Airs Beneath the Moon

by Toby Bishop

Lark stared at the old man for a moment, and then she giggled. “Really? Pig?” She approached the pony with care, from his left hindquarter, and gingerly fitted her left boot into the stirrup iron. Pig tossed his head, and shuffled away from her, almost spilling her to the ground. Her foot popped out of the stirrup, and Bramble growled.

  Herbert gave the bridle a vicious yank. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “No need,” Lark said. “Yon Pig is an unhappy beast.”

  “That he is, Miss, and always was.”

  Lark took a step closer to the pony. He was, she thought, like one of the he-goats on the prod, anxious and angry. Once one of them had bitten her arm, a deep bite that left a circle of tooth marks that never completely faded. Brye had threatened to slaughter the billy on the spot, but Lark had spotted the nasty bit of blackstone embedded in his forefoot. When she had soothed him into letting her pull it out, he gave them no more trouble. That billy was devoted to Lark from that day forward. She could do anything with him she wanted to. Whenever she saw the scar on her arm, she reminded herself to look carefully at her animals. She didn’t believe an animal could be evil by nature. Beasts behaved as they did with cause.

  “Herbert, who rides Pig?”

  “Rosellen, mostly.”

  “Is she such a fine rider, then?”

  “I don’t know about that. She rides him bareback, off to the market or out to the Ruins on her off day.”

  Lark came close to Pig again. The saddle seemed to sit oddly upon the fat pony’s broad back. “Herbert,” Lark ventured, “maybe he’s better-tempered without the saddle.”

  Herbert shrugged. “Don’t matter, Miss. You’re supposed to be trying the saddle. Can’t ride a winged horse without it.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We should hurry.”

  “Let’s try it once, Herbert. Take the saddle off, and let’s see if he’s happier.”

  It took a few moments, but Herbert managed to get the saddle off without being bitten. Lark waited at a safe distance, on Herbert’s insistence, but when the saddle lay on the ground, its cinches and breast strap sprawled around it, she asked for the reins.

  It took some persuading, but at last Herbert collected both reins in his hand, and held them out to her. He said doubtfully, “Careful of them teeth, now.”

  Lark took the reins, and stood facing Pig. He had stopped tossing his nose and shifting his feet. Bramble, too, relaxed. Her ears came up, and though she stayed close to Lark, pressing against her thigh, her feathery tail began to wave again. “The saddle hurt him, Herbert.”

  “Could be,” Herbert allowed grudgingly. “Guess he’s too fat for it.”

  “He needs exercise.”

  “No one has time for a bad-tempered pony, Miss. Winged horses to think of.”

  Lark sidestepped, and approached Pig at the point of his shoulder. She tightened the reins as she moved, keeping a close watch. His pink lips stayed closed as she pulled his head gently to her. His chin dropped into her hand, and she stood a moment, letting him sniff her palm.

  “Poor old Pig,” she said. “Silly old Piglet. Bad saddle, wasn’t it? But it’s gone now. Just you and me, Piglet, you and me and Bramble. We’ll have a little jaunt, shall we?” She ran her hand up his withers and scratched, where she knew the goats liked to be scratched. His withers came only to her shoulders, and a moment later, she shinnied herself up on his back. She sat still, stroking his thick neck, hoping he wouldn’t choose to throw her right back off.

  The pony quivered, but otherwise stood still. Lark let the rein out, bit by bit, until his head lifted. She said softly, “Let’s go, Piglet. Let’s walk.”

  It was only the dry paddock, and it was only a fat pony with a back like an enormous roll of broomstraw, but Lark was glad to feel a horse beneath her once again. She wasn’t aware of guiding the pony, or even of Herbert standing guard in the center of the paddock, but it felt lovely. Pig lumbered more than he walked, but she didn’t care. It simply felt right, the warmth of horseflesh beneath her thighs, the coarse mane under her palms. She didn’t bother with the reins, letting them fall loosely from her hands. She didn’t think about how she let Pig know what she wanted him to do, but it happened, just the same. It had been like that with Char, and the memory brought nostalgic tears to her eyes.

  “What in Kalla’s name are you doing?”

  Lark startled, and twisted on Pig’s back to look at the entrance to the paddock. She expected Mistress Strong, was ready for her irritation at finding Lark riding bareback. Instead, she saw Petra Sweet, her hands on her hips, her head raised high. Herbert stood uncertainly, the saddle in his hands, its cinches trailing in the dirt. Bramble, pacing beside Pig just where Lark’s ankle hung down over his wide girth, whirled, and made a noise in her throat.

  Lark took a deep breath, and lifted the reins, whispering, “Stop now, Pig.”

  The pony stopped. Lark lifted her right leg over his withers, and slid to the ground. As she faced Petra, she brushed at the seat of her riding skirt, sure it was covered with brown and white pony hair. “I—I was told to ride P—the pony,” she said.

  “With,” Petra drawled, her voice dropping in disgust, “a saddle , Goat-girl. Not bareback like some Uplands peasant.”

  Lark lifted her chin, and said sharply, “I am an Uplands peasant, and the saddle doesn’t fit poor Pig. I couldn’t magick it, so I did what I could.”

  “Magick it? What are you, some kind of witchwoman?” Petra laughed. “Better not let the horsemistresses hear you talk like that. No one holds with smallmagics here.”

  Herbert cleared his throat, and came up to Lark to take Pig’s reins. “Exercise was good for him, Miss,” he said quietly, his back to Petra. “I’ll look for a better saddle, shall I?”

  In a clear and carrying voice, Lark said, “Aye, Herbert, I thank you. I’ll try to work some of that fat off him.”

  “It’s perfect,” Petra said. “The Pig and the peasant.”

  Lark turned on her heel, and set out across the paddock for the stables. Bramble trotted beside her, her silky head brushing her arm, her tail waving. Petra called something, but Lark pretended not to hear. Her snappy tongue had already gotten the best of her. There was no need to make things worse.

  PHILIPPA’S reduced flight was a somber group. They adjusted their patterns to cover for the loss of Prince and Geraldine, but there was little joy in their flying. It would return, Philippa hoped, as time healed their sorrow and shock. For the moment, as she drilled Graces, her heart, too, was heavy. She had dreamed, the night before, of Alana Rose, seeing her once again spinning out of control, her Ocmarin filly screaming as she fell, Alana’s terror silent and horrible. Philippa had been the flight leader. It fell to her to go to them first, to come upon Alana’s limp and broken body, to see her filly’s mangled legs. She had to order someone to bring a knife so that she could put an end to Summer Rose’s suffering. She thought her nightmares of the raid on the South Tower had been vanquished years before. Some memories, she supposed, never die.

  Philippa signaled, and the flyers reformed Open Columns. Alana’s loss had at least been honorable, a death in the service of the Duke, a sacrifice made to preserve the Duchy and its winged horses. And now? William threatened to poison it all, to tarnish the honor and the reputation of the bloodlines, and Philippa didn’t understand why.

  William of Oc had been a dark presence throughout her life, it seemed, since she was sixteen years old. The conflict had begun then. It had been a confusing time for her, when she didn’t understand his resentment of her closeness to his father, when she was wounded, as only a young girl can be, by his rejection of her. Frederick had erased all her pain and confusion by bonding her to Winter Sunset, but now, as Frederick grew weaker, William grew stronger. He was up to something, but she couldn’t guess what it was. She hoped the Council of Lords could rein him in, if necessary.

  She signaled to Elizabeth to lead the flight in. Sunny hovered at Quarters while she watched them land, experienced riders all, skilled h
orses soaring down over the treetops to land nimbly in the soft grass. The midafternoon sun glowed on the whitewashed stables, the tiled roofs of the Domicile and the Hall, the beech trees turning autumn gold along the lanes.

  On an impulse, Philippa laid the rein on Sunny’s neck and shifted her weight. The mare, freed from Quarters, surged to her right, her wings driving downward with a joyous burst of energy. Skeptic though Philippa was, such a moment was full of magic, Kalla’s magic, that needed no fetish nor icon nor spell nor potion. In such a moment, she and Sunny owned the sky.

  An hour, Philippa thought. She would give herself, and Sunny, an hour away, to fly above the hills. For an hour she would not think about Prince, worry about Margareth, fret over her difficulties with her colleagues, or about Larkyn Hamley and her crossbred colt. She loosened Sunny’s rein, and gave herself up to the perfect accord between bondmates.

  Sunny wheeled to the west, her wing muscles swelling beneath Philippa’s thighs, her mane streaming back over Philippa’s gloved hands. At this moment, Philippa felt as she had when she was a student, with no care except the mastery of the Airs, the strength of her mount, the future before her as rich a landscape as the one that swept beneath her now.

  They flew over newly mown fields, above work crews harvesting their crops of fruit and grain, above twisting lanes marked out by leaves of flame. Philippa’s saddle felt as much a part of her as her own boots, and the wind in her face was as sweet as perfume.

  For fifteen minutes Sunny winged to the west, and then to the north. To the east, between their flight path and Osham, lay the Ducal Palace. As Philippa glanced over her right shoulder, she saw two flying horses lift from its emerald paddocks and bank toward the White City. Their horsemistresses were slender specks of black against the slanting rays of the sun. Couriers, perhaps. She had loved flying for Duke Frederick, working for the betterment of the Duchy. How smug her brother Meredith had been, believing he had succeeded in strengthening the family’s position! Frederick had trusted her with the most confidential messages and tasks. It had driven Meredith mad when Philippa would tell him nothing, and refused to support his schemes. The rift between Philippa and her brother had grown so wide she doubted it could ever be bridged.

  Philippa brought Sunny around to the left, to make a wide arc back toward the Academy. She glanced down once more, and recognized the broad, low outlines of Fleckham House, William’s private home. To think that she might be dwelling there even now as William’s wife, chained to the ground, locked into a role she must surely have come to hate! The thought gave her a spasm of sympathy for the poor lady who lived that life, and fresh joy in her own freedom.

  She saw that the estate had expanded since her last visit, with an extra stable added on its western border, shielded from the house and the road by a grove of beech trees. A small band of wingless horses cropped grass in a long, fenced pasture. Philippa wondered who rode them. She had never seen William ride anything but his speedy brown gelding, and it was said that Lady Constance lived in seclusion, rarely stirring out of doors.

  What fools we are when we are young, she thought. And how easily hurt. William’s laughter, when she had professed her desire to be his wife, had cut her to her soul, and Meredith’s scorn had been salt in the wound. Twenty years had passed since that day, yet still she remembered William and Meredith speaking of her figure and her face as if she were an ox on the block.

  Or a winged horse to be assessed for the bloodlines.

  Sunny slowed as they neared the Academy grounds, and stilled her wings. As they dropped toward the return paddock, Philippa felt the weight of her responsibilities return, as if intensified by the pull of the land.

  Sunny landed with a few running steps, and cantered easily across the grass, her wings floating beside her. Rosellen came out to greet them.

  “Had a nice flight, Mistress Winter?” she asked.

  “Yes, very nice, Rosellen.” Philippa handed over Sunny’s reins. Rosellen touched the mare’s shoulder, and waited for her to fold her wings before she started toward the stables.

  Philippa let herself out of the return paddock. Stripping off her gloves, she turned, and was startled to see the oxcart waiting in front of the Hall, the tall man just climbing down from its driving seat.

  Philippa tucked the gloves into her belt as she crossed the courtyard. “Master Hamley,” she said. She stepped around the ox, who stood flicking his tail against buzzing flies.

  “Mistress Winter.” Brye Hamley took off his hat and bowed to her, a very creditable gesture of courtesy. She had almost forgotten what an impressive figure he made. He wore country clothes, a collarless shirt of openweave linen and canvas trousers with a wide, much-worn belt of leather, but these simple garments seemed only to enhance the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, the ridged muscles of his thighs. His one concession to traveling garb, she noted, was a pair of worn but well-polished boots.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” Philippa said. “I hope nothing is amiss?”

  “I’ve learned something,” he said bluntly. “Thought you lot should know.”

  FIFTEEN

  PHILIPPA raised her eyebrows. “This is not about your sister? I assure you, we are taking good care of her.”

  “I’ll see her while I’m here.”

  Philippa nodded toward the Hall. “Come inside, Master Hamley. I will introduce you to the Headmistress.”

  “My ox?” he said.

  “Ah.” Philippa glanced over the oxen’s broad back to the stables, where both Rosellen and Herbert stood in the doorway, goggling at the cart and the beast in its traces. Philippa beckoned, and Herbert came trotting across to her. “Herbert,” she said. “This is Master Hamley, of Deeping Farm, the Uplands. He is Larkyn’s eldest brother.”

  Herbert bobbed his head at Brye, and Brye nodded in return.

  “Perhaps you could find a spot in the shade for his cart-ox,” Philippa said. “And some water, and a bit of hay.”

  “Very good, Mistress,” Herbert said. Brye Hamley deftly unhitched his animal, letting the yoke drop to the cobblestones, neatly coiling the traces over it. He attached a lead to the ox’s halter and handed it to Herbert, who led the beast away.

  “Now,” Philippa said, with a gesture toward the Hall. “Come and tell me.”

  Brye waited until Philippa had shown him into Margareth’s office and made introductions. Margareth looked as weary as if the hour were far gone, instead of only midafternoon, but she welcomed the Uplands farmer, and called for someone to bring refreshments. Their guest took the chair she offered him, lowering himself into it with caution, as if afraid his bulk might break it. Philippa watched this, bemused, rather charmed by his care.

  “Took two calves to market,” he said without preamble. “At Mossyrock, in the hills. Small market. Farmers round about, village-folk from Clellum, a few merchants.”

  The maid came with a tray of cider and biscuits, and laid it on Margareth’s desk. When she had gone, Brye set his hat on the floor beside his feet, and accepted a glass of cider. “Do go on, Master Hamley,” Margareth said.

  “A saddle was for sale in the market. Nice piece of work, stamped leather, brass fittings.”

  “Is that unusual?” Margareth asked.

  “No horses in the Uplands,” Brye answered. “Except for the mail cob. And such a saddle would never fit a draught horse, even if someone wanted to ride it.”

  “It wasn’t a flying saddle, then,” Philippa said.

  “Didn’t look like yours,” was the answer. “Didn’t have that high back on it, and there was no . . .” He tried to show his meaning with his big, work-hardened hands.

  “Breast strap.”

  “Aye. And no notches for wings.”

  Philippa began to follow where his logic led. “And so, Master Hamley, you thought . . .”

  Brye leaned forward, and the chair beneath him creaked. “Char had no saddle when we found her,” he said.

  “Char?” Margareth ask
ed.

  Philippa told her, “The mare that foaled Larkyn’s colt.”

  “A strange name.”

  “Uplands word,” Brye said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Smoke from the autumn fires, leaves and straw.” Margareth nodded her understanding, and Brye continued. “Seemed strange. Last year a lost mare, and this year a saddle for sale in Mossyrock.”

  “An odd coincidence,” Philippa murmured. Brye Hamley flashed her a skeptical look. She didn’t know whether to be amused or offended. All the Hamleys, apparently, were a hard-minded lot.

  “Did you buy the saddle?” Margareth murmured.

  “No need for such,” the farmer answered. “The fellow was asking a deal of money, though why he’d expect a buyer in the Uplands I can’t say. But I thought you should know.”

  “And what became of it?” Philippa asked.

  “Still there when I left,” he said. “Sold my calves early.” He drained his glass of cider, picked up his hat from the floor, and stood. “I thank you for the drink, Mistress.”

  “Must you leave so soon?” Margareth asked.

  “Harvest crews at the farm,” he said. “But I’d like a blink at Lark before I go.”

  Philippa glanced at Margareth, who rose slowly, staring at Brye Hamley with an unreadable expression. “I believe she is in a tutoring session with Mistress Strong,” she said. “But I will excuse her for the moment.”

  Brye said merely, “Good,” which made Margareth’s lips twitch.

  Philippa went to the door to send word. When the maid had gone scurrying up the stairs, Philippa beckoned to Brye. “This way, Master Hamley, if you please. Larkyn will meet you in the reading room.”

  She was prepared to lead the way in silence, but as they mounted the stairs, Brye spoke. “Mistress Winter.”

  “Yes?” she answered over her shoulder.

  “Is Lark doing well in her studies?”

  “She is far behind the other girls in her class, but we expected that.”

  “Riding?”

  “I believe she has begun with a pony we keep here. So that she can get used to a saddle, and learn some of the basics.”