Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  She slipped down from Mahogany’s back when they reached a turning. The main part of the road turned left, to the north, but a cramped alley wound to the east, toward the bay. Amelia led Mahogany gingerly down the dark, narrow space. Lights were beginning to come on here and there, lamps being lit, fires stirred to life, making windows glow through the early-morning gloom. Still, the city seemed eerily quiet, the streets strangely empty. People should be stirring, fishmongers and bakers and coal men delivering their wares.

  She supposed she should take it as a stroke of good luck. It was important that she reach the North Tower before the city was fully awake. A girl and a winged horse could hardly pass unnoticed through the streets, and by now she must look as if she’d been rolled in dirt. Mahogany, too, was in shameful condition, scratched and matted.

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “At least,” she murmured, “you don’t have to worry about the Duke now.”

  And then she saw them. And they saw her, before she could slip back into the darkness.

  The alley was too dim to see their clothes, but she knew they were men by their voices. She couldn’t tell how many there were as they leaped out of an arched doorway to block her path. One of them demanded, “Which side?”

  Mahogany snorted his alarm at the male scent. “Wh-what?” Amelia stammered.

  “Which side? Duke or rebel?” the man asked again.

  One of his companions took a step forward, making Mahogany throw his head high. “ ’Tis just a girl, you gammon! She don’t have a side!”

  “She has a horse, don’t she? You ever know anyone but a nob has a horse?”

  Mahogany snorted again, and scrambled back from the men, dragging Amelia with him.

  The men lunged forward, seeing this, and now Amelia saw there were three of them, dressed in the sort of loose pants and jackets workingmen wore. Knitted caps were pulled down over their ears, and one of them had some sort of bludgeon in his hand.

  “Please, sirs!” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Please keep your distance.”

  They stopped, and one of them laughed again. “Please, sirs,” he whined in imitation. And then, roughly,

  “Come on, lads, ’tis a girl for the taking, and a horse, too! What are we waiting for?”

  The one that had asked about her side, and who carried the bludgeon, said in a low, unpleasant voice,

  “I’ll tell you what for, idiot. If she’s a nob, she’s worth something.”

  “And we can sell the horse,” the third one said.

  “Or,” the laughing one said, “we could just have a bit of fun, then sell ’em both.” He strode forward, his hand out as if to seize Amelia’s arm.

  Mahogany whinnied and reared, jerking the lead from Amelia’s hand. She whirled to go after him, and the man swore as his hand grasped empty air.

  Amelia seized the colt’s lead and whirled to face her tormentors. “Leave us alone,” she said, “or I’ll scream for the night watch.”

  At this they all snickered, and one of them said, “Night watch? None of ’em left, lassie. All gone for the militia.”

  “Or for the rebels,” someone said.

  The man with the bludgeon, obviously the leader, made a gesture with his free hand. One of the men dashed around behind Mahogany, who reared again, and sidestepped, nearly running into a wall. Amelia tugged on his lead, trying to quiet him, but his eyes rolled, showing their whites in the gloom.

  Amelia cast a glance back at the leader, desperately trying to think what to do. For a second time in as many days, she lamented that her education in statecraft gave her no skills for dealing with thugs. She thought furiously. “Sir,” she began, but was interrupted by the man behind her.

  “Zito’s ass,” he said with real astonishment. “Jake, look at this! This horse has wings!”

  The man with the bludgeon took a closer look at Mahogany, then, turning back toward Amelia, he began to grin. The other two men chortled, and congratulated each other on their find.

  Amelia’s heart sank to her boots.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WILLIAMset out early in the morning from the Palace. The four young men already residing at the Fleckham School should know his great news first. He would have liked to ride Diamond there, to prove it to them, but this morning she was particularly skittish. He didn’t dare risk her throwing him with his boys watching. Felicity Baron might have been able to quiet her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  William scowled at Sky Baron’s empty stall. All the woman did was whine and criticize, then when he needed her, she disappeared.

  There was no one else to help him with Diamond. He swore he would find a stable-man willing to take the potion—or one he could force to take it—so that he would not have to deal with things like shoveling muck and sawdust.

  He didn’t want the filly to go hungry or thirsty, though, so he did those chores himself. She came to him briefly, but when he brought out the bridle, she danced away, shaking her head and rustling her wings.

  “Calm down, Diamond,” he said irritably, tugging at his vest. “Nothing’s different from yesterday!” His chest ached, and his gut felt tight and a little queasy, as if he had eaten something bad the night before. In truth, he had eaten nothing, and had taken only coffee this morning.

  Diamond stood in the corner of the stall, her head high and her nostrils flaring. His fingers tightened on his quirt as his temper flickered. He expected the old rush of anger, but it died before it could grow into a real flame.

  She was so beautiful, even when she challenged him this way. Her hide glittered in the cold sunlight, and her wings looked like folded fans, the ribs dark and delicate, the membranes like silver satin. He relaxed and leaned against the stall door.

  “I suppose you miss your mentor,” he said lightly. Her nose lifted, and she sniffed audibly. “Very well, my wayward girl. This afternoon, when I return from Fleckham House. Mark you, be ready then, for there will be none of this nonsense!”

  Diamond snorted, and lowered her head. William checked that her water bucket was full and stirred the oats with his hand to entice her to them. He opened the gate and stepped out into the aisle, then stopped abruptly.

  “Ye gods! Constance!” he exclaimed. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  His wife stood looking past him into the stall. Two spots of pink stood on her cheeks, incongruous against her colorless skin. She said, “She’s grown.”

  “Of course she’s grown,” William snapped, pushing past her toward the tack room. He would take the chestnut mare today, though she’d been limping the last time he rode her. Surely by now the stable-man had done something about that.

  The stable-man appeared instantly when he called for him and hurried off to saddle the mare. William pulled on his gloves and buttoned his coat.

  He stood in the door of the stables, waiting for his mount. Constance trailed out beside him, her skirts catching bits of straw and sawdust. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and tilted her head to look up at him.

  “William,” she said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “William, my maid says they’re fighting in the city.”

  He gritted his teeth. “There’s a Klee ship blocking the harbor, Constance. Of course they’re fighting.”

  “No, not fighting the Klee,” she said. Her voice was breathy, but he caught the insinuating tone. He

  looked down at her.

  She had a little, kittenish face, which years before he had found mildly attractive. She had always been shy, and more than a little fearful of him, which he didn’t mind at all. But now Constance regarded him with something like relish. She looked like a cat about to devour a bird. Her rosebud lips pursed, and her eyes were bright with malice. “Not the Klee, my lord husband,” she said in her little-girl voice. “Each other. Your people.”

  She fingered her shawl and watched for his reaction.

  “You shouldn’t repeat stupid gossip,” he snarled, and looked away
again.

  The stable-man led out the mare, and William frowned. The horse was still favoring her left forefoot.

  “It’s not gossip,” Constance said. “It’s news. There’s a difference, William.”

  He pulled his quirt from his belt, and the mare whuffed nervously and stepped away. The stable-man had to grab for the reins and pull the horse forward.

  William swung up into the saddle and looked down at Constance. “You shouldn’t listen to such nonsense, Constance. If there were something to worry about, I would tell you.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, moving closer to the horse and putting her small hand on his stirrup.

  “They’re saying it’s going to be civil war, William. Between those that want to fight the Klee and those who don’t.”

  William sneered, “If I say fight, they’ll fight. All of them. They’ll do as they’re told.”

  Her eyes flickered to the side, then back, more catlike than ever. In her childish voice, she said, “Not everyone will do as you tell them, my lord husband. Not anymore.”

  William felt a spasm of rage that made him jerk the reins in his hands, and the mare sidestepped, making Constance fall back. “How dare you speak to me this way?” William demanded of his wife. “Have you no loyalty at all?”

  She shrugged. “They say you listen to no one, William.” She gave a small, tight-lipped smile. “I thought perhaps you might listen to me.”

  And then, as he wheeled the mare and started off across the courtyard, she added, so quietly he wasn’t sure he heard, “Before it’s too late.”

  THEmare was well and truly lame by the time William reached Fleckham House, and he was in a towering temper. Only the sight of his old home sporting a beautifully carved sign over the door that read THE FECKHAM SCHOOL and the freshly painted stables awaiting the fillies and colts that would soon come soothed him somewhat. Still, as he leaped down from the mare and handed her off to the stable-man who rushed out to meet him, bowing and babbling obsequious nonsense, William felt irritable and tense.

  It was easy to blame Constance as the bearer of bad news, but it hadn’t helped that he could hear the carronades again from the bay, and the occasional shot of a long pistol or even a matchlock rifle from the city center. Those idiots of the Council couldn’t even manage a war, it seemed. Couldn’t they see he had more pressing things to attend to?

  He should, of course, have been able to delegate this battle to his brother Francis, but he dared not. He feared Francis would simply refuse, and that was one humiliation he didn’t need. The thought of more disloyalty made his gorge rise and burn in his throat.

  He strode up to the entryway to the Fleckham School, trying to feel proud of this accomplishment. Soon the place would ring with the voices of students. Young men. Young men who would learn to fly winged horses.

  He could have wrung Constance’s skinny neck for ruining this great day. She was lucky there would be time for him to cool off before he saw her again.

  HEfound the four boys in a large, airy room that had been the morning room of Fleckham House, and that was now furnished with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and tables outfitted with reading lamps. The boys were gathered around a table, playing a game of cards and laughing together. When they saw him, they leaped to their feet, blushing and bowing. One of them scooped up the cards and stuffed them into

  his pocket, and another stepped forward, saying, “Your Grace . . . we didn’t know . . . We weren’t expecting you, and since Mistress Baron—”

  William waved off the apologies. “It doesn’t matter. I know you have little to do yet, but I came to tell you—” He stopped, uncomfortably aware that they were staring at him. He could barely resist the urge to look down at himself, to see what drew their eyes. He stiffened his neck, and said, “It will not be long now, my friends. You will soon have horses—bondmates.”

  One of them said wonderingly, “What’s happened, my lord?”

  William allowed himself a small smile. “I have ridden my filly.”

  That caught their attention. Their eyes widened, and they made admiring sounds. One said, “Your Grace, you’ve made history!”

  William nodded. “Exactly so. I have made history, and you will, too, before long.”

  Another boy, a small lad with pale hair who William thought must be one of his second or third cousins, though he couldn’t remember the name, asked, “Will you fly soon, then?”

  The other boys hissed at him as if he had said something rude, but William chuckled. “No, no, it’s a good question,” he said. “It’s the right question. You young men are giving up a great deal to come here, to prepare for this development in the history of the Duchy.” He propped an elbow on top of a bookcase, feeling much better than he had all morning. “I will fly my Diamond tomorrow. I’ll be sure to come this way so you can see us aloft.”

  They exclaimed anew over this. William chatted with them for a few moments, then took his leave. The pale-haired boy stopped him just as he put his hand on the door latch. “My lord Duke? Can you tell us anything of the war?”

  William frowned. “What are you talking about?” he said coldly.

  The boy blanched, but he held his ground. He must surely be a Fleckham, with those black eyes and that hair. “No one will tell us anything, Your Grace, but we hear the servants talking. When they think we can’t hear.”

  “And what are they saying?”

  “Well.” The boy glanced around at his comrades. “Well, Your Grace, they’re saying the Klee are blocking the harbor because the Viscount’s niece has been kidnapped.”

  “The Klee have always been our enemies,” William said in a flat voice.

  “But not since the South Tower,” the boy said. “Since Klee and Isamar signed a treaty. But they’re saying you and your brother—Lord Francis, that is—” His resolve seemed to give way, and he dropped his eyes.

  “What?” William asked, in the silky tone older men knew enough to fear. He was gratified to see the last shreds of color fade from the boy’s already-pale face.

  Still the lad persisted, though he kept his eyes down, and spoke, evidently, to his feet. “We heard . . . we heard the horsemistress talking with Paulina.”

  William stood very, very still. “Are you going to tell me what she said?” he asked softly. “Or shall I take it up with the housekeeper myself and tell her you told me?”

  The boy said in a rush, “They say Lord Francis, with the Council Lords Beeth and Daysmith and—I forget the rest—have their own militia. Men are going to Beeth House to enlist.”

  “That’s treason,” William said. He included the other boys with his gaze. “You all understand that.”

  The other three nodded, wide-eyed and silent.

  “And you?” he asked the pale-haired boy.

  Slowly, the boy raised his eyes—the black Fleckham eyes William and Francis both had. He said, “The horsemistress says tampering with the bloodlines is treason, Your Grace.”

  William’s fist closed around his quirt, and he almost pulled it from his belt. He imagined, briefly, striking the boy with it, teaching him a lesson he would remember forever.

  With a silent expulsion of angry breath, he released the quirt. He put his hand on the doorjamb and leaned on it in as negligent a pose as he could manage. “What’s your name, lad?”

  “Frederick, sir.”

  “I’ve forgotten who your parents are.”

  “My mother is your cousin,” Frederick said. “She named me for your father.”

  “Ah.” William straightened. “Well, Frederick, you’re very like my father. He had courage, and so do you. You’ll make a fine horsemaster.” He tried to hide his fury behind his crooked smile. The boy bowed and stepped back to join his fellows.

  William eyed them all once again, then turned sharply on the toe of his boot to leave the room. He felt their curious eyes on his back as he shut the door behind him. He stalked out through the gleaming foyer, down the broad steps, and across t
he courtyard to the stables. His breath came fast, puffing clouds of steam into the icy air.

  The stable-man came to meet him, with some story about the mare’s foreleg needing ice and rest, but William brushed him off. He wanted to get back to Diamond. He would send Slater to find out what was happening at Beeth House. And, he supposed, though he had no stomach for it, he would have to convene the Council. Constance, damn her, had been right. And if what young Frederick said was true, he needed to step in before things got out of hand.

  As he mounted the mare, and she limped out of the courtyard, a carronade fired in the bay. William pulled his quirt from his belt and whipped the horse, making her break into a painful, uneven trot.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THEthird-level class had divided itself in half. Lark and Hester and Anabel, and quiet Grace, were on one side of the issue. Beryl, Lillian, and Beatrice were on the other. Isobel was struggling to remain neutral.

  Bramble had shown up at the Academy sometime in the night. Herbert had found her waiting outside the stables when he came down that morning.

  “I think she was with Amelia,” Hester said, as they slipped out of their riding habits and into their nightdresses. “It worries me, but I’m worried about what’s happening here, too. We’ve had such terrible arguments. Beryl is the worst, because her father has convinced her that the Duchy will fall apart if the Duke’s authority is questioned.”

  Lark whispered back, “They’re willing to see the Academy closed in favor of the Fleckham School?”

  Hester grimaced. “One thinks the Duke won’t really do it, that it’s just talk; another thinks he must know better than anyone else does, just because he’s the Duke. And they talk about tradition.”

  “Tradition!” Lark shook her head, unable to grasp the idea. “But we’re part of the tradition, we and our bondmates!”

  “And they would say obedience to the Duke is tradition.”

  Lark folded her tabard and divided skirt, and stowed them in her bedside cabinet. As she slipped beneath the sheets, she sighed with pleasure. “ ’Tis so good to be home again,” she said.