Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  “That sounds right. Her colt should be coming two in the spring. The winged horses mature early.” She sipped tea and set the cup down. “What other news? Have you just come from Arlton?”

  “Yes, I had business for Prince Nicolas, and a meeting with my lord brother in the capital. I wanted to pay you a visit, and Niven offered to ride with me.” He steepled his fingers, and his eyes were somber. “I preferred not to involve any of my servants. Too much talk.”

  “I appreciate that, Esmond,” Philippa said. “And thank you, Niven, for taking the time. It’s lovely to have company.”

  The boy nodded. “Makes a nice change from court,” he said. “Too much standing around, talking!”

  Rys pursed his lips. “It’s the way governing gets done, Niven. You’ll have to accept that if you’re going to be viscount one day.”

  Niven grimaced. “I wish I were the younger son!” he exclaimed.

  “Either way,” Rys said, lifting an admonishing forefinger. “Diplomacy is at the heart of good government.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Philippa said, and raised her brows at Rys.

  He gave her a level look. “Are you asking about Arlton, or Oc?”

  “It is Oc, of course, that interests me most,” she said. “But I expect the two are related.”

  “Indeed,” Rys said. “Horsemistresses are kept busy flying messages back and forth.”

  “Has William visited Arlton?”

  At this, Rys shook his head, a wry twist to his lips. “Philippa, he hasn’t left the Ducal Palace in more than a year. He hasn’t attended a Council meeting, not even once. No one sees him except his staff and, upon occasion, Francis.”

  Philippa frowned. “Is this a good thing? If he doesn’t leave the Palace . . .”

  “It hasn’t helped, apparently,” Rys answered her. “William has levied an extraordinary tax on the people of Oc.”

  “What’s an extraordinary tax?” Philippa asked.

  “It means a tax on top of the normal tithes, as I understand it,” Esmond said. “Not something we’ve had in Klee. According to Prince Nicolas, it’s merely an item of interest. He isn’t worried about it, so long as his own revenues aren’t diminished. But it must be a hardship on your people.”

  Philippa frowned again. “Why is William doing this? Surely his popularity is already waning.”

  “More so now, I’m told. But you know his obsession, Philippa.”

  She sighed. “Of course. The winged horses.”

  “Exactly so. He has plans drawn up for a new academy—the Fleckham School.”

  “A new academy!” Philippa sat up very straight, and her teacup clattered in its saucer. “Why would he need such a thing?”

  “The Fleckham School,” Esmond said deliberately, “is to be a school for men. A school for men to learn to fly winged horses.”

  Philippa gaped at him. “Madness! Surely the Council won’t tolerate this?”

  “Some of them believe he has been successful in creating a new bloodline, Philippa. One that will tolerate men.”

  “But he hasn’t!” she cried. She jumped up and began to pace. The heels of her riding boots clicked on the polished pine floor. “It’s not the bloodline he changed, but himself!”

  “Perhaps,” Esmond said mildly, “there will be men willing to change as he has.”

  Philippa reached the big window that filled the end of the dining room. Beyond the glass, the lavender fields stretched down the mountainside, their ripe blossoms bluer than the sky.

  Philippa drew a deep breath and forced herself to be still. “I don’t think it will work.” She turned her back on the vista of mountains and flowers to face Esmond and his nephew. “It’s not that there won’t be men willing to alter their bodies. Flying is worth any sacrifice. But breasts and a beardless chin don’t make a woman, do they? William may have changed enough to disguise his true scent, but he’s still a

  man. I don’t presume to know why Kalla designed the winged horses as she did, but winged horses are meant to fly with women. I’m not convinced about this bonding between William and the filly.”

  “He’s been seen with her.”

  “Not aloft, surely? Not yet!”

  “No, not flying. He’s been seen stroking her, though, they say. As to flying, Amelia writes to me that he called a horsemistress from the South Tower of Isamar to serve as monitor. They can see her flying with the filly above the park at the Ducal Palace.”

  An old, half-forgotten pain flared at the back of Philippa’s neck, and she rubbed at it with her fingers.

  “But will she fly with William? That will be the real test.”

  “He carries on as if it’s a foregone conclusion.”

  Philippa dropped her hand. “I feel as if the whole world has gone mad.”

  Esmond Rys pushed aside his cup and plate and leaned back in his chair. “It will pass, Philippa. Be patient.”

  “Patient!” she snapped.

  Without answering, he rose, a little stiffly, and walked to the window to stand beside her, looking past her shoulder onto the fields of lavender. “It’s peaceful here,” he mused.

  She drew a steadying breath. “Indeed it is, Esmond. I wonder you and your family don’t come here more often.”

  “We should,” he said. “But it’s a long drive from the capital.” Philippa turned again to follow Esmond’s gaze out the window. Shadows stretched into the west, reaching long blue fingers from the house toward the barn. On the horizon, the first star began to glitter faintly from the fading sky. “How is William enforcing his tax?”

  “He impresses young men into his militia when their families can’t pay.”

  “Kalla’s teeth,” Philippa said bitterly. “He’ll stop at nothing.”

  “Prince Nicolas has loaned him a substantial number of men, as well.”

  Philippa frowned. “Why would the Prince do that?”

  Esmond lifted one shoulder. “I suspect he is intrigued by the idea of men flying.”

  “Nicolas is far too fat even to dream of such a thing!”

  “His Highness is indolent by nature, it’s true,” Esmond said.

  Behind them Niven laughed. “A fat, lazy prince,” he said with satisfaction. “Utterly unlike my father.”

  Esmond turned and faced his nephew. “Your father is Nicolas’s opposite, I think.”

  “In every way,” Niven said with youthful pride.

  “Don’t underestimate Prince Nicolas,” Philippa warned. “I know him. He may be indolent, and he’s certainly greedy, but he’s no fool. He smells profit.”

  Niven said, with surprising acuity, “Of course he does. He will set a high price for the right to bond with a winged horse, and many a young man’s family will pay.”

  A little silence stretched in the pleasant room as the darkness thickened beyond the window. Philippa drew a deep breath, striving for calm. “I must go and settle Sunny for the night,” she said. Her voice shook only a little. “Do your horses have any special requirements?”

  “I’ll do it,” Niven said. “You’ve done enough today, Mistress Winter.”

  His uncle nodded approval at him. “Yes, you take care of our horses, Niven. That’s good. But you can’t help Philippa with Winter Sunset. A winged mare won’t let you near her.”

  “Of course. I forgot.”

  “You’re not used to winged horses in Klee,” Philippa said. “Come, we can go out to the barn together.

  I’ll show you where things are.” They left Esmond clearing the plates and carrying them to the kitchen, and went out through the front door of the house and across the graveled yard to the barn. As they walked, Philippa said, “I’m surprised you didn’t bring a groom with you.”

  “Uncle Esmond said no one must know you’re here,” Niven said. “Not even my father.”

  Philippa arched her eyebrows. “Does Esmond ask you to keep secrets from your father?”

  The familiar Rys smile, brief and constrained, flickered across his fac
e. “We all keep secrets,” he said.

  “We are nothing if not a political family. We’ll return to the capital tomorrow, and no one will even know

  we were gone.”

  Philippa nodded to herself as they went into the shadowed barn. It was what she hated most about politics: secrets and maneuverings and manipulation.

  She let herself into Sunny’s stall, and stood for a moment, stroking the mare’s neck. She thought of William, with his altered body, his high voice and smooth cheeks, stroking a winged filly in the same way, and her thoughts clouded with doubt. What if she were wrong? What if—as William so devoutly hoped—he was successful in his attempt to fly?

  Philippa tried to imagine a world in which men and women could both fly winged horses, but she couldn’t do it. Perhaps her failure signified a lack of imagination, or even of vision. But for centuries, this had been the way of things. She had always believed it helped to create a balance, however uneasy, in a culture otherwise dominated by the masculine.

  Suppose, she asked herself as she filled Sunny’s water bucket, suppose it was some other man who wanted to fly a winged horse? Suppose it were gentle Lord Francis, or even this wise Klee baron who had so unexpectedly become her ally? Would she feel differently?

  She closed the stall gate and braced her elbows on it, watching Sunny dip her muzzle into the fresh water.

  Yes, she decided. She would feel differently about it.

  But she still wouldn’t believe it.

  TWO

  THEflight of seven student flyers wheeled above the graceful old buildings of the Academy of the Air, then banked into their gradual descent. Lark looked down with pleasure on the neat silhouette of the Domicile and the familiar square of the Dormitory. The slate roofs glowed in the rays of the lowering sun.

  The Hall bulked in the center, elegant in its simplicity, home to the dining hall, the Headmistress’s office, the library, and the classrooms. Tup flew at a leisurely pace over the perfectly trimmed hedgerows, the raked gravel of the courtyard, the gambrel roofs of the stable. As the flight reached the end of the return paddock, each horse banked again and stilled its wings to glide toward the long, grassy field, to come to ground one after another.

  Tup was the last of the flight to touch down. His hindquarters flexed, and he reached with his forefeet, placing them in the grass with a touch so soft Lark could barely feel it. He cantered easily, wings spread and fluttering, up the length of the return paddock behind the other horses. When he suddenly threw up his head and skidded on his hindquarters, Lark was so startled she nearly slipped from her saddle.

  “Tup!” she cried. “What—” He had almost collided with the horse in front of him, and that horse was right on the tail of the one preceding.

  All of the flight stumbled to a stop at the end of the return paddock. No one dismounted, and no one had yet opened the gate. Horses and girls stared across the white pole fence at four men, dressed in the Ducal black and silver, standing stiffly in front of each of the main buildings of the Academy.

  The flyers glanced at each other wonderingly. Hester, their flight leader, said, “Dismount, girls.” They did.

  After the horses folded their wings, Hester, her back stiff, led Golden Morning through the gate and waited at one side for the rest to come through. When they were all in the courtyard, she stood with one hand on her palomino’s neck, her plain features set in hard lines. She said in a low tone, “Mamá warned me about this. The Duke will say he’s sent his militia to protect us, but in truth, they’re here to spy.”

  “Are you sure, Morning?” This came from Anabel, a tall, pretty girl who flew a gray Noble, Take A Chance.

  “Oh, aye, she’s sure,” Lark whispered, just loud enough so that the others could hear. Tup nosed her shoulder impatiently, and she put her hand on the cheek strap of his bridle. “I wager they’re watching for Mistress Winter.”

  Anabel turned her round blue eyes Lark’s way. “But she’s gone, isn’t she? For good?”

  A fresh pang of loss shot through Lark, but she only shrugged, and gazed past Hester’s shoulder at the

  militiamen.

  Their uniforms had narrow trousers and heavy black boots, loose-sleeved blouses with silver piping and silver insignia to designate rank. None of the four was familiar to Lark. She suspected many of the militia she had seen in Osham, and in the Uplands, too, were not even men of Oc. They had a look of Isamar to them, their hair cut very short, their eyes hard and unfriendly. The four in the courtyard stood with their hands on the hilts of their smallswords, their caps pulled down against the westering sun.

  As the girls turned their horses toward the stables, Lark took a last look across the courtyard at the man standing before the Hall. She caught a flash of white as his eyes followed the winged horses, until he dropped his chin and his eyes disappeared behind the brim of his cap.

  Lark found Amelia Rys waiting for her beside Tup’s stall. Amelia Master, she reminded herself. Mistress Star had insisted that the Master Breeder give Amelia’s colt a name at last. He was an elegant young Noble, with a coal-black mane and tail and a coat of rich reddish brown. With the other colts of his flight, he had recently begun flying with a monitor, as his bondmate watched anxiously from below.

  The name settled upon for him, after lengthy consultation of the genealogies, had been Master Mahogany.

  Amelia had said nothing when Mistress Star told her the name chosen for her bondmate. It was like Amelia to be silent about her feelings, but Lark read disapproval in the set of her mouth.

  Hester teased her, saying, “We never like the names at first. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I guess we can call you Master,” Lark told her.

  “Really,” Amelia said in a colorless tone. “And I suppose I’m to call him Mahogany.”

  Lark chuckled. “Oh, aye,” she said. “It’s a lot of name for a wee bit of a horse. And I know just how you feel. Black Seraph is a lovely mouthful, if you ask me!”

  Hester elbowed her. “You never say it anyway, Black, so why complain?”

  Lark grinned. “Tup I named him, and Tup he’ll always be to me.”

  “And I,” Amelia said with a tiny purse of her lips, “would have chosen another name.”

  Lark said, “Would you, Amelia? What name?”

  Amelia shrugged. “I don’t know. Something simpler.”

  “Like what?”

  Amelia’s face softened. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “His dam was Miss Mahogany, and his sire was Able Master. I guess I should be grateful I won’t be called Able! Amelia Able would be horrifying.

  But how do you shorten Mahogany?”

  “I think you’re stuck with it,” Hester said. “We’ll all get used to it, and so will he. It suits him, in any case.

  He’s like you—quiet, but strong. He always seems to know more than he should, and to keep his own counsel.” She smiled at Amelia. “And he’s as red as the wood of a mahogany tree! So lovely, with those long legs and that arching neck.”

  The restraint of Amelia’s smile gave way at that, and her face brightened as if the sun had risen behind it.

  “Oh, yes, he is,” she said. “And so clever, too. Yesterday he unlatched his stall gate all by himself, and when I scolded him, I could swear he was laughing—” She broke off as Hester and Lark began to grin.

  Her thin cheeks flushed.

  “Never mind, Klee,” Hester said.

  Amelia’s blush faded, and she regarded Hester with her usual aplomb. “I thought you were now to call me Master.”

  Hester nodded. “True enough, though Klee suits you better. But I meant to say that we understand how you feel.”

  “Oh, aye,” Lark said. “ ’Tis the bonding. It must be how it feels to fall in love.”

  “Not that we’ll ever know about that,” Hester said.

  Lark smiled at her. “We might know how it feels to fall in love even though we must keep it to ourselves.”

  Amelia only raised on
e eyebrow, took a hoof pick from its shelf, and went off to her colt’s stall.

  Now Lark was glad to escape the eyes of the militiamen as she led Tup down the sawdust-strewn aisle of the stables. Amelia held the stall gate open, and Lark put Tup inside and began unbuckling his cinches.

  When she lifted the saddle and blanket off, Amelia handed her a currycomb. Lark started on Tup’s near

  side, and Amelia, with a brush in her hand, began on the other. Tup dropped his head and groaned with pleasure as the girls worked.

  When the job was well under way, Amelia said, “You saw the soldiers.”

  “Aye,” Lark said. “Spies, Hester says. Duke William must think Mistress Winter will return.”

  “After an entire year?” Amelia said. “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Nay, nor would I.” Lark sighed. “Although I miss her. ’Tisn’t the same at the Academy without her and Winter Sunset.”

  “I don’t understand your Duke. He can’t really expect her to turn up here, after all that happened.”

  Lark said, “I doubt the Duke thinks clearly anymore. In the Uplands, we would say he’s gone hinky.”

  Hester snickered from Goldie’s stall. “I hope you’re going to tell us what that little bit of dialect means, Black.”

  “It’s what we say when a wagon’s wheels come off, or maybe a gate’s hinges come apart. It means he’s

  . . . sort of in pieces. A little crazy. He’s so changed, isn’t he, and whatever changed him has altered his mind.”

  “I’ve never heard of anything like it,” Amelia said. “Our own Viscount Richard, in Klee—my uncle, that is—is the most serious man I’ve ever seen. He cares for nothing but the government, and the laws. He settles every dispute himself, and hardly ever leaves the Palace.” She gave Tup’s hindquarter a last sweep with the brush, and then straightened. “Yet Duke William has not stepped foot in the Rotunda since last year.”

  Lark stepped around to Tup’s tail, keeping a hand on his hip so he would know where she was. “ ’Tis the oddest thing,” she said. “I think Duke William doesn’t like the way his body is now. I—I touched him once.”

  “Did you?” Amelia glanced at her, but there was no expression or reaction on her narrow features. She always looked to Lark as if she were adding things up, filing them away. Lark felt certain that if she were to tell Amelia something useful, it would fly straight to the Baron, to be employed in whatever way he saw fit.