Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,1
you were too late, that she is too young for him. Stop trying to get them together now.”
“It’s only twelve years. That’s nothing. Why are you so fussed about it? I’m seven hundred years older than you and we get on fine. And my little Spanish Infanta was only three when she was betrothed; it worked out well.”
“Oh, Trynor, that was hundreds of years ago and because her parents were royalty. We just used the fashion of the times and their social surroundings. Times have changed. Did you still not take another life?”
“I did, but I could only be spared a short one. I had to die young, during the second big war. But I got to taste some food. The latkes were wonderful - and strudel! It was almost worth it for the strudel. The hunger later was terrible, it hurt. I certainly know now why humans are so interested in food, when it hurts if you have none. The other children cried.”
“Did you not cry?” Jotin was interested; he could remember being in several wars.
“No. I seemed to remember here. I knew there was more than that camp. I think I could hear my guide. When the end came, I held some of the children and told them it would be all right and they were calmer.”
“Good for you. So there is some value in spending all your time here!”
“Yes, it seems so. Of course, some of the others were very young souls. Hadn’t spent much time anywhere. It is very tough on such babies, to learn so much so suddenly.”
“Grows them up fast.” Jotin was pensive. After a long time he spoke again. “So what will we do about this problem? Apart from the fact that we’ve made them different religions, twelve years is too much. I thought you understood that there was no point showing Lucy to him just after he married Kathleen. Husbands do not leave their brand new wives for ten-year-old girls. Or as the humans would say, not the well behaved new husbands we get to look after ‘up here’!” Jotin and Trynor laughed, amused as always by the notion that there was a fiery ‘down there’ for the sinners. After a while, Trynor spoke again.
“But you’ve married him off now. What did you do that for?”
“I tried to stop him. I sent him three hunches. When he didn’t pay any attention to the first two and explained away the third as pre-wedding jitters, I burnt out the kitchen of the hotel they had booked. But it wasn’t enough, because Kathleen had told him that lie. He’s too scared not to marry his pregnant girlfriend. They’re all so caught up in the nonsense about sin and think it makes a difference if a priest mutters the right words over them. And not always too bothered about being good people, so long as nobody finds out.”
“What has he done?”
“No, I don’t mean David. Just people in general. Look around at some of them, misbehaving in all sorts of ways, but telling other people how they should behave. The Cretan priestess thought she was doing nothing wrong, but she made our people take that vow and she’s still going on about it. At least these days they say ‘till death do us part’ and we can all start fresh. Maybe that’s what we’ll have to do, yet again, if my idea doesn’t work.”
Trynor’s energies shifted and eddied as he thought through the situation.
“I’m sorry, Jo. I made a big mess, didn’t I? Got distracted by that war in the east. A few of the others I look after were caught up in it, and being in a war myself so recently, it seemed so important-”
“Maybe it was. Maybe even more important than our problem here. Death on a large scale always seems so urgent. It doesn’t really matter how soon we get Lucy and David together again, except for all the nagging we have to put up with from their ‘baby’; not to mention that Planidi and her wretched vow. Being a priestess in Crete went to her head, I think.”
“What is she saying now?”
“Same as ever. That everyone else who took a vow in her sanctuary managed to keep it and that our two are letting her down.”
“Four thousand years later.”
“Yes, she’s unusual, all right. Her guide works on her, but she keeps coming back to it. I knew it was a bad idea when she said it. Somehow I just felt it.”