by Toby Bishop
Lark was too relieved at Mistress Winter’s safe return to snap at the stable-girl. “Winter Sunset’s blanket was filthy,” she said mildly. “She needed a clean one.”
She could see Erna looking for some way to object to that and finding none. She left the girl staring at the wash pile as if it would hie itself into the tub on its own if she glared at it long enough. At another time, Lark might have let Erna know in some detail just how many loads of wash she herself had scrubbed in a tin tub on Deeping Farm, but at this moment, she wanted only to assure herself that Winter Sunset was as clean and warm and comfortable as she could make her. She stroked Bramble on her way out of the tack room, and the oc-hound thumped her tail without opening her eyes.
Tup had calmed, no doubt because Lark herself was so much calmer. He was happily drowsing in one corner of his stall, Molly the goat snuggled up against him. Sunny was munching grain. Lark buckled the fresh blanket around her and dashed across the courtyard through steady snowfall to see what else she might do to help.
She found that Lord Francis had been installed in the tiny guest room on the second floor of the Hall, opposite the reading room. The two blue-uniformed Klee soldiers guarded the half-open door to the apartment. The door to the reading room stood wide open, and Amelia Rys was there with her father.
The afternoon was wearing on to dusk, and the falling snow blotted out what little light was left. Even as Amelia stood to invite Lark into the reading room, one of the maids came along with a taper, lighting the lamps and the wall sconces. The fire crackled nicely in the reading room, but Baron Rys looked cold and tired.
“Black,” Amelia said. Her manner reflected nothing of the drama of the day. “Do come and meet my father. Father, this is my sponsor. Larkyn Hamley, now called Black.”
Baron Rys bowed, and Lark inclined her head.
“Father says,” Amelia told her, “that the children of Onmarin have been restored to their parents.”
“Oh,” Lark said weakly. “Oh, my lord, that is wonderful news. Rosellen—my friend—she would be so grateful.”
“They’ve had a bad time of it,” he said. His voice was hard, and his eyes looked as weary as Mistress Winter’s. “But the Aesks have paid the price for their suffering.”
“And Lord Francis?” Lark dared to ask. “Will he live?”
“That, I’m afraid,” Baron Rys answered her, “is something we don’t know yet.”
PHILIPPA left Francis to Matron’s care. Margareth had dispatched Herbert to the Palace for the Duke’s own physician, and there was nothing further to be done until he arrived. Matron, diffidently, suggested the witchwoman who lived just beyond the Academy, but Philippa and Margareth both disdained the suggestion. Francis was comfortable for the moment, at least, though he occasionally moaned and protested something about having failed.
Philippa heard Rys whisper to Francis, bending close to his ear. “You did not fail, my friend,” he said. “Both children are safe.” But Francis evidently was past comprehension.
Philippa knew she had no need to check on Winter Sunset. No one could take better care of her mare than the Uplands farm girl. With a weariness beyond belief, Philippa went down the staircase and into the dining room. She would eat, and bathe, then sleep, and try to erase from her memory the images of dead bodies on a bloodstained field of snow.
Conversation in the dining room was subdued, and when the students and the horsemistresses saw Philippa, it died away completely. She walked to the high table, feeling every pair of eyes on her back, and took a seat. Kathryn Dancer signaled for someone to bring her a plate, and she nodded her gratitude.
“Are you all right, Philippa?” Kathryn asked her.
“Cold, dirty, and hungry,” Philippa said. “But otherwise well.”
“We hear,” Suzanne Star said softly, “that Lord Francis lies dying upstairs.”
Philippa had just picked up her soup spoon, but she laid it down again, staring at the fragrant, pale broth in her bowl. Everything sparkled in the lamplight, the crystal, the silver, the white tablecloths. She looked up at her colleagues, and at the young women seated at the long tables. Their clean faces and hands, their neat hair, their immaculate riding habits, reproached her. “Kalla’s teeth,” she gritted, “I hope he’s not dying.”
“A barbarian stabbed him?” someone said.
Philippa fingered her spoon and didn’t answer for a long moment. When she found a way to put her thoughts into words, she found that her voice was more gentle than usual. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you could say that. But I don’t know that I will ever think of the Aesks as barbarians again, though they live a barbaric life. They have—” She swept the elegant dining room with her glance, the old, graceful wall sconces, the carved oak chairs, the sideboards laden with savory dishes. “They have nothing,” she finished. “Nothing but snow and rocks and fish to sustain them.”
“But they attack innocent folk,” Suzanne protested. “And take hostages!”
“I know.” Philippa took a spoonful of soup, and closed her eyes at the perfection of its delicate taste. “I know they do. And they have been punished for it.” She took another spoonful as her colleagues watched her. One or two were shaking their heads doubtfully. Philippa put down the spoon again and folded her arms. “It’s easy for you, sitting here with a good meal and a warm room and clean clothes. But I wonder, if we had to live as they do, if we might not behave in ways we now think barbaric.”
“Ridiculous!” someone said, and several women agreed. “Never!”
“You know nothing about it, any of you,” Philippa began. She felt the heat of her temper, and she preferred it to the fear and sorrow she had suffered in the last days.
“Hush.” It wasn’t clear who Kathryn was speaking to, but as she pressed a fresh yeast roll on Philippa, she said, “Philippa is exhausted. Let’s talk about it another time.”
Philippa cast her a grateful glance. She took the roll and dropped her eyes to her soup bowl. Another time, yes, but not soon. It would be a long time before she knew how to think of the Aesks and what had happened to Lissie, and Peter, and herself.
And Francis. At the thought of Francis, his ghastly wound, the blood and the pain and the worry, her throat closed.
Kathryn touched her arm. “Eat, Philippa. You’re all bones.”
Philippa nodded. She did her best to swallow away the tightness and resumed her meal.
LARK left the dining room with the other girls, and crossed the courtyard to the stables. She spoke to Tup as she passed, but went on to Winter Sunset’s stall. Mistress Winter had gone straight to her apartment, looking as if she could sleep for a week. Lark murmured to her as she walked by, “Leave your mare to me, Mistress,” and received a nod of thanks.
She found Winter Sunset content, sleepily munching the last of her grain. There was water still in her bucket. Lark brought a pitchfork and cleaned the stall a bit so she would have perfectly fresh straw to rest on if she decided to lie down. “Tired, aren’t you, girl?” Lark said. “Lovely brave, you were. Such an adventure.”
She patted Sunny’s smooth neck and left her drowsing in a corner. She had just reached Tup’s stall when she heard Petra Sweet’s nasal voice. “Truly, Miss Rys,” she was saying. “I do think it shows bad judgment to make the goat-girl your sponsor.”
“Goat-girl?” Amelia asked. “Do you mean Lark?”
Petra sighed. “Oh, yes, Lark. With her crybaby horse and that perfectly filthy little goat.”
“Filthy?” Amelia said in a colorless tone.
Lark was on the point of marching around the corner to confront Petra, but she stopped with one hand on the stall gate. Molly came and gazed up at her, her little beard trembling in anticipation of a treat. Tup turned his head toward Petra’s voice, ears pricked, listening.
Petra dropped her voice confidingly. “You know, she’s only an Uplands farm girl. Hardly the thing for the Academy. And her colt—he’s not really of the bloodlines. Anyone can see he’s
crossbred.”
There was a pause. Lark caught her lip between her teeth, not knowing whether to dash out and demand Petra apologize or wait to hear what Amelia Rys would say.
At last, Amelia spoke, with a clarity to her tone that reminded Lark of the Baron. “One so often finds crossbreeding energizes the line, doesn’t one?” Petra seemed to have no answer for that, and Amelia went on, “Horses, dogs, even people.” Lark heard the slight emphasis on the final word. “As my lord father so often says, every family needs fresh blood now and then.”
“W-well,” Petra stammered. “I suppose…of course, Baron Rys…I mean to say, there are standards…”
Amelia laughed, lightly, noncommittally. “Oh, standards,” she said. “When I left Klee, standards for ladies meant skirts a rod wide and hair teased up to the ceiling. I’m so glad not to be subject to other people’s standards.”
There was a rustle of feet in sawdust, and Lark, her cheeks burning, hurried into Tup’s stall, closing the gate behind her. She busied herself with a hoof pick, searching for a nonexistent stone so as not to be caught eavesdropping. She waited what she thought was a safe interval, then straightened. Molly stood inside the gate, looking up at Amelia Rys.
Amelia put both elbows on the gate. “Do you know, Black,” she said. “I do believe that is the cleanest little goat I have ever seen.”
PHILIPPA woke early the next morning to a world so dark at first she thought it must still have been night. She went to her window, wrapping her quilt around her against the cold, and sat in her armchair, where she could look out into the peaceful courtyard of the Academy. Never in her life had she been so glad to be home.
The floor was cold, and she tucked her bare feet up under her to keep them warm. She let her head fall back against the cushion and gazed out at the wintry scene. Intermittent snowflakes dashed themselves against the glass, and the clouds were so low it seemed if she leaned out of her window she could touch them. The paddocks were still under their pristine covering of snow. Nothing moved in the courtyard or the stables, not even an oc-hound.
It suddenly occurred to Philippa that Bramble had not come to greet her the day before. She frowned and sat up again, the last of her drowsiness gone. Perhaps, before breakfast, she would just run across to the stables, check on Sunny, make sure that Bramble was there.
She dropped her quilt where it was, and hurried to dress. She wore her thick wool stockings, as if she were going to fly, and a warm vest beneath her tabard. She wound her hair hastily into the rider’s knot.
When she was dressed, she tiptoed downstairs. The other horsemistresses were still in their apartments. The lamps were not yet lighted, and the Residence was cold and quiet at this early hour. She heard Matron just beginning to move about in the small kitchen beneath the stairs.
She could have gone in and asked for a cup of tea, but she decided to wait. The question of Bramble troubled her. She pulled on her riding coat as she went out into the snow, not bothering with her cap, and strode across the icy cobblestones to the stables.
The smell of horses and hay and leather greeted her on a gust of warm air as she went in. She didn’t see Bramble, but she slowed her steps, savoring the sensations. “Kalla’s heels, it’s good to be here,” she said aloud as she strolled down the aisles, nodding to the beautiful creatures in the stalls, sorrels, grays, bays, and duns, all groomed and blanketed, their precious wings carefully wingclipped against undue harm. Their ears flicked toward her as she passed, and their eyes glowed with recognition. Larkyn’s Black Seraph made his little whimpering cry as she came near, and Philippa paused at his stall.
He crossed to her, and pressed his muzzle into her hand. “You little rascal,” she said fondly. “You’re the most vocal horse I’ve ever met.” She caressed his satiny cheek with the backs of her fingers.
A step behind her made her turn so quickly she almost lost her balance.
“He is a noisy one, isn’t he?”
Philippa felt her cheeks burn with an unaccustomed flush. “Why,” she exclaimed. “Master Hamley! You are the very last person I expected to see here!”
He kept a careful distance from the stall, so as not to upset Black Seraph, but he bowed, and she remembered how oddly elegant a picture he made, though he was such a big man. “My sister must be that glad to see you back, Mistress.”
Philippa ran her hands over her hair and wished she had taken more pains with it, or at least rubbed a little cream into her skin. She gave a rather embarrassed laugh. “I’m glad to be back, myself, Master Hamley. But do tell me what brings you to the Academy—and why you’re in the stables so early!”
“Having a blink at Lark’s little black, there,” he said. “And wanted to see Lark once again before I go back to Deeping Farm.”
“Did you come all this way to see her?”
“Nay, Mistress. Trouble with His Grace, I’m afraid.” Brye Hamley glanced about him, but no one else had come in yet. “I came here yestermorn. Hoping to find you, as it happens.”
Philippa found this so unlikely she could think of no answer.
He nodded, as if in understanding. “Thought perhaps you could speak for me, in the Council Rotunda.”
“Oh, Brye,” she said, abandoning formality in their shared trouble. “William didn’t try to confiscate Deeping Farm after all!”
“He did.” Brye folded his arms and leaned against a support post. He appeared to be perfectly at ease in the stables. But then, he was a farmer. He would be at ease here.
He went on, keeping an eye out for anyone who might overhear. “Had a spy in our bloodbeets crew. The Duke knows now, I fear, that Pamella doesn’t speak. Not long after that man left Willakeep, got the summons from our prefect.”
“And the charge was interfering with the bloodlines.”
“Aye. Mistress Morgan asked Lord Beeth to stand up for me among the Lords, and he was kindly ready to do so. But Duke William didn’t show. The charge is postponed.”
“The Duke wasn’t there? Does anyone know why?”
“Nay.” In typical Uplands fashion, he apparently felt this needed no elaboration. He straightened and put his hat on his head. It was a winter hat, boiled wool, with a neatly turned brim. His eyes looked deep and dark in its shadow. “Best I be going, Mistress. The mail coach is to stop for me out at the road.”
“Do you not care to breakfast first?”
He paused, and then shook his head. “Nay. Just a blink at Lark.”
“I hear the girls coming out now. We can go and find her.”
As they turn to go out of the stables, Philippa remembered what had drawn her here so early in the first place. “A moment, please, Brye,” she said. Said glanced around, looking for Bramble. She called her name, and heard a little yip of response from the tack room.
By the time she had opened the door, and found the oc-hound on her bed of blankets, Herbert had joined her. Brye Hamley seemed to take in the situation at once, and strode across the tack room to kneel beside the dog.
Herbert said, “Someone cut her, and bad enough it was.”
Philippa crouched beside the dog’s head. “Bramble! Who would do this to you?”
She whined a little, and thumped her tail. Philippa stroked her, and her fingers encountered something soft beneath her neck. “What’s this?”
Herbert cleared his throat. “Well, Mistress…I stitched up her wound, with Larkyn’s help. And then Larkyn thought—well, she wanted a fetish, and Rosellen had left this one. I thought it couldn’t hurt.”
Byre Hamley was carefully lifting the bandage from Bramble’s neck, smoothing long silky hairs away from the wound to examine the stitching. Under his careful ministrations, she laid her head down again, and sighed. “Good job you made of this, sir,” Brye said.
Herbert nodded. “Aye. Bad business.”
“’Twill heal fast. The stitches can come out soon.”
“Aye. I thought the same.”
Philippa said, belatedly, “This is Larkyn’s
brother, Herbert. Brye Hamley, of the Uplands.”
The two men nodded at each other, then Brye smoothed the bandage back over Bramble’s wound, and tied it deftly around her neck. He let his fingers linger on it, just for a moment, looking down at the dog. When he looked up, the anger in his face was so intense Philippa almost gasped.
“If I knew who did this—” he began, then stopped. His jaw worked, and he stood up in a sudden, fluid motion. “I don’t hold with hurting animals,” he said, his eyes on Bramble.
“Aye,” Herbert said. “But we can’t prove nothing.”
Brye’s eyes, not violet like Larkyn’s, but the dark blue of a winter sky, met Philippa’s. “Dark days for Oc,” was all he said.
She could only shake her head. He was right, of course. And she would never want that look of fury turned her way. But as they walked together out of the stables, it was the tenderness in his big hands she remembered, the precision with which he had touched Bramble’s wound, replaced her bandage. Not for the first time, she thought how fortunate Larkyn was, though motherless and fatherless, to have been brought up by such a man.
Philippa caught sight of Larkyn coming out of the Dormitory, and called to her. She stood back as the brother and sister said their farewells. She watched Brye Hamley stride out of the courtyard and down the lane a moment later. His heavy boots stirred the snow as he walked, and his shoulders soon bore a frosting of snowflakes.
“So strange, Mistress Winter, isn’t it?”
Philippa looked down to see that Larkyn had come to stand beside her. The girl waved one last time to her brother, and he touched the brim of his hat. “What’s strange, Larkyn?”
“That the Duke made Brye come all this way, then didn’t appear in the Council.”
“Ah. That.” Philippa turned to go to the Hall, suddenly as hungry as the girls always were. “Yes. Well, let’s just be grateful. Put it out of your mind for now, Larkyn. You have work to do.”
She tried to follow her own advice, but it was hard. She kept wishing she had been present in the Rotunda, to see how this Uplands farmer fared. She had an idea that Brye Hamley would be just as poised, just as sure of himself, among the Lords of the Council as he was kneeling on a dusty floor beside an injured oc-hound.