Archangel Read Online Free Page B

refrained. Mary had identified Rachel’s station with one quick glance, taking in the bare feet, the plain, ill-fitting gown, the wide chain hanging between the heavy shackles. She seemed so ingenuous that Rachel half-expected her to exclaim, “Oh, you’re a slave!” but no; Mary had seen slaves before. She was not disconcerted by their presence.
    In a matter of moments, Rachel had the fire burning merrily, bath water warming, and curling tongs heating in the heart of the blaze. The layers of undergarments were a simple enough matter to sort out if one applied a little common sense. Even the cosmetics arrayed on the washstand, which Mary dumbly pointed to, did not seem beyond Rachel’s expertise. Indeed, she handled the rouge pot and the kohl stick with a certain bitter nostalgia.
    “I think I remember how to use these,” she said, speaking gently because she found herself unable to hate this helpless child. “Close your eyes and turn your face up. We’ll do a little at a time and see how you like it.”
    The makeup was just fine; the hair was another matter entirely. Neither Mary nor Rachel could operate the curling tongs, and the wispy brown hair hung straight and girlish down the lady’s back.
    “There was a way the Edori women used to braid their hair, for festival nights,” Rachel said. “With lace and ribbon twined in the braids, and all the braids gathered together in a knot. Do you think you would like that?”
    “Oh, yes, please,” Mary said gratefully. “It can’t look any worse than it does now.”
    So Rachel picked through Mary’s box of accessories and pulled out a strand of pearls, a long gold chain and a handful of ribbons, and began patiently interweaving them in the thin brown hair. “Now, if people compliment you on the style, don’t say you got it from an Edori slave girl,” she cautioned. “It will not give you prestige.”
    The lady Mary giggled. She was seated before an oval mirror, and Rachel stood behind her, working. “But you’re not an Edori,” Mary said.
    Rachel briefly glanced at herself in the mirror. Her face was a long, pale oval; her hair, carelessly tied back with a length of boot lace, was waist-length, oak-gold and riotously curly. Not that she showed to advantage just now; neither face nor hair was particularly clean. “You don’t think so?”
    “Well, you don’t look like one. And you’ve been dedicated.” She nodded toward the mirror, in the direction of the Kiss high in Rachel’s right arm. “The Edori don’t dedicate their children.”
    “Some of them do. Not very many these days.”
    “Then you are an Edori?”
    Rachel studied the movement of her hands. “I was adopted by an Edori tribe when I was seven,” she said. “When my parents died.”
    “And how long have you been with Lord Jethro?” the girl asked.
    Tactfully phrased
, thought Rachel. “Five years.”
    “What was it like to be an Edori?” was the next question,and Rachel was amazed to hear a certain envy in the sweet voice. “Was it wonderful?”
    “It was—at that time I didn’t remember much of my life before—so it was just my life,” Rachel said, her voice low. “When I look back now, I think—yes, it was wonderful. We traveled every week. I have seen every part of Samaria from the seashores of eastern Jordana to the blue streets of Luminaux to the green valleys north of Monteverde. We camped when we were tired, ate when we were hungry, sang songs of thanksgiving when we were happy and dirges when someone died. There were Gatherings once a year, with the other tribes, and then the festivals would go on for days and days—food and song and storytelling and gossip. Deeds of valor would be recounted and births would be recorded, and those who had been lost would be mourned. It was—how can I describe it? The life was so much simpler than this one, so much better. Sometimes I think I imagined it or dreamt it. It doesn’t matter. It’s gone now.”
    “I’ve only been two