The speculation, which should have comforted her, made her shiver instead. She did not want to rely on the goodness of strangers; that would lessen her own strength, dull her wits, lull her to security. She was not safe here, would be safe nowhere that she could imagine, even once she was with the Jacobites again. It would not do to let down her guard. She would take this job, because she needed it, but she would not stay for long.
CHAPTER EEVEN
Spring in Bethel was lovelier than spring in Gaza, because it came sooner and more rapturously. In Gaza, the landscape altered overnight, it seemed, from winter brown to summer green, without the exotic riot of flowers that changed the Bethel terrain to a pastel candyland during this most playful of seasons.
Still, Jared would have preferred being anywhere in Bethel but the Eyrie. And even the Eyrie wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t had to spend his time there with Bael and Mariah.
It was entirely his fault, of course, since he had come here of his own free will, but he had not expected to be stuck for three days or more. Mariah had practically greeted him with the news that they were planning a dinner party that he simply must stay for, and while he was here he could renew his friendship with Annalee Stephalo, surely he remembered her? He almost felt as if Mariah had been lying in wait for him anytime these past three months, plotting how she could enmesh him in her social schemes and force him to make an extended visit. He had not thought quickly enough to manufacture an important engagement back home, so he agreed to stay till the party, and then cursed himself roundly every hour for the next seventy-two.
It was not that the Eyrie was a bad place. On the contrary, it was quite the most beautiful of the angel holds, and the one gorged with the most history. Built atop the steep Velo range, it was carved from the glowing rosy stone of the Velo Mountains and therefore possessed a warm, eerie incandescence even in the deepest tunnel. It was a labyrinth of levels and corridors that only the residents were required to navigate; the main public area was a broad plateau that anyone could reach by climbing a massive, serried stairway cut from the mountain itself. This stairway was lined with shops and vendors’ booths and was always crowded with noisy, excited visitors, and Jared found it a little tedious anytime he had to use it. Mostly, of course, he just used the public landing spot at the top of the compound and made his way inside from there.
The most distinctive feature of the Eyrie was its constant music. At all hours of the night and day, rotating shifts of singers gathered in a small chamber in the uppermost reaches of the hold and offered harmonious prayers to the god. The singing could be heard from any point in the Eyrie, and it could, Jared knew from experience, calm a man in a rage or cheer an angel in despair.
Although, on this trip, not even music was enough to improve his spirits.
Truth to tell, he had been in a fairly black mood when he arrived here, though such a humor was alien to one usually so sunny-tempered. He could not believe he had lost the Jacobite woman. He had not been entirely surprised to find her missing from Ileah when he returned from Stockton, but he couldn’t imagine how she had escaped him so completely. She could not have gotten far on foot, and he had scoured the area nearby, looking for likely hiding places: cliffs hanging over the river, dense stands of trees. But he could not locate her. It seemed likely someone had picked her up as she hurried along the road, but he could hardly stop all the trucks and transports traveling the routes fanning out from Ileah. And he had no idea in which direction she might have run.
So he had left Ileah in a pretty foul temper indeed—although he wasn’t sure why he should be so angry. It was not as if she had been at all cooperative. It was not as if she had supplied him with any good ideas for continuing his search. Still, she was a Jacobite and he had thought he could make use of her, and now she had disappeared. And he wasn’t entirely certain where he should next turn his efforts at finding the Alleluia Files.
So he had come to the Eyrie, not because he really expected to find the files there, but because he had promised himself he would search all the possible hiding places. He had expected to stay half a day, maybe overnight if courtesy demanded it; he had not expected to be roped into Mariah’s entertainment plans.
“Once a year, we plan a dinner for the, shall we say, upper echelon of Bethel society,” she told him. “As the highest taxpayers in the province, it’s only fair that they get some recognition for the wealth they have poured into the Eyrie’s coffers. And of course there is no higher honor than being invited to sit at a table among angels as among equals.”
Jared thought perhaps some mortals would be less impressed by that equation than others, but he preserved his silence. Despite the fact that she had been married to Bael for nearly thirty years and lived at the Eyrie most of her adult life, Mariah still seemed to possess the sort of blind hero worship for angels that Jared expected to find only in the very young and the very unsophisticated. In his experience, angels had at least the same number of flaws and vices as the average mean-spirited mortal, and Bael could probably multiply that figure by a factor of one hundred. But still, Mariah seemed besotted; and that was probably just as well for her. Better to adore your husband than to despise him.
Bael had greeted the news of Jared’s extended visit with hearty approval. “Always glad to see you here, my boy, always a pleasure to talk with you!” he declared in his booming voice. “And how were things in Monteverde when you left? All well, I trust?”
It seemed like years since he had left Monteverde. “All well,” Jared replied pleasantly. “It is colder there than it is here, of course.”
“Ah, but spring will not lag long, even in northern Gaza,” Bael said. As always, the very tenor of his voice made everything seem like a divine pronouncement; Jared half expected his command to make the flowers open a month sooner and the ground to amaze itself with greenery. “But you are welcome to enjoy our spring while you are here. We must find other ways to entertain you as well.”
“I thought I’d take a look around your archives, if you didn’t mind,” Jared said boldly. He’d had a moment to give this some thought; he believed he could pull it off without arousing suspicion. “One of Ben Harth’s daughters was at Monteverde a few weeks back, doing research for some school paper. Some history class. She was asking about the Archangel Delilah, about whom I found myself surprisingly ignorant. I know that she ruled from the Eyrie, and that there was some short interruption of her tenure, but I couldn’t tell her the whole story. I thought you might have some biographies of her here?”
“Yes, we do, I’m sure we must,” Bael said. “The archives would be the place to look. Make yourself free of them. Myself, I’ve never been able to locate a single thing I wanted there. The place has not been organized as well as it could have been. But look all you want.”
So that was dangerous ground lightly skated over; he had not even mentioned Alleluia’s name. He spent some time that afternoon poking through the bookshelves and boxes of the archives, but it wasn’t like his hopes were high. As Bael had said, the place was so badly organized that it scarcely had any logic at all. He would be lucky to find a couple of volumes about the flamboyant and much-beloved Delilah, let alone any information about the reclusive Alleluia of the brief period of glory.
In fact, he did find two histories on Delilah, both of which devoted entire chapters to the temporary Archangel, but did not heap her with praise.
“During Alleluia’s reign,” said one, “the storms and the tempests grew in frequency and fury. While it was true that Alleluia herself was able to fly to any site and calm the storm, no matter how violent, she was not able to successfully mobilize the other angels, which was perceived as a distinct failing on her part. Not until Delilah regained her ability to fly and was once again on the seat of power did the storms abate and the god again choose to listen to the voices of all the angels.”
Well, that didn’t make it sound as if Alleluia had transported herself to the deck of the spaceship Jehovah a
nd conversed with the machine who controlled the weather and the fate of Samaria.
Jared laid the biographies aside and continued to search through the mayhem, but since he had no idea what he was looking for, his search was hardly systematic. Merely, he picked up books, glanced through them, put them down, opened cartons, poked inside, shut them again. He was looking for anything that looked like it might hold sound. In his experience, recordings were always put on small silver disks or larger black disks that could be inserted in specialized machines; but in Alleluia’s day, perhaps, other mediums had existed. Still, a random search through the cabinets and cupboards of the archives yielded nothing promising. And he had not thought it would.
Sighing with frustration, Jared swept his wings behind him and sat on the dusty stone floor. If he had been the Archangel Alleluia, possessed of a dangerous but important secret, where would he have hidden evidence? If he had been married to an engineer of some genius, he thought he might have recorded his memoir on some highly customized equipment and kept it close to his side. After her brief stint as Archangel, Alleluia had been the oracle at Mount Sinai for nearly forty years (according to this unsympathetic chapter on her life, which also noted that such a quiet, regulated existence had seemed more suited to her temperament and her talents than a great role in the public eye). True, the oracles, like the angels, received a steady stream of visitors looking to offer petitions to the god; but the oracles’ retreats were much more inaccessible and sternly guarded than the angel holds. And the Augustine school had been built at the very foot of Mount Sinai, so Caleb Augustus’s equipment would have been easily available to her. And she would have felt safe there; the oracles’ retreats were famous for creating auras of shelter and haven. All in all, it seemed like a good bet for a hiding place. Sometime in the next few weeks he must go to Mount Sinai.
He had barely reached this conclusion when he heard delicate footsteps cross the stone floor and a sweet, hesitant voice call out his name. “Jared? Are you in here? Jared?”
He came to his feet just as Annalee Stephalo drifted into his line of vision. She was a small, frail blond girl, who dressed always in diaphanous pinks and melons and wore her hair in a wild cloud of curls. She had the tiniest hands and the biggest eyes Jared had ever seen. Her father owned a mining concern in southwestern Bethel, and she had been living at the Eyrie for more than a year.
Jared couldn’t stand her.
“Oh! There you are!” she said in her breathy voice as she rounded the corner and saw him waiting there. “My! In these shadows you look so tall.”
“Are you looking for me, Annalee?” he said coolly. A stupid question since she obviously was.
“Yes, it’s nearly time for dinner and Mariah thought you might need to be reminded,” she said. She was looking around the room with a small frown on her dainty face, as if trying to comprehend where she was. “There are certainly a lot of books here, aren’t there?” she said at last.
“Indeed, there are. History books, mostly. Accounts of the hold. Tales of past angels and Archangels. Are you interested in history?” he added maliciously.
“Oh, no! Reading gives me a headache.” She paused for a moment, her eyes trained on the floor, then lifted her face to give him a single, soulful look. It was a trick she repeated often, and it was generally effective; her eyes were so enormous and so blue that every time you saw them again, full force, you were shocked at their depth and brilliance. Even if you didn’t like her. “I’m sure you’re a great reader, Jared. You’re so clever.”
“Well, not clever enough to make heads nor tails out of half the stuff in here,” he said briskly. He bent over to retrieve the two books on Delilah (even though no one at Monteverde really wanted to read them, he may as well pretend so, and take them back).
“You didn’t find what you were looking for?”
“Not exactly. How soon is dinner? Do I have time to clean myself up beforehand? I’m a little dirty.”
Unexpectedly, for she was generally a demure girl, she came a few steps closer. “I don’t think so. Here, let me dust you off a little.”
And she proceeded to brush her hands lightly across the front of his shirt, down the smooth hips of his leather pants, and across the very tips of his wings. Despite himself, as her soft fingers touched his feathers, he felt himself shiver and almost flinch away. He was astonished. Angels hated to be fondled, could not abide any except the most intimate touch on their sensitive wings. More than one mortal had discovered this to his rue as an angel had reacted violently to some invasive contact. Annalee had grown up among angels—she knew this—and yet here she was, intently stroking the edge feathers of his wings with a slower and more deliberate motion. Each fingertip left a trail of fire; his whole body leaped with unwilling response. She touched a finger to her tongue and reached for him again as if to smooth down a wayward quill.
Jared took a deep breath and stepped backward, out of reach. “I think not,” he said.
Again, she gave him that upswept look, a world of heavy meaning in her eyes. “I think I’ve improved you as best I can.”
Jared tilted his head back, eyeing her haughtily, but she gave him no time to reply. “We must hurry,” she said in her breathless voice, and turned for the door. “I believe Mariah is waiting.”
And so he followed her from the room into the tunnels of the Eyrie, and wondered if he had misread the whole incident. Had she meant something by it or not? She seemed too childlike to be attempting to seduce him (and she had certainly chosen a bad time for it if they were expected at dinner in five minutes), but no mortal familiar with angels ever initiated such casual contact.
Unless she meant something by it. And there was no reason to think Annalee Stephalo wasn’t on the lookout for a liaison with a well-known and potentially powerful angel. Her father had planted her here in the Eyrie, after all, a place where ambitious parents often sent their daughters for extended visits. Even if these girls did not succeed in marrying an angel, it was no disgrace to take an angel for a lover, especially if the union produced an angel child. Such good fortune could settle a young girl for life, for she and her child then became the responsibility of the hold; and the honor of being an angel’s mother was one that profited her entire family.
Still, Richard Stephalo had position and wealth enough of his own; he didn’t need angel grandchildren to secure his status in life.
And perhaps she had only been trying to be helpful, making him look presentable for Mariah’s little dinner. He was too suspicious, he disliked too many people; and he was too irritable at being stuck here in the Eyrie. He should not be attributing manipulative motives to a simple act of kindness. He sighed again, silently, and caught up with Annalee as she preceded him down the hall.
Dinner was formal but not as much of an ordeal as Jared had anticipated (that would come in two nights, when all the landowners of Bethel were gathered for their annual banquet). As ranking guest of honor, he was seated by Mariah, but she spent most of her time talking to the young man on her left. Jared was too far from Bael to be forced to converse with the Archangel, but of course it was impossible to miss any word uttered in those silver, gorgeous tones. Jared tried not to listen, but he took in some impression of the conversation—something about wheat tariffs and land taxes. He’d had the same discussions himself over dinner at Monteverde. He sighed again, and signaled the servant for another glass of wine.
Two more tedious days to go. He did not see how he could possibly bear it.
He escaped into Velora the next morning before anyone could find him. Velora was the small town situated at the bottom of the Velo Mountain; it had served the Eyrie since the hold was founded. The grand stairway, that conduit of commerce, connected the hold with this bustling, merry little city, but Velora was much to be preferred as a place to do business or enjoy an afternoon’s shopping. Jared spent most of the day sitting at outdoor tables of sidewalk cafes, thumbing through his histories of Delilah, and wishing he had better
reading material. He did walk through the bazaars, just for something to do, and bought a handful of shirts and gloves simply to have something to show for his day.
In the afternoon he returned to the Eyrie and found himself in an unexpected tête-à-tête with the Archangel.
He had decided it would do him no actual harm to see if the Alleluia Files could be found on one of the disks left in plain sight in the Eyrie’s music rooms, and so he was on the lower level of the compound, looking for an empty chamber. Bael opened the door to leave the very last one just as Jared had lifted his hand to knock.
“Oh! Sorry. Thought it might be empty,” Jared said, stepping back a pace. Although Bael was considerably shorter than he was, the Archangel’s pure physical presence was so forceful that he exuded an air of power even in the most casual situation.
“Nonsense! Don’t apologize. I’m quite through,” Bael said, beaming up at him. “In fact, wait. I’m not. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve a new piece of music I’d like you to listen to, if you’ve got a moment. Perhaps you’re in a hurry?”
“No, no hurry,” Jared said, and the two men stepped inside. Bael shut the door. The room was small, acoustically perfect, and barely furnished; the singer, or the listener, was supposed to concentrate all his attention on the music, not the decor. Still, there were two stools, and Bael gestured for Jared to take one. Jared sat while Bael fiddled with the controls on the cabinet in the wall.
“There! Isn’t that nice, now?” the Archangel said, coming over to sit by Jared. The music issuing from the hidden speakers was a duet, male voice over flute, and Jared listened critically a moment. Dark music, melancholy and brooding. Not quite Jared’s style. “He does have a talent, does he not?”
“Omar’s new piece?” Jared guessed. Bael nodded.
“He brought it to me this morning. I told him I would critique it with my usual harshness, but I find it hard to judge my own son. I think he’s a maestro.”