Airs Beneath the Moon

by Toby Bishop

  Philippa said sharply, “Prince? Ridiculous. He’s never skittish. What were you doing?”

  Irina straightened, and swung her legs out of the window seat. “What do you mean, Philippa? We were practicing Airs, of course. Points and Reverses. Nothing your girls haven’t done a hundred times. Surely it’s what you meant for me to do!”

  Philippa held up an apologetic hand. “Irina, I didn’t mean—I wasn’t criticizing.”

  “You should hear yourself,” Irina said sourly.

  Philippa wanted to snap the same words back at her colleague, but a sudden, dragging weariness overtook her. “No doubt,” she said heavily. She pushed the table aside and stood up. “And now that I’ve made you angry, Irina, I have to ask you to take my flight again tomorrow.”

  Irina folded her arms, looking up into Philippa’s face. “Really.” She drew out the word, exaggerating the nasal accent of her Eastreach upbringing. “And are you going to tell me why you’re going to miss another drill?”

  Philippa touched a hand to the back of her neck. Her headache had grown unbearable. “No, Irina, I’m not. I should have let Margareth come and ask you herself, but she was exhausted, and now I am, too. Will you do this for me, or must I find someone else?” Her voice had grown sharp, but she was too tired and worried to discipline it.

  “Oh, I’ll do it,” Irina said. “You have seniority, and it’s not as if I have a flight of my own. And of course, if you’re on the Duke’s business . . . Extraordinary business . . .” She let the words trail off.

  Philippa became aware, as she lifted her head, that all the women in the room were listening to their exchange. She looked down at Irina. “How kind of you,” she said. She knew that acid dripped from her words, but she was simply beyond caring. She whirled, and met the curious gazes. It was too much, after such a long and troublesome day. She snapped, “And now, I bid all of you a good night’s sleep. I’m in desperate need, myself.” With her back straight and her head high, she marched out of the reading room and up to her own apartment. Her bootheels clicked angrily on the polished hardwood of the floor as she mounted the stairs.

  TIRED though she was, once she had taken off her riding habit, slipped into a thick flannel nightgown, and braided her hair for the night, Philippa found she couldn’t sleep. She pinched the wick of her lamp, and wrapped herself in a quilt to curl up in the wing chair beside her window.

  As the most senior of the Academy’s instructors, her rooms were spacious and well appointed. Her window looked directly out over the courtyard, with the Hall to her left, the Dormitory to her right. The stables and the paddocks lay open to her view, and if she leaned from her window, she could catch a glimpse of the yearlings in their pasture.

  Now she lay back in the chair, gazing across at the gambrel profile of the stables, limned in moonlight. Herbert, the stable-man, came out of the Hall and crossed the courtyard. An oc-hound rose from the shadows and trotted to meet him. Herbert, with a hand on the dog’s narrow head, went into the stables, and a moment later the window brightened in his upper apartment. All was in order at the Academy of the Air.

  Philippa drew the quilt to her chin, and thought about her exchange with Irina. She knew she wasn’t popular with her colleagues. It didn’t seem to matter that her flight was the most disciplined, the most accomplished. Only Margareth, and of course Duke Frederick himself, appeared to care that she and Winter Sunset had brought honor and respect to Oc through their service in the White City and at the Prince’s court in Isamar. She supposed that, as in her girlhood, her ambition and her discipline attracted envy. Her younger sisters, with their fine marriages and beautiful homes, still regarded her with uneasy resentment, despite the sacrifices she had been required to make. And her brother—

  Again the image of Brye Hamley intruded upon her thoughts. She didn’t truly know him, of course. But she did not believe for a moment that Master Hamley of Deeping Farm would have arranged his sister’s future to suit his own purposes.

  Her eyes stung, and she shook herself, furious at her weakness. Tired, she thought. That’s all it is. I’m tired.

  She forced herself out of the chair, and spread her quilt on the bed again. Matron had ordered her fire set, and a warming stone slipped beneath the sheets. Philippa climbed into bed, and laid her head on the pillow. Her headache began to recede, but images and memories danced through her brain as if she were fevered. Her sisters at Islington House, their silken skirts floating as they descended the curved staircase to meet their beaus. Her mother frowning over her older daughter, trying this hairstyle and that fabric, struggling to make her look more appealing. Her brother Meredith, upon her father’s death, with that cold light in his eye as he took her measure. And William’s handsome face, laughing at her . . .

  “Zito’s ears!” she swore aloud, and turned herself about in the bed, away from the view of the moonlit stables. What was it about the events of this day that had brought up old, buried slights? She thought she had purged them long ago, as the discarded bits of experience they were. She couldn’t imagine why meeting one unrefined country girl and her rough-edged brother should so upset her own composure.

  She thrust the thought away. None of it mattered. She would sleep, and in the morning she would see things in their proper perspective once again. It was simply a matter, as it always was, of discipline.

  FOUR

  “YOU’LL need a bath if you’re to sleep in the house again,” Nick said.

  He and Brye and Edmar stood in the kitchen, gazing at their sister. The prefect had departed at last, mumbling to himself about laws and the slowness of the mail coach cobs, the insolence of farm girls. Silent Edmar, returned from the quarry, frowned as his siblings recounted the events of the day.

  “But I can’t leave Tup alone,” Lark began.

  Brye put up a hand. “Good idea, Mistress Winter had. One of the goats. The milker.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll like her,” Lark said doubtfully, but Brye, pulling on his jacket, was already on his way out the kitchen door. She seized the long, padded coat she wore for night chores, and dashed after him.

  The cows lowed from the far side of the barn, having come down from the north pasture, their udders heavy with milk. Molly, the she-goat, bleated from the night pen, and Tup whimpered in his stall, his little hooves shifting in the straw. Lark glanced up at the cold white moon, already high above the eastern horizon. She was late with her chores, and had given no thought to supper. She hurried to catch up with Brye.

  “Let me do it,” she said to his broad back.

  He unlatched the gate to the night pen and stood back for her to sidle past him. The five goats crowded around her, two she-goats and three billies. She stroked their bony heads and tickled their wispy beards. Uplands goats were famed for the softness of the wool beneath their long, coarse outer coats. In the spring, they were sheared close, and the wool carded for the woollery in Willakeep, where it would be made into capes and cloaks for the highborn ladies of Osham. Molly, the little brown milker, turned sideways to present her full teats to Lark, bleating a plea for surcease.

  “I know, Molly,” Lark said, rubbing the goat’s back. “I’m late. Sorry.”

  Brye handed her a rope, and she looped it around Molly’s neck and coaxed her through the gate into the aisle. The other goats scuffled for position as they peered after Molly.

  Molly balked at the stall door, setting her feet and dropping her head. Tup threw up his head, his nostrils widening, his ears laid back. Lark stood with one foot in the stall, one in the aisle. She cast her brother a helpless glance.

  “Brye,” she said. “It’ll never work with you here.”

  Brye frowned, but he took a step back, and then another. “Wouldn’t hurt yon colt to spend a night alone,” he grumbled, but he turned his back and moved toward the door.

  Lark shot him a look, but she held her tongue. The strange day had worn all their tempers thin. There was a great pile of things to think about, but the heap wo
uld look smaller, she knew, when they all were rested. She heard the outer door of the barn open and close, and her brother’s heavy footsteps cross the yard. Tup dropped his head, and flicked his ears forward. He gave a curious whicker. Molly shook her wispy beard at the colt.

  Lark bent to murmur into the she-goat’s floppy ear. “Silly! It’s just a different stall. And look, you can’t be afraid of Tup! Why, he’s hardly bigger than you are! Come along, now. I’ll milk you right here.” She picked up the waiting bucket, and rattled it. Molly bleated again, and followed the bucket.

  Step by slow step, Lark coaxed the goat into Tup’s stall, and latched the gate. She put the bucket beneath the goat’s swollen teats, and then squatted, leaning her head into the goat’s soft flank. Molly groaned with relief as the milk began to ring against the tin.

  A moment later Lark felt a push at her hands from Molly’s other side. She lifted her head to look across the she-goat’s back.

  She could see only the arch of Tup’s slender neck, bending neatly as the foal tucked his nose beneath the goat’s udder. She took her hands away, and let him find the teat. He was nursing! Somehow, suddenly, it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  “Aren’t I the fool!” Lark exclaimed softly. “Should have thought of this myself.”

  She stayed where she was, her hand on the goat’s shoulder. Molly rolled an eye at her, and then twisted her head to look at the colt. Tup butted at her gently, and Molly lifted her ribs a little to give him better access. The comforting sound of the foal’s suckling filled the stall.

  Lark stood up slowly, and leaned against the wall. The foal’s legs had steadied, and his eyes, widely spaced in his finely cut head, glowed with intelligence and spirit. His wings clung to his ribs, even when she tried to push a gentle finger beneath them. His coat was rough and soft at the same time, baby fur. His ears were small and pointed. His hooves, so neat and tiny, gleamed like black glass. He was the most beautiful creature Lark had ever seen.

  “Lark!” It was Brye, standing in the yard outside the barn. “Leave them to it, Lark. Come to the house.”

  Reluctantly, obediently, Lark let herself out of the stall. Tup lifted his head to watch her go, but he didn’t whimper. She felt both relieved and a little disappointed as she followed her brother across the barnyard. As she passed into the warmth of the house, she noticed that the buds on the rue-tree beside the kitchen door were about to burst into leaf. When had that happened? Spring was rising around her, and she was too distracted to see it.

  She came into the kitchen just as Nick passed the Tarn over a bubbling pot, twirling its ragged skirts through the steam. The bathscreen, the painted scenes on its three panels almost worn away by generations of Hamley hands, had been set up in one corner. Nick looked up at her, and indicated the screen with a bob of his head. “Tub’s steaming,” he said. “Best fetch some clean clothes and pop yourself in.” He crossed to the counter to restore the Tarn to its hook. “And wash your hair, Lark. You look like one of your own goats.”

  She hurried up the narrow stair to the darkness of her room. Without bothering to light the lamp, she pulled a tabard and skirt out of the chest, hoping they were clean. She found smallclothes and stockings in the darkness, and her brush and comb, and carried the lot back down to the kitchen.

  Her brothers had gathered around the table. Nick grinned at her. Edmar nodded his wordless greeting. Brye was thumping bowls and spoons on the table, slicing ragged hunks of cheddar from the wheel.

  “I’ll be quick,” Lark said.

  “Thorough,” Brye commanded, without looking up.

  Lark caught sight of her wavering reflection in the side of the soup pot, and then looked swiftly away, chagrined. “Zito’s ears,” she said. “I’ve never been in such need of a wash.”

  “That’s my thinking,” Nick said, laughing.

  Lark ducked behind the screen. “Half an hour, and I’ll be a new girl, I promise.”

  Edmar and Brye were busily chewing their bread and cheese. Nick said cheerily, “No need to go that far,” he said. “We all quite like the old one.”

  Lark tossed her filthy clothes in the corner, and lowered herself into the tub. She smiled as she reached for the fresh cake of mercantile soap Nick had laid out for her. Tup and Molly were managing together. A new and glorious future lay ahead of her. At this moment, it seemed there was no difficulty she could not master. She stretched, and then sank to her nose in the hot water, giving herself up to the pleasure of her much-delayed bath.

  THE next morning, Lark woke with a start to sunshine pouring in her window. She was surprised to realize that she had slept the night through without waking. When she had first tucked herself under her thick, age-softened quilt, she felt a qualm at being separated from the foal, and strained her ears for his cry. But she had heard nothing, and it had been too long since she slept in her own bed. She bolted upright, and leaped up to pull on her clothes and hurry to the barn.

  She found Tup and Molly curled snugly together in one corner of the box stall. Tup came to his feet when he saw her, and Molly followed him, treading in his footsteps in the straw like a brown shadow. The foal nosed Lark’s hands, and his little cry was easier this morning, more of a whicker than a sob. She laughed, and rubbed his cheek, breathing in the sweet musk of his skin. “There now, my Tup,” she said. “Full at last, aren’t you?” He tossed his head up and down, up and down, as if in agreement. Molly crowded close to be petted. Lark laughed, and opened the half-door. “Come on out, now, you two. The sun’s on the yard, and it’s lovely warm.”

  She went about her chores, chuckling over her shoulder as the foal and the goat ambled behind her, making an odd little procession from barn to kitchen to coldcellar. She negotiated the three steps down to the coldcellar with Tup on her heels, and Molly bleating above. Nick was waiting for her, holding the slanted door open. “Now stand back, rascal,” he told the foal. “My customers won’t want horsehair in their milk!”

  There was barely room for Lark and Nick together in the coldcellar. Tup stood with his forefeet on the floor, his slender hindquarters angled up to the top step, watching as Lark poured the milk through cheesecloth filters into big bottles. He backed away when Nick came out with the full bottles, and Lark came after with the yellow slab of butter she had churned and formed the day before. It glistened in its copper tray, ready to be portioned out to the housewives who would hail Nick’s oxcart as it passed their doors.

  The ox stood patiently waiting, his stubby horns gleaming in the cool sunshine. Nick pulled the canvas sheet over his cargo and tied it with thongs to the cart’s rail. “Best come with me, lass,” he teased. “Make sure I do this right.”

  “I don’t like to leave the foal,” she said.

  He flashed the white smile the housewives of Willakeep loved. “Thought you’d say so. Did you write down that awful woman’s receipt, then, for the mash? I’ll swap the miller some fresh butter for the grain.”

  “I did,” she said, pulling the scrap of paper from her pocket. She handed it to him, and he climbed up on the wooden seat and picked up the ox’s leather reins. “But, Nick,” she added, one hand on the side of the cart. “Did you think Mistress Winter was awful?”

  “That I did!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Bony and hard, and so snooty you’d think she was a duchess.”

  “She could be,” Lark said as she stepped back. “She might be Lady Something-or-other if she weren’t a horsemistress.”

  “Lady Leanshanks,” Nick said with a wink. He pulled his nose down with his fingers. “Lady Longnose. Lady Lackbosom!” He pressed his hands against his chest, pushing up his shirt to make meager mock breasts.

  “Oh, Nick!” she said, waving him away. “Be off with you before my butter melts!”

  He clucked to the ox, and it stirred to life, its head swinging from side to side as it took its first plodding steps. The well-oiled wheels creaked only once, and then rolled almost silently over the packed dirt of the lane. Nick wave
d, and settled a wide-brimmed hat on his head. Tup nosed Lark’s shoulder, and she circled his neck with her arm as she watched Nick and the oxcart trundle off between the hedgerows.

  “Tonight, little Tup,” she promised. “Tonight you’ll have mash.” She turned toward the house. There were beds to be made, dishes to be washed, soup to be started. Still, she stood for a moment, admiring the neat yard and buildings of Deeping Farm. The midmorning sun warmed her neck, a sure sign that spring was at hand. The rain of the preceding day had washed the landscape clean. Doves cooed in the eaves of the barn, and blackbirds chittered in the hedgerow and the rue-tree beside the kitchen door. It seemed life was about to burst from every tree, every shrub, every dormant bulb and seed. Lark’s heart lifted as if it were filled with air, and a strange sensation stirred in her belly. She felt for all the world as if she, too, were about to blossom.

  PHILIPPA rose early, and begged a cup of tea and a slice of buttered bread from the kitchens, to avoid the delay of breakfast hour in the Hall. The morning sky was spring-bright, with the gentlest wind from the south. A perfect day for a flight.

  She pulled on her gloves as she strolled to the stables. The long-legged yearlings in their pasture raced across the rain-washed grass to nod their heads at her above the fence poles, and then dash away again, tails flying, wings flexing against their wingclips as they galloped and bucked. Philippa slowed her steps to watch them.

  There was no lovelier sight in all the Duchy of Oc than these exuberant creatures. They were white, black, dapple gray, red, gold, and brown. Their bodies were more slender, their bones finer than their wingless brethren. Philippa scorned all superstition, and yet, watching these young ones twinkle across the grass, she could almost believe the stories of their descent from the glittering Old Ones. It was nonsense, of course, and no one knew that better than she did. Every winged horse was the result of generations of selective breeding, of the careful, even obsessive monitoring of each of the three bloodlines, of the cautious husbanding of Oc’s most precious commodity.