Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 03

by Airs of Night

  Suzanne spoke softly. “Eduard, give her time. Philippa’s had a terrible shock, and she needs time to think.”

  Philippa whirled, her hands on her hips. “I need no time, Suzanne, though I thank you! Winter Sunset will live out her days in peace, and that’s all there is to it!”

  “No,” Eduard said flatly. “She’ll be put down, Philippa. I’ll do it myself if it will make you feel better.”

  “If you touch her,” Philippa hissed, “I’ll kill you.”

  “Philippa!” Suzanne cried.

  Eduard said, “Calm down, Philippa. Hysterics won’t help.”

  “Hysterics!” Philippa pulled her flying gloves from her belt—the gloves she would never need again—and began to crease them between her fingers. “Eduard, don’t be a fool.” She slapped the gloves into one palm. “You cannot force me into this.”

  “I can order you,” he said grimly. “By the authority vested in me by the Duke.”

  Philippa gave a bitter laugh. “We have no Duke.”

  “The investiture is tomorrow,” Suzanne said softly.

  “Fine. Ask the new Duke then,” Philippa snapped. “But for today, don’t give me orders you can’t enforce.”

  She spun about and stalked through the door of Suzanne’s office, slamming it behind her. She blundered through the foyer, so blinded by tears that she saw none of its familiar marble and glass, none of the ancient portraits of winged horses that lined the walls. She stumbled out the double doors and down the stairs. She was halfway to the stables when Suzanne caught her.

  “Philippa! Stop! Listen to me, please.”

  Philippa stopped where she was, but she couldn’t look at Suzanne. “There’s nothing more to say,” she said in a low tone.

  “But Philippa—where will you go? Where can you go with a winged horse who is so badly injured she can barely walk? I know how you feel—”

  “You couldn’t possibly know how I feel.”

  Suzanne sighed. “No, you’re right,” she said sadly. “I can’t know how it feels. But I know that you have a hard road ahead of you, Philippa. Even now, Winter Sunset may die.”

  “She may. But I’m not going to make that happen.”

  Suzanne said in a shaking voice, “Please, Philippa. I can stop Eduard from putting Sunny down, but I can’t force him to make room in the stables for you if he won’t do it.”

  “I’ll go to Francis,” Philippa said stubbornly.

  “I think the new Duke will have his hands full for some time,” Suzanne said. “And time is something you

  don’t have.”

  Philippa was trying to think, but the effort of controlling herself was making her head ache and her thoughts muddy. Where could she go? She would never be welcome at Islington House. Meredith would blame her for the loss of his advantages with the Ducal Palace. “I could go to Beeth House,” she said feebly. “They could make room.”

  “Perhaps so,” Suzanne said. “But would Sunny be happy there, Philippa? And just as importantly, would you?”

  Now Philippa lifted her head and stared at Suzanne. “Could you do it?” she asked hoarsely. “If it were Star Gazer?”

  Suzanne’s face reflected all of Philippa’s misery. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “Come and see her,” Philippa said suddenly. “Come see Sunny, then tell me what you would do.”

  Suzanne took a step back. “I can’t,” she said. “I have to think of the whole Academy, not just one horse—or one horsemistress.”

  “And I have to think of Sunny.”

  “You have to take her away if you’re not going to obey Eduard’s order.” Suzanne’s voice was firm, though her mouth trembled.

  “Fine,” Philippa said. She had no energy for sympathy with Suzanne’s plight. She turned away from her and strode carelessly on into the stables. Her shoulder struck the doorjamb as she walked past, and she half ran down the aisle, clutched by an irrational fear that Eduard could have somehow got by her, got to Winter Sunset with his lethal potion. It made no sense, of course, but her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She staggered into Sunny’s stall and found her with her head down, leaning against the wall. Blood stained the bandage over her wing, and her eyes were nearly closed. Philippa sagged to the straw, careless of her fresh skirt. She sat with her legs extended, her back against the wall. She would let Sunny sleep as long as she could, then . . . what? She had no idea what to do next.

  She rested her head in her hands. It seemed she was not yet out of tears.

  THEmorning was half-gone when Larkyn roused her.

  “Mistress Winter!” the girl said, from the aisle. “Mistress Winter. Brye is here, and he has a wagon.”

  “A wagon?” Philippa said. She had fallen asleep. Her tears had dried on her cheeks, and her face felt stiff and crusty.

  “Aye!” Larkyn opened the gate and stepped in. She carried a halter in one hand and a pile of fresh sheets clamped under the other arm. “Aye, ’tis the same wagon that brought you here from the docks, he says.

  Come now, he’s pulled it up right in front of the door, and the oxen are yoked and ready. He rigged a very nice ramp, and I asked Matron to pack your things.”

  Philippa struggled to her feet and winced at the pang in her bruised shoulder. “Larkyn, what’s happening?

  What’s this about?”

  “I heard you,” Larkyn said simply. “I came out for breakfast, and I heard you and Mistress Star in the courtyard. Brye came to say good-bye to me, and I told him all about it.” She went to Sunny, stroking her with her small, sure hands, and slipped the halter over her head. “Come now, Winter Sunset,” she said. “You and your mistress are going home to the Uplands.”

  “Uplands?” Philippa said. She felt sluggish and stupid. “Why the Uplands?”

  Larkyn coaxed Sunny to turn, step by careful step. “I told Brye you had no place to go with Sunny,” she said. “And he’s going to take you to Deeping Farm.” She persuaded Sunny to take another step, and then another. “ ’Twill be a long ride, but we’ve padded the wagon with blankets, and I’ve put a covered bucket of water behind the seat.”

  Philippa stood back, allowing the girl to lead Sunny into the aisle. Sunny walked gingerly, ponderously, as if every step pained her. For one awful moment, Philippa doubted her own decision, but when Larkyn looked back at her, her eyes full of hope and trust, her doubt faded. It was an enormous relief to let the girl coax Sunny down the aisle, to follow obediently behind her. When Bramble came out of the tack room and paced beside her, that felt right, too.

  Tall and broad and stable as a rock, Brye Hamley stood at the head of the brace of oxen. It was all too

  easy to give herself and Sunny into his hands. Between them, she and Larkyn led Sunny up into the wagon. Larkyn checked the binding of the wing herself and readjusted the blankets arranged over the sides so that they would protect Sunny from the jouncing of the cart. She murmured into Sunny’s ear, and the mare lay down on her good side, well cushioned by mounds of blankets over a generous bed of straw.

  Brye said, “ ’Twill be a long day. You can sit there, on that cushion. Beside the mare.”

  And Philippa, gratefully and wearily, did just that. She could barely muster the energy to thank him, but that didn’t seem to matter. He embraced his sister, then went to chirp to the oxen. Larkyn stood in the snow-dusted courtyard, waving, as the wagon pulled away.

  The oxen set a steady, ponderous pace up the lane, and Philippa put her head back against the rail of the wagon. She waved to Larkyn once, then lapsed into a sort of daze. She wondered for a wild moment if she were dreaming.

  But there was Brye Hamley’s strong figure up ahead. And here was her poor Sunny, her grand girl, lying in comfort on a bed of straw and blankets.

  She put one hand on Sunny’s neck and let the other lie idle in her lap as she watched the familiar, beloved outlines of the Academy of the Air dwindle behind her, little by little, as the oxcart carried her away int
o the west.

  FORTY-TWO

  THEsnow that fell in the Uplands was different from that of Osham. It was cleaner and dryer, and its purity lasted longer, great, unbroken blankets of white filling the empty fields, mounding against the winter-dry hedgerows. It glittered under the pale sun, and under the black night sky it glistened like silver leaf. Brye said the snow would not leave until spring.

  Philippa lay in the old bed under the sloping eaves, listening to the sounds of Deeping Farm waking.

  Everyone rose a little later in the winter. Even the crowing of the rooster was muted by the snow. The sounds of water running in from the well, of the clink of kettles in the kitchen, of doors opening and closing, were softer than she remembered.

  Or perhaps it was she herself who was softer. Sadness had made her vulnerable. Grief rendered her empathetic to every emotion around her.

  It was not a change Philippa welcomed. She thought, rebelliously, that she had enough emotional weight to carry without picking up everyone else’s.

  She had been remembering Margareth, and wondering if, when Margareth’s flying career had ended, she had felt this same crushing sense of uselessness. Margareth had said to her once that every horsemistress feels old when she loses her mount. Philippa didn’t feel exactly old, but she felt as if she had shed the woman she had been the way a chick sheds its shell, and a new, painfully tender creature had emerged.

  It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.

  She rolled to her side and thrust back the thick comforter that smelled of summer sunshine. The estimable Peony must have aired it on the line behind the house, when the kitchen garden was still in bloom and the broomstraw and bloodbeets were just coming on. Philippa would have been in Marinan then, flying every day to the mountain lake, coming back to hearty country meals, breathing the scent of lavender from morning till night.

  Remembering those sun-warmed days, the lazy flights she and Sunny had made, brought fresh tears to her eyes, and she rubbed them away impatiently. “Kalla’s heels!” she muttered to herself, hurrying to the basin to splash water into the ewer, then onto her face. “I’m sick to death of weeping!” In her adulthood, she had cried only once, when Margareth died. She wondered if unshed tears built up in a person, like water behind a dam. If that was the case, her own dam, which she had thought impregnable, had broken to pieces.

  She dried her hands and face, then pulled on her tabard and skirt. As she brushed her hair, she pondered

  finding some other clothes. Wearing the riding habit probably made no sense now, but she was loath to part with it. Her mother had despaired of her when she was a girl, when no one could interest her in the silks and satins that so intrigued her sisters. She had always been content with the riding habit. It felt as natural to her as her own skin, and she couldn’t imagine what she would wear if she put it aside.

  As she pulled her hair back, more tears threatened. She had no further need for the rider’s knot, either.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. She undid her hair, and tried it this way and that, to see if it made any difference.

  In the end, she tied it back again, clicking her tongue impatiently. She would wear the rider’s knot forever. It suited her. And no one cared how she looked, in any case.

  She slipped silently down the stairs and took her coat from the row of pegs by the kitchen door. Pamella and Peony were both in the kitchen, their backs turned to her. Peony was just in the act of twirling the bedraggled fetish over the teapot, which made Philippa long for Larkyn.

  Philippa remembered, with aching clarity, watching the fourteen-year-old Larkyn give the teapot a spin with the Tarn the day they had first met, in this very kitchen. Philippa thought then that she knew something about the world. She had learned great and painful lessons since.

  Pamella was stirring something on the close stove and humming to herself. Her little boy would be following Edmar about somewhere. Brandon adored his stepfather, and walked in his footsteps constantly whenever the big, silent man was at home. It was strange to hear Pamella singing, even so quietly. She still almost never spoke, and Philippa supposed now that she never would. It was one of many tragedies laid at William’s door.

  That door was now closed forever. It did no good to dwell on what was behind it.

  The air was as clear and clean as the fresh snowfall, and the light, reflecting from every crystalline surface, nearly blinded Philippa. She shaded her eyes with her hand as she slipped out beneath the bare branches of the rue-tree that guarded the kitchen steps. She pulled on her coat, shivering a little, as she hurried across the yard to the barn.

  It was warmer there, and the smell of straw and hay and animals comforted Philippa. Bramble rose from her bed of blankets and came to her, moving stiffly, but waving her plume of tail. Like Philippa, she would never be young again, but life at Deeping Farm seemed to agree with her. Brandon adored her, and Pamella cooked special food for her. Peony gave her treats whenever she showed up at the kitchen door.

  Philippa stroked the oc-hound’s silky head, then picked up a measure of grain and carried it down to the box stall. Bramble padded companionably at her side. The goats bleated from their night pen as she passed, a peaceful sound that was more greeting than complaint.

  Sunny’s whicker at her approach lifted her spirits. She hadn’t done that in a long time. Hurrying toward her, Philippa thought Sunny’s eyes were a little brighter, that she carried her head a little higher this morning. Philippa fretted over Sunny’s efforts to stretch the wing that would never open again, but she was healing. And Philippa was beginning to hope.

  She went into the stall and set down the grain. Sunny pressed her forehead against her chest, and Philippa stroked her neck, combed her forelock with her fingers, caressed her wide, smooth cheek.

  Sunny tried to rustle her wings, the old signal to request a flight. Philippa touched the injured wing with the palm of her hand, and her voice was as broken as the wing. “It will mend, sweetheart, and then we will ride. We won’t fly, but we’ll ride. I promise you that.”

  She retrieved the oats from the floor and held the measure in her hands while Sunny nibbled them. She filled Sunny’s water bucket, changed the bandage on her wing, and was about to begin mucking out the stall when Brye appeared in the doorway to the barn, keeping his distance from Sunny.

  “Wish I could do that for you,” he said.

  “I have nothing else to do,” Philippa answered. She dug the pitchfork into the damp straw and spilled it into the waiting barrow. “Did you come to get me for breakfast?”

  “Aye.” He leaned against the doorjamb, his solid figure limned by light from the snow-filled yard behind him.

  “You can go ahead, Brye,” Philippa said, lifting another forkful. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Nay, no rush.” He was bareheaded, and the reflected light gleamed on the silver that threaded his hair.

  Philippa liked looking at him. She liked watching him work about the farm, and she liked seeing him at table with his family. It had been a long time since the crushes and infatuations of her girlhood. She remembered those feelings, but this was different. It was less exciting, but it had a sense of permanency and predictability, and she liked that, too. She would always, she thought, like looking at Brye Hamley, whatever her future might bring.

  She scraped up the last of the wet straw from the floor. She scattered a little sawdust and covered it with fresh dry straw, then patted Sunny again. “I’ll be back soon, sweetheart. We’ll go out for a bit of a walk.”

  Sunny lifted her head from the hay bin to breathe in Philippa’s smell. Her velvety lips just touched Philippa’s cheek. Philippa closed her eyes, tasting her bondmate’s scent. She couldn’t fly, but she still had her beautiful girl. She was grateful.

  When she stepped out of the stall and closed the half-gate, she saw that Brye had already emptied the barrow. They walked out into the yard together. She noticed how his eyes narrowed against the glare of sun on snow as he assess
ed his land and his house for anything that needed doing, any branch or blade that required his attention.

  As they reached the rue-tree, he stopped and gestured toward the barn. “Thought I’d enlarge it,” he said, pointing. “Make Sunny’s stall bigger.”

  “Oh,” Philippa said faintly, a little uncertainly. “But—you don’t need to do that, Brye. It’s a little cramped for her, perhaps, but as a temporary stall, it’s fine.”

  “Temporary?” he growled, bringing his gaze down to hers.

  She felt her cheeks warm, like a girl’s. “Well, yes. We can’t stay here forever.”

  He said gruffly, “Don’t see why not.”

  She spread her hands. “But—you do understand, don’t you? Sunny could live like this for ten years or more. Fifteen.”

  His customary hard expression softened. “I hope she does.” He tilted his head a little, as if considering what to say to her, then, surprisingly, he smiled. He had Nick’s handsome smile, his teeth very white in his tanned face. She had never seen that smile before.

  She stared at him. When he took her hand, and held it between his big ones, her heart fluttered so she thought he must see it beneath her tabard, and she had to drop her eyes.

  “You like it here,” he said. “On Deeping Farm.”

  “I love it.” She felt as awkward as she had at sixteen. Irritated at her own foolishness, she lifted her head, and said too sharply, “But it’s never really mattered what I like. My life is not my own.”

  He looked a little taken aback by her tone, and she gave a small shrug, careful not to dislodge her hand from his. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that—I devoted my life to the winged horses, and to the Duke’s service, and now—it’s all in pieces. And at the moment I don’t know what it was for.