Philippa freed one hand to pull her collar higher against the chill. If there wasn’t a student missing, she would never be aloft in this weather. But they were out there, somewhere, possibly lost, possibly needing help.
She lifted her eyes once again to the bank of clouds shrouding the western horizon.
She blinked, and blinked again, wary of wishful thinking. But no, it was true! She could see them, silhouetted against the silver clouds, Seraph’s black wings stretched wide, beating steadily, Larkyn a mere speck in the sky.
Relief made Philippa’s heart skip a beat. Praise Kalla, she thought, praise whatever icon or fetish it was that Larkyn put her trust in. They were coming back.
She let Sunny fly on, and in moments they were close enough for her to see Larkyn’s face, her cheeks rosy with cold. She signaled to her with her quirt as she circled around and above Seraph, so that she and Sunny could escort the young flyers safely home.
The clouds rolled behind them, surging and curling against the sky. In moments, they were circling the roofs of the Academy. Black Seraph’s wings rippled with exuberant energy, and his tail flickered up and out. Pride, Philippa thought. He was proud to be flying with Sunny, to be high in the cold air with his bondmate, to be making an elegant and smooth descent toward the return paddock. Larkyn kept her eyes straight ahead, her back self-consciously straight, her hands in the perfect low position.
Philippa’s lips twitched. She would have to mete out some suitable punishment, but her relief was greater than her irritation, and there was the gratification of seeing Larkyn in a proper flying saddle. Kalla’s teeth, the child was difficult! And Kalla had bonded her to a difficult horse in the bargain, a horse with an independent spirit and an attitude that would suit a flyer twice his size.
She watched with a critical eye as Larkyn guided Black Seraph over the grove and down into the paddock, as she loosened the reins and balanced for the landing. Seraph reached with his forefeet, neck nicely extended, hind hooves curled and ready to touch the frosty grass. It seemed Larkyn did everything correctly, and yet, at the moment of coming to ground, she slipped in the seat of her saddle, grabbed at the pommel, seemed to stiffen in her stirrups. Seraph’s hooves made an irregular pattern as he began his gallop, but he soon recovered, cantering smoothly up the paddock. He slowed to the trot, and whirled at the far end, head high, ears pricked toward Sunny.
Philippa and Sunny came up the paddock at a posting trot, and when they reached the younger flyers, Philippa saw that Larkyn’s chin was up, her eyes blazing defiance. Before Philippa could speak a word, Larkyn cried, “I was afraid to come to ground! The Duke was in the return paddock!”
“It was Lord Francis,” Philippa said wearily. “And you have missed your Points drill, to say nothing of worrying us all.”
“I came back the moment I smelled snow in the air.”
“You smelled it,” Philippa said flatly.
“Of course. I know how a snowstorm smells when it’s building.” The girl’s color surged and faded, and she dropped her eyes to her pommel. “Mistress Winter, the Duke wants Tup, you know that. There was no one about, and I didn’t know what he might do.”
“He can’t take Black Seraph from you, Larkyn.”
“He has that magicked quirt—”
“Nonsense. There’s no such thing,” Philippa snapped. “Now dismount, and stable your horse. I will meet you in the Headmistress’s office.”
The girl swung her leg over her pommel to leap to the ground. Philippa dismounted more slowly and
followed her through the gate toward the stables. As she watched Larkyn’s slight figure and the elegant lift of Black Seraph’s tail as he pranced away, she felt a pang of compunction. It was true that she did not believe in simples, in magics and spells. But William’s quirt did have strange properties. She had felt them herself, though she had spent months trying to convince herself it was her imagination. She had decided, in the end, it was William’s own strength that made the little whip seem to have a power of its own.
She shut the gate of Sunny’s stall with a decisive click. Such speculation was meaningless. No doubt they all suffered from heightened nerves at the moment, and were ready to believe anything. Nonetheless, while she was away with Francis and the Baron, she would set someone to keep watch over Black Seraph.
And over Larkyn. She sensed, deep in her bones, that William’s fragile sanity was a real threat, with the aid of magic or not, to Larkyn Hamley.
THEnext day Lark, shivering in the cold, stood with Hester to watch Mistress Winter’s departure for the Angles. Chores awaited her in the stables, her penalty for missing her Points drill the day before, but she let them wait.
Mistress Winter’s riding habit was invisible beneath a heavy fur coat, one that Lark had never seen before. Her narrow face was set above the thick woolen scarf wound around her neck.
“Take a blink at those gloves,” Lark whispered to Hester. “’Tis a wonder she can hold the reins!”
“She has a long, cold flight ahead of her,” Hester murmured back.
“She will stay low, won’t she? Where it’s warmer?”
“She’ll have to. But the winds are in her favor.” Hester put her head back to scan the sky. “And at least it’s stopped snowing.”
The flight paddock was buried by an inch of pristine, perfect white, unmarked yet by hooves or boots.
Mistress Winter tested it with her foot before leaping up into her flying saddle, gathering Sunny’s reins in the thick, clumsy-looking gloves.
Lark heard a footstep behind her, and turned. Headmistress Morgan had come across the courtyard and stood with one hand on the rail fence. “Take care, Philippa,” she called, her voice quavering slightly.
“Remember.”
Lark turned back to watch Mistress Winter’s face as she answered, but there was no hint of feeling in her set expression. “I will,” she said. She lifted her quirt in a half salute. “I will be back the moment I can, Margareth.”
Lark found herself gripping Hester’s elbow as Winter Sunset spun about on her hindquarters and began her canter down the flight paddock. Her hooves kicked up sparkling puffs of powder as she ran, and when she launched, her fetlocks glittered white. But her wings were clean and dry, and she rose steadily above the grove, skimming the hedgerow and the lane, a steady arrow of red against the high gray clouds.
“What will she do if it begins to snow, Hester?”
“That depends how heavy the snow is,” Hester told her. “If it’s too strong, she’ll have to come to ground and wait it out.” She patted Lark’s hand. “Try not to worry, Black. We have our own work to do.”
“Aye,” Lark said. “I know.” But as she turned toward the stables, to assist the dour Erna with the mucking out, her stomach churned with tension, and threatened to return the breakfast she had so hurriedly eaten an hour before.
Working with Erna made her miss her old friend Rosellen even more. As she wielded the pitchfork, scattered fresh sawdust, and swept the tack room, she thought of Rosellen’s wide, gappy smile, the way her freckles spread across her round cheeks. She remembered, as she watched Erna splashing water negligently into the stall buckets, how much Rosellen had loved the winged horses, what devotion she had given to them. It made her doubt Kalla’s purpose, that now the Academy should have this sullen incompetent while Rosellen had met such a bitter end.
The early darkness was closing in around the Academy by the time she finished all the chores set for her by Mistress Morgan to expiate her faults of yesterday. She still had studies to make up after dinner. Her bed was hours away yet.
She walked toward the Dormitory to put on a clean tabard before supper. As she went, she cast an uneasy glance skyward. Where would Mistress Winter be now? The snow had returned, sparse, dry flakes that swirled in the darkness. Would it be snowing in Onmarin, too? Lark tried to picture Winter Sunset soaring in over the beaches as she and Hester had done. It seemed a very long time ago now, and yet the memory of
those ghastly boats, the snarling wardogs, the screams from the village, was as fresh as yesterday. Lark shivered and hurried on across the courtyard.
Everyone at dinner seemed to share Lark’s mood. The horsemistresses whispered together at the high table, and Mistress Morgan hardly spoke at all. Even the students were subdued. The moment Mistress Morgan rose, Lark bade Hester and Anabel good night, and dashed up the stairs to the library, her assignment book under her arm.
A lamp had been left on in the small library, but the fire had almost gone out, leaving the room uncomfortably chilly. Lark stirred the embers with the poker and added two small logs. As she waited for them to blaze up, she stood beside the window, rubbing her arms for warmth.
The snow had thickened, making ghostly shapes of the stables across the courtyard, of the solid bulk of the Dormitory. Just so would the buildings look at Deeping Farm, the farmhouse, the barn, the chicken coop shrouded by drifting flakes. The blackstone fence around the kitchen garden would wear a white mantle along its top, and the empty fields would stretch clean and unbroken in every direction. With a pang, Lark thought of her brothers in the great old kitchen, the close stove blazing, a teakettle whistling, the table set for a winter supper. Cheese and soup, perhaps, and a loaf Nick would have brought from Willakeep. Crooks for dessert, and cups of black tea. Peony was a good cook, and she had Pamella to help her now. Lark hoped they had remembered to lay extra straw for the hens and to be certain the goats were snug in their night pen. She could see, in her imagination, Edmar dandling little Brandon, teasing him to laughter. The little boy had transformed silent Edmar into an avuncular jokester.
Tears of homesickness stung Lark’s eyes. Behind her, the fire began to crackle, and the room to warm, but still she stood by the window, her cheek against the heavy curtain, her eyes gazing unseeing into the blank whiteness drifting past the window.
A blur of darkness passed before the lighted squares of the Dormitory windows. Lark sniffed, and rubbed her eyes. She looked again.
The blur resolved into a dark figure, with swirling coatskirts and a wide-brimmed hat. As she watched, the figure’s head lifted, and seemed to stare at the library window.
Lark sucked in a breath. Too late, she pulled the curtain forward to hide herself. She must be outlined perfectly by the lamplight, by the rising flicker of the fire. She stared in horror as he lifted his arm and pointed something at her, something small and thin and dark against the falling snow.
The icon of Kalla against Lark’s breast began to burn, and she gripped it in her hand. Her enemy was here. He must have known when Mistress Winter left to meet Lord Francis and Baron Rys, and he had wasted no time.
There was no doubt in Lark’s mind. Duke William was watching her.
She whirled, dropping her assignment book in her haste. She dashed out of the library and down the stairs, racing across the courtyard to the stables, heedless of the slippery snow on the cobblestones, of the cold on her neck and hands. Bramble, the oc-hound, bounded to meet her, and followed close on her heels as she hurried into the warmth of the stables.
Not till she reached Tup’s stall did she think that William might have followed her. She opened the gate and went in, Bramble with her. She glanced behind her to see that the door of the stables remained closed, that there was no sound of boots on the sawdust. Molly and Tup crowded against her. Bramble whirled, facing the gate, her hackles up, her ears laid back. Tup whickered a question and nosed Lark’s shoulder.
“I don’t know,” she whispered to him, circling his neck with her arm. “I don’t know if he would try to take you again, or if it’s me he wants. But we have to stay together!”
ELEVEN
FRANCISwas glad to see Philippa and Winter Sunset circling above the tumbled huts of Onmarin. He had watched for her all day, and darkness was already creeping across the bay. She gave him and Rys a brief greeting and went straight to the village to meet with the bereft mothers and visit the graves of the dead.
The village prefect had turned over his modest house to Francis and Rys, and one of the village women had come to cook for them. The hour had grown very late when Philippa joined them at last, bringing the scent of horse with her and a slight tang of fish. She sat at the table, where they were finishing a simple meal of chowder and some sort of sour black bread.
Philippa pulled off her hat and her gloves and laid them on the table. “It’s too cold to leave Sunny outside,” she said. “I’ve had to stable her in the hut next door.”
Rys pushed the bread platter toward her. “What did the family have to say about that?”
“They’re afraid of her,” Philippa said. “They gathered their things and vanished the moment the prefect told them what we needed. Sunny’s none too easy in that fish-smelling house, either. I’ll have to sleep there with her.”
“We hope to make an early start,” Rys said. “Before the snow comes back.”
“You know, then, that snow is a problem for me.”
He nodded. “All we need is for you to find them,” he said. His voice held an edge, and his lips set. All vestiges of the urbane diplomat Francis had known in Arlton had vanished. “My captains have fought the Aesks before. We have thirty-five men, and a half dozen matchlock guns. The challenge is to get a clear shot for our marksmen.” He waved one slender hand. “Archers are more accurate, but the barbarians’
spears are no defense against bullets. Just the sounds of the matchlocks terrify them, though I doubt we’ve actually hit one of their people. We have to ascertain if the children are alive—”
At Philippa’s wince, he made an apologetic sound. “I know, Mistress Winter. But these are the facts of the case. And, in fact, we must tread carefully. The Aesks are not above slaughtering hostages in order to deter us.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Then Philippa can return to Onmarin once we’ve found them,” Francis said. He was gratified to hear that his own voice was steady. Rys had even suggested that he need not accompany the war party, but Francis knew he could never live with the idea that he was not brave enough, or strong enough, to face the barbarians. He knew well enough that most of Oc—and especially his brother—considered him soft and bookish. He did not relish the idea of the conflict ahead, but he could not imagine standing by while others did what needed doing.
“It would be best if she did,” Rys said.
Philippa inclined her head. “We never risk the winged horses unless we must,” she said. “If you believe in any gods, pray the weather holds.”
Rys smiled. “Do you, Horsemistress? Do you believe in the gods?”
Philippa’s answering smile was wry. “I’m afraid not, my lord.”
Before they retired, an old woman appeared at the door of the house, wrapped in a shawl, her gray hair falling in tired strands around a careworn face.
“Mistress Brown,” Philippa said, when she saw her. She stood up and crossed to the door, holding out her hand to the woman, escorting her to the table, and urging her into a chair. Francis watched, bemused, as Philippa pressed tea on the woman, asked her if she was hungry, if she was warm enough.
Apparently satisfied that their visitor was comfortable, Philippa turned to Francis and Rys. “This,” she said gravely, “is Evalee Brown. Our stable-girl, Rosellen, was her daughter. Lissie, whom we hope to rescue, is her youngest.”
Francis opened his mouth, but he could think of nothing to say. “I—I am so sorry for your loss,” he finally stammered. “Oc—Oc grieves with you.”
The look she turned on him, bitter and wise, told her she knew that Oc had done nothing to help her.
Shame burned in his heart, and he dropped his gaze.
Rys seemed more confident. “We will do everything we can to bring your daughter home,” he said, leaning forward. “You have my solemn promise, Mistress Brown.”
The bereaved mother said softly, “I came only to thank you, me lords. For trying.”
Rys said, “We will do more than try.”<
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She nodded, but Francis saw that there was no hope in her dull eyes.
She didn’t stay long. Philippa rose to see her to the door, but Francis shook his head. He got up himself and went out the door with Evalee Brown. “I will escort you home, Mistress,” he said gently.
She sighed. “Safe enough here in Onmarin, me lord. That is, until—until it happened.”
Francis put his hand under the old woman’s arm. Her elbow felt light as pigeon bones beneath his fingers.
He walked with her through the cramped and crooked streets until she stopped before a tumbledown hut.
“Mistress Brown,” he said impulsively. “I want to apologize for my brother. For the Duke.”
She gave a shrug that was almost imperceptible in the darkness. “Fisher-folk are of no account in the White City, I suppose.”
“I pledge to you that will not be the case,” Francis said formally. As he said the words, he felt purpose form in his breast, a need to make them true. “Every citizen of Oc matters.”
She squinted up at him. “I’ll be holding you all in my prayers,” she said.
He bowed. “I thank you for that,” he said gravely. “It may make all the difference.”
EARLYthe next morning, Francis stood on the dock of Onmarin. The drying racks lay in ruins, smashed by the barbarians, and bloodstains still marked the boards beneath his feet. He looked out to the bay, where Rys’s ship bobbed at anchor. A cold salt wind riffled his hair, and he pulled his cloak closer around him. For the first time in a week, he had slept soundly. Meeting the villagers of Onmarin, seeing the ruined huts and freshly dug graves, had strengthened his determination.
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