FIVE

WILLIAM rode toward the Academy on as direct a route as he could find. He knew what he had to do. He had tried it before, but a wise man learned from his mistakes. This time he would do it right. This time he would take them both. And when Philippa found out they were missing, she would hasten back to Oc from wherever she had gone to ground. She had foolishly allowed herself to become too attached to one of her students. He would hold her weakness up as an example, yet another reason that men should take charge of Oc’s most precious resource.

Before riding out, he had spent an hour with Diamond, working her in the dry paddock with a longue line, picking up her feet and brushing the saddle blanket over her back as the horsemistress had taught him. It was boring, stultifying. He couldn’t think what such dry exercises had to do with flying. But the horsemistress swore these were necessary steps to prepare for riding, then for flight.

The horsemistress, Felicity Baron, was boring, too, a plain, middle-aged woman. She did what she was told, but with ill grace. She didn’t even try to hide her objections to his bonding. He would have punished her for her bad humor, except he didn’t want to have to find another monitor for Diamond. Sometimes he eyed Mistress Baron’s bony back as she walked away from him and wished he could deal with her as she deserved. She didn’t know how lucky she was, for the moment. Once he had flown, he would put her and her old gelding, Sky Baron, out to pasture, as far from the Ducal Palace as he could manage.

After restoring Diamond to her stall, with a promise to be back before evening, he walked down the aisle to where his new saddle horse, a good-looking chestnut mare, waited in her stall. He missed his old brown gelding, but the horse had broken down, and Jinson had carted him off to some farmer’s field to rest. Had it been any other horse, William would have had him put down without a thought. The gelding, though, had served him well, and he knew he had been a demanding rider. He refused any feelings of guilt over it—everything he did was, after all, for the Duchy and for his people. The chestnut mare was not nearly as fast, nor as spirited, as the gelding had once been. Nicolas had promised to send a horse from his own stables, some tall, strong stallion who could tolerate William’s riding style. But William hoped, before such an animal arrived, that he would have no need of an earthbound horse. He hoped he would be flying.

William put a bridle on the mare and led her down the aisle to the tack room. “I expect you to hold up better than my last mount,” he told her as he threw the saddle on her back and began to tighten the cinches. “I ride fast and hard, and I’m not going to change.”

She didn’t respond, and he glanced longingly at the other side of the stables, where Diamond’s stall was. Wingless horses were infintely less interesting than winged ones.

William swung himself up into the saddle and rode out of the stables and around to the back, where a grassy ride, browning now beneath the clear autumn sun, led through the park that surrounded the Palace. His stable-man came hurrying out to ask, “My lord? Don’t you want a groomsman to go with you? Or your valet?”

“No, Perkins,” William said. “I’m going to have a few hours to myself.”

Perkins stood where he was, wiping his hands on a rag. “Aye, m’lord. As you wish.”

William looked down at him. “Tell Mistress Baron to look in on Diamond for me.”

“Aye, m’lord.” Perkins gave a small bow and turned back into the stables. Did he, too, have an odd look on his face?

It was infuriating to think that he could no longer trust even his stable-man. He didn’t trust his wife, but she hardly mattered. He had never known a woman he could trust, in any case. He felt uncertain about Jinson, with his lamentably soft heart and odd flashes of doubt about their purpose. And those clodheads in the Council! Only a fool would put faith in the wisdom of those doddering old men.

In fact, now that he came to think on it, it was only his old Slater, who made no bones about where his loyalties lay, whom he could trust. He would rather rely on honest greed than on simpering and fine words.

William reined the mare toward the ride and dug his spurs into her ribs, making her burst into a stiff trot. He spurred her again, and she began to gallop, a little raggedly. He knew he should give her a chance to warm up, but fury made him impatient. Just wait until he flew. Then they would all see, including that fat Nicolas, with his warning letters and contracts and constant queries. As if the Prince of Isamar couldn’t afford a thousand militiamen without the slightest strain! It was all preposterous. None of them had any vision at all, and worse, they couldn’t recognize the vision of someone else.

He wrenched the mare’s reins as he turned her into the woods. She tossed her head and sidestepped, but he persisted, making her push through a close stand of cottonwoods. William ducked to avoid the branches and urged the mare on. He intended to ride straight cross-country and cut two hours off his time. The days were growing short, and the light would have faded by the time he reached the Academy. The brat spent far too much time in the stables, all hours of the day and night. He had watched her, and he knew. He would simply go in and get her. If anyone objected—that fool stable-man, or anyone else—he had militia there to deal with them. Soldiers, regular or impressed, followed orders.

Thinking of the militia reminded him of the brat’s brother, the younger one. Nick, he was called, and now in the uniform of his Duke’s service. He would make certain Nick Hamley was posted someplace hard, not some cushy position like the Academy of the Air or the Rotunda. The port, perhaps—things could get rough down there even at the best of times. It had gotten worse since the levy of the extraordinary tax. Tension was growing between the nobility and the working classes.

William cursed softly to himself. It was yet another reason the damned Council Lords should be grateful to him. There had been more than one instance of the militia stepping in to stop angry laborers from interfering with their betters as they tried to move about the city, and yet still Beeth and Daysmith and those others whined on in the Council about unfair taxation and soldiers on every corner. Of course they were on every corner! How else could order be maintained?

William loosened the reins, now that they were on the right path, and let the mare find her own way through the wood. He took deep breaths of the pine-scented air, and tried to calm himself. One day soon it would all come right. The tensions would be forgotten, the confusion and the questions. Once he closed the Academy, he could lift the extraordinary tax. Even the slowest of the Council Lords, the most resistant, would recognize the new direction for the Duchy, one that would lead to more profit and a greater name in Isamar. Then they could all bend the knee to him and apologize, Daysmith, Beeth, Chatham, and the rest.

And, of course, every horsemistress. The thought made him want to whip up the mare, but he resisted. It would do no good to arrive in daylight, anyway. He had to be patient, take it one step at a time. It would all come right soon enough.

He adjusted the smallsword at his belt and tried to fill his mind with thoughts of Diamond and what it would be like when he flew her at last. When he spotted the gambrel roofs of the Academy stables beyond the wood, he dismounted and left the mare cropping sparse grass in a little clearing. He could send Jinson for her later. His quarry was at hand.