Airs of Night and Sea

WILLIAM turned in his bed, his eyes still closed. The light through his eyelids seemed much brighter than it had the day before. He sat up and looked out the window to see that the weather had cleared. Beyond the slate roofs of the Palace the sky was a clear, empty blue. He threw back his covers and went to pull the curtains aside. The last of the storm clouds had retreated into the west, leaving Osham and its surrounding fields and pastures basking in cool winter sunshine.

He rang for his breakfast, and while he waited for it, pulled on a full-sleeved white shirt, a pair of light trousers, and the boots he had ordered for just this purpose. They were glove soft, made with the lightest calf leather, with soft soles and low heels. He tied his hair in its queue and pulled on his vest. He forced the bone buttons into the buttonholes, straining the fabric across his chest. He paused briefly, running his hand over his swollen bosom. Perhaps, once he and Diamond had flown together, he could reduce the amount of the potion he was taking. It would be good to feel like himself again.

When the maid knocked at his door with his tray, he was just pulling on his riding coat, wondering if it would do for flying or would flap and blow about his legs and distract Diamond. He didn’t realize Constance had come in behind the maid until he turned from his wardrobe to reach for his coffee cup.

She was still in her dressing gown, an elaborately embroidered affair with a long, sweeping hem, and her mousy hair hung loose down her back. She looked, he thought, like a child wearing her mother’s clothes. It was hard to believe she was older than Francis by at least three years. “William,” she said in her breathy voice. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to—” He stopped himself from saying “going to fly.” He wouldn’t say the words, not until he had actually done it. He finished, “—to ride. What did you think?”

Her eyes slid up to his, then away. “And something happened last night. On the New Bridge, someone was killed. I heard two of your—that is, two guardsmen talking about the Klee.”

William blew out his lips in irritation. He wanted her out of his room, out of his sight. He wanted to go to Diamond, to have this great event done, achieved, accomplished! And here was Constance, whining and whimpering about things that could not possibly concern her.

She twirled a lock of hair between her fingers, avoiding his eyes. “Don’t you think you should do something? Stop this, or send someone to talk to the Klee . . .”

William put down his coffee cup. The tray held a boiled egg and a rasher of bacon, but he ignored them. The lighter he was today, the better for Diamond. “I am doing something,” he said, buttoning his coat. He retrieved his quirt from the bureau and tucked it into his belt. “There’s no need for you to trouble yourself, Constance.” He walked to the door and held it open for her. “I must say, it’s unlike you to take an interest in public affairs.”

Her eyes flickered up to his again, then away in that maddening way she had. “My lord husband,” she said, “Clarence tells me you’ve had a message from Prince Nicolas. It seems he’s out of patience with you. Why should that be?”

It was true, of course, and Clarence would pay dearly for revealing it to anyone, much less a foolish woman with no understanding of state affairs. Nicolas had sent a message by courier—a horsemistress, of course, one of Oc’s own—that William was to do everything in his power to pacify the Klee. He hadn’t said anything specifically about the Fleckham School, and the issue of the winged horses, but he had implied a great deal. William had allowed Clarence to read it to him. He regretted that now, but it could not be undone. Unfortunately, the Prince had also seen fit to send a copy of his message to the Council of Lords, and the horsemistress had delivered that one first, before William could order her not to.

“Go away, Constance,” he snapped. “Find something to occupy your mind—if you have one—and let me get on about my work.” He spun about and marched out of the room, letting the door fall shut behind him. He had no time for her nonsense this morning. In fact, he thought, when he moved to the Fleckham School to help the lads begin their own preparations to fly, he would send Constance back to her family. Barren as she was, she was useless to him, and she irritated him like a sliver under a fingernail. Thinking of her mewling on about the Prince and the Council—it made his blood burn.

But by the time he reached the stable door, he had forgotten her. The dead militiaman, the drowned horse, even the Klee and the Prince faded from his thoughts. His mind filled with anticipation until there was no room for anything else. He could already smell Diamond’s essence, that sweet broth of horseflesh, straw, oats, and alfalfa.

He seized Diamond’s bridle from its hook in the tack room, checked to see that the flying saddle was ready and waiting, and hurried eagerly toward her stall.

He could have ordered one of the horsemistresses assigned to the Palace to do it, he supposed, but he didn’t know if he could trust any of them. It had been a shock to see how few of those at the Academy had followed his orders the day before. He had no intention of exposing himself to more betrayals. He would do this alone, as he had to do everything else.

This would solve all his problems. Once he had flown, Prince Nicolas would give way. The Council would cease challenging his every decision. Even the horsemistresses would come to heel, knowing their futures depended on accepting the new order in Oc.

His pulse quickened when Diamond’s finely cut head lifted above the half-gate of her stall. She shone like a jewel in the shadows, her great eyes gleaming, her coat bright as new satin. He approached her slowly, his boots soft in the sawdust, and held out his hand. She bent her muzzle to sniff at his palm, and her ivory forelock fell across his wrist like the silken drift of a lady’s scarf. William breathed a sigh of pure pleasure and not inconsiderable relief.

He reached across the half-gate to stroke her neck, and the smooth muscles shivered beneath his hand. Gently, he slipped the bridle over her head and snugged the nosepiece lightly down over her muzzle. He thought he could not have borne it if she had shied away from him or shivered in that way she sometimes did. She tossed her head and blew through her nostrils, but she seemed eager to leave her stall.

She made no demur as he walked her down the aisle, dropped the reins, and brought the saddle from the tack room. His stable-man poked his head out of one of the stalls in the connecting aisle, and said, “Do you need anything, Your Grace?”

William smoothed the saddle blanket over Diamond’s back and lifted the flying saddle into place. She snorted as he connected the breast strap and shied away as he tightened the cinches. “Quiet, Diamond,” he said. “Quiet. We need these today.” He ruffled her mane. “We’re going to fly, my girl. Today. At last.”

Her head went high, and white showed around her eyes. He stood back and stared at her. It was as if she understood his words, knew his intentions. Perhaps this explained why the horsemistresses were obsessed with their bondmates, why his father . . .

He picked up the reins and turned abruptly toward the paddock. His father couldn’t have known this feeling. It was not possible for Frederick even to get close to a winged horse. Only he, William . . . He was the first.

His heart beat so hard he could barely hear Diamond’s hoofbeats behind him. He led her to the mounting block and stepped up on it. She sidestepped, shying away from him. He had to step down and urge her close to the block again. He realized, as he did this, that he had not removed her wingclips. He hesitated, his hand on her near wing, wondering if he should wait, or release them now. He couldn’t remember if Felicity Baron had said anything about it.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember. It seemed to him that when Diamond flew with Sky Baron, Mistress Baron removed her wingclips just as they went into the park. William glanced up at the windows of the horsemistresses’ apartment, in the south wing of the Palace. He could, he supposed, send someone to ask them, but the idea of having to argue with them, of having to endure their sour expressions, that look of resentment at his daring to do what they did every day, was just too much.

He released the near wingclip, then stepped around Diamond’s head to undo the other one. As he stepped up on the mounting block one more time, he said, “You and I, Diamond. You and I will do it our way, alone.”

This time she stood still. He put his right leg over the cantle and settled into the saddle, snugging his knees beneath the thigh rolls, checking to see that Diamond’s wings were free of the stirrups. The high cantle felt odd against his back. First-time flyers sometimes used leg straps, but he disdained them. If women could fly without being strapped in, it couldn’t be hard.

Diamond, of course, knew what to do. His weight did not seem to trouble her, though her balance wavered, just once, as she sped from the canter to the hand gallop, her wings outstretched, her neck beginning to reach forward. When they reached the level part of the park, where a narrow brook meandered over white stones, he felt her gather herself. It was the place Sky Baron used, launching just short of the little stream to skim the tops of the live oaks at the end of the park.

It was the launch that surprised him. He heard his own indrawn breath, even over the sound of the wind rushing past his ears and the beat of Diamond’s wings. His muscles cramped beneath the thigh rolls as he gripped the saddle with all his strength. He hung on to the pommel with his right hand, only barely managing to keep the pressure out of his left, to let her have her head.

When he watched her fly from the ground, the process seemed as smooth and effortless as the flight of a bird. From a distance, she seemed to soar upward, weightlessly, as if the air caught her and lifted her almost without her volition.

Now that it came to the actual fact, the power in those silver wings stunned him. As Diamond leaped from the ground, he felt the strain across her chest as her wings caught the air. When she tucked her hooves beneath her, the movement nearly jarred him from his seat. Her wings beat once, twice, a third time, propelling them up and over the trees, and the ground fell away from them in a dizzying swirl of green and brown and remnants of white where the snow of the day before had not yet melted.

William’s head swam with a sudden, vertiginous nausea, and he wished he had eaten something after all. His own muscles felt like butter in the sun compared with the hard, driving strength of this perfect, magnificent Diamond.

As she banked to the west, the usual flight path she and Sky Baron took, William remembered to sit deep in the saddle, to hold his hands low, to keep his heels down. He was startled to find tears on his cheeks and to feel a sob burst from his chest. He was terrified, and elated almost past bearing.