Chapter 35
FLIGHT
LIZZY
I sat shivering on our bedroom floor, tendrils of hair stuck to my sweating temples, my shoulders nestled in the quilts hanging down the side of our bed. It was a foolish location to wait, but Darcy was snoring, and the mundanity was comforting.
When two pairs of feet passed in the hall outside—a pair of housemaids lighting morning fires—I felt my way to the dressing room, pulled on my stashed traveling dress, heavy robe, and riding boots, then eased through the door into the hallway, candlelit at one end.
At the stables, a lone, scrawny stableboy sat cross legged in a pool of lantern light, blowing into his cupped hands.
“Good morning,” I said.
He scrambled to his feet, tugging his forelock. “Mrs. Darcy.” He peered at the night sky and waning moon. “Here I thought they’d told me a joke!”
“Not at all. I enjoy night rides.” He looked at me as if I had sprouted an extra head, so I added, “That is why I ride so rarely during the day.” It would be fairer to say I never ride at all, but this would be a steep climb, and events had left me unwilling to gamble that I could maintain a fast pace on foot.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, accepting his mistress’s nighttime madness. He scampered off and was back shortly leading a mare. “A gentle ride, ma’am, as you asked. I woke her a while back and gave her some warmed oats to liven her.”
I patted her, then recognized her from a frightening Beltane morning this spring. It seemed a world ago. I smiled. “You carried me when I saved my husband.” A good omen.
The stableboy placed a wooden step, and I climbed up astride. The dress and robe were awkward, but that would be solved later.
With a cluck and touch of the reins we set off at a walk.
I brought no lamp, relying on the sketchy moon.
Darcy, a superb horseman, enjoyed discussing riding with our guests, so I had heard of horses’ superior night vision.
If that was insufficient, I could summon a draca to navigate.
But our route was familiar for any Pemberley steed, and my mount plodded stolidly into the hills with hardly a nudge.
The lights of Pemberley vanished. Shadowy bare branches surrounded us. The unease of a lady alone in the night crept into my mind, then I smiled. What had I to fear? I, who could level armies. That thought rattled in my skull, feeling misplaced.
A chilly two miles later, a pair of lamps became visible through the trees. I passed a few modest, thatched-roof buildings—the homes preferred by the Britons who managed Pemberley’s hills—then entered a wide clearing for village gatherings.
As planned, Mr. Needham, the school’s harness instructor, was waiting with his two young apprentices. They were dragon harnessers, now.
Not as planned, Mary stood beside the girls, her arms crossed and jaw set.
“You are out early,” I said, pleased with my composure. I slid off, caught my robe on the saddle, and came within a tangled moment of landing on my head. I whacked the robe so it hung properly, then added mildly, “You shall not dissuade me.”
“That is evident,” she said. “And I am not out early. I am out late.”
“I understood Miss Bennet came at your request,” Mr. Needham said worriedly.
One of the girls snickered. “I didn’t believe that.
But we did it! Took all night.” She ran to where the harness waited, slung over a form.
A second seat had been added behind mine, securely riveted on the long leather saddle skirt and straps.
It even had a second of what Mr. Needham called lap belts.
“No,” I pronounced.
“You cannot go alone,” Mary said. “If you wish, I will explain the medical reasons. Convincingly, and very explicitly to ensure our audience comprehends. If you wish privacy, accept my opinion.”
If intimidation had the slightest effect on Mary, she would not have spent the autumn marching through London and staring down irate constables. But she enjoyed logic. “You cannot go without goggles. The wind will be tremendous. They did not make those for you overnight.”
“I have tied my spectacles in place. It will suffice. You can ride in front.” Mary unfolded her arms, then gently took my hand. “You must not attempt this alone. An inexperienced rider may keep their seat with care, but an unconscious rider is a hazard to herself.”
While arguments and counterarguments circled in my mind, the lanterns were growing concentric rings of shimmering light. Each flicker warned of the stabbing headache to follow.
“Is a second rider safe?” I asked Mr. Needham.
“Safe as one,” he said. “The added weight is nothing. You’d be two fleas for a beast that size.”
The stubborn part of me longed to refuse. But success mattered more than stubbornness. I would never have saved Jane last year without Mary’s help.
“Very well,” I said and looked into Mary’s brown eyes. “You know, I was worried that Darcy would try something like this. He would never have convinced me.”
Mary straightened her spectacles. “That is because he would insist on riding in front.”
Dressed warmly—if wildly unconventionally—in trousers and leather coats, Mary and I waited at the edge of the clearing.
Hints of day blued the eastern sky. The villagers had gathered to watch and whisper.
I thought it better to wake them than shock them out of sleep.
It no longer mattered if word got back to Darcy.
An owl floated across the clearing, noiseless, feathers splayed like fingers. Suddenly, it flapped in a frenzy, fleeing for the woods.
Thundering grew, more like pounding water than wind. The western stars vanished, and the sliver of moon was shrouded. I pressed a hand to my leather cap, forgetting it was securely strapped under my chin, and leaned into gusts that rolled pebbles and churned the trees.
Yuánchi settled, his tons of mass looming as dark ruby glints. His faceted eyes gleamed as his gaze met mine, then turned to Mary beside me, almost looping his neck as he examined her from several angles.
Mary. I miss her music. Will she and Georgiana play?
They had played for him in summer, in the hills, a lark when they brought instruments on our picnic. It made a profound impression. Yuánchi rarely bothered to learn human names.
I said to Mary, “He wishes you and Georgiana would play for him again.”
“I would enjoy that,” she said, addressing Yuánchi. “But we cannot this morning. Soon, I hope.”
Our harness makers stepped forward. Yuánchi prostrated himself, and they began fitting straps and buckles.
There had been two test flights from Chathford House, the second with burlap sacks of rice that certainly weighed more than Mary and I combined.
All had gone smoothly, and I was impressed with how the straps resisted slippage, but for a little revenge I whispered to Mary, “Do you think the straps can hold two?” That was met with stony silence.
The harness buckles were tugged tight. Even with Yuánchi flush to the ground, the saddle was high. Stirrup-like footholds reached down like a short ladder. I took a breath, grabbed hold, and climbed.
The lap belt took two tries to fasten correctly.
It was wide and padded, buckled around my waist, and attached to the harness in front and back.
Really, it was clever. Would it work on a horse?
Riders claimed it was better to fall clean than to be caught in a stirrup, but falling sounded unpleasant to me.
I suppose one did not want to be dragged, smacking into rocks and trees. That would not be an issue in the sky.
Mary heaved up and swung her leg over behind me.
Her trousers stopped mid-calf as they were one of several measured for me, but her ankles were hidden by riding boots.
She bumped me while puzzling through her lap belt.
This was a true two-seat saddle, far more roomy than riding double on a horse which pressed the riders together. We had a foot between us.
Finally, she said, “I am ready.”
“This is quite secure,” I mused. “I believe I could fly unconscious.”
“Too late,” she said dryly.
“I have just realized we will be arriving in London during daylight.”
“Only now you realize this?”
I had spoken lightly, but I was dismayed. My admittedly vague plan had involved sweeping over London by night. It was not a fatal issue; already I could imagine strategies for day. But I did not make this sort of error. I was the organized Bennet. Well, and Mary, of course.
Maybe it was best not to examine my decision-making skills. I pulled the peculiar goggles down over my eyes, their leather seals snug. “Are you ready?”
“I have said I am ready.” But her arms tentatively circled my waist, then she pulled close, pressing her shoulders to my back. I grabbed the handholds on the harness with my gloved hands and thought, Fly!
Yuánchi’s weight shifted. We rose frighteningly high, then I realized that he had simply gotten to his feet.
His wings unfolded, and most of the village and forest vanished.
On both sides was dark blue sky and an endless expanse of poised scarlet.
His head and neck extended, and his body tilted, sinking into his haunches like a horse preparing to leap.
I sensed living muscle under my legs drawing tight like a bow.
With spectacularly poor timing, I remembered something. Did you not say you needed to launch from a ridge—
I was slammed toward my seat. My chin clunked my breast while I pushed with my arms to avoid smashing face-first into dragon scales.
Mary’s death-tight grip around my waist helped, bracing us in a triangle.
Weight surged weirdly. Rotated. I floated up against the lap belt, weightless, then smacked the seat again.
The sky had broken loose of reality, the horizon slipping sideways at an incredible angle.
That must be illusion, as I was being jammed ferociously into the saddle.