In a few moments, he was as settled as he figured he would ever be at an Edori campfire. They had found not just a blanket but a good-sized pallet, springy and surprisingly comfortable. He had resigned himself to sleeping on the hard ground, something he despised, but it was too late now to try and take off for civilization. Besides, he had to stay. He had to at least talk to Susannah. Though what he would say to her he still could not imagine.
The camp settled down around him while he lounged on his bed, watching. There appeared to be two tents pitched by this fire, one with Keren and her friend and various other Edori of a range of ages, the other filled with a smaller family that included two babies. Susannah’s nephews, Gaaron supposed. He hoped that the “Paul” referred to earlier had been Susannah’s brother, and that she had been sleeping chastely in his tent to be near to these very same nephews. He wasn’t sure how he would ask her about that, either.
Susannah had not returned to either tent yet. Nor had the handsome young man with whom she had sung her last duet. Dathan, Gaaron thought his name might be. Dathan, with whom Susannah sometimes slept.
Perhaps his thinking about them had conjured them up, for just then the two appeared in his line of sight, walking forward slowly from the darkness beyond the perimeter of the fire. Their heads were bent low; Susannah had her arms crossed on her chest. Dathan reached forward as if to put his arm around her, and she jerked away.
Clearly, they had been arguing.
Normally, Gaaron was not the type to eavesdrop on other people’s private conversation, but these two people, he reasoned, concerned him deeply. So he kept his head down on the pallet and watched, trying to guess what they were saying. They were not close enough for him to overhear their words, but she was obviously furious about something and he was trying to charm her out of her anger. She came to a sudden halt, turning on him and loosing a low stream of impassioned words that he tried in vain to stem. He reached for her again and she pushed him away, stepping back. He flung his hands in the air, said something sharp and short, and strode away. Here, to the campfire. He did not so much as glance at the angel before ripping open the canvas door and stepping inside the tent where Keren and the others from that clan were sleeping.
Susannah stood indecisively where he had left her, staring after him. The half-moon threw off enough light for Gaaron to make out her face, more sad than angry, full of indecision and woe. After a few moments, she, too, came up to the tents staked before the fire, but then she hesitated. She paused before the one that Dathan had gone into, then she turned away and took a few steps toward the second tent. Then stopped, pivoted, and stood there, looking helpless and depressed.
Gaaron sat up on his pallet, shaking his wings out behind him. “Oh!” the Edori said, her eyes wide with surprise. She had been gone during the discussion of Gaaron’s sleeping choices. She had no reason to know where he was lying now. “I didn’t see—”
He put a finger to his lips and she fell silent. Two tents full of wakeful Edori not five yards away; they could not talk here. He came to his feet and gestured for her to follow him, away from the circle of fire. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. He thought he could almost read her mind. She had no reason to return to either tent tonight; she may as well take a walk with a visiting angel.
They moved silently away from the camp, Susannah matching him stride for stride. She must spend most of her life walking, as the Edori moved their camp every day or so. She was probably in even better physical condition than he was. At any rate, Gaaron admired her free gait, her sureness of foot, even in the dark on the open land. She seemed like a very capable woman.
He decided not to lead with a comment on the scene he had just witnessed. Instead, he said, with a smile in his voice, “You’re wrong about the Eyrie, you know. It’s not cold and unfriendly. The Velo Mountains, where it is built, are made of a peculiar sort of reddish-tan stone. When the gaslight is on, the stone seems to glow, almost like low candlelight. It is a very warm and welcoming place.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” she said, her voice a little tight. She was still thinking about her argument with her lover, and not about Gaaron’s words. “And you said—there is music there?”
“All day, all night,” he replied. “Groups of people sing in a small open room so that the Eyrie is never without harmony. It is quite beautiful, actually. But there is more. When the Eyrie was built—when all the holds were built—the original settlers installed these incredible rooms. They’re acoustically perfect music rooms, and they include these—machines—that play songs recorded by the early settlers. Hagar, the first angelica. Uriel, the first Archangel. Other angels of the time. It’s the most glorious music I’ve ever heard. And anyone can listen to it.”
She was intrigued by that; anyone who loved music would be. “Machines? That can play music? I never heard of such a thing.”
“I don’t believe such things exist anywhere except the angel holds. I should have mentioned those to Keren when I was listing the amenities of the Eyrie.”
Susannah actually laughed at that. “She’s vain and shallow, but she’s a good-hearted girl. She is so young and pretty—who could not like her?”
“I have a sister who is young and pretty and difficult, but I love her very much,” Gaaron said. “You do not have to defend Keren to me.”
“Still, I admit she can be difficult. And Tirza wants to strangle her half of the time.”
“Now, who’s Tirza? I know I met each one of your friends, but I’m sorry, there were too many names and faces—”
She laughed again. “Tirza is the lover of Eleazar, who is Keren’s brother. Keren and Eleazar also have a sister named Anna, who sleeps with us. And Tirza is sister to Dathan, who is . . .” She fell silent.
“Who is your lover,” Gaaron said gently.
She looked off in the distance, though her pace did not slow down. “Who has been my lover till now,” she said in a constricted voice.
“Something I don’t understand,” Gaaron said. “You all talk of ‘lovers.’ Does no one marry among the Edori?”
“No,” Susannah said briefly.
He was amazed. “No? Never? But then how do you—I suppose there is no property to pass on, but—even among the angels, where there is a great deal of freedom between men and women, there is still marriage. It just seems strange to me,” he ended up lamely.
Susannah shrugged in the dark. “The Edori believe in no false bindings. You stay with a man because he loves you and you love him, or you don’t. If he no longer loves you, why would you want a legal binding to tie him to your side?” Her voice stopped short, then she shrugged again. “If you no longer love each other, you move on.”
“But marriage is about more than love, isn’t it?” Gaaron said. “The merchants intermarry to better their trade routes and their bargaining positions. The farmers marry to consolidate their land. Jovah alone knows why the Jansai marry, because they don’t seem to possess the ability to love, but even they have such ceremonies. Sometimes it is a politic thing to do.”
Susannah glanced over at him but kept walking. “Then why call it marriage? Call it a business transaction and draw up the papers. That at least makes more sense.”
Gaaron didn’t feel this discussion was going quite the way he wanted. “The angels marry for a variety of reasons,” he tried. “They can only marry humans, of course, because Jovah does not permit angel to wed angel. Sometimes love is the reason for the marriage. Sometimes it is to promote closer ties to—oh, the Manadavvi or some other group.” He took a deep breath. “And of course, every Archangel marries at the behest of the god.”
“Really?” Susannah said in a voice of polite uninterest.
“Yes. The god searches all of Samaria for the perfect bride—or groom—for the Archangel, and there’s usually some good reason for the choice, or so the oracle says—” He was getting bogged down in clauses here. He couldn’t bring himself to say the next necessary thing.
“I wo
uldn’t like that at all,” Susannah said. “Having my husband picked for me. He would be sure to be old or ugly or—or something.”
“Don’t you trust your god a little more than that?” Gaaron said humorously. “Surely Jovah would take your tastes into account.”
She lifted a hand and rubbed a spot behind her ear as if smoothing away a troublesome headache. “I trust Yovah on most things,” she said darkly. “But this seems like something for people to decide for themselves.”
She dropped her hand, and moonlight glittered for a moment in the Kiss on her bare arm. Gaaron knew he was changing the subject in a cowardly way, but he said, “You’ve been dedicated. That’s rare among the Edori, is it not?”
She nodded. “Both my older brother and I were. We were born during a time when there was a priest traveling with our clan. I think he was with us for three years. I don’t remember, I was just a baby. My mother and father were very close to him, and when Paul and I were born, he convinced my parents to have us dedicated. We were the only babies born to the Tachitas during that time, so no one else of our tribe received the Kiss.”
“Why was a priest traveling with the Edori?”
She looked amused. “I don’t know. Maybe he was running away from an unhappy marriage?”
“I don’t believe the priests marry, either.”
“Anyway, I don’t know. I never met him. He gave me a second Kiss, here, behind my ear.” She pulled her long hair back and he bent down, though in the moonlight he could barely see the small glass nugget tucked into her skull. “Did you ever hear of such a thing?”
“No, I never did. Next time I see Mahalah, I’ll have to ask her if she has any idea what it means.”
“Who’s Mahalah?”
How was it possible someone could be alive in Samaria today and not know the names of the three oracles? “The oracle at Mount Sinai,” he said in a cautious voice. “You—you’re unfamiliar with oracles?”
“Oh, they’re the ones who talk to the god, aren’t they? I’ve never actually spoken to one.” She gave him a quick, sideways look, droll and ironic. “We live a very simple life. You understand.”
He took a deep breath. “I was visiting the oracle just the other day, in fact. Asking her—asking her whom the god thought I should choose to be my bride.”
Now she came to a halt and swung around to face him. The camp was far enough behind them that he couldn’t even see the fires anymore. Faint starlight and the gentle glow of the half-moon provided the only light by which to read her expression. “Why would the god need to choose your wife?” she demanded.
So they had not been familiar with his name. None of them had. Here he was, anonymous, in the one place it would make his life easier to be recognized. “Because I am the Archangel-elect,” he said gently. “Next spring, at the Gloria, I will be instated as the new Archangel for the beginning of my twenty-year term. And before I take up that position, I need to find my bride, who will sing beside me at the Gloria on the Plain of Sharon.”
Now her eyes were wide, easy to see even in the dark. “You? The next Archangel? But then—probably you should not be sleeping on the ground outside an Edori campfire. You should be in some angel hold, as Keren said, dressed in silk and eating off of gold.”
He smiled. “I will be Archangel of all people of Samaria, the Edori included,” he said. “I need to get to know them as well as I know the Jansai and the Manadavvi and the other angels.”
“And is that why you descended to our camp tonight?” she asked. “To—to make friends with the Edori?”
He took another deep breath. Keep this up and his head would begin to spin. “Partly,” he said. “But, in truth, I was looking for a specific Edori camp. One of the clans. One of your clans, in fact.”
Now her eyes were, if possible, even wider. She was not stupid; she was capable of analyzing the whole conversation that had gone before and coming to the obvious conclusion. In a whisper, she said, “The oracle told you that your bride would be found among the Edori?”
He nodded. “The oracle told me that my bride would be you.”
She looked as if he had just flipped over to stand on his head. “Me?” she said in a completely different tone of voice. “Oh.”
Now he was the one confused. “Well—who did you think?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Keren, of course.”
“Keren?”
“Well, she’s young and beautiful and is fascinated by angels and was asking all about the holds and she seemed—”
“She’s as young as my sister. She’s almost a child.”
“Plenty of men don’t view Keren as a child,” Susannah said in a knowing voice.
“That’s beside the point,” he said impatiently, feeling that the real point had been lost in anticlimax. “The god has chosen you.”
Now she started walking again. “No, thank you,” she said.
Gaaron took three quick steps to catch up with her. “I don’t think you can say ‘No, thank you’ to the god,” he said.
“I didn’t. I said it to you.”
This was maddening. “I am repeating the god’s words,” he said sharply. “He chose you to be my bride. You cannot gainsay him.”
She walked a little faster. “He did not say it to me,” she replied. “How do I know what you heard was a true pronouncement?”
“Because everything the god tells the oracles is true. Because it is through the oracles that we communicate with the god. Because if there is no truth on Mount Sinai, there is no truth at all,” he ground out. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop, and he hung on though she glared at him in the dark. “Susannah! I know it will take some time to get used to the idea, but you are destined to become the angelica. You have been picked out from all the women living in Samaria at this time. It is a cause for awe and rejoicing. Believe me, for it is true.”
“I don’t want to,” she said.
He cocked his head to one side, feeling a certain anger rise. It was like arguing with Miriam. She seemed so sure of herself, and yet she seemed incapable of listening to facts and logic. “And what is keeping you here with the Lohoras?” he asked, knowing it was cruel. “Not Dathan, with whom you have been quarreling.”
She jerked her arm away. “It is none of your business if we have been quarreling!”
“It is if you are to marry me,” he shot back childishly.
“Which I am not.”
“You would turn down the wealth and majesty of the angelica’s life for a life at this Dathan’s side? He’s a handsome man, Susannah—is that what you were fighting about? How handsome he is, and how other women notice that?”
She took a sharp breath and her whole body tensed. For a moment, he thought she might strike him, big and menacing though he must look, winged creature of the god that he was. “You have no idea what lies between Dathan and me,” she said in a low, hard voice.
“Perhaps not, but I—”
She spun on one foot and stalked back toward the camp at a rapid pace. Again, he had to hurry to catch up. “Don’t talk to me,” she said fiercely. “Archangel or no Archangel, you have nothing to say to me that I want to hear.”
“You may not like me, and you may not like what I have to say, but I will say it,” Gaaron said. “The god has chosen you as angelica. I live to enact the god’s dictates. You will return with me to the Eyrie tomorrow.”
She didn’t answer, and her silence itself spoke of contempt. “So pack your bags tonight and be ready to leave in the morning,” he added.
She walked even faster. Gaaron shrugged and let his own steps lag, let her outdistance him as they pulled closer to the camp. He was not so far behind her, however, that he did not see which tent she chose to go to: Dathan’s.
He couldn’t help thinking that she had gone to the Lohoras more to spite him than to gratify Dathan, and the thought gave him a peculiar feeling. As if he really did have some claim on her, an interest in her heart, and not as if he was making some sob
er alliance to satisfy the god.
He made it to his own pallet and draped his long body across its folds. So close to the fire, there was no need for a blanket. He lay on his side, facing the blaze so that he could fan his wings out behind him without fear of them getting singed. He closed his eyes and, to his complete surprise, fell immediately asleep.
In the morning, Gaaron was the second one awake. The first was one of the babies in the Tachita tent, who screamed to wake the dead just as the sun was beginning to stumble out of its own uncomfortable bed. Gaaron rolled to his feet, stiff and not entirely rested. He was on Keren’s side, this time; he appreciated the luxuries of life, at this moment, more than he could say.
He made his way to the water tent that had been pointed out to him the night before, and cleaned himself up as best he could. It would be a relief to get back to the Eyrie tonight, back to his own bed, his own food, his own people. On this short trip, he had had enough of travel to last him for quite some time.
When he emerged, much of the rest of the camp was stirring. Bartholomew came over from his tent and exclaimed, “Gaaron! Would you be kind enough to join my sisters and my friends for breakfast? They would like a chance to visit with an angel.”
“Gladly,” Gaaron said, and followed the big man through a few closely set fires to a tent not far from the one where Susannah slept. Here he was reintroduced to a handful of women and two teenage boys, all of whom laughed when he offered to help with the meal or the fire.
“You could help us strike the tent, though,” one of the boys said in a reedy voice. “That’s a job I hate.”
Gaaron looked up from his seat before the fire. “You’re moving on today?”
Bartholomew nodded. “We’ve been here long enough. And, though it saddens me to say so, I think this is where the Lohoras and the Tachitas part ways. We’re heading for Gaza—so beautiful at this time of year—and they want to visit the Caitanas. What else can we do? That is why the god made so many clans, so that Edori could travel to every corner of the three provinces. And that is why he decreed the Gathering, so we would never be parted too long.”