by Toby Bishop
She felt his shoulders move as he reached with his forelegs and extended his neck. His hindquarters gathered as the meadow surged up toward them, shadowed and frightening. Lark felt his weight shift forward, and she knew, somehow, she must keep hers back. She felt the heat of his body as she squeezed with the last strength of her legs, and she rocked back, ever so slightly, on her seat.
But it was coming up so fast, that hard, unforgiving ground. She gasped, and braced herself.
Tup’s wings flexed, abruptly, as if trying to slow his descent. Lark felt her left calf jar free, pushed by the movement of his wing, and her weight drifted to the right.
She could feel Tup try to adjust to the shift, felt him reach with his left shoulder, his foreleg stretched for that first running step.
But Lark’s hands, perspiring now, lost their grip on the silken strands of his mane. Her left foot lost its purchase.
All that mattered was Tup, that he come safely down on all four feet, free to run, to spend the dangerous speed of his landing. He was so close now, seconds away, but his balance was off. He was trying to hold her on, tipping himself to the left as she slipped to the right.
Lark released her hold on his mane. She let her left leg lift above his withers and his back, and she rolled. It was a somersault, her feet above her head, wisps of his tail brushing her face as she fell. She tried to curl herself against the impact to come. She fell for perhaps one full second, and then the ground met her with a solid blow against her shoulder and hip and heel. The breath she had been holding whooshed from her lungs, and she lay on her back, staring in amazement up at the wheeling stars.
But she heard Tup’s hoofbeats on the turf, the rhythm of his gallop, slowing to the canter, and then the trot, the sounds coming closer as he wheeled about and came back for her.
She lay in the grass, desperate for a breath. Tup found her, his muzzle against her hair, his breath blowing on her neck, his familiar, dear whimper asking if she would get up, if she would mount again.
At last her lungs filled, and she gasped for air, once, twice, three times. “Oh, Tup,” she rasped, when she could. “Oh. Oh.” Something hurt in her right leg, and in her side, something that she thought might begin to hurt far worse in the next few moments.
She tried to lift her arm, to stroke Tup’s cheek, but it brought a stab of pain through her shoulder, through her ribs, down into her hip. Tup’s eyes shone down on her, the moonlight reflected in them. He nudged her with his nose.
“Tup,” she moaned. “I just—just let me lie here a bit.”
They were down, and Tup was safe. She tried to tell herself that was all that mattered.
But she hurt so much. Her hip throbbed, and even shallow breaths filled her chest with pain. A bonfire had begun in her ankle, its flames shooting up her calf to her knee. She knew she couldn’t stand on her own. If she couldn’t stand, she couldn’t walk. And if . . .
What if she could never ride again? Tup would be as lost as if she had let Duke William destroy him.
Her choices had evaporated, one by one. Dawn was coming, and it would find them here, stranded in an Uplands meadow, fugitives brought to ground, at the mercy of their pursuers.
THIRTY-FIVE
PHILIPPA knew, before they even reached the Academy’s return paddock, that Larkyn had chosen a different path—or that Black Seraph had. There was no sign of either of them as she and Hester circled the grounds for their moonlit landing.
Impotent fury, at William, at Jinson, and most especially at Irina Strong, made Philippa’s muscles twitch with nervous energy. As she and Hester crossed the courtyard to the Hall, their horses fed and blanketed for the night, she wished she had one of them before her at this moment, when her rage was honed to its finest point. By morning, by the time she could accost William at the Palace, or find where Irina had gone, fatigue and worry would have dulled the fire that burned in her now.
The door of the Hall opened as they approached, and Philippa saw with surprise that Margareth was waiting for them, still fully dressed.
“Margareth!” she said. “It must be three in the morning! You should be in bed.”
“It’s four,” Margareth said crisply. “And how could I sleep, with one of our girls missing and her horse stolen?”
Philippa gave a resigned nod. “Yes. I fear there will be no sleep for any of us tonight.”
Margareth closed the door and turned the bolts, then led the way to her office. “I had Matron leave some sandwiches,” she said. “And tea, though it’s cold by now.”
“Thank you,” Philippa said. “Both will be welcome.”
Hester also thanked her, and added, “I’m ravenous!”
Philippa and Margareth smiled. It was good, Philippa thought, to feel a smile on her lips, even as weary and wan a smile as this one. She dreaded the tension of the morning to come.
When they were settled, and Hester had most of an entire sandwich in her mouth, Margareth said, “Tell me.” Philippa began at the beginning, leaving nothing out, ending with Irina Strong’s flight from Fleckham House.
“Will Black Seraph be able to make a safe return?” Margareth asked quietly.
“With Kalla’s aid,” Philippa said. She, too, spoke with her mouth full.
Margareth quirked an eyebrow at the unaccustomed piety. “His launch was good?”
“It was perfect,” Hester declared. She drank thirstily from a cup of cold tea. “But you know, Headmistress, Black hardly weighs anything. I doubt he even noticed she was there!”
“I wish it were that simple,” Philippa said. Now that she had eaten, she began to feel as if she could hardly rise to her feet again, even to go to her bed. “There’s balance, and of course the landing surface . . . who knows where they might come to ground?”
At that, Hester put down her teacup, and her eyes abruptly reddened. She, too, Philippa knew, must be exhausted. “Oh, poor Black!” Hester whispered. “She hardly had a chance, from the very beginning.”
“Now, now, Hester,” Margareth said soothingly. “We must not give up yet. Our Larkyn is strong and stubborn, and Black Seraph is a clever young stallion. They may yet return to us, whole and well.”
“You must rest, Hester,” Philippa told her. “Go to bed, and sleep. The Headmistress and I will decide what to do next.”
Hester pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, and when she dropped them, her eyes were clear again. “I couldn’t sleep, Mistress Winter,” she said frankly. “I would lie and worry.”
Philippa opened her mouth to order her, and then closed it. Hester, tonight, had earned the right to make this choice for herself. Dawn was only two hours off. She rubbed her own eyes, and then, wearily, came to her feet.
“Sunny and Goldie need rest,” she said. “It would not be right, or even safe, to fly them again so soon. But we have to search for these two, without alarming the rest of the students.”
“Oh! I’m so stupid!” Hester blurted. “They will have gone home, of course! I should have known that.”
“But this is home,” Margareth said in surprise.
“Not for them,” Hester answered. “Lark thinks of herself as an Uplander first.”
“Then they’ve gone to Deeping Farm,” Philippa said.
“And so has Mistress Strong.” Hester’s angular face set in lines too hard for her tender years. “I think we should ask Mamá for the carriage. It will be the fastest way, without flying.”
Margareth nodded. “Thank you, Hester. In the morning, I’ll send a message.”
“Tonight, please, Headmistress. I’ll go myself, if I may have a horse. We can be on our way before morning, and rest a bit in the carriage.”
“We’ll go together,” Philippa said.
LARK drifted in and out of a daze, waking at times to see the moon sinking in the west, at others to find her eyes burned by starlight. And always, always, Tup was there, his velvety muzzle at her ear, on her cheek, the whimper in his throat more comforting than inquiring. She knew,
no matter what came, he would not leave her, and she let her eyelids close, welcoming the respite from pain and anxiety that oblivion brought.
It seemed only a few minutes before the sky began to lighten, and she opened her eyes to a rainbow dawn. She squinted up into the light, hoping to reassure Tup, whose anxious breathing had played background to her nightmares.
But it was not Tup’s delicate face she saw, but one of wrinkles and dark skin, of faded green eyes beneath a frizzy halo of gray hair.
It was Dorsey. The witchwoman of Clellum. And behind her, a woman Lark didn’t recognize, young, slender, with a long blond braid falling over one shoulder.
Lark pressed her eyelids closed, believing she was laboring through a fresh nightmare. When she opened them again, the sight of the two women was made credible by the light rising behind the witchwoman’s aureole of hair, by the rustling of Tup’s wings, by the smell of new spring grass and rain-washed earth beneath her head. Morning light glittered on the blackstone butte rising above the meadow, and the heady air of an Uplands spring morning filled her lungs.
“Oh!” she breathed. “I live.”
“Oh, aye, aye, Missy,” the witchwoman cackled. “You live, right enough, thanks to this lovely fine horse of yours. Such a sight that was, the two of you sailing down from heaven on a path of stars!”
“Tup,” Lark tried to say, though it was more of a moan.
“Aye, lovely fine fellow, brought you safe to this meadow, and I’ll bring you safe to my house. Come now, Missy, get you up! Just a few minutes’ walk. You can lean on old Dorsey!”
Lark would not have believed she could stand, so wildly did her head spin when she lifted it, but Dorsey’s bony hands were remarkably strong, her arms as thin and hard as the poles that fenced the paddocks of the Academy of the Air. Lark fumbled to her feet, unable to suppress a cry of pain. At least, with Dorsey on her right, she could keep her right foot off the ground. The blond woman—girl, really—took her left side. They made an awkward threesome as they hobbled with agonizing slowness across the meadow, to circle the blackstone butte. Tup followed. He had folded his wings tightly to his ribs, and his nose bumped Lark’s back with every step.
Dorsey smelled of herbs and sweat and old smoke, and muttered to herself as they labored across the grass and around the cliff. The blond girl was silent, but her hands were warm, and her shoulder steady against Lark’s. Lark’s head began to clear, bringing awareness of fierce pain through her right side.
“I’ve broken something,” she said, her breath catching noisily in her throat.
“Oh, aye, aye,” Dorsey said. “Likely more than one something. We’ll get you to my house, and Dorsey will have a look.”
“Did anyone follow us?”
“Nay,” Dorsey answered brightly. “None that I could see.”
Lark glanced to her left, but the blond girl kept her eyes on the ground beneath their feet, her mouth pressed closed. She hadn’t spoken at all.
Lark took another jarring hop, and then gasped at the fresh torment in her side. “How far?” she grunted.
“Not far, Missy, not far,” Dorsey said cheerfully. “Just around there, down the path.”
Lark gritted her teeth. Sweat trickled under her hair and down the back of her neck, and Tup, sensing her misery, whimpered. She had no strength to reassure him, but she felt a wave of gratitude that he, at least, was unhurt.
And soon they would be out of this meadow, out of sight, safe for the moment.
WILLIAM raged at Jinson for an hour, stamping through his half-ruined stables, frightening the hapless mare in the paddock so that she galloped to the far end and tried to hide herself under an overhang of branches. “Why didn’t you just put the little stallion in with her when he got here?” he stormed. “You imbecile! She’s in season now! That was the whole idea!”
Jinson, white-lipped and trembling, started to say something, but William shouted at him, “Don’t tell me he might have hurt himself! What difference does that make?”
“But, my lord,” Jinson said shakily. “Horsemistress Strong said . . .”
Wordless with fury, William slashed the man with his quirt, one glancing blow across his shoulders. It was beneath his dignity to lose control that way, but frustration made him blind with anger. He had sacrificed so much. And Philippa—damn Philippa, now that she had touched him, she would guess. He just needed one foal, one more winged foal, now that the potion was stronger, now that Eduard Crisp was out of his way . . .
Jinson cowered away from him, and then, trembling, stood straight against the wall the little black had smashed. “My lord, the second mare is with foal. Perhaps that one will—”
“I want this one!” William roared. “His dam and his sire—they threw winged colts every time! This is the bloodline I want, that I’ve been aiming toward for years, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let it get away from me! You . . .” He raised the quirt again. Jinson paled, but stood his ground like someone meeting a fate he could not escape.
And then Slater was there, slinking around the corner in his greasy greatcoat, daring to put his hand on the Duke’s arm, to offer him a dram of something in a silver cup. William spun on his heel, stalking away from the sight of Jinson, of the splintered gate and broken wall. He let Slater lead him into the tack room, and he sat on a bench with his legs out, his head back against the wall. Slater urged the cup on him, and he drank from it, drank it all.
A certain lassitude began to overtake his rage, and his mind, cooling, began to function again. Slater was right. There was no point in losing control. He would go to the Academy in the morning, and he would take what was his. There would be no Black Seraph, after all, if it had not been for him. He was perfectly within his rights to demand to have the colt returned to him. And if they resisted . . . if anyone resisted . . . they would think what that fat stable-girl had received was a blessing from their goddess of horses!
Just thinking of the horsemistresses, of ordering them to do his bidding, of forcing them to obey, made a cold fire burn in his belly.
“Slater,” he said, lisping slightly. His tongue felt a little thick, but his desire, impotent and turned though it was, felt as keen as the edge of a knife. “Get me a girl.”
THIRTY-SIX
PHILIPPA and Hester managed to doze on the long journey by road into the Uplands. Lady Beeth’s carriage was cushioned and comfortable, and they each had an entire seat to themselves. Lady Beeth, as composed as if she had not been roused from her bed in the darkness before dawn, had ordered a hamper packed for them while the carriage horses were harnessed, and had herself carried two comforters from Hester’s own bedroom. She had, as Hester had promised, understood the situation instantly, nodding over the story of Irina’s perfidy, frowning over the theft of a winged horse from the Academy stables.
As the driver, yawning and unwashed, climbed up on the seat of the carriage, Lady Beeth put her head in one last time. She spoke with a bluntness Philippa appreciated. “Whatever you do, Horsemistress Winter,” she said, “don’t underestimate our new Duke, or that vile Slater who attends him. Tales have reached me.”
Philippa blinked her dry eyes, not sure she understood. Lack of sleep fogged her brain. She longed to be on the road, to close her eyes for a time and be lulled by the sounds of hooves against cobblestones.
“Hester can explain,” Lady Beeth said. “I have no wish to speak treason, but we have these young women to protect. They are Oc’s hope.”
Before Philippa could say anything else, Lady Beeth withdrew, and closed the door smartly. “Good luck,” she said. “Hester, beloved, take care.”
“I will, Mamá.”
Philippa managed only to say, “Thank you,” before the carriage, on well-oiled wheels, spun out of the courtyard and into the broad lane.
Philippa leaned back against the cushions, and contemplated the girl across from her. “What did she mean, Hester?” she asked. “The tales?”
Hester’s gaze was clear, despite her f
atigue. “It’s the Duke, Mistress Winter. Mamá makes it her business to know what’s being murmured around Osham.”
“And what does she know?”
“He has strange appetites,” Hester said, with admirable bluntness. “And his man Slater procures for him.”
“But . . .” Philippa tried to make her weary brain follow Hester’s words. “But, Hester, it’s nothing new for a man to want—”
“They say he can’t perform anymore, not in the normal way,” Hester said. She showed no embarrassment over the subject matter, and Philippa blessed Lady Beeth’s pragmatism. “Slater brings him young girls, and he—he abuses them. They say one died, perhaps more.”
“Ah. I see.” Philippa remembered the feel of William’s chest beneath her palms, that swelling that was so normal in herself, in Hester . . . and so shocking in a man. “And does your mamá know why he is this way?”
Hester yawned. “Slater buys potions,” she said. “But the apothecaries are afraid to say what is in them. Afraid for their daughters, granddaughters . . . The families who know simply stay out of his way as much as possible. Mamá wanted Papá to take it before the Council, but he said . . .” Her mouth twisted, making her look years older. “He said they were only tales, and unless someone came forward, there was little he could do.”
“He was right, I’m afraid.” Philippa sighed, and closed her eyes. She would have to ponder it all later, once she knew Larkyn and Black Seraph were safe. The carriage bowled swiftly along the road, the smooth road that Frederick had always said was the best in Oc, perhaps in all the principality. Frederick—oh, if only Frederick were still here! Frederick would never have allowed anyone to interfere with one of the winged horses, or one of the student flyers . . . Frederick would have disowned William if he had known. He could have elevated Francis.
But the loss of Pamella had broken Frederick as surely as if someone had killed him. And now William, with his abnormally smooth chin and high voice, the suspicious swelling of his chest . . .