Archangel

  She shook her head. “I’m so tired. I’ll stay here. You go.”

  He rose to his feet, then paused to take her hand. “I enjoyed talking with you,” he said. “You must come to me sometime so we can continue our theological debates.”

  “I’d like to,” she said. “If I ever get off this mountain.”

  He bowed and left her. There was more good-natured raillery in the center of the plateau as Gabriel or his friends suggested and rejected works for the groom to sing. No one appeared to be paying any attention to Rachel at all. She slipped from her seat and made her way silently through the crowd, eyes down, shawl wrapped around her bright hair, utterly invisible.

  Judith’s throaty contralto sounded before Rachel had made it to the tunnel entrance, and she paused in surprise as she identified the song. The Lochevsky Magnificat. It was one of the Gloria masses—Rachel’s favorite, in fact—which she had played over and over again for the sheer delight of hearing Hagar’s voice master the full three and a half octaves required for the female solo. Rachel did not think Judith’s voice had the requisite range, and indeed, as the music made its first spectacular leap upward, Ariel took over for the notes in the higher register. Her lovely soprano voice cascaded downward on a succession of massed arpeggios, and Magdalena smoothly broke in to carry the middle mezzo line. Rachel smiled to herself. It took three contemporary musicians to sing the mass that Hagar had performed with such virtuosity.

  Once again she turned to go—and at that moment, Gabriel’s voice lifted in close harmonic duet with Magdalena’s. The female voice fell away, and Gabriel sang on in a luxurious, exultant tenor. He reached the top of his vocal range as the song exploded in a joyous trill. His voice was liquid fire, and each note burned against Rachel as it fell. She shut her eyes; her body tightened in a brief moment of transport as if the music physically yanked on the thin cord running up her spine. Then he eased downward on the scale in a series of fluid thirds alternating between major and minor intervals.

  Divine Yovah, his voice, his voice. She had never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

  She could not leave the arena while he was singing, but she was too stunned to stand upright. She sidled through the crowd, making once more for the perimeter, and backed herself against a supporting wall. The women were singing again, tossing the melodic line from throat to throat as if they had practiced this before, but she knew the tenor line would soon reappear. Impatiently, she waited through the second duet (shared by Ariel and Magdalena) for the second male solo, this one longer and more complex than the first. When his voice broke free of the high soprano line, she wanted to sink into the rock itself. She felt her palms flatten on the wall behind her and press so tightly that the smooth stone seemed grainy and rough against her skin. His voice divorced her from her body; it replaced her soul. While he sang, he owned her.

  She had forgotten that every mass contained a choral response. When the mixed crowd of angels and humans came in on cue, at the end of Gabriel’s solo, she was so startled that she jumped away from the wall. They sang the simple refrain softly, but in this semienclosed space the sound seemed immense, oceanic, a massive coming together of harmony and motion. The tidal pull of the music drew Rachel forward; she mouthed the words along with the singers. Not until the chorus fell silent in deference to the next soprano solo did she lean against the wall again.

  But this was ridiculous. If she was overwhelmed by the informal recitations of a few hundred singers at a wedding banquet, how would she endure a Gloria mass of a thousand voices when she herself was to sing the lead?

  She stayed at the wall till the mass was over, letting the music wash over her, soak into her, fill her up. When the final chorus ended, the audience broke into spontaneous applause; everyone congratulated the women on the smoothness of their transitions and Gabriel on the magnificence of his range. Rachel shook herself and ran lightly for the exit before anyone else could begin singing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the most part, Gabriel had not been displeased with his wedding day. He was never a happy man at a fete, but this one had gone smoothly enough. Although he was not comfortable in the role of host, it was something he would have to get used to, and these were some of the people he would have to regularly entertain. So he forced himself to talk to Lord Jethro and Lady Clara, their son and daughter-in-law, and others of the Semorran contingent. Also present were Jansai from Breven, Manadavvi from Gaza, artisans from Luminaux, and of course the requisite angelic representatives. It was a microcosm of Samarian society, a smaller version of the group that would be assembled in a few months for the Gloria.

  Of the group, the only one he really enjoyed talking to was Ariel, who had cornered him after dinner, while the impromptu singing contest was going on.

  “I’m always the first one to mess up the music,” she remarked, taking his wineglass from his hand, sipping from it and handing it back. “I don’t know why I even bother to play.”

  “You have other sterling qualities, I’m sure,” he responded, making a great show of holding his glass up to the firelight to inspect it for any impurities she had left behind. “If you spit in this—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m more likely to have poisoned it than spit in it. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  The abrupt request made him raise his eyebrows, but he said, “Certainly,” and led the way indoors. They went into the first room they came to, which was one of the smaller recital chambers.

  “Oh, put on some music,” Ariel said, shutting the door behind them.

  He was slightly amused. “Any preferences?”

  “Well, something happy, seeing as this should be a happy day for you.”

  He cued up one of the celebrations, turned the volume low, and settled himself next to Ariel on the stone floor. “I’m married,” he said, “so this is the wrong time to tell me you’re hopelessly in love with me.”

  She sat with her back against the wall, legs straight out before her, wings curved forward protectively over her shoulders. Like most angels, Ariel preferred wearing leather flying gear, close-fitting and businesslike. For the wedding, however, she had arrayed herself in a flowing silk dress and silver sandals; she did not look like the quick, decisive, slightly reckless Ariel he knew.

  “She’s really quite beautiful, your Rachel,” she said. “I haven’t had much chance to talk to her, but she certainly looks the part. That hair—!”

  “Her best feature,” Gabriel said dryly.

  “Well, she certainly doesn’t look like she was ever a slave. I mean, she has a certain haughtiness of bearing.”

  “Indeed she does.”

  “Doesn’t look much like an Edori, either. If anything, she looks like—well, like Raphael.”

  “Not surprising, since she came from the Caitanas. I heard him say something to her about being related.”

  “She doesn’t like him,” Ariel said abruptly.

  “Who? Rachel doesn’t like Raphael?”

  “Did you see her looking at him? While he was holding her hand? She looked like she’d stuck her fingers in a pile of horse manure and maggots.”

  “Ariel!”

  “Well, her expression was one of loathing.”

  “I can’t imagine why she’d dislike him. As far as I know, she’s never met him before. Then again,” he added with some bitterness, “I know virtually nothing about her. And she is not eager to supply details.”

  Ariel smiled faintly. “What? This is not the romantic fairytale wedding it appears to be? In fact, it is a marriage of convenience?”

  He returned her smile briefly. “I think she would say, convenient for me, not for her. Although she was not averse to being rescued from slavery, she has made no attempt to disguise the fact that her new life is just another kind of bondage.”

  “She’ll get used to it soon enough,” Ariel assured him. “Any girl would.”

  He kept his doubts to himself. “But surely you didn’t drag me from my friends
and beloved family just to discuss my newfound bride.”

  “Well,” she said, “beloved family is really what I’m here to talk about.”

  He sighed, and drew up one knee to link his hands around it. “Nathan and Magdalena,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  “I am incapable of wrestling with the long-term problem, because the immediate one is so frightening,” Ariel said. “Old Abel Vashir has asked Nathan to come spend the month with him, teaching his house musicians some of his original music. Now, Nathan’s a wonderful composer, and of course I’m glad to have him on good terms with any of the Manadavvi, but—”

  “But Vashir’s place is less than a three-hour flight from Monteverde,” Gabriel said.

  “And Magdalena has friends in Vashir’s compound—she’s there all the time. And without you or me there to force them to observe a little decorum, well—”

  “I’ll tell Nathan he can’t go.”

  “Oh, Gabriel.”

  “No, really. There’s plenty he can do here to help me.”

  “Abel would be offended. Very offended. I don’t think you have so many allies among the gentry that you can afford to sacrifice influential Manadavvi.”

  “Then send Magdalena away for the month.”

  “It had occurred to me, but where?”

  “Here,” he said.

  Ariel looked doubtful but not entirely without hope. “For what reason?”

  He shrugged. “Say Rachel wants to get to know angels from all the holds. Or say Rachel’s having a hard time fitting in here—which is true enough, as Jovah will testify—and I thought she might enjoy Magdalena’s company.”

  Ariel half-closed her eyes. “That might work,” she said. “Magdalena is very tenderhearted.”

  Gabriel grinned. “Well, Rachel is very hardhearted, so you must warn your sister that hers will not be an easy task.”

  “That’s even better. If Rachel rebuffs her, Maga will begin to believe us. Otherwise, I’m afraid she’ll know it’s just a stratagem to keep her from Nathan.”

  “She’s not a child. She knows that she is the one who should be keeping herself from Nathan, anyway.”

  “This will serve for now. But—Gabriel, they are truly in love. I don’t know how we can keep them separated forever.”

  “Marry them off to others,” he said.

  She made an impatient gesture. “That will hardly keep them apart.”

  “We’ll deal with them after the Gloria,” Gabriel said, rising to his feet. Ariel held a hand out to him and he hauled her upright. “Right now, I must get back to my own party.”

  She took a little time readjusting the folds of her gown around her hips. Her gold and emerald bracelets jingled musically on her wrists. “I hate dresses, I hate them,” she said. “Give me leathers and a pair of boots any day.”

  “Yet you look charming,” he said, giving her a little bow.

  She laughed. “Why, Gabriel. How courtly.”

  “I’m brushing up on my romance,” he said, leading the wayout. “After all, I have a wife to please now.”

  She laughed again and followed him out.

  The part of his wedding that Gabriel enjoyed the most was, of course, the singing. The Magnificat was by far his favorite piece of music, rarely sung these days and never formally, because modern women did not have voices that encompassed the phenomenal range. He was singing his first solo, experiencing the same euphoric burst he often felt upon surging into flight, when he felt his arm burn with a sudden and painful fire. The black linen of his wedding jacket kept the signal covered, but he knew what it was without looking: the Kiss, flaming against his skin. Rachel, though he had lost track of her in the crowd, was somewhere listening to him sing. The thought gave him a peculiar narcissistic pleasure. He lifted his voice again, driving it against the high notes with all his power. The pain in his arm did not entirely fade until the song had been over for five minutes.

  But when, yielding the floor to other musicians, he drifted through the crowd to look for Rachel, he could not find her anywhere. Others stopped him, cried out their congratulations on his marriage and their compliments on his singing, but Rachel had disappeared utterly. Not that he was surprised. She hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place.

  Nothing really went wrong until the following morning, and then it was a disaster. Hannah had persuaded him that he needed to hold a formal, intimate breakfast to honor the most consequential of his guests, to thank them for coming and speed them on their way. He had agreed to it. Therefore, the next morning he and his bride sat down to a meal with perhaps thirty influential outsiders, including the visiting angels, the high-ranking burghers and the Manadavvi elect.

  He had not seen Rachel since their last meal together, at which she had calmly discussed blasphemies and he had found himself wondering what unlikely combination of events must occur before either of them would be willing to share the other’s bed. Face to face with him, she always displayed utter indifference, unless he had made her furious; but he was beginning to have his doubts. Against her will perhaps, but incontrovertibly, she responded to him—if nothing else, responded to his voice. The fire in his Kiss had proved that.

  “Good morning, Rachel. I trust you slept well,” he said, seating himself beside her at the middle of the long table. She seemed almost childlike in one of the ornate high-back chairs reserved for mortals in this most formal of the hold’s dining halls. His own chair was elaborately carved with a narrow slat to provide support for his back while leaving plenty of space for his wings to swing free.

  “Thank you, I slept as well as I have since I arrived here,” was the two-edged response.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. He studied her. This morning she had chosen to dress in a gown of lilac brocade, long-sleeved (naturally), high-necked and completely unadorned. The color was wrong for her; it made her creamy skin look pale and bloodless. Nothing, of course, could diminish the glory of her hair.

  He himself wore semiformal clothes—a full-sleeved white silk blouse under a black vest; black pants, black boots, and the silver and sapphire wristlets that he never removed. The other guests, filing in, had also dressed in their second-best for the occasion.

  Raphael and Leah sat across from them; the other notables arranged themselves by rank and began talking quietly across the table.

  “Good morning, Gabriel, Rachel,” the Archangel said. He shook out the silver folds of a napkin and laid it across his wife’s lap with a solicitousness that raised Gabriel’s eyebrows. Then the Archangel looked back at his hostess. “We missed you last night, angela. You were gone from the throng so soon.”

  “I was tired,” Rachel said briefly. Gabriel glanced at her.

  Leah leaned across the table. Once again, as he always did, Gabriel gazed at her with a half-frown, trying to commit her features to memory. Twenty years he had known this woman and she always, in his mind, remained a blur. He could not get a fix on her; she made no impact. “You looked beautiful last night, Rachel,” she said, in her soft, sweet voice.

  “She looks beautiful now, my dear,” her husband corrected her.

  Leah definitely blushed. “Yes—I did not mean—I just wanted to say how exceptional you appeared last night.”

  To Gabriel’s surprise, Rachel smiled at the Archangel’s wife. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your kindness.”

  One of the servants stopped at Raphael’s place to spoon baked apples onto his plate and Leah’s. When the man had moved on, Raphael spoke to Rachel again. “I admit I was disappointed,” he said. “I had hoped to hear you sing for us last night. A prelude to the concert at the Gloria.”

  Gabriel preserved his expression, but he could not tell if he was more shocked at Raphael’s directness or eager to hear Rachel’s nervous explanation. But he had underestimated his wife. “I was much more interested in listening than in performing,” she said. “I have only heard the masses sung on the recordings. I wanted to hear them sung live. I l
earned a great deal.”

  Good answer, Gabriel thought. Leah, uncharacteristically, spoke again. “And which piece did you like best?”

  “One that I was probably the only person to recognize. The Edori love song that Matthew sang.”

  Gabriel winced inwardly. “Matthew’s voice is a treasure,” he said gravely.

  “Hardly to compare with an angel’s,” Raphael said.

  “Or an angelica’s,” Rachel agreed. She nodded to Leah. “I was sorry you only sang once. Your voice is very fine.”

  Leah blushed again, this time at the compliment. “Thank you,” she said. “My voice is my only asset.”

  “Your best one, maybe,” Rachel said, again smiling at the shy angelica, “but surely not your only one.”

  Raphael sipped at his goblet of juice, then said, “Ah, so you are a connoisseur of singing. Tell me, which of the men’s voices gave you the most pleasure?”

  Again, the subtle dig. Again, Rachel seemed equal to the challenge of fencing with the Archangel. “They were all delightful,” she said coolly. “My husband’s was undoubtedly the best, but I found myself wishing I had heard you when you were younger, and your voice was at its best.”

  She made no attempt to pitch her voice so that it did not carry, and across the whole table there had fallen one of those intermittent lulls that allow a private conversation to be public. Every last person in the room heard the perfectly phrased words, the seeming compliment that was in fact the greatest possible insult to an angel. The silence became profound.

  In the instant before she spoke, Gabriel caught Ariel’s eyes upon him. “Oh, don’t feed his vanity,” the Monteverde angel called out. “Raphael likes to imagine that he’s Uriel, with a voice that will carry down the ages. We have to listen very carefully to try to catch him in any wrong notes. The best day of my life was when he sang an F-sharp instead of an F-natural in the Helgeth Cantata.”

  Everyone laughed, swept with relief. Rachel nodded across the table at the Archangel. “Forgive me,” she said. “It was not my intention to feed your vanity.”