Airs of Night and Sea Page 14

  He rubbed his hands on his trousers. “You’re Klee, Miss. There are them who will find no fault with this.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. My father taught me that a nation’s memory can be long.”

  “ ’Twasn’t your fault, the South Tower.”

  “I guess that doesn’t matter. And I suppose the Academy doesn’t matter, either, or my bonding to a winged horse. To such people, I’ll always be Klee.”

  FIFTEEN

  LARK shrank back into the shadows of the barn roof, pressing Tup against the wall. Overhead, Maid of Smoke made a long, slow circuit of the orchard, and Lark could almost feel Marielle Smoke’s eyes burning the landscape, searching for her. The farmwife had not closed her kitchen door when she went inside, and Lark watched that, too, fearful that someone might come out and force her out into the open, or even drive her and her exhausted stallion back into the air.

  But when the woman returned, she was followed only by a girl of about seventeen who carried a pail in her hands. They crossed the barnyard to Lark, the farmwife still scowling in what appeared to be a habitual look. The girl was slight and small-boned, and the swell of pregnancy rounded the printed apron she wore. Her eyes stretched wide with amazement when she caught sight of the winged horse. She curtsied to Lark, which made Lark feel strange, and the farmwife said, “I thought your horse looked awful thirsty. Olive here will get some water from the pump.”

  “Thank you so much,” Lark said. “ ’Tis true—Tup could use a drink.” Olive, without speaking, walked past the corner of the barn and disappeared. Lark cast an anxious glance into the sky, but Maid of Smoke had disappeared, too.

  “Huh,” the farmwife said, looking Lark up and down as if she were measuring her for an apron of her own. “You don’t sound like the rest of them horsemistresses. And they wear their hair different.”

  Lark gave her a tentative smile, and the woman’s scowl lightened ever so slightly. “I’m not a horsemistress yet,” Lark said. “Soon, though, next year. I’m an Uplander, and I’ve kept my country accent. And my hair—” She pulled off her cap, and ran her fingers through her cropped black curls. “My hair won’t go in the rider’s knot, because of these curls, so I cut it off.”

  “You’re running from that one, it seems,” the woman said, with a jerk of her head toward the sky.

  “Aye,” Lark said “ ’Tis not her fault, though. She’s doing her duty as she sees it.”

  The woman’s frown deepened again, but she pointed toward the barn. “No stalls in there, but you can tether your horse in the goat pen, if you want.”

  Lark’s smile grew. “Do you have goats?”

  “Aye, Miss. We sell goat cheese when we’re not selling apples. You don’t mind their smell, I hope?”

  “Nay, I do not. I love goats. Tup was fostered by a goat, and I had my own flock in the Uplands.”

  At this the farmwife’s frown smoothed until it almost vanished. “You’re a farm girl yourself,” she said.

  “Aye,” Lark said.

  “And a flyer. Not the usual thing.”

  “Nay,” Lark said, with a laugh. “Not the usual thing at all.”

  IN a short time, Lark found herself seated at a battered kitchen table reminiscent of the one at Deeping Farm. The farmwife, whose name turned out to be Agatha, brewed a pot of tea and, Lark was pleased to see, gave it a turn with a small, plaid-skirted fetish before she served it. Lark sipped hers and nodded approval. It was lovely to taste properly made tea once again.

  Olive, who turned out to be Agatha’s daughter-in-law, brought a dish of sliced apples. Shyly, she said, “Just picked today, Miss.”

  Lark smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  The woman and the girl sat down with her, each with a mug of tea. Agatha said, “You can stay here if you want, Miss Hamley. There’s no one here but Olive and me, since my boy was sent off to Oc.”

  “Oc?” Lark said.

  “Oh, aye,” Agatha said. “Our Prince saw fit to send our own militia off to Osham, to serve the Duke there. No matter that the apples are rotting on the trees, or that my boy’s first child is coming.” She nodded toward Olive’s swelling belly. “What do the nobs care about us farm-folk?”

  Lark said, “Some do, Mistress, I promise you. I’ve met them.” She sipped tea, then added, “But my own brother is in the militia, and neither was it his choice.”

  “Believe you me,” Agatha scowled, “if the nobs had to send their own children off, there’d be a sight fewer wars than there are.”

  “I hope there won’t be a war,” Lark said, but she remembered Baron Rys’s set features, the hardness of his voice, and she felt a quiver of anxiety.

  “What are you going to do, Miss?” whispered the shy Olive. “Why did you flee?”

  Lark bit her lip, hesitating. Surely the Baron’s warning to keep her movements secret did not apply to these simple folk, but she didn’t want to take a chance. Still, it was good to have Tup resting in the cool barn, where no one could see him. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

  Choosing her words carefully, she said, “There’s trouble in Oc. And at the Academy of the Air. We need help from—from someone. She doesn’t know about it yet.”

  Agatha pushed the dish of apple slices closer to Lark, and said, “She must not be living in Isamar. Everyone here knows there’s trouble in Oc.”

  Lark took an apple slice. “Everyone does? Why?”

  Olive said in her breathless voice, “Because the Prince sent the militia. Like my Ronald.”

  “Ronald. My son,” Agatha said.

  “Aye,” Lark said. “ ’Tis hardly fair.” She nibbled the apple, and was distracted by the crisp flavor that flooded her mouth. “Oh! Delicious!”

  Agatha nodded grimly. “Seastars,” she said. “Best apples in Isamar.”

  “I’ve never had one like it,” Lark said honestly.

  “Don’t know what we’re going to do with our harvest this year.” Agatha went on. “Even if Olive and me can get the crop in, Ronald usually takes the cart round the towns and sells the apples direct. And we export some to Oc by ship, but them ships aren’t sailing this year.”

  “You have no idea where Ronald is posted?”

  Agatha shook her head. “But when you get back from where you’re going, Miss, if you meet up with him . . .”

  Olive said softly, “Tell him we’re fine.”

  Agatha cast her a startled look, then nodded her approval to her daughter-in-law, though her frown was as deeply engraved into her forehead as ever. “That’s right, Olive,” she said. “Quite right. Tell Ronald we’re fine.”

  WHEN Lark had checked the skies a dozen times and was convinced that Marielle Smoke had given up trying to find her, she saddled Tup again and led him out into Agatha’s barnyard. A dirt lane wound down from the orchard toward the sea, and she and Tup would launch from there. Agatha and Olive gave her a bag of apples, but Lark regretfully took most of them out. “They’re wonderful,” she said. “But they’re heavy, and we have a long flight ahead of us.”

  “You can sleep the night here,” Agatha said for the third time. “ ’Tis close to darkness, and I worry for your safety.”

  Lark shook her head. “Thank you,” she said. “But I’ll be using a star to reckon my course. It should stand above my destination as soon as the sun sets behind the mountains.”

  The two stood in the barnyard as she jumped up into the flying saddle. She had been tempted to leave it behind, but her things were tied behind the cantle, and she would have no way to hold them if she flew the way she preferred, with nothing but a chest strap and Tup’s bridle. She glanced back at the women and touched her fingers to her peaked cap.

  “Good luck, Lark,” Olive said, rubbing the swell of her belly with her hands.

  “Aye. And good luck with the baby.”

  Agatha stood, frowning and waving, as Lark reined Tup about, and he began to trot down the lane.

  The dirt was well packed and smooth. Tup canter
ed, then sped to the hand gallop, and in moments they were aloft, banking low over the fields to avoid being spotted from Arlton. They turned east, to where the green water glittered in the afternoon sun.

  Lark had studied the Baron’s map until it was as clear in her mind as if she held it unrolled in front of her. The daring of her mission made her shiver if she thought about it, so she forced herself to think only of her goal. She was not afraid, not exactly, she told herself, but it was a dangerous thing they were undertaking. There was no avoiding it, so there was no point in worrying about it. And she had promised the Baron.

  As Tup approached the sea, Lark urged him higher, remembering everything she had ever been taught about flying over water. The air currents could be unpredictable, she recalled. The wind could slow them down, but it could just as easily turn and help Tup to fly faster. The flight should be approximately three hours, if all went well. She knew there would be a point of no return, where it was too late to turn back, too late to change her mind, but she thrust that out of her mind. In truth, she told herself, she had passed the point of no return the moment she’d abandoned her flight and flown south from the Academy without permission. Her path had been set then.

  Sure that by now she was out of sight of the horsemistresses from Arlton, or even from the South Tower, she urged Tup higher. He ascended, and they flew steadily on over the expanse of ocean, until the farms and buildings of Isamar dropped out of sight behind them, and the mountain peaks began to shrink. The lowering sun shone on their backs, and the salt wind blew sharply in Lark’s face and brought tears to her eyes. Soon Lark could not even see the western shore over her shoulder. She settled into the flying saddle, gave Tup his head, and prayed to Kalla to guide their flight. The one thing they could not afford, over water, was to make any error in their direction.

  For perhaps an hour they flew with no land visible behind them or ahead of them. There was nothing to see but the green waves tossing below, and an occasional seabird in the distance. Once or twice a gust of wind buffeted Tup, but he stilled his wings and soared until they passed it, then began to beat his wings again when the air was steadier. He flew as confidently as if he had crossed the sea many times. Perhaps, Lark mused, such knowledge was in his soul. Some believed the winged horses descended from the Old Ones, who left their lairs in the highest mountains to fly over ancient glaciers and long-vanished snowfields. Or perhaps it was even Seraph, the original Ocmarin, who had once flown above the sea and passed the memory along to the horses of his bloodline.

  Lark judged, after a time, that they must have passed the midpoint of their crossing. She tried to keep her muscles loose, her hands confident on the reins. She sensed no undue fatigue in Tup, but the chop of the water beneath them, growing darker by the moment, seemed ominous to her. She lifted her eyes, determined not to look at it again.

  She peered ahead, searching for the glimmer of the evening star. Baron Rys had told her it would stand above Marinan, that he had seen it himself from his ships at sea. If she and Tup made straight for it, they could make no mistake.

  When she saw an edge of darkness on the horizon, at first she thought they had already reached Klee. But as they flew toward it, she realized with a shiver of anxiety that it was a bank of cloud, rolling along the surface of the water. She was tempted to urge Tup to fly faster, but she feared tiring him. She also feared that the clouds would cover the evening star, and they would lose their direction.

  She put her hands on Tup’s withers, feeling the heat of his body through her palms. He, at least, seemed to have no qualms. His muscles worked smoothly and steadily, and his ears were pricked forward as if he knew just where he was going.

  She hoped he did. The cloud bank rose, roiling in shades of gray like the smoke from the autumn fires. It obscured the water and stretched admonishing fingers into the sky. For a dozen of Tup’s wingbeats, she watched the clouds swell higher and higher, and still she had not found the star by which to reckon.

  And then she felt, rather than saw, the sun slip behind the western horizon. The wind from the sea grew colder, and the sky darkened swiftly around them. For long moments they flew through clouds, fog beneath, fog above, and no light in sky or water to guide them. Lark felt as blind as if she had lost her sight.

  And then, something pricked the darkness.

  A tiny, cold flame flickered to life far ahead. It lay slightly to the north of their position, and though it was small, its steady shine pierced the edge of the fog bank, beckoning them through the night to the shores of Klee.

  “There, Tup!” Lark cried. She laid the rein lightly on the right side of his neck and pressed with her right calf. He tilted, and his wings beat faster.

  The clouds rose higher, and the star disappeared. But they had seen it. Tup had seen it.

  Other stars began to glimmer through the dimness, faint sparks that flared and faded as the mists shifted. Lark offered one more prayer to Kalla that she and her bondmate would come safely to ground. She leaned a little forward in her saddle, and Tup flew steadily on, as straight as any bird remembering its home.

  SHEAVES of lavender filled the sheds at Marinan, hung stems up so that the essence could drip into the heads. When the narders stripped the blooms, they would express the lavender oil into glass bottles, cork them, and carefully shelve them. The year before, Philippa had watched the hired oxcart trundle down the twisting mountain lane, the precious bottles packed in layers of straw to keep them from breaking, the narders walking alongside to steady the ox’s pace and guard against rocks or ruts that might jostle their cargo.

  Market time had come round again. Philippa had spent the afternoon helping the narders pull handcarts full of fragrant blossoms up to the processing sheds. They had not asked for her help, but she was glad to be allowed to make herself useful. She wore a borrowed pair of loose trousers and a light shirt, and Lyssett had given her a heavy canvas apron to absorb the lavender stains. She hauled the handcart down the slope into the field, where one of the narders filled it with tied sheaves, then she hauled it back up to the shed, where she deposited her load.

  When the handcart was empty, she straightened, rubbing the small of her back where it had begun to ache with the effort of pulling the handcart uphill to the shed. She looked out over the lavender fields and saw that the job was nearly finished. One of the narders passed her on his way back to the fields, and nodded a greeting. He didn’t speak, and neither did she. Philippa, bemused, realized she had adopted the same habit of silence that marked the Marinan retainers. The thought gave her a stab of loneliness. She felt, for a painful moment, as home-sick as a first-level girl.

  She turned with the handcart to go back down through the fields. It was really too dark to make another trip, but she knew the narders hoped to finish the job tonight. The sun had set behind an enormous bank of building clouds, and the sky had gone dark over the eastern mountains.

  Philippa paused to look up into the sky, where a few faint stars flickered, then down into the dark valley below. A hawk, silhouetted by gray clouds, sailed above the meadow, where the shepherds were driving in the black and white sheep. Philippa started down the slope, then stopped, frowning, and looked up again.

  The creature was black, but it was too big to be any bird she recognized. And it was growing bigger by the minute. Its wingspan was wide and narrow, its wingbeats slow, as if it were tired.

  Philippa dropped the bars of the handcart and turned back toward the barn, leaving the cart where it lay. Her hawk was no bird at all, but a winged horse. A winged horse trying to come to ground in a strange place, on a mountainside, and in the dark.

  She fairly flew herself, racing up the slope, dashing into the barn, flinging open the stall door to toss a hackamore over Sunny’s head. There was no time for the saddle. She hurried Sunny out to the mounting block at a trot, leaping onto her back as swiftly as she could. She reined Sunny toward the lane and urged her forward. The winged horse was banking, turning toward Marinan. The flyers wo
uld surely see the lighted windows, and even the glow of the lamp outside the barn, but the lane, shrouded as it was by dogwood and a tangle of wild rose hedges, was hard to see from the air even in daylight. It would be impossible in darkness.

  Sunny spotted the flyers herself. She whickered eagerly, and began her canter the moment she felt Philippa’s legs snug beneath her wings.

  She launched herself without any urging, and flew with powerful wingbeats down the mountain to intercept the flight path of the newcomers. Philippa peered into the darkness, realizing with a rush of panic just who it was flying toward Marinan in near-perfect darkness.

  Only Larkyn Hamley, she thought, would dare such a journey. And she must have made it without permission, because she would never have been allowed to undertake it without a monitor. It was one thing for an experienced horsemistress to fly across the sea alone, and quite another for one who had not yet passed her final tests. To say nothing of making the flight at night, something Philippa herself would prefer not to do!

  But all of that could wait until Larkyn and Black Seraph were safely on the ground. Philippa, who had not taken time to seize her quirt, signaled to Larkyn with her hand, and received a salute in return. Seraph’s ears flicked forward at the sight of Winter Sunset, who had monitored all of his training flights. It seemed that even seeing her ahead of him gave him new strength. He ascended a bit, and his tiring wings seemed to steady.

  Philippa, with the younger flyers falling in behind her, reined Sunny about and flew directly above the steep, narrow lane to show Larkyn and Black Seraph where it was. She guided Sunny down, leaving plenty of room behind her for the others to follow. All the while, a little bubble of happiness was growing in her breast, a swelling of pleasure and anticipation. It would be so good to talk with someone from the Academy, and most especially this someone, even if she must scold the child for her foolhardiness!

  She and Sunny came to ground neatly, having practiced this same return nearly every day for more than a year. As Sunny trotted up the lane toward the barn, Philippa looked back over her shoulder, and saw Black Seraph make a competent landing, although he had to beat his wings once or twice for balance. Larkyn’s white face showed the strain of their long flight, and Philippa felt certain Seraph, too, was exhausted. She would, she decided, save her reprimands for later. First, they must cool Seraph and feed and water him. Then Larkyn would need refreshment, and Lyssett could arrange a warm bath for her.