Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  ONE

  ATthe summer home of Lord and Lady Beeth, Larkyn Hamley reined her horse into the salt-scented wind. Tup broke into an eager trot, then a canter. His ears pricked forward, and his black hooves drummed on the grass of the park, faster and faster, blazing toward the grass-covered dunes that formed the northern boundary of the estate. Lark snugged her right hand into the handgrip of the breast strap, and held the reins loosely in her left. She gripped Tup’s ribs with her calves, and he sped to the hand gallop.

  His long, narrow wings opened, rippling in the breeze. The ribbed membranes caught the cool morning light in their ebony folds as they stretched to catch the air.

  “Hup!” Lark cried, and Tup sprang upward. The wind rushed above and beneath his wings as he lifted above the narrow beach and out over the green sea. His hooves curled tightly beneath his body, and he ascended steadily. A fogbank obscured the horizon, hiding the glacier from view. Lark glanced over her shoulder to see Hester Beeth and her palomino, Golden Morning, launch above the dunes behind them.

  Goldie, a Foundation filly, was heavier and slower than Tup, but her flight was as elegant and deliberate as an eagle’s.

  Beneath the winged horses the cold green waves splashed against the land, edging the beach with amber foam. Tup’s wings stroked harder, and they rose high into the misty morning, banking to the west along the coast. Hester and Goldie flew close behind. Gulls darted above and below the winged horses as they carved an arc above the gentle inlets of the district known as the Angles. The Ocmarins rose in jagged splendor ahead, already white with snow. At home in the Uplands, Lark thought, the autumn fires would be set to burn the bloodbeet husks, sending ribbons of char drifting above the fields. Here in the Angles, the season brought fog in the morning and chill sunshine in the afternoon.

  She glanced to her right, marveling at the nearness of Aeskland, the forbidden country. The girls of the Academy of the Air whispered midnight tales to each other about the barbarians who lived beneath the glacier. The stories said they were savage men and fierce women who lived in dirt houses, obeyed no law, and disdained all gods. With a shiver, she turned her eyes forward again.

  It was tempting to fly on all morning, for the sheer joy of fresh air and freedom, but they had promised Hester’s mamá to obey the Academy rules. Unsupervised flights could last no more than an hour. They would soon come to ground on a sandy spit near the fishing village of Onmarin where Rosellen, the Academy’s stable-girl, lived with her family. The girls carried gifts, a tiny pot of fresh honey from the Beeth hives, a skein of dyed wool, twists of silk ribbon.

  Their brief holiday was almost at an end. In two short days they must return to their studies, but until then, Lark luxuriated in Lady Beeth’s indulgence. Lark could not remember her own mother, and she had worked hard on her brothers’ farm since she was a tiny girl. She loved being petted and spoiled by Hester’s mamá.

  The chill of the sea air made Tup’s flying seem effortless. Lark felt the brush of his wings over her calves, the warmth of his muscles beneath her legs. He swerved a little, flicking his tail to tease Golden Morning.

  Goldie ignored him, flying steadily onward in her dignified way.

  Hester pointed, and Lark saw the jumbled roofs of the village ahead. They clustered around a little bay created by a narrow spit of sand. Docks and mooring posts edged the water. The fishing boats had already gone out, but gentle smoke curled from fires beneath racks of drying fish. A few figures moved between the racks.

  Lark moved her right knee against Tup’s shoulder, and he slowed, stilling his wings to glide on the air currents rising from the land. Hester and Golden Morning hovered to their right, as if they were flying Points, and the flyers circled, twice, three times, each pass a little lower, giving them a chance to find a landing place, look for obstacles. They came to ground neatly, first Tup, then Goldie, the horses’ hind feet thumping lightly on the strip of sand, forefeet reaching, wings fluttering as they balanced.

  By the time they trotted to the end of the spit, a band of small boys appeared between the cottages, pointing and calling. Before the girls had dismounted, and the horses had folded their wings, Rosellen herself appeared. She came running, the crowd of ragged boys at her heels.

  She slowed to a walk as she came near the winged horses, saying to the children, “You lot stay back.

  Winged horses don’t like men, and are not overmuch fond of boys, neither.” The urchins exclaimed in disappointment, but they stopped where they were, goggling at the flyers. Rosellen gave the girls her gap-toothed grin. “What a gammon my mam is! Didn’t believe two Academy girls would visit the likes of us.”

  Lark laughed. “Hello, Rosellen. What a pretty village!”

  Hester stood with one hand on Goldie’s neck, looking about her. It was possible, Lark thought, that she had never stood on her own feet in such a place. She would be accustomed to passing through rural villages in the comfort of her mother’s carriage. Every Academy girl, except for Lark herself, had been brought up in wealth and comfort.

  Rosellen came to Tup, and he nuzzled her shoulder and made the little whimpering sound that was his and his alone. Rosellen chuckled, rubbing his forelock, then dropped an awkward curtsy to Hester. “Thank you for coming, Miss.”

  “It’s good to see you, Rosellen,” Hester said. If she felt at all uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. But then Hester, like her mother, was a born leader, and Lark imagined that included making herself fit into all kinds of situations. Hester held out the little bag of gifts. “My mamá sent these for your mamá.”

  As Rosellen thanked her and accepted the bag, one of the little boys dared to move a step closer to Tup.

  Lark smiled down at him. “Would you like to pet him?”

  His mouth opened, round as his awestruck eyes. “Really? Even though I’m a boy?”

  “Aye,” Lark said. “You won’t be a man for quite some time, I’m thinking.”

  “Soon enough!” the boy said stoutly, puffing out his chest.

  Lark laughed. “Well, if it’s as soon as all that—maybe you’d best keep your distance after all.”

  The urchin’s face fell, and with it, his thin chest. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, but—but maybe not just yet, Miss.”

  “Nay, I think you’re right, lad. Come now. Walk up slowly, and let’s see how Tup feels about you.”

  The boy crept slowly toward the horse, one skinny hand extended. Lark felt certain there was nothing to worry about. This lad would see many more summers before he became a man. Tup only flicked an ear toward him and didn’t budge. A blissful smile spread over the child’s face as he stroked the glossy black coat and touched one silky wingpoint with a tentative finger.

  “What’s your name?” Lark asked.

  He said softly, “Peter, Miss. Your horse is so beautiful!”

  “Aye, Peter. You’ll get no argument from me.”

  A straggling line of children formed, each waiting for their chance to touch a winged horse. Rosellen shrugged apologetically. “Them’s never seen such,” she said to the girls. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Hester stepped forward, leading Goldie. “Of course we don’t mind,” she said. “Come along, children.

  Goldie loves to be stroked.”

  By the time the children had each had their turn, patting first Tup, then Goldie, Rosellen’s mam had come out of her cottage and walked down to the beach. She wore a shawl around her shoulders and a scarf covering her sandy hair. Lark and Hester inclined their heads to her at Rosellen’s introduction, and Lark marveled at how much Rosellen looked like her mother, freckled, sturdy of figure. The gifts were bestowed, and greetings passed along from Lady Beeth, which
made the fisherwoman blush furiously.

  She whispered in Rosellen’s ear, and Rosellen turned to Hester.

  “Mam wants to send some dried fish to her ladyship,” she said. “If she’d like it.”

  “Of course she would,” Hester said warmly. “Mamá loves fish.” She smiled at Rosellen’s mother, and the woman seemed to gather a little courage. She nodded, and curtsied, and spoke to the scrawny boy who had first approached Tup. “Peter, do you run to the docks and fetch a packet of fish for Lady Beeth.”

  He grinned at Lark and touched his forelock with two fingers before dashing away.

  “My father and most of the men are out fishing, but my sisters want to meet you,” Rosellen told the girls.

  “Will you come to the cottage?”

  Soon girls, horses, and the gaggle of youngsters, shoving and shushing each other, trailed through the crooked sandy lanes of the village to Rosellen’s tiny cottage. It was a ramshackle affair, thatched and sun-bleached, the walls leaning inland as if giving way before the incessant wind from the sea. Rosellen

  called, and two sturdy girls, as freckled and square-faced as Rosellen herself, emerged. A third hung back in the doorway. She was small, and painfully thin, with pale hair and only a scattering of freckles across her delicate face.

  Rosellen pointed to her sisters. “Annalee, and Ginetta. Yon shy one is Lissie.”

  The girls stared as if frozen at the Academy students in their black riding habits, until their mother hissed at them, “Manners, you girls! We may be fisher-folk, but we know how to greet our betters!”

  Lark dropped her eyes, embarrassed, as Rosellen’s sisters curtsied. She wanted to explain that she was no higher in her station than any of them, but she knew they would never accept it. Now that she flew a winged horse, and kept company with the daughter of Lord and Lady Beeth, things were different.

  Already she was called Black by the other flyers, after her horse’s proper name of Black Seraph. Only in her heart was she still Larkyn Hamley of Deeping Farm, the Uplands.

  Hester spoke a courteous greeting to the girls, and Lark did her best to imitate her. In a few moments, Annalee and Ginetta relaxed and began plying them with questions. Only Lissie hung back, disappearing into the cottage the moment introductions were complete. Their mother brought out a simple breakfast, and an assortment of rickety chairs appeared so that everyone could sit down in the lee of the house, away from the wind. One of the urchins brought a few morsels of grain for the horses, who accepted them as graciously as Hester Beeth accepted the heavy dark bread and smoked fish presented by Rosellen’s mother.

  “Where’s your saddle?” the boy named Peter demanded of Lark. “The big horse has one.”

  Lark cast Hester a look, and her friend grinned wickedly. “Yes, Black,” she purred. “Where is your saddle?”

  Lark tossed her head, and said to the child, “I like riding bareback, Peter. The saddle gets in my way, and Tup’s, too.”

  “Them horsemistresses don’t like it, though.” Rosellen said.

  “No,” Lark admitted. “They don’t.”

  “Black got through Ribbon Day by the skin of her teeth,” Hester said. “And now she has to learn to ride like a grown-up.”

  Lark’s tart response was interrupted by a shout from the docks. Rosellen’s mother glanced at her daughters. “Annalee, do you go and see . . .”

  Before she finished her request, a terrible sound, like the roar of some great beast, came to their ears.

  Annalee dashed around the side of the cottage.

  What she saw made her cry out, and press her hands to her cheeks. Another shout followed, and then a cacophony of howling, human and animal, setting all the girls and children on their feet. The horses threw their heads up, and Tup began a nervous whickering.

  “What is it?” Lark asked. She seized Tup’s rein, afraid he, too, would dash to see what was happening.

  Rosellen had followed her sister, but now she ran back to Lark and Hester. Her face had gone pale, her freckles standing out like flyspecks. She cried faintly, “It’s—it’s barbarians! I think they’re Aesks—they’re on the beach!”

  Lark thought she could not have heard right. Barbarians? Surely there had not been an attack from Aeskland for . . . well, not in her lifetime. She moved to see for herself. “How do you know, Rosellen?

  How would you—”

  Hester strode past her, Goldie close behind. As she stepped out into the wind, strands of her long hair escaped her rider’s knot and whipped around her shoulders. “She’s right, Black,” Hester snapped.

  “Kalla’s teeth, the Council will be furious! Rosellen, can your family get away? Get inland?”

  Lark hurried around the cottage, and gazed out to sea. What she saw stunned her.

  In school, she had seen the books with pictures of barbarians coming to Oc in their warboats, but those were old books, old like the stories the girls whispered on the sleeping porch. Lark had never expected to see barbarians for herself. Every book claimed that the Duchy had ended their raids forever. All her life she had believed that Klee was Oc’s only enemy, and that a subtle one, marked by intrigues and deceptions and endless diplomatic maneuvering. Danger came from the east, not sailing across the Strait from the north.

  But here, in fact, it was, in the shape of red and black boats, quivering spears, archers with bows poised, and great, awful dogs even now bounding up from the beach.

  Lark clutched Tup’s mane, and her heart pounded in her ears. He stamped his feet and snorted and switched his tail.

  And then Rosellen’s mother ordered, “You two girls, Lark and Hester! Get away from Onmarin, now!”

  Hester and Lark stared at her. She looked utterly different at this moment, as if she stood taller, straighter, her freckled features gone hard.

  “But—” Hester stammered, poise gone for once. “But—but what about you, Mistress? What about your girls, the children—your village? Your men are out to sea—”

  “Don’t know” was the abrupt answer. “But we don’t want the devils to capture two flying horses! Go!”

  When the girls still hesitated, Rosellen snapped, “Go, Lark! And Hester, get you to Lady Beeth and tell her—that’s all you can do for us!” Without waiting to see if they obeyed, she turned back to her mother.

  “Come on, Mam, let’s take the children—try for the dunes!”

  Screams rose from the docks. A few women with babies in their arms fled past the cottage, wailing.

  Rosellen’s sisters and the little gang of boys dashed away toward the dunes, but Rosellen, with a cry of

  “Lissie!” turned back to the house and disappeared inside.

  Lark and Hester leaped aboard their horses and reined them in a half circle, looking for a place to launch.

  Lark, though her heart rebelled against abandoning the village, knew Rosellen had been right. It was her duty to protect Tup, her bondmate, even if it meant her own life.

  They found a relatively flat place between the winding dunes, a path of packed sand, ridged and rutted.

  Hester led the way, grim-faced and pale. Lark and Tup followed.

  Sensing their riders’ intensity, the horses fairly leaped into the air. It was hard, because they had to canter away from the prevailing wind. The ground was uneven and the launching space cramped, but they made a gallant effort. Their ascent was wobbly and uneven, but they succeeded. They were aloft.

  As they rose above the dunes, the barbarians caught sight of them, and a great shout rose, words in some guttural language Lark couldn’t understand. A cloud of arrows flew from the lanes of the village, but they fell short by many rods.

  Lark took one agonized look back at the village. The battle on the docks was already over, the old men slumping beneath their racks of fish. One of the barbarians also lay still, short, thick legs dangling absurdly into the water. The wardogs had the run of the village, and Lark heard a hoarse screaming from one of the cottages that made her blood run cold.


  Kalla’s heels, what could they want? What could Onmarin have that barbarians desired?

  She turned her face away and called to Tup. “Faster, Tup, fly faster!”

  He responded, driving his wings harder against the wind, his neck stretching forward.

  Lark tried to concentrate on her balance, on gripping Tup’s barrel with her calves. She breathed in great gulps of sweet cold air, fighting nausea at the thought of the terrible things happening behind her. How fragile a thing was peace! The safety she had taken for granted an hour before had been shattered in a heartbeat.

  She gritted her teeth against despair, and prayed to Erd, the warrior god of the north, to defend Rosellen and the villagers of Onmarin.

  TWO

  PHILIPPAWinter pleated her gloves between her fingers as she gazed across the Rotunda. The thirty-eight Council Lords sat in tiered rows of elaborately carved chairs. Each had a secretary at his elbow and a page standing behind him. Their ladies filled the balcony with the glitter of jeweled caps and tabards girdled with gold. The autumn sun glared on the windows, and the air inside the Rotunda was close, heavy with too many perfumes.

  Philippa was glad not to be forced to sit. She paced the outer aisle, looking down over the heads of the

  lords to the dais. There Duke William lounged in his high-backed chair, lifting one languid hand to smooth his white-blond hair. His timid wife, the Duchess Constance, huddled in the chair next to him, looking lost in her heavily brocaded tabard. A great rope of pearls twisted about her neck and hung to her waist. It looked as if it might strangle the poor woman.

  “Your Grace,” intoned one of the lords. Philippa stopped pacing, and leaned forward to see who it was.

  As she did so, William’s gaze lifted, and found her. His eyes, dark and glittering, held hers with a look that made her skin go cold. The animosity between them had grown more bitter with each passing year.

  She supposed now, since the Academy was opposed to him in the present complaint, it would intensify even more.

  It was Lord Carden speaking, his secretary holding his notes for him. “Your Grace,” he said again, forcing the Duke to turn his attention to him. “The former Master Breeder has lodged a protest against the Palace regarding his removal from office.”