Archangel (21 page)

“I’m drawn to the powerless because I have an innate distaste for the powerful,” was the immediate response. “Fellow feeling, I suppose.”

Now he gave a soft laugh. “You,” he said, “in your worst moment, were never powerless or downtrodden.”

She dropped him a quick curtsey. “Thank you, angelo. I take that as a compliment.”

“And so it was meant.” He hesitated; he had not felt so in charity with his bride since the hour they met. “You lump me in with the hated ruling classes, I know,” he said slowly, “but still, we could deal better together than we do. My fault, I know, for things that happened, at least at the beginning—”

“Actually, if it’s any comfort to you, I think you’re the best of the lot,” she said. Her voice held its customary mocking edge, but he thought she might be sincere. “You don’t abuse your power, at any rate. You actually seem to have some desire to do good in the world, though you’d rather dp it from a distance, I think. And of course you have other faults—”

“Arrogance,” he said with a faint smile.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” she said thoughtfully. “I think it’s impatience. A sort of broad irritation that not everybody else thinks exactly the way you do—when your way is clearly right.”

He was irrationally pleased—and, at the same time, unnerved—that someone who knew him so little could so perfectly describe him. In return he gave her a playful bow. “Thank you for the kind words,” he said. “I am greatly moved.”

She actually laughed. “Consider it your wedding gift,” she said. “I didn’t think to prepare anything else.”

He felt the smile come back to his own face. “I have two more gifts for you,” he said. “One of which you will like, and one which you might not.”

She was instantly on guard. “What are they?” she asked.

“First the one you might dislike. Actually, it is not so much a gift to you as a problem for me.” He glanced over at her; her face was completely impassive. “I know you disagree with the sentiment behind it, but
try
to understand. Nathan and Magdalena—”

“If you’re expecting me to find a husband for Magdalena—”

“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that Nathan has contracted to spend a month in a Manadavvi compound very close to Monteverde. Ariel wished to send Maga here to keep her away from Nathan. I agreed, and we presented the idea to Maga as a— well, as a chance to do me a favor, do you a favor, telling her that you hadn’t made many friends among the angels here, and perhaps she could win you over. And in fact,” he added, “I really do think you would like her. She’s very sweet-tempered. Eager to please. Thoughtful, kind—all the things you admire.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t realize,” Rachel said evenly, “that I’m much more likely to abet her in meeting Nathan secretly than to try to convince her that she should give him up.”

“I realized it,” he said. “But my options were limited.”

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then spread her hands helplessly. “What is it you want me to do with her?”

“Just be nice to her. If it’ll make it easier, consider her one of the poor unfortunates that you’re so fond of. Teach her how to weave. Practice songs together.” He couldn’t believe he said it; hastily he added, “Visit Velora for fun.”

“I can’t get to Velora,” she replied.

He had turned toward the door and, as she spoke, was halfway across the room. He stopped with his hand on the knob, and smiled at her. “Oh yes, you Can,” he said. “That’s my last wedding present to you. A way off the mountain.”

T
wo weeks later, Rachel sat with Magdalena in a sunny Velora pastry shop and thought that life was really very good.

True, it was nearly the heart of winter now, and even at sea level, the air was too chilly to travel without a cloak, but she had survived cold weather before. Everything else was marvelous. After a solid week of miserable, rainy weather, the sun had broken free of the clinging clouds and blazed down upon them with a sort of lunatic delight. Magdalena had proved to be the most agreeable person she’d met in the past five years, impossible to dislike, touched with a tentative charm that instantly breached Rachel’s outer defenses. And she was off the mountain.

Gabriel’s last wedding present had been, by far, his best. He had made her wait until every last guest had left the Eyrie, then taken her to Matthew’s work chamber to collect the Edori leather worker. Together, the three of them had wound through the lower tunnels of the compound, toward the farthermost storage chambers, where nobody ever went.

“The first week you were here, I remembered this,” Gabriel had said over his shoulder to Rachel. “Or remembered hearing about it. I don’t think anybody’s used it for a hundred years. Since Isaiah led the host here at the Eyrie, and his daughter had the same problem you have.”

“Height-sickness,” Matthew murmured.

“Whatever. So he had this built. Chipped out of the rock in
the most laborious fashion. It took more than a year, so the histories say. Personally, I find the whole thing a little creepy. I can’t stand to be in places that are so closed in.”

What Isaiah had built for his daughter was a small wooden cage that used a complex system of weights and pulleys to travel up and down a narrow shaft cut into the mountain itself. A door at the base of the mountain (long ago grown over with vines and shrubbery) allowed the descending passenger to exit; a similar door opened onto the bottom tier of the Eyrie tunnels. The shaft had been cunningly designed with ventilation holes to provide adequate fresh air. An emergency bell-cord had been installed in the car, attached to a chime at the upper level, in case the car became stuck in transit.

Many of the ropes and wires which had hoisted the car through its vertical tunnel had rotted or worn away in a century of disuse, but Matthew had painstakingly replaced or repaired them all. The leather craftsman, it seemed, had the usual Edori tinkering skills as well as a fascination with anything that moved. The angel and the Edori had repeatedly tested the resurrected lift before allowing Rachel to ride in it.

“These are the rules,” Gabriel had said. “You always tell someone you’re taking the cage down, and you always ring the bell before you get in the cage to come up. I cannot conceive of any more horrifying end than to be trapped in some little box deep in the heart of a mountain. If you
don’t
observe these rules, I swear to you, I’ll have Matthew cut the cords and never let you get in the cage again.”

She would have liked to flout his rules, but the idea of freedom was too precious; besides, she had to admit that the prospect of being stuck for hours in the stone shaft was far from attractive. So she readily agreed to both conditions. They watched her make a trial run, and she was secretly relieved on two counts. The levered weights were easy enough for her to manage, and piped gaslight down the length of the shaft provided comforting illumination.

And then the door at the bottom of the mountain opened and she was on flat, solid ground, and she was
free
. The only reason she came back up so quickly was because she did not want to give Gabriel any reason to rescind this most wonderful of privileges. When she stepped from the car back in the Eyrie, she could have hugged her husband in gratitude. She refrained.

But she knew she was glowing, anyway, as incandescent as the gaslight throwing an eternal nimbus against the rosy mountain walls. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she exclaimed, the words dancing out of her mouth, her feet dancing across the stone floor. “This is the best thing you could ever have done for me—

And she had been surprised by the wistfulness that had momentarily crossed Gabriel’s face. Was he sorry that he hadn’t given her this gift sooner, or sad for her that her joys were so few? It scarcely mattered; she didn’t care at all. She could get off the mountain. She was a prisoner no more.

Magdalena, the third wedding gift, had proved to be almost as wonderful. As Gabriel had said, it was impossible to dislike the Monteverde angel, although Rachel had been willing to try.

Magdalena had come to her late the day of the ill-fated breakfast, and even her manner of chiming the door had been unobtrusive. Rachel let her in but did not invite her to sit down.

“I think you’ve been kept here under false pretenses,” Rachel said without preamble. “They told you I needed a friend, but they really wanted a way to keep you away from Nathan.”

“I know,” Magdalena said gently. “But I too was looking for a way to keep away from Nathan.”

Rachel stared at her. “Don’t you want to be with him?” she demanded. “When you’re together, you look as if you’re in love.”

Magdalena gave her a sweet smile. “I am. We are. I scarcely remember a time I wasn’t in love with Nathan.”

Rachel made a broad gesture. “Then—”

“If I can’t have him, it is easier not to be near him.” The angel stepped slowly around the room and began to inspect it. When she spoke again, she had changed the subject. “It’s so surprising,” she said. “I’ve seen this room before, and it’s always looked exactly like this. Same tapestry on the wall, same furniture. Haven’t you brought in anything of your own?”

“I didn’t have anything when I came here,” Rachel said evenly. “I had nothing to bring except guilt gifts from Lord Jethro.”

“We should go shopping, then. Down to the Velora bazaars. What kinds of things do you like? They have almost everything there.”

Intrigued, Rachel thought about that. “I don’t know … The
Edori traveled so much, we didn’t have many
things
. Decorative things, that is. Everything we carried from place to place was useful in some way.”

“How strange. My whole life I’ve been surrounded by beautiful, useless objects—gifts, mostly. People are always giving angels gifts. Ariel loves them. The more delicate and ornamental a thing is, the more she loves it. Which is also strange, because for the most part, she’s an extraordinarily practical person.”

“She must like Luminaux, then.”

“Her favorite place in the world. All that glass and crystal.”

“I like colors,” Rachel decided. “Maybe all Edori do. Bright weavings, and embroidered head scarves, and blankets dyed red and blue and purple. Color is the only way to make practical things beautiful.”

“We will have a wonderful time in Velora,” Magdalena said solemnly.

Rachel laughed. “But what do I buy with?” she asked. “I have nothing to barter. In Semorrah, everything was bought and paid for with gold. But here—”

“Velora and the Eyrie have a credit agreement,” Magdalena said. “Many of the cities have such arrangements with the angels. You just show your bracelets—” She stopped abruptly.

“Ah, yes, my bracelets,” Rachel said dryly.

Magdalena did not ask questions. “Well, could you carry them with you if you don’t feel you can wear them?” she asked. “Put one in your pocket or something?”

Rachel considered. “Well, I could … But how do I know how much I’ve spent if I’m not using gold or bartered goods? What if I spend too much?”

Magdalena laughed. “The Eyrie is rich beyond the dreams of Semorrah,” she informed the angelica. “You could not possibly spend too much on a few dresses and a couple of items for your walls.”

Unlimited wealth, a choice market and a companion who seemed to have no concept of economy. Despite her innate caution, Rachel felt a certain anticipation rising. “Let’s go, then,” she said recklessly. “Down to Velora. Tomorrow morning.”

They spent the better part of the next three days in the small, elegant city at the foot of the Velo Mountains. Magdalena would not let Rachel buy anything the first day.

“You don’t even know what you want yet,” the angel said. She sounded serious, but Rachel suspected she was inwardly laughing; surely the act of purchasing could not be this complex. “You must look at everything first, and then go back to the things you thought you liked, and make sure you still like them. And then you must look at everything that you didn’t like and make sure you didn’t overlook any good qualities. And then you must make sure nothing new came in overnight that you might like better than everything else.”

But the ritual was enjoyable nonetheless. The bazaar stalls were full of exotic items, from pottery to jewelry to gloves, and Rachel found herself savoring every last piece of merchandise, holding jewels up to her ears, trying scarves around her head, stepping into and out of pair after pair of hand-sewn shoes. Velora could not compare to Luminaux, of course, and even Semorrah had a greater range of wares available in its open-air markets, but it had been so long since Rachel had the chance to squander any money on herself that the experience seemed almost sinfully luxurious.

The second day they went back to buy. Magdalena had instructed Rachel on how to bargain with the petty merchants (“Because they overprice everything, particularly when they think they’re selling to the angel holds.”), and Rachel entered into the haggling process with zest. Three of the shopkeepers congratulated her, once the transaction was completed, on her tenacity and skill. She laughed, and gathered up her goods.

She did not bargain at all as she bought apricot silk at a small booth on the edge of town, run by a thin, nervous, teenaged girl. Magdalena scolded her once they were out of earshot, but Rachel shrugged.

“She looked hungry.”

“But still! You could have brought that price down by half and she would have eaten well for three days—”

“I’m going back tomorrow to buy the blue silk as well.”

When the spree was ended, Rachel had bought enough clothes and furnishings to transform herself and her room. Weeks ago she had noticed how the close-fitting leathers gave the angels much greater freedom of movement than the full-skirted gowns she had always worn, so she had bought—and commissioned— several woolen outfits that approximated the vests, shirts and
trousers that even the women angels wore. That meant she also needed boots to tuck the trousers into, and shawls to dress up the plain patterns, and scarves with which to tie back her hair.

For her room she bought rugs, wall hangings, potted plants, an etched mirror in an ornate wooden frame, a small maple table with a checkerboard inlay of onyx and pearl, a silver hairbrush, and five embroidered pillows. Most of these items had been delivered to the hauling platform at the edge of the mountain which was used to hoist bulk goods up to the Eyrie. She did wonder from time to time how Gabriel would feel about her headlong plunge into pure hedonism, but she could not ask him. He was, of course, gone again. He was usually gone.