Lady Hotspur

by Tessa Gratton

  Sudden panic closed Mora’s throat.

  The most ruthless answer to her existence was immediate execution. Not only had she been the heir to Rovassos’s throne; she was descended from better Aremore royalty even than Celeda herself, through her Learish maternal line.

  Mora ought to go to her rooms and put on armor and traveling boots, take this ring and the money she had at hand, and run to Innis Lear. They would keep her alive. Her mother had been a great-granddaughter of Elia the Dreamer.

  But Mora’s mother had also been the great-granddaughter of Morimaros the Second, the best king Aremoria had ever known, and it was to his line, his throne, that Mora professed love and loyalty. Just like Hal—saints and stars, Mora had met Hal face-to-face for the first time all those years ago in the small portrait gallery where a painting hung of Prince Mars, before he became king. She and Hal had fought over the history of it, and whether his eyes could possibly have been so blue, or whether he smiled at all when he was a young man because he never smiled in his portraits.

  A flicker of movement drew her attention to a shadow along the far curve of the tower. Standing against the stones, safe from sunlight, was a man.

  No, not a man: a ghost.

  Morimaros the Great.

  He was young, bearded, and blue eyed, in an old-fashioned cut of orange gambeson, boots, trousers, sword, and some bits of armor. Ceremonial war-dress, not quite ready for a battlefield. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, and on the first finger gleamed the Blood and the Sea. As surely as it hung around her own neck.

  Mora’s mouth fell open, and he nodded once, solemnly.

  Then Mora blinked and he was gone. Only shadows gathered, and wind pushing curls across her eyes.

  She’d been thinking of him, then imagined him.

  Calm and certainty swept through her.

  She would survive this. Her mind conjured ghosts to reassure her of what she knew deep within. She could maneuver through this and survive.

  With that Mora pushed away from the pale crenellation and charged down the tower stairs. She strode through the wide palace corridors hard enough her skirts snapped, to her bedroom where she grabbed up her sword belt and the sword sheathed there. Clutching it, she continued on quickly, past the library and throne room, turning the corner to the smaller gilded doorway that opened into the Princes’ Gallery.

  Tall windows at the south let in so much light the picture frames gleamed. Painted wildflowers grew up the corners of the room, all the way to the bright blue ceiling. Seven portraits graced the walls: the most recent seven princes of the Aremore royal line. Including Mora herself.

  Her painting was only an arm’s length tall, and she posed with a hawk on her arm, in an elaborate burgundy dress with a quilted bodice to suggest armor. Her sun-brown curls were bound tightly back against her head, twisted into a knot beneath a pearl-dotted crown, and black makeup lined her hazel eyes. One could see the Third Kingdom in the shape of her nose and cheeks, and her skin was a shade darker brown in the portrait than the rich tan it was in life; Mora did not mind, though she wondered at the artist’s purpose in pretending he could not mix the proper tone.

  Banna Mora liked being a beautiful prince, a stand-out, skilled at knowing whom she could manipulate with her looks, and how. Some found her rather exotic for her foreign coloring; others just strange, as Mora did come from Innis Lear. There were courtiers who trusted her when she made herself more plainly Aremore, and those who felt better confidence when she let her old Learish accent play through, or wore bright lapis to hint at her Third Kingdom heritage. She flirted with some and remained coolly intellectual with others, treating them to their expectations in order to get what she needed. By all the saints and worms of earth, Banna Mora was a good prince.

  Anger, an emotion she vastly preferred over fear, wrapped warm fingers around the base of her spine, and Mora chose to stand before the portrait of Prince Mars instead of her own.

  Hal would know to seek her here.

  Mora buckled the sword belt over her gown and then settled with her hands folded in front of her, waiting patiently. The hours she’d spent teaching herself to be still, to observe, to hold her expression calm, served her now. Though she was alone, Banna Mora would play her role as prince this final time, until it was taken from her.

  Over her shoulder in the massive, life-sized portrait, Prince Mars stood in his ruddy orange uniform with his hand on the shoulder of a white charger. Both he and the horse wore plate mail, and Mars’s helmet was tucked under his arm. The blue sky behind him was striped with gray from funeral fires, and the grass beneath his feet churned to mud and blood. But the prince himself was untouched by gore. Because of the old style of painting, his features were difficult to make out, but for being square and handsome and pale. His eyes, though, maintained their fierce blue.

  This old, dead prince had been confessor to so many: Mora remembered coming here to explain to his painting how she intended to make her name as great as his one day, and that her parents were dead, and that Rovassos had chosen her; she remembered, too, finding ten-year-old Hal Bolinbroke huddled beside a window, bent over her drawing pad. Hal had been the king’s ward since her mother’s banishment, and certainly was not supposed to be in the Princes’ Gallery. But Mora had only been the king’s ward then, too, not yet a prince.

  We aren’t supposed to be here, she’d said, haughty instead of companionable.

  The drawing pad had slapped hard to the marble floor when Hal dropped it. She gaped, then clenched her jaw and pretended to be unconcerned. I can get in through the windows, then back out again whenever I like—the tutoring room they stick me in is right above. And Mars likes my stories, and isn’t as stupid as my tutors. The math one drones on and the history one can’t tell me why King Isarnos didn’t use the river in his tactical plan against the Rusrike invasion.

  It was winter, Mora answered. The river was too frozen for barges, but not frozen enough to sled across.

  Hal’s dark brown eyes had widened in excitement. Oh! Why didn’t he just say that?

  Can I see your art?

  Biting her lip, Hal had fallen quiet, but picked up the pad of paper. Mora joined the younger girl on the ground, hiking up her dress to sit cross-legged. Together they paged through the drawing pad. Mora made the appropriate coos of appreciation at the portraits, but especially complimented Hal’s sketches of weaponry and mail. She could identify Diotan-style hilts, Burgundian buckles, and the darkening smears Hal had put on the blades to suggest Errigal iron.

  Then Mora had turned a page to reveal a rough drawing of a woman’s face, her jaw and lips well marked, but the details of her eyes unformed.

  My mother, Hal whispered. I might forget her face if I don’t keep drawing her.

  You’ll see her again. Mora did not want to say she already had a hard time clearly recalling her parents’ features. But if you do forget the way her lashes curl, remember this: the first time I met your mother, I was only eight years old, but she knelt to put herself at my level to speak with me. I asked her about the hilt of her dagger because it had a star-shaped pink stone, and she told me a story right then, of acquiring it. Though others wanted her attention, Celeda Bolinbroke knelt there, telling an eight-year-old girl from Innis Lear everything I wanted to know about that dagger. I will never forget that, the way she made me feel, even if I don’t know what she looks like anymore, or what color are her eyes.

  Hal had gripped the edges of her drawing pad so tightly she bent the thin wooden binding. Do you know other stories about her? Will you tell them all to me?

  Mora allowed herself a smile now, remembering. She’d loved Hal for ten full years, and been loved in turn. She believed that. Hal would not let Celedrix kill her.

  Only a year ago, Hal had knelt before Mora and sworn her life and death to Mora’s name. Lady Hal of Aremoria, she’d been dubbed, only because she could not be Bolinbroke then.

  Two of Mora’s other Lady Knights, Lady Ter Melia and Lady Ime
na, had not joined the rebels, remaining here with the palace guard instead. Mora’s guard. Lady Talix had gone at Hal’s side, though, and of course the squire Nova Irris, too, for her infatuation with Hal. Mora did not know where the rest were—or if any would remain now, or be allowed to remain under Celedrix’s rule. Nor did she know of those who had fought, who had fallen. Rovassos was dead, but who else?

  The things Mora did not know could fill a hole the size of the sea.

  Horns and trumpets blared outside at the arrival of the new queen in the People’s Courtyard; she heard footsteps in the hallway, voices on the other side of the small panel door that led into the throne room itself.

  If only Vindus Persy, the next duke of Mercia, had remained with her—and against the rebellion. A knightly retainer in Rovassos’s service, Vin had been assigned to the palace during the king’s absence, because Mora had asked for him. But Vin had left two months ago, called to his mother’s side in Mercia, along with his brother Devrus, still a squire in the palace. He’d known since then, Mora suspected, what was coming. Vindomata of Mercia had wanted her sons fighting beside her. But Mora would have preferred Vin to remain at her side. He should have chosen her. He’d been such a brutal comfort to her, charming and violent in equal strokes, whichever she needed most. And she did not have to manipulate him, thanks to his rough reluctance to dissemble. Even when he tried, the truth was there in his touch. Fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, pressing hard to the small of her back, the tremble of tense muscles at his jaw. And when he was amused, he always laughed. She’d been nearly ready to make him her husband and the future king of Aremoria. Would he return the favor now? Keep their association and make her instead the future lady of Mercia? Perhaps if Hal could not fight for Mora’s life, Vindus would.

  But he’d left. And then Hal, too.

  Even Lady Ianta Oldcastle had gone—drinking herself stupid in her leaning town house down by the docks. Every day since word had come of Rovassos’s death.

  Alone, Mora would not weep; she would not tremble. She was a daughter of Aremoria and of Innis Lear and of the Third Kingdom. Three strong bloodlines united.

  “I am Banna Mora of the March,” she murmured to herself again, and left it at that.

  When the door opened it was not Hal Bolinbroke who entered: it was a woman in worn leather and steel armor, walking hard in war boots, a pine-green cape pinned over her oyster-shell pauldrons. Red hair braided in a crown was incongruously set with small blue flowers.

  Lady Hotspur grinned and strode across the marble floor. “Mora,” she said, voice light for such a compact figure.

  Mora could not return the smile, though she liked Hotspur Persy well enough. She’d witnessed the famous baiting of that Burgundian earl last year, at the Persy Tournament, and had shared a hearty meal and heartier laughter with the soldier.

  But Hotspur had helped depose Rovassos, and she was here to take Mora’s title.

  And behind the Wolf of Aremoria came Hal.

  Prince Hal, Mora supposed, feeling the cold drain of uncertainty hardening her expression as she met Hal’s rich brown eyes.

  “I knew you’d be here,” Hal said. “Didn’t I, Hotspur.”

  Hal was in orange and Bolinbroke purple, both of which suited her creamy complexion and her stark black hair. Unlike Hotspur, Hal had no armor, only a fine jacket with a full skirt that split and flared behind her. And all that hair was loose, falling around her face and shoulders in messy waves. Her gaze fell to the sword at Mora’s hip.

  But Hotspur stared at Prince Mars, lips parted. “I’ve never seen this one,” she murmured.

  Hal flung an arm around Hotspur’s shoulders. “It’s the best. The only one in Lionis where he’s not got a beard.”

  “Nothing wrong with a beard.” Hotspur laughed.

  The new prince’s face fell as she studied the portrait behind Mora, as if she, too, were seeing a ghost.

  Mora remained still, her gaze flicking between the two of them: Hotspur staid and practical, stance wide and ready for attack, but not shifting away from Hal’s embrace in the slightest; Hal’s fingers pressing slightly too hard into Hotspur’s pauldron so that the tips blanched and her nails turned pink.

  Like Mora, Hal was tall, and when the new prince glanced at her, their eyes locked. “Mother will be in the throne room, and Abovax promised to knock on the wall and let me know they are ready for you.”

  “What does she want from me?”

  Hotspur lifted an incredulous eyebrow. “Surrender! A vow of honest loyalty. Banna Mora, you have to go through the formality. It is war, and rules of war will be observed.”

  “War?” Anger sparked against Mora’s teeth when she bared them. But she smoothed her features again before continuing. “War is between kings; this was a coup. This was an illegal seizure of power. You won, but it was not war.”

  “Soldiers died killing each other under orders from their commanders; that is war,” Hotspur said firmly. “You’re talking about politics.”

  “Maybe.” Mora looked again at Hal, whose cheeks were actually too pale, the edges of her lips white. “I know Celeda has taken the Blood and the Sea, and I know my uncle is dead, but tell me the rest before I appear for her.”

  Hal let go of Hotspur. It was a bad sign, but still Mora was surprised when she said, “Vin and Dev both, Mora. I’m sorry. There’s more, but …”

  Clenching her hands tighter together, Mora pushed it all down. She could grieve later, tear something apart later, scream later. “How?” she whispered.

  “Vin in the heat of battle—”

  “On your side,” Mora interrupted.

  Hal only hesitated a moment before she nodded.

  “There was no other side,” Hotspur said, with surprising gentleness.

  Mora turned away from them completely.

  “I always wanted to join your knights,” Hotspur added. “I was needed in Perseria, but the stories I heard of Banna Mora’s Lady Knights, of you and Hal, your adventures—I wished to be here. It sounded glorious.”

  “It still can be,” Hal said. “Mora, don’t think now, don’t react, only come with us and tell my mother what she needs to hear, and stay. Be a knight. Be—mine. You’ll be a royal knight still.”

  As if Prince Mars lived and watched from the portrait, judging her, as if the funeral fires painted into the background burned for Mora’s death, Mora could only breathe thinly. In order to survive, she had to accept. She knew it. She hated it.

  Hal continued, though. “Hotspur has agreed to be my second. My commander. I need one, to be a prince, to build my own court. And I need someone to tell me how to do it all. An advisor. You.”

  “I want the March.”

  “Yes, I think Mother will agree to that.”

  Mora turned, and under her glare, Hal said, “I’ll make sure Mother agrees to that. Banna Mora of the March, still and always.”

  It was so difficult for Mora to speak. She refused to allow her mind to wander away from this precise moment to Vindus, dead, or the true Blood and the Sea pressed beneath her bodice.

  Hal touched Mora’s face. Clasped it in both hands, so Mora could not pull away. She said, “Banna Mora, on my knee in that throne room beyond, I promised to serve you, and I swear still to keep that vow by keeping you thriving, at my side. I need you, and even so, I think you might reject me, and all of this, and leave. But I have loved you since I was ten years old, and we have been friends—sisters, even. Please try with me. Try to change with our changing world. You can do that, because you can do anything.”

  Such a pretty story. Hal was so good at making everything into a pretty story. Tears pinched Mora’s eyes. “Did you practice that?” she spat, but could not keep either her despair or her cursed fondness out of her voice.

  “She did,” Hotspur said. “I thought it was good.”

  “Hotspur is enamored with me,” Hal whispered.

  Hotspur gasped. “I am—I am not!”

  Now Mora opened
her eyes in time to see the heat in Hal’s gaze when she watched Hotspur Persy splutter. Mora saw, and read it clearly: Hal was the one besotted.

  Mora said, “Who would not be,” though a mean part of her reveled. While Hal had been merely a knight almost none had given any care to whom she fucked. But now—now it would be a matter of state.

  Hal’s hands loosened against Mora’s face, her grip becoming a soft caress. “Will you go with me, my friend?”

  With hands that did not shake, Mora unsheathed her sword, stepping back.

  Hotspur sucked in a quick breath, but Hal did not move. She kept her eyes on Mora’s face.

  It was the Heir’s Score. A sword of dark Errigal steel—forged on Innis Lear, with the power of iron wizards, never to break. The grip was wrapped with black leather, the crosspiece short and set with a single pearl. Through the heavy silence, Mora flipped it and offered the hilt to Hal. “Yes, Hal Bolinbroke, I will go with you. But you are friend no longer; our prince instead.”

  “Both,” Hal insisted.

  But of the two of them, Mora had the experience with the heavy crown, and she did not think both was possible anymore.

  HOTSPUR

  Lionis, early summer

  THERE WERE MANY ways to make a queen:

  On Innis Lear it was a bargain between the crown and the wind and the trees: to rule, a queen must eat of the starweed and drink of the rootwater; the one would kill her, the other save her. If that was her destiny.

  For a hundred years it had been so, since Elia the Dreamer was reborn in a pool of starlight. Her daughter Gaela was made queen in perfect peace, surrounded by loved ones as she processed to the ancient navel well at the edge of the Tarinnish, that deep black lake called the Well of Lear; the next queen Astora was made in grief that she was not ready to take up the poison crown, torn apart by loss and hope, wishing to put a sister or cousin in her place.

  The current queen of Innis Lear was made when only thirteen. Everyone knew the story, even in Aremoria: her mother died suddenly, and tradition held that young Solas rule in name only, under the auspices of her uncle or father. Many were in favor of such an arrangement, but Solas did not care which men argued and which supported her—not then, at least, though she would remember well and plan accordingly later. She said only, “Let the island have its argument.” It was always a queen’s prerogative to listen to the wind and roots, and so rootwaters were brought from a holy well and a flourish of white-blossoming hemlock. The girl crushed the flowers in her hand and licked clean her palm, then scattered the remaining flowers around her feet in a constellation of tiny white petals. She sat suddenly, numbness spreading from her core, and a priest fetched the bowl of rootwater to her. It trickled across her lips and down her chin, but some, too, carried itself down her gullet.