Lady Hotspur Read online

  “Your mother,” Hotspur said.

  Hal saw her, standing in a small crowd of nobly armored knights and commanders: Celeda Bolinbroke, regal and tall, her black hair knotted in braids, her body covered in tooled steel armor so she shone like a moon. The capelet tied over one shoulder was fresh, untainted by blood or ash, fringed in black and dyed a vibrant purple with the lion-and-bluebell crest of Bolinbroke embroidered in white and black. Celeda spoke with the men, holding sway over them with her bearing and dark charisma. One man stood too near her, in a weathered orange gambeson with a small crown pressed into the steel of his single pauldron. He had shorn hair, an equally short beard, and suntanned skin, and he stared suddenly at Hal with vivid blue eyes. Hal did not recognize him—and she knew everyone with an ounce of royal blood.

  But it did not matter then who he was, because Celeda was there.

  “Mother,” Hal said, the word sticking in her throat. She tried again. “Mother.”

  Celeda stopped midword and turned, her surprise transforming into eager welcome. “Calepia, come here,” she said, holding out a bare hand.

  The command rang through Hal, and she released Hotspur to dash for her mother.

  The two women slammed together, Celeda’s arms open and Hal flinging hers about her mother’s neck. Her chest plate clanged against Celeda’s, keeping them from truly meeting, but Hal hugged tightly, tears squeezing out of her eyes. “Mom,” she whispered, breathing sweat and blood and dusty black hair.

  “My Calepia, little Hal, you are so tall,” Celeda said. She herself was more than forty now, and it showed in the frowning lines about her mouth, but not in the black of her hair.

  Hal laughed, “Still not so tall as you, Mother.”

  Celeda pushed Hal back, holding her at arm’s length. “I’ve good reports of you.”

  “And I of you,” Hal teased, unable to help it. She thought her eyes must be saucers, they felt so round and bulging.

  Hotspur came up behind them, giving greetings, and Hal turned with a sweep of her hand. “This is Isarna Perseria, Lady Hotspur.”

  “Lady Hotspur,” Celeda said.

  Hotspur bowed. “It is an honor to meet you, having battled for your return and justice, Lady Celeda.”

  “And I am most pleased to see you with my daughter, for I wish the two of you to be great friends, as I myself have been with your mother and aunt for most of our lives. Here is Commander Abovax and Commander Ios de Or, Lord Cevo of Westmore and his brother Aesmaros.” Celeda pointed at each of the men encircling them, ignoring the man in the orange gambeson. His mouth beneath the beard seemed to bend in amusement he shared only with Hal. He looked so familiar; why could she not recall his name? Hal knew Abovax from his work in the Lionis palace guard, a nemesis of her youthful pranks, and Commander Ios, too. Celeda continued, “Mata Blunt is deeper in the castle with Vindomata, meeting with Rovassos.”

  “And my mother?” Hotspur asked.

  Celeda made a disgruntled face. “Refusing to go to the hospital. I have her in a chair at least and a healer I brought from the Third Kingdom is at her side. If she does not die of infection she will survive, though perhaps not walk again.”

  Hotspur gritted her teeth but nodded.

  “And Dev?” Hal asked.

  Hal’s mother hesitated; it was Abovax who spoke. “Devrus is dead, but Vindus I’ve no report on.”

  “No,” said Hotspur, too softly.

  “Vin is dead, too, Mother,” Hal said. Both the sons of Vindomata of Mercia, lost to Celeda’s rebellion. Hal’s guts were knots. They’d been such strong warriors—but even the best destiny could turn on an accident. Her eyes flicked to the strange, silent man in royal Aremore orange, seeking solace. But he was gone.

  Just then another soldier ran up. “Lady Celeda, Mercia sends for you: the king will see you, and surrender to you, she says.”

  They wasted no time on further questions or mourning, but followed fast at Celeda’s side, into the keep tower and through narrow stone corridors warm from fire and men. Hal was breathless as they entered the castle’s great hall to the sound of barking dogs echoing off the low ceilings. Benches were tipped to their sides and shoved back, and Rovassos slumped atop the high table in chain mail, his sword beside him and two rangy hunting hounds circling his feet, howling, growling, upset at his lack of response. Hal pitied the old man, even knowing it was weakness inside her to do so.

  At the end of the table stood a battered Aumerle, and Hal clenched her jaw. Bolinbroke no longer belonged to him! It was hers again—her mother’s, at least. Unable to stop herself, Hal marched to him and shoved him over. Aumerle stumbled, shocked, and barely caught himself at the edge of the table.

  “Calepia!” snapped her mother.

  “I’m sorry,” Aumerle said to Hal, his eyes heavy, his entire body drooping.

  Hal snorted, retreating to her mother’s side, and Hotspur’s. She could not forget the sickening feeling of his hand on hers, when he had offered her marriage last year as an avenue to regain her Bolinbroke lands. This was so much better.

  Rovassos King lifted his head to watch. Pink rimmed his pale blue eyes. He leaned back on one hand, even in this state the perfect pose of defeated king.

  “Sit,” snapped Vindomata of Mercia to the dogs. They startled, and one sat while the other raised its hackles further.

  The king waved his hand wearily. “Take them out, Aumerle.”

  Hal tried to calm her rough breathing as she watched Aumerle grab the dogs by their collars and drag them away, handing them off to soldiers in Persy green. He returned to his position behind his king.

  “I have come, Rovassos, for what I am owed,” said Celeda.

  “A swift death?” he countered.

  Vindomata snarled and put her fist to the hilt of her sword. Dried blood streaked her white cheek, smearing back into her hair. She’d removed her heaviest armor and stood like a vicious wolf, ready to feast. Just like her niece Hotspur—they were older and younger versions of each other, red-haired beasts of war. “None of your bluster, old man. Give her the ring.”

  The command rang against the high stone rafters of the great hall. Orange banners hung, striping the dark walls with loyalty to Aremoria.

  Hal’s legs trembled. Blood rushed in her ears and she missed Rovassos’s following words, though saw his lips move through graying vision. She’d known Celeda returned to take all of Aremoria, not only Bolinbroke. She’d known, and yet—

  Celeda said, “You have nothing behind you, Rovassos, no army willing to defend you against us; your choices have marred the glory of Aremoria’s throne. I am as much Segovax’s heir as you, and I have been welcomed. I have been greeted with flowers and cheering. Your lords and commanders understand you are weak.”

  “All this because I gave Bolinbroke to a loyal man? I treated your child as my own,” Rovassos said.

  “You stole my home!” Hal cried.

  Vindomata put up a hand to halt Hal’s outburst, then tilted her chin toward the side entrance: Mata Blunt entered through it, behind her two men in purple propping Caratica Persy between them. Caratica bared her teeth in a wild grimace of pain. There was no color in her face, and streaks of ashy tears painted her cheeks. Hotspur did not go to her mother, but remained at Hal’s side as a chair was dragged forward and Caratica put into it, though she growled her pain through panting breath.

  “We all are here now,” Vindomata said firmly. “Have your say, Rovassos.”

  Caratica hissed a dismissal to the healers and guards, and when the heavy wooden door slammed closed it was only the king, his lover, and six women: Celeda Bolinbroke, Vindomata of Mercia, Caratica de Persy, Mata Blunt, Hal, and Hotspur.

  “This is how kings die,” Rovassos muttered. “Shall I tell you, niece, so you will see it coming? Betrayed, all. Either by our bodies, our hearts, or our friends.”

  “So the circle comes around for betrayers,” Celeda said, her voice thick. “I loved you once, Uncle, and you betrayed me first.”


  “Tit, tat, who murdered my favorite brother? Who?”

  “Not me!” Celeda snapped.

  From her seat, Caratica said, pained, “It does not matter, Celeda. You have won. We have won.”

  “Look at my daughter,” said Celeda, and Hal stiffened at the sudden attention. “She was a child when you forced me away, and I have missed her growing. Because of you. You may have treated her as yours, but she was mine to care for, mine to teach and train!”

  Rovassos’s watery gaze met Hal’s, and Hal’s heart seemed to freeze—not with cold, but with warm dread.

  “So she was,” the king said. He lifted his fist, and there on his forefinger clung the Blood and the Sea. The garnet burned deep brown-red, the pearls embracing it like tiny moons. It was the symbol of power, and all her life Hal had been conditioned to respect it, to love it. That ring had graced the hand of Morimaros the Great, and Isarnos, then Segovax, and now this merry king, this disgrace—so her mother would say, so Vindomata and Caratica, and so even Mata Blunt, who was Hal’s mother’s cousin, and for three years had lived in the Third Kingdom, too. Plotting this, Hal supposed, her world spinning.

  “Give it over,” Vindomata demanded again. “You have taken more than was a king’s due, and neglected much that was. No one will regret this day.”

  Rovassos tugged the ring free and held it up, staring at Celeda through its small circle. “In the end, this empty well will be all that you have, too.”

  “Rovassos,” Vindomata said.

  He closed his eyes and sighed.

  Aumerle threw himself to his king’s side and then to his knees. “I beg you, let him live. If he does this, let him live.”

  For a moment, Hal admired the man’s brave desperation, but then was filled with pity when Caratica Persy spoke, every word a struggle through her pain, sweat glistening on her lip and brow, “Will you die for him? In his stead, Aumerle? If you both live past today, always shall you plot against us.”

  “No, put him in prison, and—and banish me. Anything.”

  The king touched Aumerle’s mouth. “Hush.”

  Aumerle fell quiet, sinking down to sit on his heels, shoulders slumped.

  “Now,” said Vindomata.

  Celeda held out her hand to Rovassos.

  The king said, “By my word, I give you Aremoria. By this ring, and my hand. By the stars above and the earth below, by my heart and blood and—and by my tears. Aremoria is yours.”

  He dropped the Blood and the Sea. It hit the stone floor with a sharp clang.

  All present stared as Celeda knelt reverently and lifted the ring. She stood with it cupped in her palm, breathing through slightly parted lips.

  Hal did not know what passed through her mother’s thoughts in that moment, but they caused a tremor in Celeda Bolinbroke’s hand. She clenched her fingers around the Blood and the Sea as Vindomata approached. The duke of Mercia surrounded Celeda’s hand with both her own, offering comfort. Then Vindomata pried the hand open and took the ring. Her eyes lifted to catch Celeda’s, and Celeda raised her chin.

  Mercia put the ring onto Celeda’s forefinger, and then dropped to one knee. “Long may the queen of Aremoria reign.”

  The lord Aumerle sank further to the floor, hands and knees against the cold stone, head lowered and shoulders shaking. Rovassos remained still, seated at the edge of the high table. But Mata Blunt knelt, and Hotspur, too, dragging Hal down with her.

  Hal stared at her mother. Her queen.

  Her mother.

  If she’d not had both knees on the hard floor she’d have fallen.

  And Rovassos said, “What else remains?”

  Vindomata Mercia stood, flicked her eyes over Celeda’s, then to her sister, Caratica, and Mata Blunt—but not to her niece or Hal. “This only,” she said, and took two steps to Rovassos in the space of time needed to draw her sword.

  A cry pierced the dull weight of the room’s silence just as the heavy blade cut down, stabbing through Rovassos’s neck. Blood spurted, then gushed, and Aumerle scrabbled at Vindomata, throwing himself at her arm.

  The duke shrugged him off, leaning in to drive her sword harder into Rovassos, then pulling sideways so it sliced through most of his throat and the old king’s body tilted, the head falling to the side first, dragging the rest with it.

  Mata grabbed Aumerle’s hair and jerked him away, throwing him hard to the floor.

  Hal could not move, staring, stuck on Rovassos’s head and the unnatural angle from which it dangled, still attached by muscle and skin, as blood painted a mantle down his chest, flowing and smooth, and Hal felt it on her own skin, prickling over her collar and down her breast, over her shoulders and flaring down her back like wings.

  This is how kings die, she thought, again and again. Betrayed.

  Betrayed.

  This is how kings die.

  Miraculously, Hotspur took Hal’s hand and gripped it tight.

  And Prince Hal thought, Maybe I did not survive this war after all.

  BANNA MORA

  Lionis, late spring

  BANNA MORA OF the March had been the heir to the throne of Aremoria for seven years. There’d been a ceremony the day after Rovassos King, her granduncle, asked her sweetly if she wished to try on the Blood and the Sea. She’d known what he meant, of course, for she’d been a ward of his crown since her parents died, and she paid good attention.

  In the throne room, with seven lords and generals as witness, Banna Mora had sworn loyalty to the Blood and the Sea, to the earth of Aremoria and its people, and to Rovassos himself. She had promised to uphold the honor, courage, and wit of the Aremore kings who’d come before her. At fifteen, she naturally held Morimaros the Great at the fore of her thoughts when she made that vow, but so had she remembered the faces of her mother and father: the former a lady of the esteemed Errigal clan on Innis Lear, of direct royal descent, the latter the earl of the March whose family had held the Aremore border against Burgun for three generations before the annexation.

  Always Mora had been proud that the blood of both countries rang in her pulse, despite her affiliation to the vibrant hills and plains of Aremoria over the strange, rocky crags of Innis Lear. The March was wet borderlands on the northwestern coast of Aremoria, curving along the northern border with Burgun, rife with streams and lush meadows, with plentiful game and damp peatland. Hers. And if she no longer could hold all of the country, Mora was determined at least not to lose the March.

  Her jaw clenched and she leaned out over the rampart of this sleek tower: the second highest of Lionis Palace, on the eastern side where Mora could watch the conquering army approach. It swarmed over the plain outside the city, a distant rainbow of violet, red, green, orange, like a meadow of wildflowers bending in the wind.

  And Lionis itself cried welcome.

  From the blue-gray peaked roofs of the city to its winding limestone roads, up and down the bluffs that overlooked the Whiteglass River, flags and banners flew. Arched across streets and dangling from bridges were strings of colored paper in purple for Bolinbroke, vivid orange for Aremoria, and pristine white for the crown.

  Mora wished she could have gone with Lady Ianta to drink away her dread. The Lady Knight had been Rovassos’s best friend for longer than Mora had been alive—both of them merry and good with people, neither of them any better than the other at ruling. Even Mora could admit Rovassos had been only a mediocre king. He’d lived too much for moments of pleasure and made quick promises instead of considering long-term alliances and consequences. He hadn’t been strong. But neither had he been a plague of a king, or deserved to die.

  Mora didn’t deserve to die, either.

  So while she wished to be drunk right now, and had also considered awaiting the arrival of Celedrix in the throne room or the People’s Courtyard for a show of pride, Mora remained here, watching. Here she was no threat, but neither did she hide. She would be found, escorted where Celedrix willed it, and she would submit—submit and plead her c
ase.

  All with this hard ring of betrayal cutting against the skin of her chest.

  When the letter had come for Hal three weeks ago today, Hal had spun in a dance at the thrill of her mother’s handwriting, her mother’s summons. But Mora had understood what it meant. Because Rovassos had been away in Ispania, due back in seven days, the timing gave away Celeda’s true intention. She’d said nothing to Hal, and nothing to Ter Melia or Imena or any of the other Lady Knights about why Hal rushed out of the city. Instead Mora went into King Rovassos’s private rooms and opened the cubby hidden beneath an iron sconce in the bedchamber. From it she removed a small beechwood box carved with the simple lines of the Aremore crown. Inside, cradled in undyed silk, was a thick silver ring set with a moon-cut garnet and pearls.

  The Blood and the Sea.

  Rovassos always traveled with a copy, one pearl shy of this original, and lacking the etching on the inner wall of the silver: Aremorix.

  It was a secret only the king and his heir knew.

  She wore it now on a simple chain beneath her gown. A hard, heavy burden of truth. Mora pressed her palm over the lump it made beneath the linen and silk, and glared out over the beautiful Lionis spring.

  “I am Banna Mora of the March,” she murmured to herself, practicing. “Never have I taken up arms against you, Celedrix.” The honorific form of the name stoppered Mora’s throat. She swallowed again and again.

  It had been stupid of Rovassos to leave his country, stupid of him to neglect his dukes and earls, to take titles so lightly and distribute them for nothing but favors, stupid of him to never remarry, never produce a direct heir and place instead Banna Mora, a half-Learish niece, in line for the Blood and the Sea.

  Or perhaps he hadn’t been stupid; perhaps none of it mattered so long as Celeda Bolinbroke lived, free to plot with Vindomata of Mercia and Caratica Persy together to take powerful revenge.

  Perhaps Rovassos’s only stupidity had been granting mercy to his niece ten years ago, banishing her instead of taking her head.

  Celeda surely would not make the same mistake.