Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  Diamond was not in her stall, and William went on through the stables to the back door, expecting to find Felicity Baron drilling her in the dry paddock. His boots made no sound in the sawdust-strewn aisle. He found the top of the half door open, and put his head out to check that his filly and the horsemistress were there.

  He saw Mistress Baron leaning against the far side of the pole fence in the dry paddock, an uncharacteristic smile on her leathery face, which was tipped up as if to enjoy the pale sunshine. On her right side, her old gelding stood hipshot, wings and head drooping.

  And Diamond, her long-lashed eyes nearly closed, stood on Mistress Baron’s left. She was resting her chin on the horsemistress’s shoulder. She wasn’t fidgeting, or blowing, or any of the nervous things she always did around William. She was more relaxed than he had ever seen her, shining jewel-bright in the cold sunshine, her ears flicking lazily at something Mistress Baron was murmuring.

  William’s heart suddenly ached as if it had been stabbed through. He stepped back into the shadows of the stable, and tried to assess this phenomenon.

  Fool, he berated himself. What are you, a lovesick boy, that seeing your filly happy without you fills you with envy?

  He put his back to the wall and tilted his head against it. He closed his eyes. For one long, black moment, he was painfully aware of the swelling of his chest against his vest, of the embarrassing pull of his trousers across his hips, which had grown wider though he ate almost nothing. He put up a hand and touched his smooth chin. He had not had to shave in more than two years. And yet his filly, his perfect Diamond, would never stand still with him, never lean on him in the affectionate way she did with that blasted horsemistress.

  He straightened abruptly, and the wood of the wall caught at his hair. He jerked it free, glad of the sting of it, impatient with himself.

  It was her fault, of course. It was Felicity Baron, deliberately alienating him from his filly, trying to break his bond with her.

  He tucked his quirt under his arm and stalked out into the cool, bright morning. He would show her! He would ride Diamond right now and prove he could do it. And if the old horsemistress got in his way, he would deal with her as he had dealt with others, and be damned to the consequences.

  When he stepped out into the dry paddock, Diamond’s ears flicked toward him, and her head shot up.

  Sky Baron snorted and backed away. Mistress Baron released his rein and let him go, but she kept one

  hand on Diamond’s neck.

  “Good morning,” she said, her voice uninflected, just as if she hadn’t been plotting against him, sneaking out here, doing everything she could to spoil Diamond for him.

  “Tighten her cinches,” he snapped at her. “I’m going to ride this morning.”

  “My lord,” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “None of your arguments,” he said. “You’ll do as you’re told.”

  “Very well,” she said mildly. “But I’ve been a horsemistress for nearly thirty years, and I wish you would allow me to give you a word of advice.”

  He crossed the dry paddock and reached Diamond’s rein. “What advice would that be? I ride, too, you know.”

  “I do know,” she said, with a wry twist to her lips. “And I think if you ride Diamond the way you ride that nice chestnut mare, you’re going to be sorry.”

  He yanked the rein away from her, and Diamond squealed as the bridle pinched her lip.

  “You have the hands of a plowman,” Mistress Baron said, her eyes flinty and cold.

  He glared at her, hiding his regret over having hurt the filly. “How dare you?”

  “You’ll ruin her forever if you jerk her around like that, Your Grace,” Mistress Baron said. Her weathered face set in hard lines. “She’s a winged horse, not a draft animal. Winged horses are far more sensitive—and immensely more intelligent—than wingless horses.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” William answered. He took a steadying breath and stroked Diamond’s cheek apologetically. “I don’t know why you horsemistresses assume no one else knows anything about winged horses.”

  She opened her mouth to say something else, but Diamond suddenly shied away, flexing her wings against the wingclips, tossing her head. William turned to face her. He let the rein hang loose between them, and he held out his hands for her to smell. He had learned that sometimes calmed her, that sometimes if he moved slowly, she would stand still under his touch. Her hide quivered, though, as if flies were crawling on it. He would have given nearly anything, he admitted to himself, if she wouldn’t do that.

  Time, he told himself. He approached Diamond slowly, and when she didn’t flinch away, he reached beneath her left wing to tighten the cinch himself. They just needed time, the two of them. He would ride her now, and though he had no intention of admitting it to Felicity Baron, he would take great care to be gentle with his hands, to keep the reins soft. And when that hurdle had been passed, he could plan their first flight.

  It had to be soon. The Fleckham School was almost ready, and the first students had received their vials of medicine. He had to fly Diamond, and prove that it was all possible.

  He led her to the mounting block at the side of the dry paddock and removed the sand weights from her saddle. As he prepared to mount, her ears drooped with anxiety, and she sidestepped, out of his reach.

  He gritted his teeth but made himself murmur to her comfortingly. Felicity Baron’s skeptical gaze burned his neck. He wanted to order her out of the paddock, out of his sight, but he thought the presence of her monitor might calm Diamond. He coaxed Diamond to the mounting block again and bent his knee to step up onto it.

  “My lord?” It was one of his secretaries, Clarence, the old one.

  “What!” he snapped. “You can see I’m busy!”

  “Your Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt.” The secretary held a rolled missive in his hands, and he held it out as if to protect himself from the Duke’s wrath. “This just came from the Council, and—”

  “Ye gods, man, can’t it wait?” At William’s sharp tone, Diamond skittered away from the mounting block again. Behind her, Felicity Baron moved as if she would step in, and William scowled at her, shaking his head.

  “My lord, the—there’s a ship—”

  William whirled. “A ship?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” The old man’s voice trembled, but he held his ground, and again thrust out the document in his hands. “A Klee ship. In Osham’s harbor.”

  “So? We have our own ships, do we not? Send out the harbor patrol!”

  “They were sent out, Your Grace, immediately. The Klee fired on them.”

  “YOUbetrayed me, Beeth,” William snarled.

  He was still in his riding clothes. He had ridden the chestnut mare at a furious speed into Osham, hurled himself from the saddle, and charged up the steps of the Rotunda to find the Council already gathered.

  The balcony was empty of the usual ladies and their maids, but the lords had come with their secretaries, prepared to do business. William glared at all of them, but fastened, in the end, upon Beeth.

  Little Lord Beeth stood beside the carved chair that was his place in the Council of Lords. His face reddened at the Duke’s tone, but his round chin was set. “It was not I, Your Grace,” he said with asperity. “I had no need. Word travels on its own, you know. It’s a small duchy.”

  “Is it true, Duke William?” This was from Meredith Islington, Philippa Winter’s brother. He, too, stood up, and cast a glance around at the other lords of the Council. “My lords, did you know of this?”

  Daysmith spoke without rising, his old man’s voice trembling. “My lord Duke, you have placed us in a terrible position.”

  William shrilled, “I am trying to force Philippa Winter back to accept her punishment!”

  “By kidnapping Baron Rys’s daughter?” demanded Lord Chatham. He had been sitting in his chair, but he jumped to his feet, and William could have sworn there was glee in his
voice. “Your Grace, what can you have been thinking?”

  “Quiet!” William roared. Fury felt better than uncertainty and had always been an efficient tool. “I am your Duke, and you will show respect for my office!”

  “You are the Duke,” Beeth said. “But we are the Council Lords of Oc. We share responsibility for the Duchy.”

  “I don’t need anyone to tell me how my own Duchy is run!” William snapped.

  “It seems,” Daysmith quavered, “that you do. You have imperiled our people with this rash—nay, I may say, foolish—abduction.”

  “She is a hostage!” William said, struggling against the querulousness he heard in his own voice. “There is a long tradition of royal hostages, when there is need—”

  “We are not at war,” Chatham said, interrupting him without a hint of apology. “We have no need of hostages!”

  “We may be at war now,” Beeth said. “Your Grace, produce the girl, and at once! Stop this before it goes too far!”

  “It’s already gone too far,” someone in an upper tier said. “What if one of our sailors had been hurt?”

  William didn’t recognize the voice, but he would not give him the satisfaction of turning his head to identify him.

  Meredith Islington put up a hand. “Wait, my lords, wait! Let’s at least hear what Duke William has to say about this.”

  Several of the other lords voiced their agreement with Islington, and the opposing voices grew louder.

  William, though he could wish it were not that sycophant Islington in the lead of his supporters, let the dispute go on a moment while he gathered his thoughts. He had to find a way to make them understand.

  After all, the girl was perfectly safe and healthy, and would certainly be returned to her father in due course. It had not been a foolish thing to do, but a daring one. Great leaders didn’t tread cautiously, afraid of making mistakes or offending people. Great leaders took risks.

  Like changing centuries of tradition.

  He straightened, and tugged down the vest he wore under his long riding coat. The lords and their secretaries fell silent, one by one, and turned their faces to him, waiting.

  “Philippa Winter defied our authority, and this situation is her fault,” he proclaimed. “It would never have been necessary had she not fled her legally imposed punishment.”

  “You abducted an Academy student,” Chatham repeated.

  “She is Klee,” William said flatly. “She should never have been accepted there in the first place.”

  “But once she was,” Beeth said, “she became one of our people.”

  William put up his bone-thin hand. “You are too much involved with the Academy, Beeth,” he said. He

  was relieved to hear the silky quality return to his voice. “You should turn your attention to the Fleckham School. The Academy and its interests are part of the past, and the Fleckham School is the future.”

  Lord Daysmith struggled to his feet, leaning on the arm of his secretary. “Have you flown yet, my lord Duke?”

  William’s lip curled. “I will, Daysmith,” he said. “And soon. Especially if all of you cease troubling me over trifles.”

  Chatham said, with a derisive snort, “You think a Klee warship in our harbor is a trifle?”

  William rounded on him. “You forget yourself!” he said. “Address me properly, or leave the Council!”

  “Chatham’s right, Your Grace,” Daysmith said. His voice shook, but his eyes were sharp as they had always been. “We have a warship to deal with. I move that the Council directs you to send an envoy, assure Baron Rys that his daughter will be returned to him safely.”

  William had, in fact, been on the point of suggesting just such a tactic, but the way Daysmith said it, the way Beeth and Chatham and a few other rebel lords nodded and murmured assent, enraged him. He seized his quirt in his fingers, feeling its power. He lifted it, and pointed it at Daysmith. “We will not be directed , as you so clumsily put it, my lord. We will make our own decisions, for the good of Oc.”

  “Being attacked by the Klee,” Chatham said in a voice dry with sarcasm, “can hardly be good for Oc.”

  “Fight them,” William said. There were gasps around the Rotunda, and he narrowed his eyes and swept every face with a mocking gaze. “Or are you afraid, my lords? Do we address a tea party, with swooning maidens and elderly crones afraid of their own shadows?”

  “Your Grace!” Beeth cried. “You would start a war?” Several of the others shouted agreement with Beeth, but William, though he had in fact shocked himself by saying what he had, noted that perhaps half the Council were nodding, as if the idea of war were not unpalatable. There was, of course, always money to be made in war.

  “Our expanded militia is in place,” William said, when the hubbub subsided enough for him to be heard.

  “You will appreciate that we had the foresight to levy an extraordinary tax, to protect the interests of Oc.”

  “I thought that was all about the winged horses,” Beeth protested. “About the Fleckham School and closing the Academy!”

  “Indeed, I believe you said that very thing,” Chatham said. His stare was as insolent as any roughneck’s, and William wished he were close enough to slash him with his quirt, to drive that look from his face. He could hardly argue the point.

  “Islington,” William said, pointing at Meredith. “Give the order. Our captains are waiting in the outer room of the Rotunda.”

  Even Islington, it seemed, had misgivings, for though he came to his feet, he did not immediately leave.

  “Yes, Your Grace, the order . . . What order, exactly?”

  William eyed him, letting his lips curl. “Why,” he said, softly, but clearly. “To return fire, of course.”

  Slater would be pleased. He had been pushing for this for a long time.

  SEVENTEEN

  ASevening closed around the little stable, the sounds of hammering and sawing beyond the beech grove ceased. Amelia searched for a horse blanket in the tack room, and found one that seemed to be nearly new. She buckled it around Mahogany and wrapped herself in a long coat Jinson had provided for her. It was much too large, but it was warm and clean. She stood in the door of the tack room and looked out into the darkness. It was odd, she thought, how quickly one became used to things. She had been a prisoner only a few days, yet she had established a routine, of sorts, and managed to find comfort in small things like a cup of hot tea and a friendly conversation.

  Two militiamen lounged against the trunks of the beech trees, scuffing at the dead leaves beneath their boots and talking. They straightened when they saw Amelia, then at her nod, they grinned and relaxed

  again.

  She was on the point of turning back, to make up her cot and tidy the tack room before going to bed, when the guns started.

  Amelia knew the sound from ceremonies in the Klee capital. To announce a royal progress of her uncle, the Viscount, the ships in the harbor often fired their short cannons. Amelia froze in the doorway, remembering the noise of those guns, the flame and gray smoke that swirled over the water, the smack of cast-iron balls striking empty sand beaches. But Osham’s harbor had no vacant, sandy shore. The buildings went right down to the piers, and the docks were lined with boats of every size, peopled with workers and their families.

  The militiamen straightened in alarm, exclaiming, looking around as if for someone to explain what they were hearing. A moment later Jinson appeared on his small bay mare, galloping down the lane from the main road. He leaped from the saddle and tossed the mare’s reins over a post.

  He stopped briefly to confer with the guards, then crossed the little drive, his hasty footsteps throwing up bits of gravel. Amelia waited for him in the doorway. He went past her with a nod and went to the woodstove to begin laying a small fire.

  “Sorry it’s gotten so cold in here,” he said.

  “Master Jinson?” Amelia said. “You must have heard the guns.”

  “Aye,” he said. His face was t
ight. “There’s a Klee ship in Osham harbor.”

  “Is it the Marinan ?”

  “I don’t know the name.”

  “It must be! The Marinan is my father’s ship!”

  “I wouldn’t know, Miss. But the carronades—” He gave her an unhappy glance. “Those guns are our own.”

  “Our ships carry them, too,” she said faintly. She felt as if she couldn’t draw a proper breath. “Jinson, what’s happening?”

  “His Grace was called to the Rotunda today,” Jinson said. “When the Klee ship sailed in. I was at the Palace, and you can see the bay there, just past the city buildings. A while later our boats went out, the ones that patrol the harbor. I was on my way here when I heard the guns.”

  Amelia rubbed her arms against a sudden chill, and her stomach quivered. What would they say at the Academy? It had been so hard to persuade them to accept her in the first place, and there were still those who thought she should never have been bonded, who thought of her as Klee first and an Academy girl second.

  “Oh, no,” she murmured. “I can’t have this. There mustn’t be a war over me.”

  Jinson put a match to the tinder in the close stove and replaced the lid. He turned to face her. “Miss, you need to stay out of sight.”

  “Why?” she said.

  “People think—too many people, that is—they’ll think . . .” His words stumbled to a stop, and he shook his head, looking as miserable as she had so far seen him.

  “They think it’s my fault.”

  “Aye, Miss. I’m afraid so.”

  “But, Jinson—am I safe here, then? Who knows where he’s put me?”

  “No one,” Jinson said. “I’ll tell the guards to keep mum about you when they go off duty. And then there’s only Slater.”

  Amelia gripped her elbows, and tried to stiffen her spine. She said, “I can’t see why the Duke let it come to this. It would make more sense, surely, simply to let me go.”

  “Makes sense to me, Miss. Not the Duke, it seems.”

  Amelia pressed her hands together, trying to think. What was the right thing to do? How could she stop this? She bit her lip, hard, then she said hurriedly, half under breath, “Jinson! Let me just slip away, with Mahogany, out the back of the stable. It’s dark now, and no one will see. We’ll find our way back to the Academy, and I’ll get word to the ship. When my father knows I’m safe, he’ll withdraw.”