Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  Lark smiled up at the driver. “They’re well matched, aren’t they?” she said. “And so beautifully groomed.

  Tails like silk, I would say.”

  The driver lifted his cap. “Thank you, Miss. I would ask you young ladies not to startle them.”

  Hester said indignantly, “Don’t be ridiculous! We would never startle horses.”

  She was right, of course. The girls circled the animals, and spoke to them in soft voices, but made no sudden moves. In moments, the big horses were bending their necks, sniffing at the girls’ faces, their ears flicking comfortably back and forth.

  “May we bring them a treat?” Beatrice asked, and dashed off toward the kitchen without waiting for permission. When she came back, she carried a pocketful of carrots and slightly withered apples, and when the driver, laughing now, nodded his permission, the four enormous carriage horses were soon munching, tossing their heads, standing hipshot and comfortable in the cold sunshine.

  “Larkyn!”

  Lark looked up from scratching behind one of the horses’ ears to see Mistress Morgan beckoning to her from the doorway of the Hall. Lark glanced at Hester, who shrugged and grinned, and Anabel, whose forehead creased with worry. Lark shook her head at her. “Don’t worry, Anabel,” she said hastily, as she spun about to run up the steps. “I haven’t done anything wrong in days!”

  When she reached Mistress Morgan, she saw that the Baron’s daughter stood in the shadows of the foyer. The Headmistress stepped back to allow Lark to pass inside, saying, “Larkyn Black, this is Amelia Rys, our new student.”

  “Aye,” Lark said cheerfully. “So we guessed. Welcome to the Academy, Amelia.”

  She saw the girl’s thin eyebrows rise, and her narrow lips pursed a little, but she inclined her head. “How do you do, Miss.”

  “Oh, you can call me Black,” Lark said with a smile. “Everyone does.”

  The thin eyebrows rose farther, and the purse of the lips remained. “Indeed,” the Klee girl said. Her tone was neither cold nor warm. It was, Lark thought, perfectly noncommittal.

  Lark glanced at Mistress Morgan for guidance, and thought she saw the dance of humor in her eyes.

  “Like yourself, Larkyn,” the Headmistress said, “Amelia comes to the Academy alone. Her beginning is as unusual as yours, in its own way. You had a foal born out of season, and Amelia comes with no bondmate yet. It will be difficult for her, I think, to feel a part of the Academy. Under the circumstances, I thought you would make the perfect sponsor for her.”

  Lark inclined her head. “Aye.” She grinned at Amelia, a little wickedly. “Would you like a blink at the stables?” The Headmistress’s lips twitched, but the Klee girl only fixed Lark with her brown gaze.

  “A blink?” she said. “You must translate for me, Miss—that is, Black. This is not a term I’m familiar with.”

  Lark laughed. “Never should you be! I’m a farm girl from the Uplands, as my own sponsor will remind you at every opportunity, and I speak our dialect. Come, with the Headmistress’s leave, I’ll give you a tour.”

  She put a hand under Amelia’s slender arm, finding it hard and muscled beneath her fingers. The girl tolerated her touch for a moment, and then, subtly, lifted her arm away.

  Lark bit her lip, trying not to be offended. She led the way out of the Hall, trusting the girl would follow.

  Mistress Morgan’s bemused gaze warmed her back as she and the new student went out the double doors and down the steps.

  “Aloner, my mamá would say.” Hester had finished Goldie’s grooming, and she came to hang over the gate of Tup’s stall, watching Lark finish her chores. She kept her voice low, though Amelia Rys was not in the stables. She was in the Hall, receiving instruction from the Headmistress herself. Her trunks and valise had been arranged in the Dormitory, the maidservant unpacking everything, arranging things in drawers, badgering Matron for storage space.

  “Wait till she finds out her maid has to go.” This was Anabel, who draped her long, slender form next to Hester’s, and idly held out her thin white fingers for Molly to nibble at.

  “Did you come with maids, both of you?” Lark wondered. “No one in the Uplands has such, except perhaps the horsemistress in Dickering Park.”

  “We didn’t,” Hester said. “But Petra did!”

  Lark and Anabel both giggled. “Maybe Petra should have been her sponsor,” Anabel said. “They might have a lot in common.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Amelia doesn’t seem like a snob to me. She’s just—aloof.” Lark put the currycomb on its shelf and gave Tup one more pat. She hated to leave him, but she gave a low whistle, and Bramble came at a trot, obligingly going into the stall when Lark opened the gate.

  “Why do you put Bramble in Seraph’s stall?” Anabel asked.

  Lark avoided Hester’s eyes. “Oh, he just likes her,” she said weakly. “And Bramble doesn’t mind.”

  Hester said briskly, “Come on, you lot. Suppertime at last!” The three of them hurried out and across the courtyard to the Hall, joining the other girls streaming in out of the cold.

  Lark cast a look up at the sky as they went, and a little shiver of unease went through her. The stars were invisible tonight, hidden by high, thin clouds. “Smells like snow,” she said, half to herself.

  Hester laughed. “Black! How can you smell snow?”

  “I just can,” Lark said. “When you live in the hills, you learn it.”

  Hester put an arm around her shoulders. “Mistress Winter knows what she’s about,” she said. “You have to trust her.”

  “I know,” Lark said. “But I wish—I just wish she would come back. The weather could turn at any time.”

  They were caught up in the tide of girls, swept along to their places at the long tables. Mistress Morgan brought Amelia in after everyone was seated, and the girls at Lark and Hester’s table had to move while a place was set. Amelia Rys stood watching this proceeding without reaction, her eyes running up and down the table as if assessing every girl. Lark had the impression she would remember every face and know exactly where they were sitting.

  Lark put a hand on the back of the empty chair and smiled. “Do you sit here, lass,” she said. “And I will introduce you.”

  Amelia Rys’s eyebrows quirked at the “lass,” but she took the chair, and sat. Lark had just begun to name the girls on either side when a hush fell over the dining room. Lark stopped speaking and followed the turned heads to the doors. Her mouth dried, and her heart sped when she saw who had interrupted the Academy’s supper.

  Duke William, tall and lean in his black coat and narrow trousers, silver buckles, and embroidered vest, strode in from the foyer. His quirt was tucked under his arm. Lark folded her arms tightly, aware that Amelia gave her an inquiring glance.

  The Headmistress, at the high table, rose. “Your Grace,” she said, with a stiff inclination of her head.

  The Duke did not acknowledge her greeting. He stepped up onto the dais with a lithe movement and turned to survey the room. “Where is the Baron’s daughter?” he asked. His voice carried in the quiet room, high and clear.

  A cool smile curved Mistress Morgan’s lips. “We have several barons’ daughters at the Academy,” she said smoothly. “I believe Your Grace knows that.”

  Duke William took his quirt in his hand and lightly slapped his thigh. “You know whom I mean,

  Headmistress,” he said lightly. “Rys’s daughter. The Klee girl.” His eyes raked the room. “Whose bonding has been bought and paid for.”

  A collective indrawn breath seemed almost to dim the light in the room. Lark, shocked at the insult, let her eyes slip sideways to Amelia Rys’s thin face. To her surprise, a light of something like defiance, or perhaps recognition, shone in Amelia’s eyes. With a slight clearing of her throat, the Klee girl rose in her place.

  Lark almost put out a hand to stop her from curtsying to the Duke, but it seemed Amelia Rys had already learned that lesson. In a clear voice, she said, “You
r Grace of Oc. I am here.” She inclined her head, and she didn’t smile. “Amelia, youngest daughter of Baron Esmond Rys.”

  The Duke stepped down from the dais and came to stand near their table. The room was silent, the servers holding back with their steaming platters, the girls and the horsemistresses frozen in their places.

  Lark shrank down in her chair, wishing Amelia had not sat next to her. William’s black eyes glittered in the light from the wall sconces. “You look like him,” he said to Amelia.

  “So I am told,” she said evenly. Lark could hardly breathe, but still she felt a rush of admiration. Would that she had such composure in the presence of the Duke! But then, Amelia did not know all that she knew about William of Oc.

  William slapped his thigh once again with his quirt, and Lark flinched. His eyes passed over her, and his mouth tightened. “We would warn you against keeping the wrong company,” he said lightly.

  “I assure Your Grace,” Amelia said, “that I need no such warning, though I thank you for your concern.”

  William frowned. “We shall see.” He tucked the quirt back under his arm, flicked a glance over Lark, and looked back at Amelia. “We will discuss your future with the Baron when—indeed, we should say if

  —he returns from Aeskland.” He turned around and stalked out of the dining room without looking back.

  A long moment of silence stretched around the room, until a burst of nervous conversation broke it.

  Amelia, slowly, resumed her seat. Lark leaned closer to her. “I’m sure your father will come back safely,” she said. “He was trying to frighten you.”

  Amelia’s cool brown gaze met hers. “I know,” she said. She picked up her salad fork as a server set a tiny plate of chilled bloodbeets before her. She speared one, delicately, then held it on her fork as she looked back at Lark. “He’s angry at being forced to allow me to bond with a winged horse.” She put the bloodbeet in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. When she had swallowed, she added, “My father is a clever man. He’s thinking of the future. My being here strengthens Oc’s ties to Klee, and the Council of Lords likes that.”

  “And you?” Lark dared to ask. She started on her own salad, watching this unusual girl from beneath her eyelids. “Are you glad to be here?”

  Amelia laid down her fork and turned to face Lark directly, her face as composed as ever. She said, “I have wanted nothing else since I was a child.”

  Lark couldn’t answer. She herself, as a girl in the Uplands, could never have dreamed of such a possibility.

  As the meal went forward, the soup course and the fish course and the meat course, her eyes strayed again and again to the doorway where Duke William had gone out. She was hungry, as always, but a knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach, and she longed for the meal to be over.

  The moment the servers cleared away the ice, Lark jumped up from the table and started toward the door. Before she reached it, the Headmistress’s voice stopped her. “Larkyn! Will you please show Amelia to the Dormitory, and her bed?”

  Lark stopped where she was and turned around slowly. Mistress Morgan had almost reached her. Lark was alarmed to see how weak and pale the Headmistress looked, how her hand shook. When had she started using a walking stick? Lark hadn’t noticed before.

  Amelia Rys joined them, and stood, brows slightly raised, waiting for Lark’s response.

  “Oh—oh, aye, of course, Mistress Morgan,” Lark stammered. She couldn’t help glancing longingly at the doorway. She could just see the lamplight in the stables beyond the foyer windows.

  Amelia’s eyebrows rose farther. She followed Lark’s gaze, then said easily, “Thank you, Larkyn. But perhaps first we could go to the stables? I would so like to see your horse.”

  Lark cast her a glance full of gratitude. She bade the Headmistress good evening and walked as swiftly as she dared across the courtyard and into the stables. Amelia stayed close beside her, asking no questions, but her own steps were as quick as Lark’s.

  A wave of relief swept over Lark as she reached Tup’s stall. Though the light was dim, she could see that he was there, safe and sound. Molly and he were huddled against one wall, and Bramble stood, glaring into the darkness. Lark let herself into the stall. She put out a hand to touch Bramble as she passed and found that the oc-hound’s hackles were up, her neck stiff. She didn’t move when Lark stroked her, but stared fixedly out into the aisle.

  Molly and Tup were both trembling. Tup’s ears drooped, one to either side, in that oddly confused way he had when William had been near.

  “Kalla’s tail,” she hissed. “What was he doing here?”

  “What is it?” Amelia asked, from outside the stall.

  Lark whirled. She had forgotten Amelia was there. “It’s him,” she said in a tight undertone. “The Duke.

  He’s been here with Tup.”

  SIXTEEN

  PHILIPPAlet Sunny choose her own pace, circling back once in a while when the ships fell too far behind them. The glare of sun on snow of the day before had given way to a gray layer of cloud that cast shifting shadows on the dull sea below her. She felt as if she had been flying over snow, ice, and water for weeks instead of only days. Her joints ached from sleeping on the ground, and her face felt stiff and dry from exposure. Sunny, too, seemed tired, her launch a little labored, her wingbeats steady, but hardly the effortless strokes they had been when they left the Academy.

  “One more day, Sunny,” Philippa murmured to her, beneath the whine of the wind aloft. “Just one more day, and we can go home.” Teaching her third-level girls would feel like a holiday, she thought, after these difficult days. Sleeping in her own bed, with her own quilt and pillow, would be bliss. And she had no doubt Sunny yearned for her straw-filled stall, the heated stables, and the occasional treat of hot mash Herbert cooked up in the cold weather.

  They skirted the ragged coastline, keeping an eye on the Baron’s ships. Philippa also kept an eye on the lowering clouds, tasting the bite of snow in the air, frowning at the darkness of the northern horizon. She found that the landmark she had chosen was not so easy to identify again. There were dozens of such sea stacks, monoliths rising from the water, worn smooth by the splashing of the waves. They flew inland a half dozen times, searching for the right place, finding only empty snow-covered ground. They followed narrow inlets, estuaries, one or two broader bays than the one she remembered, without success. She began to doubt her memory and worry that she had somehow missed the spot.

  They had been aloft for a long time when she saw the landmark at last. Its crenellated shape looked familiar, but in the cloud-filtered light, it was hard to be certain. The bay beyond it was oval, with a narrow, curving beach of black sand giving way to steep walls of rock on either side. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw smoke rising from beyond the bay. She and Sunny would take a quick flight inland, to make sure this was the right spot, then they would turn for home at last. They would rest in Onmarin for a night, and tomorrow, they would be at the Academy, warm, well fed, surrounded by the soothing sounds of feminine voices.

  She reined Sunny to her left. She would fly just far enough to confirm this was the Aesk camp, then she could circle back, staying low in hopes she and Sunny would look like one of the large seabirds swooping and circling over the shore.

  As Sunny banked, Philippa glanced to the north. Alarm thrilled through her body.

  The northern horizon had disappeared in a bank of gray, and the threatened snowstorm had begun in earnest over the great plateau. Now that she had moved far enough to the east, she could see that the storm was sweeping down from the glaciers in a rolling march.

  She leaned forward as the mare veered around the black sea stack. “Better hurry, my girl,” she called.

  Sunny responded with stronger wingbeats. Philippa shaded her eyes with her hand and peered ahead.

  Now that she was so close, she saw that the Aesk compound was farther inland than she had thought.

  She dropped low over
the tumbled boulders that marked a break in the cliff. They were black, too, like the sand, and dull in the gray light. She flew over a rock-strewn rise, and the shallow valley opened before them. To the west, the plateau rose, with its wall of forbidding gray stone. To the east, a forest of the stunted trees stretched raggedly across the horizon. And there, at last, Philippa saw the buildings she had spotted the day before.

  There were eight of them, long, low structures arranged around a central fire pit. Two smaller buildings, little more than huts, stood at each end of the compound. She was close enough now to see the Aesks themselves, a dozen or more squat, thick figures moving between the longhouses, and more of them out among the trees. She reined Sunny sharply back, hoping to get back over the bay without being seen.

  She was a moment too late. Just as Sunny banked, tilting her wings to turn in that precarious spot between land and sea, someone saw them.

  There was a figure on the little strip of beach, one she hadn’t seen against the dark sand. An arrow sliced the cold air toward them. Philippa cried out, and Sunny responded.

  Their discipline served them well. They had drilled this a thousand times, and the maneuver was automatic. Philippa shifted her weight, and Sunny’s wings tilted, her body shaking with effort. First, Arrows, descending precipitously in a path no attacker could predict. Then a Grand Reverse, a full turn, a change of altitude. Another arrow followed the first, and Sunny swerved again, driving higher, her wings shivering as she flew up and out of the archer’s range. A dog’s savage baying rose from the ground, echoing against the cliffs. No oc-hound was capable of such a noise. Philippa trembled at the sound.

  Just as Sunny completed her second Grand Reverse, the snow reached them. It came on a fist of wind that slammed over the edge of the plateau and drove into Philippa’s face with shocking force. Sunny’s wings faltered, and Philippa felt the spasm that rippled through her body.

  In a moment, the mare steadied, finding the lift of the wind, balancing on the conflicting currents of air rushing in from the sea. Philippa reined her to the west, back toward the convoy, to give them the prearranged signal. She waved the scarlet flag she had tied to her pommel for the purpose and saw the answering wave from Francis. It was at this moment that she and Sunny were to bank to the south, to fly across the Strait to Onmarin, and their well-deserved rest.