Toby Bishop - Horse Mistress 01

by Airs Beneath the Moon

  Lark saw, ahead of her, the Foundations cautiously dipping their wings as they turned. The Nobles were more daring, achieving a downward slant to the right with their riders leaning to the left, balancing their weight.

  There were only two Ocmarins in the second-level. Lark grinned, watching Grace’s leggy filly Sweet Spring tilt her wings and cut sharply beneath Take a Chance, just in front of her. “That’s it, Tup,” she called with exuberance. “We can do that, can’t we?”

  She felt the surge of energy in his compact body as he increased his speed, driving them higher, and then, at the shift of her weight and the slight pull of the rein, he stilled his wings and veered sharply right and down. Lark clung to her pommel and squeezed her thighs against the stirrup leathers with all her strength.

  It would have been so much easier, she knew, if she could simply wrap her legs right around Tup’s barrel, her calves snug beneath his wings, her seat glued to his back. Instead, she had to brace her right foot in the stirrup, lean forward and to her left, and do her best not to interfere with his wingbeats.

  His angle, she could see, was sharper by ten degrees even than Sweet Spring’s had been. She wanted to look up, to see if Mistress Star approved, but she was afraid to move her head and afraid to release her grip on the pommel. When Tup began to tilt even more, approaching the vertical, she lost her right stirrup. The right thigh roll caught her leg, but the stirrup swung free, and her balance wavered. She crouched over the pommel, gripping it so hard her palms burned, and she exclaimed, “No more, Tup!

  No!”

  It was doubtful he could hear her, but he knew immediately that something had changed. With a smooth movement, he straightened his flight path, neatly popping her back into the saddle. She found her stirrup, braced her rear against the high cantle, snugged her legs beneath the thigh rolls. With a wing thrust of sheer exuberance, Tup wheeled to catch up with the rest of the flight, his neck stretched long, his hooves tucked so tightly she could feel the flex of his shoulders and hindquarters. He caught the other flyers in three wingbeats, and before she could rein him in, he surged above them, swept across their line, and swooped back to resume his place at the end. Lark’s tongue dried, and she realized her mouth was open, laughing. But when Tup had steadied in his proper place in the formation, she saw the thunderstorm on Mistress Star’s face where she and Star Chaser hovered at Quarters, watching the flyers. Mistress Star signaled the return with a sharp movement of her quirt.

  Hester obediently and efficiently led the flight in a wide descending pattern above the Academy grounds, choosing an approach, dropping toward the return paddock. They came down one at a time, first Golden Morning, then Little Duchess, Dark Lad, Sweet Spring, Sea Girl, Take a Chance, and finally Sky Heart, just in front of Tup.

  Lark urged Tup, in his turn, toward the paddock. But Tup refused.

  She called to him, “Tup! No! We’re going in!” Tup shook his head from side to side, rattling his bridle,

  then, with a powerful thrust of his wings, he soared up and over the paddock, over the gambrel roofs of the stables, past the tall profile of the Hall. “Tup!” Lark cried. “What are you doing?”

  For answer, he flew in a great circle, slowed, and began the Grace again, this time easing himself gently, gently into his tilt. Lark knew she was going to be scolded, would have more penance to do, but she could see what was bothering her bondmate. They had failed the exercise, and he wasn’t willing to accept it. She loosened her rein, settled her boots more securely in her stirrups, and gave herself up to Tup’s lead.

  His change of angle was so smooth and gradual this time that she was barely aware of it. Soon she found herself clinging easily to the saddle, her weight perfectly balanced, her right thigh secure beneath the thigh roll, her stirrups tucked close to the cinch. Tup flew this way for a half dozen wingbeats, then, as gracefully and gradually as he had come into the pattern, he leveled his flight path, and began his descending circle.

  His landing was perfection, the reaching forefeet, the extended neck, the neatly tucked hind hooves that struck the ground with almost no impact at all. He cantered up the flight paddock, head high, tail arched and flying, ears stiff with pride. As he trotted to a stop before Mistress Star and Star Chaser, he gave his little whicker, questioning, asking for praise.

  “Stable your horse, Larkyn,” Mistress Star said through a jaw so tight Lark wondered she could even speak. “And meet me in the Head’s office.”

  Lark nodded. She leaped down from Tup’s back, tapped his wingpoint with her quirt, and waited until he folded his wings before turning toward the stables. Her step felt as heavy as lead as she walked, the exhilaration of the flight, and the newly conquered Grace, draining away. Tup sensed her mood and whimpered in his throat as she opened his stall, led him in, and began to untack him. He butted her shoulder with his nose, and his pinions drooped to the straw.

  Lark finished rubbing him down and blanketed him against the still-chilly spring nights. She was about to leave the stall, to go to the Hall as she had been ordered, but she turned back to throw her arms around Tup’s neck, and to bury her cheek in his silky mane. “Oh, Tup,” she whispered. “My lovely fine boy!

  They just don’t understand you!”

  He whimpered again, and twisted his neck to nuzzle her cheek. She held him tighter. “They think you belong to them,” she said. “They call you by the name they chose, and they tell you what to do and where to go and when! They can’t understand—how independent you are!”

  He lipped at her ear, and she laughed a little, weepily. “Maybe, Tup,” she said shakily, stroking him one last time,

  “maybe you really are the founder of a new bloodline, a different one. And Kalla sent you to me because she knew I would understand.”

  At this, Tup tossed his head, and she laughed aloud. “Oh, aye, you’re certain of that, aren’t you? And I’ll let it go this time, Tup, and take my punishment as if it were my fault. But you and I know that it was you, and you alone, that got us into trouble!”

  But she kissed his broad, smooth cheek and left him an extra half measure of grain before she sighed, brushed straw and horsehair off her tabard, and headed across the courtyard to take her scolding.

  ITwas the same night, when Lark came late to the sleeping porch after spending two hours in the stables rubbing saddle soap into the instructors’ flying saddles, that she found Amelia waiting for her. All the other girls appeared to be sleeping, but Amelia was perched cross-legged on her cot, reading with the stub of a candle held close to her book. When she saw Lark come in, she tossed her book aside and set the candle on the nightstand.

  “Amelia!” Lark said softly. “Surely you should have been in your bed an hour past!”

  “I was,” Amelia said in a tense whisper. “But word just came from Matron . . . my foal is coming . . . I’m to go tomorrow . . . to be bonded!”

  “At last!” Lark whispered, “Oh, Amelia, wonderful.” Her fatigue evaporated, all at once, and she bounced on her toes with excitement. “Where? When?”

  “They’re coming for me in the morning,” Amelia said. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “The mare is in

  the stables at Beeth House. Oh, you have to come with me, Lark! You and Hester! I’m so afraid—”

  Lark sat next to her. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of!”

  The Klee girl wound her hands together in her lap. In a voice so low it was almost inaudible, she said,

  “What if it doesn’t go well? What if the foal dies, or doesn’t have wings?”

  “There’s nothing for it but to wait and see, Amelia.” Amelia stared down at her hands. In an even lower voice, she said, “And what if it doesn’t like me, Lark? What if it knows I’m Klee?”

  Lark put a hand on Amelia’s arm, and was startled to find that she was trembling like a leaf in the wind.

  “Beasts don’t care about principalities,” she said. “Tup didn’t care that I wasn’t a lady, nor did Bramble, nor even yon Pig, who t
ossed me into the dirt of the dry paddock more than once. Your foal will give you one blink and fall in love with you. And Hester and I will be right there with you.”

  She hoped that was true. She still had penance to do for her latest offense, but it wouldn’t help to mention that now. “Now,” she said, in a motherly way, though Amelia was almost two years older than she, “do you get into your bed, Amelia, and try to sleep a few hours. It could be a long day tomorrow.”

  LADYBeeth, in her efficient and commanding way, disposed of any obstacles to Lark’s and Hester’s coming to Beeth House for the foaling. The girls were excused for the entire day, and not long after breakfast, all three found themselves in the Beeth carriage, hastening to the stables. The morning was chilly and clear, and a layer of frost rimed the swelling buds of beeches and cottonwoods and the first green fuzz on the hedgerows.

  Amelia looked pale, her already-colorless lips pinched tight. Hester said heartily, “Stop worrying, Klee.

  This is your greatest day!”

  Amelia said, “I know,” but she resumed staring out the window, squeezing her fingers white in her lap.

  Hester grinned at Lark above Amelia’s head, and Lark smiled. Every bonded girl had a story like this one. There was nothing they could do to ease Amelia’s anxiety.

  It was, Lark mused, as the carriage rolled smoothly out of the Academy lane and into the main road, very much like giving birth yourself. There was a good bit of uncertainty, and in her case, there had been pain and cold and sorrow to add to her stunned excitement at discovering a winged foal in the barn at Deeping Farm. But everyone had to go through her own experience. There could be no surrogates in this process.

  Lark had visited Beeth House on two occasions, but still she found herself in awe as the carriage trundled smartly up before the great house, and the footman leaped down to open the doors. Lady Beeth herself came out onto the wide steps to greet them, and they hurried inside with her. Her cook had cups of chocolate laid ready for them, and Hester and Lark drank greedily, hungry again even though they had breakfasted. Amelia, politely, sipped the chocolate, but soon put it down again. Lady Beeth, seeing this, said, “Come now, girls, there’s Jolinda on the back step. Go along with her now.”

  “Are you not coming, Mamá?” Hester said.

  Lady Beeth, tall and strong and composed, gave a delicate shudder. “No, dear, I leave these things to you. My own birthings were enough for a lifetime.”

  Hester gave a hearty laugh. “So, Mamá,” she said, hugging her. “There is something, at least, you’re not the master of.”

  Amelia said nothing. She pulled on her coat, her face pale, her mouth fixed. Lark put an arm around her shoulders as they followed the stable-girl out the back door of Beeth House and into the open door of the large, airy stables. As they walked down the sawdust-strewn aisle between high-ceilinged, roomy box stalls, Lark pulled the icon of Kalla from inside her tabard and slipped the cord over her head. She said, “Amelia, wait.”

  Amelia stopped, turning her eyes to Lark. Lark showed her the icon and then held up the cord, offering it to her. Amelia started to refuse, but then, with a little sigh, she took it in her hands and hung it around her own neck. “Thank you,” she murmured. “It will be a comfort.”

  “You’re welcome,” Lark said. “Come now. Let’s go and see if your bondmate is here!”

  JOLINDAhad timed Amelia’s arrival perfectly. The foal had already presented when the girls reached

  the stall, its nose and two tiny front hooves just visible through the birth sac. The mare, a beautiful bay Noble with shining dark wings carefully clipped to protect them during the birth, grunted, and her sides contracted visibly. Amelia put both hands to her mouth, and Lark and Hester crowded close to her, supporting her with their strength.

  In some ways, Lark was to think later, it was very much as if Amelia was the one in labor. She moaned at every contraction, and panted with the mare. When the foal slid smoothly out onto the fresh bed of straw, she gasped as if it were her own body doing the work. Jolinda swiftly cleared the foal’s nose and mouth and then stood back.

  “Winged foal, young ladies,” she said shortly. “Whichever of you is the bondmate should get in here quick and give him a breath.”

  Amelia exhaled. “Me,” she said, her voice high and thready. “That’s me!” She hurried to open the gate, to cross to the foal where it lay on the straw. As if she had done it a hundred times, she cupped the foal’s nose and blew gently and surely into its nostrils. Without regard for her clothes or her hands, she brushed away bits of gelatinous stuff from its eyes and cheeks and ears. The mare whickered, and stood, breaking the umbilical cord with her movement.

  “Good,” Jolinda said. “Now let me clean this up, and you get yon foal to nurse, Miss.” She went to the corner and retrieved a stack of folded towels. Lark glanced up the aisle and saw a pitchfork and a barrow, and hurried to bring them to the stall. The stable-girl nodded approval at her assistance. Lark went in to help her scrape up the afterbirth, and together they stood over it, examining it to make certain every bit of it was intact.

  “Perfect,” Jolinda said.

  “Aye,” Lark agreed.

  Jolinda squinted up at her. “Worked a few foalings, have you?”

  Lark shook her head. “Only one. But goats and cows aplenty.”

  “Aye. Good job.”

  Lark followed Jolinda out and stood leaning on the half-gate, watching Amelia with her foal and its dam.

  All Amelia’s doubts seemed to have evaporated in the face of the actual event. She guided the foal to suckle, then stood rubbing it with towels until its soft fur was dry and standing up in little waves all over its back and chest.

  Now they could see that the foal was a colt. Its wings, like its dam’s, were as dark as its black mane and tail. Its body was a rich red, the color of mahogany. Amelia stood back as it nursed and turned to face the other girls. Tears streamed down her face, and her mouth curved in a trembling smile.

  “Isn’t he magnificent?” she sobbed.

  And her friends, laughing, shedding tears themselves over the marvel of the event, agreed that he was, indeed, magnificent. Another of Kalla’s miracles in the flesh, fur, bone, and membrane. A brand-new winged horse, and Amelia Rys’s bondmate for life.

  THIRTY-NINE

  PHILIPPAsat at Margareth’s desk in the Head’s office, with Suzanne Star and Kathryn Dancer opposite her. Together they pored over the notes that had arrived from the Ducal Palace, from Beeth House, and from two other stables where the spring foals had been born. They made a list of the students they could expect in the fall and made another list of those girls who had been disappointed, who had attended births only to find that the foals that arrived were wingless.

  “I can’t remember when there were so many failures,” Philippa said. “The breeding program is a mess.”

  “Eduard would never have let this happen,” Kathryn said. Eduard Crisp had spent hours poring over the genealogies with Margareth Morgan, planning, recording, comparing. Jinson had done nothing of the kind.

  Philippa sighed, and all three women were silent for a long time. Finally Suzanne said, “Still no word

  about the Council’s decision.”

  “Neither yea nor nay,” Philippa said. “We have no Headmistress, and if this keeps up, we will have no winged horses.”

  “It’s not quite that bad yet,” Suzanne said. “Is it?”

  Philippa pushed the list she had just completed across the desk so Suzanne could see it. “Only five winged foals this spring,” she said. “And of five more expected, all were born wingless. Another year or two of this, and we won’t have full flights.”

  Kathryn touched the genealogy, open to a page with the names of Noble sires and dams on it. “It would have been better simply to repeat Eduard’s pairings,” she said. “Eduard knows which sires throw winged foals.”

  “At least the Klee girl is bonded,” Kathryn said.

  Philippa said shar
ply, “We mustn’t call her that, Kathryn! She’s ours now. It’s important to call her by her name. She feels isolated enough.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kathryn said stiffly. “I’ll address her properly in her presence of course.”

  Philippa put up a hand. “Forgive me,” she said more gently. “I apologize for my manner of speaking. I don’t meant to do it, but it just comes out that way.”

  “It’s all right, Philippa,” Suzanne said. “We understand you.” Philippa ran a hand over her face. “We need a Headmistress,” she said. “Someone who is better at diplomacy than I am.”

  Suzanne smiled at her. “You’re doing fine, Philippa. It’s a hard time.”

  Philippa leaned back in her chair. “That’s kind of you. But I wish with all my heart Margareth were here.

  I have never longed to sit in her chair.”

  “Truly?” Kathryn said, a touch of asperity still in her voice. “I thought you had planned to succeed her all along.”

  Philippa’s lips tightened. “I only planned, all along, to serve the bloodlines and the Duke. I never expected to feel torn by my loyalties. I’m not sure I’m suited to be Headmistress.”

  Suzanne said, “This is not the time to be discussing this. Philippa is under terrible pressure, Kathryn.”

  “We all are,” Kathryn said.

  Suzanne put a hand on her colleague’s arm. “But the Duke has threatened to send Philippa down from the Academy. You and I don’t have that to contend with.”

  Kathryn’s eyes widened. “Send her down?”

  “I thought everyone knew that.”

  Philippa looked away, out the window to the spring day, where a sharp breeze tossed the tops of the spruce trees at the end of the flight paddock. The winter had felt like a season of suspension, of waiting for something to break. Somehow Philippa did not feel ready for spring, for buds and flowers and nesting birds. Too many issues were left unresolved—hers with William, his with her, and Francis still lying weak and ill at Fleckham House. She tapped her fingers on the desk. “Yet another reason why I should not be Head,” she said, half to herself. “I am as much at odds with our current Duke as I was devoted to Duke Frederick.”