Lady Hotspur

by Tessa Gratton

  “Tell me what?” she said, rather growling.

  Rowan put his hands on her face. “The night I asked you to marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You … partook of an ancient Learish rite reserved for making kings and queens.”

  Mora frowned, casting her mind back to the patchy, confusing memories. She’d drunk two bowls of water, the first loosening her bones and putting her to sleep; the second revived her and she’d felt as if she were in a dream, like the island had been born inside her, its rocks her bones, its waters her blood, its wind her breath, and so on. “Solas is not pleased you put me through that? But she is still the crowned queen. Obviously.”

  “It is the island’s way of making a queen, and so you are both a queen. Though I never meant it as such, having a second island queen is a threat to Solas.”

  Getting to her feet, Mora went naked to the window. “It is only a ritual,” she said, even understanding that nothing was only a ritual on Innis Lear. And it had been after that night that she could understand the wind.

  “No.” Rowan joined her, but did not touch her. “You are—have been—transformed. Your blood is not only blood, but it runs with the island’s rootwater, and so you are marked. A piece of Innis Lear.”

  Mora began to complain, but Rowan’s tiger-iron eyes were focused past her, ghostly and untethered. He said, “You ate of the flower, Banna Mora, and drank the rootwater. The flower is starweed and you died there, but the waters changed you, brought you back. My hemlock queen.”

  Icy, plain horror blossomed in her gut, creeping higher and higher to still her heart, and Banna Mora gasped silently.

  She believed him.

  Her hands grasped the stone windowsill, and Mora leaned away from her husband. From the man who’d poisoned her. Without asking. Without giving her a choice.

  “Mora,” he said softly.

  The name shivered along her spine, suddenly slick again with sweat, and she threw her arms around him. She buried her face in his neck. Heart pounding, Mora held on tightly. Hiding this feeling from him, closing it away.

  A black shard of night appeared in her chest, even as she drew him back to their bed.

  It was a cold flame, and she was used to conflagrations of fury, betrayal, passion.

  But a dragon could learn to breathe this wintry fire, too.

  PRINCE HAL

  Lionis, midsummer

  HAL DOZED IN a corner of her mother’s throne room as the sun rose.

  Light entered the tall glass windows in the north, spreading pink across the marble floor toward the polished cherrywood panels and narrow mirrors opposite. Upon the dais and before a curtain of rich, vibrant orange, the throne itself stood empty. High overhead the arched ceiling was painted with tiny dancing earth saints, long springtime vines blooming in pink, white, and yellow, and planets and constellations against a day-blue sky. Chairs cushioned in the same vivid orange were spaced evenly along the mirrored wall, awaiting the rumps of the queen’s councilors.

  The star priest from Innis Lear had upset Hal, recalling her to memories she’d rather avoid. The triplet of wolf, dragon, lion, repeated again and again, until Hal could not listen to Ianta’s riddles or give attention to Nova’s caressing touch. She’d had to leave. Come home to where she’d be free of it all. Where she could screw up her face in despair and none would see. This was the last place any would search for the prince. It exuded too much responsibility.

  She’d slipped in several hours ago and dragged a fancy chair from the wall to the dimmest rear corner. Now, slumped low, with her cloak pulled around her and its cowl drawn over her face, she was only a reddish shadow, faintly snoring.

  The grand doors swept open beneath the hands of the palace guard, and the queen strode in, followed by six more guards, the queen’s steward Ellus, and the ambassador from the Third Kingdom.

  “I am grateful to welcome your lady here,” Celedrix was saying. “And her nephew, most especially. I’ll make certain my daughter is present.”

  “Majesty,” said the ambassador, bowing, “I know you will try.”

  Celeda stopped halfway to the throne and spun in a slow circle to face the ambassador with her eyebrows lifted high, nostrils flared. “If I say a thing, it will be so, Enai.”

  Though awakened by the abrupt entrance, the prince did not hear the approach of one of the guards; suddenly the tip of a dagger lifted her cowl off her face. Hal grimaced, eyes pinched against the daylight. Peering down at her was Commander Abovax. She smiled mischievously. He rolled his eyes and dropped her cowl back down, silently taking up his position again now that he’d secured the room.

  Hal shifted enough to look out from under her hood.

  Her mother and Ambassador Enai faced each other. They were of a height; Celedrix was regal in a long red mantle with a broad black collar. Her black hair was wrapped in three braided buns, twisted with golden ribbons. Pearls hung from her ears, glowing white against her pale skin, and on her forefinger sat the royal ring, the Blood and the Sea.

  Enai folded dark brown hands at his waist, fingers glinting with rings, too, of lapis and silver that complemented the teal-striped robe hanging off his shoulders. Beneath it he wore Aremore-style tunic and trousers, both in rich dark gray. His eyes measured the queen calmly from below the strip of beaten copper circling his shaved head. An emerald green scarf coiled around his neck, that might be pulled up into a hood if he wished.

  “They arrive in two months, Majesty,” Enai finally said. His voice was deep, and Hal had enjoyed its reverberation whenever she was unfortunate enough to be in the palace and hear him.

  This news, though, she did not enjoy.

  Celeda said, “I’m aware. I’d like to house them here, but would not insult you by refusing to allow you to make the same offer, if that is appropriate.”

  “You are the matriarch, they should stay with you. Better respect, too, if Echarmet is welcomed by the highest-ranking woman in Aremoria, as he is the empress’s first grandson.”

  Maybe a small part of Hal had hoped her past half year of utter delinquency would have driven this marriage prospect into the ground. That she’d ruined it with recklessness and riot, and Echarmet of Kurake Queen would not come at all.

  Fuck.

  Hal did not see whatever signal Abovax gave to the steward Ellus, nor what signal Ellus in turn gave the queen, but Celeda inclined her head, then turned unerringly toward the exact corner where Hal slouched.

  “You see, Enai? The prince is easily found.”

  The Third Kingdom ambassador shuttered his surprise quickly. “Prince Hal, I look forward to the gift you present to Echarmet of Kurake Queen, first grandson of Elophet.”

  Hal dragged herself to her feet, tossing the cowl back over her shoulders. She smiled and waved her hand, knowing how ridiculous she looked in ragged tunic and pants, hair lank and tangled from the river wind. “As do I, Ambassador Enai. Though I suspect the greatest gift I may give is exactly this.” She spread her hands and turned a tight circle. “My company.”

  “It is rare enough,” the queen drawled, smiling. But Hal knew the smile was a lie. “Thank you, Enai. Give me the honor of a moment with my daughter.”

  Enai bowed and left. Four royal guards followed him out, and Ellus tugged his blond beard. “Majesty, you have morning offices at the library.”

  “Thank you for the reminder.”

  The steward withdrew, leaving only the queen, the prince, and two guards tucked as far from royalty as possible, backs to the closed doors.

  Celeda strode to her daughter and, before Hal could stumble back, grabbed her chin painfully. “What is the meaning of this surprise? You bring your skulking here because they’re tired of you below? That might’ve been our new guests themselves, for all you knew.”

  The prince tore free, rolling her head to stretch out the dull bruises her mother’s fingers left behind. She clasped her hands into fists behind her back. “I don’t want to get married.”

&nb
sp; “Your wants are not my immediate concern, Calepia. Not compared to the needs of this kingdom.”

  Hal grimaced. “Then go, leave me, or I’ll go. I only thought to … never mind.” She tore off her cloak and made for the door, balling the tattered old thing against her stomach.

  “Hal,” snapped the queen. “Stop. Talk to me.”

  Back turned to her mother, Hal did stop. She hugged her cloak. Her mouth was tacky, her head throbbing. She needed water and food. Or more wine. “Will you … have breakfast with me?”

  A sigh of exasperation was the answer. “I’ve eaten, Hal, and you are hungover. There’s red in your eyes from lack of sleep, and you stink of river moss and sour wine. How dare you come to me like this?”

  But it was not anger in the queen’s voice: it was disappointment.

  “I wanted to speak as we used to speak,” Hal said softly. A thousand years ago, when Hal was a little girl, before her mother’s exile. Or even that brief time last year when it seemed Hal could do this.

  The queen stepped nearer. “I did not hear you.”

  The prince turned. She tossed her disastrous dark hair away from her face with a sharp shake of her head. “Let me bring Banna Mora home. That will bolster my reputation.”

  Celeda’s lashes flickered in her only show of startlement. “You haven’t brought that up in months.”

  “I miss her.”

  “Do you think she misses you? My information suggests she is making a home for herself on Innis Lear, as well she should. Better that she remain.”

  “But it should be her choice—it makes you look weak to force her away,” Hal said, then clenched her jaw as if expecting to be hit.

  “You make me look weak,” the queen said, simply and with little expression.

  Hal paused to swallow the blow. Carefully, she asked, “Hasn’t Mora been punished enough?”

  Celeda sighed and moved to one of the gilded chairs along the paneled wall. She sat, hands in her lap, and leaned her head back, closed her eyes. “Were I to send you, it would confirm that we need her. If you would only put yourself together, be good, Hal, then you could have her back—as a friend. As a vassal. But you cannot reach out to Banna Mora from a lesser state.” Suddenly Celeda’s eyes opened. “I’ll put the March under your name.”

  “No!” Horror had Hal leaping forward. She knelt and grabbed her mother’s hands. “You can’t. It’s hers—I remember what it was like when Rovassos took Bolinbroke from me, from you! It was like my heart was torn out.”

  “She has already suffered that pain,” Celedrix said, and a subtle shift of her hand brought Hal’s attention to the Blood and the Sea. “And the March would do you good. Get you out of the slums of Lionis, and force you to lead. The March is more engaging than Bolinbroke.”

  “I can’t leave Lionis,” Hal protested.

  “True, not until Charm arrives. But it would be a good honeymoon.”

  Hal’s guts knotted, full of sharp bubbles of air. “No, I—Mother, I—” She stood and turned to flee.

  “Heading back to further debase yourself,” the queen asked, “in some brothel or cheap tavern? To cry with Ianta Oldcastle? You used to have better friends.”

  “Ianta never did anything to earn your censure,” Hal said, struggling to remain calm. “She taught us so much.”

  Celeda said, “Ianta Oldcastle taught you excess and a lazy way. She filled your head with magic and stories for children, jokes and riddles and rot. Just like Rovassos. They were the same ilk.”

  “You know she taught us more than that.”

  “Yes, she made you into fine warriors. But at what price? You were children, and she encouraged you to embrace degradation.”

  “I embraced none but Hotspur,” Hal snapped.

  The queen lifted a hand, palm out for peace. “If Ianta’s influence was so impeccable, come home and leave her in the squalor she’s made for herself. Show me, and everyone, that you can rise to your destiny.”

  “Being a prince was never my destiny—until you murdered the king!” The moment she said the words, Hal regretted them. She saw it again, again, again: the arc of blood, the blade sawing against Rovassos’s neck.

  Hal’s accusation spilled across her mother’s face, flaring Celeda’s nostrils, tightening her lips, and for a moment it almost seemed her hair stood on end. The queen rose and stiffly walked to her daughter. “That is the traitorous tongue Ianta planted in your mouth. I acted rightly, and you certainly had no argument with it at the time. Or was that only because your Hotspur was there, and you followed her? I will tell you something: Hotspur never needed you, but let you fawn on her. She wore you proudly, like a piece of fine armor, but shed you when she found stronger steel.”

  “No.” Hal’s hands became fists again as her mind chased flashes of red-hair memories, biting kisses, and the wind tearing at them. Hot lips and eager hands. “No, leave her out of this. Hotspur loved me.”

  “Maybe,” the queen conceded. “But she did not choose you.”

  Hal stumbled away.

  “You, my daughter, refuse to choose anything at all, and so you spend your days and nights wallowing, drowning the petty mistakes of a very short life. There is so much time before you! Much you might do, if only you would choose!”

  But Hal hated all the options she could see.

  And so she said nothing.

  As she raced away, her mother called, “Would she were my daughter instead of you.”

  Hal caught herself against the door, breathless with hurt, then walked on when she realized she agreed with the queen.

  HOTSPUR

  Northern Aremoria, late summer

  ANNYCK CASTLE SPRAWLED in golden limestone glory on a bluff rising off the River Win. The main keep was a solid four-story building with a small square tower at each corner, in the center of two broad, green yards, themselves surrounded by twelve-foot-thick walls and guard towers. The massive front gate fell open for Hotspur, slowly and under the power of a dozen strong retainers who lowered it across the dry moat, alive this time of year with summer wildflowers.

  While most of her army slowly made its way around the surrounding town, Hotspur had led several lines of soldiers directly through the winding main street. She rode armored, with the green cloak of Perseria spilling from her shoulders to flow over the rump of her horse. Two flag bearers just behind her flew her crest, the Red Castle. She smiled and waved to those townsfolk who leaned out windows or paused in their days’ work to welcome Isarna Persy home.

  The sky was brilliant and clear, the air just cool enough it was not quite a hell to ride so slowly under such military weight.

  The hostage, Douglass of Burgun, rode unbound beside her. His armor and weaponry had been returned to him, and he’d been given plenty of food and water to care for himself, though denied attendants. He was broad and handsome in an angry, blocky way that Hotspur appreciated but was uninterested in: his nose crooked over a beard of indeterminate brown, his mouth was full and often pursed in thought. He glowered now as if the sun were his enemy, gloved hands curled tight around the reins of his borrowed horse. She admired his seat and balance, the ease with which he rode, and though the fur trim of his cloak had been torn in two places, the ripped fur gave an impression of barbarian power instead of decrepit royalty. The latter of which was much more accurate, Hotspur thought, sneering in amusement.

  And Douglass caught her looking.

  He’d already proposed to her twice. The first time she’d angrily told him she was not in the marrying mood. Next he’d suggested her rumored devotion to the Prince of Riot was gossip she ought to rid herself of, perhaps by wedding a handsome Burgun man, so she’d shoved him off his horse.

  Now Hotspur led her captains and aides across the bridge and under the iron teeth of the portcullis, though the way narrowed so only two might ride through abreast. When she emerged into the sunny foreyard, a half circle of residents waited, including both her parents. They stood upon a wide green rug—more emerald t
han the trampled and yellowing grass of the yard. A high-backed chair waited behind her mother, a shorter one behind her father, and stools upon which several of Hotspur’s cousins and more distant relatives had perched angled around the two thrones like chicks after their dam. Servants held tall ash poles strung with green-and-silver banners and ropes of wildflowers, creating a wall behind the earl and her husband, Lord Perseria.

  Hotspur leaned back in the saddle to stop her horse, and dismounted. A retainer took the reins as she strode toward her parents.

  Caratica, the Earl Perseria, was forty-six years old and stood leaning slightly toward her right side, her fist tight around the head of a polished cane. She held her chin high, watching her daughter with the same blue eyes set in a more square face, and skin become paler from having lost her place in the army. She suffered constant pain that had already etched itself around her mouth. Her husband, Lord Perseria, was ten years older, a Rusrike, and slowly dying of a rattle cough. They’d always been friends, but never more, at least to Hotspur’s eye.

  Though she loved her parents, it was Hotspur’s respect for Caratica that squeezed her heart. Her father frustrated her—and had since the day he suggested swords and skirts did not get on together, and perhaps she should give up her mother’s and aunt’s soldiering ways.

  Young Hotspur, naturally, had taken her sword and cut her skirts away, glaring at her father all the while. Caratica sent her at the age of nine to foster with Vindomata, who had turned her into a warrior.

  Her mother stepped forward now, a hand outstretched for her daughter. Hotspur went to one knee and kissed Caratica’s fingers. “I’ve returned victorious, Mother.”

  “I never doubted,” the earl said loudly. “We’ll drink to you tonight, and to your stories, and join the ashes of your dead with those in our family vault, to honor them.”

  Hotspur stood and went to hug her father. His beard tickled her cheek, and he put his fingers under her chin to better angle her face that he might frown upon the cuts put there by the prince of Burgun. Lord Perseria said, “You are otherwise uninjured?”