Angel-Seeker (25 page)

“Ah, so you know all your cousin's secrets,” Obadiah murmured.

Rebekah felt her cheeks redden. “Hush,” she said before Martha could say anything, and then, to the angel, “I have to go. Remember what I said.”

“You remember what
I
said,” he answered.

“Where's your mask?” Martha asked.

“I dropped it.”

“Here,” Obadiah said, bending over to retrieve it from the ground. “I'm afraid I stepped on it.”

Rebekah hesitated just a moment too long, so Martha strode forward and snatched it from his hand. “Thank you, angelo,” she said somewhat tartly, and returned to Rebekah's side. “Turn around, let me tie this on.”

In a moment, Rebekah was back in disguise, and Martha was pushing her toward the main clearing in front of the stage. It had ended too strangely and abruptly, this fortuitous meeting with the angel, and she did not want to leave like this, so many words unsaid. But Martha's hand was firm on her back, and Rebekah could only look over her shoulder at the still, winged shape.

“Good-bye,” she called. “Remember.”

“I could not possibly forget,” he said.

A few moments later they were back in the throng, getting buffeted from their true course by the constant motion of the crowd. “I want to know
every
—” Martha was saying, just as Rebekah demanded, “What
exactly
do you think you're—” and neither of them had time to complete a sentence or answer a question.

“There they are! Eph, here they are!” Jordan's voice, sounding young and relieved, called out right at her elbow. “It's late. We've got to get you back. I'm sorry I was gone so long.”

Ephram joined them, smelling like wine and not looking sorry. “Where were you?” he demanded. “We searched all over for you.”

Rebekah's mind was blank, but Martha spoke with lofty coolness. “She had to relieve herself and was looking for some privacy. Now, do you mind? We're both tired. I don't know where
you
two have been all evening, but Rebekah and I need to get home.”

“Was it fun, though?” Jordan asked a little anxiously. “Did you have a good time?”

“Oh, yes,” Martha said, once more answering for both of them. “It was the most wonderful thing ever.”

They didn't have a chance to really talk until they were back in Rebekah's room. The return trip through the Breven streets had seemed longer and even chancier than the trip out, as they encountered groups of drunken men and whooping boys intent on squeezing a last few minutes of riotous pleasure out of the evening. And then there was the slow, creeping journey through the sleeping house, through the kitchen, up the servants' stairwell, down the hallway where the big-eared aunts lay on their mats, never as deeply slumbering as a girl might wish. But they encountered no true checks or dangers, and they slipped into Rebekah's room with a series of muffled giggles, shoving the door shut behind them. Then they collapsed on the mats by the wall, still giggling.

“Sshh—shh—you'll wake somebody up.”

“Jovah's wicked bones, what a
night!
I love the harvest fair, I
love
it, I shall go every year for the rest of my life—”

“Shh,” Rebekah whispered again. “Be quiet.”

Martha had been rolling from side to side on the mat, clutching her arms around her chest in remembered ecstasy, but now suddenly she pushed herself to a seated position and pointed at her cousin. “You! You found your angel! Tell me every word he said.”

Rebekah sat up, too, and leaned her back against the wall, sticking her feet out straight before her. There were no windows in the room, so it would have been completely dark except for the low flicker of gaslight on the wall by the door. “Oh no,” she said. “This is a night for you to be telling tales first.”

Martha looked innocent, a hard trick to pull off with the remnants of a charcoal beard rimming her mouth. “I have no tales to tell.”

Rebekah crossed her arms on her chest. “Disappearing with a Manadavvi lordling into the night. I think you have plenty to report.”

“Oh, very well, but first you—”

“Not a word from me,” Rebekah said. “Until you tell me everything.”

It was clear Martha was bursting with news, so she didn't need any more encouragement. “Jovah take my bones and bury them in the desert, but I think I'm in love with him, Bekah,” she said. “I never thought I could—I mean, our mothers and our aunts don't talk about love—and anyway, who could truly love a Jansai man? So I never thought I'd feel this way. But Chesed—I do love him, I believe. It's so strange.”

“Where did you meet him? How long have you known him?”

Martha drew her knees up and rested her darkened chin on top of them. “In the market. I was there one day—”

“How did you get to market?”

Martha hunched a shoulder impatiently. “I go sometimes when no one's paying attention. When my father and Ephram are traveling and the rest of the house is sleeping. It's not hard.”

“Do you dress as a man?”

“Oh, no. I put on a stained old jeska over my most threadbare hallis, and I look like one of the campers from the city rim. A poor woman, who has to come to market on her own. Everyone despises me.”

“You never told me any of this.”

“I knew you would worry.”

“Well, I'll worry even more now!”

“I tell you, no one pays attention to me in that house. My mother never asks me where I've been. Or maybe she knows and is afraid to ask. Maybe she crept out of the house herself when she was young—or out of the tent. I don't think my grandfather owned a thing but that tent in his whole life—”

Rebekah shook her head impatiently. “Back to the story. So you've been slipping out to market, and you met this Manadavvi, this Chesed—”

“Oh, Bekah, he is the most wonderful man. His father owns land in Gaza—so much land—and they grow the most amazing fruits there, sweeter than plums, but so fragile they cannot be shipped south of the Verde Divide. He has met the Archangel, only think of it! And dined with Ariel and Nathan. And he has traveled to every hill and corner of the three provinces—”

“So have you,” Rebekah interjected.

“Oh, certainly! I've viewed every acre of land from the back of a tented wagon! But he has
seen
Semorrah and Luminaux and Velora. He has walked the streets. He has dined with miners and shipbuilders and artists and angels, and he tells me about all of it, and I want to
go
.”

“Go? Go where? Go with
him?
”

“Yes,” Martha said dreamily. She laid her cheek on her knees and rocked herself gently. “I want to see every mile of Samaria from the back of a Manadavvi caravan, and then I want to go live in Gaza and eat fruit so delicate it scarcely survives the motion of being picked from the tree.”

“You can't go with him,” Rebekah said blankly.

“I don't see why not. I don't want to stay in Breven.”

“What do you mean you don't want to stay in Breven? You belong in Breven! This is your home! You would be so lost and alone out among all those strange people—no one knowing your customs, no one knowing your name, no aunts to care for you when you fell sick, no brothers to watch after you—”

“I am sick to death of aunts and brothers and fathers and
cousins
telling me what I can do! Watching my every move and reporting my
every action! Other women are free, Chesed told me so. I want to be free, too.”

“So you will ride away to freedom with this Manadavvi man? Will he marry you? Will
that
be your freedom? Or will he merely take you away from Breven to some city where you don't know a soul, so he can abandon you there when he's tired of you? Will
that
be your freedom?”

“You don't understand!” Martha cried.

Before Rebekah could retort that she understood very well, there was a sharp knock on the door. “Girls!” came a low, edged reprimand. “Do you want to wake up the entire hallway?”

It was Hepzibah, Hector's oldest sister, who had the room directly adjacent to Rebekah's. Rebekah gave her cousin a warning look and jumped up to run across the floor. She opened the door just a crack.

“I'm sorry,
awrie,
” she said, using the respectful term that meant “beloved aunt.” Though cantankerous old Hepzibah was anything but beloved. “Martha and I sometimes forget what time it is.”

“Well past midnight! You should be sleeping!”

“How long have you been awake, listening to us argue? We didn't mean to wake you up,” she asked in a contrite voice. She was really trying to determine if Hepzibah had heard them sneaking through the house or caught any of the words of their heated conversation.

“Oh, you didn't wake me up. I didn't hear you till I was on my way back from the water room. But Gabbatha, she sleeps light, she may have heard you arguing all night for all I know.”

“We'll be quiet, I promise.”

“You'll go to
sleep,
is what you'll do,” Hepzibah replied. “Foolish girls. Don't think I'll be telling Jerusha to let you sleep in tomorrow, not if you don't have enough sense to take to your beds at a reasonable hour.”

“I'm sorry,” Rebekah said again. “We'll be quiet.”

She apologized one more time, watched Hepzibah navigate the last few yards down the hall to her own room, and then shut the door. Flying across the room, she landed on the mat beside Martha, who had covered her mouth with her hands to press back the laughter.

“
Quiet!
She'll be awake all night now, straining to hear every word we say,” Rebekah hissed.

“Spiteful old cat,” Martha whispered. “
She
doesn't know what it feels like to slip out of the house at night and lie in the arms of a lover—”

“Martha!”

Martha rolled her eyes. “Well, what do you think? I've known him almost three months! Every time he goes away, I'm afraid I'm never going to see him again. I just want to hold him as close as I can.”

“But, Martha—”

“Oh, like you never had such thoughts about your precious angel! Who, I notice, you did manage to find in the crowd tonight, even though
he
couldn't recognize
you,
so
you
had to be the one to walk up and introduce yourself to
him
—”

“Ssh! Be quiet! You still haven't told me—”

“Oh, we're done talking about me now. I want to hear about you and the angel O-ba-di-ah.”

A rush of excitement and terror left Rebekah speechless for a moment, just at the sound of his name, and she realized all her preaching at Martha was hollow and hypocritical. Martha had known her illicit lover longer than Rebekah had known hers, but Martha had done nothing that Rebekah did not long to do—might someday do, if the opportunity arose and the temptation was great enough.

Well, the temptation was already great enough. What Rebekah was counting on was keeping the opportunities to a minimum.

“I—he is—he came there looking for me,” Rebekah said. “He wants me to meet him again, but I—it is so frightening, because I
want
to, but I know I can't—I mean, I shouldn't, even if I could—”

Martha rolled to her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. “You can,” she said. “If you want to.”

Rebekah stared at her. “How? And I don't want to—”

“You
do
want to! Don't lie to me, even if you've been lying to this poor angel. ‘Oh, Obadiah, you beautiful angelo, I'm a good Jansai girl, and I don't sneak out of the house without my brother's escort.' ”

Rebekah's face was burning. “Well, I don't! Certainly not to meet men! Martha, if your father knew—”

“My father doesn't know anything,” Martha said shortly. “And your father is dead. You can do what you like.”

“You know that's not true.”

“Very well, but you
can
sneak out of this house and meet your angel friend. I can help you.”

“You just want to disgrace yourself with this—Chesed boy!”

“If you keep scolding me,” Martha said calmly, “I won't help you keep an assignation with your angel.”

Rebekah opened her mouth to reply hotly that she did not
want
to keep an assignation with Obadiah, but she could not make the words come. Dear Jovah, blessed god, she was as bad as Martha—worse than Martha, because she at least seemed to have some notion of what was at risk, and she wanted to do it anyway.

“What must I do?” Rebekah asked humbly. “I want to see him again.”

Martha returned to her father's house in the morning when Ephram came by to collect her, but her good-byes to Jerusha and Hepzibah and the other women were brief and sunny. “Oh, I'm coming back to spend the night,” she said carelessly. “They're recaulking the garden wall at my father's house, and the smell drifts up to my room at night. I can't sleep at all, thinking I'm going to be poisoned.”