Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  He ducked his head, and went out of the tack room. Amelia put the cover back on the plate. As it was all cold in any case, there was no hurry. She would ask Jinson to bring a kettle and cups so they could make hot tea right here.

  She left the tray in the tack room and went down the aisle to Mahogany. He whickered as she approached and reached eagerly across the stall gate, looking for his morning treat. She stroked his velvet nose, and said, “I’m sorry, Mahogany. No carrots, nor apples, either. I don’t think you’d like bloodbeets, and that’s all I could have brought you.”

  Unconvinced, he snuffled at her pockets. She patted him. “Come now, let’s get you out in the dry paddock for a bit of exercise. We’ll leave the blanket on, or you’ll be as wet as those poor soldiers in the grove.”

  The dry paddock was, naturally, not so dry this morning. The two guards stood by the pole fence, watching, as Amelia led Mahogany out for a few turns around the muddy space. Bramble sat just under the eaves. The rain had settled into a dreary mist, and Amelia’s own head was soon wet, with cold raindrops sliding inside her collar. On her third pass, she paused and looked at the militiamen through the whitewashed poles. “Excuse me,” she said. “I don’t know the proper way to address you. But you’re welcome to stand under the eaves, out of the rain. You can still see me, should I decide to make a run for it.”

  One of the guards looked at her as if he didn’t understand her language. The other, a dark-haired man

  with bright blue eyes and flashing white teeth, gave her a wide grin. “Spoken like a lady,” he said.

  “I am one,” Amelia said.

  “Oh, aye?” he said. “And how do you come to be living in yon stable, then?”

  The other militiaman elbowed him, but the dark-haired man stepped back, out of his reach, and smiled at Amelia again. “My lady,” he said, showing his white smile, “ ’tis an honor to accept your kind invitation.”

  He gave her an exaggerated bow.

  Amelia almost smiled. It felt good to feel like smiling, the first time in three days she had felt that way.

  “Your accent is familiar to me, sir,” she said.

  He tilted his head, and regarded her. “Nay,” he said. “I doubt it. ’Tis unlikely you’ve met other Uplanders here in Osham.”

  She pursed her lips. “You’re wrong, as it happens,” she said. “My sponsor at the Academy of the Air is an Uplander. And a fine flyer, too!”

  His grin faded. “You’re from the Academy, Miss? You’re not wearing the habit.”

  “It was filthy,” she said simply. “Someone sent me these clothes, and they’re all I have to wear.” She pointed to the stable, where the slanted roof extended a fair distance past the walls. “Come now, both of you. Get out of the rain.”

  They did, the dark-haired one walking with a slight swagger, the other one shuffling as if his boots were full of mud. Bramble stood up at their approach and fixed them with her dark gaze. When they had stepped under the shelter of the eaves and were shaking their hats free of rain, the Uplander looked up again, through the fence at Amelia. “I think,” he said, “that you’ve had a blink at my sister. My sister, Larkyn Hamley, though they call her Black now she’s bonded.” His eyes were almost as vivid a blue as Lark’s, but they glinted between narrowed lids. “Why are you being held here, Miss?”

  “Amelia Rys,” Amelia said, and added deliberately, “though some call me Klee.”

  “ ’Tis true, then,” he said. His handsome face tightened, and his black eyebrows drew together. “There’s a story going around that the Duke took a hostage. I don’t like it.”

  The other militiaman elbowed him again. “Not for you to like or not,” he said. “Follows orders, that’s what we does.”

  Lark’s brother put a hand on the fence that separated him from Amelia. Mahogany snorted, and pulled back, away from his nearness. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot a moment about the winged horses. I’m Nick Hamley.”

  She inclined her head. He grinned again, the flash of his teeth in his tanned face like the sun coming out on a cloudy day. “Just so does Lark always dip her head,” he said.

  “As to my being a hostage,” Amelia said, allowing her lips to purse slightly, “I believe Duke William thinks using me will force Horsemistress Winter to return to Oc.”

  “Bastard,” Nick grated.

  “Hey!” the other guard grunted. “Best not talk so about your master.”

  Nick turned his head and gave his fellow militiaman a steady stare. “Yon Duke is not my master,” he said. “Not if he’s up to this sort of thing.” He turned his eyes back to Amelia. “I never wanted any part of his militia. He raised our taxes, to force me.”

  The guard sneered. “Going to run away, then, farmer? Desert?”

  Nick drew a breath. “Not now,” he said softly. “Miss Rys may need protection. Lark would want me to stay near her.”

  Amelia’s heart fluttered with a sudden wave of gratitude. She tried to hide it by stiffening her back and turning to stroke Mahogany’s neck. “I thank you, Master Hamley,” she said through trembling lips. She had been fighting to ignore the strain of the past three days. She took a shaking breath, trying to regain her composure. She was still Duke William’s prisoner. This was no time to let her guard down.

  In a few moments she felt stronger, and she turned back to Nick Hamley. “I’m going to take my colt in now,” she said. “The Master Breeder and I will soon have tea and a kettle. I’ll send out cups for you.”

  Nick smiled and nodded toward his companion. “Even this one will accept your cup of tea, I expect,” he said. “We thank you.”

  JINSONwas more than willing to fetch a kettle and a caddy of tea, and they made a pot and sent cups out to all four militiamen before they drank one themselves. They sat on barrels in the tack room and chatted as if they were having tea in a palace instead of a prison. Jinson was pitifully eager to please her, offering a little saucer of biscuits he had slipped from the kitchen when Paulina wasn’t looking, asking if the tea was too strong. Amelia crumbled one of the biscuits, and slipped fragments of it to Bramble, lying at her feet.

  Their moment of peace was interrupted all too soon.

  They heard hoofbeats on the lane leading down from the main road, and Jinson stepped to the door of the tack room to look out. The rain had stopped, but everything dripped noisily, and water ran from the eaves of the stable to splash on the gravel of the little drive. Jinson drew a sharp breath and spun about.

  “It’s Slater again,” he said. His nostrils went white, and his shoulders hunched. “Perhaps, Miss, you’d best go back with your colt . . . Stay out of his way.”

  “I’m not afraid of him, Jinson,” Amelia said. She saw by the flicker of his eyelids that he did not believe her. It was true; there was something about the Duke’s man that set her nerves on edge. “I will try to stay out of sight, though,” she said, a bit hastily. “I’ll clean Mahogany’s stall, while you . . . while you deal with him.”

  It was so odd, she thought, to become friendly with a person who was actually her jailer. But then, her guards, Jinson, even the unsavory Slater, were not responsible for her plight. It was Duke William, and he alone, who had created this situation. She wished she could see a way out of it. She wished someone—anyone who could help—knew where she was. She was beginning to fear that no one had guessed what had happened.

  She had just lifted a forkful of wet straw and turned toward the barrow in the aisle when Slater slouched around the corner, his lips slack, his greatcoat drooping wetly around him. He looked like an enormous, bedraggled crow.

  Amelia swallowed and carried the pitchfork to the barrow, trying to appear as if his presence meant nothing to her. He stood in the open stall gate, eyeing her. Mahogany snorted, and backed away as far as he could. He stood with his head thrown back, the whites of his eyes showing. Bramble, standing in the aisle next to Amelia, growled.

  “If you please, Slater,” Amelia said, “you’re too close for my colt’
s comfort.”

  “Taking no orders from you, Miss,” Slater said.

  Amelia emptied the pitchfork and leaned it against the barrow, then turned her back on Slater and went to stand beside Mahogany, stroking his neck, making certain to take a firm hold on the cheek strap of his halter. His nostrils were wide, tasting the air. Amelia could smell Slater’s unsavory essence herself, one of dirty clothes and an unwashed body. She was worried about her own need of a wash, of course, but she doubted Slater could detect that through his own miasma.

  When Mahogany had calmed a little, she turned. “What do you want?”

  “First, a civil tongue in your head,” he said. “You call that bumpkin in the tack room Master; you can do the same for me.”

  She kept her face very still. “Master Jinson has earned my respect. You have not.”

  He gave her his uneven grin. “I’ll earn it if I have to, Miss. But you won’t like it.”

  Amelia sniffed and patted Mahogany one more time. She crossed the stall and went into the aisle, closing the gate firmly behind her. Slater smelled even worse up close. She turned toward the tack room, willing him to follow, to get away from her colt. He did, shuffling in the sawdust and breathing noisily.

  When she reached the tack room, Jinson was nowhere to be seen. Amelia sat down on one of the barrels and smoothed her skirt around her. “If you have business, state it,” she said. “Otherwise, I have work to do.”

  He looked her up and down, and her skin crawled under his regard. “Don’t look like much, do you?”

  “I’ve never been known for my beauty,” she said. She sat very straight and fixed him with her coldest gaze. “But I have other strengths. What business do you have here, Slater?”

  “Just checking on my lord’s affairs,” he sneered. “But I might as well warn you. I’m not so patient as His Grace.”

  “I hadn’t noticed Duke William to be a particularly patient man,” she said.

  He chuckled, and even his laugh had a greasy sound to it. “Right you are, lass.” He leaned toward her, much too close. She stiffened her spine, refusing to lean back away from him. “You listen to me, my lady

  ,” he said in a throaty whisper. His breath was foul. “The Klee killed my brother in the last war, and I ain’t had me revenge yet.”

  Amelia’s mouth went dry, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her lick her lips. “I was an infant during the war.”

  “You’re Klee,” he said, straightening. “That’s enough to satisfy me.”

  “You would avenge your brother’s death by harming me.”

  He yanked at the lapels of his coat. “It’ll do.”

  He started to smile, revealing those awful teeth, and her hands began to quiver. She braced herself. If he came toward her, if he touched her, she would scream for the militiamen posted outside the stable. He took a step, and another, then, blessedly, Jinson appeared in the doorway. Slater stopped where he was.

  Jinson said, “What are you doing here, Slater?”

  “None of your damned business, Jinson,” Slater said, still staring at Amelia. She held herself still.

  “If you’re bothering Miss Rys, Slater, I’ll make sure His Grace knows all about it.”

  Slater spun about, and Jinson, his lips going white, stumbled back a step. Amelia could see he immediately regretted it, pulling himself up straight, setting his jaw. Slater, she thought, must be a dangerous person to inspire such fear.

  “Yer a fool, Jinson,” Slater said. “You think our Duke gives two pins what happens to this uncomely lass, here? If I carried her off, he’d thank me!”

  “Carry her off?” Jinson said, his eyes widening. “I’d order these militiamen to shoot you if you tried!

  I—I’d shoot you myself!”

  “Hah,” Slater said, gathering the capes of his coat around him. “If you had that much courage, I’d die of surprise.” He laughed, a short, phlegmy bark. “Just watch out, here. The Duke may be distracted, but I have a good idea how to make use of our little hostage.”

  “What are you talking about?” Amelia demanded.

  He leered at her. “Never you mind. You’ll know when you need to. My lady .” He gathered his coat around him in a whirl and stamped out of the stable.

  Jinson went back to the door to watch him leave and turned back to Amelia. “Are you all right, Miss? He didn’t bother you?”

  She stood, and shook out her too-large skirt with trembling hands. “He did bother me, as a matter of fact, Master Jinson,” she said. “But only because he’s a frightening sort of person. But you’ve sent him off now, and I’m not hurt.”

  “Shall I speak to the Duke about him?”

  Amelia looked up at Jinson’s thin, sensitive face, and she read fear in his eyes. She gave him a slight smile. “Very gallant of you,” she said. “But I can take care of myself.”

  He shook his head. “Nasty bit of work, Slater,” he said grimly. “He keeps a gun in the pocket of that filthy coat, and he’s been known to use it.”

  “Surely he wouldn’t dare. I’m the Duke’s hostage, after all.” Jinson lifted one shoulder, and looked miserable. “I don’t know, Miss. It worries me.”

  “Do you have to leave now?”

  “Aye. There’s business at the Academy. The breeding plan.”

  “There were so few foals last spring,” Amelia said.

  “Aye,” he said again.“ ’Twasn’t really me, Miss. I don’t know much about the breeding program. The Duke has his own ideas, but he makes me put them forward as if they was mine. He wants foals for . . .”

  He broke off, and his eyes flickered to the door of the tack room, to where the beech grove masked their view of Fleckham House.

  “For the new school,” she finished for him. “For men to fly.”

  “Aye,” he said quietly. “And he has four boys preparing to be the first.”

  Amelia walked to the door, and looked up past the beech grove, where she could just see the high roofs

  of the great house. “I wonder, Master Jinson,” she mused, “if those boys know how their bodies will have to change. Or do they think that the Duke can simply breed a different line of horses, after all these centuries?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “I only know what His Grace tells me. And he says now he’s ready to ride Diamond, though Horsemistress Baron objects.”

  “And when he flies...” Amelia said, gazing past the dripping beeches.

  “There will be them willing to do anything to fly as you girls do.”

  “I haven’t flown yet.” She turned her back on the rain-soaked scene outside the stable, and faced him. “I haven’t even ridden, and I don’t know if Mahogany and I will have our chance, Jinson. It seems strange to me that no one has come for us yet.”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I wish I could do something for you, Miss. I don’t dare.”

  “But Master Jinson—if you’re going to the Academy, surely you could—”

  “Nay,” he said sadly. “The Duke can do things to hurt my family.”

  “Could you not tell someone on the Council, then?”

  He rubbed his hands on his trousers. “You’re Klee, Miss. There are them who will find no fault with this.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. My father taught me that a nation’s memory can be long.”

  “ ’Twasn’t your fault, the South Tower.”

  “I guess that doesn’t matter. And I suppose the Academy doesn’t matter, either, or my bonding to a winged horse. To such people, I’ll always be Klee.”

  FIFTEEN

  LARKshrank back into the shadows of the barn roof, pressing Tup against the wall. Overhead, Maid of Smoke made a long, slow circuit of the orchard, and Lark could almost feel Marielle Smoke’s eyes burning the landscape, searching for her. The farmwife had not closed her kitchen door when she went inside, and Lark watched that, too, fearful that someone might come out and force her out into the open, or even drive her and her exhausted stalli
on back into the air.

  But when the woman returned, she was followed only by a girl of about seventeen who carried a pail in her hands. They crossed the barnyard to Lark, the farmwife still scowling in what appeared to be a habitual look. The girl was slight and small-boned, and the swell of pregnancy rounded the printed apron she wore. Her eyes stretched wide with amazement when she caught sight of the winged horse. She curtsied to Lark, which made Lark feel strange, and the farmwife said, “I thought your horse looked awful thirsty. Olive here will get some water from the pump.”

  “Thank you so much,” Lark said. “ ’Tis true—Tup could use a drink.” Olive, without speaking, walked past the corner of the barn and disappeared. Lark cast an anxious glance into the sky, but Maid of Smoke had disappeared, too.

  “Huh,” the farmwife said, looking Lark up and down as if she were measuring her for an apron of her own. “You don’t sound like the rest of them horsemistresses. And they wear their hair different.”

  Lark gave her a tentative smile, and the woman’s scowl lightened ever so slightly. “I’m not a horsemistress yet,” Lark said. “Soon, though, next year. I’m an Uplander, and I’ve kept my country accent. And my hair—” She pulled off her cap, and ran her fingers through her cropped black curls. “My hair won’t go in the rider’s knot, because of these curls, so I cut it off.”

  “You’re running from that one, it seems,” the woman said, with a jerk of her head toward the sky.

  “Aye,” Lark said “ ’Tis not her fault, though. She’s doing her duty as she sees it.”

  The woman’s frown deepened again, but she pointed toward the barn. “No stalls in there, but you can tether your horse in the goat pen, if you want.”

  Lark’s smile grew. “Do you have goats?”

  “Aye, Miss. We sell goat cheese when we’re not selling apples. You don’t mind their smell, I hope?”

  “Nay, I do not. I love goats. Tup was fostered by a goat, and I had my own flock in the Uplands.”

  At this the farmwife’s frown smoothed until it almost vanished. “You’re a farm girl yourself,” she said.