Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 02

by Airs

  “Did you, Matron?” Mistress Winter pressed her hands against her eyes. They were reddened, their lids irritated and rough as if she had been rubbing them all day. “I didn’t know any of that. I was too young, I suppose, and not yet bonded.”

  “Oh, aye, you could ask Mistress Morgan—” Matron broke off suddenly and put a hand to her breast.

  “Oh, by the entwined gods, I had forgotten for a short time. We can never ask Mistress Morgan again.”

  Lark was appalled to see tears well up in Mistress Winter’s eyes. “No,” she said in a shaking voice.

  “No, we can’t ask Margareth. The burden is all ours now.”

  “So,” Matron said, pouring more tea into Mistress Winter’s cup, “now you will be Headmistress, I suppose.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Mistress Winter said. Both Lark and Matron stared at her, waiting for more, but there was nothing. She said only, “I made my case, as best I could, against Duke William. The Council has not yet decided.”

  “But, Mistress Winter,” Lark began. “Did you tell them about the foal…about what he did? What he’s doing?”

  “I did, Larkyn,” Mistress Winter said wearily. “The Council is…well. There are some who think the Duke is right, and that men should be able to fly winged horses.”

  “They can’t!” Lark said. “It won’t work!”

  “I don’t believe it will, either. But the Duke has had some success with this filly—” She broke off and stared at the glow of the stove.

  “But who will be Headmistress if not you?” Matron asked quietly.

  Mistress Winter hesitated, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Lark thought there must be more to tell, but she looked so miserable, and so exhausted, that she did not press her. Matron seemed to understand it, too.

  “Come,” she said to her, taking Mistress Winter’s cup and the nearly untouched plate of biscuits away.

  “You need to sleep. It will all look better in the morning.”

  Mistress Winter looked doubtful about that, but she rose, said a subdued good night, and left the kitchen. Lark heard her trudging steps up the stairs to her apartment.

  Lark thanked Matron for the tea and went out of the Domicile into the freezing night. She hurried past the Hall to the Dormitory, her teeth chattering as she slipped and slid on the frozen cobblestones. She pulled off her tabard and divided skirt and let them drop to the floor. She pulled her nightdress over her head, shivering mightily, and crawled into her cot. The sheets felt icy and stiff. It was a long time before they warmed enough for her to stop shivering and sink into an uneasy sleep.

  PHILIPPAwalked to the high table at breakfast, aware that conversation among the horsemistresses stopped as she approached. She set her jaw and took her usual chair, meeting no one’s eyes, determined simply to drink her coffee, eat as much as she could manage, then go to the stables. Margareth’s empty chair sat like a cold reminder that her body still waited in its coffin to be taken to its resting place.

  Suzanne had sent notices to the Morgan family estate in Eastreach, and they were waiting to discover what the family’s wishes were. Philippa thought she would take Margareth herself, if the family wanted to bury her at home. She couldn’t bear the idea of her going off in the caisson alone.

  Kathryn Dancer came in a little late and sat next to Philippa. She took a thin slice of toasted bread and spread a bit of butter on it, then startled Philippa by holding it out to her. “Philippa,” the younger horsemistress said. “Please eat something.”

  “I—” Philippa began, then realized Kathryn was right. There was nothing on her plate, not even coffee in her cup. “Oh.” She accepted the toast. “Thank you. I’m so distracted.”

  “I know. I hear it was a terrible day yesterday.”

  “Matron must have told you.”

  Now all the instructors turned to Philippa, their faces alive with curiosity. One of the juniors, a young woman only just returned from her post in the Angles, leaned forward. “What happened?” she asked.

  “They’re saying the Duke wants you sent down!”

  A shocked silence and averted eyes followed this pronouncement, and the young woman blushed furiously. She muttered an apology, and Suzanne Star said firmly, “Let Philippa have her breakfast. If there is important news, we’ll know soon enough.”

  Philippa cast her a grateful glance. She ate the piece of toast, and someone filled her cup with coffee.

  The kindness made her eyes swim again, and she pinched herself through her skirt to bring herself back under control. Idiot, she told herself. Like a first-level girl with homesickness!

  She forced herself to eat a bit of bacon and was just finishing her coffee when Amelia Rys came into the dining hall, passed the long tables where the students sat, and approached the high table. She nodded to the horsemistresses, and addressed Philippa.

  “Mistress Winter, I hope you’ll forgive the interruption,” she said. “My father is here, and would like to speak with you when you’ve finished your meal.”

  Philippa set her cup down, and stood. “I’m finished,” she said. “Where is he?”

  “He’s waiting in the foyer.”

  “Thank you, Amelia.”

  Philippa stepped down from the high table and walked across the dining hall, being careful not to hurry.

  She felt every eye on her back, and it was a relief to go out into the foyer, where she found Baron Rys standing beneath one of the horse portraits. It was her favorite, a painting of the long-legged, broad-winged sorrel thought to be the founder of the Noble bloodline. Rys was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at it. Philippa walked up to stand beside him. “That’s Redbird,” she said quietly. “Ancestor to my own Winter Sunset.”

  Rys turned to her, and bowed. “He was beautiful,” he said. “As your mare is.”

  Philippa gestured toward the Headmistress’s office. “We can talk there,” she said. He nodded and followed her. She pushed open the door and found the room cold and dark. With Margareth gone, she supposed no one had thought to light the fire. She hurried to light a lamp on the desk and pull the curtains to let in the weak winter sunshine. “It’s so cold in here,” she said. “Shall I order a fire?”

  “Please don’t trouble anyone,” he said. “My carriage is waiting in the courtyard. I only came to tell you the news before I set out for the port.”

  She stiffened her spine. “Are they going to send me down, Esmond?”

  “No decision has been made, Philippa. I’m sorry.”

  A rush of anxiety made her tremble. She swallowed, and turned to the window to hide her weakness.

  The blue and white landscape seemed to reproach her with its purity, the exultant quality of sunshine on snow. When she could trust her voice, she asked, “What happened?”

  “The Council is at an impasse. Francis’s testimony was crucial, because there are those who think Duke William is within his rights to alter the bloodlines—and himself, apparently. Francis influenced a good number who weren’t certain.”

  “So we go on waiting.”

  “I’m afraid so. But I thought you should know.”

  “I do appreciate it,” she said. She turned back from the window, composing her face carefully. “Is Francis all right?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve seen wounds like that before. He should have recovered by now. The doctors don’t know how to treat it.”

  “I’ll go to see him soon.”

  “I know he’ll be glad of that. Please let me know of any change.”

  “Of course I will.”

  As they walked together back toward the foyer, she said in an undertone, “I’m terribly sorry about this foal. It should have been Amelia’s.”

  “She’s heartbroken,” he said flatly. The maid came forward with his coat and hat, and he put them on.

  “But I suppose there will be another foal.”

  “I will see to it,” Philippa said grimly. “Surely whoever becomes Hea
dmistress will understand that we’ve promised to bond Amelia, and we must keep our word.”

  “Everyone seems to have assumed you would be the next Headmistress,” Rys said.

  “Yes, I think they did,” she answered. The maid opened the door and curtsied to the Baron as they passed through. Philippa squinted in the sudden glare. “But if the Duke opposes me, it won’t happen. I’m not particularly well liked, I’m afraid. Too sharp of tongue.”

  Rys chuckled. His carriage was waiting at the bottom of the steps. A footman jumped down and held the door for him, but he stood a moment longer, staring across at the Dormitory, where some of the students were just coming out, dressed to fly. “My daughter tells me,” he said, in a deceptively light tone,

  “that the students admire you.”

  Philippa cast him a sidelong glance. “Indeed?” she said. “That would surprise me.”

  “I’ve learned to trust Amelia’s judgment.”

  “She’s a remarkable girl.”

  A faint color tinged the Baron’s cheeks. “She is, Philippa. Watch over her, will you? Sometimes she seems far too old for her years. It was our life…constantly on guard against mistakes, gossip, a misplaced word.”

  “I understand that.”

  Rys smiled at her then and bowed. She nodded to him and watched as he went down the steps and climbed up into the carriage.

  As the pair of horses trotted swiftly out of the courtyard, Amelia came out of the Dormitory and stood alone, watching her father depart.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  FRANCISlay in his childhood bedroom at Fleckham House, in the ancient post bed he had slept in

  since he was a small boy. The exertions of the day before had left him so weak that the short-tempered housekeeper, Paulina, had had to call for the day nurse to come and assist in carrying him up the staircase. It was humiliating, but then, there had been a string of humiliations since the foray into Aeskland.

  Rys had tried to convince him that his knife wound could hardly be considered his own fault, but Francis, reliving it a thousand times in his mind, knew he had been impulsive, reckless. He remembered the warning, “Have a care, my lord,” from the Klee captain, remembered it as clearly as if he had heard it only moments ago. Why had he not heeded it then? Why had he turned his back to that woman? He had stretched out his arm to the child from Onmarin, leaving himself unprotected, needlessly vulnerable.

  And now he lay here, helpless as an infant.

  The doctors mumbled together in the corridor when they thought he couldn’t hear them, wondering why he had not yet recovered, speculating about poisons, proposing wild treatments, then rejecting them.

  Francis wished he could help them, but despite all the books he had read, including medical texts, he knew of nothing else they could try. The pain of the wound had lessened to a dull, persistent ache, but the lethargy and weakness remained.

  He gazed out at the clear, cold, winter day, and waited to see whether he would live or die. He wanted to recover, to reclaim his life. But sometimes, especially when he woke in the small hours, he thought that it would be better to die than to live out his days as a useless invalid.

  When he heard horses in the courtyard, he pulled himself up against his pillows and laid the book he had been halfheartedly reading on the bedside table. He hoped it was Philippa, though he had not caught sight of Winter Sunset making her descent over the park. It couldn’t be Rys. He had sailed for Klee. Francis leaned forward from his stack of pillows, but he couldn’t see the horse or its rider. He heard the tall front doors open and close, and the steward speaking with someone. It sounded like a woman’s voice, so perhaps it was Philippa after all.

  Francis put his feet over the side of the bed and straightened his dressing gown. He grasped the bedrail and pushed himself to his feet. He could at least sit up to receive a visitor. As the footsteps ascended the stairs, he lowered himself, with a groan of effort, into the chair beside the bed.

  The door slammed open, banging against the wall with a force that made the water glass on the bedside table jump.

  William stood in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, the other holding a quirt. Deep creases marked his eyes and his mouth. “Damn you, Francis,” he said. His voice had grown so high that even in anger, it sounded feminine. “Have you not the slightest shred of family loyalty?”

  Francis stared at his elder brother in amazement. William wore a vest so covered with embroidery it was hard to tell what fabric it was. His cheeks and chin were smooth as a girl’s, and there was something odd about the shape of his hips in his close-cut trousers. “William,” Francis said, ignoring the question. “Is it true? What Philippa said?”

  His older brother stamped into the room and threw the door shut behind him. “Damn her, too, and all those women!” he shrilled. “It’s my business and no one else’s!”

  “How did you do it?” Francis asked weakly. He fought an urge to laugh. Laughing at William, when he was in a temper, was never a good idea.

  William ignored the question. He stalked across the room, slapping the quirt against his thigh. “You betrayed me in my own Council—”

  “YourCouncil, William? I hardly think—”

  “You sat there, all wan and heroic, pretending to be so noble! You took her part, that bitch Philippa Winter, you supported her instead of your own brother, yourduke , and you did your best to make me look like a fool!”

  “I did not, William. You’re managing that very well on your own.”

  William’s face suffused, and he gripped the quirt in his fist. “You’re jealous!” he said. “You covet the title, don’t you? This was your revenge.”

  “Oh, give over,” Francis said tiredly. “I’ve never wanted to be duke, and you know it.”

  “Liar!” William snapped.

  Francis tipped his head back against the chair. “You’ve disgraced us, William. It’s no longer an honor to be a Fleckham.”

  “Just wait. When a whole new generation of winged horses carry men into the sky, I’m the one who’ll be remembered as a hero. Unlike you, getting yourself stabbed by a barbarian, and a woman at that!”

  The barb found its mark. Francis dropped his eyes.

  William leaped on his advantage like a hound on a hare. “What did you think, that you could go straight from your books to a war? It’s a wonder the woman didn’t kill you outright!”

  “You’re right,” Francis said. “It is a wonder. And a little girl defended me, a little girl who had been beaten and abused and dragged all over Aeskland for weeks because you couldn’t be troubled to go after her.”

  “Father was always ashamed of you,” William sneered. “His womanish son.”

  At this, Francis couldn’t help laughing, though it was a weak, breathy sound. “You’re callingme womanish?” He took a quick breath, wincing at the pain in his back. “Your bosom swells more than Philippa’s.”

  “It’s a side effect, nothing more. I’m still a man.”

  “But you sound like a twelve-year-old boy.”

  William swiped irritably at the bedpost with his quirt. “Mind your tongue, brother, or I swear I’ll whip you like a dog.”

  “Ah,” Francis said, truly breathless now, and feeling rather faint. “I’ve heard how you like that. Two dead girls, is it? Or more? Perhaps I should have revealed that to your Council!”

  With a cry, William lunged at him, and struck him full across the face with the quirt.

  He pulled his arm back to do it again, but Francis put up a hand, and when the quirt fell, he seized it, and pulled. William yanked back, hard, and Francis’s brief strength gave out. He fell from his chair, his shoulder crashing against the bedside table so that the glass and carafe went spinning to the oak floor, smashing into a dozen pieces, drenching Francis’s dressing gown, and spattering William’s boots.

  A knock sounded immediately on the door, and the nurse put her head in. “Are you all right, my lord?”

  she asked, and then saw Francis sprawled on
the floor. “Oh, my lord!” she said, starting toward him.

  William waved her off. “An accident,” he said smoothly. “I’ll help my brother back to bed myself. Fetch him a fresh dressing gown, though. This one is soaked.”

  He bent, and lifted Francis bodily from the floor with hands that were surprisingly gentle, as if his anger had spent itself all at once. He stripped the wet dressing gown off, dropped it to the floor, and pulled back the blankets of the bed. “Really, Francis, you must be more careful,” he said. “It’s disturbing to see how weak you are.”

  Francis slipped his legs under the sheets, suppressing a groan at the pain the movement gave him. He lay back on the pillows, staring at his brother. “William,” he said. “Are you mad?”

  “No, no,” William answered. He gave Francis the old crooked smile that had once been appealing in a young man’s face. “If I were mad, I would stop you from ever telling anyone anything again.” He bent over Francis, and Francis could not help but flinch away. William smiled again, and touched Francis’s cheek, where the stripe from the quirt stung. “I could certainly do that. But it would not be good for the Duchy, would it? You are all the heir I have.”

  “William,” Francis said faintly. “You must stop this—whatever you’re doing to your body. You’re not yourself.”

  “I’m not going to stop,” William said. “I’m going to fly. I have a beautiful silver filly in my private stable, just there.” He pointed to the window with the quirt, in the direction of the beech grove. “She’s mine, Francis. Bonded to me.”

  “Father would be revolted,” Francis whispered, “at the waste of a winged horse.”

  William scowled. “She won’t be wasted, I promise you,” he said icily. “And perhaps Father would have noticed a son who could fly.”

  “So,” Francis said, “the jealousy is yours, isn’t it? You could never forgive him.”

  “All he cared about were the winged horses,” William said. “And the women who fly them, of course.”

  Francis couldn’t bring himself to laugh. His brother was a cruel and selfish man, but he had never been a stupid one. As William left him, and clattered down the stairs, Francis reflected that it was a measure of how far gone William’s mind was that he couldn’t see the irony himself.