“Worms,” Hotspur said, unsettled.
Sennos stiffened at her side, and two young women who’d come as Hotspur’s attendants clutched each other’s hands.
“Welcome to all of you,” Connley had said, his smile bright.
Connley.
Hotspur thought for a moment she heard his name spoken by the wind, joyously, eagerly—but then they were surrounded by Learish folk, Errigals and queen’s retainers, messengers and servants and townsfolk at home in Port Comlack. It had surely been one of them, calling out.
The trip to Connley Castle would take three days, directly north, and they spent the first night at Queen’s Keep. Hotspur slept not a wink, for every time she drifted off, something hissed in her ear, shocking her awake again like the sting of a wasp. Connley could not hear it, though he remained awake with her to listen.
She rode exhausted, and could not find her favorite white gloves. In Aremoria it still had been fully bright autumn, but here winter bit harder and faster. Though the sky was clear and the constant wind not too freezing, the sunlight itself was crystal cold.
Connley thrived. He rode beside her when he could stand it, otherwise looping off the trail and finding them again in an hour. Hotspur went with him sometimes, asking about the land. He told her the names of trees and scrub as they climbed along the eastern edge of the White Forest, up into karst plains. But when he was not answering her questions, Connley talked openly with the wind in the whispering tree tongue. He smiled, winced, spoke fast as if arguing, and even once laughed. The Errigals ignored it; Hotspur’s party openly avoided Connley. Hotspur herself could hear the words tucked into the wind’s replies, though she did not understand.
A bird pooped on her shoulder the second day. As they lunched beneath the shelter of some oaks, an acorn pelted her on the head. It hurt for such a tiny thing, and there was no squirrel nor gust of wind to explain it.
Her coffee as they rose the third morning was shockingly cold. She took a second sip and poured it out in a fury. Steam drifted visibly from Sennos’s cup. Her captain eyed it, and offered his to her, but she screwed up her face in refusal.
Hotspur complained to nobody, especially not Connley, nor the acting duke of Errigal who’d greeted them at Port Comlack and escorted them to his ducal seat. He was a broad man with an easy smile and a booming voice, a craggy unhandsome face that he compensated for with kindness. Connley’s uncle, he called Hotspur his niece and said he looked forward to sparring against her talkative sword.
Could everyone on Innis Lear hear the blade growl?
“No,” Connley said, when she asked. “Only wizards and witches and maybe a few with iron magic in their blood, like Errigals.”
That was a relief, she supposed.
Connley Castle spread broad limestone arms in concentric walls around a low grassy mound and a black ruin that had once been a fortress keep. Built only two hundred years before, the modern castle was an elegant, sprawling citadel in Aremore style, with slate roofs, glassed windows, and more concern for accommodation and grandeur than defense. Oddly, no village spilled from the base of the castle walls. The nearest town was in a valley to the south, Sker, and quite large. Errigal told her it nearly rivaled Astora City in Taria dukedom, the largest city on the island, and perhaps in another generation Sker would overtake the other.
Here Hotspur was treated like royalty returning home. The entire castle had been garlanded with golden wheat and pinecone wreaths, while thorn twigs bright with vermillion haws decorated the doors. In the great hall fresh rushes covered the floor and the hearth burned sweet-smelling juniper. Hotspur was bedecked with hard berries strung into necklaces, as was Connley, and three young women asked to weave charms into her hair. Bemused, Hotspur allowed it. This place reminded her of Annyck at the midwinter holidays, except for the cats blinking from every corner and twining between her ankles as she walked. Her smile was unforced, even after her annoying, sleepless days of travel. She took Connley’s hand, to the obvious pleasure of his uncles, aunts, and cousins.
Sin Errigal presided, insisting Hotspur and Connley drink spiced honey wine with her and sit in fur-covered chairs at the fire. The hall was narrow for a castle this size and ribbed with pale stone pillars, but the crush was alleviated by the reaching height of the ceiling, some three stories overhead. Hotspur began to sweat right away, and laughingly divested herself of her traveling leather and mail right there with everyone.
“No airs, this one,” the acting duke of Errigal said to the entire hall, adding his booming laugh.
Connley’s eyes gleamed quickly from the alcohol, and he took up Hotspur’s hand again once she was stripped down to her wool shirt and trousers. Quietly he said, “You look very Learish,” and it was difficult for Hotspur to tell if it pleased him or was merely a statement of fact.
Hotspur held on to him with one hand and her mead with the other, concentrating as she was introduced to a stream of Errigals. Sin Errigal had five children, all of whom had lived long enough at least to produce seventeen grandchildren for her, most of whom had children of their own, and in one case, grandchildren. There were a total of three men named Errigal who occasionally went by Rory: the acting duke, his eldest son, and Rory the Youngest, who along with Era Star-Seer were the twice-great-grandchildren of Sin. Hotspur thought to herself that at least such a prolific family did the world the favor of giving them all the same name: if one forgot, guessing Errigal or a feminine version thereof would offer close to a two in three chance of being correct.
One of her new cousins, the youthful, freckled Era, promised Hotspur a prophecy for her marriage, since that was a tradition she and Connley had neglected in Aremoria. Connley, who was mostly ignored by the sprawl of family—the way a worn and familiar pet is ignored (the way most of the cats were ignored)—accepted on his wife’s behalf. They were interrupted, however, by the late arrival of a young prince of Innis Lear, who charged into the great hall with a helmet under his gauntleted arm.
Hotspur knew him. He was Mared Lear, the prince who’d disturbed the tournament to deliver that cursed prophecy.
Mared grinned wildly as he pushed through children and gathered cousins. His pale face was long and sharp, his lips pink and thin, and his dark eyes merry. He’d been out with retainers, and his light brown hair was flattened and mussed from helmet and sweat. “Lady Hotspur!” he cried. “It is more than an honor—sorry, Grandmother,” he added quickly to Sin Errigal, dropping to his knee to kiss her cheek, then popped back up with the restless ease of youth.
“Mared,” Connley said, for Hotspur’s benefit.
“I remember,” she said. Though she knew him to be older than her, his spirit seemed nearer that of a newborn colt.
“We’ve met?” Mared’s expression broadened into horror. “I could not possibly have forgotten so—”
Hotspur took pity. “I was at Queen Celeda’s tournament.”
“Oh!” His enthusiasm sparkled. “In that case, I’m delighted to formally meet you, and please, you must tell me about Twin Oaks, in your own words. I will perish if you don’t.”
Hotspur said, suddenly wondering if this was the prince Connley loved, “I’d rather not be the cause of death of any islanders my first week here.”
The prince laughed. “Good, then, you’ll tell all of us about the battle strategy, and we’ll make poems about it.”
“We will eat first, young man,” Sin declared in her creaky, loud voice.
They did—it was easy to see that whatever Sin demanded occurred in Connley Castle. Mared and Rory the Youngest, Era Star-Seer—who had to be the youngest star priest Hotspur had ever encountered—entertained her and Connley, though mostly her, while the benches and tables were arranged and trenchers brought out. A massive pig had been roasted and was presented with a short prayer to the stars and roots of Innis Lear.
It was perfect. Hotspur ate, drank, told her best tales of battle—triumphant, frightening, and intense—and in turn convinced Sin and the duke to te
ll her a few stories about Connley. Mared Lear gossiped enthusiastically, not only about her husband, but his cousin Banna Mora, and their childhood he’d shared, for Mared had been fostered here with the Errigals. Though Mora had left for Aremoria when Mared was seven, he’d grown up with Connley, about whom he knew all the strange tales.
None of the stories bothered Conn at all. Hotspur was glad of it, for she preferred a husband unashamed of himself and his past, but the stories were as weird and Learish as stories could get, lacking only earth saints. Apparently, her husband had learned lullabies from the wind itself, charmed ravens into the castle to eat from his hand, and once he’d been found inside the deep navel well in the inner yard of the castle. It was several adult-lengths deep and filled with water enough to drown a grown man, yet Connley had fallen in as a four-year-old child and been missing for hours. When finally someone thought to ask the wind, the frantic adults were directed to the navel well. His laughter could be heard echoing up the black stone channel. As his mother called for rope and his father prepared to climb down, the waters themselves rose. Cradled, safe and wet, by the rootwaters of Innis Lear, Connley was delivered up into his mother’s arms. Hotspur turned a disbelieving eye to her husband, who listened with an unfocused gaze, either remembering or seeing through the great hall into, perhaps, the dark center of Innis Lear that once he had looked upon as a child.
Hotspur experienced a sudden urge to ask if he’d touched the beating heart of this wild, living island.
Instead, she only smiled very slightly at him and shook her head in wonder.
She went to bed that night secure in knowing this family, outrageous as they might be, was willing to include her. It was almost enough to replace the great love she’d lost.
When she woke in the morning, rolling to stretch, a painful jerk tore at her scalp: her hair was caught on something. Groaning softly, she kept her eyes closed and reached up to feel.
Her hair was a disastrous tangle.
Instinctually, she tried to sit, to better perceive what had happened: the pain of pulling hair put tears in her eyes and she gasped. “Connley!”
“Isarna?” Her name was muffled; then came the sound of him pushing open the bedroom door from the outer room. “Oh, stars!”
Morning shone clear through the glass windows of this wedge-shaped tower room. Connley was fully dressed and fell into a crouch at her side, hands in the air as though he wished to touch her, but could not bring himself to.
“What is wrong with my hair?” Hotspur asked carefully, forcing her breathing slower. Her heartbeat skittered with something close to panic.
“Spirit-knots,” Connley said. “I am so sorry.”
She frowned. Spirit-knots were from children’s tales and legend: little ghosts or goblins, or the shape-shifting pets of earth saints, worked tangles and ladder loops into the hair of a person who’d offended them or their masters. Hotspur raised her hands again and walked her fingers along her curls. She felt frayed tangles and splitting knots, hunks of terrible fuss around a few of the charms woven in by the Errigal girls last night. And a few spots of something sticky forcing her hair into twisted ropes.
“I think that’s sap,” Connley murmured, leaning close enough that his shadow fell over her face.
“Get back!”
Hotspur pushed at him, suddenly frantic. She couldn’t pull away because of the endless aching pressure on her scalp. Her hair was ruined. Tears gummed her eyelashes and she gasped back a sob. “Who did this to me?” she demanded. “I thought your family welcomed me, Connley! Why would they do this? What for? It is—it is cowardly and a terrible prank. I did not think your family would be so cruel.”
“No, Isarna, please, it was not my family, they would never.”
“Then it was you?” She said it so furiously the accusation was like fire, and he startled away.
Connley said, “I swear to you it was not me or any of my family who did it. I will—I will show you, but first let me get someone to help … free you.”
“No.” She covered her face with her hands, surprised at the strength of her sadness. How glad she’d been last night, how relaxed and learning to like her fast marriage, thankful for the family she’d gained.
All had come undone. As if by knotting her hair, whatever thing had done this simultaneously unknotted her heart.
“Isarna, tell me what I can do.”
She lowered her hands and said to her lap, “Don’t—don’t go. Free me yourself, Connley Errigal. Husband.”
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured, and vanished out of the bedroom.
Hotspur took deep breaths, trailing her hands out along the hunk of hair that pulled and hurt: it was knotted to both of her boots where they sat paired beside the bed frame. Tiny braids twisted and wove around the buckles. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she lifted the boots onto the bed, alleviating the pressure on her scalp. Red, orange, and dark blond hairs frayed around the metal. She tried unwinding them, but it was too intricate, as if done by little spirit hands indeed.
Wind hissed down the chimney, puffing out over the cold hearth like a laugh and scattering black ashes.
Connley reentered, holding a thin razor and a bone pick. “I’ve asked for warm wine and some breakfast. Let them think we …”
“Fine,” she grunted. Hotspur brought her legs crossed and cradled the boots in her lap, hunched miserably around it all.
Her husband began the arduous process of freeing her. Though surely he was gentle as possible, it hurt more than it did not, especially as he removed the charms. Hotspur roused herself to demand the razor and sliced herself free of the boots. She said nothing and ignored new tears.
When one of their attendants brought breakfast, Connley rushed into the outer room and took it before anyone could find her. He poured wine from a warm pitcher and pressed it into her hand. Hotspur drank. As she settled into this horror, her skin puckered with cold; the fire remained unlit and she sat in only a shirt, wool blankets crumpled around them like a nest.
Finally, Hotspur said, “Just cut it all off, Conn.”
She felt his hesitation.
“Do it.”
“It will be uneven, and short.”
“Instead of uneven, broken, and long?”
The sigh Connley expressed sounded bitter. “I am sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I did not, but it is my fault nevertheless.”
Hotspur closed her eyes and said, “Cut, then tell me.”
And so Connley cut nearly an arm’s length of hair off Hotspur’s head, leaving her with messy, layered curls just longer than her ears in most places.
He gathered the ruined spirit-knots and Hotspur touched her lighter hair. It did not feel real. Always it had been long enough to wind in braids around her head, or stream loose down her back in bed, ends tickling her hips, and Hal had—
Hotspur stopped remembering.
They each drank another cup of wine, tepid now, in silence and staring at each other. Hotspur tried not to imagine how terrible she looked, instead studying Connley as he mirrored her cross-legged position at the foot of the bed. Never before in their brief relationship had he been the one of them more dressed.
Connley watched her expressionlessly. She supposed his hair was longer than hers now, though barely. Angry, Hotspur reached out and touched the ends of his dark curls: they were lank at the moment, and frizzing apart slightly into messy waves and random spirals. Connley did not move; he hardly seemed to breathe.
Then with a sigh of frustration, Hotspur ran her hands through her hair, pushing it all back, combing it with her fingers, getting caught in more usual tangles. It wasn’t so bad.
“Get dressed,” Conn said. “I need to show you something.”
CONNLEY
Connley Castle, late autumn
CONNLEY HAD BEEN glad to see Era Star-Seer last night at dinner, but they’d not had a chance to speak alone, and so before dawn he’d gotten up quietly—whil
e Isarna still slept hard, nothing yet wrong with her hair—and slipped out of the tower to find his cousin.
Era Errigal was called Star-Seer because she always knew the position and patterns of the stars above Innis Lear, even on a sunny afternoon, even when the night was overcast, even when she found herself sleeping under several layers of stone castle. The gift was no magic, she claimed, but simple understanding of the heavenly motion of constellations and their proven, charted patterns. Give her a reference point, and she could say with certainty how the stars would move in three hours, merely by closing her eyes and imagining it. The first time she’d displayed her gift, at age six, the queen had been so delighted she’d had Era brought to the Summer Seat to study with the royal star priests. Soon after, the girl had traveled to the North Star Tower for more isolated, immediate tutoring. She’d been only fourteen when the priests declared she’d learned all they could teach her cloistered away, and she ought to have an assignment. That way she could learn the application of their prayers and prophecy by working directly with the people of Innis Lear.
The duke of Errigal exerted precisely the right influence to bring her home to Connley Castle.
Era had not remained long. She went where the stars drew her, to any corner of the island, and even to Aremoria. Most recently, she’d returned home just as Connley himself had departed. He was eager to reconnect with her about the state of the stars.
Connley stopped at the narrow door to her shared room, and knocked.
Era herself opened the door, clearly having been waiting for him. She was wrapped in a gray robe, her bright brown hair bound under a white-and-blue scarf that made her hazel eyes luminous and her freckles bright as embers. She was nearly five years younger than him, with a round face to his sharp and triangular, but neither of them was sand-pale like most Errigals. Connley’s tan tones were rich and gleaming, Era’s like a blush of fire and sun-kissed red.
“I knew you would come,” she murmured, pressing her cheek to the edge of the door: she’d only opened it enough for her face to show. “My cousins are asleep still.”
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