The Alleluia Files

  Although now she was as exhausted as, in the whole course of her tumultuous existence, she could ever remember being. Every muscle in her body shook with fatigue, and her mind was dull with horror. She checked the fire burning at the corpses’ door and then returned to the cottage she would share this night with Peter. Lying on a thin carpet of other people’s belongings, she fell soundly asleep before she had time even to review the events of the day.

  Cold woke her once in the middle of the night, and she got up to replenish both fires. Peter moaned once, softly. She gave him more water and checked his bandages. No blood appeared to be seeping through. Perhaps that was because he had no more blood left. She didn’t know. She couldn’t tell. She stumbled back to her bed and slept again.

  In the morning, she divided her time between tending to Peter and digging the grave. She cooked an apple in her stew pot and mashed it up, spooning the sauce into her patient’s mouth. He ate it; another good sign. Back outside, she dug deeper into the ground, until she hit what felt like bedrock. Then she moved outward, making the hole wider, big enough to hold another row of bodies, or two.

  By noon, Peter was beginning to move choppily on his bed, and the grave was completed. She fed him more broth, and ate a substantial lunch before attempting her most woeful task yet. And then slowly, methodically, not letting herself think about it too much, she dragged one body after the other from the cabin to the grave, and buried her friends.

  She was sweating and weeping as she heaved the last shovelful of dirt onto the fresh mound. She struggled for breath as she drove the spade in the dirt and leaned against it, all strength gone. She should say something; there should be a formal farewell. The dead should not have to leave this world until their names were spoken one last time.

  She said all twelve names very slowly, paused to think, and then named them again, one by one. “Daniel. You could talk all night without stopping, and we laughed at you for your fierceness, but I wish I could take some of your fierceness right now into my heart. Dawn, you were well named, because when you walked into a room, it was as if sunrise repeated itself. Martha. You taught me how to skin game and cook it over an open fire, so that I would never go hungry and neither would anyone around me. Evan … I spoke to you maybe three times in my life, but each time you said a kind word. I will try to remember that kindness.”

  She pronounced six more names, six more eulogies. She paused to ran her hand over her forehead. Her hair stuck to her damp face and then to her damp hands. Two to go. “Kate. You were the serious one. People said I was so solemn, but for you, everything was intense. Everything mattered. Everything was either right or wrong. I’ll miss your certainty. And Ruth. A friend for any time, in joy or sorrow. Now a memory, for today and forever.”

  She folded her hands across the worn wooden handle of the shovel and leaned her forehead against her knuckles. And sobbed like she had not sobbed at any point in her life that she could remember.

  By nightfall, Peter was thrashing about enough that Tamar was actually alarmed. She didn’t want him to hurt himself or dislodge his bandages. He had opened his eyes several times, though he did not seem to recognize her, but he was conscious as he took his food and he watched her as she fed him. But sleep would not come to him again, or at least quiet sleep, and she was afraid.

  To calm him, she began to sing. Music had been one of the many things most Jacobites disdained—because music was the medium through which the angels prayed to their mistaken god—and yet a few wayward melodies had found their way into Tamar’s head and stayed there. Well, you could not live in Luminaux and be completely indifferent to music, and she had always found its power to be surprising and complex. The right song could enhance a mood or change it utterly; a few pensive bars mourned over by a violin could set her to dreaming, a riotous flare of woodwinds could send her dancing. It was not just the angels who could draw power from music.

  What she sang now was a melody she had heard a few times in the streets of Luminaux, a sweet, wordless tune that had somehow gotten entangled in her ears and settled down for good at the back of her throat. From time to time over the past year, she had caught herself humming its wandering notes, and so it had stuck with her through repetition as well as charm. It was a lullaby or a love song, something gentle and romantic, and as she sang it now Peter settled and grew still.

  There were no lyrics, so she made them up. “Sleep now, Peter, sleep my friend. Tamar watches over you. The stars turn over you. The earth turns under you. All will be well….” Silly words, meaningless phrases, but they fit the melody and they seemed to give him peace. He grunted once more and clumsily turned to his side, and then he fell into a deep sleep.

  Tamar was right behind him. The past few days—few weeks—of physical exertion and emotional turmoil had left her completely drained. She had no reserves of energy or mental agility left. Tomorrow … so much to do. She must look for food, hunt if she had time, search the unlikely spring bushes for bark and berries. Her own supplies were low and she hadn’t found any extra food in the Jacobites’ storeroom. Perhaps the Jansai had taken those provisions as well. Well, she knew how to set traps, and Ileah wasn’t far from a mountain-fed stream; perhaps, if Peter was well enough, she could leave for the better part of the day to fish for food. She’d need a rod then, and some kind of fishhook…. Her thoughts darted more slowly from task to plan, and she drifted off to sleep.

  Peter was better in the morning, but not exactly well. As she fed him another mashed apple, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “Tamar.” She was so excited that she almost dropped the spoon, but when she cried out his name in response, he merely looked away, across the room. But it was a good sign; she knew it was a good sign. When he fell back asleep, she hurried outside and stood for a moment in the doorway, looking around.

  The stream was west. Slightly east was wilder country, where she might expect to find rabbits and squirrels. She could set a couple traps first, look for the few edible plants that might be available at this time of year, come back to check quickly on Peter, then head off toward the river by noon. Even if she was gone five hours, he should be well enough. She would return in time to feed him once more before he slept again for the night.

  Of course, she would need a rod, and if she had time, she might be able to fashion a bow—of course, she didn’t have arrows—but there might be game birds, now that she thought of it, because she could hear wings overhead, and she turned quickly to see if it was grouse, pheasant, geese, or—

  But it was huge. It was not a bird at all. It was man-sized, it had great monstrous wings, just now extended to a frightening breadth. Jovah, dear Jovah, please god, if there was only a god … The great wings tilted backward, the body straightened, swung toward the earth. A man, an angel, and he was on the ground not ten yards from her. He raised his hand as if to fling thunderbolts, and Tamar did not pause to think or even utter one more doomed prayer. She took off as fast as she could run, fleeing the false sanctuary of Ileah.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The month after the Gloria Jared spent mostly in transit. He did return to Monteverde for about ten days, making sure everything was well there, before heading off to Cedar Hills. But at Monteverde, as usual, his mother and sister had everything well in hand. They even pretended to be surprised to see him, which annoyed him, although it was supposed to shame him into being more attentive to the hold’s needs.

  “Why, Jared! It is Jared, isn’t it?” his sister greeted him. “It’s been so long since you’ve been here—but, no, you must be my brother after all. How nice to see you.”

  And she leaned forward to invite a kiss on her cheek. Catherine was eight years his senior, placid, ironic, and frighteningly efficient, and it was easier to admire her than to like her. Jared kissed her, dutifully but briefly, then turned to give his mother the same salute.

  “We heard that your singing was wonderful at the Gloria,” his mother said, greeting him more kindly than had Catherine. “Didn’
t you say Mercy would be singing with you?”

  “Yes. The duet went quite well, or so everyone told me.”

  “So tell us about your adventures on the Plain of Sharon,” Catherine invited, sinking to a low seat and gesturing for him to do the same. Almost unwillingly, he did.

  “No adventures. I visited with Mercy and Christian, and avoided Bael and Mariah. Pretty much the same as always.”

  “Did that Gaein girl catch up with you?” Catherine asked. “You know, what’s her name, Zeb Gaelin’s daughter. She was here asking about you a day or two before the Gloria, and she said she’d look for you there.”

  Jared felt a swift heat rise to his cheeks, not sure if it was anger or embarrassment. Beth Gaelin had made no secret of her infatuation with him over the past three years, and Catherine considered it infinitely amusing. Beth was a pretty enough girl, daughter of a Manadavvi lordling, with all the acceptable society manners. Jared admitted to a little ill-judged dalliance when he’d first met her, but it had been nothing serious. Nothing to inspire such devotion. She had become something of a nuisance ever since. He had been known to accept or decline invitations based on whether or not Beth would be present; that was how much he desired to avoid her.

  “No,” he said shortly. “If she was there, I didn’t see her.”

  “Jared, dear,” his mother said, “will you be staying for dinner? Or must you leave again right away? We get to see you so seldom, but I’m not complaining. I know how busy you are.”

  Ah, but trust his mother, in her sweetest voice, to drive the knife deeper than Catherine would ever bother. “I’ll be here a week or two, or longer if you need me,” he said with hard-won courtesy. “I do have plans to go to Cedar Hills.”

  “Oh, leave when you will,” Catherine said breezily. “I don’t think we ever really need you. But it would be nice to have dinner with you, for a change.”

  He forced a smile. “Count on it,” he said.

  But that had been the most unpleasant part of his quick stay back at his own hold. The first hour or so was always spent having his mother and sister remind him how carelessly he ran Monteverde. But after that, they were happy enough informing him of all the events that had transpired in his absence and how they had handled any small crisis, and the rest of the visit, passed amiably. He had completely recovered his usual sunny disposition when, about ten days later, he took off for Cedar Hills.

  It was a two-day flight, and he considered stopping for a day or two at Semorrah. But he wasn’t sure how long Lucinda and her aunt would be staying at Cedar Hills, and he didn’t want to miss them. Therefore, he broke his flight overnight at the river city of Castelana, and continued on into Jordana the following day.

  “Though you needn’t have hurried,” Mercy told him privately once he’d arrived. “It’s looking like Gretchen might never want to leave. She wanders around with a somewhat dazed expression on her face, half longing and half pain, or so it seems to me. Like she’s ruing what she missed all these years.”

  “Maybe they’ll move back, then,” Jared said.

  “It’s crossed my mind. In a day or two I might suggest it to her.”

  “And then ask her why she left in the first place.”

  “I told you that.”

  “You told me your guesses. Not the same thing.”

  “So what do you think of Lucinda?”

  “I’ve only exchanged a dozen words with her. But she’s not exactly as I would have expected.”

  “In what way?”

  He had not tried to put it into words for himself. “Less … naive,” he said at last. “Not sophisticated, exactly, but self-assured even in a foreign and intimidating environment. She’s not your giddy backwater farm girl. But still sort of fresh and unspoiled.”

  “If heredity counts for anything, she could be the most stubborn and strong-willed girl on the planet. Nobody’s fool. And of course, Gretchen wasn’t exactly a country bumpkin when she left here. She’d be bound to give the girl an education that was out of the ordinary.”

  “What happens to her next? She seems to think she’s heading back to Angel Rock someday soon. Seems a pity to lose her forever to a place like that.”

  “I’m working on it. I’d like her to consider Cedar Hills her home.”

  Jared stayed in the southern continent for four days, flying down to Luminaux for three of them just because it was a pity to miss any chance to visit the Blue City. When he prepared to leave for Semorrah, Mercy showed a very faint disapproval.

  “I saw you cozying up to Christian at the Gloria,” she said. “What are the two of you hatching up now?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know,” he said, surprised. “Why would you say that?”

  She shrugged irritably and toyed with the ruby bracelets on her arm. “Sometimes I think Christian’s keeping bad company these days.”

  “Isaiah Lesh?” Jared asked. “They’ve been friends forever.”

  “Isaiah’s a troublemaker.”

  “All the Manadavvi are. So far it’s been minor trouble. What’s bothering you about Christian? He’s one of your closest friends.”

  “He’s spouting anti-Bael talk these days.”

  “He always has. So have you and I, when it comes to it.”

  “We don’t like Bael. But we don’t seek to oust him.”

  “Come, now,” he protested. “Christian’s a merchant. He knows supply and demand. He wouldn’t waste his energy trying to get rid of someone who only has one more year of power.”

  Mercy spread her hands. “You talk to him. See what you think.”

  Jared gave her a solemn bow, but his eyes were laughing. “I’ll report back to you, angela.”

  But her words had put him on guard, so that he noticed what he might otherwise have disregarded when he arrived in Semorrah: Christian was keeping very interesting company indeed.

  Jared arrived at the river city a little before sunset and flew in lazily, as always, to enjoy the spectacular aerial view. Built on a tiny island in the middle of the Galilee River, Semorrah had been one of the mercantile centers of Samaria almost since the country was founded. The whole city was constructed of a glinting white stone, piled in layer after layer as building upon building crowded together on the narrow island. Not only was the architecture dense, it was imaginative, decorated with dizzying spires, whimsical arches, and friezes of great artistic complexity. By night, as the colorful lights of the city came up, Semorrah was startlingly beautiful to behold, a magical place of glitter and moon-white stone.

  In past decades, despite its prominence, Semorrah had been a difficult city to get to. The rushing water of the Galilee had made it nearly impossible for engineers to build a bridge from the Bethel side of the river, while from Semorrah to the Jordana bank, only a famously unstable bridge had been constructed to span the water. But that was in the infancy of engineering, before the advent of the Gabriel Dam, before scientists had perfected their theories of relative weight and strength.

  Fifty years ago Semorrah had become accessible, with broad, sturdy bridges crossing to it from both sides of the river. Traffic poured across these overpasses in such a steady stream that the merchants had had to hastily devise sensible restrictions, which included a ban on all motorized vehicles. The city was so small, with such narrow, crooked streets, that trucks and transports could not negotiate its lanes, and there was no possible way to enlarge them. So anyone wishing to bring cargo into the city had to unload his merchandise at one of the holding warehouses situated just outside Semorrah at the foot of each bridge, and from there it would be transported by horse cart to the appropriate location.

  This reliance on such antiquated methods of transportation gave Semorrah a certain old-fashioned charm that heightened its already considerable tourist appeal. But Jared, and the merchants who traded there daily, were not blinded to the real Semorrah. It was a city of fast-paced, hard-hearted, completely ruthless, and thoroughly modern businessmen who never passed up an opportunity to
make a dollar or undercut a competitor. It was a place where you had to know your facts, your assets, and your best friend’s weakness to survive. And nobody survived the cutthroat Semorrah lifestyle better or with more suavity than Christian Avalone.

  Which became evident within minutes of Jared’s arrival at the home Christian had inherited from his father, a five-storied mansion overlooking the River Walk. A noiseless servant showed Jared instantly to a library, where Christian was having drinks with half a dozen other visitors.

  “Good! You’re here already. You’re just in time for a glass of wine.”

  “Sounds good,” Jared said, nodding to Ben Harth and casually assessing the rest of the company. “The flight made me thirsty.”

  “And it’s excellent wine, since it came from Manadavvi country,” Ben said in the deliberate, well-bred voice that was almost universal among the Manadavvi.

  “Always my preferred vintage,” Jared said, accepting a glass from Christian and sipping it cautiously. Truth to tell, he wasn’t much of a drinker, wine or otherwise, but it was necessary to go through the motions in such a situation.

  “I think you know everyone here,” Christian went on, still speaking to the angel. True enough: two Manadavvi landowners, three well-connected Semorran merchants, one Castelana man, and a woman who was one of the biggest landholders in southern Bethel. “Although perhaps you haven’t had much chance to get to know Solomon Davilet? He’s just taken over his father’s business in Castelana.”

  “I was just in Castelana a few days ago,” Jared said easily, moving over to the merchant’s side as Christian clearly wanted him to. “What’s your particular field?”

  “Electronics,” said Solomon eagerly. “We were the company responsible for wiring the Plain of Sharon for sound so the Gloria could be broadcast across Samaria.”

  Which made him one of the cutting-edge corporate leaders in the country and no big fan of the teehnophobic Bael. “I saw the microphones,” Jared said. “Did you have any way of gauging the success of the broadcast? How many people tuned in and so forth?”