The Alleluia Files

  No one she knew had ever returned once the Jansai had gotten hold of them. Some of the Jacobites did not believe that could possibly mean the worst—torture and murder—they optimistically spoke of comfortable prisons and deportation to Ysral. As if a jail could be comfortable. As if any Jacobite, shipped off to Ysral, would not find a way to return to his friends in Samaria and tell them what had happened. No, Tamar was a realist. Anyone who fell into the Jansai’s hands, or the Archangel’s, was dead.

  Like Zeke.

  She would not think of Zeke.

  If she had walked with him to the harbor, she would be dead, too. She would not think of that, either.

  The bus shuddered deeply and rolled into reverse with excruciating slowness. Righting itself, it plowed forward through the city streets with a blind assurance that sent pedestrians, vendor carts, and smaller vehicles scurrying out of its way. They had cleared the narrow, cramped streets of the inner city and were bowling past the closed, watchful houses of the wealthy Jansai. They were at the city limits. They were on open road, gold desert sand stretching limitlessly on either side of them. They were ten miles from Breven. She was free.

  The bus was a local, she discovered soon enough, making stops at virtually every small town between Breven and Luminaux; consequently, it would take three days to cover the miles between the cities. Well, on foot or by horse it would have taken much longer, so she shouldn’t complain, but she was afraid hunger would do her in before they had covered half the distance. She had bought a little food before she left Breven, but it was not nearly enough. Like most Jacobites, she was lean to begin with, and her body had few reserves. But then again, like most Jacobites, she was familiar with hunger. She knew how to wait it out.

  But by the third day, she began to get light-headed. As she sat on the bus, staring out the window, she suddenly felt her stomach drop away and her mind whirl into a dizzy spiral. The sensation was so physical that she clutched at her armrest, fearful of actually falling out of her seat. She closed her eyes, but her head kept spinning; she could almost feel the rush of wind against her cheeks. Again, her stomach seemed to plunge to her shoes; again, she felt as if she was tumbling down. And then, mercifully, the motion stopped.

  She opened her eyes carefully to find everything about her unchanged—the lush countryside serene outside her window, her seatmate drowsing peacefully beside her. I must be getting sick, she thought, or closer to starvation than I thought. First thing I’ll do when we get to Luminaux is buy a steak.

  And later that evening, five minutes after they’d pulled into the Blue City, that was precisely what she did. Mortimer’s was run by a man who had always been sympathetic to the Jacobites, and the cook let her through the back door without a question.

  But. “I’ll feed you,” said Sadie, the old woman who had been the chef here since before Tamar was born, “but you can’t be hanging around here. They’ve come by a few times, looking.”

  “The Jansai?”

  “Yes, and each time Mortimer showed them the whole place, top to bottom, before they were content to leave. So it’s not safe here.”

  “Can I spend the night? I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  Sadie pursed her lips. “I’ll ask him,” she said. “I don’t know what he’ll say.”

  But Mortimer sent back a message saying she was welcome to the bed in the cellar for a few days, but he couldn’t promise to protect her if the Jansai came looking. That was as good a deal as Tamar expected, and she accepted quickly. She’d eaten the steak in about three minutes, and Sadie took pity on her and brought her a bowl of potatoes.

  “I don’t have any money,” Tamar said.

  Sadie shrugged. “When did you ever?”

  “I’ll help clean up.”

  “If you want.” But the old woman was pleased.

  It took Tamar two days to find a place to stay and a job at a small, well-respected restaurant. There was always work available in Luminaux if you were willing to do menial tasks. The city was filled with artisans and intellectuals who were not always keen on scrubbing floors and cleaning out stables. Tamar didn’t mind dirty work—she’d been an ostler more than once, and prided herself on her ability to calm the edgiest-tempered horse—but this time she wanted a job with perks. Like food. At the restaurant, she could have all the scraps she wanted. So she was able to hoard her meager salary, paying out only what she needed for rent. And the single room in the dilapidated house on the edge of the city was a miser’s dream, so most of her money went into a sock that she hid under the bed. Saving against the next journey.

  It was still too soon to go to Ileah; the Jacobites were not supposed to reconvene there for another month and a half. But Tamar was guessing that the other rebels were also discovering that there was little safety anywhere else and that they may as well head for Ileah a few weeks early. In any case, she was betting that she would not be the only one there if she arrived before the rendezvous date.

  But she could not go penniless and starving. So she worked for two weeks, saving every copper. Meanwhile, she shopped the bazaars, looking for bargains—sturdy shoes, comfortable clothes, a new backpack. At the café, she ate everything she could stuff into her mouth, putting on a few pounds against the chance that her food would run out again. What she couldn’t eat, she took home if it could be dried and packaged for travel. She had no end of nuts, raisins, apples, and crackers, everything suitable for transport.

  She did not go back to Mortimer’s. She kept away from the bars and the coffeehouses where her friends used to congregate. She didn’t try to track down the girl who had loved Zeke, who had lived with her mother and father in a three-room apartment over a used bookstore. There, the Jacobites had frequently gathered to debate philosophy and dream about their version of a perfect world. Tamar may as well not have been in Luminaux at all, for all the comfort it gave her.

  One night, walking home from the restaurant, she took the long way back to her room, through the center of town. Luminaux had been christened the Blue City because every building, every statue, every flower, every cobblestone sported some shade of that cerulean color. At night, the soft streetlights drew the most subtle shades of cobalt, sapphire, and indigo from the walls and the awnings; even the mist rising from the wet sidewalks seemed tinted with turquoise.

  But color was not all that made Luminaux rich. On every street corner, stooped old musicians crouched over their scratched cellos, trios of young girls paused to sing exquisite harmonies, painters set up their landscapes on easels and offered to draw portraits on the spot. All night long, vendors sold meat pies, licorice sticks, beer, and hot coffee. And that was just on the streets. If you had the money for the entrance fee, you could go into any one of hundreds of restaurants and taverns, try the food, listen to the music, watch the theater, or join the debate. Luminaux was a city not only of beauty, but of possibilities. Anything you wanted could be had there.

  Except safety.

  Tamar paused outside a darkened doorway and listened to a pair of trumpets weaving a silver melody. She had spent much of her life in Luminaux and never once walked into an establishment like this. Hadn’t had the time, hadn’t had the inclination. She had been too intent on changing the world, formulating plans, reading manifestos. And all it had netted her was the most solitary evening of her life, far from her friends (if her friends were still alive), far from realizing any of her dreams. Sometimes it seemed it would be easier to lay down all the burdens, philosophical and real, and stroll into a place like this and order a couple of bottles of wine. And drink both of them to the dregs.

  She hunched her shoulders once against the chill of the spring evening, then put her feet in motion again and continued on home.

  The question was how to get to Ileah, which was far from any commercial bus route—and an abandoned settlement at that. Seventy-five or a hundred years ago it had been an Edori sanctuary, one of the tracts of land put aside for exclusive use of the nomadic tribes who were being crowde
d out of existence by an exploding industrial population. But like all the other sanctuaries, it had been deserted when the Edori began their mass emigration to Ysral. Even while they lived in Ileah it had not been much of a city by anyone’s standards. The Edori were gypsies, campers, itinerant folk who did not put much stock in permanent structures or municipal bylaws.

  “It’s got half a dozen tumbledown cottages, or maybe they were storerooms—whatever, a few ratty buildings and one working well,” Conran had told them. It had been Conran’s idea, of course, to meet in Ileah. Since Jacob Fairman’s death a quarter century ago, Conran had been the de facto leader of the Jacobites. “It’s far from the main highways, so it’s virtually assured that no Jansai will wander through. I can’t imagine that any travelers will stumble upon us, actually.”

  “How did you find it?” Jani had asked him, but Conran had merely smiled. It was a stupid question. If it had happened in Samaria, if it existed in any of the three provinces, he would know about it. Conran knew everything.

  He had drawn them a large communal map, insisted they all memorize it, and then destroyed it. No one had been allowed to copy it so that in case they were captured, they would not inadvertently lead their enemies to their friends. Tamar had studied the map for days. If she closed her eyes now, she could see the red line leading her from Luminaux to Ileah through the variegated terrain of Jordana.

  But how to get there? She couldn’t afford to buy a horse and she couldn’t honestly rent one, since she was unlikely ever to return. If she walked, it would take her weeks, and she couldn’t pay for the food she would need for a journey that lasted that long. Castelana, the nearest major city, was a hundred miles from Ileah; she could take a bus there and walk the rest of the way, she supposed. If she covered thirty miles a day on foot, the last leg of the trip would only take three days. It seemed her best option.

  But then she got lucky, for the first time in the past six months. The woman who worked beside her in the kitchen took the opportunity one evening to share her problems with Tamar.

  “It’s a terrible thing not to trust your own daughter, but there it is,” the woman said. “I know I’ve raised her right, and I know it’s time she was trusted on her own, but I’m a mother and I worry.”

  “Troubles, Ellen?” Tamar asked absently. Ellen was motherly and fretful, and Tamar found her annoying but harmless. They had not become close, but they had managed to work together in passable harmony.

  “My girl. Sophie. She’s only seventeen. Edward has been courting her since the time she was fourteen, and I know they plan to marry. He wants to take her to Stockton to meet his mother—now, doesn’t that just prove that he’s a good boy and he’s serious about my daughter? But they’ll be four or five days on the road, and you know any innkeeper along the way will give them a single room if they ask for it, and I just don’t know that I can trust the two of them to behave themselves.”

  If they’ve been courting for three years, they’ve had plenty of time to become lovers, Tamar wanted to say, but there was no reason to shred Ellen’s comfortable illusions. Instead she closed her eyes briefly, recalling Conran’s map of Samaria. “Stockton?” she repeated. “Isn’t that up around Semorrah?”

  She knew it wasn’t. “No, it’s practically in the Caitana Mountains!” Ellen exclaimed. “I’m sure they’re lovely people in Stockton, but you just can’t expect them to be as civilized as the Luminauzi.”

  “I have a friend in Stockton,” Tamar said slowly. “I haven’t visited her in at least two years.”

  “Well, I wish you were going to visit her now.”

  Tamar pivoted to face Ellen and tried not to look too excited. “That’s what I meant,” she said in a mild voice. “If you think you could spare me from the kitchen for a couple of weeks. If it would ease your mind any. I’d be glad to go to Stockton with your daughter and her friend to play chaperon.”

  Ellen’s face lit up; she clapped her hands together and snugged them under her chin like a child at a magic show. “You would? Really, you would? Of course I can spare you! For something like this! And you could share a room with Sophie and the trip would cost you hardly anything, and then I could be sure she was properly watched after. Because you’re a serious one, you are, and it’s easy to tell you know what’s right and proper. I’d feel so relieved if I knew you were with them.”

  Tamar smiled. “When do they leave?”

  “The day after tomorrow. If you can be ready that quickly? I’m sure they’d be willing to wait a day or two.”

  “I can be ready. I need to buy a few things, but I can get those this evening. What time do they depart? And how are they traveling?”

  They were taking Edward’s uncle’s cart and team, though Ellen assured Tamar that it was far grander than an ordinary cart or she would not have countenanced Sophie traveling so far in it. Tamar nodded, but she was not deceived. A cart was a cart, whether or not someone had thought to install padded seats and an overhead tarp. It would be miserable in the rain, frigid in the cold, drafty in the wind, and bone wrenching every mile of the way. Still, it was transport, and Tamar was not about to sneer at any unexpected windfalls.

  Accordingly, she speeded up her preparations to depart, paid off her landlord, packed up her bundles of dried food, and readied herself for the journey. Two days later she was saying hello to Sophie, farewell to Ellen, and good-bye forever to Luminaux.

  Her travel companions were much as she had pictured them. Sophie was a little more luminous than she would have expected Ellen’s daughter to be, but the dewy glow could have been produced by love or the mere fact of being seventeen, and would wear off within a couple of years. Edward looked to be sturdy, industrious, and two or three years the girl’s senior. Tamar felt aeons older than either of them, but she greeted them as courteously as possible and threw her luggage into the back of the cart.

  She was pleased to note that Ellen had not lied: The cart was outfitted with not only the cushioned seat that the driver could share with a passenger, but two padded benches facing each other in the rear of the wagon. As she’d expected, there was a light frame built into the back of the cart, over which a tarpaulin could be stretched if the weather turned bad. It wasn’t luxury, but it wasn’t contemptible either.

  “Do you mind riding in the back of the wagon?” Sophie asked her anxiously before they had even climbed in for the first time. “It’s just that Edward and I have so much to talk about, and I’d really rather sit next to him for the whole trip.”

  Tamar smiled. On the whole, she would prefer not having to make conversation with either of her fellow travelers. “The back suits me just fine,” she said. “But you can tell Edward I’m willing to take a turn driving if he gets tired. I’m a pretty good hand with horses.”

  Edward, overhearing, looked doubtful. “They’re my uncle’s horses,” he said. “I don’t think he’d want me to trust them to just anybody.”

  Tamar shrugged. “I’ve worked at the Lamphouse and the Banner,” she said, naming two of the better-known stables in Luminaux. “And I used to drive passengers from the Exton Hotel to Port Clara in the hotel’s carriage. You can trust me with horses. But I don’t blame you for being cautious. You don’t know me.”

  “She’s a hard worker,” Ellen put in, having audited all this from the sidelines. “Always shows up on time. You can trust her.”

  “Well, maybe,” Edward said, making no promises. “Are you ready?”

  Sophie quickly hugged her mother one last time. Tamar hopped into the back of the cart and made herself as comfortable as possible. In a few moments she was waving good-bye to Ellen, to Luminaux, to the life she’d known best, and they were on the road to Stockton.

  The first two days passed in utter and complete boredom, punctuated only by moments of severe discomfort, as the cart jounced briskly down the road toward Stockton. The road, at least these two days, was relatively good—paved and in excellent repair—since it was one of the country’s major highways an
d accommodated a great deal of vehicular traffic. Of course, any time a truck or bus roared up behind them, Edward was forced to pull his wagon to the side of the road, and even then the horses neighed and strained against the traces. The fumes left behind by the big vehicles were noxious and enduring, and they were all coughing by noon of the first day.

  But the weather held fine and the horses appeared to be in good condition, and she was on her way, so Tamar gave herself up to monotony and let the hours roll indifferently by.

  The first night, they stopped in a town so small it had not been on Conran’s map, but it did boast a couple of decent-looking inns. Edward chose one at random and bespoke two rooms. The three of them ate a somewhat awkward dinner together, Sophie making attempts at conversation with Tamar, who was not greatly interested.

  “So, my mother tells me you have a friend in Stockton that you’re going to visit. What’s her name?”

  “Elizabeth,” Tamar replied.

  “And where did you meet her? Did she used to live in Luminaux?”

  Jovah save her, she was going to have to make up an entire history. “Yes. We were neighbors while I was in school. We were very close.”