Lady Hotspur

by Tessa Gratton

  She swallowed, licked her bottom lip, and gestured for the soldiers to wait here. Without knocking, the prince pushed inside the entryway, into the dull dining room.

  Stools were stacked atop the two long tables and the benches pushed to the side wall. Ysso, the slender young man who served in a tattered gown with the bodice unlaced, swept the heavy flagstone floor, a square shawl around his shoulders and his lips pursed as if he whistled silently. There was a fire in the hearth, but it smoldered slowly. Through the rhythmic shushing of the straw broom, Hal could hear Ianta Oldcastle say from up on the second-story balustrade, “—and if the prince were here, I’d say so to her face!”

  “Good morning,” Hal said quietly to Ysso.

  The serving boy spun and gasped and then curtsied. “Your— Your, ah, Princeliness.”

  Hal smiled slightly. “I’ll go on up to Lady Ianta, then. Send some coffee, if you have it. And breakfast.”

  Ysso curtsied again and Hal made her way across the floor to the rickety but wide staircase.

  Her friends would know, when they saw her, it was not their Prince of Riot come, but the heir to the throne. The sober red tunic she wore was made of rich stuff only a prince could afford, and the black of her trousers and shirt was pristine and expensive. Her old red jacket had been replaced with new, just as vivid red leather, studded at the shoulders with steel. She wore garnets in her ears and on her fingers, and her boots were polished and laced to the knee. Someone else had put her hair in elaborate braids circling her head. And the final touch: at Hal’s hip the hilt of the Heir’s Score gleamed hard black.

  The stain of Glennadoer’s blood was only visible to the prince.

  On the second-story balcony, Hal paused: Ianta slammed an empty mug onto the table beside her chair, pointing firmly at Miss Quick. Barda slumped against the leg of the table, hat flopped over her eyes, but she was not asleep. And Nova glowered with a shoulder propped against the wall.

  “What would you say to me, Ianta?” Hal drawled—but softly, an echo of humor more than the reality of it.

  Nova spun, lips parted.

  “Hal!” Ianta gripped the arms of the chair and shoved herself to her feet. “Darling Hal—you’ve come home.”

  The prince kept her smile slight, heart aching. “Home is where the crown is, and all you’ve here are half pennies.”

  “We’ve sack, too,” Ianta chided, and Nova said, “And crowning pleasures.”

  “We’ve missed you, Prince,” said Miss Quick. “Such stories we hear!”

  “They’re all true.” Hal touched her brow in brief salute.

  Then with a scowl, Ianta stepped forward and embraced her. Hal let her eyes shut and her arms reach around the old knight’s waist. The heft and soft cushion of Ianta’s chest and stomach were so comforting, so much a fixture of her life, that Hal did not want to release the swell of feeling.

  She did, though, and said, “I’ve asked Ysso for breakfast and coffee.”

  “Coffee! This is a celebration,” Ianta said urgently, staring at Hal. The knight smelled of sugar and wine and sweet smoke. Vessels had burst in her cheeks, and her eyes were more pink than white around the blue irises. Wisps of blond-gray hair curled against the old knight’s skull, short and pressed in the shape of a missing cap.

  “Coffee,” Hal repeated.

  Ianta narrowed her eyes and turned, but kept an arm about Hal’s shoulders. “Has the Prince of Riot gone sober?”

  “I’ll have wine with my lunch, and with my dinner.”

  “This is dinner, Hal: the meal before we sleep.”

  “I’ve slept, and only just woken, so this is my breakfast.”

  “Sleep again, with us. Easy enough magic to turn breakfast into dinner.”

  Hal laughed. “I’ve seen better magic this winter to be so easily pleased.”

  Nova slid closer. “Tell us about it?”

  With a soft smile, Hal touched Nova’s jaw.

  “Here’s coffee!” called Ysso, tromping up the stairs.

  Miss Quick took Ianta’s elbow and put the knight back into her seat, then with Barda’s help dragged over a couple of stools, and soon they had a merry table set, the five of them, and Ysso, once a tray of cheese and sliced eggs was brought, sat to make them six.

  The coffee was old and dark, but hot, and kept Hal’s tongue where it belonged. The gleaming woodwork and low ceiling beams around her, the company and the smell of sack spilled and stuck in the cracks of the table were enough to put longing in her heart. Nova touched Hal’s thigh, and the prince did not stop her but neither encouraged. Almost as if in retaliation, Nova said, “Everyone is saying you killed Owyn Glennadoer, Hal.”

  Hal skewered a glance at her. The pretty young woman lifted her eyebrows.

  “And that Banna Mora declared war on you over it. On Aremoria,” Nova added, bloodthirsty.

  “I did kill him,” Hal said. No more.

  Barda eyed Ianta, and with a twisted smile handed a coin to the old lady knight. Ianta folded it into her meaty palm and turned a knowing look on Hal. The prince swallowed a comment on their gambling over her reputation. The weight of Ianta’s regard reminded Hal why she was here.

  “Tell us the story,” Barda urged.

  “Tell us everything,” added Nova.

  Hal shook her head. Part of her new self was moderation, and she would harness the inherent mystery of letting others tell your story for you, given just the right details and encouragement.

  She said, “There is nothing to tell. He murdered his wife, hoping to barter his treachery for alliance. I killed him because he would get none from Aremoria for such a deed.”

  “Hal!” Nova shoved at Hal’s arm.

  “Killing should not be entertainment,” Hal snapped.

  The younger woman reeled back, face slackening in fury.

  “Peace, Nova,” said Ianta. “Our prince is out of sorts for being away.”

  “In sorts, finally,” Hal corrected. She held her cup in both hands, relishing the coffee churn in her empty stomach. “In sorts, and sorted out. My sort is princes and the principled, not clowns nor desperate fools.”

  Nova knocked over her chair as she stood. “Say that with your sword out!”

  Hal leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed and chin up. “Sit,” the prince commanded.

  Outrage opened Nova’s mouth, but shock closed it. She shook her head, brow pinched, hands curling into fists.

  “Sit,” Hal said again, no less firm but quieter. “I have use for all of you, if you would honor the vows you made to riot, and turn that passion to purpose.”

  “We had purpose, Hal,” murmured Nova.

  “Mine then and mine now.”

  Ianta snagged a piece of cheese and popped it thoughtfully into her mouth. Ysso had frozen in Barda’s lap, and Barda spiked her coffee with a shot of liquor from a worn brown flask.

  Reluctantly, Nova replaced her chair and sat.

  Miss Quick said into the silence, “Will there be war?”

  “Yes.”

  From her jacket Hal pulled a thick fold of vellum. She could still smell the ink. She opened it and flattened the declaration on the table. Her mother’s wax seal and signature filled the bottom third.

  “What is it?” Ysso asked, leaning over it.

  “Don’t drip on it,” Hal said. The prince’s hand did not tremble as she touched the first word, but only for the force of her will. “It’s a writ to reinstate the Lady Knights under my command.” Her voice was steady but gentle, because it had to be. “I’ve a commission for you, Lady Ianta Oldcastle, and you Nova, too, though not yet as a knight yourself. You still must earn that.”

  “Hal,” murmured Ianta with delicate awe, or fear. The old knight covered her mouth, staring at the writ.

  “Ter Melia will serve with you, and perhaps I can convince Lanna Ritus and Imena to return. Bring our number to nine, with a few more ideas. If both of you accept.” Hal kept her eyes on the writ.

  “We would fight Banna
Mora,” Ianta said, solemn. “And Lady Hotspur.”

  Hal nodded and did not glance up.

  “Traitors,” Nova snarled.

  The word sliced painfully into Hal’s heart. “It is more complex than that.”

  “They rise up against their queen, and their prince, and you would call it complicated? Why?”

  “Because it is.”

  Nova slammed her fist on the table. “Tell us what happened on Innis Lear, Hal! Tell us what you went through, what they were like, and why you’ve come back like this. Ready to wage war over … complications!”

  Hal didn’t rise, only tilted her chin to look coldly up at Nova. “I owe you no explanation. I am your prince, and you will do as I command, Nova Irris.”

  “I thought we were—I thought …” Nova pressed her mouth tightly into a line, her eyes bleeding angry hurt.

  “And so we were, and might be still,” Hal said more gently. “But only if you acknowledge that I am the future queen of Aremoria, and as such not to be questioned when I choose otherwise. It is a new step between us, but neither new at all. If you did not know this day would come, what did you know?”

  “I knew what you let me know.”

  “And the same goes now, only your knowing allowance bears less weight than mine.”

  Ianta harrumphed. “Such is the way of kings, Nova. Someday, when you’re old and withered, when your skin hangs off you like a lady’s dressing gown, you’ll understand.”

  “What, like you, Lady Ianta?” Hal asked.

  “I’ve lived too well and in too good a compass to have sagging skin, my lord.”

  “Good compass indeed.” It pulled a smile across Hal’s lips. She tapped the writ with her forefinger. “You will go where I ask, if you would leash your planet to my fair sun.”

  The old knight folded her hands on her stomach. Eyed Hal.

  “It is real, Ianta. You can see it for your own eyes.” Hal slid her finger along the fancy lettering, Lady Knights. “It cannot be taken away from you, not under my rule. It is space. Legitimate.”

  Lady Ianta remained silent.

  “Where are we to go?” Nova asked, voice low.

  “First to my wedding, there to make new vows to me, once I have made my own.” Hal slid her gaze to Ianta again, leveling it there on the pale blue eyes of her old mentor.

  Ianta’s lips parted. Yet the old knight replied with no wit, nor any dull word at all: simply silence.

  Hal rose and departed, putting her back to her old friends. She left with hard steps, taking the stairs two at a time, until she slammed out into the merry morning.

  The prince said nothing to the queen’s soldiers, striding past them up the cobbled street. She didn’t let herself break into a run. The streets were too slick with mud and ice. Her step faltered finally as she imagined snapping her leg, the bone thrusting out of her flesh, and the pain—

  But the wizard appeared at her side as she rounded a corner into a narrow lane with shallow stairs that cut between tall, leaning houses. She did not startle, rarely surprised these days by his comings and goings.

  The wizard had not departed Innis Lear when she did, and Hal had thought him lost to her, given back instead to the meandering magic of the island (and its queen). But two days after arriving home in Lionis, she discovered him on the marscote drawing hash-marks into the window frost. She’d hid her relief poorly, bringing him wine to share under the frozen sky, and said she wasn’t certain he would return. You’re my lion, Prince, he’d replied.

  “I’ve changed,” Hal said now, winding her way home to the palace.

  “You sound displeased.”

  “My old friends don’t understand.”

  In silence they emerged from the narrow lane, and Hal did the palace guards the courtesy of waiting. They caught up, bringing an echo and clatter of armor along, and Hal continued walking.

  “What is there to understand?” the wizard asked.

  His question slid into her ear and wormed through her brain, and Hal was further discontent. “I feel as though I cannot control anything anymore.” She could not tell him about her mother—she could tell nobody that—and so she said, “War is coming. I could not stop it, and so the strongest choice now is to embrace it. If danger is what I face, I must become danger.”

  “To speak with the wind we must learn its language.”

  Hal side-eyed the wizard.

  Wrinkles pinched around his eyes, as if he smiled; he did not. But he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Even Morimaros was not ready to be king on the day he was made so.”

  “You are so old,” Hal said testily.

  “I wasn’t here for that,” the wizard answered as if appalled.

  “So you’re only guessing, then. To make me feel better.”

  “Is it working?”

  She shrugged, but something of smugness appeared in the wizard’s face. She shoved him.

  The wizard hardly budged. He walked, hands falling to his sides, palms out and fingers shifting as if there were tendrils of frozen wind to catch. He said, “You’re close to something. The words falling from your lips ring in the air, but are not quite to the shine of stars. Follow the path of this lingering doubt, and you’ll find the truth at your core.”

  “That sounds like a prophecy,” she teased morosely.

  “It’s experience.”

  Hal didn’t push, hoping her silence was invitation enough.

  The wizard said, “I was born a bastard, on a starless dawn. Told I was nothing by enough people who mattered that when Elia told me I was good, when Mars told me so, I didn’t believe them. When Elia told me to be better, to choose differently, I never did. But you are.”

  “Mars,” Hal murmured, unable to let it go that her wizard used the king’s nickname.

  Her tone put a real smile on the wizard’s face. “He’d have liked you, but his patience was limited.”

  Hal snorted. They walked in contemplative silence for a bit. Then Hal asked, “Will you stay with me?” She stared ahead at the widening street, then up at the blue-slate roofs of the changing neighborhood. Folks had emerged from their beds to move about on early-morning errands despite the rain. Shutters opened and the gutters ran with bathwater and piss. She meant forever.

  “No.”

  The abruptness stuttered her steps, but Hal pressed on. She’d expected something mysterious. For a time or Until I’m needed elsewhere. Or, until the star roads blaze, and I bring the lion’s heart home.

  That same part of Hal that had gone quiet on Innis Lear—or rather, been overwhelmed by a new, darker understanding of what was right—held her tongue. Instead of teasing, arguing, or fretting, the prince nodded.

  “You won’t need me,” the wizard said.

  “What if I do?”

  He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder. “Need and want are different, Hal.”

  Before he could move away, Hal hugged him. The wizard fell still, but slowly returned her embrace. “I needed this,” she whispered.

  “Me, too,” he said with no little regret.

  CHARM

  Lionis, spring

  PRINCE HAL MARRIED Echarmet of Kurake Queen on the balcony of her former chambers, overlooking a crowded People’s Courtyard. The sun flashed and hid behind rapidly moving clouds, lending the day an uncanny sensibility, as if the Luminous winked upon the union.

  Charm wore scarlet and silver, with his Sun and Moon blades crossed at his back, silver god stripes painted from lips to chest, and his corona powdered silver to match. He felt large and strange upon the crescent balcony, but Hal put her hand upon his arm and lifted her chin with a smile. It comforted him: her vivid red style complemented his. She had pearls in her hair, garnets the size of his thumbnail sewn to her tunic, and an ancient cape of orange velvet said to have graced the shoulders of every monarch upon his marriage since Morimaros the First. The words Always for Aremoria were embroidered down the back in the just-as-ancient language that had given birth to Arem
ore, Ispanian, and Diotan. Charm told her quietly that she looked magnificent, and that he was proud to stand as her husband, proud to share his desire for her though she could not return it. Her smile turned a little sour, but she laughed it off before facing the Aremore crowd to give them what her people needed: hope, stability, and laughter.

  The Aremore wedding ceremony was brief, little more than a declaration and a speech, as they held hands uplifted before their audience: Charm kissed her knuckles and Hal kissed his mouth, smelling to him of floral soap and nervous sweat.

  Hal’s speech was short and pretty: she spoke of Aremoria as a people, a land of prosperous abundance, if they worked together, if they found ways to be strong. She told them a marriage between herself and the Third Kingdom would be a model, to welcome new strength into their Aremore family, and she invited all present to make promises with her to defend their homeland, and be happy.

  Applause followed Hal and Charm inside; they went to the receiving hall where sideboards had been laid out with expensive Ispanian sweet wine because it was Hal’s favorite, and roasted meats and delicacies native to Aremoria and the Third Kingdom. Hal was relieved of the weight of the orange cape, and Luminous Phetira put a band of beaten silver around Charm’s wrist, marked with the sunspot of God.

  In the Third Kingdom, the only requirement for a marriage was that the girl or Mother involved declare to four Mothers that she had chosen her husband, and state what their marriage names would be. Before the toasting began, before she ate a bite, Hal stood before her mother and said, “I am Hal Bolinbroke, born Calepia, daughter of Celedrix and Aremoria, and here is my husband, Echarmet of Kurake Queen, who becomes now Echarmet of Celeda Queen, prince of Aremoria. Someday I will be queen, but our line shall remain named just so: Celedrix.”

  Celedrix smiled and accepted the promise with a kiss to the cheeks of both her daughter and son-of-her-heart. She squeezed Charm’s hand in particular, eyes shining proudly.

  Hal gave the same promise to Mata Blunt, Earl Ithios, and to Jesmin Alsax, matriarch of the Alsax clan who were a great Aremore merchanting family. The fourth of the prince’s chosen witnesses was nowhere to be seen.