Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  she muttered, and hurried down the aisle to stop him before he broke something.

  ITwas a relief to everyone when the snow stopped. The clouds lightened, allowing a thin sunshine to pierce the gray. It was still not safe to send up the flights, but the girls were allowed to ride in the yearlings’ paddock, their horses wingclipped and warmly blanketed. They made something of a festival out of it, the third-years and the second-years all cantering about the paddock, down to the bare-limbed grove, back to the gate. Larkyn was there, with Black Seraph prancing, his tail arching, his mane rippling.

  Hester and Golden Morning trotted beside them, Hester as graceful in the saddle as she was awkward on the ground. Amelia Rys, Philippa noted, was perched on the fence near the dry paddock watching everything with that measured look she always wore. Someday, perhaps they would know what she was thinking. For now, she was as closemouthed as any princely diplomat, her father’s daughter through and through.

  Philippa stood outside the pole fence, savoring the scene of young girls and bright-coated horses against the backdrop of white snow and black tree branches. Bramble, still a little lethargic, pressed against her side, and Philippa stroked the oc-hound’s silky head with her palm.

  The story of Bramble’s injury was one of too many mysteries weighing on her mind. Larkyn, as Herbert tried to explain what had happened, had pressed her lips tightly together, suppressing her “snappy tongue,” Philippa supposed. When she asked her later, Larkyn shook her head, and said that no one would believe her, so she would say nothing. There was something troubling about the whole thing, more troubling than simply an injured oc-hound, but Philippa couldn’t think it through. Francis still lay in semiconsciousness, and concern for his recovery blurred her thoughts.

  The guest room was too small to keep Francis in comfort for long, and the Hall was too noisy, with horsemistresses and students coming and going all day long. Margareth and Philippa spoke at length about the problem, until Philippa remembered that Fleckham House was now empty, since William and the Lady Constance had removed to the Ducal Palace.

  They decided to send word to the Duke, explaining that his brother had been wounded and asking if Francis could be installed at Fleckham House while he recovered. They waited a day for an answer from the Palace, then two days, but none had come. Philippa worried over this, teasing it in her mind, trying to fathom what William’s silence meant. He had opposed the whole mission, of course, but surely even William would not hold that against his brother, now grievously injured in an honorable cause. It seemed to Philippa more likely that if William was still angry he would send a curt letter of refusal.

  The third day she asked Margareth to send a letter, marked, as her own had been, for the Duke’s eyes alone. Again there had been no answer. According to all reports, the Duke had not been seen in the Rotunda or in the city for several days. It was generally supposed he had gone abroad with some secret purpose.

  Philippa had rested and recovered her strength quickly, and now the week of inactivity, the agony over Francis, and the mystery of William frayed her nerves.

  She watched the girls and horses galloping in the sunshine, and she hoped the weather would stay clear.

  Tomorrow, she would go to Fleckham House and make the arrangements herself. Francis was, after all, a Fleckham. He had a right to the comforts of his family home.

  THEnext day was one of frosty white and vivid blue, crisp fields of snow glittering under a brilliant sky. It gave the Academy a festive look, and indeed, the Erdlin holiday was coming soon, when the girls and the horsemistresses would go off to their homes for the holiday. Philippa had not heard from Meredith. She squinted up into the snowy hills, and thought that, even though she had defied her brother, the summons to Islington House would no doubt come in due course. She supposed she should make a brief visit, but the idea of spending the whole ten days with her family filled her with ennui.

  Today, in any case, she would fly. It had been too long, and both she and Sunny were restive, eager for some kind of activity.

  Margareth had asked her to take Larkyn aloft with her. “She’s being punished again,” she said dryly.

  “Let us call it a drill with a senior instructor, meant to polish her skills with the flying saddle.”

  Philippa snorted. “Margareth. Larkyn is hardly going to think a flight to Fleckham House with me and Sunny is punishment.”

  Margareth smiled, wrinkles wreathing her faded blue eyes. She smoothed her white rider’s knot and laid her left hand on the embossed genealogy on her desk. “I was forced to discipline her,” she said,

  “because she deserted her flight. But by doing so, she saved an oc-hound, and I have been careful not to let her penance be onerous. We must have rules and standards, of course, but every girl in her flight understood what happened. Hester Beeth came running in from the return paddock as if her tail was on fire, demanding I allow her to fetch her mamá’s carriage to save Bramble’s life.”

  “Do you have any idea what happened to the poor dog, Margareth?”

  Margareth’s smile faded, and she stood, bracing herself on her hands. “I can only speculate,” she said in a confidential tone. “But I have never, in all my life, been so worried about the future of Oc. The next time you see the Duke, Philippa, have a care. He is more dangerous now, I fear, than ever before. And less predictable.”

  “I know, Margareth. But I won’t see him today. He hasn’t lived at Fleckham House since his succession, and in any case, they say he’s gone abroad.” She had bid Margareth farewell, climbed the stairs one

  more time to check on Francis, then, pulling on her cap and gloves as she went, she walked to the flight paddock.

  Erna brought Sunny out, prancing and blowing, energized by the sparkling day. “Sunny,” Philippa chided, as her mare sidestepped and tossed her head. “You’re behaving like a two-year-old.”

  Larkyn and Black Seraph appeared, the little black stallion whickering at Sunny, strutting as he came into the flight paddock, arching his tail. Philippa hid a smile as the two of them crossed to her. Larkyn’s step was so light she almost bounced. Her cheeks were pink with anticipation of a flight, and her short curls shone like black glass in the sunlight. She certainly did not look like someone doing penance for yet another infraction of the Academy rules.

  Larkyn knelt beside Bramble and ran careful fingers over the oc-hound’s neck. “Almost healed, this is, Mistress,” she said. “She’ll always bear the scar, but her fur will hide it. I think she’ll feel like her old self in a few days.”

  “I’m glad,” Philippa said. She stroked Bramble once more. “I’m fond of her.”

  “Aye, she’s a fine lass, she is.” Larkyn stood. “Off with you now, Bramble,” she said, with a flicker of her fingers. “Stay warm today.”

  Philippa’s throat tightened as she watched the oc-hound rise stiffly to her feet. Bramble paced slowly back toward the gate and stood beside it, waiting for Erna. Before she was hurt, she would have leaped over it without hesitation. Philippa set her jaw, wishing she knew who had attacked the dog, and why.

  Anger made her voice sharp as she addressed Larkyn. “Now,” she said, “let’s see how you and Seraph are doing with the flying saddle.”

  In truth, she was glad to have a chance to monitor the pair’s progress herself. Suzanne Star was an excellent instructor, but Larkyn and Black Seraph had been struggling to catch up with their class since their very first day at the Academy. She and Sunny hung back to watch their launch.

  Seraph’s gait was lovely to watch, his small, fine hooves precise in their rhythm, even on the snowy ground of the flight paddock. He sped to the hand gallop, then leaped into the air as easily as a bird might do. Larkyn’s thighs snugged tightly beneath the knee rolls of the flying saddle, and her hands were light on the reins, her spine straight, her chin tucked. As Seraph banked to the left, to hover at Quarters and wait for Sunny, Philippa watched from the corner of her eye. Larkyn did nothing wrong. She did everythin
g as she had been taught, everything in the classical way, as all the flyers of the Academy were trained.

  But Philippa remembered seeing the two of them, Larkyn and Seraph, racing through the trees at the end of this very paddock, looking as if they were one creature, one heart, one mind, one body—with no saddle between them. They had no such union now, though there was nothing specific she could have said troubled her. Sometimes Philippa lay awake at night, and wondered how to teach Larkyn to sense her bondmate’s movements as easily with the saddle as she did without it. Surely, she thought, the strap Larkyn had created to get them through their first Ribbon Day, those first Airs and Graces, would never be adequate for Arrows, or for any of the complicated Graces required of advanced flyers. Larkyn must learn to use the saddle. She would have to master it through sheer will if her instinct could not do it for her. Philippa could see no other way.

  She and Sunny rose above the grove and banked around to join Larkyn and Seraph. Philippa signaled with her quirt that Larkyn and Seraph should fly ahead, and she and Sunny came behind, a little above, so she could watch. Larkyn flashed her a grin of sheer pleasure. And though Philippa signaled to her, and made the two young flyers execute a Half Reverse, then a brief Points pattern, when she and Sunny surged past them to lead the way over the White City, she indulged herself in a brief smile at the girl. No one knew what awaited any flyers, and perhaps less so with this pair than any other. Larkyn should be joyous when she could.

  They circled the copper dome of the Tower of the Seasons, and soared high above the Rotunda of the Council of Lords, its rooftop astream with the colorful pennants of the noble families. The wings of the horses, the red and the black, were no less colorful, vivid and shining against the white spires of Osham.

  The sea shone emerald green in the distance.

  Philippa felt, as she so often did in the air, that the troubles and worries of the ground lost their import.

  With reluctance, she laid her rein against Sunny’s neck and turned her toward the Ducal Palace and beyond, to the familiar grounds of Fleckham House.

  LARKtook every care to show Mistress Winter that she had learned her lessons. She remembered to keep her heels down, to sit deep in the saddle, to tuck her chin. She would never, she thought, prefer flying in the saddle to flying bareback, but she would do what she needed to do. Though there were still months to go till Ribbon Day, she wanted no one to doubt that she would pass every test.

  Still, she knew how much nimbler she and Tup were without the burden of leather and wood and steel.

  Though they followed obediently behind Winter Sunset as she flew her sedate pattern around the Tower of the Seasons, and above the Council Rotunda, Lark knew they could have darted close enough to see inside the windows of the tower, could have dipped low enough over the Rotunda to snatch a pennant from its staff. The thought made her laugh, and Tup flicked an ear in her direction. She touched his neck with her gloved fingers and felt the surge of energy in his muscles. He stretched his neck farther, and his wings beat faster, until she had to rein him in a bit so as not to overtake Winter Sunset.

  “No, no, Tup,” she called, above the wind. “We have to follow. Our day will come!” To her relief, he obeyed her, but she felt simmering rebellion in every beat of his wings.

  The grounds of Fleckham House came up all too soon. Tup followed Sunny in, and Lark only jounced a little on the landing. Tup cantered beautifully, collected and graceful, and they reached the end of the park just a few strides behind Sunny. Mistress Winter dismounted, and Lark slid quickly down from her saddle.

  “There’s no one in the stables,” Mistress Winter said. “We’ll have to take them in ourselves.”

  “I’ll do it, Mistress Winter,” Lark said. “Why don’t you go on to the house?”

  Mistress Winter nodded, her eyes already on the big house. Its windows were shuttered, and its gravel courtyard lay covered with snow. The steps and porch were also blanketed in unbroken snow, as if no one had used the front entrance in some time. “Thank you, Larkyn,” she said. “That will save time.”

  Moments later, the horsemistress was gone, striding around the side of the house to the service entrance.

  Lark led Sunny and Tup into the stables.

  The stables, too, had an abandoned air. They felt cold, and there was no straw in the stalls. Blankets and towels and saddles waited on racks in the tack room, all coated with a layer of dust. She put the horses in adjoining stalls, and told Tup to wait while she took Sunny’s saddle off and rubbed her down. When Tup was done, too, she went in search of water.

  She found buckets and a tap in back of the stables, and pumped water for each of the horses. It would have been better, on this cold day, if she could have warmed it, but there was no wood for the close stove. She carried the buckets to the stalls, then went back to the tack room.

  She took two blankets from a stack and shook them out, sneezing at the cloud of dust that rose from them. Everything had the look of having lain untouched for months, as if no one had been in these stables or this tack room for a very long time. She hung the blankets over her arm and started back to the horses. She was almost out the door when she noticed the clean, new-looking bin set in one corner.

  There was a grain measure hanging on a hook next to it. Neither bin nor measure bore any trace of dust.

  Curious, she turned aside and lifted the lid of the bin with her free hand. It was full to the brim with fresh oats.

  “Handy,” she murmured. She went to blanket the horses, thinking she might as well feed them each a half measure while they waited. It was not until that was done, and she was scooping oats with the measure, that she realized that the icon inside her tabard had grown warm as toast. Busy as she was, she hadn’t noticed it at first.

  Alarm shot through her, and she straightened, dropping the measure into the bin. She pulled the icon outside of her tabard before it should burn her skin, and looked around, her breath coming faster.

  Something was wrong.

  She fairly ran back down the aisle to check on the winged horses, but they were standing peacefully in their stalls. Even Tup, for once, was still. Lark went outside to look across the courtyard toward the house. Mistress Winter had apparently gone around to the service entrance. Lark saw a light in the

  kitchen, where Mistress Winter was probably having tea with the housekeeper. There was no other sign of life, neither in the grounds nor in the upper floors.

  Slowly, cautiously, Lark moved around the back of the stables and looked down at the copse of beeches. She knew what was past those bare trees. There was a small, secret stable there. Lark had seen it, one terrible day. She did not, truly, want to see it again. But the icon burned against her breast, and she had to know why.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THEbranches of the beech trees were bare and gray in the winter sun. The roof of the stable showed just beyond the leafless grove. The meadow that sloped up on the far side to the wood at the top of the hill was the very one through which Lark and Tup had run for their lives. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  A slender, clear stream of smoke rose from beyond the grove to dissipate in the cold air. The stable beyond the beech grove, unlike the one where Sunny and Tup waited, was being heated.

  Lark puzzled over this. Everyone at the Academy knew that when the Duke had removed to the Palace, he had taken all of his horses with him, along with his stable-men. There had been some resentment that Duke Frederick’s favorite stable-girl, old Jolinda, had been sent away from the Palace in favor of the new staff.

  Lark took a step forward, then another. It would take too long to go around by the road, but she could climb down the snowy bank behind the main stables, slip through the beech copse, have a look out the other side. She glanced back over her shoulder, but there was no sign of Mistress Winter. She could go down to the copse, see who was using the stable, and be back before Mistress Winter was finished with her arrangements. She buttoned her riding coat to the neck, and started ou
t.

  The bank was steeper than it looked. Her riding boots were soft, with no traction. After only two steps, she lost her footing, and half slid down the sharp incline toward the grove. Her riding gloves filled with snow as she braced herself on her hands. At the bottom she took them off, shaking out the snow so they wouldn’t be ruined, and tucked them into her belt. She brushed snow and bits of dry bracken from the back of her habit as she walked through the trees. She stood behind the thickest one she could find, peering at the stable.

  She remembered it well, a simple rectangular place, without the gambrel roofs of the Academy stables, and with only one paddock and a long, fenced pasture. A little drive, with a hitching post and a mounting block, separated the beech grove from the stable. The nearest door, closed now against the cold, led directly into the tack room. Both halves of the door leading into the back paddock were also closed, and the gates of the paddock and the pasture beyond it were latched. She saw no horses. Had it not been for that smoke, the clear gray smoke of well-dried wood burning, she would have believed the place deserted.

  She stayed where she was, watching for any sign of movement. She saw none, and almost gave it up, even turning around to climb the bank again. But when she turned away, the icon of Kalla burned hotter against her tabard, driving her back to gaze across the little drive. Something was there, in that stable.

  Something she was supposed to see.

  At the opposite end from the tack room was a glazed window. There would be a box stall there, perhaps even the very one where Tup had been held. The window was a problem, though, set half a rod’s height from the ground. Even on tiptoe, she wouldn’t be able to see in.

  She waited another moment, watching and wondering. She tried to persuade herself that the warmth of her icon might be her imagination, or the heat of her body, created when she stumbled and slid down the bank, but she failed.

  She took one last look over her shoulder to assure herself there was no one about, then dashed across the drive. The mounting block scraped on snow and rock as she half dragged, half pushed it to the wall.