Where was Hal?
“She fears Mora,” Vindomata said, coming to Hotspur’s shoulder.
Caratica mirrored her sister at Hotspur’s other side, and said, “The only wonder is that Celedrix did not dispose of the girl sooner.”
“I told her to,” Vindomata murmured.
“Mora was loyal!” Hotspur cried, throwing free of them to pace down the hall, glaring at the pages stationed beside the throne room doors and snarling with bared teeth at palace guards. She cared not if they heard her defend Banna Mora of the March—they should all be defending her! Banna Mora would have been their queen!
“Be calm, Isarna,” her mother demanded, voice low with authority.
“It would be better,” added Vindomata.
Hotspur whirled on her aunt. “Celedrix only is what she is because of you, Aunt, and you, Mother, and me and Ithios, and Vindus and Dev, and all the soldiers who died—does she throw us aside now? You, Vindomata, are the one named King-Killer, not her. You lost everything! Your sons, my cousins! She lost nothing, only to gain everything. How dare she? Especially when her own daughter—”
Caratica slapped Hotspur.
Shock silenced the knight more than pain or shame.
“You will calm yourself,” Earl Perseria said, “or you will leave us.”
Vindomata touched the flaming pink mark on Hotspur’s freckled cheek. “I would rather you remain, and listen.”
Seething, Hotspur ground her teeth. “Listen to what?”
Though Hotspur’s mother had turned her back to them, head bowed, fingers tight on the head of her cane, her aunt stepped even nearer and put her mouth to Hotspur’s ear. “Let Douglass loose, Hotspur—if he is not your prisoner, you have none to send Celeda.”
“But—”
Vindomata gripped the back of Hotspur’s head, holding their skulls close. “Listen!” she whispered. “Douglass will owe you, and you will accept his friendship—then Burgun will be sided with Perseria and the March, and you will marry Banna Mora’s brother.”
After what Celedrix had said of Mora herself, naming her traitor for wedding the Learish prince, Hotspur understood exactly what Vindomata suggested: make them all traitors. “I don’t want to start a war,” she said firmly.
“That is not the inevitable outcome.” Vindomata leaned away and let her hand trail down Hotspur’s neck with tenderness. “What it shall certainly do is show Celeda that we are not to be bullied. We are as great a family as hers, and could challenge her should we choose to. Remind her, as you said, that we put that crown on her head. We are the King-Killer.”
“That much power will force her hand,” Hotspur replied. “She can’t allow us to stand as even the promise of a threat.”
“She needs us still,” Caratica said sadly and softly, rejoining her daughter and elder sister. “Hers is a precarious position, because she did steal her crown—with our help—and she has not yet fully consolidated the will or grace of the Aremore people. It is not enough to bring trade and hold the borders.”
“If she’d embraced Mora instead of sidelining her, it would be better.” Hotspur’s voice rose again, but she pressed her mouth shut at the censuring glares from the elder women.
“If her daughter were not such a wastrel,” Vindomata said darkly.
Caratica said, “When Prince Hal marries the Third Kingdom prince, this will be moot, for he is bold, and strong. He will buy Celedrix time, even against us.”
“You met him?” Hotspur gaped. “Is he so impressive?”
“We were introduced when I went to the Third Kingdom five years ago.”
Hotspur did not know what to say.
Her mother continued, “Ardus would be with us, in the north.”
“The priest?” Hotspur frowned. Suddenly she did not like this language. With us. Nor did she like involving priests in their politics, for priests ordained new kings. Ardus’s brother had died in Celeda’s coup, alongside Vindomata’s sons. He would be eager for blood.
“Yes.” Caratica met her daughter’s hot blue gaze with a knowing calm.
Heat grew up Hotspur’s neck, flushing her cheeks, and her palms felt clammy. “I beg mercy,” she said, falling back, turning, moving quickly down the vaulted corridor.
“Hotspur,” called Vindomata. “Come back. Attend us.”
She could not.
Two and a half years ago, she’d been ordered to join her mother and aunt in rebellion. Just as Hal had been commanded by her own mother. It had been swift and decisive, and Hotspur never questioned the point or purpose. She’d not needed to. But she was a grown woman and could no longer unthinkingly obey.
To rebel again, Hotspur had to choose it with open eyes.
Her split skirts dragged at her knees and shins as she moved. She lifted them with ring-adorned fingers, grasped the pommel of her sword, and ran. Disrupted, messy curls streamed behind her. Hotspur Persy became a streak of green and red dashing through Lionis Palace to the outer bailey.
None stopped her as she passed through the gaping main gate, beneath the sharp-toothed portcullis, and burst into the city like ballista fire.
Hotspur slowed, veered west off the wide Royal Avenue, and caught her breath in the lee of a white-stone building. The sword whispered in the base of her skull.
It was festival time, and the air of Lionis lifted sharp with celebration.
The Shadow-Half Festival was called thus for the simple reason that it fell exactly between the Longest Night in winter and summer solstice, and Aremoria never had managed to extract itself entire from the wheel of the year. Elsewhere, such as on Innis Lear, this harvest time lent itself to darkness and feasts of death, to placating the spirits of the earth and readying oneself for the harsh winter. But in Aremoria, where the monarch was the sun, where star prophecies were written for babes as naming gifts then forgotten by adults, the Halfsies Day—a diminutive term coined no doubt by some drunken students—signified a chance to be someone other than who one was every other day of the year.
Rich folk tattered their skirts and put grease in their hair; the poor took circlets of ribbon or rags or autumn flowers and wore them like crowns. In the streets, those with such self-crafted crowns were bowed to and given grandiose titles, all merry, and those neither rich nor poor might wear masks of half white, half black or ears made of paper to seem like a wolf’s or elephant’s. Children gave their parents chores and parents cried and harassed their children. Women who never left home without dresses and coiffed hair put on trousers and their brothers’ shirts. Men seen every day in masculine uniform painted red on their lips and eyelids.
Aremoria faced the winter with laughter.
It was said by some in the villages, by older men and women who remembered their own grandmothers’ tales, that once on this day people had traded futures—my star for yours, this holy bone for another—and it was a time to reshape your destiny, to beg the saints of earth and heavenly bodies for new paths, new opportunities. Before Morimaros the First was king and molded the national faith closer to his own, made stars into witnesses not actors, and put earth saints to bed like slippery children.
Hal had adored Halfsies Day. She’d told Hotspur of plotting her costumes for weeks, seeking out the most elaborate, meekest of ideas for herself, then herself and Mora, and eventually all the Lady Knights: lambs with fluffs of unspun wool glued to their shirts; babies in huge wrapped diapers over their clothes, feeding each other sacks of milk. They’d put on mud and rags to blend in to the forests, with staffs of oak and necklaces of bones and feathers—they’d hissed and whispered at each other like tree-tongue wizards.
And last year, when Hotspur was still in Lionis, still burning with Hal, she’d showed up at Hal’s room wearing a Bolinbroke tabard with boot-black streaked in her hair, carrying a wooden sword and swaggering. Hal found red lip paint and dotted a hundred freckles across her own cheeks, and put on the green of Perseria, then went about yelling at everyone, demanding the dogs behave with more honor, ch
allenging horses to duels. Oh, how they had laughed that day, and how they had spent the evening and night: blissful, languorous, inside each other.
This afternoon, in the crisp autumn wind, Hotspur heard the sound of Hal’s laughter, felt the echo of a kiss at her nape.
If Vindomata and Caratica succeeded in putting Hotspur in opposition to the queen, it would forever set her against Hal.
The wastrel prince deserved it, deserved to have her future swapped for some other, but Hotspur did not wish to be the one who put such into action.
As Hotspur wandered the upper neighborhoods of Lionis, she wished desperately Banna Mora were here, and Hal herself, and even that drunken Lady Ianta. Perhaps she could find Ter Melia, the only Lady Knight who served still in the palace. But it wouldn’t change anything.
Curse Celeda! Hotspur thought, fists tightening. She glared at passersby, flushed and pink and mostly unrecognizable. Those who knew Hotspur of Perseria knew her in silver raiment, helmeted, and riding a warhorse. They knew her with sword in hand, fire-orange hair braided tightly and bound beneath a mail hood. Bloody and triumphant, not this young woman in a gown, with costume leather armor, distressed and uncertain.
It was Halfsies Day indeed.
The streets were pressed with people heading to evening entertainments or returning from courtyard parties, all in bright spirits, brighter clothing. Some had painted their faces into masks, half red, half gold, or with a cat’s whiskers, or the scales of a fish. Hotspur was impressed by the trend: only a few years ago everyone had still used paper masks.
She paused abruptly enough that a man slammed into her from behind, cussing, then apologizing, then cussing again. Hotspur stepped away, ignoring the onslaught.
Before Hotspur could think again of the queen, or that seditious letter from Banna Mora, or this rebellious net tightening around her, before she could cut or burn or rage her way free, she had to see Hal again.
PRINCE HAL
Lionis, autumnal equinox
BOLDLY STRIPED BUT tattered banners decorated the courtyard behind the Quick Sunrise and cheering filled the air—roars of pleasure and surprise, or the occasional horrified booing as the Prince of Riot and her shadow wizard wrestled.
It was an impromptu, drunken match, and the celebrating crowd had shoved aside benches to make a square before the stone well that sank down to the hidden channels that fed Lionis. Most buildings in this low neighborhood did not have wells—they used the nearby river—and some quietly credited the presence of the well for the success of Miss Quick’s establishment. In all probability the well had nothing to do with such bounty, but Ianta certainly would not have purchased the grounds to the north and south if not for it. The old knight still ended every visit to the Quick Sunrise by pouring the final drips of her sack into the well, or if she’d forgotten to save some, spitting over the edge. It was a perfectly casual bit of heresy.
Ianta sat on the low stone edge of the well now, cheering on her prince, and beside her perched the muscled prince of the Third Kingdom. Ianta wore, in honor of the Shadow-Half Festival, a short cape of deer fur, still spotted; it covered only her shoulder and arm, and she stroked it with her other hand, imagining the poor small creature, hoping its spirit had returned to the wind. She thought it a wonderful Halfsies, for she was the opposite of a delicate prey animal, being rather huge and adept at killing. At least, once upon a time.
The Third Kingdom prince had, for the occasion, put on a full complement of Aremore attire: boots, trousers, shirt, and tunic—though the tunic hung unlaced now, thanks to the hot day and sweet sack in his blood. He’d even acquired the binding underthings worn here, and did his best not to shift uncomfortably because of what was, and wasn’t, hanging correctly between his legs. His black hair puffed around his skull uniformly, and he’d powdered it half white, half gold.
Most of the folk in the courtyard wore painted animal masks and ivy crowns, ruffled capes, and all the tumultuous, vivid colors of Aremore autumn. They drank, ate from Quick’s heavily spread sideboard—money from Hal and Ianta both had laid the groundwork for this day’s celebrations—and had been dancing, arguing, and crying insults back and forth until the moment that nameless wizard had murmured some soft thing none but Prince Hal heard. Her brown eyes popped and she insisted they wrestle. The winner would teach the other better grappling.
It was clear the wizard would win.
But to the approval of all, he dragged out the fight. Hal made such glorious, exaggerated faces when headlocked or pinned or when she nearly twisted the wizard into a hold.
They wrestled in only trousers and boots, shirtless, and Hal had unwound the Third Kingdom godscarf from her head—her Halfsies costume, naturally, to complement Charm’s—and insisted Ianta’s squire and her lover Nova help her wrap her breasts tight. Charm had said in his booming voice that in his homeland, the prince would spar as naked as her wizard, and Hal joked that they weren’t even married yet for him to already offer his wife’s breasts to the sight of strangers. The humor hit home with most of those present, but Hal intended it for Nova, who’d yet to forgive the prince for her behavior at Tenne-Tiras.
The wizard, upon presentation three nights ago, had lit all the candles in the Quick Sunrise with only a whisper and snap, then refused to perform further—therefore nearly everyone agreed he had to be quite powerful. Charlatans and witch-priests from the Rusrike or Ispania begged opportunities to prove whatever meager prowess they claimed.
It entertained Hal that everyone called him the wizard, or simply wizard. Ianta called him a fox once, clever and guessing, but his response had been too bland to offer any confirmation.
The wizard’s wiry arm curled like an oak root around her neck, holding her chokingly tight to his chest. She twisted and hooked her leg back around his knee, pulling them both down again hard. He grunted, turned, and flipped onto his back, dragging her with him so despite her being on top, he still held control.
Hal relaxed into the hold as if he were a bed, and she grinned, moaning as if with immense satisfaction. She felt the wizard’s stomach and arms stiffen, but they were surrounded by uproarious laughter.
Blue sky stretched overhead, a dome of perfect autumnal light, but soon it would dim purple, torches would light, and Hal would be late for her mother’s festival feast. She hoped she could convince Charm to skip with her and thereby avoid Celeda’s censure.
“You’ve lost interest?” the wizard said in her ear.
Hal turned her head and kissed the corner of his mouth.
Sighing at her antics, the wizard released her. She rolled onto her knees, sparing a glance to check that her chest remained bound. The wizard snapped up into a crouch, still coiled and ready.
Hal stood, held out her hand, and blessedly a cup of sack was thrust into it. She drank, then lifted it. “To my wizard, who now must teach me his moves!” Wiggling her hips to change the meaning of the words, Hal tipped the cup at him. He slowly stood, all controlled energy, and took the cup from her. They both knew the flirting was performance, and truly he did not seem to mind.
The wizard drank and handed the cup back to her, then bowed as a servant to a prince. He went to collect his long shirt from the woman who’d begged to hold it for him. Shrugging it back on, he said, “You have too much to learn for a lifetime of teaching, Prince.”
“I’ll teach you, Hal,” Nova said, and kissed her.
Glad for the touch, the casual flirt after a week’s tension, Hal kissed back and smiled against Nova’s cheek, adding a peck that was no act, only a glad gesture for a lover. She took Nova’s hand. “Sit with me, and let’s see who else will perform.”
“If only,” called Ianta Oldcastle from the well, “we had someone present who could challenge this handsome beast with his Sun and Moon swords!”
It was Charm to whom the knight looked, and despite his Aremore attire, he’d not left off the harness that crossed his chest and secured his two curved swords to his back.
“Char
m has promised to instruct my little sisters with those swords,” Hal said. “So, one day we’ll have Tigir come and show us.”
“Not Vatta?”
Hal pulled herself straight, put on an overly serious face, and raised her chin. “Lady Vatta does not perform like a clown,” she said, stretching her voice a tad higher.
Charm said, “It should be admired that she takes swordwork very seriously.”
“Oh, Charm.” Hal smiled like a villain. “I will take your sword as seriously as I must, for the good of Aremoria.”
Nova groaned and Ianta smacked her own forehead, and half the crowd shrieked laughing. Hal flung out her arms and bowed with a smirk. Such jokes were all too easy to come by.
The Third Kingdom prince met her twinkling gaze and shook his head slightly. But the corner of his wide mouth twitched. He bore her teasing so well, Hal was forced to like him. She still did not know what she would do with him.
As a pair of women—sisters, Hal thought—took the impromptu stage to sing a riddling song, Hal shoved herself between Ianta and Charm, perching on the well with her knees wide enough that Nova could sit on the ground and lean between them. The wizard stood across from her, shrugging into his plain leather jacket. He might seem almost civilized. Except he’d braided little bone-and-bead charms into his thick wild hair, and that pesky silver ghost light in his eyes, which none seemed to notice but Hal.
“This is a grand song,” Ianta said, clapping her hand on Hal’s thigh. Hal leaned against Ianta, humming along the countermelody. It was a story of twins who played at being one person so long, even they forgot who they were apart, until the night both arrived at an assignation with their lover, and the man was shocked, then nearly died with double the pleasure—perfect, ribald, appropriate for Halfsies Day.
Lady Hotspur Page 35
