by Toby Bishop
Philippa’s eyes flew open. Hester had fallen asleep, her head tipped back on a cushion, her riding cap askew. The curtains were drawn, and the carriage was comfortably dim, though Philippa could see through the parchment shades that the sun had risen.
William. Potions. Apothecaries, and Slater. The secret stables, a mare in season, a stolen winged stallion.
Her mind, exhausted, suddenly saw right through the labyrinth to the truth at its heart.
William wanted to fly. He wanted to fly enough to try to change his body in order to bond with a winged horse, and he was trying to breed a foal for himself.
If he succeeded, the horsemistresses of Oc would lose all prestige and power.
And he would endanger the very resource that kept their tiny, ancient Duchy safe.
She forced her eyelids to close again, and she slowed her breathing, focusing on her need for sleep. She would need her strength, and all her wits. The battle of the South Tower had been nothing compared to the coming battle with William.
DORSEY’S house should more rightly be called a hut, Lark thought. It was no more than a single high-ceilinged room with an open fireplace, a privy to one side, and a sort of herb-hung workroom on the other. Dorsey helped Lark to her own bed, a noisome pallet piled with pillows stuffed with what felt like broomstraw. Tup whickered and stamped from the doorway of the workroom, protesting being separated from Lark. The blond girl pumped water into a bucket and took it to him. Lark heard him drinking from it, and she tried to lift her head, but Dorsey put a gentle hand on her chest.
“Nay, nay, Missy,” she said. “Lie back. Let Dorsey have a look.”
“But Tup—” Lark said hoarsely.
“Never mind,” Dorsey said. “Girl will take care of your little horse.”
“Hide him,” Lark croaked.
“Oh, aye, aye, if you want. He can stay in my workroom. No one goes in there but me.”
Lark wanted to ask if the silent girl knew anything at all about horses, but Dorsey began to probe her wounds, and the pain of that drove even Tup from her mind. Her world seemed filled with pain, chest and hip and leg. She hardly recognized her own voice as she cried out.
Dorsey muttered, “There, there, Missy, I know. Just let old Dorsey find out what’s the matter. Aye, aye, there’s a rib, all right. And a bruised hip. And . . .” Her fingers ran on down Lark’s leg, to where the swollen ankle bulged against her boot. “Aye. Have to cut this boot.”
Lark lay back, panting and perspiring, as Dorsey hurried to her workroom. When she came back, she held out a dented tin cup. “Now, here, drink you this. Give it a moment to ease you, and then old Dorsey will find out what yon boot is hiding.”
Gratefully, without even asking what was in it, Lark drank the potion. Relief began to steal over her at once. The pain was still there, but she seemed to feel it at a remove, as if a thick curtain separated the hurt from her mind. She sighed, and her muscles relaxed. As Dorsey went to work on her riding boot with a small, sharp knife, she thought she heard Tup clop across the rough wooden floor. It seemed his lips touched her cheek. Her fingers stole up to caress him, but her hand fell limply to her side before she could ascertain if he was truly there or not.
When she woke, the sunlight slanting through the single window came from the west. She had slept the day away. With wakefulness came a return of pain, but she tried to ignore it, struggling to sit up against the scratchy pillows, to see where Tup might be.
In seconds, the old witchwoman was at her side, grinning crazily down at her as if having an injured girl in her house was a special delight.
“Oh, aye, aye, awake, are ye?” she exclaimed. “Good, good. A little broth, and another potion. You’re coming right along.”
“No . . .” Lark protested. “Wait—where is Tup?”
“Tup? Tup? Oh, aye, your little winged horse! Why, he’s right there, right outside Dorsey’s workroom. I left the door open so he could see you.”
“He needs—he needs oats. A blanket. Hay . . .”
“Aye, don’t worry. Girl will bring something back. She had to fetch her little one.”
“She—who is she?”
“She’s the one I told you about!” Dorsey exclaimed, with an air of triumph. “At Erdlin, and again in Osham. I told you!”
Lark frowned, trying to remember, but her mind was muzzy with pain and the remnants of the potion. The day of the old Duke’s funeral seemed long, long ago.
Dorsey bustled about, bringing Lark a bowl of soup, propping her a little more upright and pressing a thick-handled spoon into her hand.
She drank the soup, and spooned up every bit of meat and vegetables lingering in the bowl. Again, Dorsey gave her the tin cup, and Lark drank it swiftly, then lifted the blanket to look at her right ankle. It was splinted now, and wrapped in a thick gray bandage. “How bad is it?” she asked.
Dorsey touched the bandage with careful fingers. “It’s bad enough,” she said. “Broken.”
“I think I broke a rib, too.”
“Oh, aye,” the witchwoman said, nodding, her flurry of gray hair blooming around her head. “I bound it up, see?” She poked Lark’s side, and Lark flinched.
“Will I . . .” Lark began, and then sank back, afraid to ask the question.
Dorsey grinned, spreading a spiderweb of wrinkles across her face. “Walk? Oh, aye. Just a broken ankle.”
“No,” Lark whispered. The potion had begun to work on her, and her eyelids grew heavy again. “No, Dorsey. I know I will walk. But will I ride? Will I—will I fly?”
Dorsey’s claw of a hand came gently down on Lark’s forehead, and passed over her eyelids, helping them to close. “Aye, Larkyn Hamley, aye,” she said softly. “You have your little icon there. Feel how warm it is against your skin? Your goddess brought you to Dorsey. You’ll ride again. Your goddess protects you, and that’s no smallmagic. You’ll be one of the great flyers of Oc.”
Lark doubted this, but the sound of it, the idea of it, soothed her. She sighed, and drifted on the soft cloud of whatever herb it was Dorsey used in her potion. The last thing she saw before she slept was Tup, lipping at her forehead, sniffing in her scent. This time her fingers reached him before she fell into unconsciousness. She stroked his silken cheek, hardly even surprised that old Dorsey allowed him into her house.
PHILIPPA roused from a heavy, overheated sleep in midafternoon, jarred awake by the carriage jouncing. Hester still curled improbably upon the narrow bench opposite, her face buried in a pillow, her hair falling out of its knot and trailing across her brow. Philippa grimaced, and stretched to loosen the kink in her neck. Only the young, she thought, could sleep anywhere, anytime.
She lifted a corner of the curtain, and was startled by the abundance of color that greeted her. Crops of green and red and yellow overhung the road. Hedgerows bustled with life, birds flitting in and out of their branches, brown rabbits skittering into the safety of their roots, away from the beat of the carriage horses’ hooves. The road had narrowed, and grown bumpy. They must be well into the Uplands. The footman saw the twitch of the curtain, and called out to the driver. A few moments later, the carriage stopped, and the footman opened the door, bowing to Philippa.
She touched her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Hester is still sleeping.”
“Yes, Mistress,” the footman said. “Driver wants me to tell you we’ve passed Dickering Park, but down that lane is a village, Willakeep. Perhaps you would like to refresh yourself?”
Philippa glanced up at the sky. The sun was halfway down from its zenith. “What about the horses?” she asked.
“They’re due a rest,” he said. “But we understood haste was important.”
“You understand rightly,” Philippa said. She climbed out of the carriage, closing the door softly behind her, and stood stretching her arms over her head. “I believe Deeping Farm is an hour’s drive from here. Is that too long?”
The driver looked down from his seat. “Horses have had water. They�
�ll be all right for an hour, if we can rest them there.”
“Very well,” Philippa said. She cast about for some cover to relieve herself, and found it, just off the road. “Just wait for me a moment, and then we’ll press on. There’s still food in the hamper if you need something.”
“No, thank you, Mistress,” the footman said. “Lady Beeth sent us well provisioned.”
“Indeed,” Philippa said, with a nod. “She would.”
An hour later, Hester now awake and having polished off the last of Lady Beeth’s sustenance, they pulled off the road and down the rutted lane to Deeping Farm. Philippa was out of the carriage the moment it stopped, and halfway up the walk to the house before Hester could climb out. She rapped on the kitchen door, absently noticing that the rue-tree was in full bloom, the barn freshly whitewashed, the kitchen garden beyond its blackstone fence tilled and planted.
Hester caught up with her, saying, “Is this Black’s home? How perfectly marvelous!”
A young woman Philippa didn’t recognize opened the kitchen door, and raised her eyebrows at the sight of them. “Zito’s ears!” she exclaimed. “Here’s two more!”
She stepped back, and held the door wide.
Philippa moved past her into the kitchen, and then stopped dead in her tracks.
At the old table, with a thick mug and a plate of crooks before her, sat Irina Strong.
“They didn’t make it, Philippa,” she said, with an air of grim satisfaction. “They’re gone.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
PHILIPPA stood in the center of the Hamley kitchen, her fists on her hips. “So it’s true, Irina,” she said in her most cutting tone. “You never meant for Larkyn to learn to fly.”
Irina stood up, and said sullenly, “She showed no ability.”
“No ability? She just flew her colt for the first time with no tack, no flight paddock, no monitor, and in the dark! No ability?”
“She got lucky,” Irina said sullenly.
“She made her luck,” Philippa said. “She meant to land here, I have no doubt, and you frightened her off.”
“I didn’t even see her.”
“Kalla’s teeth,” Philippa said bitterly. “We entrusted her to you. I don’t know how you can live with yourself.”
“I serve the Duke—” Irina began, but Philippa cut off her words with a gesture, and turned her back.
She demanded of the girl, “Where’s Master Hamley?”
“Oh,” the girl said. “You mean Brye, I suppose? Or Nick?”
“Brye. The eldest.”
“He’s out looking for his sister and her horse,” the girl said hastily. “Well, Nick is, too. Worried sick, they both are. Bid me watch out for this one, here, though I don’t know what I’m to do if she decides to leave, because I can’t exactly stop a horsemistress from flying, can I? I gave her tea, and some breakfast, but—”
“Where’s her horse?”
The girl pointed through the kitchen window to the barn. “In a stall. Fed and watered by Nick, this morning, before they went off in the oxcart. I don’t know what’s to become of the milk cans, all ready in the coldcellar . . .”
Hester took a step forward. “What’s your name, Miss?”
“I’m Peony, as what does the housework here now that Lark has gone off.” Peony waved a hand around the tidy kitchen. “I do the garden, and the milk and butter, and—”
“Thank you, Peony,” Hester said with authority. “Perhaps you could make us a pot of tea, as well.”
Philippa drew a deep breath, relieved at having someone else to deal with the housekeeper. She faced Irina again.
“Irina,” she said. “Dishonesty runs in your family, I am told.”
Irina sank back into her chair. “I followed my orders,” she muttered.
“You were a horsemistress,” Philippa gritted. “How could you risk that?”
Slowly, Irina lifted her gaze. Her eyes were dull. “I’m still a horsemistress,” she said.
“Who will work with you now? Certainly no one at the Academy! When word of your disloyalty gets about, I have no doubt you’ll be sent straight to the most remote spot in all the principality!”
Irina’s cheeks reddened to the color of old bricks. “The Duke promised me—”
“William has his own problems,” Philippa said bitterly. “And visited them on us. If this comes out, and is judged to be treason . . . You will lose your patron, Irina.”
Irina paled at that, and caught her lip between her teeth. Philippa was about to say something further, but the sound of voices in the barnyard drew her and Hester to the window.
The relief she felt at seeing Brye Hamley, in his shirtsleeves, climbing down from the oxcart made her knees weak. He eyed the carriage waiting in the barnyard, and then strode toward the house while the younger brother led the ox away. Brye took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and ran his fingers through his thick shock of graying black hair. His brow was furrowed, and his jaw set.
This, Philippa thought, is Oc. Not an effete nobleman hiding his perversion behind embroidered vests, manipulating people, taking the law into his own hands, but an honest farmer, a hardworking man, a devoted brother. She turned to the door, and stood waiting for it to open, feeling as if a great weight were about to be lifted from her shoulders.
“So you’re here at last,” he said without ceremony. He indicated Irina with his chin. “This one’s no help at all, except to tell us our sister’s missing, and her horse with her.”
“Master Hamley—you haven’t found them?”
“No.” He hooked a chair forward with his foot, sat down, and gestured for her to do the same. “I’ll set out again tomorrow. I didn’t know if I should let other people know or not, until I understand what’s happened. This one wouldn’t tell me, but you will.” It was as much a command as any Philippa might have issued herself.
With a wry nod, she seated herself. “You’re right to ask, Master Hamley,” she said. “I’m not sure I can explain everything, but I’ll do my best.”
Peony came to the table with the pot of tea, and waved a tattered fetish at it. She stared at Philippa with wide eyes. Hester, with a sigh, took a chair opposite Irina.
“The new Duke,” Philippa began, “apparently wishes to create his own bloodline of winged horses. By law this would be treason, but he is the Duke. Such a situation has never developed before, not in centuries.” She glanced at Irina. “The important thing is to find Larkyn before Duke William does.”
“What will he do?”
“I don’t know,” Philippa said. “She knows more than we do, at this moment, and he may wish to silence her. He’s a ruthless man. And dangerous, in the way of the powerful. I don’t know how far he might go.”
LARK felt as if weights were attached to her eyelashes when she tried to lift them. She sighed, and blinked, and tried again. Her eyes opened gradually, and her pupils adjusted slowly to the light. She saw through the window that night had fallen again, the stars just beginning to show themselves in the black sky. She felt, all at once, ravenous.
Dorsey was at the crooked sink in the corner, humming to herself, rattling a spoon in a pan. Lark croaked, “Tup?”
Dorsey whirled, and grinned at her from across the room. “Oh, aye,” she cackled. “Yon little winged horse is right there.” She pointed to the workroom, and Lark lifted her head enough to peer past the hanging bundles of herbs and roots. She could just see Tup’s hindquarters. His head was down, and he was cropping the sparse grass. Someone had wrapped him in a blanket, and tied it with twine.
Dorsey scuttled across the floor, and bent over Lark to press a palm to her forehead. “Nay, no fever, then, that’s a good girl. Come now, we’ll prop you up on these pillows and you’ll drink something.”
Lark drank thirstily from a cup of clear mountain water, holding it in her two hands. When she had drained it, she said, a little diffidently, “I’m awfully hungry, Dorsey.”
Dorsey clapped her hands and cackled as if s
he had just won a great prize. “Aye, aye, now there’s a good sign! Hungry!” She hurried back to the sink, and returned with a plate piled with sliced preserved bloodbeets, a wedge of yellow goat cheese, and a slice of dense brown bread. There were even two buttery crooks at the edge of the plate. “There, now, you eat your fill. Dorsey will build up the fire.”
The food tasted better than anything Lark could remember. She tried to think when she had last eaten, but all she could figure was that it had been more than a day. Perhaps she had not eaten since the pastries in Osham.
When she had eaten, she began to think of the privy, but she was afraid to put weight on her leg. Dorsey, though, anticipated her. She supported Lark as she hobbled across the floor, and stayed with her until her necessaries were done, then helped her back to the bed. It all hurt surprisingly, and Lark was glad to lie down again.
“Dorsey,” she said. She ran a hand through her muddled hair, and tried to think. “Does anyone know?”
“Nay, nay, old Dorsey keeps her own counsel, doesn’t she? And Girl doesn’t talk at all.”
“I can’t stay here,” Lark protested weakly. “Tup needs exercise, and I need clothes. And a bath,” she finished, looking down at herself. How was she to manage a bath, bound as she was, ribs and ankle?
Dorsey handed her another cup of the pain-relieving potion, patted her shoulder, and scuffled across the room to the tilting stone sink. “Now, now, you’re home in the Uplands. We know how to take care of our own, don’t we? We’ll manage a bath tomorrow.”
“But Tup,” Lark said. “Who will take care of Tup? And what if someone sees him?” This thought made her try to wriggle upright, until pain laid her flat again.
Dorsey came back, a frayed towel in her hands. She twisted it as she looked down at Lark. “You don’t want to be found, then,” she said. “Girl didn’t either.”
“Who is she?” Lark said.
Dorsey shrugged. “I don’t know. She can’t tell me. But she had a horse, too, when she came here.”
