“Go after her,” William ordered. “Find her body and bury it. I don’t want any complaints from those damned horsemistresses.”
“Yes, m’lord.” Jinson bowed, looking like a badly strung puppet as he jerked his body upright and
staggered away.
William wiped his fingers on his trouser leg and tugged down his vest. He felt a sense of satisfaction, of satiety. It was almost, he thought, as good as having a girl.
But not quite.
He spun about, and strode out of the stable and toward the Palace. He would call for Slater. The night was yet young.
TWENTY-ONE
PHILIPPAwas nearly collapsing from exhaustion by the time she had worked three sod bricks from the back wall of her jail. Her back ached, her skin itched, and her flying gloves were in tatters, but she thought she could just wriggle through the opening. She gazed at it with tired eyes. It took her a moment to understand that she could actually see it for the first time.
With a shock, she realized that morning had caught her at her clandestine task. She had scraped and pulled at the ancient blocks of turf right through the night. The snow had returned, falling in impenetrable sheets. Even if she could get Winter Sunset free, even if she were willing to abandon Lissie and Peter, she could not fly.
With a strangled cry of pure frustration, she crouched on the dirt floor, and pounded it with one fist. A whole night! Poor Sunny must have worn her tack, gone without water or food, for the whole night!
It took Philippa several moments to collect herself. She stood, gathering the dirty blanket around her, and tried to think what to do.
The sounds of voices outside the hut forced her to action. Hurriedly, she restacked the empty barrels to hide the opening she had made. She used the corner of the hut again, wrinkling her nose at the smell already beginning to build there, and went to huddle beside the door, to pretend to have been asleep, to await her chance.
Jonka came not long after, tying back the leather panel, leering at Philippa as if she knew just how miserable her night must have been. Behind her, Lissie trailed, head down, feet scuffing in the new snow.
A rabble of children hung about behind the guard, trying to peer past him at the curiosity of a strange woman. The guard snapped at them and cuffed the nearest one, making Philippa clench her teeth. She had yet to find anything about these people to excite her sympathy.
Even Jonka’s ghastly scar could not move her this morning. Jonka pushed Lissie forward, and Philippa saw that the girl held another bowl. The contents looked about the same as those of the night before.
“Lissie,” Philippa said, trying to speak mildly. “Have you seen my mare? My winged horse? Is anyone taking care of her?”
The girl flicked a wary glance at Jonka, and held the bowl out as she had done before.
“Lissie, please,” Philippa repeated. She took the bowl from the girl but only held it in her hands. “I can’t eat until I know Sunny is all right.”
The girl’s eyes came up to hers, and her lips trembled, but didn’t part. Philippa sighed, and took up the spoon. “All right,” she said. “If I eat this, will you tell me?” She took a spoonful and swallowed. It was cold and oily, and threatened to come right back again. She put the spoon back in the bowl and tried to give it back to Lissie.
Jonka snarled something, and swatted Lissie’s shoulder. The girl stammered, “Jonka says, ‘eat.’”
Philippa gritted her teeth for a long moment, watching the scarred woman through narrowed eyes.
Finally, she took the bowl in both hands, pretended to sip as Jonka had pretended to sip water the night before. Then, slowly deliberately, she spilled all of its contents onto the dirt floor.
Lissie burst into tears, and Jonka’s response, as always, was to draw out her ugly knife and point it at Philippa.
Philippa snapped, “Go ahead, wretch! Let’s see if you have the nerve!”
For one awful moment, as Jonka pulled back her hand as if to strike, Philippa feared she might learn just
how much courage the Aesk woman had. But a deep voice sounded from outside the hut, accompanied by the barking of one of the wardogs, and Hurg appeared in the open doorway.
The chieftain took in the situation, snarled one short word, and backhanded the hapless Jonka directly across the face. She fell to one side, dropping her knife, clutching her nose. It began to bleed immediately, trickling down her ruined cheek and lip. Lissie seized her opportunity and ran from the tent, hands over her head as if expecting to be Hurg’s next victim.
Philippa glared at Hurg, her hands on her hips. She was now as filthy as he was, but so filled with fury she didn’t care. “What do you want from me?” she demanded, knowing he couldn’t understand her words, but utterly out of patience. Pain shot through the back of her neck, a pain born of tension. She wanted to push past Hurg, to run down through the compound to Sunny. For a breathless moment, she was tempted to try.
But her guard was still there, standing in the snow like a pillar, his spear in his hand. The spotted wardog stood beside him, ears up, tail straight out. And Hurg, who obviously had no hesitation in striking one of his own citizens, was no doubt as likely to stick his knife in her as stand out of her way.
He said something over his shoulder and gave a tug on a rope that was in his hand. Philippa had not noticed the rope.
The small creature who hobbled forward was swathed in ancient furs, like everyone else in this place, his light hair and freckles barely emerging above them. His hands were tied, and the rope was wrapped several times around his shoulders for good measure, but unlike Lissie, a rebellious spark glowed in his blue eyes.
“Peter!” Philippa breathed. “You must be Peter!”
The boy reached Hurg’s side, relieving the pressure on the rope. He looked up at Philippa. An enormous bruise spread across one of his cheekbones, and when he grinned at her, she saw that one of his teeth was gone. “Aye,” he said, with something very like cheer. “I’m Peter. And I’m that glad to see you, Missus! I’m awful tired of the smell of fish and barbarian!”
The length of this speech evidently offended Hurg, who yanked on the rope, making Peter stumble.
Philippa’s anger flared hotter. “Why does he tie you, Peter? Lissie’s not tied.”
Peter, now pulled tight against Hurg’s massive thigh, grinned again. “’Cause I keep running away,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll do it again, too, first chance.”
Philippa nodded. “We’ll do that together, Peter,” she said evenly, keeping an eye on Hurg. “Just as soon as we can.”
Hurg looked back at her, suspicion clouding his rough-skinned brow. He slapped Peter’s shoulder, but lightly, and said something.
Peter pushed away from him a little, and this time Hurg didn’t tighten the rope. “Hurg says,” Peter began,
“that you should help him.”
“You can understand him?”
“Sort of.” Behind Peter, Jonka struggled to her feet, keeping a wary eye on Hurg. Her knife lay where she had dropped it, and Philippa could feel her yearning toward it, her only defense. Philippa supposed that for a woman like Jonka, disfigured and unwanted, she had only her own strength to defend her. An unwelcome spurt of sympathy flickered in her breast.
Hurg spoke again, at length, and Peter stuttered a few words in answer, then turned to Philippa. “Come out,” he said. “He wants you to come out.”
“Have you seen my mare, Peter?” Philippa said, as she took a step forward.
He shook his head. “No, Missus.” He looked fearful for the first time since he had come into the hut.
“But Hurg wants you to come help him. He wants to fly.”
Asecond time Philippa was herded through the compound, making her think, oddly, of Larkyn Hamley herding her goats. This time Peter walked beside her, Hurg having loosened his rope enough so that the boy could go ahead of him. Behind her, Hurg and the guard came, the guard with his spear at the ready, the spotted wardog padding beside him
.
When they had passed the dog on their way out of the hut, the beast had risen and gazed at Philippa,
mouth open, long red tongue lolling. Peter looked at it curiously. “Dog likes you, Missus,” he said.
“Why’s that? Them dogs hates everybody.”
Philippa glanced back at the spotted wardog. “It could be like the oc-hounds,” she said. “The dogs that foster winged foals. They have a special bond with flyers.”
Hurg had noticed, too, and he prodded the big dog with his spear. It obliged him by snapping at his hand, lunging forward, making the guard yank on his spiked collar.
“They’re so cruel,” Philippa said in an undertone to Peter.
“Mean as they are ugly,” he answered.
Philippa looked ahead, to the hut at the end of the compound, hoping to see Sunny at last, and to think of some way to deal with a barbarian who thought he could fly a winged horse.
FRANCISknocked on Rys’s door. “Enter,” the Baron said, and he went in, closing the door behind him with a decisive bang.
“Francis,” Rys said, rising from the table where he had spread a wide sheet of parchment.
“Esmond. I want an explanation.” Francis stood just inside the door, his hands on his hips. “You made a promise to me. And to Philippa.”
“Did you think I had forgotten it?” Rys said mildly.
“This ship is going in the wrong direction.”
“You sound angry, my lord.”
“I am.” Francis took a deep, quivering breath. “I’m angry at the Aesks, I’m angry at my brother . . . and now—” He laughed a little, bitterly, with a touch of self-deprecation. “Now I feel anger toward you and your captains, because while we cruise here in comfort, Philippa Winter is held prisoner.”
Esmond Rys came around the table to Francis. He put a hand under his arm and led him to the table, gesturing to the parchment. “I’ll call my captains,” he said. “They will show you what we spent most of the night working on. We’ve agreed it’s time to move, but it’s dangerous for Philippa. We’ve seen what the Aesks can do to their prisoners when they’re cornered.”
Francis breathed again and buried his fists in his pockets to hide the whiteness of his knuckles. “How long, Esmond?”
“Just till dark.” Rys beckoned to him, and bent over the parchment, pointing with one manicured finger at a sketch of the bay, the Aesk compound, the plateau and the valley. “We have a plan, but it is by no means perfect. We are sailing away from the Aesk encampment, you’re right, but only for a short distance. We want to take no chance of being seen, to lose our advantage of surprise. We will turn back soon enough. But you must prepare yourself. Our venture has become much more complicated than we had hoped.”
Francis nodded, staring at the map, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw hurt. He promised himself that if he made it back from this, William would pay.
TWENTY-TWO
THEsun rose over the Academy in a perfect blue sky, glittering on the distant spires of the White City, dissolving the remnants of the early snowfall. The pause in winter’s march meant that flights could drill in the air again. Mistress Star’s second-level students launched from the flight paddock, the horses exuberant in the cold, the girls wrapped in their winter flying coats and thickest gloves.
Lark followed Hester in the formation, Tup’s wings sweeping chilly air over her thighs, the cold saddle leather warming gradually as they banked above the stables’ gambrel roofs and turned to the west, where open farmland stretched in patterns of beige and rust to the foothills. Lark tried to feel Tup’s muscles through the stiff leather of her stirrups, to sense his movement through the iron and wood of the saddle tree. Everything about the day was brilliant, the distant mountains gleaming with snow, the coats of the winged horses glistening in the sunshine, but her heart felt dark as night.
Mistress Star had refused to excuse her to join Herbert in his search for Bramble.
“It’s pointless, Larkyn,” she had said. “Herbert has no idea where the dog might be. Don’t miss your drill.”
Lark knew it would do no good to state her suspicions. Only Hester understood, but Hester agreed with Mistress Star. “Wait for Mistress Winter, Black,” she had said. “There’s nothing you can do by yourself.”
As the flyers moved into a Half Reverse, Lark glanced to the north and east, where the tall facade of the Ducal Palace gleamed against the brown landscape. Someone there knew what had happened to Bramble, she had no doubt. Duke William. Her enemy.
But no one would believe her. She had not dared even to tell Herbert what she suspected.
Mistress Star signaled with her quirt, and the flyers executed their turn, most of them smoothly, although Anabel, as she often did, had trouble maintaining her altitude. Lark and Tup, even though the flying saddle bothered them both, had no difficulty with it.
She and Tup made their turn and swept away from the formation for a dozen wingbeats, then wheeled back, holding at Quarters while they watched Anabel and Chance repeat the maneuver, once, then again.
When Mistress Star gave the return signal, Lark urged Tup back to the formation, to fall in behind Hester and Goldie for Open Columns, flying two by two in a looping circle that led them west, then north. They flew low, just skimming the tops of the spruces and the bare branches of oak and cottonwood.
Lark lifted her face, letting the cold sunshine gild her cheeks. Tup’s gleaming black wings, like ribbons of ebony silk, beat joyously against the dense winter air, and his mane rippled in the wind. Lark wished she could banish her anxiety and give herself up to the pleasure of the flight, of being far above the land and its troubles.
But she kept seeing the marks in the snow, the disturbance in the sawdust where Bramble must have struggled, must have scrabbled with her feet, trying to get away . . .
A spasm of grief made her throat ache. She dropped her chin, trying to swallow it away, and it was then that she saw it.
Her eyes, practiced at spotting a missing goat or a lost calf, caught the splash of silvery gray against the sparse green of a hedgerow. She leaned forward to look more closely, and Tup, misunderstanding, began to bank out of the formation. Lark started to correct him, but even as she lifted the rein she saw the silver-gray form, just a huddle of fur at first, move a little. The icon of Kalla blazed against her chest, and she urged Tup lower to circle back the way they had come. She felt Hester’s questioning eyes on her, and knew that Mistress Star would scold her for breaking formation, but she thought she knew what was resting there against the hedgerow, and the heat of her icon confirmed her suspicion.
The hedgerow ran along an empty field where a crop had been plowed under, ready for planting in the spring. It was a long, narrow space, and Lark knew the dirt would be full of clods and stiff with cold, but Tup could manage those. She hoped there were no worse obstacles. She flew to the end of it, so that she could turn Tup back, into the wind. It was always easier to land, or to launch, into the wind. Tup stretched his neck eagerly.
She had almost forgotten about the stiff saddle, but when Tup’s forefeet reached for the ground, she remembered. She had to do everything consciously, instead of instinctively. She settled deep in the saddle, tried to stay centered, to feel Tup’s balance. If she made a mistake now, if anything went wrong, she would be cleaning stables for weeks!
But she didn’t fall, and Tup came to ground smoothly, forefeet reaching, hindquarters gathering, and Lark, though she jounced a little at the landing, stayed securely in her seat. Tup cantered, then trotted directly to the mound of silver-gray. He, too, had seen it, Lark realized. He stopped beside the hedgerow and gave his wings a shake, then lowered his nose to sniff. Lark threw her right leg over the pommel and jumped down. They had found the missing oc-hound.
Her heart leaped to her throat at the blood on Bramble’s fur. She knelt in the dirt beside the dog, murmuring her name. There was no response.
Steeling herself, Lark put her hands under Bramble’s neck, searchin
g with her fingers for the beat of Bramble’s heart.
It was there! Bramble’s throat pulsed lightly. Her breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible. “Oh, Bramble,” Lark whispered. “Poor Bramble!” She quickly unbuttoned her flying coat and wrapped it around the dog. She found the wound with her fingers, a deep slash that had cut through the oc-hound’s long coat and into the flesh of her neck. The bleeding had stopped, but the edges of the wound still seeped stickily. Lark searched in her pockets for a handkerchief, for anything she could bind the cut with.
Finding nothing, she ripped a section from the hem of her divided skirt. She would have to mend it later, but she couldn’t worry about that now.
Just as she finished tying the piece of black cloth around Bramble’s neck, the dog stirred. Her eyes opened, rolling to one side, showing the whites. She whimpered when she saw Lark, and tried to lick her hand.
“Nay, Bramble,” Lark said. Her voice broke. “Lie still, Bramble. Don’t move.”
Bramble gave a great sigh, and she lay still. Lark kept one hand on her belly, the other on her narrow head. Tup dropped his nose down over Lark’s shoulder, giving his little whimper. The sound was not much different from the dog’s.
“I know, Tup,” Lark said sadly. “She’s hurt. And I don’t know what to do now. I need to get her home, but it’s such a long walk.”
Tup blew air through his nostrils, and rustled his wings.
“No, we can’t fly with her,” Lark said. “She’s much too heavy, and the balance would be wrong.” She lifted her head, and looked past the hedgerow and plowed field to the formation of winged horses, now far in the distance. “Mistress Star will be furious with me,” she said. “She must think I simply abandoned the flight, and now they’re on their way back to the Academy without us!”
Bramble moaned, and Lark patted her flank gingerly. “Nay, we won’t leave you, Bramble. We would never leave you. The flight doesn’t matter.”
Long moments passed, and Bramble’s breath, now that the bleeding had been staunched and she was warmer, seemed a bit deeper. Lark had seen hurt animals before, and she knew the cut on Bramble’s neck had cost her a lot of blood. She was afraid to try to carry the dog, lest the injury to begin to bleed again. She looked behind her, where the plowed pasture stretched to a small farmhouse, nestled beneath the bare branches of an ancient oak tree. “What we need, Tup,” she said, half to herself, “is a farmer. Or a farmwife. Someone who can help us.”
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