LARK and Hester and the rest of the second-level girls were in the dry paddock behind the stables when they saw Philippa Winter and Winter Sunset winging toward the Academy through the dusk. Hester tipped her head back to watch them and lost her place.
Their instructor, Suzanne Star, had been drilling them in unmounted Points. On foot, the girls moved in the figures they would later translate into flight, practicing the formations over and over until they became second nature. “Hester,” the horsemistress said sharply, “you will not learn the pattern if you don’t pay attention. Remember, it is not only you who could be at risk. Whoever flies close to you depends upon your accuracy.”
Hester said, “Yes, Mistress Star. I’m sorry.” She stepped back into place. Lark tried to keep track of where she was supposed to be, but her eyes strayed to the sky, too, watching the sorrel mare’s descent. Both girls hoped that Mistress Winter had gone in search of help.
Hester had heard through her mamá that the Council Lords had declined to act in the matter of the attack on the northern village. The death toll, they said, was small, only six, and the kidnapped children were probably dead already. No one seemed to care that one of those slaughtered by the Aesk was a stable-girl from the Academy. Thinking of poor Rosellen’s savage death dismissed in such a heartless way made Lark’s eyes blur, and she stumbled out of the pattern.
Mistress Star clicked her tongue. “Larkyn, not you, too. Kalla’s teeth, you girls must concentrate! Now, again. Anabel, you’re first on the left. Everyone, mark your own position and that of the girls on either side—remember to make wing room—and now, right for a count of five—watch your leader! Descend, and left for a count of five. Half Reverse, and…”
It seemed to Lark to go on forever. Hester, on a Grand Reverse, grimaced at her. Lark closed her eyes briefly. Neither of them had been able to concentrate on their studies since the tragedy. Only flying distracted them, however briefly, from grief and worry and awful memories.
When Mistress Star released them at last to go and blanket their horses for the night, Winter Sunset was already in her stall. The new stable-girl, Erna, was filling her water bucket and shredding a flake of hay into her bin. Hester and Lark paused in the sawdust-strewn aisle and waited for the other girls to walk past.
“Erna,” Hester said, when the others had gone. “Where is Mistress Winter?”
Erna gave the two girls a disinterested glance. “Gone to the Hall, ’s far ’s I know,” she said offhandedly. “Prob’ly wants her dinner. Just left me with her mare to see to.”
Hester rolled her eyes at Lark as they turned away. When they rounded the corner into their own wing of the stables, she whispered, “That one won’t last long. What a sourpuss!”
“Aye. She is that. Rosellen would never—” Lark’s throat closed.
Hester put a hand on her shoulder. “Give it time,” she said softly. “We’ll get over it.”
“A thousand days to grieve, we say in the Uplands,” Lark said. “And we’ve only been through a few so far.” She sighed. “I only hope Mistress Winter—” A crash of hooves on wood interrupted her, followed by a girl’s shout. She gasped, “Oh, Zito’s ears! That’s Tup!” She started to run. Hester was close on her heels.
They rounded the corner into the aisle where Tup and Golden Morning had their stalls, and both skidded to a stop in the sawdust.
Tup’s hindquarters were turned toward the gate of his stall. Just as they got there, he kicked out, his hooves banging hard on the gate. The latch creaked so Lark thought it might break. Molly, the little brown goat, cowered in one corner of the stall.
Petra Sweet, pale and furious, stood with her back against the opposite wall, shouting, “Quiet, Seraph! Quiet!”
And beyond Petra, quirt in hand and face like a thundercloud, stood William of Oc.
“What’s going on?” Lark demanded. At the sound of her voice, Tup whirled, and pressed his rump against the back wall. His head was high, his ears laid back, and sweat dripped down his sides, striping his folded wings. Lark hurried to let herself into the stall and cross to him.
With one hand on Tup’s hot neck, she glared at the Duke and Petra. “What did you do to him?” she demanded.
“Nothing!” Petra shrilled. “What’s the matter with your crybaby that a person can’t walk past—”
“He’s always been bad-tempered,” the Duke said lightly. He stepped forward, and Lark felt Tup tense.
“Hush,” she murmured to the horse. She pressed her body against his shoulder. “Hush, now, Tup, it’s all right.”
“It is not all right!” Petra declared.
Lark said, through a tight jaw, “What were you doing?” She meant to speak to the Duke, but Petra intervened.
“The Duke was only strolling through the stables.” Petra shook a finger at Lark. “As is his right, and no other horse behaved in such a way. Seraph is out of control, if you ask me!”
“Good job I didn’t ask you, then,” Lark snapped.
Duke William’s lip curled. “But it’s true,” he said. He turned the quirt in his hands. “Your little stallion has a terrible temper.”
Lark thrust her chin out. “He does not,” she said. “What he has is a good memory.”
The Duke scowled. “You would be wise, brat, to mind your own memory. Remember to whom you’re speaking.”
A retort sprang to Lark’s lips, but she thought of her brothers, and of the threat to Deeping Farm, and she bit it back.
“Yes,” William said, with a cold smile. “I see you understand.” He slapped the quirt into his palm. “You may have passed your first Ribbon Day, Miss Hamley, though we hardly expected it—”
Petra smirked at that, and Lark’s heart began to pound with fury.
“But you have other tests still facing you,” the Duke said. “And with an unruly stallion.” He took a single step closer. Tup trembled against Lark’s shoulder, and she felt him tense. She gripped a handful of his mane and willed him to be still.
“One failure,” William murmured. His eyes were like black ice. “Just one, Miss Hamley, and he’s gone.”
“It won’t happen,” she managed to say through tight lips.
“I do hope not,” William said in the silky voice that chilled anyone who recognized it. “What a shame that would be.” He slapped the quirt into his palm one more time, and Tup flinched. William’s smile grew, seeing it. “Good luck to you.” He tucked the quirt under his arm, wheeled about, and strode away down the aisle.
Petra stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Lark. “How dare you speak to His Grace that way? Your behavior was inexcusable! I believe the Headmistress should—”
“Oh, give over, Sweet,” Hester snapped. “There are things you don’t understand.”
“What does that mean?” Petra asked, spinning about to face Hester. “Why do you always act like you know more than anyone else? Just because your father is one of the Lords of the Council—”
Lark said in a low tone, “Let it go, Hester. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.”
Petra cried, “I’m telling you, Larkyn Black, I’m going to speak to the Head about this!”
And Hester said firmly, “Do that, Petra. Enjoy yourself.”
Petra made an exasperated sound and stalked out of the stables. Beside Lark, Tup relaxed his muscles and lowered his head. She stroked his cheek. Molly trotted across the stall to press against her knees.
“Is Seraph all right?” Hester put her elbows on the gate, leaning into the stall.
Tup’s ears flicked forward at her voice, at ease now. “Aye,” Lark said. “But I worry about what he’ll do.”
“Seraph, or the Duke?” Hester asked.
Lark said bitterly, “Both.” She crossed the stall to take Tup’s blanket from its shelf, and shook it out. “The Duke hates me,” she said. “Because I stopped him getting what he wanted. And Tup hates the Duke because he beat him.”
“You, at least,” Hester said, straightening, “will be protected by the Council. Mamá assures me the Council will draw the line at allowing the Duke to interfere with one of the girls of the Academy.”
Lark buckled Tup’s blanket around him and checked to see that his water bucket was full. “But our farm,” she said, as she gave the brown goat one last pat, and opened the half-gate to step through. “The Duke has the power to take it right away from the Hamleys, after we’ve held it for more than three hundred years.”
“Try not to worry, Black. Mamá and Papá will do their best.”
“I know. I’m grateful.”
“Now, come help me with Goldie,” Hester said. “We’ll be late.”
“Aye,” Lark said.
She filled Golden Morning’s water bucket while Hester blanketed her. As they turned to leave the stables, the oc-hound, Bramble, came pacing toward them.
Hester stroked her silky head. “Where have you been, Bramble?”
Lark patted the dog, too, and said, “She’s been watching the Duke.”
“How do you know that?”
“’Tis what she does. Ever since he stole Tup from the stables.” She knelt in the sawdust, and murmured, “You’re a lovely fine dog, Bramble. Watch over my Tup, now will you?”
Bramble’s plumy tail waved gently, and she turned toward Tup’s stall. As Lark stood, Bramble settled herself just outside the stall gate.
“That’s amazing, Black,” Hester said. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Talk to animals that way. You do it with Bramble, with Pig, with Molly. And they always seem to understand!”
Lark gave a small laugh. “I don’t think Pig always understood!”
“Well—he’s a difficult pony,” Hester admitted. “But still.”
Lark considered this as they crossed the courtyard. The lights of the Hall were on, and the aromas of supper reached them through the chill air. Despite her sadness, Lark was hungry. “I think,” she said to Hester, as they climbed the steps, “that it’s because I grew up with animals. No mother, no father—my brothers were wonderful to me, but they were always working. I had the goats, the cows, the chickens.” They reached the tall doors, and Hester opened one. “And I had Char, for a time,” Lark added sadly.
“Oh, Black,” Hester said. “You’ve had a hard time of it.”
Lark managed a smile up at her tall friend. “We grieve for a thousand days. ’Tis better now,” she said.
Hester smiled back. “Yes, I think so.”
But Lark couldn’t help the thought, as they found their seats, that it would never get better for Rosellen. She doubted she would ever cease mourning her friend. Or Char, her magical little mare, or the mother she had never known. The world seemed full of grief. If only something could be done for the bereft parents of Onmarin!
Lark looked up at the high table, where the instructors sat. The Headmistress’s seat was empty, and so, she saw, was Philippa Winter’s. As Lark gazed at their empty chairs, the icon that hung around her neck, the little carved image of the horse goddess, grew warm against her skin. She touched it with her fingers and wondered what Kalla was trying to tell her.