Han
It was often said that the Bell Larkin had been an aged establishment for generations before anyone had thought to build a city up around it.
Even those skeptical of its origins could not deny that the cross-beamed embrace of the old inn had been opening wide to patrons for five hundred years at the very least. In that time, it had been partially rebuilt at least thrice due to fires and had grown in size considerably.
Shaped like a horseshoe, it consisted of stables and a tavern room on the ground floor, topped with four levels of guest rooms whose balconies ringed a central courtyard.
Like all inns, the Bell Larkin played host to travelers and locals alike, providing drink and company as well as a place to rest one’s horse and head.
And if some travelers became locals when they traded in the uncertainty of the road for an under-stuffed but predictable straw tick under the eaves, well, there was a reason why the city of Neck kept getting bigger.
It was common knowledge that the theatricals enacted in the Bell Larkin’s yard were among the best entertainment that Neck had to offer.
Where else could you watch the Brothers Wyse somersault and spin in their giant wheels?
Or listen to the heart-wrenching balladry of Our Lady Lament as she plucked and glissandoed upon her Paladoorish harp?
Or laugh yourself silly at the antics of Old Lawry and His Dancing Cats?
And if all that wasn’t enough, you could experience every emotion that humanity had to offer watching the comedies and tragedies written and performed by the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of the Gutter, Laslo Wright, and his troupe of miscreant players.
But the jewel in the crown, the most fantastical and droll act to grace the yard of the Bell Larkin, was undoubtedly Lord Tom the Wonder Horse.
Han always thought of him as just plain Tom, which suited him.
The rest was rather a lot of bluster for such an unassuming-looking horse.
Tom wasn’t especially tall, at fifteen hands, give or take, and he wasn’t especially beautiful, being of ordinary bay coloring and possessing a tail and mane that tended toward scraggly if left to their own devices.
But he did have good teeth, and good feet, at least since Han had taken over as his farrier, and there was something very bright and intelligent that sparked in his eyes, evident even to those who did not know horses the way Han did.
It had been eight years since Han had bid farewell to her home at Croftholde, a small farming village in the Far Reach of the King’s Gaze, and become a horse drover.
It was five years since she’d stopped a night at the Bell Larkin, suspicious of the bustle of the city that she had only ever eyed warily from horse markets at its edges.
Five years since that fateful night when she’d laid eyes on Tom, and he’d looked back at her, and she’d known in an instant that they were meant to be together.
She’d experienced that sensation only once before, but that was long ago, and she’d never sought to feel that way again.
If it was her destiny to fall in love, far better with a horse than with a woman.
Not all horses were smart, and not all horses wanted to please, but Tom possessed an excess of both intelligence and goodwill.
And Kit possessed Tom, which was why Han was spending her evening lurking through the crowd, Tom’s eyes on her as she made subtle gestures and suggestions while they both listened to Kit’s patter.
Before coming to Neck, Han had never met anyone like Kit—and in truth, she doubted that she ever would again, even if she traveled to all the corners of the wide world.
Kit was of a height with Han, which was tall by any accounting.
Han had never dared to ask their age but was certain it was a good decade past her own, if not more—despite the fact that Kit’s short-cropped hair remained black as pitch while Han’s had silvered a bit at the temples.
Kit unfailingly wore eccentric dress, even by Neck’s standards, and paraded around the city in a men’s waistcoat and jacket and ladies’ side-hoop panniers that were a century out of fashion, with billowing breeches on display beneath.
They were given to winking provocatively, smoking an excessively long pipe, and running their mouth off at times when they should know better.
All of this lent a certain notoriety to the act, but the real star of the show, aside from Tom himself, was Kit’s gift for oration.
At the moment, Kit was using that gift to its best advantage, delivering the gab of their act at full volume in order to reach up to the far corners of the balconies and the ears of the rich popinjays who hid up there, seeking to partake of the entertainment without being perceived.
Most of them wore ornate masks to hide amongst one another, masquerading as bejeweled imitations of hawks and foxes and every other creature imaginable.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and all of you that’s both or neither,” said Kit, grabbing at their chest with both hands and waggling their eyebrows, soliciting delighted hoots from the crowd, “it is my pleasure to present to you the greatest marvel of the known world: Lord Tom the Wonder Horse!”
That was Han’s cue—and Tom’s as well. She made a subtle gesture with her hand, and Tom pranced in place.
The crowd burbled. Tom rose back up, then did a second little prance without Han asking him to because he liked the attention.
Han caught his eye and gestured again. Tom flipped his head saucily but then settled, waiting for her next instruction.
“Now, many of you will have come here tonight for the promise of spectacle,” said Kit. “But I don’t know. Folk these days seem awful jaded, eh, Thomas? Maybe they won’t be impressed with us.”
Han gestured again, and Tom stepped closer to Kit, reaching out his neck to shove his nose right up against their ear. Kit cupped their hand around his muzzle as though they were listening, and their eyes went wide.
“What’s that, Tom? You say they brought their own spectacle? Well, now!” They lowered their hand and stepped slightly away from Tom, then scanned the crowd, brow furrowed.
“I don’t know, Tom,” they said. “I don’t see any spectacle.”
Han had quietly shifted around the back of the crowd, stopping behind a cluster of young students from the university. She reached up and adjusted her hat.
Tom tossed his head again, then pranced his way forward and right into the crowd, causing a handful of them to scatter out of his way as he made a path to the students. The three of them stood there gaping as he stopped right in front of them.
Then Tom stretched his neck again, reaching for the middle student with his lips (careful not to show his teeth, because they had learned the hard way that visible teeth didn’t always go over well), and plucked a gold-rimmed pair of glasses off the student’s nose.
Then he carefully backed up, turned, and trotted back to Kit, depositing the glasses in their palm.
“Well, I’ll be cooked like a Wintertide pie!” cried Kit, hoisting the glasses up into the air so everyone could see them. “It looks like we’ve got SPECTACLES after all!”
There was a beat, and it was always the one where it could go either way. Not everyone liked a play on words. But if at least one person laughed, the rest would follow.
There it was—the laugh, from someplace at the back, and then the courtyard rippled with it as it spread. Han heaved a little sigh of relief, much as she did every night. It was going to be an easy show.
It was just as well, because after the show was over, Kit, Tom, and Han had a second, much riskier act to perform.
Han was adjusting Tom’s tack while he munched away at a pouch of grain.
From out in the courtyard, she could hear the dialogue of Laslo’s latest comedy firing back and forth.
It was a romance about two idiots who barely stopped yapping at each other long enough to fall in love, and the crowd was eating it up.
Kit strode in, sack over their shoulder.
“Ready, Hen?” they asked.
That was a joke of Kit’s. Kit had coined the nickname, short for Mother Hen, the first time Han’s entirely reasonable concerns had rained on their haying, and it had stuck. “You pick our mark?”
Han, tasked with choosing a mark, inevitably made her choice in the outer yard, where the nobility’s carriages sat in waiting.
She slipped away during Lady L’s act and walked along the line of them, examining the horses.
Inevitably, she would find a pair who were underfed, or over-whipped, or just plain worn down, and when she did, the choice was made for her. “Aye.”
“We’d best get going, then,” said Kit with a grin.
They exited through the back of the stable and took a winding path through the neighborhood and across Dyer’s Bridge, then paused at a little livery stable, where they picked up a horse for Han.
Generally, Kit rode Tom, since she wasn’t as strong a rider as Han, and Han rode whatever horse they could cheaply acquire for the night.
This time, it was a large, skittish black mare that Han could have done wonders with, if she had several years to do it.
As it was, the beast spooked at shadows.
Luckily, it was a short ride to the Wodewood.