Angel-Seeker (12 page)

He smiled. “No, no, angels heal very rapidly. You'll see. I'll be well enough to fly back tomorrow or the day after.”

“You can't even hold your head up,” she said.

“I'd rather rest it against you,” he whispered.

She stilled all over, and suddenly the flirting girl was gone and the brisk matron was back. “Well, it's true you should be resting for a while,” she said. “I'm going to give you another one of those white pills, and then I want you to sleep.”

“I don't want to sleep. I want to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me when you wake up.”

“I don't think I'll be able to close my eyes. I know I won't fall asleep.”

She made a
well, now
gesture with her hands. “But I won't talk with you again until you've napped. You can lie here all afternoon, fighting to stay awake, but I won't say another word to you until you've slept and woken again. So you'd be better off to sleep.”

He couldn't help laughing. “Sounds like something you must have said to your brother when he was little.”

She didn't reply, but he could see fragments of smile through her veil. She lifted his head and returned it gently to the ground. Instantly
he felt a great lassitude steal over him, but he resisted it mightily. “I'm not
tired,
” he insisted.

She placed a finger on his lips to silence him, instantly achieving the desired effect. Rising, she stepped over to her pile of belongings, sought through them quickly, and returned with another pill in hand. He didn't argue anymore, just swallowed it down with the water she held to his mouth. He closed his eyes just a minute against the brightness of the day, and the next thing he knew it was a couple of hours later and he was just waking up again.

He lay there quietly a moment, not struggling to sit up, not even trying to look around, wondering what he would see when he did take in his surroundings again. Would Rebekah still be here, or had he slept so long that she had refilled her water vessels and returned to camp? If she had already departed, she would have left him well-provisioned, of that he was certain: There would be waterskins close to hand, and the rest of the soup, and the container of juice. Perhaps a handful of the precious white pills, a small pot of salve, all within easy reach.

But he hoped she had not gone.

Moving slowly to avoid jarring any injured limbs, he stretched his body and craned his neck, looking around the small oasis. Rebekah was nowhere in sight. He felt a profound strike of disappointment, a clutch in the stomach so brutal it felt like nausea, but what had he expected, after all? She had done more for him than any Jansai girl should have—more than most any stranger might have done for a wounded wayfarer encountered by chance. Both his leg and his wing felt markedly improved since the application of the salve, and his fever had responded quickly to the medicine. He would be on his feet tomorrow, in the air and headed toward Cedar Hills by the day after that.

Cautiously he pushed himself up on one elbow, and when that did not cause him to swoon with pain, he fought to a sitting position. His head just fit under the low roof of the tent, and his wings spread out limply behind him, feeling twice their normal weight and completely stripped of glory. Grunting a little, he stretched his hurt leg out straight before him and poked around at the bandage. That
woke a few shivers of agony, but the area of injury appeared to have shrunk to a smaller size, so he was clearly healing. Once he could stand and force the leg to take his weight, it would heal more quickly still.

He peered out from under the canvas to try to get a look at the sun and judge what time of day it might be. Late afternoon; no wonder Rebekah had left. He must have been asleep three hours or more. As he had suspected, she had left waterskins piled by his own canteen, all within reach of his hand. Thirst made him reach for the closest one. Water merely, but he drank it down as if it was sweetest wine.

He was just recapping the container when Rebekah strolled into his line of vision, holding a handful of bushy objects before her.

“Good, you're awake,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

He was so happy to see her that he smiled like an idiot. “I thought you'd left!”

She made a little sound. “I'm not going back there till the sun goes down.”

“You'd better be careful,” he said seriously. “There was a mountain cat around here last night. If you go back after dark—”

“It won't come after me,” she said serenely. “They only go after small game and helpless big game.”

“Well, be careful anyway.”

She came close enough to drop beside him and sit cross-legged on the ground. “How are you feeling? You look much better.”

“
So
much better. I think the fever's gone. And the pain is almost nothing now. Just an annoyance.”

“I'd still be careful for a day or two if I were you. Don't try to fly off to Cedar Hills tonight.”

“No. Tomorrow or—more likely—the day after.”

She held up a handful of leaves and some long, snaky tubers. “I've been out foraging. I found some marrowroot not far from here and some reskel roots. The reskel roots don't taste like much unless you cook them and season them, but you can eat them raw, and they'll fill you up. So that will get you through tomorrow, I think.”

“I'm starting to feel hungry again.”

She nodded. “I'll give you the rest of the soup before I go, and I brought some bread. But you're probably going to be really hungry
in a day or two, since you've missed so many meals. I can't do much about that. Sorry.”

“So I won't see you again tomorrow?” he said, trying to sound careless and wholly failing.

“I don't know. If Simon made it back this afternoon and fixed the axle, we could be on our way at daybreak. If he's still on the road, we might be here another day. Or two. But I would expect him to be back tonight or early tomorrow.”

“So when you leave today, that will be it. Last time I see you.”

“Yes. It might be.”

A silence fell. She sat there, apparently at ease, but Obadiah felt awkward and eager, wanting to say more, knowing he should not. There was no hope of any kind of lasting friendship between a Jansai girl and an angel, even an angel renowned in three provinces for the gift of charm. They were companions of chance, need, and kindness, comrades of the desert, and once he flew away from this precise spot, he would never see her again.

Not by his choice, however.

She spoke suddenly. “I've washed your shirts out.”

“What?”

She gestured to an array of white tacked down with small stones on the other side of the fountain. “Your shirts. They were so dirty. I washed them out so you'd have something clean to change into.”

He couldn't keep himself from leaning forward as if to stare behind the face scarf and look into her eyes. “You did not have to do any more chores for me. You have done so much already.”

She laughed. “All part of caring for an invalid. Making him more comfortable.”

“If only there was something I could do for you in return, some way to thank you, or pay you—”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I was glad to do it.”

“But your family—you took such a risk.”

“Oh, that's one of the reasons I wanted to help you! It would make Hector so mad if he knew! I sat in the wagon last night, and I watched him and Reuben at the fire, and I couldn't stop laughing. If they knew where I had been all day yesterday, where I was today—”

“I don't think that's why you helped me,” he said quietly. “I think you did it because you have a kind heart.”

She was silent a moment. “A willful heart,” she said. “Don't think better of me than I am.”

He smiled. “Very well. I will believe that you are willful, and stubborn, and hard to please, and impossible to control. But you are also kind. I have known willful women before, and not all of them would have stopped on the roadside to aid a stranger.”

“I'm sure you know a lot of women,” she said lightly.

His heart quickened. Was that just the merest hint of jealousy? “Angels and angel-seekers, Manadavvi heiresses and Bethel farm girls, Luminaux artists and the daughters of Semorran merchants,” he agreed. “And not one of them is half so amazing as you.”

The smile was back in her voice. “I feel certain that you have said something very similar to all those farm girls and heiresses, angelo.”

He put a hand to his heart as if it, too, had been wounded by a bolt of fire. “You think I'm a flirt?”

“I think you are—a man who knows how to be delightful to women.”

“And you know so much about men! Perhaps they are all like me.”

“Silly and funny and kind and complimentary? I don't think so. Not my uncle or my father or my cousins or Hector or the men who are married to the women I know. I can't imagine all angels are just like you, either. No one has ever said very flattering things about the Archangel, for instance.”

“No, Gabriel is not silly or funny, I have to admit, although he can be kind and complimentary when he chooses. And Nathan can be quite charming upon occasion. Now, he's an angel you would like, I think.”

“Oh, no. I'm not interested in meeting more angels. It's been adventure enough to meet you.”

He smiled. “An adventure so shocking you can't even tell Martha about it.”

A giggle. “If you knew Martha and the things she's done . . . I can't think of anything I'd do that could shock her.”

“It's good to have a friend like that.”

She tilted her head as if to consider him. He would swear he could feel her gaze drifting across his face, touching his cheek as lightly and as curiously as her fingertip had touched him before. “I wouldn't think you would need friends who weren't shocked by your behavior,” she said slowly. “I wouldn't think you'd done too many shocking things.”

“You're right,” he admitted. “I've always been—a fairly conformable individual. Not much of a rebel. Easygoing. Dependable.”

“So maybe it's been good for you to meet me,” she said.

“In so many ways,” he answered.

“That's nice to know,” she said.

“I wish you'd let me see your face,” he said.

He could tell she was smiling even before she spoke. He had gotten that good at reading the small patches of skin he could see through her veil. “I think I need to keep it covered,” she said. “So there is still some mystery in your life. Since your life doesn't hold many secrets.”

“But this is a secret I don't want to keep.”

“You don't want to keep a memory of me?”

“That's not what I meant!”

She laughed and got to her feet. “I was teasing.”

He eyed her with a little scowl. “It seems to me,” he said, “for a girl who has spent most of her life around women, you have learned very quickly the art of flirting with a man.”

“It is because you are so skilled at flirting,” she said. “I cannot help but learn from you.”

“I'm not flirting now. I'm entirely serious. Let me see your face. Don't go without letting me know what you look like.”

“I've already told you. You're not supposed to know what I look like.”

“Does it upset you that I want to know?”

“Oh no. I like it that you keep asking. Maybe that's why I don't want to lift my veil. Because the question is so sweet.”

“Are you really leaving?”

She nodded and gestured at the horizon. “Almost sundown. My mother will have been watching for me these past two hours.”

“But not really expecting you.”

Rebekah laughed. “But not really expecting me,” she agreed. “But I must get back.” She glanced down at him. “If I can, I'll return in the morning. But I can't promise.”

“Then, if I don't see you tomorrow—”

She shook her head. “No. Don't even say it.”

“I might run into you accidentally in Breven.”

“I am never in the public places where you might see me.”

“Sometimes you are. At the festivals. You said so.”

“Only men are allowed at the festivals.”

“Are angels allowed?”

“I don't know. Certainly other travelers come from time to time—merchants and farmers and Luminauzi. So perhaps an angel would be permitted to attend.” She glanced down at his outstretched leg. “If an angel wasn't afraid of what might happen to him if he encountered a Jansai with a grudge.”

“I'll be in Breven again in a couple of weeks.”

“I hope you enjoy your visit,” she said.

She would make no other promises or acknowledgments; she would not even promise to return in the morning to secure more water before the caravan got under way again. There seemed to be a certain restlessness in Rebekah that led her, once she had made up her mind to act in a certain way, to be completely intractable, and she had decided to leave without any more coquettish exchanges. So she responded politely when Obadiah spoke, but she went methodically about the business of filling her waterskins, gathering up her bundles, retying her boots, and glancing around the camp for anything she might have left behind.