Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  “I’d have to persuade all these soldiers,” Jinson said. “I don’t think I can do that. I would have let you go

  before this, myself. But now—we’d best leave it to the Duke. ’Tis a time for diplomacy, I think.”

  “Diplomacy!” Amelia said bitterly.

  Jinson looked at her, and she could see awareness in his face that he knew diplomacy was not an art Duke William practiced. With a resigned shake of the head, he said, “I’m so sorry, Miss. His Grace will have to manage it.” He walked toward the door, rubbing his palms together as if he could rub away his anxiety. “Just wait here, please. I need to get my mare in, get her unsaddled.”

  Through the darkness, they heard the carronade again, then an answering shot, a different pitch, a higher resonance. Ships, Amelia understood with a sinking heart, firing at one another. The guardsmen at the edge of the beech grove swore, and the ones at the back called out. Lark’s brother wasn’t there tonight, but some other man.

  Amelia stared helplessly out into the darkness. She didn’t know whether to hope that her father was on the Marinan , or to pray that he was not. She clutched Lark’s icon of Kalla, and wished protection on all ships, Klee and Oc.

  Mahogany whinnied nervously from his stall. Amelia hurried back to him, with Bramble at her heels. She went into the stall and busied herself with unnecessary tasks, combing Mahogany’s tail, fussing with his water bucket and hay bin, making as much noise as possible to try to block the sound of carronades from Osham’s harbor.

  AMELIAslept little that night. She laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes, trying to summon up the discipline she had been taught, but sleep eluded her for many hours. Beyond the tiny window of the tack room, stars blinked in and out of a heavy cover of cloud. The guns had stopped at last, for which she was grateful. But the idea that there might be a new war between her two lands tortured her. In a real war, horsemistresses could be called upon to fight.

  A horse and her horsemistress had died in the last war, at the South Tower of Isamar. Her uncle, upon his succession, had sworn never to start a war in his lifetime. But even her uncle could not oppose her father’s coming after her.

  She drowsed, waking often, turning restlessly on her pallet. Each time she woke she heard Mahogany shifting his feet, nickering uneasily. Only the little bay mare was quiet in her stall. Jinson had gone up to Fleckham House to sleep, and the soldiers were silent at their posts. Bramble lay beside Amelia’s pallet, her eyes open, her ears twitching at every small sound.

  Toward morning, Amelia at last fell into the kind of heavy sleep that made her head feel thick and her eyelids sticky. She woke from this unrefreshing slumber when she heard the guards changing outside the stable, two in front, two in back. She struggled up, rubbing at her eyes, feeling exhausted.

  She splashed water on her face, and used the privy, then brushed her hair into the rider’s knot. She stirred up the banked fire in the close stove and put the kettle on to boil before she went to fetch Mahogany and release him into the dry paddock. There she saw, with a little spurt of hope, that Nick Hamley had returned.

  Mahogany trotted out into the dry paddock, shaking his head, rustling his wings against their clips. Amelia followed and climbed onto the bottom pole of the fence. “Master Hamley,” she called.

  He looked up, and when he saw her, he smiled and bowed to her, as if he were meeting her at some ceremonial function. “Good morning, Miss.”

  His fellow guard peered at her from beneath the eaves of the stable, but he didn’t speak. Nick said something to him, then stepped out into the cold gray light. “Bit chilly, isn’t it, Miss Rys?” Nick called.

  Amelia climbed another pole, so that she could see over the top of the fence. “What news this morning, Master Hamley?”

  He said, “Yon ships are doing a great dance in the bay. They missed each other with their guns in the darkness last night, and we can thank the entwined gods for that! But the Klee ship is blocking the mouth of the harbor.”

  “Then no one’s been hurt?” she asked hopefully.

  “Nay,” he said, “not yet.” There was a grimness about his face, darkening the blue of his eyes. Amelia knew those eyes, the Hamley eyes, and they made her long for the sight of Lark’s pretty face and short

  black curls.

  “Do people—do people know what it’s about?” she said.

  He came close enough to look up at her. He said quietly, “ ’Tis about you, they say, Miss. Because the Duke took you and won’t give you back.”

  “How do they know?”

  “Lady Beeth, they say. Her daughter is at the Academy, and told Lady Beeth, and Lady Beeth told Lord Beeth, and he told the Council.”

  “Then why doesn’t someone come for me?” Amelia said.

  “They don’t know where you are, Miss. Lark would if she knew.”

  “I wouldn’t want her to be in danger, too!”

  “You don’t seem frightened for yourself.”

  “I’m worried about a war.”

  “Aye. ’Tis a bad situation.” He glanced over his shoulder, but his fellow militiaman was busy prying a rock from the tread of his boot. Nick looked up at Amelia again. “There are those who think the Duke is a visionary, and those who think he’s a nutter.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “A—a nutter? What is that?”

  Nick Hamley said, “Crazy. Mad. Out of his mind.”

  “Ah. That’s what your sister believes, Master Hamley. Only she said ‘hinky.’ ”

  Nick gave a wry smile at that. “If my sister says ’tis so, then I expect it is.” He shook his head. “Bad news for Oc. A mad Duke, and a Klee ship bearing down on Osham.”

  Amelia was about to answer, but Nick raised a warning finger. He was staring past her, to the half door leading from the stable to the dry paddock. Mahogany, who had been peacefully exploring the corners of the paddock, suddenly snorted in alarm and backed to the fence. Amelia heard his hocks hit the poles.

  From behind her, a voice said, “Clamber down from there, my girl. We’re going to show you to the Klee.”

  WHENSlater’s sharp-nailed hand seized Amelia’s arm to force her onto his chicken-necked pinto, she tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. He pushed her up into the saddle, thrusting carelessly at her leg and hip, and refused to release her until she had swung her leg over the stiff cantle. She drew back from him the moment he took his hands away, curling her lip with distaste at his touch, at his odor, at his repellent appearance.

  “Ha!” he said, sneering up at her. He still wore his many-caped greatcoat, and a three-cornered hat with a greasy brim. “You think you’re too good to be touched by the likes of me? You might learn a thing or two today, Klee.”

  The guards stepped forward, frowning, but they knew Slater as the Duke’s man and were afraid to intervene. Bramble raced back and forth between the grove and the tack room, barking wildly. Nick Hamley tried to put himself between Slater and Amelia, but he was armed with only a smallsword, and Slater pulled a long pistol from the layers of his coat and pointed it at the Uplander. Its barrel gleamed dull and black in the gray light.

  Amelia said, “Get back, Master Hamley, please.” Her voice shook, and she tried to steady it as she added, “I can manage.”

  She saw, for one terrible moment, that Nick Hamley considered plying his smallsword against the pistol.

  The flintlock pistol had only one shot, she knew, and it took time to load another, but a single such shot could do a great deal of damage.

  She leaned down, trying to distract Slater by grabbing at the pinto’s reins. He took a step back to keep the reins from her reach, and Nick Hamley poised, his sword lifted and ready.

  Slater changed the aim of his pistol, pointing it directly at Amelia’s breast. He gave his snaggletoothed grin. “Put it away, man. You can’t stop me.”

  “You’re making a terrible mistake, Master Slater!” Amelia cried. She seized the pommel of the saddle as the pinto stamped his feet.
Her boots could not reach the stirrups, and the pommel and cantle were both high and hard, trapping her between them. “His Grace knows better than to mistreat a royal hostage.”

  “You mean, as the Klee mistreated my brother?” Slater said. He yanked on the pinto’s reins, and the horse skidded away from him, throwing his head and jarring Amelia half out of the saddle. Slater turned toward the lane then, and started walking, pulling the pinto along behind him. Bramble followed a few steps, then ran back toward the stables to pace again, growling and barking in confusion.

  Mahogany gave a long, desperate whinny. Amelia twisted to look back, but she couldn’t see him. Slater had forced her to leave him in the dry paddock, and there was no one to take care of him. Her rush of temper subsided under a flood of anxiety.

  “Master Slater,” Amelia said. “Please, can we not at least take my colt? He’s never been separated from me, and the winged horses—”

  He snarled over his shoulder, “Oh, aye? The winged horses?”

  “They panic,” she said, struggling to keep her own panic out of her voice and out of her face. She felt her composure cracking like thin ice on a pond. “Please . . . sir.”

  His grin vanished as if it had never been. “Speaking out of the other side of your mouth now, aren’t you, Klee? Don’t ‘sir’ me. I’m a workingman. Not that you’d understand what it is to work for your living.”

  He jerked the pinto’s reins to make it move faster, and the cantle jarred the small of Amelia’s back. She gasped, “You’re mistaken, Slater. All of us at the Academy work hard, from early morning until late at night.”

  “Books,” he sneered. “Flying. That’s not work.”

  Desperately, she said, “How can I persuade you?”

  He stopped, and spun in a whirl of dark fabric. “You want to persuade me?”

  She swallowed, her stomach clenching. “Of course.”

  “Will you lift your skirts for me, then, my fine lady?”

  Amelia stared at him in horror, realizing after a moment that her mouth was open, her lips gone dry.

  “I—surely you can’t mean for me to—”

  He took a step back toward her, and the pinto shied nervously. “You asked,” he said.

  “I meant money, or some favor from my father—some reasonable thing.”

  “I think,” Slater said, “that girls who never bed men are unreasonable.”

  “We have no choice, Mr. Slater. You know that. Our horses . . .”

  “Just another reason men should do the flying,” he growled, and turned away. He began walking again, yanking the pinto along after him. The guards stood gazing after them, muttering to each other, made helpless by Slater’s pistol.

  “Where are we going?” Amelia asked. Mahogany whinnied again, then again. Her heart thudded with the same anxiety and need. When Slater didn’t answer, she said, “There are rules about the treatment of hostages! Agreements reached between principalities—”

  “For weaklings,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear over the creaking of saddle leather and the clop of the pinto’s hooves. “Too gutless for war.”

  “There’s no war yet!”

  He gave a short, terrible laugh. “When they see you, there will be.”

  Amelia, for an instant, feared she might burst into tears. She gritted her teeth, thinking of her father, of the years of his painstaking training. She drew a shuddering breath and pulled herself up straight in the saddle. Better he should shoot her than that war should break out.

  “I demand that you stop, Master Slater,” she said, with all the dignity she could muster. “This is an immoral and unjust thing to do.”

  He stopped, and turned about deliberately. “And just what, Miss,” he said with a fearsome scowl, “do you think you can do about it?”

  Amelia, suddenly flooded with disgust at his arrogance, sucked moisture into her mouth, and spat it directly into his face.

  As the spittle dripped down his seamed cheek, she squared her shoulders and forced her features into immobility.

  He wiped the drops from his cheek with a dirty finger and shook them off onto the ground. His leer was that of a death’s head. “Do that again, Klee, and you’ll pay,” he said.

  For answer, Amelia threw her leg over the pommel of the saddle, leaped to the ground, and started back toward the stable at a dead run. Even as her feet pounded the dirt of the lane, her back prickled with awareness of that awful long pistol. Bramble came bounding to meet her, barking furiously.

  EIGHTEEN

  PHILIPPAgazed across the breakfast table at Larkyn. The girl’s eyes sparkled like the water of the mountain lakes, and her cheeks, now that she had rested, were pink with health and youth. Even though the news was so grim, and there was trouble ahead, Philippa could not suppress her pleasure in Larkyn’s presence, at seeing Seraph grown into the strong, spirited stallion she had known he would become, and at the prospect of going home. All this she kept hidden behind as calm a countenance as she could manage, but she felt her eyes must shine almost as brightly as Larkyn’s. In truth, she thought, she hadn’t known how lonely she was until Larkyn and Seraph appeared above Marinan.

  Lyssett had taken one look at the girl, the evening before, and set about making a substantial meal of roasted lamb chops and root vegetables, setting water to heat for a bath, ordering the narders about so that a room was aired and made ready, a stall laid with fresh straw for Black Seraph, water and hay and oats put out for the two flyers to take in to their horses.

  Larkyn, despite her exhaustion, had talked all through the late dinner, talked as she soaked in the big tin tub Lyssett had filled for her, answered questions as the two of them settled their horses for the night. She explained why she had come, how she had spoken to Baron Rys and obtained his map leading her to Marinan, how she had eluded her escort from the Palace. Philippa’s lips tightened as she heard the news of Amelia’s disappearance, and she only nodded as Larkyn told her of her conviction that Duke William had taken the girl.

  Philippa had answered, “Would that the Council Lords were as perceptive as you are.”

  “Lady Beeth says they are divided, half on either side.”

  Philippa thought about this now, as she and Larkyn ate Lyssett’s fresh yeast rolls with good sheep’s milk cheese and sliced winter pears. Her eyes strayed down the mountain toward the distant gleam of the ocean. “It’s like a storm building at sea,” she said, half to herself.

  “Pardon, Mistress Winter?”

  Philippa sighed. “This conflict, Larkyn. I hate to call it a war yet, but with the Prince taking sides with William, and William having offended the Klee . . .”

  “But perhaps Baron Rys can get Amelia back without a real war,” Larkyn said, without much conviction.

  “Perhaps,” Philippa said. She toyed with the cheese knife. The blade caught the sun, and light coruscated from its polished silver surface. “You said even the horsemistresses at the Academy are divided.”

  “Not over the issue of men flying!” Larkyn said hastily. “But some of them—and some of the students, too—feel they owe the Duke their loyalty no matter what he does.”

  “I wish they would put their horses before any other consideration.”

  “Aye.”

  Lyssett bustled into the dining room with a fresh pot of tea. “I hope you slept well, Miss?” she asked Larkyn.

  Larkyn gave a glorious smile that made Philippa’s heart turn over. Despite all the girl had done in these past few days, she was so very young, and so innocent. They all were, all the girls still yearning for their silver wings. They didn’t know what it could be like, and Philippa wished with all her heart they wouldn’t have to find out.

  “I slept wonderfully,” Larkyn said. “The bed is so soft, and the sheets smell delicious!”

  “Everything here smells like lavender, I’m told,” Lyssett said. “Though we can’t smell it anymore, ourselves. Too many years with the scent in our noses!”

  “ ’Tis delightful,�
�� Larkyn said, and added, “At my own home, everything smells of broomstraw from midsummer till harvest.”

  Lyssett set the teapot down and looked at her curiously. “Your own home? You’re not from the White City, then?”

  “Nay,” Larkyn answered, with pride in her young face. “Nay, I come from the Uplands of Oc, and my family grow bloodbeets and broomstraw, and keep goats and chickens.”

  Lyssett tilted her head to one side, regarding the girl. “I understood the girls of the Academy were always

  . . . That is, they’re meant to be . . .” Her cheeks colored, and she stepped back from the table. “I’m sorry, Miss. I was surprised, and I spoke without thinking.”

  “Nay, Mistress, I’m not offended. You’re right. The Academy bonds winged horses only to girls of good birth. Tup and I—Black Seraph, that is—we were a surprise!” She laughed, and Lyssett chuckled.

  Philippa pressed her lips together. How much time had passed, after the battle of the South Tower, before she had been able to laugh again?

  When Lyssett left the dining room, Larkyn leaned forward. “Did I say something wrong, Mistress Winter?”

  Philippa busied herself pouring each of them another cup of tea. “No, Larkyn. You said nothing wrong.”

  “But you’re upset.”

  “Not really.” Philippa took another slice of the white cheese and laid it on her plate.

  Larkyn persisted. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”

  Philippa lifted her eyes to Larkyn’s face again. The violet eyes had darkened, and a furrow appeared between the girl’s black brows. Her short curls shone like ebony. Philippa leaned back in her chair and breathed a great sigh. “It was such a good idea,” she said, “for you to cut your hair.”

  “Aye. ’Twas the only way, just as Lady Beeth said. Though I longed for the rider’s knot, when I was a first-level girl!” Larkyn smiled a little, and pushed her fingers through the curls. “Tell me what troubles you, Mistress Winter,” she said. “I do know there is much to worry about. ’Tis why I’m here, after all.”