“My brightest warrior turned against me,” the queen was saying. “Gone to Innis Lear, with or without my leave—see how she gives me so little room to maneuver here? Gone to where Banna Mora is, and married to Mora’s brother. That is a new dynasty they will create. So, too, has Hotspur freed Douglass of Burgun, neatly removing him from my possession and ingratiating herself to Burgun itself, for I assume she got no ransom. And her mother most recently went to Ardus of Iork when she left Lionis. I feel rebellion building, as I built myself when I landed upon Aremore earth again, only as I was then, so is Hotspur now.”
“Mother,” Hal whispered, staring down at the letter; it lay open like a dead sparrow against the richly dyed rug. She saw blood streak across it, splattering her boots, and pinched her mouth shut against a whimper.
Suddenly Celeda was there—her slippers interrupted the violent vision. Blood vanished, the sticking moan of a dead king vanished, the ghost of Hotspur’s hand in Hal’s own—vanished.
The queen asked, “Why do I even tell you of my enemies, Calepia, when you are my dearest foe?”
It cut through Hal’s distress, and her head snapped up. “What? No.”
“Your horror at this letter is selfish, and if she asked you, you would go to Hotspur and fight against me.”
“Do not think that!” cried Hal, thrusting forward to grasp her mother’s shoulders.
Celeda remained silent, body rigid. Those accusing dark eyes, so like Hal’s, held steady. The queen neither shrugged her daughter away nor embraced her. All was cold and stiff between them.
Hal said, blinking fast to banish tears, “I beg you, don’t believe this of me, no matter what Hotspur is—was—to me, or how I am now. I … Mother, I know what this news means. To us! To Aremoria! I would not ever go against you. My—my queen, and mother.” She let go and sank to her knees. “I will die a thousand deaths before I betray you.”
For a long moment, Celeda was unmoved. Then she said, with near tenderness, “More than a thousand will die as a result of this.”
Hal kept on her knees, chin tilted toward her mother. Her heart ran wildly; she would not think of a married Hotspur, a traitor Hotspur, a slain Hotspur. Nor remember I wanted you to choose better or My Hal is dead Hotspur. All Hal would think of was proving to her mother and queen that she loved her, and no matter what else, Hal would do everything in her power to keep Celeda on the throne. The only option besides the crown is death, for a queen.
She saw Vindomata’s sword again, slashing, and the burst of bright death in the blood of Rovassos King, only now it was her mother whose neck flowered in blood.
No—Hal closed her eyes in anguish. “Mother,” she whispered, and felt the feather-light touch of fingers to her brow, then skimming along her cheek to her chin. Hal looked, and her mother’s eyes were occluded by watery grief.
“This foolish affection,” Celeda murmured, and flicked a tear from the corner of her left eye.
Hal had to stop this. She felt it as if a sudden gaping hole opened beneath her. A death of desperation, drowning in her own worthlessness—if she could not save her mother and Hotspur—
“Let me go to her—to them,” Hal said wildly.
Then she firmed her voice before her mother could protest: “To Innis Lear and meet with Banna Mora and Hotspur. Let me prove to you who I am—who I can be.”
“They might murder you, then, instead of me.”
Hal shook her head. “No, of that I remain certain: Hotspur will not kill me.”
“But Banna Mora, or ferocious Glennadoer, or Solas Lear—what might they do, my dove? Or Vindomata of Mercia, who hates me now, and would take my children from me as she imagines I took hers.”
“You’ve already put Vatta in my place in your council; if I die you will exchange me for a better heir.” She tried to imbue her voice with nonchalance.
“Do not be flippant, Calepia. Hal.” Celeda tugged at her daughter’s chin, and Hal stood for her mother’s embrace. It felt good, and also terrible. As Hal slipped her arms around her mother’s waist, she battled her own tears.
What was Hotspur thinking, to openly align herself with Innis Lear and Banna Mora? The Wolf of Aremoria could not rebel against Aremoria!
“I swear to you, Mother,” Hal whispered in the queen’s ear, “you will be queen for years yet. You’ll see. Let me do this; I will bring Hotspur back to us, and she will drag Vindomata to heel.”
Celeda laughed softly, bitterly. She pushed back enough to see her daughter. They stared across inches of sunset-dark study. Lanterns needed to be lighted. “Vindomata will never give up.”
“Nor shall I.”
“Even if you must kill your wolf, Daughter?”
Hal shuddered. “I—I won’t let it come to that.” But even as she spoke it, Hal knew. This would end with someone dead.
Death haunted Celeda’s gaze, too. “Hal …”
At her mother’s strange, uncertain pause, Hal felt a chill. She smiled. “Mother?”
“No.” Celeda smiled tenderly in return. “I will tell you when you return home to me from Innis Lear.”
Triumph surged and Hal’s face lit. “Thank you—thank you, you’ll see, Mother!”
“It will be official. I will arrange it all and send word to Solas of Innis Lear to expect you. As congratulations, we shall say, for her nephew’s summer vows, and our Hotspur’s winter ones. And your spring ones.”
The reminder of Hotspur’s marriage cooled Hal’s head, souring the moment. But Hal bowed to her mother and left then, for she had much preparation to make.
HOTSPUR
Innis Lear, late autumn
WITHIN DAYS OF her arrival on Innis Lear, Hotspur learned three things: there were too many cats in Connley Castle, her husband was considered strange even by his family, and the island itself did not seem to like her much.
In hindsight, she should have expected the cats.
They married quietly at Annyck. Connley wore the cold winter blue of the Errigal dukes, and allowed rings to be placed on a few fingers. With white paint he dotted a small constellation up on his left temple; with black ash he streaked a tear-line down his right cheek. Hotspur wore polished chain mail over her best Persy-green dress and put red on her lips for her mother’s sake. She drank too much, and her husband kissed her forehead when he put them both to bed, whispering in gentle Aremore, “Maybe we will dream of each other.”
Hotspur rarely recalled her dreams.
Preparations for a winter abroad kept Hotspur busy, and she dragged her husband briefly to Red Castle for a week where she could leave instructions for her retainers and staff, and meet with her army. After much deliberation, she decided to take her first aide, Sennos, with her to Innis Lear, and twenty retainers. It was an official visit, after all, and Perseria must make much of itself to the barbarian islanders. Besides the warriors, they would have attendants and a handful of cousins.
She also set Douglass free. He grumbled about her wedding, gripping her wrist too hard, and Hotspur only sighed as though bored. If he chose to act the ass, that would be answer enough to the question of whether they could be allies. Douglass loomed over her and said, “You will break him.”
“Innis Lear breeds survivors, they say.”
The prince of Burgun sneered but released her.
Though Connley carried himself with the hardened ease of every Learish person Hotspur had ever met, he was no warrior. With his lack of weaponry but for a dagger, his long tunic and soft boots, loose curls, pretty face, and gentle attitude, he simply offended Douglass. To be spurned in favor of such a man rankled the prince. Hotspur liked the effect and considered it a bonus. One of the few gracing this marriage alliance.
“No doubt you’ll go home to countless willing bedmates,” she teased, expecting a carnal response.
Instead Douglass said, “Oh, I do not think I shall return home … yet.”
And he had not, accompanying their party west to the March, where Hotspur showed her new husband to
her aunt, and held her breath for approval. She’d instructed Connley to stand tall, to focus on Vindomata instead of allowing his gaze to drift or his attention to wander into the wind. And not to talk to the wind, for to everyone watching his one-sided whispering conversation appeared as madness. Especially when he frowned a little and said the trees here were so sleepy, they’d lost the cadence of their own tongue.
Vindomata had eyed him up and down and asked, “How are you with a blade?”
“Passing, my lady,” Connley said. “But I am no warrior.”
“Your sister is great.”
“So she was trained to be; I was raised a witch.”
The Mercian duke sniffed. “Does your magic translate onto the battlefield? The soldiers of the March claimed a wizard accompanied Owyn Glennadoer here and used obfuscating magics to fool Banna Mora’s scouts as to the number and placement of his armies.”
Connley frowned. “I have never tried to hide an army, and so could not say if it were possible.”
Vindomata slid her niece a cool, disbelieving glance. It had been either a very innocent answer or very shrewd avoidance. Hotspur shook her head: the former, certainly, for the one thing she understood already about Connley Errigal was his inability to lie.
They were still in the March when orders came for Vindomata to relinquish the keep to Celedrix’s commander, in the name of Prince Calepia, the new Lord March.
“Celedrix knows it’s to be war, but will not declare it before we do,” Vindomata said, pleased. “I will withdraw myself when you sail, but most of my men will remain under this new commander.”
The fourteenth night after their wedding, Connley said to Hotspur, “You are terrifying, but I would like to ask you a favor.”
She’d paused at the edge of the bed. Hotspur had already been undressed by one of her girls and wore only a long nightshirt, though at home she was more used to sleeping nude. But she and Connley had yet to acquaint themselves with each other’s naked flesh. They slept together only because Connley had balked at taking separate chambers, claiming he did not wish to be viewed as incapable by her family and retainers, and Hotspur agreed it best they keep their awkward lack of marital bliss a secret. When she broke his body down into separate parts in her imagination, she did feel desire, as she had beneath the oak tree. Only there were so many complications, and Connley seemed similarly confused.
So, when he asked for permission to ask for a favor, she said, “Yes?” rather too harshly.
Connley spoke no more for a long time. Hotspur swallowed the mistake and turned to face him, frowning guiltily. He was standing across the low bed, in a similar long shirt, with a pinched brow and his hands hanging at his sides. Lonely as a man could look. It was dim in their inner bedchamber, lit only by the quiet orange fire.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
It crooked his mouth into a smile, but a small one. “I did say you are terrifying.”
“What is your favor? I’ll give it to you if I can.”
“You can.”
“Well?” She flipped her hands impatiently.
“May I call you Isarna?”
“Why?”
Connley studied her for a moment, lips just barely parted, hinting at how much he wanted this. “You’re my wife, and we have not—shared anything just between the two of us.” He gestured vaguely at the bed. “I would like something intimate, for only myself.”
“My name,” Hotspur murmured, oddly disbelieving. She felt lightheaded at the thought that use of her birth name was a gift she could bestow. “All right,” she whispered, before she could be afraid of giving so much.
He licked his bottom lip and blinked those dark-moon eyes. “Isarna,” he said, testing.
Hotspur shivered. Abruptly she climbed into the bed and curled on her side, back to Connley. She dragged the heavy wool blanket to her chin and closed her eyes tightly as he got in behind her and pulled the fur over their feet. Hotspur concentrated on breathing evenly, wondering if she should turn and embrace him, or reach at least for his hand. But her eyes prickled with tears and she did nothing.
Connley remained quiet. There was no wind tonight, and the fire settled without crackling. She huddled, unbalanced though the mattress was perfect and soft, her feet warm.
Suddenly, Hotspur said, “Connley, what shall I have from you?”
“What do you mean?” he answered immediately; he’d not been dozing at all.
“You have my name, alone to call me, but I have nothing similar from you,” she whispered.
“Oh. What shall I give you?”
Hotspur turned over and found the gleam of his eyes. She tucked her hands under her chin, fists full of blanket. “I don’t know.”
“I …” Connley’s voice trailed into a sigh. He reached for her and put cold fingers on her cheek. “I’m in love with someone, since I was fourteen.”
It was quite the thing to confess to one’s new wife. Hotspur’s eyes widened in surprise but she said nothing.
“A prince,” Connley whispered. “Someone I could never have lived happily with, forever. So it affects me, but not … us.”
His large eyes held such tragedy, Hotspur thought she might cry for the both of them. She did not say, Me, too, husband.
In the near week since that night, they’d not had so intimate a conversation again.
The afternoon they sailed from the Marchtown port to Innis Lear, Hotspur had stood at the prow of the ship, arguing with Vindomata about how to broach certain martial subjects with Banna Mora. Suddenly, cries of surprise had lifted from the pier. Hotspur had leaned over the wooden rail to see her skinny husband carefully lowering himself into the ocean. Her mouth fell open. He’d removed his tunic and trousers, and piled them under his discarded boots. Every muscle of his back and arms shifted visibly as he climbed down the stone column, half submerging.
Hotspur clenched her jaw and simply watched.
Connley dipped underwater. For a long moment he was gone.
“Errigal,” called Douglass from atop the pier. He stomped a foot against the wooden slats. It had seemed as though Connley vanished underneath.
Yelling from the opposite side of the pier drew her attention, and Hotspur moved farther onto the prow of the ship to see: yes, there was Connley swimming carefully toward the retaining wall. One hand pulled him along through the surf, the other lifted something small into the air, keeping it well away from the sea. Water streamed from his heavy-hanging curls.
As Connley made his way to the wall, everyone stared. A few sailors around Hotspur murmured superstitious prayers; Douglass strode to the retaining wall, joining a small crowd at the ladder that plunged down into the ocean there. The tide was in, so the waters licked high enough to carry Connley and whatever precious thing he held nearly to the top rung. Sailors bent over to haul Connley up, and Douglass shoved his way nearer.
Suddenly, Douglass’s laughter rose bold and strong. “It’s a fucking kitten!”
Connley glanced out at the ship, dripping and naked but for a loincloth and the leather cord hung with very wet feathers. Hotspur could not read his expression.
He said something, and the crowd parted, except Douglass, who put his chest in Conn’s face, speaking. After a moment, Douglass, too, moved from Connley’s path, and with a bright grin called out to Hotspur, “The little thing crept out there, he says, when the tide was low, and trapped itself in the underbelly of the pier. None of us heard anything, but the wind told your husband, Lady Hotspur.”
She grimaced as Connley handed the creature to a woman beside one of the fish carts.
Vindomata joined Hotspur at the rail and said, rather amused, “You’ll need to bed that sort of airy behavior out of him.”
Hotspur made a sound even she could not define: frustration, embarrassment, incredulity.
Her aunt knew how to interpret it. “You haven’t slept with him. Hotspur, stars of heaven, he’s your husband three weeks.”
“We married fast to solidif
y this alliance. Everything else we can do at our own pace.” Hotspur spoke through her teeth to keep quiet.
“Loving a girl when you were young does not necessitate giving up men.”
Hotspur turned sharply. “I am attracted to him,” she hissed.
“Then why wait?”
“Because I …” Hotspur closed her eyes and drew a deep breath before she yelled. Her hand found the hilt of her whispering sword.
“Get it over with, Hotspur, purge this hesitation and all will follow.” Vindomata sounded both tender and impatient.
“It would’ve been easier with Douglass,” Hotspur complained viciously, eyes tracking again to Connley Errigal. He’d returned to his clothing on the pier and was currently tying the laces of his trousers. His hipbones were sharp, poking out of the band; she imagined putting a hand there, in the hollow.
“I did not think you liked the prince of Burgun at all.”
“I don’t, but … he at least would not have cared about my hesitations, once we were married.”
Vindomata laughed. It startled Hotspur into looking, for such an easy sound was rare from her aunt. Mirth painted itself across Vindomata’s face. “You mean to tell me you are complaining that your husband respects your desires?”
Now Hotspur knew her cheeks were aflame. “Hurry up, Connley,” she yelled down at the pier.
His head snapped up. No smile, just that same calm, blithe expression. He glistened with water droplets. She saw him say, Isarna.
Later that night she told him cats drowned all the time.
THE WIND OF Innis Lear gusted without cessation and enveloped Connley the moment they were ashore. He smiled sweetly and spoke in the hissing tree tongue. Fallen leaves shivered about his ankles, rising in a brief whirlwind of gold and faded green-brown. He turned and held out his hand to her.
Hotspur took it, knowing his whispering now was introduction: her to the island air.
Little blue butterflies that should have died in this cold end of autumn drifted down like tiny shards of the sky and flounced lazily around his head. Three landed on his shoulder, casually batting their wings.
Lady Hotspur Page 39
