by Toby Bishop
“Horse? What—” Lark’s eyelids drooped again, pain receding, darkness overtaking her.
“Oh, aye,” Dorsey murmured. “She knows how to take care of a horse. You sleep now, Larkyn Hamley, and don’t worry. You’ll feel better soon. The first day is always the worst.”
PHILIPPA was surprised to find that the upper floor of the farmhouse boasted six bedrooms. Brye pushed open a door to one, and stood back to let her pass through.
“Nothing fancy,” he said, “but comfortable.”
He was right. The room was low-ceilinged and narrow, but the bed was soft, and a quilt that might have been a hundred years old lay ready at its foot. Peony bustled in after them with a stack of pillows, and came back a moment later with a ewer and a basin. Philippa went to stand beside the small window to watch the carriage pull away. She had not bothered to watch Irina and Strong Lady depart. There was no more they could do to harm Larkyn, she decided, so she made no move to stop her. She also didn’t bother to ask Irina where she was going. It didn’t seem to matter. She could hardly search for Larkyn and Black Seraph in the dark. She could go back to Fleckham House, or even to the Palace, but it would make no difference.
There was a hostelry in Willakeep, Nick had told them, small but adequate, where the carriage horses could rest and the Beeth servants could find rooms and meals. Hester assured Philippa that Lady Beeth had foreseen such a circumstance, and sent her servants with a letter of credit. Hester was to be put up in the room next to Philippa’s. “It’s Lark’s,” she said, coming to stand in the doorway. “Some of her things are still here.”
“Aye,” Brye Hamley said gruffly. “Always be a room for Lark at Deeping Farm.”
“Of course,” Hester said warmly. She smiled at him, startling Philippa again with her maturity. She was very like her esteemed mamá already. “You and your home are everything Black—I mean, Lark—told us, Master Hamley.”
He inclined his head to her in a gesture of such simple grace that Philippa just stopped herself from pressing one hand to her heart. “Peony is setting out dinner,” he said. “We’d best eat, and search again in the morning.”
Philippa felt as if she had run through her last reserves of strength, and she doubted she could eat anything, but Hester seemed to have been revived by her lengthy nap in the carriage. She said eagerly, “Good. I’m starving!”
Brye Hamley nodded. “And so Lark always is, when she comes home.” He turned, and led the way downstairs to the kitchen.
Darkness enfolded the farmhouse as they sat down in the mismatched, comfortable chairs. The brothers were all there, silent Edmar, handsome Nick, and the brooding Brye. Peony dished up a pottage of stewed hare, carrots and potatoes and bloodbeets, and put a fresh brown loaf on the table with a dish of sweet butter. Faces were dour, but appetites were strong. Even Philippa found the simple fare to be just what her body needed. Like the others, she ate everything in the pottery bowl, and used a thick slice of bread to sop up the juices. When she had finished, she felt as drowsy as a child, and was relieved at Brye’s suggestion that they go early to bed and get an early start in the morning.
She and Hester trudged up the stairs. Philippa had just turned to her own room when Hester said softly, “I hope she’s all right.” She was standing in the doorway, looking into Larkyn’s room. “It seems wrong to sleep in her bed, when she might be—anywhere.”
“I know,” Philippa said. “But she would want you to be comfortable. Brye will search for her in the morning, and you and I will be back with our horses by evening.”
“I just keep thinking . . . if she fell, or if Seraph stumbled on his return . . .”
“Don’t think about it anymore tonight, Hester. It doesn’t help. We must expect the best.” Philippa tried to speak with confidence, but her own anxiety put an edge in her voice.
Hester nodded, and Philippa could see she understood. “Good night, then,” the girl said.
“Good night. Sleep well.”
Hester closed the door, and Philippa turned toward her own room. She found Brye Hamley standing at the top of the stairs, his eyes stony.
“What will he do, Mistress Winter, if he finds her before we do?”
“It is the horse he wants,” Philippa said wearily. “Your sister is simply in his way.”
“But I understood—a winged horse, bonded, is useless without its bondmate.”
“He would never fly again.”
“Surely there are other horses. Why does the Duke want this one?”
“Master Hamley.” Philippa felt as if she could barely keep her head up. She rubbed her temples, trying to think of a way to explain William. “I have known the Duke all his life. When he fixes his mind on something . . . nothing can distract him. He can be cruel, even to those closest to him. I knew his father better than I know him. Old Duke Frederick worried about his son’s character.”
“With good reason, it seems.”
“Yes.” Philippa took a step, and to her dismay, stumbled, and almost fell. Brye Hamley was there, one hand beneath her elbow, another supporting her back. He radiated such warmth and strength that she feared she might dissolve into the weakness of tears.
“Here,” he said. “I’m keeping you from your bed. You’re worn out.”
“It’s true,” she said shakily. “I’m sorry.”
“No need,” he said gruffly. He helped her to her door, and showed her inside. “Rest well, Mistress Winter.”
She managed to close the door, strip off most of her clothes, and fall into bed. She pulled the worn quilt up to her chin. It smelled of sunshine and fresh air, as if it had recently hung on a clothesline. The old farmhouse creaked gently around her. Doors opened and closed softly, and masculine steps sounded on the stairs as the brothers went to their own beds. Wind sang across the roof and ruffled the leaves of the rue-tree. From the barn, a goat bleated, but everything else was quiet.
Philippa turned on her side. Her back tingled where Brye Hamley’s strong hand had touched her, and the pillow beneath her cheek was soft with age. Philippa, uncharacteristically, prayed to Kalla that Larkyn, too, would have a soft bed to sleep in this night. And that Black Seraph would be safe.
THIRTY-EIGHT
FOR two days, Lark drifted in and out of awareness. She woke to pain and thirst and hunger, and after Dorsey dealt with those things, she slept again. On the third day she woke to sunshine and the soft scents of a mountain spring streaming into the hut through the open front door. She was hungry and thirsty again, but her pain had receded to a dull throb instead of the piercing agony it had been. She lifted her head, and looked around her.
The blond girl was working at the sink, and a toddler with the same pale hair sat at her feet, playing with a wooden spoon. When Lark tried to sit up, the girl and the child both turned surprisingly dark eyes in her direction. The girl hurried across the room to help Lark to the privy. When that was accomplished, she urged her into one of two rickety chairs beside a small table. It felt good, Lark thought, to sit upright, though her head swam.
The girl brought a small basin and a clean, ragged cloth. Lark dipped the cloth in the water, and scrubbed at her face.
“I don’t know your name,” she said to the girl as she washed her neck and her hands. The girl shook her head, and shrugged. The toddler eyed Lark solemnly, as silent as his mother.
“Tup?” Lark asked, with a sudden pang of fear.
The girl pointed through the workroom. Past the bundles of hanging herbs, Lark saw Tup with his nose in a basket. “Is it oats?” Lark said. The girl nodded again. “Thank you.” She nodded in response. Lark wrung out the cloth and stretched it across the basin.
When the silent girl came to take the basin, her eyes met Lark’s briefly, then flickered away. Her eyes were dull, as if there was no hope in her.
She brought Lark a cup of strong tea. The toddler watched gravely as she drank it. Lark wondered if he didn’t speak, either.
Dorsey scuttled in a moment later, coming i
n through the workroom with a handful of some sort of feathery plant. She bent over Lark, pressing her palms against her leg, probing at her bound ribs. Lark pressed her lips together against the pain this caused, but she made no sound. She wanted no more of the sleep-inducing potion. She wanted to stay awake.
She sensed something coming, felt its advent as surely as she felt the vigor of growth around her, the trees budding, the vines setting fruit, the grass at the foot of the butte thickening.
Dorsey brought her an old stick with a padded crosspiece, and Lark, leaning on the stick, hobbled out through the workroom into the sunshine. Tup was well supplied with a large bucket of clear water. The girl—Dorsey always called her simply Girl—had removed the blanket and folded it on the step. Tup trotted to Lark, whickering, and then dashed across the grass in clear invitation. His wings opened, ebony-bright in the sunshine.
“No, Tup!” Lark called. “No flying! I can’t even ride, much less fly!”
He wheeled, and faced her, ears forward, head high. Had he been a dog, she thought, he would have smiled. She wondered what had become of Bramble. She hoped the oc-hound had found her way back to the Academy.
She held out her hand to Tup, and he trotted back to touch her palm with his muzzle, then raced away again, circling the grassy field. Lark bit her lip, wishing in vain for wingclips. Tup ran the length of the grass to the point of the butte. He bucked, and spread his wings, turning to see if she appreciated his display.
When he came back to her, she seized a handful of his mane and shook it. “No, Tup,” she repeated. “No flying! It’s not safe. Someone might see you!”
He blew, and stamped his feet, but he folded his wings. A moment later he dipped his head to the bucket of water, and then began to graze again.
Dorsey brought a stool from the workroom for Lark to sit on, and she accepted it gratefully. “He won’t fly off, then?” Dorsey asked.
“I hope not,” Lark said. “He needs exercise, but . . . I don’t want him to be seen. Does anyone else know we’re here?”
“Nay, nay,” Dorsey said. She crouched on the sill, lifting her wrinkled face up to the balm of the sun. “Nay, only Girl and me. Nearest house is in Clellum, and that’s a half mile at least. Girl doesn’t talk, as you see, and I don’t unless I want to!” She cackled, and shook her head. “You ran away, then, did you? Decided the Academy wasn’t for you?”
“Oh, no,” Lark said. “No, I love it there, even though . . .”
Dorsey peered at her. “Even though . . . ?”
“Well. Some of the girls don’t like me, because I’m an Uplander, and a farm girl.”
“But you love it.”
“I do. I want to fly, more than anything.”
Dorsey tipped her head to one side in that birdlike fashion, her small eyes glittering. “Oh, aye? Why run off, then?”
“Someone tried to take Tup from me.”
“Thought they couldn’t do that. Bonded, and that.”
“Aye. It’s wrong. He would never fly again, but this—someone—doesn’t care about that.”
Dorsey pushed out her lips, creating a purse of wrinkles. “Someone?”
Lark tipped her head back against the wall. The sound of Tup crunching new grass comforted her, gave her an illusion of well-being despite the dull ache of her leg, the constricting tightness of her ribs. Softly, she said, “It’s the new Duke. The one person who may hold power over even the Academy. And he’ll be looking for us.”
A soft gasp surprised them both. Dorsey turned her head to look up into the doorway, and Lark straightened, wincing at the twinge in her ribs.
The mute girl stood there, staring wide-eyed at Lark.
“Eh, Girl? What is it?” Dorsey asked.
The girl opened her mouth, and closed it, and then turned and fled, back through the workroom, out through the front door of the house. A moment later they saw her running awkwardly away through the field, burdened by the child in her arms.
PHILIPPA returned to Deeping Farm on the evening of the second day. She left Hester at the Academy, over her strong objections.
“It’s too risky,” Philippa told her, in Margareth’s office. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, or where we might find Larkyn, and I don’t want to worry about both of you.”
“Goldie and I will be fine,” Hester said. “You need us!”
“No, Hester,” Margareth said. Her eyelids drooped, as if she had slept no more than Philippa and Hester in the past two days. “No, you must resume your studies. Behave as if nothing has happened. I know we can trust you in that.”
“Girls are beginning to wonder, though,” Hester said. “With Mistress Winter gone, and Mistress Strong, too.”
“You must simply tell them you don’t know,” Philippa said.
“And the Master Breeder was here this afternoon,” Margareth told them. “He made an excuse, but I think he was trying to find out if Black Seraph had returned to our stables.”
“But William didn’t come.”
“No. Nor Irina.”
“He will never let it lie,” Philippa said bitterly. “It’s not only the risk of our exposing him. It has become an issue of pride.”
Hester began again. “Let me come back to the Uplands with you!”
The day was wearing on, and it was a relief to leave the argument to Margareth. Philippa and Sunny returned to the Uplands, arriving at Deeping Farm before dark.
She spent a second night in the comfortable bedroom of the old farmhouse, rising with the first streaks of light in the eastern sky to drink a cup of bracing tea and take flight once again.
She and Brye had pored over an ancient map he kept rolled up in a corner of an enormous oak desk. They divided up the countryside, trying to guess how far Black Seraph might have been able to fly, where the pair might have chosen to come to ground, how they might have hidden themselves. Brye headed south, down the twisting lanes he knew best. Philippa and Sunny turned north, to follow the Black River.
They flew low over the fields and hedgerows, gliding over the twists of the river. The air was alive with birds, and farmers stopped their work to stare upward at the rare sight of a winged horse in the Uplands. On a different day, Philippa would have savored every moment of such a flight. The air was pungent with growing things, even at altitude, and the mountains to the west sported grassy meadows punctuated by gleaming black cliffs. She saw roofs and haymows, stone fences and kitchen gardens. Cows and sheep and long-haired brown goats like little Molly grazed in the spring grass.
She stopped to rest Sunny, coming to ground in a fallow field after making a careful pass above it to look for holes or other obstacles. They both drank from the river, and Philippa ate the cheese and dried apples Peony had packed for her. She pulled Sunny’s saddle off for a bit, letting her cool herself in the shade of some old cottonwoods whose branches drooped over the riverbank. Then, restless and worried, she took to the air again.
When she began to fear wearing Sunny out, she turned back to Deeping Farm. The sun had begun to slant from the west, and clouds piled above the mountaintops. Philippa gritted her teeth as she saw the storm building. Searching in a rainstorm would be misery, but there was no more she could do today.
She and Brye met in the barn, where Philippa was rubbing Sunny down with a towel. Their eyes met, but for a long moment neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to ask.
After a time, Philippa laid the towel aside, and gave Sunny a final pat. “She’ll be hiding somewhere, surely,” she said. “Since we’ve seen no sign of . . .” She faltered. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Brye finished her thought for her. “No sign of a fall.” He stood well back from the stall, so as not to upset Sunny. “Aye. But even if they fell, we might not see them. This is the Uplands, and there are fells and copses enough to hide anything.”
Philippa rested her cheek against Sunny’s sleek neck. “I’m sorry, Brye,” she whispered. “I was hard on Larkyn. I never understood how much I
rina was holding her back. And I never dreamed any of this could happen.”
“Come, now, Philippa,” he said gruffly. “A bit of food, a rest, we’ll both feel better. We’ll start again tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t move right away. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and she needed a moment to control them. Philippa had not wept in years, and she had no intention of starting now. Especially not in the company of Brye Hamley.
“MY lord,” Jinson said tentatively. “Perhaps you should just let it go? We can find another stallion . . . part of the regular breeding program . . .”
“Either she’s dead or she’s not,” Irina said. “But if a winged horse were seen in the Uplands, you would know.”
Her monotone inflamed William’s already-thin temper. For two days he had raged, despite Slater’s having procured the girl as requested. She had been unsatisfactory, trying to play coquette with him, acting like a common whore. He had a damnable time making her scream, and by the time he found some release, she was trying to seduce him again. As if, even if he could, he would have wanted to actually bed such a creature.
What he wanted was to kill her, had been tempted, but the outcry over the last one stayed his hand. At such a time, it wasn’t wise to create more grist for the mill of the Council of Lords. Slater pointed that out, and though William had thrown a porcelain pitcher at him, narrowly missing his head, he knew Slater was right. Slater was remarkably clever, though no better-born than the girls he procured.
“Oh, she’s not dead,” William said in an icy tone. “Slater has discovered where she is. And we’re in danger of that bitch Philippa finding her.”
“Where is she?” Irina asked.
“It’s a tiny place in the Uplands. I want you to go and get her.”
“Back to the Uplands? What about Philippa?”
“What do you think, you stupid woman!” William shrilled, and then set his jaw to stop himself. It had gotten increasingly difficult to keep his voice in a deep register. His chest swelled against his vest, which was an irritation, but he hoped it might mean the next attempt at bonding would be successful. He crossed his arms, and glared at Irina. “You should never have left the Uplands until you knew where they were.”