Quatrain (9 page)

I could not believe how completely the bitterness of eighteen years dissipated to be replaced by incandescent happiness. I was like a tarnished silver goblet polished to a new shine. There were no marks on me; you would not have believed I had ever been dull and neglected. From the things he said, Stephen was going through much the same transformation. Certainly, just by looking at him, I could see the way delight reshaped his solemn face. It was dizzying to think I was the one who had such power to change him.

“In a week, then, I will come to the farm to see you,” he said once we had resumed our clothes and were sitting up, closely and comfortably embraced.

“More likely ten days,” I said. He was being completely unrealistic about how long it would take to fly to Monteverde—where he owed Ariel a message—and back to this corner of the world.

“You had better prepare Sheba and all those other silly girls for my arrival! Let them know that I am coming to see
you
.”

“Sheba won’t be so surprised—she knows there is something interesting in my past—but everyone else will be astonished. They think I am so straitlaced and a little prim.”

“Perhaps Sheba would like to come live at Monteverde,” he suggested.

“Perhaps she would, but I am not bringing her anywhere near an angel hold,” I retorted. “I need to see her married to a dull, respectable man who will worship her and keep her in comfort. She doesn’t realize it yet, but that is the best life any woman could hope for.”

“She might want to make her own decision about that.”

“She can make whatever decision she wants as long as it doesn’t include angels.”

He didn’t answer that, but I could feel the skepticism in his silence. He didn’t know Sheba, but I suppose he remembered me at a youthful age, and he knew full well that I had not cared about anyone’s opinion but my own.

“I look forward to meeting her,” he said, “in a week.”

I laughed. “Or ten days.”

He sighed and rose to his feet, pulling me up beside him. “If I am to return so quickly, I must be on my way now,” he said. “I hate to leave you so soon after having found you again, and yet—”

“I am not afraid that you will not come back for me,” I said. “That makes it easier for me to see you go.”

Still, it was hard. We lingered another ten minutes in that tiny grove, another twenty. When he finally caught me up in his arms and took wing, I could tell that he dawdled on the flight, and we circled Laban more than once while we spoke another set of good-byes. I did not particularly want to have to explain my situation to any of my traveling companions, so I had Stephen put me down on the very edge of town, where fewer people were likely to see us. More farewells, more quick and hungry kisses, and then he tore himself away.

“Leave now or never leave,” he said, backing away from me. “I will return as soon as I possibly can.”

I watched him fling himself aloft. I stood there a full ten minutes, my hand up to shade my eyes, watching his narrow shape dwindle to the size of a bird, to a speck, to nothing.

Except that my body remembered every kiss, every touch, I might have thought I had imagined him. Except that my heart was so light it practically lifted me to my toes, I would have thought the whole day a dream.

Sheba hurried into our shared inn room, explanations tumbling from her mouth before she had even closed the door. “And then Adriel wanted to show me a dress she was thinking of buying, but it was
so
expensive, and I said we should try to bargain. And the merchant—he was Jansai, and I didn’t like him at all—told us we insulted him with the price we offered, so we left his booth and found another, where they were much nicer, but I didn’t realize how long we were gone, and I hope you weren’t worried.”

“Hope said she had seen you with the other girls not half an hour ago, so I knew you were all right,” I said. “Have you made yourself sick eating from the vendors’ booths, or do you want to have dinner? I’m meeting Hope and Joseph in an hour.”

“Of course I want to have dinner with you!” she exclaimed. I knew she would prefer to go off with her friends again, but she figured she would do penance by joining me for the meal and being so sweet that I would lose any remaining anger. At times, her thoughts were so transparent I could hardly keep from laughing. “Do I have time to change my clothes? A drunkard spilled wine all over my dress.”

About thirty minutes later, a small group of us sat at a pretty little restaurant with outdoor seating and festive lighting. Hope, Joseph, their two sons, Sheba, and I were joined by a few others from Thaddeus’s farm, including Hara and David. The younger members of our party spent the whole meal flirting with each other, while Hope and Joseph and I talked more rationally about how we had passed our days.

In my case, of course, many details were omitted.

“Did you hear the angels?” Hope asked at one point. “Utterly divine! I just stood there in the middle of the street with my mouth hanging open.”

“I did hear them,” I admitted. “I never expect to be moved by their voices as much as I always am.”

“I can’t say I agree with all of Raphael’s policies, but Jovah’s bones! The man has a voice,” said Joseph.

I looked up sharply at that. “The Archangel is here in Laban?” I said. “He wasn’t among the angels that
I
saw.”

“I believe they were performing at several venues,” Hope answered.

I glanced at Sheba, but she and Hara were busy teasing Hope’s older son, using one of their own combs to style his hair in a different fashion and laughing immoderately at the results. “I wonder if he might have news of Neri,” I said in a low voice.

“Who—oh, the girl from your farm,” Hope said. “Well, I don’t know that I would have the courage to approach him to ask.”

“No,” I said. “I’m certain I don’t.”

I was not surprised when, at the end of the meal, Sheba turned to me and prettily asked if she could go to the dance that had been scheduled for the evening. I had seen the raw wood dance floor being laid and sanded in the center of town; I had been certain Sheba would want to attend.

“Please say yes, Aunt Salome,” she said. She only called me
aunt
when she wanted to melt my heart. “I promise I won’t talk to anyone I don’t know.”

“I’ll go with her, and I won’t let her out of my sight,” David spoke up.

“We’ll watch out for her,” said Hope’s older son. He glanced at Hara. “For
all
our girls,” he added.

I wasn’t too concerned about the possibilities for trouble at the dance, to tell the truth. Angels’ wings made it so difficult for them to participate in such an activity that they rarely attempted it, and Raphael always avoided any pastime that might make him look ridiculous. In fact, Sheba would probably be far safer on the dance floor tonight than in almost any other location in Laban.

“Well, I will come with you for at least a little while,” I said, as if allowing myself to be convinced. “I will see how respectable this crowd is. But you must come back to the inn with me if I don’t like how people are behaving.”

“I will.”

“And in any case, you must be back in our room by midnight.”

“I will be, I promise.”

Hope’s husband was already pulling out his money. “Then let’s pay our bill and go,” he said.

As I expected, the energy level at the makeshift outdoor dance arena was very high and the average age of the couples on the floor was about nineteen. The music—provided by a quartet of fiddlers and flautists so good they had to be from Luminaux—was exuberant, and the mood was infectiously happy.

“Even I would be tempted to go out there, if someone would be willing to have such an old bag as a partner,” Hope murmured to me.

David instantly offered his arm. “You could dance with me,” he said.

Hope laughed, charmed and delighted. I smiled. It was for just such easy courtesies that I found David so likable.

“Then let’s dance,” Hope said.

Hara and Sheba quickly paired up with the Danfrees boys, and I was left standing beside Joseph.

“I hope you aren’t too disappointed,” he said. “But ever since I broke my foot five years ago, I find it painful to dance. Not that I was ever too interested in it before,” he added.

“Not disappointed at all,” I said. “I’d rather watch.”

I stayed about an hour, long enough to see Sheba rotate through four partners, all of them young men that I knew. Even the many strangers on the floor did not alarm me, for they all looked like hardworking farm boys happy to be away from the fields for a night and eager to make a good impression on local girls. I saw a few Edori in the crowd, as brightly dressed and lighthearted as any of the farmhands, but I had no objection to Edori, either. They were wanderers—a little feckless, a touch irresponsible—but generally peaceable and honest people, and I would never expect them to offer harm to a stranger.

There were no Jansai at the dance. And no angels. No one I would view with suspicion or alarm.

Once Hope and I were satisfied that our charges were in no danger, she and her husband and I made our way back to the inn. I was comfortably exhausted, and Hope yawned with every other footstep.

“When do you leave for the Eyrie?” I asked through a yawn of my own.

“The day after tomorrow,” Joseph answered. “I figure it will take us about a week to get there, if we don’t push the horses too hard.”

“When are you leaving for the farm?” Hope asked.

“Tomorrow around noon. There will be plenty to do by the time we get home.”

Hope sighed. “I don’t even want to
think
about the work that will pile up while we’re traveling, even though the boys are going back home instead of on to Velora. We’ll be gone nearly three weeks!”

“You’ll love every minute of it,” I said. “Buy yourself something pretty in Velora.”

We separated to our individual rooms, and I was in bed scarcely ten minutes after I shut the door. Not asleep, however—though I felt like I was dreaming, as if I might have been dreaming this entire day.

Stephen had found me. Stephen still loved me. Stephen was back in my life.

What had I done to deserve, at such a point in my existence, such felicity, such joy? How could someone so flawed be heaped with such riches? Why had the god placed his finger on my heart—why had he spoken my name?

I was not used to praying. I had not often turned to Jovah, either to seek comfort or beg forgiveness. But tonight I whispered my fervent thanks and promised I would never take my good fortune for granted. And then I snuggled deeper into my pillow and spent the night dreaming about my angel lover.

I slept late, but Sheba slept later. She only mumbled an incoherent reply when I asked her if she was interested in breakfast, so I left her alone and went down to the inn’s taproom to see what was on hand. Hope was there by herself, since her sons were also recovering from a late night and Joseph had gone to see about the horses. After our meal, we sallied out to investigate what new wonders might be offered in Laban on the second day of the festival. Naturally, we ended up back in the market area, sorting through jewels and trinkets and fabrics.