Archangel (30 page)

It was the next day before she realized that there might be repercussions. She was back in Velora, this time alone, walking through one of the sunless alleys that connected the bazaar to the business district. Having just purchased a sackful of blue yarn, and calculating how long it would last and which of her students would be asking for a different color, she was paying very little attention to the noises around her. Not that there was much noise. She heard a footfall—the small clink of knife against metal sheath—and then she was enveloped in darkness.

For a split second, she was too astonished to be afraid or even to understand what had happened. But when darkness was followed by sudden violent motion, she knew, and she started to scream and fight. Her voice was muffled by the heavy blanket over her head, and her hands were trapped inside it as well, but terror lent her amazing strength. She writhed and shrieked, kicking out ferociously at invisible shapes around her, clawing at her prison from the inside. She heard low voices swearing, and someone struck her a mighty blow on the head. Other hands grabbed her around her shoulders and flung her back against a wall. There were at least two of them.

One of them clouted her again; her skull cracked against the brick so hard she was dizzied. She kicked out frenziedly and an answering boot crashed into her thigh so brutally that she felt her flesh tear and her bones buckle. Unable to stop herself from falling,
she pitched headlong onto the cobblestones, rolled, and slammed again into the wall. There was a laugh, a flurry of Jansai words, and another foot catching her unexpectedly in the stomach. She tried to scrabble up, but rough hands pushed her back down. She felt a length of rope pass around her neck and shoulders, and tighten as if a noose were abruptly shortened.

Her cry of despair was swallowed up by unexpected sounds— high yipping calls and a rattle of stones and bottles ricocheting off the alley walls. Her captors swore again, shoved her facedown into the street and took off running. Rachel lay where they left her, tangled and bruised, too stunned to even pull off the blanket and see who had rescued her.

In a matter of seconds, someone else performed this task for her. She found herself struggling for air and staring up into a most unexpected trio of faces. Three of her students—Katie, Nate and Sal—were crouched beside her, surveying Rachel with worried expressions.

“Angela—you all right?” asked Katie, the oldest and largest of the group. “Was they grabbing you?”

Rachel pushed herself slowly to a more vertical position, though she was incapable of standing just yet. “I think so,” she said shakily. “Was it the Jansai?”

Nate nodded solemnly. He was the youngest student in the school, affectionate and intelligent; Peter had high hopes for him. “Two of ‘em. We saw another one coming this way, but he run off when he saw us.”

Rachel gingerly put a hand to her right leg, where the kick had gone home with some force. It was bleeding but not, apparently, broken. “How did you know it was me?” she asked.

“Seen your hair,” Nate said.

“Katie said, They’ve got angela! We’ve gotta help her!”’ Sal related. “And I was scared, but Katie got her a handful of rocks and we started coming at them real fast, and they run off.”

“Well, you were very brave. All of you. I think you saved me.

“They was grabbing you?” Katie asked a second time. “Did they want you for their slave again?”

No secrets among the students, it seemed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think they were mad at me because I was in their camp yesterday.”

“But everybody goes to the Jansai camp,” Nate said, frowning.

“Yes, but I was trying to talk some of their children into coming to the school. I guess they didn’t like that.”

“Not their school,” Katie said with a scowl.

Rachel regarded her. She was feeling a little lightheaded, but slightly euphoric as well. Saved by her schoolchildren. Something about that appealed to her. Surely three children couldn’t have frightened off grown Jansai warriors; it must have been that they couldn’t afford to draw attention here in the streets of Velora. “So you don’t think the Jansai children would fit in? You think it would be a bad idea to invite them to live there?”

Katie nodded emphatically. The two boys, watching her, copied the motion. Rachel said, “But what if the Jansai are mean to them? Beat them—starve them? Shouldn’t they have someplace safe to go, like you do?”

“Get their own school,” Katie said distinctly.

Rachel gave a weak laugh. “Well, maybe you’re right. In any case, I don’t feel strong enough to go back to the camp to try again. Maybe in a year or two, when we’re a little more established—”

“You’re bleeding,” Nate observed.

Rachel glanced down at her leg. “Yes, I know. I probably need to get that taken care of.”

“Can’t you stand up?” Kate wanted to know.

“I can. I’m sure I can.”

“I’ll go get Peter,” Sal offered.

“No,” Rachel said, quickly, without thinking. The three children regarded her with interest. “No,” she said a little more slowly. “I don’t want Peter—or Matthew—or anyone else knowing about this. You see, some people aren’t so sure the school is a good idea. They might tell me it’s dangerous if they hear about this. I don’t want them to tell me to shut it down.”

“No,” Nate said positively.

Katie said, “Maybe they’ll just tell you not to go to the Jansai camp.”

Rachel laughed. “Well, they’ll certainly tell me that. And they’re right, and believe me, I’m not going to try it again. But I don’t want anyone being even a little bit worried. So I don’t want anyone to know about this. Will you promise me not to tell? All of you—will you promise me?”

Nate agreed promptly. Katie had to think it over, but when she gave her word, Sal followed suit. “Good,” Rachel said. “Now, somebody please help me up.”

They hauled her to her feet and insisted on walking her to the tunnel car when she said she didn’t want to go back to the school for first aid. Katie even helped her tie her scarf around her hips so that it concealed most of the bloody tear in her trousers. Rachel handed the girl the bag of new yarn to carry to the school.

“But you’ll be back tomorrow, won’t you?” Nate asked anxiously.

“Oh, I’m sure I will. All I need is a bandage and I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, then,” he said. They all watched her board the car and shut the gate, waving goodbye as she pulled the lever and rose out of their sight. Hoping to return unnoticed to her room, this once she deliberately neglected to ring the Eyrie chimes that would alert Matthew or Gabriel or Hannah to her arrival.

And she was successful, managing to slip down the cool hallways without attracting more than a casual glance from anyone she passed. Safe in her room, she swung the door shut and collapsed suddenly against it, sliding to the floor. Now, half an hour later, reaction was setting in. She trembled alarmingly; tears started coursing down her face and she could not stop them. Still pressing her back against the door, she made herself as small as she could, drawing her knees up to her cheeks and wrapping her arms tightly around her ankles. She wept so long that the room grew dark before she finally stirred and imposed some semblance of calm on herself. Painfully, she forced herself to stand and limped over to the water room, where she spent an hour bathing all traces of the dreaded Jansai touch from her body.

She was sore for two days, and the gash on her leg was ugly, but there did not appear to be other ill effects. Well, she was a little subdued, perhaps, but very few people here knew her well enough to notice that. Obadiah was out on a three-day mission, Maga of course was in Monteverde, and she hadn’t seen her husband in more than a week. Matthew did inquire, late that third day as they left Velora, how she was feeling.

“Because you’ve seemed a bit jumbled lately, like you’ve things on your mind or a headache,” he said. “It’s not such an easy thing you’ve taken on, this school—”

She smiled at him as they headed back toward the mountain at a rather sedate pace. She had told him, the day before, that she had twisted her ankle falling in the water room, to explain away the slowness with which she was walking. “Peter does all the hard work,” she scoffed. “And you. You’re surrounded by the mikele day in and day out. I just sit around weaving, which I’d be doing anyway. It’s not so difficult.”

“Weil, I was just asking. Because it occurred to me there might be something else clamoring in your brain that you haven’t had the sense to ask someone about.”

His phrasing made her laugh. “And what would that be?” she said, but she knew before he answered that he had scanned her mind.

“You can read a calendar,” he said. “You know what happens this time of year. You wouldn’t be thinking of attending the Gathering, now would you?”

She came to a halt, facing him in the middle of the road. She put a hand on his arm, half to steady herself, half to hold him in place. “You know I am,” she said quietly. “It’s been five years, Matthew. I can’t tell you—you can’t guess—”

“I can guess,” he said. “It’s to be held outside of Luminaux this year, did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“A long trip. Have you thought how you would make it?”

She began to feel a rising stubbornness. She had not expected Matthew, of all people, to offer opposition. “You can hire horses in Velora, I suppose. I know how to pack a saddlebag and where to find water—”

But he was smiling at her. He had been teasing all along. “Edori should not travel alone,” he said. “Seventeen years I’ve made that journey by myself, to wherever the Gathering was held. Sure I was thinking it would be a fine thing to make that trip with one of the people at my side.”

She laughed, and gave him a quick, hard hug. They resumed their slow progress toward the mountain. “Yes,” she said, “please come with me to the Gathering. I am so excited, and so afraid, I don’t know if I can make it on my own.”

They discussed the journey for the rest of the walk. Matthew even agreed to ride up in the tunnel car with her (though he didn’t much like the cramped quarters), seeing as there were no angels
in sight. Rachel tugged on the bell-cord and Matthew set the cage in motion. She was still bubbling over with plans. Matthew continued to listen in amusement.

Some of her enthusiasm faded when, arriving on the upper level, she stepped out of the cage to find Gabriel awaiting her in the hallway. In the half-light of the back tunnel, he looked almost phosphorescent, his pale skin distinct against the darkness, his huge white wings aglow behind him. The expression on his face was unfriendly.

“Rachel,” he said, and his voice matched his face. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you. Could you come to my room immediately?”

She glanced at Matthew and nodded goodbye, then silently preceded her husband down the hallway. She was very aware of him following closely at her heels, and she was a little sorry when Matthew turned down the corridor leading to his own quarters. Gabriel said nothing until he had ushered her inside his room and offered her a seat.

“Let’s see what you have to say first, and then I’ll decide if I need to sit,” she said sharply. Not a very amiable opening remark, but he did not make her feel amiable; in fact, it was clear she was in trouble for something. She was on the defensive.

Gabriel was too agitated to take a seat himself. Indeed, he was so disturbed that it seemed he didn’t know how to begin. He circled the room once, taking great strides and careless of how his wings brushed against the furniture, before coming to a sudden halt before her.

“What happened to you?” he demanded. “Hannah came to me and said she found clothes of yours in the laundry—covered with blood.”

It was totally unexpected; Rachel felt an entirely inappropriate blush coming to her cheeks. He went on in a hard voice. “Naturally, she came to me, concerned, wondering if you needed help—and I had no idea how you might have been wounded. As I never have any idea of what has happened in your life. It was not just a little blood, she said. It covered the whole leg of one pair of your new trousers.”

She dropped her eyes, uncharacteristically contrite. “It was nothing—a scrape,” she murmured. “I’m sorry to worry her—you—”

He stalked away from her to stare out his own small window
into the gathering blackness. “I knew you would say that,” he flung at her over his shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t tell me, even if it was something simple and harmless like the fact you had fallen and hurt yourself. So I ask myself. What can it be? Some bizarre Edori rite, self-mutilation? Would Matthew tell me—should I demean myself by going to him and asking? Maybe it’s something else—your tunnel car broke and crashed into the rocks, and you’re afraid that if you tell me, I’ll forbid you to use it. That would make sense, but the car seems to be in perfect working order. Then what? One of your schoolchildren beat you? Wild dogs in the streets of Velora attacked you?”

He whirled around to face her, but came no closer. “And then I ask myself—why? Why am I asking
myself
these questions? Because my wife doesn’t trust me enough to tell me anything—good things, bad things, anything—and even if I ask her, she will not give me the truth.”

Usually just a glimpse of his anger was enough to ignite her own, but now, inexplicably, she felt moved and apologetic. She took a few steps toward him, half-extended her hand before letting it fall.

“Gabriel—I’m sorry,” she said, the unaccustomed words coming haltingly. “I’ll tell you—but it will make you furious—which is why I didn’t tell you before. And it was my fault, and I know better now, so don’t tell me I can’t have the school anymore.”

He was staring at her with a heavy frown, but at the same time he looked slightly hopeful. “Don’t be silly, I favor the school,” he said a little more calmly. “Tell me, then. Something happened at Peter’s?”

“No, I—Well. A few days ago, Matthew and I went to the Jansai camp. I thought there might be children there who would want to come live at the school. It was a stupid idea, I know,” she hurried on, as his frown grew blacker, “but at the time I thought it was worth a try.”

“You and Matthew in a Jansai camp,” he said. “It makes my blood run cold.”