Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  In fact, now that he came to think on it, it was only his old Slater, who made no bones about where his loyalties lay, whom he could trust. He would rather rely on honest greed than on simpering and fine words.

  William reined the mare toward the ride and dug his spurs into her ribs, making her burst into a stiff trot.

  He spurred her again, and she began to gallop, a little raggedly. He knew he should give her a chance to warm up, but fury made him impatient. Just wait until he flew. Then they would all see, including that fat Nicolas, with his warning letters and contracts and constant queries. As if the Prince of Isamar couldn’t afford a thousand militiamen without the slightest strain! It was all preposterous. None of them had any vision at all, and worse, they couldn’t recognize the vision of someone else.

  He wrenched the mare’s reins as he turned her into the woods. She tossed her head and sidestepped, but he persisted, making her push through a close stand of cottonwoods. William ducked to avoid the branches and urged the mare on. He intended to ride straight cross-country and cut two hours off his time. The days were growing short, and the light would have faded by the time he reached the Academy.

  The brat spent far too much time in the stables, all hours of the day and night. He had watched her, and he knew. He would simply go in and get her. If anyone objected—that fool stable-man, or anyone else—he had militia there to deal with them. Soldiers, regular or impressed, followed orders.

  Thinking of the militia reminded him of the brat’s brother, the younger one. Nick, he was called, and now in the uniform of his Duke’s service. He would make certain Nick Hamley was posted someplace hard, not some cushy position like the Academy of the Air or the Rotunda. The port, perhaps—things could get rough down there even at the best of times. It had gotten worse since the levy of the extraordinary tax. Tension was growing between the nobility and the working classes.

  William cursed softly to himself. It was yet another reason the damned Council Lords should be grateful

  to him. There had been more than one instance of the militia stepping in to stop angry laborers from interfering with their betters as they tried to move about the city, and yet still Beeth and Daysmith and those others whined on in the Council about unfair taxation and soldiers on every corner. Of course they were on every corner! How else could order be maintained?

  William loosened the reins, now that they were on the right path, and let the mare find her own way through the wood. He took deep breaths of the pine-scented air, and tried to calm himself. One day soon it would all come right. The tensions would be forgotten, the confusion and the questions. Once he closed the Academy, he could lift the extraordinary tax. Even the slowest of the Council Lords, the most resistant, would recognize the new direction for the Duchy, one that would lead to more profit and a greater name in Isamar. Then they could all bend the knee to him and apologize, Daysmith, Beeth, Chatham, and the rest.

  And, of course, every horsemistress. The thought made him want to whip up the mare, but he resisted. It would do no good to arrive in daylight, anyway. He had to be patient, take it one step at a time. It would all come right soon enough.

  He adjusted the smallsword at his belt and tried to fill his mind with thoughts of Diamond and what it would be like when he flew her at last. When he spotted the gambrel roofs of the Academy stables beyond the wood, he dismounted and left the mare cropping sparse grass in a little clearing. He could send Jinson for her later. His quarry was at hand.

  SIX

  LARKbent over the hedgerow and pointed to the pile of chestnuts under the lowest branch. “Have a blink at that,” she said, straightening. “The squirrels know what we don’t.”

  “And what would that be, Black?” Hester squatted down, gently moving the leaves aside with her fingers to look at the cache. “What do they know?”

  “ ’Twill be an early winter,” Lark said. “Early and hard.”

  Hester laughed. “If you say so,” she said. “But I don’t see why squirrels should be better able to predict the weather than we are. It was such a hot summer.”

  Lark grinned up at her tall friend. “Just you remember, Morning. The beasts understand all kinds of things. Mark you, snow will fly before the month has passed.”

  Hester stood up again and shaded her eyes to look back across the rolling parkland of Beeth House.

  “There she is,” she said. She lifted her arm to wave. “Mamá will be here in a moment.”

  “ ’Tis so different, being third-level girls,” Lark said, as they waited for Lady Beeth to reach them. “I thought I would love having more freedom, flying on my own, all of that. But now it just seems there are more things to worry about.”

  “These are not normal times,” Hester said grimly. “With militia everywhere, it’s like having the Duke himself watching over our shoulders. Don’t dare wiggle a finger without fear of someone hying off to the Palace to tattle.”

  Lady Beeth’s expression was as dark as her daughter’s as she approached, striding down the park with a purposeful step.

  The girls had come at the request of Mistress Star. They delivered the Headmistress’s note to Lady Beeth, who fed them biscuits and tea and sent them out to walk for a bit. She didn’t read the letter to them, but they had already guessed its contents.

  Times were indeed difficult, even at the Academy. Mistress Star had been forced to make little economies. There was a shortage of the coffee that had to be imported from the south, and of the fruit brought in by ship from Klee and from Isamar. Two maids had been let go. Even supplies for the winged horses suffered. There had been no hay deliveries in weeks. They could see, scanning the fields they overflew, that the second cutting was due soon, and the farmers would want to clear out their silos and stacks. Still, no hay wagon trundled down the lane, and the stack behind the stables would never last the

  winter.

  Mistress Star and Mistress Dancer and the other horsemistresses walked about with tight faces, their conversations stopping abruptly when any girls drew near. Huddled conferences interrupted classes.

  Tension ran through every activity at the Academy, wearing tempers thin.

  Lark had thought this day would be a respite, a few hours away from the eyes of the soldiers and the dour atmosphere of the Hall, but she understood now that their errand was part of the crisis. She and Hester were certain that Mistress Star’s letter asked the Beeths for money.

  The girls hurried to meet Lady Beeth, their boots kicking up puffs of dirt from beneath the grass. The park around Beeth House was kept green by watering, but the hills to the west burned under the sun, grass and trees turning yellow and brown and red.

  Lady Beeth wore a broad-brimmed hat and regarded them critically from its shade. “Those caps of yours do nothing to keep the sun from burning your noses,” she said, as their paths converged.

  Hester linked her arm through her mother’s. “Mamá, no one cares if horsemistresses have freckled noses. We’ll look like old shoes before we’re thirty, anyway.”

  Lady Beeth pressed Hester’s arm close. Lark smiled to see them together, both of them tall and angular, brown eyes bright with intelligence. Lady Beeth had a commanding manner, and plump little Lord Beeth was content to let her guide him. It was said in the White City that there was one woman in the Council of Lords, though she was not allowed to speak. Everyone knew that woman was Lady Amanda Beeth.

  The three of them strolled slowly back toward Beeth House. Lady Beeth said, “How bad is it, dearest?”

  “Bad enough, Mamá. We have had no meat at all this week, and Herbert himself caught the fish we had last night. Our haystack won’t last past Erdlin, and Black says a hard winter is coming.”

  Lady Beeth turned her eyes to Lark, who nodded. “ ’Tis true,” she said.

  Lady Beeth gave a short nod without questioning the country wisdom. “Beeth will carry this problem to the Council, but I have little hope of them. They are divided right down the middle, half supporting the Duke’s po
licy, half opposing.”

  “The girls won’t mind economizing,” Hester said. “But we have to feed our horses, Mamá.”

  “Of course you do, my heart.” Lady Beeth pursed her lips. “Beeth and I will see to that, at least.”

  “Not all of it, surely, Lady Beeth? ’Tis a great expense, I fear!” Lark said.

  “Indeed it is, Larkyn dear. We’ll mortgage the summer estate in the Angles. That will get the Academy through the winter.”

  “Mamá! Is there no other way?” Hester cried. “Surely one of the other lords . . . You and Papá cannot carry this burden alone!”

  Lady Beeth slowed her steps and turned aside to where a little stone bench rested beneath the drooping branches of a live oak. She sat down in the shade, and pulled off her hat to fan herself with it. “We are not alone in being burdened,” she said. She dug with the toe of her shoe into the loam of dirt and oak leaves beneath the bench. “We grieve, Beeth and I, at the state our Duchy has come to. Our people are doing without, seeing their sons impressed into service, losing their savings and their security. And one can hardly travel even into the White City! At every turn soldiers are peering into wagons and carriages, blocking traffic, slowing commerce.”

  “What are they looking for?” Lark asked.

  “They’re watching for boys being sent away to avoid impressment, for goods slipping by without being taxed, a dozen other things. And”—she leaned back against the tree, heedless of the rough bark catching at the silk of her tabard—“they’re looking for Philippa Winter. Daysmith learned there is a standing order to arrest her if she shows her face in Oc. I doubt she’d be able to slip away a second time.”

  THEgirls took their leave very late, when the sky was already beginning to darken. The horses, untroubled by their bondmates’ worries, were rested and eager. Tup raced down the park to leap into the air ahead of Goldie. Even Goldie was energized, shedding some of her customary dignity as she sped to catch up with Tup, lifting above him with powerful strokes of her white wings. Lark looked up, marveling at how graceful Hester was in the flying saddle. Aloft, all her angles softened. Her long arms and legs suited Goldie’s strong conformation. They were beautiful to watch, haloed by the fading light as

  they banked to the west.

  Tup stretched his neck, and beat his wings faster. Lark loosened the rein to let him ascend, swooping above and beyond Goldie, two of his wingbeats to every one of hers. He was smaller, and his slender body was as flexible as a swallow’s. Lark felt his strength through her hands and her thighs, the great muscles of his wings flexing across his chest and up through the leather and wood of the saddle.

  When they reached the Academy, Lark lifted the rein and laid it against Tup’s neck. He shook his head from side to side in rebellion, and it was tempting to let him have his way, to fly on, to spend a few more minutes in the air. But it was nearly full dark. The lamps were burning in the Hall and the Residence, and Mistress Star would be waiting for Lady Beeth’s response.

  Lark called, “No, Tup! We have to go in.” She laid the rein against his neck again and pressed with her left calf. His ears flattened, just for a moment, before he tilted sharply to the right, dropping toward the return paddock at a precipitous angle.

  Lark grinned and tightened her calves around him. It was his way of scolding her, to make her hold on tight. If she had slipped, even a little, he would have leveled out immediately. He had done it before.

  One day soon, she promised herself, as he spread his wings and reached for the ground with his forefeet, they would indulge themselves, and fly without the saddle. He could do anything he wanted then, and she never slipped. She sometimes thought that as long as he wore the breast strap she and her lost friend Rosellen had constructed, they could fly upside down if they wanted to. Without the encumbrance of the flying saddle, they felt like one being, Lark molded to Tup’s back, Tup sensing every shift of her weight, every pressure of her calves and thighs and hands.

  But not tonight. He cantered up the return paddock toward the stables, and she reined him back to the posting trot before they reached the fence. Hester and Goldie were already there. Tup trotted up to them, and Lark swung her leg over the pommel to dismount. Just as her feet struck the ground, she heard Anabel’s voice calling from the stable door. “Have either of you seen Amelia?”

  Lark’s arms prickled with sudden alarm. “No,” she said. “Can’t you find her?”

  “No! Mistress Dancer wanted to speak to her, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Have you looked in Mahogany’s stall?” Hester asked.

  “I looked there first,” Anabel said.

  Hester and Lark went through the gate and closed it behind them. They led their horses toward the stable, and Anabel stepped aside to let them pass. “The thing is,” she said in a fretful tone, “that Mahogany isn’t there, either.”

  Lark stopped and looked back toward the courtyard. “The yearlings’ pasture?”

  “It’s empty.”

  “Maybe she took him out for a walk,” Hester offered, but she sounded doubtful.

  “Without telling anyone? And where’s Bramble?”

  Anabel shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems so strange.”

  Lark and Hester hurried to untack their horses and rub them down, while Anabel searched the dry paddock and the flight paddock, and dashed across the courtyard to make another round of the classrooms and the library. She came running back just as Lark and Hester finished filling the horses’

  water buckets and measuring out grain.

  “No one’s seen her,” Anabel reported breathlessly. “And now Mistress Dancer is worried, too. She was up with her flight—” She stopped to catch her breath, one hand on her chest. “Everyone was out today, the first-levels doing ground drills at the end of the yearlings’ pasture, by the grove, and the second-levels up with Mistress Dancer. I was in the library all afternoon, and everyone else in our flight had something to do!”

  “Which means,” Hester said, “that no one was in the stables. Where’s Herbert?”

  “He’s having his supper in the kitchen. He hasn’t seen her since this afternoon.”

  “And Mistress Star?”

  “She was in her office, but now she’s gone to the Dormitory to look for Amelia.”

  “There are militia everywhere,” Hester snapped. “Didn’t one of them see anything?”

  “They say not. But you know, they stay away from the stables, because of the horses.”

  Lark put a hand to her throat, and stared at Anabel, then at Hester. “He’s taken her.”

  Hester’s mouth opened, and then closed. Anabel said, “Who? Who’s taken her?”

  “Don’t you see, Hester?” Lark said. She spun about, and started across the courtyard to the Dormitory to find Mistress Star. Hester and Anabel trotted beside her.

  Hester groaned, and Anabel said, “What is it? What are you two talking about?”

  They reached the Dormitory and pressed through a little knot of first-levels huddled together on the steps, their eyes wide. When they reached the stairs, out of earshot of the others, Lark said, “It’s the Duke, Anabel. He’s taken Amelia, and he must have taken her colt and Bramble, too.”

  “Taken—but—why?” It was almost a wail.

  “He wants to force Mistress Winter to come back,” Hester said.

  Just as they reached the top of the stairs to the sleeping porch, the Headmistress came out. “Hester,” she said in a hard voice, “gather your flight, and meet me in my office.”

  She walked past them and started down the stairs. Lark gazed after her, biting her lip. “Oh, Kalla’s heels,” she breathed. “ ’Twas me he wanted.”

  Hester said, “You don’t know that, Black.”

  “Aye, but I do. He hates me. And I wasn’t here, so he took . . . Oh, poor Amelia! She must be frightened to death.”

  “He wouldn’t dare hurt her, would he?” Anabel begged them, as they started down the stairs to find the
rest of the third-level girls.

  “He tried to hurt me,” Lark said, making Anabel twist back to stare at her. “Aye, ’tis true. Last year.

  That’s one of the reasons he forced Mistress Winter to flee, because she knew.”

  “But—he has his filly now. Isn’t that what he wanted?”

  They left the Dormitory and started back across the courtyard. Soldiers stood stiffly beside the doors, but Lark felt their eyes on her, as she had done these past weeks. She wondered where Nick had been posted, and she prayed it was as safe a place as the Academy of the Air.

  Hester said, “Mamá says that once started, it’s hard to reverse the drive for power. Duke William wants power over the winged horses, and over the horsemistresses—and Mistress Winter has become the symbol for that power.”

  “And me?” Lark said. Guilt dragged at her as she walked close to Hester’s warmth. “Our farm is at risk because of me. My brother Nick is impressed into the militia because of me.”

  Hester’s long arm encircled her. Lark wished she could turn her face into her friend’s strong shoulder and weep out her anxiety and fear. But she was eighteen now, a child no longer. She was a third-level flyer, and would soon be a horsemistress, by Kalla’s grace.

  “Tied in somehow to Pamella,” Hester said in a low tone. “And to Seraph, too, I expect. Someday we’ll understand, Black.” They reached the stables, and Hester pointed to her left. “Go that way and see if you can find Beatrice and Grace. I’ll go the other way and look for Beryl and Lillian and Isobel.”

  It didn’t take long to collect their classmates and lead them across to the Hall. They found Mistress Star waiting for them. The girls crowded into the office and stood next to the bookshelves while Mistress Star gazed up at them from her desk. Lamplight gleamed on the embossed leather of the great book of the genealogy that lay near her hand. Mistress Dancer stood behind Mistress Star, her arms folded.