The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [106]
The coach crossed a stone bridge, the sound from the ponies’ hooves going from a soft thumping to a rhythmic clatter and back again. Atiana turned her back to Mileva, who sat in the seat next to her, and Mileva began pulling at the cords of her dress.
“I’ve seen twenty winters.” Atiana slipped out of the dress, pulled off her dainty shoes and began pulling on her riding trousers. “I have no inclination to ask Father for something that is mine by right.”
Ishkyna laughed. “Which is exactly why you told him we’d be visiting Lady Kirelenko the entire day.”
Mileva tapped Ishkyna’s knee. “Come. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of a diversion, and what Father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” She turned to Atiana, who was just now pulling on a gun belt, complete with an ornate flintlock pistol. “It is only for a look around, isn’t it? We won’t be hearing news about a Motherless woman floating face-down in the bay, will we?”
Atiana felt her face flush. “Would you blame me if you did?”
Yesterday Ishkyna had seen Nikandr speaking with the Landless woman inside the palotza, and then saw them embrace. It had been no perfunctory gesture, Ishkyna had said. It had been filled with desire—on the woman’s part if not Nikandr’s, she was quick to amend.
Rehada and Nikandr had apparently been quite close over the past few years. They had tried to keep their relations a secret, but there was no such thing among the aristocracy. In truth, Atiana didn’t really blame him for it. The fact that he retained a lover was no surprise at all, but to be faced with her presence in Radiskoye, to be presented with her name and a description of her dark beauty, was another thing entirely.
Mileva stared at Atiana with the expression she used when they were alone—as if she were the only sister allowed to pass moral judgment.
“Enough,” Atiana said. “If I have a mind to be alone in a city I’ve seen precious little of since I arrived, that’s my prerogative.”
“Well, we’ll be sure to keep your little secret,” Ishkyna said.
“Don’t you always?” Atiana asked.
“Always.”
After Atiana pulled on her fitted cherkesska, she was dropped off at the central square near Volgorod’s state buildings. Ishkyna and Mileva continued in the carriage toward Lady Kirelenko’s while Atiana continued on foot. When the carriage was finally out of sight, she headed to an inn near the edge of the old city that kept ponies. She bought one for the day and headed west. The buildings, many of them four stories or higher, were made of stone. That changed to curving streets and smaller brick homes that looked exactly like one another, and finally the land began to open up into farmland as it rose steadily toward the high ridge running the entire length of the island.
Atiana followed the southwesterly road and took to the grasses once she came close to the eyrie. The fewer people that saw her, the better. She saw nothing of the eyrie itself, for the bulk of it was facing toward the sea. It took her another hour of riding, but finally she came to a small set of wagon tracks that veered off the main road that led toward the small fishing village of Izhny. The wooded trail led her to the sea. An empty pier jutted out into the water of the cove. The wind was brisk, but not unpleasantly cold. The trail continued through the thickening trees and, far ahead, led to a simple, earth-covered home.
She pulled her pony to a stop as she came closer, her heart immediately beginning to race. Through the trees she saw two Maharraht heading into the woods to the west of the home. They were old, perhaps as old as Father. Both wore loose trousers tucked into leather boots. They had a tight inner robe wrapped by a wide belt of cloth, and an outer robe that trailed nearly down to their ankles. Instead of the traditional cap many of the men on the island wore, they wore turbans, with the trailing ends hanging