The Alleluia Files (45 page)

Except for that one brief exchange when she asked where he was taking her, neither the angel nor the Jacobite volunteered much conversation for the next few hours of the flight. Once or twice Jared shifted his grip on his passenger so that she rode a little more comfortably; she did not resist, but lay passively against his chest. At first he thought she might be sleeping, for she was as motionless as a child dreaming in her father’s arms, but then it occurred to him that she might have suffered a concussion from that final blow. Which worried him deeply enough that he brought them in for a landing an hour or two before weariness would have dictated that he take a rest.

He touched his feet to the ground and sank to his knees all in a single motion, so that he could lay Tamar on the grass without requiring her to stand. Until all movement ceased completely—until she was half sitting, half lying on the ground, supported by his arm—she did not open her eyes. When she did, he was struck again by their pure, undiluted green innocence.

“Why are we stopping? Are we in Ysral?” she asked.

Which alarmed him further. “No,” he said sharply. “It will take us two days to fly across the ocean, and we aren’t even at the coast yet. I thought you might want something to eat or drink.”

“I don’t have any food,” she said. “And I lost my canteen.”

He had never seen Tamar helpless or even at a loss, and it filled him with an almost uncontainable anxiety to see her so dazed and disoriented. “How’s your head?” he asked abruptly. “You’re acting so strangely. I think that Jansai must have injured you when he struck you.”

She put a hand to her temple as if checking to make sure that her skull was still intact. “Maybe,” she said uncertainly. “I don’t think I’m bleeding.”

“You don’t have to be bleeding to be hurt.”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No. Thirsty, a little.”

He helped her swallow from his own flask and then wondered if he should have. If she really had a concussion, shouldn’t he keep her from food and water? And if she had been seriously injured, shouldn’t he get her to a doctor? But they were in Jordana now, not four hours’ flight from Breven, and there could
be Jansai at every small town and oasis they came to from here to the coast. It was hard to know how far her picture had been circulated. He hated to take unnecessary risks.

“Does your head hurt?”

“A little. The flying makes me dizzy. Just like it did before.”

Now she was talking nonsense. Worse and worse. “Before?” he said cautiously. “But you’ve never flown with an angel before, have you?”

She shook her head once, then stopped abruptly as if the motion pained her. “Not real flying. I told you. Sometimes I get dizzy. Ever since I had the Kiss put in, I would feel like I was floating in the air. And that’s just how it felt while you and I were flying. And then sometimes I hear music.”

“Just now you heard music? When we were flying?”

“No,” she said impatiently. “Before. In my head. Like someone was singing. I was afraid at first, but after a while I liked it.”

None of this made any sense; clearly she was delirious. Whether or not he liked it, he was going to have to get her to shelter and a doctor’s care, the sooner the better.

“Listen, Tamar,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “We’re going to rest here for a few minutes. Then, when you feel well enough, we’ll fly on a couple more hours. There’s a little town about fifty miles south of Breven. I think we’ll be safe enough there for the night. Then tomorrow morning we’ll head for Ysral.”

“Over the ocean,” she said drowsily. “Flying and flying for two whole days.”

“Well, no. We’ll fly for a day, then find a trading ship headed for Ysral and take shelter on it for the night. Then we’ll fly on to Ysral the next morning. It usually wouldn’t matter what kind of ship we chose—Jansai, Manadavvi, Edori—but you being who you are, I think we’d be safest with the Edori.”

“I think so,” she murmured.

He could not keep his worry to himself anymore. “Tamar, are you all right?” he said sharply. “You seem so—lost. I’m afraid you were seriously injured back there. I’ve never seen you so—so—”

“I can’t fight anymore,” she said. “I can’t. My head hurts. I can’t think straight. Do what you want. I can’t fight you.”

Without another word he slipped his flask back in his pocket,
scooped her up in his arms, and carefully levered them both back into the wind. She nestled her cheek against the soft leather of his vest and curled her hands against her chest like a child. She was asleep before they had even reached flying altitude.

The town of Marquet boasted only one doctor, who looked to be about a hundred years old and not likely to go running off to Jansai with tales of suspect new arrivals. Tamar was awake while he examined her, though barely, but she was able to answer all his questions in coherent sentences. She admitted to a headache, said it was not severe, and told him without a moment’s hesitation that she had slipped and fallen that morning, cracking her head against a wooden bench.

“Don’t feel a bump,” the old man muttered, poking under her hair with the tips of his fingers. “Couldn’t have hit it too hard. But the brain’s a tricky thing. You can shake a baby hard enough to kill it just by scrambling up its brains. Fact. Doesn’t take much of a blow to make an adult woozy for a few days.”

“So is she all right?” Jared asked for the tenth time.

The doctor was repacking his kit. “Hard to say. It’s a good sign that she can walk and talk and remember her name and what she had for dinner yesterday. All her reflexes are good. It’s a bad sign that she wants to sleep so much. It would be a very bad sign if she started vomiting. If that happens, let me know.”

And then you’ll do what for her? Jared wanted to ask, but did not. Brain injuries were notoriously difficult to treat; he had heard that a long time ago. “Can she eat? Drink?”

“Moderate food intake. No alcohol. If she goes twenty-four hours without vomiting, she can eat pretty much what she wants.”

“And all this sleeping? That’s bad?”

“Try to keep her awake for a few more hours. Till nighttime, at least. Then wake her up every couple hours all night. If you can’t rouse her, get in touch with me.”

“We’re leaving in the morning. Unless you think that’s unwise.”

The doctor shrugged. “You’re flying?” Jared nodded. “High altitude might increase her headache. Try to stay as low as possible. If she gets worse, land as soon as you can.”

“All right. Thanks for your help.” The doctor left.

By this time it was early evening and the sun was dipping flirtatiously below the horizon. They had taken a single room in the small hotel, because Jared wanted to be near Tamar if she needed attention during the night. He stood now at the small window, looking out toward the vast darkness of the sea. Common sense told him he should stay in Samaria another day, making sure Tamar was healthy; fear told him they could not linger a minute longer than they had to, not this close to Breven, not with Tamar apparently such a magnet for trouble. Either way, she was at risk. And he felt safer in the air. They would leave tomorrow morning, and see how well she did.

He turned to face her, smiling with an effort. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I could eat a little,” she said cautiously. “I think.”

They went down to the hotel’s dining room and ordered a simple meal. Tamar had nothing more than soup and half a roll, but the food seemed to revive her a little. Jared could not help watching every bite she took. “How’s your stomach?” he asked when she pushed away her dishes. “You don’t feel like you’re going to throw up, do you?”

“Why? Am I supposed to?” she asked.

He smiled. “No. Very bad sign if you do, the doctor said.”

“Well, then I’ll try very hard not to.”

He hurried them back up to their room, not eager to have strangers walk into the restaurant and catch sight of them. But it was still relatively early and the doctor had told him to keep Tamar awake as long as possible, so now he was faced with the task of entertaining her.

“We could play cards,” he suggested. “Board games. I’m sure the innkeeper could lend us something.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know many games. And I don’t think I could concentrate on learning.”

“You could tell me the story of your life.”

“Too much effort,” she said with a yawn. “You could tell me yours.”

“Too dull,” he said with a quick smile. “You’d fall asleep for sure.”

“You could sing to me,” she said. “I’d like that.”

He almost couldn’t believe she’d said it. It would never have occurred to him that Tamar would consider his singing mesmerizing enough to hold her complete attention. But, “Certainly,”
he said. “Let me know when I hit on something you particularly like.”

So—keeping his voice soft enough to avoid disturbing any sleepers in the nearby rooms—he offered her a selection of brisk, upbeat marches, a few comic ballads at a breathless pace, and the tenor part to one of the sacred masses that had been written in the heroic strain. She seemed to like the music more than he would have predicted. At any rate, she listened fairly closely and did not fall asleep.

“I know a song,” she said suddenly when one of his selections came to a rousing close. “I just learned it. Maybe you’d like to learn it, too?”

She was going to sing for him? Heat danced across his Kiss just in anticipation. “Of course. Is it very long?”

She seemed a little puzzled. “No—well, parts of it repeat. I’ll just teach you the main part. See how you like it.”

So in a soft, sweet soprano, she crooned a wordless melody for him, hands clasped before her, serene and unselfconscious as a young girl singing for her family. He felt the fire in his Kiss intensify; he felt a skittering uneasiness run along the base of his hairline and all the way down his spine.

“I know that song,” he said slowly when she had finished. “Or at least—I don’t know it. I’ve never heard it before. But it sounds so familiar…. Where did you say you learned it?”

“It’s the song in my head. I told you,” she said. “The one I hear when I feel like I’m flying.”

Now the prickle spread to his elbows, underarms, and knees. He felt spooked and uneasy, in the presence of some eerie phenomenon that he could not identify or understand. “You learned that music—from a voice in your head?” he repeated. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

She nodded emphatically, her eyebrows raised in agreement. “Tell me,” she said. “I didn’t like it much when I first heard it, either. But I’ve gotten used to it. And the song is pretty. Would you like to hear it again?”

And he stared at her and felt the chill creep through his whole body. She was mad or delirious or touched by a strange, uncomfortable gift, and the latter possibility seemed the least likely. Yet he was filled with a desire to shield her, restore her— even believe her—so fierce it made him a little insane in return. He did not move a muscle; if he approached her, he thought,
nothing would keep him from taking her protectively in his arms.

At any rate, nothing would prevent him from guarding this frail woman with his life, not until she was recovered, not until she was Tamar again, whole and spirited and unafraid.

“Sing it again,” he said softly. “I’ll listen closely, then next time I can sing it with you. I’ll learn it before the night is through.”

In the morning, she was better, though still not the feisty, suspicious Tamar Jared was accustomed to. He had slept badly, waking up every few hours to make sure she was still breathing, but she seemed to have made it through the night untroubled even by a nightmare.

“How do you feel? How’s your head?” he asked her over breakfast, where she put away more food than he had ever seen a woman eat.

She gave him a look of exasperation. “What did I tell you the first time you asked me that? And the second and third and fourth time?”

He smiled reluctantly. “You said you were fine.”

“Well, the answer hasn’t changed. So stop asking me. Now eat your breakfast and let’s go.”

They had lingered in Marquet long enough to buy her a change of clothes, a simple tunic and pair of leggings that would be comfortable enough to travel in, and then they took off. Within an hour they were over the ocean, vast, mysterious, and multicolored, and Tamar stared down at it with an unwavering fascination. The air over the sea was cooler, heavier, laced with scents and vapors found nowhere else in the world. Heeding the doctor’s instructions, Jared flew as low as he could, though it would have been easier to cruise through the thin air higher above the water. So they had not made it as far as he would have liked by the time he started to grow weary, and he began watching the waters below them for a likely ship to take them in for the evening.

He had seen plenty of Jansai traders as they made their way above the ocean, and a few Manadavvi ships—even one bearing the Semorran flag, though he hadn’t realized the river merchants ran their own cargo across the ocean. Edori vessels were scarcer, and it only belatedly occurred to him that those ships were following
a different route, specifically to keep clear of the Jansai traders patrolling the waters between Breven and Ysral.