by Toby Bishop
“It’s about power,” Brye said. “And Oc has little enough of that. The old Duke knows his job. And he and the Council of Lords, though they tax us white, are of one mind.”
Lark stared at her brothers, amazed. She had never, in all her life, heard them say anything political. She had never heard them discuss anything at all beyond the world of Deeping Farm and Willakeep and the occasional news from Dickering Park.
Nick said, “It’s business, Lark. We’re out in the marketplace, Brye and I both. When Oc is in trouble, business suffers.”
“Then I should go to Mossyrock myself,” Lark declared. “I should find out whose saddle it was, and who left Char to wander along the river.”
“Why would you have luck where yon Lady Lackbosom had none?” Nick said.
“Don’t call her that, Nick,” Lark said. “She’s—she seems hard, I know, but she’s—”
“An intelligent, hardworking woman,” Brye said.
Everyone stopped eating, and stared at him. He laid down his fork, and stared back. “You don’t like her, Nick, because she talks like a nob. Got my back up, too, at first.” He reached for the mug of tea beside his plate. “Know better now. So leave be.”
Nick gave a bark of laughter. “Zito’s ears, Brye! Sweet on Lady Leanshanks?”
“Nick!” Lark exclaimed.
Brye glowered at his brother, and didn’t answer.
Nick chuckled. “All right, I’m sorry. Fine woman and all that. But my question still stands. Horsemistress Winter had no joy of Mossyrock, so how do you think you would?”
“Mistress Winter gave up as soon as she knew the saddle was gone. I would ask more questions—ask the people.”
“You don’t know the people.”
“I’m an Uplander, and so are they. They would talk to me.” Like the old woman had, last night, Lark thought, but she didn’t say it. She didn’t want to speak of the witchwoman and her talk of potions.
“Hard journey to Mossyrock in winter,” Brye said. “That track is full of ice.”
DAWN came late in the week of Erdlin. Though the calendar would not proclaim true winter until after Erdlin, in the Uplands it was already at hand. The hours of darkness outlasted those of light by four at least. Lark rose before the weak sunshine reached her window, and dressed in wintry gloom. Tup nickered from the barn, sensing her waking.
Her holiday was almost over. It had passed all too swiftly. She had postponed her visit to Petal in her new home, with her new baby, but it could be put off no longer. She would have preferred to slip off with Tup, up to the snow-filled meadow by the river, to walk, to ride a little, to dust snow from the cottonwood branches and toss stones at the chunks of ice floating down the Black River. But Nick had chided her, and she had promised to go today. She would go to the village first to find a trinket for the baby, and then make the hike out to Cutbank Farm, where Petal lived with her husband’s family.
When she reached the barn to feed Tup and Molly, Peony was already milking. Lark measured grain for Tup, and listened to the music of the milk squirting into the tin pail. She tried not to dislike Peony. The girl was doing well at Deeping Farm, really, and her presence freed Lark from the guilt that might otherwise have haunted her days at the Academy. It was just that she wanted it both ways! She wanted the farm still to be hers, but she wanted the Academy, too, the company of winged horses and oc-hounds. She missed Hester, and Anabel, and even the lean, graceful horsemistresses, though they looked at her with such doubt.
She watched Tup and Molly at their feed, running her fingers through her cropped curls. “I’m of two minds, Tup,” she murmured. “And that’s truer than true.”
He flicked an ear toward her, and she patted him. “I’ll be back this evening,” she said. “We’ll get a little exercise then.” He left his feed bucket to follow her to the gate, and put his nose over as she left, whickering.
Nick was just leaving on his rounds, so she caught a ride in the oxcart as far as Willakeep. There she bade her brother farewell and trudged down the cold stones of the street to the woollery, where Mistress Cateliss sold sweaters and scarves and socks, and had a shelf displaying stuffed dolls with knitted faces and hands. Lark had remembered to beg a few coins from Nick so she could buy her present.
She nodded to several people she knew, and exchanged greetings. She passed the tea shop, where Master and Mistress Bickle sold cut tea and served brewed tea and crooks to their customers. She was just walking by the door to the meat-shop when she stopped as if her feet had frozen to the cobblestones.
A man stood in the door of the woollery. He was no Uplander, in his sweeping greatcoat with its caped layers. He was a large man, but stooped about the shoulders. He had left a horse tethered to a post in the street, and he was just opening Mistress Cateliss’s door.
Lark knew this man. She had seen him in Osham, peering out of the door of the apothecary shop where she had received her icon of Kalla.
She remembered the four of them gathered in a shop window, looking out, she and Hester and Anabel and Lady Beeth. And Lady Beeth had drawn the girls back, warned them not to go out until the man was gone. And then she had told them about Lord William, and the stories, and cautioned them . . .
This was Lord William’s man, with his greasy dark hair and small eyes, his air of disrepute and danger. Lark could not fathom why he should be in Willakeep, why he should be visiting a woollery shop in an Uplands village in the winter . . . By Kalla’s heels, what was Slater doing here?
She ducked inside the meat-shop. The butcher greeted her, and she was forced to ask him for something. She chose some oddment she felt certain he wouldn’t have, and then dallied, making pointless conversation until she saw the man Slater emerge once again from the woollery, mount his horse, and ride off. Only then, frowning and uneasy, did Lark go back out into the street.
TWENTY-FOUR
PHILIPPA strolled slowly between the hedgerows in the waning afternoon. It was her last day of freedom, and she meant to savor every moment of it. Tomorrow they would return, the girls laughing and full of tales of parties and dances, the horses capering, brimming with unspent energy. The horsemistresses would trickle in, as well. Even Margareth had gone to Eastreach, to her family’s estate.
Bramble trotted beside Philippa, occasionally darting to one side to investigate some scent or sound beneath the dry hedgerows. The snowfall of the morning glistened on the branches, and glittered on the stones along the lane. The sky had cleared at midafternoon, and the sun was already descending toward the towers of the White City. True winter had begun.
Bramble padded ahead of her into the stables. Philippa spent a few moments changing the water in Sunny’s bucket and carrying a fresh flake of hay for her, then turned toward the Domicile. There was an hour still before dinner, when the few of them remaining at the Academy would gather for a quiet meal in the big kitchen of the Hall. Until then she could relax in the reading room, build up the fire, read something.
She was surprised, when she opened the door, to find Irina Strong already there, kneeling on the hearth. Irina tumbled a log onto the embers, and stirred the coals into flames with the poker. She stood, dusting her hands together.
“Good evening, Irina,” Philippa said. “Did you just return?”
Irina nodded. “An hour ago.”
Philippa took one of the armchairs near the fire, opened her book, and stretched out her feet to the warmth. “I hope you found your family well.”
Irina didn’t answer for so long that Philippa looked up, her brows raised. The other horsemistress stood staring down into the fire, her square jaw flexing. At last she said, in a colorless tone, “My family lost their home last year. I spent the holiday in Osham, with a friend.”
Philippa caught a breath. “Irina. I’m sorry—I had no idea.”
Irina folded her arms and turned to look down at Philippa. “No,” she said. “You wouldn’t, would you? No one knows anything about a junior instructor. Or cares to.”
> “That’s hardly fair,” Philippa said.
“Fair,” Irina said, in her odd monotone. “Nothing that has happened to me is fair.”
Philippa suppressed a sigh. She closed her book, trying not to wish that Irina would take her moods elsewhere. “What do you mean?”
Irina stared into the flames again, and was quiet for so long that Philippa began to hope she would drop it. But after taking a deep, noisy breath, Irina said, “My father’s business was ruined. I was serving in the Angles, flying daily reconnaissance over the Straits.” She glanced up again, and the bitterness in her face startled Philippa. “You Nobles wouldn’t know about that, would you? You and your processions, your fancy shows and games.”
Philippa laid her book aside, and stood up. “You should know better than to say that, Irina,” she said crisply.
“The borders are hard,” Irina responded. “We met the enemy almost every week.”
“But you have no idea the kind of service Sunny and I have done.”
“I know Sunny’s a Noble and my Strong Lady is a Foundation. The Prince never asks for a Foundation unless there’s danger. No one wants Foundations in their fairs or expositions.”
Philippa snorted. “What a foolish thing to be bitter about, Irina! You sound like a first-level girl complaining about her assignments. You’re too old for such nonsense.”
“What do you know about it? You’ll be Headmistress one day, and I’ll still be teaching first-level girls to change leads and clean their horses’ feet.” Irina turned her back, and stalked away to the window seat, where she sat down, gazing outward across the snowy courtyard. The darkness had closed in around the Academy grounds, and a faint sliver of moon showed above the stable roof.
Philippa stood where she was, staring at the other woman’s broad back. She had no idea what to say, or whether she should say anything. Margareth would know what to do, but . . .
“Listen, Irina,” she said. She strode across the room to stand at Irina’s shoulder. “Fourteen years ago, Sunny and I were at the South Tower of Isamar when the raiders came. We were flying beside Alana when Summer Rose took the arrow. It was a great, thick, horrid thing like a bolt on a knife, and they never had a chance. It could as easily have been Sunny, or me. There have been too many dark nights I wished it had been me, but these events are in Kalla’s care, not ours—like being bonded to a Foundation instead of a Noble.”
Irina blew out a breath that seemed to Philippa full of scorn and disgust.
“Well,” Philippa said quietly. “I’m of the belief we can choose to be content. If you prefer being unhappy, that’s up to you. If I were you, I’d rejoice that my bondmate and I survived our border service.”
“I could choose,” Irina said dully, “to wish that my family were as close to the Duke’s family as yours. That I would be appointed a senior instructor at the Academy right off, as you were. Everyone knows your brother Meredith and Duke Frederick are—”
“That’s enough,” Philippa snapped. “Self-pity wins no ribbons, Irina. If you don’t like your position here, ask to be reassigned.”
Irina swiveled in her seat, and stared up at Philippa with narrowed eyes. “Just wait, Philippa,” she said softly. “Just wait until the old Duke dies. We’ll see what happens then.”
TWO days later, Philippa and Sunny led an eager Tup on a flight before morning classes. The air aloft was ice-cold, the sky clear and pale. Larkyn stood in the paddock, watching, with Bramble at her side, the little she-goat just behind her. Philippa gave the colt an extra ten minutes, watching the strength of his wingbeats, the ease with which he followed Sunny’s patterns. Experimentally, she dropped Sunny in a Grand Reverse, and Tup, after only a moment’s confusion, dipped his left wing and followed. Philippa glanced over her shoulder at him, and almost laughed aloud at the utter joy in the set of his head, the prick of his small ears. He stretched his long, narrow wings with the grace and confidence of an older horse, and pushed their speed so Sunny had to fly faster to stay ahead of him.
Tup’s landings, too, were deft, with none of the awkwardness yearlings often showed, not even slipping on the thin layer of snow that covered the grass. He cantered beside Sunny, head high, wingtips shivering with exuberance, tail a proud, fluttering flag. He passed Sunny, racing to the end of the paddock to where Larkyn waited, and skidded to a stop on his hind legs, his hocks almost touching the grass. Philippa and Sunny, more sedately, trotted after. Bramble leaped the fence and came to meet them, her tongue lolling happily.
Philippa slid down from Sunny, and handed her reins to the waiting Rosellen. “I should have suggested before the holiday, Larkyn, that you begin putting more weight on Black Seraph. Should have sent a saddle with you. He’s more than ready.”
Larkyn had slipped a halter over Tup’s head, and was fitting the clips over his wings. She asked in an unusually demure voice, “Should I start now, then, Mistress Winter?” Philippa cast her a suspicious glance. The girl kept her head down, fiddling with a wingclip that looked perfectly secure already.
“Yes, please,” Philippa said dryly. Larkyn glanced up at her from beneath her lashes, and then quickly away. Philippa sighed, and turned away. Her flight would be assembling soon, and their drills would begin to intensify this very morning. Their Ribbon Day loomed in the coming summer, the culmination of their six years of study and practice. The first- and second-level girls would also be tested, of course. Philippa had debated with Margareth about what Larkyn should do. It hardly seemed possible she could pass the first-level Airs and Graces. Irina had reported to Margareth that Larkyn could not even handle the pony without falling.
Philippa led the way through the gate, and Rosellen and Larkyn followed, leading the horses. They parted at the corner of the stables, as Philippa turned toward the Hall.
Bramble paced at her side, but as she reached the center of the courtyard, the oc-hound stopped, and whined, twisting her head back toward the horses.
“Bramble,” Philippa said, touching the dog’s silken head. “You can go with them. Go ahead! I have a flight, anyway.”
Bramble’s tail stood straight back, away from her body, and she whined again, but she didn’t move. Philippa looked toward the stables, trying to discern what was troubling her.
What she saw was the stocky figure of Irina Strong standing just within the shadow cast by the gambrel roof. She seemed not to notice Philippa or the oc-hound, but was watching Black Seraph intently as Larkyn led him out of the cold sunshine.
Philippa laid her hand on Bramble’s neck. “I see her,” she murmured to the dog. “I don’t know what that’s about, either, Bramble, but I see her. Go, now. Keep your eye on them.” Bramble gave one short bark, and bounded off toward the stable.
Soberly, frowning, Philippa crossed the courtyard and went up the steps to the Hall.
“HEH,” Rosellen said cheerily to Lark as they measured out feed for the winged horses. “Good Erdlin? Them Uplanders know how to celebrate?”
“Oh, aye,” Lark said, grinning. “Even my brother Edmar danced.”
“And that one gave you no trouble, not flying?” She pointed her chin at Tup.
Lark grimaced, and shook her head. “Oh, he gave me trouble, Rosellen. Nearly kicked a hole in the side of our barn.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well, I walked out with him, and let him run in the pasture, but . . .” Lark leaned close to Rosellen, about to confess to her friend that she had ridden Tup.
“Larkyn?” It was Mistress Strong’s voice. Lark straightened quickly, and touched a finger to her lips. Rosellen nodded.
“Yes, Mistress,” she called. She ducked out of the feed room and into the aisle of the stables, where she found the horsemistress leaning over the wall of Tup’s stall, assessing the colt.
“Black Seraph’s filled out,” Mistress Strong said. “Legs and chest.”
“I know,” Lark said, coming to stand beside her teacher. “Mistress Winter says he should begin to carry more wei
ght.”
“Well, then. I suppose he should.”
Lark dropped her eyes, afraid her secret would be plain on her face. Tup whimpered at her, and she took the excuse to slip inside the stall and pour the grain into his bucket.
Mistress Strong said, “I’m going to fetch a saddle. We’ll try it now.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Lark leaned against Tup as the horsemistress went to the tack room. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder, and felt the ridges of muscle that flowed across his chest, the muscles that powered his wings and centered his strong small body. His haunches rose in an elegant arch from his short back. Even his legs, though slender, were corded with muscle.
Mistress Strong came back with a flying saddle on her hip, a silk blanket in her other hand. She handed the blanket across the wall, and then let herself in the gate. Tup snorted, and backed away from her, making Lark blink at him in surprise. “Tup,” she murmured. “Stand still. It’s only a saddle.”
She spread the silk blanket over his back, smoothing it down his ribs, tucking it beneath the points of his folded wings. But when she moved aside to let Mistress Strong approach with the saddle, he laid his ears back. Molly bleated and retreated to a corner of the stall. Lark heard a rustle in the sawdust of the aisle, and glanced out to see that Bramble had come pacing around the corner to put her forefeet on the gate, her eyes fixed on Mistress Strong.
Mistress Strong spoke heavily to Tup. “Here, now, son. No nonsense from you.” She walked closer, and Tup backed all the way to the wall, ears tight against his head. The horsemistress unhooked her quirt from her belt, and flourished it.
Abruptly, Tup whirled, presenting his hindquarters. He lifted one hindfoot as if to kick, but held it poised in the air, watching Mistress Strong from over his shoulder.
“Tup!” Lark cried. “No!”
Mistress Strong dropped the saddle in the straw, and lifted the quirt as if she were about to lash Tup’s rump. Lark sprang forward without thinking, and stopped the quirt from falling by seizing it with both hands.