatest irony Jovah ever enacted,” Nathan said, his voice solemn but his eyes alight. “To unite you with Lord Jethro’s newly acquired daughter-in-law moments after you sing at her wedding—”

“But I think it can’t be her. Perhaps someone else she spoke to, someone who commented on her hair. Someone she was thinking of when I spoke to her. And it’s not as if I can ask her to list everyone she’s spoken to today—”

“Stay calm. The case is not desperate. In fact, it’s better than it was yesterday, don’t you see? How long do you think we can stay in Jethro’s house, searching? Can you make an excuse to remain another few days?”

“Raphael is leaving tonight, but Ariel and her sister will be here through morning. We can stay at least as long. After that— but it may do us no good to stay. She may be leaving with one of the other households. She may not belong here at all.”

“A guest?” Nathan asked, watching his brother. “Or—a servant of one of the guests?”

“Let us hope it is a guest, the adopted daughter of some minor merchant. I would hate to think my angelica had been serving as a lady’s maid any time these past eighteen years.”

“If she has, she has,” Nathan said philosophically. “Let’s get on with the search while everyone is still here.”

But Gabriel had no luck, though he managed to talk to virtually every female guest present—even those too young and those too old to be, by any stretch of diplomacy, twenty-five years old. The ball ended, the wedding was over, and everyone would be going home—and he was no closer to solving this most critical puzzle.