Last year, Hotspur and her mother had traveled to the Rusrike to assist her father’s people in putting down a small rebellion of landholders, and by all accounts had impressed even the cold-hardened soldiers there with her ferocity. Hal had always wished Hotspur would be brought to court, to join the Lady Knights who served Banna Mora, but Hal wondered if Rovassos had feared her.
Look at the time Hal had wasted not knowing how beautiful Hotspur was.
Hal asked, “Is it a day for glory, Lady Hotspur, or a day for grief?”
“Both,” Hotspur answered readily. “Always both, with war.”
Relieved, though she’d not realized she meant the question as an exam, Hal nodded. She held her shoulders straight but relaxed slightly with Hotspur at her back.
“Do you know who we lost?” Hotspur asked, brushing Hal’s loose hair away from her right shoulder, gripping her hip with the other hand.
Strands of Hal’s hair slid against her skin above the narrow steel gorget protecting her neck; Hal shivered and said, “I didn’t get official reports—I doubt they’re ready yet. I know your mother fell, but lives, and we lost your cousin Vindus of Mercia. He rode at my side. I’m sorry.”
Hotspur’s hand on Hal’s hip curled into a fist, and she knocked it into Hal’s thigh. “My mother will live; I was there when she was thrown and she will live. But Vin—wormshit and baby-eaters. I did not know him as well as you, because he was always in Lionis. My aunt Vindomata will be inconsolable.”
“He and Banna Mora …” Hal paused. It didn’t matter what Vindus and Mora might have been. This rebellion put them against each other, as it had put Hal against Mora, too, by the simple fact that Mora had been Rovassos’s heir, and now the Blood and the Sea would belong elsewhere.
As they reached the muddy road, Hal pushed the horse toward the small town that surrounded Strong Water Castle. Dark gray roofs rose against the city wall, and beyond it the ramparts of the castle. Past even that was the vivid gray ocean, rippling under heavy wind.
Soldiers held the city gates, and one in Bolinbroke colors dashed forward to wave Hal on. It was a relief to see purple everywhere—not only because she missed her family crest and her title, but because it meant her mother was finally near. Nervous energy tightened Hal’s thighs against her horse, and it tossed its head in protest.
They followed the Bolinbroke soldier through the town—shutters pulled tightly closed, flags appearing in green, purple, and red, the leading colors of the rebellion: Mercian red, Persy green, Bolinbroke purple. Hal saw only a few scraps of Aremoria’s own vivid orange. They’d need to fix that fast.
The soldier led them through a bewildered crowd hurrying for shelter under the orders of more soldiers in purple and Persy green. “He gave up so easily,” Hal said. “The king had no stomach for fighting.”
Hotspur snorted. “That was part of the problem.”
The castle rose from the north of the city, across a massive arched stone bridge beneath which a tributary of the river raced toward the sea. The castle wall was gray and streaked dark by moss and weathering, its barbican blacker and newer built to fortify the gateway. Bloodied soldiers saluted Hal and Hotspur, while others lit torches: the sun was setting, and Hal hadn’t even realized it was so late. They rode over the bridge and into the mouth of the barbican, through the fifteen-foot tunnel gate. Hal glanced up at murder holes and arrow loops, and suddenly a spear thrust down into her neck from above. She heard the hiss of metal on stone, felt the weight of it and the pop as its tip cut through her gambeson, mail shirt, flesh—
Hal swallowed away the vision. She was whole; there were no assassins hiding, but only the hungry teeth of three portcullises overhead.
They emerged into a dim outer bailey, and Hotspur laughed sharply; beyond it was yet another gatehouse, even better fortified than the barbican. An attacking army could be trapped here, thinking they’d won entrance, then slaughtered with fire and arrows. Hal felt a squeeze of gratitude toward Rovassos for not forcing that end.
The inner gatehouse’s iron portcullis gaped open, too, and the only colors she saw were their own. Celeda’s personal banner hung from the crenellations. It was the lion and bluebells of Bolinbroke, crossed with a white arrow under the trio of flowers.
Hal wondered if she even would recognize Celeda. It had