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anyone here except me. Not even to make water. Do you understand me?"
The blond stared back at her.
"Do you understand me?" she hissed in her urgency.
Raphael's clean face sweated with effort. His mouth opened. "I want," he said, slurring like a man
drunk on kif "I want to understand."
She ran her hand over his sleek wet hair.
"Here's your soap," she said flatly to Hakiim. The Moor drew back his hands in distaste. "Wrap it in
the rag."
While she did so he took a glance over at the blond eunuch, who sat gazing vacantly at them, his
hands in his lap, as neat and sleek as some mothers favorite child. "Was he filthy?"
The Berber rolled her eyes and deposited the wet rag in Hakiim's hand. "Of course he was. And
sick, I think. He cannot be left to himself. You had better put me next to him."
The Moor's jaw dropped. "You WANT to be next to him? "My sweet lily of the mountains: the
fellow is yours!"
* * *
Night fell: Raphaels first night in captivity. He lay on his stomach, trying to look up at the stars.
It was getting bad again. As soon as Djoura had gone away from him ten feet away, which was as
far as the chain would allow the confusion rose like a mist from the ground, enfolding him.
And the desolation.
His Father had abandoned him. In all the length and breadth of Raphael's existence that had never
happened. He would have said with confidence that that couldn't happen. Without His presence an angel
should go out like a light.
And perhaps that was what had happened.
He lay with his cheek on bare earth, all his muscles tightened as though to ward off a blow. His eyes
closed against a vision of hatred, borne on a face which might have been his own. Why he was so hated
he could not recall, nor did he remember how that hate had led to& to this. He shivered, despite the
sultriness of the night, for he didn't want to remember.
He wanted to remember something good: something which would provide a comfort to him in his
misery. He searched in his memory for His Father.
And found to his horror that without His Fathers presence in his heart, he could not begin to imagine
Him. He couldn't even call up a picture of His face, for all that came to him, unbidden and insistent, was
the image of a sparrow on a bare branch, its drab feathers fluffed and its black eyes closed against the
wind.
Whenever he moved the iron collar chafed his neck. He also found his eyes were leaking. That was
uncomfortable, for it made the ground muddy. He laced his hands under his cheekbone, to keep his face
out of the mud.
But the damp earth released a dark, consoling sort of smell, and he was glad for it. He turned his
attention to the little noises of the camp, where the women were whispering lazily before falling asleep.
The rule of midday had been reversed now; the chain which had spaced the slaves out at maximum
distance to one another now tinkled in little heaps as six bodies huddled companionably under five
blankets.
Raphael and his nursemaid had been removed from the communal length of chain and put onto a
special little chain of their own. He didn't have a blanket, and didn't know he ought to have had one. The
Berber had a blanket, but she also had a lot of clothing on her body, so she threw the blanket to
Raphael.
It was a magnanimous gesture, but as he didn't know what to do with the blanket he let it lie in a
heap, till she crawled back and reclaimed it.
He heard one of the slaves stagger out of the cluster to make water, squatting on the dirt with her
skirts lifted. That was also how Djoura had taught him to do it, that evening. It seemed to him, even in his
newborn clumsiness, that there might be easier ways to go about it.
But all his memories had been turned upside down. It seemed this human head could not contain them
properly not the important or meaningful memories. He could recall scattered images of his visits upon
the earth: a black horse, a white dog. A young man with black hair and a white face.
He remembered singing.
Always Raphael had been fond of mortals. He thought them beautiful, even when only in the way a
baby bird is beautiful through its awesome ugliness. Some mortals, of course, were more beautiful than
others.
Finally he had something to cling to. To build on. Raphael made a song about the baby-bird beauty of
mortals. Turning on his side he began to sing into the night.
This was better much better. Here there was consonance and harmony, and even the beginnings of
understanding, though he had to work his mouth and lungs to get it. When singing, it was impossible for
Raphael to be confused or alone, or to be anything else but singing.
Behind him came a rustling. Djoura rose from her place, stepped across the ten feet dividing her from
Raphael, and stood above him, listening. He raised his eyes gladly to her.
Then she kicked him. "Don't make noise," she hissed, and shuffled away the length of the chain.
In all his existence, no one had ever, EVER disapproved of Raphaels music. He had no experience
with this sort of criticism at all. He curled into a ball of hurt and his eyes leaked harder.
He thought about all the music he had ever made and he found himself doubting it was any good. That
foot had been so decisive. He wondered, despairing, if his own creation had been some sort of divine
mistake: a piece badly conceived and played.
But if Raphael lost faith in his own music, he did not lose faith in music in general. He had never been
too proud to sing the music created by others, so he sought in his memory for a song that might make him
feel better: one that had warm edges to it, and that was somehow connected with& he couldn't
remember.
He sang this song so quietly no sound left the shelter of his huddled knees. It was a very simple song
(compared to his own) but it reached out to the things he no longer understood and it gave him strength.
He remembered one little word. "Darni," he whispered, liking the sound. "Damiano."
There was a brush of cloudy warmth over him, lighter than a fall of leaves. Raphael squeezed his eyes
to clear the water out and looked up.
Wings as soft as woolen blankets: dark but with a light within like a lamp under smoked glass. A
shadow of rough hair framing dark eyes which also had a smolder of light behind them. The face of a
friend.
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