Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  It seemed that Rys, too, felt called to their purpose. Francis had reconciled himself to the thought that the Baron had made a political decision in trading this enterprise for his daughter’s future. But now, as Francis watched him give orders, confer with his captains, plan their foray against the Aesks, he believed Rys was as committed as he himself was. Whatever happened, whatever fate awaited all of them, there was nothing else they could have done.

  And now, in the cold light of morning, with the glacier gleaming dully from across the sea, it was time.

  The weather was steady. The clouds were high and flat above the icy water of the Strait. The glacier was a smear of dull white in the distance. The Klee ship, a narrow-prowed craft built for speed and maneuverability, was turned toward the distant shore, aimed like an arrow at their goal. The Klee soldiers, in blue wool uniforms, stood in orderly ranks on its deck, awaiting their captains, who were even now rowing out from the beach in a flat-bottomed dinghy.

  “Ready, Francis?” Rys said.

  “Yes.” Francis pulled on his gloves. “Philippa, good luck.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. The ground beyond the dock was slick with moisture, and Francis noted that she did not use the standing mount she was known for, but stood on a wooden block to fit her foot into her stirrup. Mounted in the flying saddle, she saluted him with her quirt and turned Winter Sunset toward the dunes. She would launch from there, where the ground was dry. The mare’s folded wings began to open as she trotted away. Her tail arched, and fluttering in the wind, a proud plume of red against the gray sand.

  Francis and Rys boarded the second dinghy and set out for the ship. As they climbed the rope ladder, Francis glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Philippa and Winter Sunset launch. He paused, one foot still on the ladder, to watch their ascent. What must it be like to shake off the bonds of earth as the two did now, to rise into the air with the freedom of a great bird, to look down from aloft on those who were tied forever to the land? It was perhaps no wonder that his brother William, always intense in whatever took his interest, had become obsessed with the winged horses.

  But now was not the time to worry over William. Francis climbed aboard the ship and joined Rys in the bow as they turned their faces toward Aeskland and the mission at hand.

  TWELVE

  “YOURGrace,” said Slater, bowing in his awkward way, his greatcoat flapping around him.

  “Ye gods, Slater,” William said snappishly, “can’t you find a better coat? You look like a giant crow.”

  Slater grinned, showing his yellow teeth. “Aye, me lord, if you like.” He held out a grimy palm.

  William gave a short, humorless bark of laughter. “I’ve paid you enough,” he said.

  “Could have had my company last night, me lord,” Slater said, retracting his hand and stuffing it into one of the capacious pockets of the offending coat.

  “What are you talking about?” William said offhandedly. He was in the midst of dressing, buttoning his embroidered vest over a full-sleeved white shirt. He had that damned Council to attend today, when he would rather have had a lie-in.

  “No need to go out alone,” Slater said, his eyelids drooping suggestively. “’Twas past midnight when you returned.”

  “I don’t need a nursemaid,” William said.

  “Protection, then, mayhap?”

  “No.” William shrugged into his coat and tugged at the vest. It was getting harder to disguise his changing body. He let his hand linger on his chest, beneath the lapel of his jacket. The swelling there had doubled with the doubling of his dose. It had never been his intention, nor his desire, but it would be worth it, he told himself. It would all be worth it.

  He turned to the mirror and surveyed himself. If he kept his jacket pulled close, no one would be able to tell. He eyed his smooth jaw and touched one eyebrow with a long, slender finger. His eyebrows, like his hair, were pale as snow. Not like Larkyn Hamley. She was raven-dark, like the wings of her little stallion.

  The thought of her made him tremble with renewed fury. The bloody brat stood in that window staring down at him, bold as brass. She thought he couldn’t touch her now, he supposed. Thought she and her horse—the horse that should have been his—she thought they were safe from him now. He would like to have Slater procure her , just once. Give him an hour alone with her, and he’d wipe that insolent look off her pretty face.

  He could have gotten to her last night, if it weren’t for that damned dog. Maybe, he thought now, as he smoothed his hair into its queue, and took his quirt from its hook, maybe he could have Slater take care of that bloody oc-hound. One slash of a good sharp knife . . . waste of a dog, he supposed. But it would be one less obstacle between him and the brat.

  He smiled to himself as he went down the stairs and out to where his brown gelding was saddled and waiting. There could be no better way to pay Philippa Winter back for her insolence than to get his hands on the Hamley brat, do her a little serious damage. If he took care of Larkyn Hamley, and thereby stalled Philippa’s interfering in his affairs, he wouldn’t have to worry anymore about what Pamella might say.

  The thought filled him with frantic energy. He snatched the reins from his stable-boy and swung himself up into the saddle, wrenching his gelding’s head around and applying his spurs. The gelding grunted and burst into a teeth-jarring gallop. William yanked him again to settle him down, then felt a moment’s remorse. It wasn’t the horse’s fault that the rest of the world caused him such irritation. He reined the gelding back, giving Slater a chance to catch up with him on his ugly pony.

  They set out for the Council Rotunda at a trot, Slater bouncing from side to side in his saddle. William passed the time imagining Pamella and Philippa, both weeping, Larkyn Hamley’s small body bruised and broken. A thrill surged through him, a spasm of delight that was purely physical. Oh, yes, he told himself.

  Oh, yes. Now that would satisfy.

  THIRTEEN

  FROMhigh above the Strait, Philippa could see the approach of winter from the north. It was as if giant

  boots stamped southward from the glaciers, leaving great snowy footprints. Beneath Sunny’s wings, the Klee ship arrowed toward Aeskland, its narrow black silhouette slicing the green water. Sunny’s wings beat effortlessly in the cold air as they left the ship behind, and the biting wind held steady. Philippa pulled the collar of her riding jacket higher. She let Sunny choose her own direction, while she kept an eye on the shore ahead, knowing that when they reached it, the winds would change.

  The Strait was not wide, and before the morning was half-over, the flyers were making their first high circle inland. The wind shifted as they left the water, but Sunny adjusted to it without difficulty. Philippa kept her thighs pressed tight under the knee rolls of her saddle, shifting as Sunny tilted with the updrafts, and scanned the ground below.

  It hardly seemed possible that the topography of one shore could differ so much from the other. The north coast of Oc was sandy, lined by dunes and long grasses, with abundant inlets and bays for the fisher-folk to use. Aeskland’s coastline was rocky and rough. Between the glacier’s edge and the coastline stretched a vast, treeless plateau, covered now with snow. Philippa understood that the nature of a people was shaped by its environment. From the indolence of Isamarians to the toughness of the Uplanders, she had seen how hardship or ease affected character. Those they called barbarians were the product of a barbaric land. She could find nothing in the country beneath her that offered warmth or comfort.

  She knew little about the Aesks except for the tales of their savage wardogs, of their barbed arrows and double-tipped spears, the viciousness with which they treated their slaves. Some said they killed horses when they could get them, ate the meat, and used their skins. Philippa scanned the horizon, looking for the smoke of cookfires, the outlines of tents against the snow. Soon, perhaps, Klee and Isamar would know what was fable and what was truth about Aeskland.

  Rys had said that though Klee
had often been at war with Aeskland in the past decade, the Klee never followed them into their own lands. Klee’s lands abutted the Aesk territories, and their battles had been skirmishes, raids and counterraids, the barbarians biting at Klee’s borders like dogs nipping at a deer’s flanks. Not since Klee and Isamar had been one kingdom had any of the civilized lands invaded the north country. Aeskland had nothing they wanted.

  Philippa let Sunny make a lower circle. A bit of midday sun broke through the cloud cover and glimmered on the sails of the Klee ship as it hove to off the coast. Ice crystals flashed from the snowfield below. Philippa squinted against the brightness, but she could see nothing. She and Sunny made another circuit, still lower, then banked back toward the ship, dipping over the cliffs and down to the shore. They flew along the strand, looking for a place to come to ground.

  At the end of a long finger of water that thrust inland through the rocks, Philippa spied a more or less level space, just upslope from the beach, running between stands of the dwarf trees. Snow covered everything now, of course, so she had no way to tell how trustworthy the ground might be. But Sunny had been aloft for many hours, and it was time to rest her. Philippa lifted her rein and shifted her weight.

  Obediently, Sunny tilted her wings and began her descent.

  Philippa loosened the reins. Sunny knew how to choose her landing spot, and on uncertain ground it was best to let a winged horse follow her instinct. Sunny stretched out her neck, her ears flicking forward, and reached with her forefeet. Philippa kept her hands low, her weight a little back, her thighs flexed against the leathers of her stirrups.

  Sunny’s forefeet touched, and her back hooves reached, but she kept her extended wings tensed.

  Philippa felt her caution at landing on the snow, at not knowing what might be beneath it. Her left front hoof slipped, and she might have stumbled, but her wings flexed, catching the air, steadying her. Her canter was tentative, wings still fluttering. She bowed her neck, seeking balance. Philippa swayed with her and stood in her stirrups as Sunny slowed to a trot.

  When she stopped, panting, Philippa leaned forward over her lathered neck. She smoothed her ruffled mane, and murmured, “Sunny, I am barely worthy of you.” Sunny tossed her head and flicked her ears, making Philippa laugh. “All right, my girl,” she said, swinging her leg over the cantle. “I know what that means. And I’m as hungry as you are.”

  She turned to see that the two dinghies from the ship were moving in toward the shore. A man in the front

  of each bent over the bow, testing the depth of the water with a pole as the boats sought a safe path to the rock-strewn beach. By the time Philippa had cooled Sunny, removed her tack, and rubbed her down, the boats had grounded, and the soldiers were pulling them up onto the shore. Some of the Klee soldiers went straight to work putting up tents, economical affairs constructed with poles and sheets of jute canvas, arranged in circular fashion. Others set to with buckets to tote water from the stream that ran through the rocks to the beach, carving a sandy path to the sea.

  Sunny pushed at the feed bag. “In a little while, my girl,” Philippa said, picking up her halter lead. “It’s a bit too soon after your flight. But we could get you some water.” She led her down the slope of the beach, both of them picking their way through sharp rocks and piles of cold seaweed.

  Francis joined her at the stream’s edge, while Sunny dipped her muzzle into the water. “You didn’t see anything, I gather?” he asked.

  “Snow and more snow,” Philippa said. “And rocks. How do the Aesks eke a living from this place?”

  Francis lifted his head to gaze up at the plateau beyond the cliff. The wind ruffled his pale hair. “Even the fisher-folk of Onmarin must seem rich to them,” he said thoughtfully.

  “I was thinking just that,” Philippa said. She tugged at Sunny’s lead. “Enough, Sunny. Give your belly a chance. You can have more soon.”

  Francis, from a careful distance, asked, “Can I do anything to help you?”

  “I’ll need Sunny’s blanket from my things. I believe my lord Rys’s men were to bring them ashore.”

  Obligingly, Francis went back to the swiftly growing campsite and sorted through the piles of baggage.

  When he returned with the horse blanket folded over his arm, he said, “They’re setting up a separate shelter for you.”

  “And for Sunny?”

  Francis smiled. “I think that’s up to you. It looks big enough for three horses.”

  “Good.” Philippa looked up into the sky. Great patches of blue separated the clouds now, opened by a rising wind. “It’s going to clear,” she said. “It will be damnably cold tonight.”

  “Rys says it’s too late to start the search today.”

  “He’s right. Sunny needs to rest now,” Philippa said. “We’ll go aloft first thing tomorrow. The plateau is huge, and they could be anywhere. This could take time.”

  Francis made a slight sound that might have been a groan or might have been a laugh. Philippa, with one hand on Sunny’s neck, looked at him curiously. “What is it, Francis?”

  He shrugged, and avoided her eyes. “I was—I was afraid, actually. But now that we’re here, now that it’s close—I find I can hardly wait to begin. I feel a bit silly, like a young boy eager to prove his courage.”

  “There’s nothing silly about that,” Philippa said. “You were right to be afraid, and it’s natural to be impatient to get it over with.”

  “I lack your experience, Philippa.”

  “Lucky you,” she said.

  Arumor had reached the Academy, and the girls whispered it to each other in the Hall and in the Dormitory. Lark heard it first from Anabel, who came to bend over Tup’s stall gate. “It’s Geraldine,”

  Anabel murmured, her eyes wide with excitement. “It’s Geraldine’s baby!”

  Lark had been brushing tangles from Molly’s winter coat. She straightened, the stiff-bristled brush in her hands. “Geraldine’s baby? It must be six months old by now, or more.”

  Geraldine had been, for a time, Geraldine Prince, bonded to a winged horse, with a bright future before her. Her pregnancy, which no winged horse could tolerate, had put an untimely end to her career and meant the death of her bondmate. Lark would never forget the death of New Prince, and her part in it.

  And she would never, as long as she lived, understand how Geraldine could have allowed such a thing to happen.

  Anabel waved one hand. “I don’t know how old it is—he is, I mean—but Geraldine’s father has brought suit in the Council.”

  “Suit? About what?”

  “About the baby’s father , Black!” Anabel said. “Everyone’s talking about it!”

  Lark crossed the stall with Molly at her heels. Tup whimpered and pressed close behind them. “Anabel,”

  Lark said, “what is everyone talking about? I don’t understand.”

  Anabel opened the gate for her, and Lark went through. She shut it, then leaned against it, gazing at Tup’s shining coat, his wide, bright eyes. She remembered how the light had gone out of New Prince’s eyes, how his breath had rattled as he died. It made her shudder anew at the horror of it.

  “What’s the matter?” Anabel asked.

  “I was thinking about New Prince.”

  “Don’t think about that now,” Anabel said. She tugged at Lark’s hand. “Come on, let’s hurry and change. We’ll be late for supper, and I’m ravenous.”

  Lark turned with her, and they started down the aisle. Anabel said, “You still don’t see, do you?

  Geraldine’s father has accused someone of fathering her child!”

  “Can you do that?” Lark asked. “At home, in Willakeep . . . everyone just knows. I mean, the girl will say, and usually the baby looks like someone we all recognize.”

  “That’s just it!” Anabel said triumphantly.

  “What is?”

  At that moment, Hester came dashing around the corner from the tack room, and fell into step with them as they sta
rted across the courtyard. “Have you heard?” she demanded.

  “You mean, about Geraldine and the Duke?” Anabel said. She drew breath to say something else, but Lark put a hand on her arm and held her back. Hester stopped, too.

  “The Duke ?” Lark said, her voice tight in her throat. “They’re accusing Duke William?”

  Anabel’s pale complexion colored with excitement. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Geraldine’s little boy looks exactly like Duke William!”

  Hester nodded. “Papá just came from the Council of Lords. It’s true, Geraldine’s family is bringing a paternity suit against the Duke.”

  “And the little boy . . .” Lark began. Her voice trailed off as the realization struck her.

  “Yes!” Anabel exclaimed. “He has the same light hair, the same black eyes . . . he looks just like all the Fleckhams.”

  Lark felt as if she couldn’t breathe. The image of little Brandon rose in her mind, his hair pale as ice, his midnight-dark eyes sparkling with laughter as Edmar teased him. Brandon, too, looked just like William.

  He looked just like his mother Pamella, as well . . . Pamella, the Duke’s own sister.

  Hester’s thoughts had traveled the same path, she could see. Her eyes met Lark’s, widening with shock.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, no, Black, that can’t be.”

  Anabel said, “What? What are you two talking about? Why can’t it be?”

  Hester drew a breath, then shook her head. “Never mind, Anabel. It’s nothing.”

  “But what—do you know something you’re not telling me? What is it?”

  Lark bit her lip and turned away from Anabel’s burning curiosity. She and Hester had promised Lady Beeth not to speak of what had happened in the Uplands months ago. Lady Beeth, and Lark’s brother Brye as well, had convinced them that their silence was in the best interests of everyone, Pamella, Brandon, Oc itself—and Deeping Farm.

  But the idea that Geraldine’s baby might be William’s troubled Lark deeply. So often, she knew, bulls and billies and stallions threw offspring that resembled them. It was one of the ways farm-folk kept track of which sires were most potent. What if—would it be possible that poor Pamella’s little one, little Brandon—