Kristin Cashore Page 4

  She stared at him. His breath was shallow, his face pale. He didn’t look at her. He seemed as if he were about to collapse.

  “Sit down,” Katsa said. He fell into his chair and let out a small moan.

  “Look at me,” she said. His eyes flicked to her face, and then slid to her hands. Randa’s victims always watched her hands, never her face. They couldn’t hold her eyes. And they expected a blow from her hands.

  Katsa sighed.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a croak.

  “I can’t hear you,” Katsa said.

  He cleared his throat. “I have a family. I have a family to care for. Do what you will, but I beg you not to kill me.”

  “You don’t want me to kill you, for the sake of your family?”

  A tear ran into his beard. “And for my own sake. I don’t want to die.”

  Of course he didn’t want to die, for three acres of wood. “I don’t kill men who steal three acres of lumber from the king,” she said, “and then pay for it dearly in gold. It’s more the sort of crime that warrants a broken arm or the removal of a finger.”

  She moved toward him and pulled her dagger from its sheath. He breathed heavily, staring at the eggs and fruit on his plate. She wondered if he would vomit or begin to sob. But then he moved his plate to the side, and his overturned glass and his silver. He stretched his arms onto the table before him. He bent his head, and waited.

  A wave of tiredness swept over her. It was easier to follow Randa’s orders when they begged or cried, when they gave her nothing to respect. And Randa didn’t care about his forests; he only cared about the money and the power. Besides, the forests would grow back one day. Fingers didn’t grow back.

  She slipped her dagger back into its sheath. It would be his arm, then, or his leg, or perhaps his collarbone, always a painful bone to break. But her own arms were as heavy as iron, and her legs didn’t seem to want to propel her forward.

  The lord drew one shaky breath, but he didn’t move or speak. He was a liar and a thief and a fool.

  Somehow she could not get herself to care.

  Katsa sighed sharply. “I grant that you’re brave,” she said, “though you didn’t seem it at first.” She sprang to the table and struck him on the temple, just as she’d done with Murgon’s guards. He slumped, and fell from his chair.

  She turned and went to wait in his great stone hall for Giddon and Oll to return with the money.

  He would wake with a headache, but no more. If Randa heard what she had done, he’d be furious.

  But perhaps Randa wouldn’t hear. Or perhaps she could accuse the lord of lying, to save face.

  In which case, Randa would insist she return with proof in the future. A collection of shriveled fingers and toes. What that would do for her reputation….

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t have the strength today to torture a person who didn’t deserve it.

  A small figure came tripping into the hall then. Katsa knew who she was even before she saw the girl’s eyes, one yellow as the squash that grew in the north, and one brown as a patch of mud. This girl she would hurt; this girl she would torture if it would stop her from taking Katsa’s thoughts.

  Katsa caught the child’s eyes and stared her down. The girl gasped and backed up a few steps, then turned and ran from the hall.

  Chapter Five

  THEY MADE good time, though Katsa chafed at their pace.

  “Katsa feels that to ride a horse at anything but breakneck speed is a waste of the horse,” Giddon said.

  “I only want to know if Raffin has learned anything from the Lienid grandfather.”

  “Don’t worry, My Lady,” Oll said. “We’ll reach the court by evening tomorrow, as long as the weather holds.”

  THE WEATHER held through the day and into the night, but sometime before dawn, clouds blotted out the stars above their camp. In the morning they broke camp quickly and set out with some trepidation. Shortly thereafter, as they rode into the yard of the inn that kept their horses, raindrops plopped onto their arms and faces. They’d only just made it to the stables when the skies opened and water poured down. Rushing streams formed between the hills around them.

  It became an argument.

  “We can ride in the rain,” Katsa said. They stood in the stables, the inn ten steps away but invisible through a wall of water.

  “At the risk of the horses,” Giddon said. “At the risk of catching our deaths. Don’t be foolish, Katsa.”

  “It’s only water,” she said.

  “Tell that to a drowning man,” Giddon said. He glared down at her, and she glared back. A raindrop from a crack in the roof splashed onto her nose, and she wiped at it furiously.

  “My Lady,” Oll said. “My Lord.”

  Katsa took a deep breath, looked into his patient face, and prepared herself for disappointment.

  “We don’t know how long the storm will last,” Oll said. “If it lasts a day, we’d best not be in it. There’s no reason to ride in such weather—” He held up his hand as Katsa started to speak. “No reason we could give to the king without him thinking us mad. But perhaps it’ll only last an hour. In which case, we’ll only have lost an hour.”

  Katsa crossed her arms and forced herself to breathe. “It doesn’t look like the kind of storm that lasts an hour.”

  “Then I’ll inform the innkeeper we’re in need of food,” Oll said, “and rooms for the night.”

  THE INN was some distance from any of the Middluns hill towns, but still, in summer, it had decent custom from merchants and travelers. It was a simple square structure, with kitchen and eating room below, and two floors of rooms above. Plain, but neat and serviceable. Katsa would have preferred no fuss to have been made over their presence. But of course the inn was unaccustomed to housing royalty, and the entire family threw itself into a dither in an attempt to make the king’s niece, the king’s underlord, and the king’s captain comfortable. Against Katsa’s protests a visiting merchant was moved from his room so that she might have the view from his window, a view invisible now but which she imagined could only be of the same hills they’d been looking at for days.

  Katsa wanted to apologize to the merchant for uprooting him. She sent Oll to do so at the midday meal. When Oll directed the man’s attention to Katsa’s table, she raised her cup to him. He raised his cup back and nodded his head vigorously, his face white and his eyes wide as plates.

  “When you send Oll to speak for you, you do seem so dreadfully superior, Your Ladyship,” Giddon said, smiling around his mouthful of stew.

  Katsa didn’t answer. He knew perfectly well why she’d sent Oll. If the man was like most people, it would frighten him to be approached by the lady herself.

  The child who served them was painfully shy. She spoke no words, just nodded or shook her head in response to their requests. Unlike most, she seemed unable to keep her eyes away from Katsa’s face. Even when the handsome Lord Giddon addressed her, her eyes slid to Katsa’s.

  “The girl thinks I’ll eat her,” Katsa said.

  “I think not,” Oll said. “Her father’s a friend to the Council. It’s possible you’re spoken of differently in this household than you are in others, My Lady.”

  “She’ll still have heard the stories,” Katsa said.

  “Possibly,” Oll said. “But I think she’s fascinated by you.”

  Giddon laughed. “You do fascinate, Katsa.” When the girl came around again, he asked her name.

  “Lanie,” she whispered, and her eyes flicked to Katsa’s once again.

  “Do you see our Lady Katsa, Lanie?” Giddon asked.

  The girl nodded.

  “Does she frighten you?” Giddon asked.

  The girl bit her lip and didn’t answer.

  “She wouldn’t hurt you,” Giddon said. “Do you understand that? But if someone else were to hurt you, Lady Katsa would likely hurt that person.”

  Katsa put her fork down and looked at Giddon. She
hadn’t expected this kindness from him.

  “Do you understand?” Giddon asked the girl.

  The child nodded. She peeked at Katsa.

  “Perhaps you’d like to shake hands,” Giddon said.

  The girl paused. Then she leaned and held her hand out to Katsa. Something welled up inside Katsa, something she couldn’t quite name. A sort of sad gladness at this little creature who wanted to touch her. Katsa reached her hand out and took the child’s thin fingers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lanie.”

  Lanie’s eyes grew wide, and then she dropped Katsa’s hand and ran to the kitchen. Oll and Giddon laughed.

  Katsa turned to Giddon. “I’m very grateful.”

  “You do nothing to dispel your ogreish reputation,” Giddon said. “You know that, Katsa. It’s no wonder you haven’t more friends.”

  How like him. It was just like him, to turn a kind gesture into one of his criticisms of her character. He loved nothing more than to point out her flaws. And he knew nothing of her, if he thought she desired friends.

  Katsa attacked her meal and ignored their conversation.

  THE RAIN didn’t stop. Giddon and Oll were content to sit in the main room and talk with the merchants and the innkeeper, but Katsa thought the inactivity would set her screaming. She went out to the stables, only to frighten a boy, little bigger than Lanie, who stood on a stool in one of the stalls and brushed down a horse. Her horse, she saw, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Katsa said. “I’m only looking for a space to practice my exercises.”

  The boy climbed from his stool and fled. Katsa threw her hands into the air. Well, at least she had the stable to herself now. She moved bales of hay, saddles, and rakes to clear a place across from the stalls and began a series of kicks and strikes. She twisted and flipped, conscious of the air, the floor, the walls around her, the horses. She focused on her imaginary opponents, and her mind calmed.

  AT DINNER, Oll and Giddon had interesting news.

  “King Murgon has announced a robbery,” Oll said. “Three nights past.”

  “Has he?” Katsa took in Oll’s face, and then Giddon’s. They both had the look of a cat that’s cornered a mouse. “And what does he say was robbed?”

  “He says only that a grand treasure of the court was stolen,” Oll said.

  “Great skies,” Katsa said. “And who’s said to have robbed him of this treasure?”

  “Some say it was a Graceling boy,” Oll said, “some kind of hypnotist, who put the king’s guards to sleep.”

  “Others talk about a Graceling man the size of a monster,” Giddon said, “a fighter, who overcame the guards, one by one.” Giddon laughed outright, and Oll smiled into his supper.

  “What interesting news,” Katsa said. And then, hoping she sounded innocent, “Did you hear anything else?”

  “Their search was delayed for hours,” Giddon said, “because at first they assumed someone at court was to blame. A visiting man who happened to be a Graceling fighter.” He lowered his voice. “Can you believe it? What luck for us.”

  Katsa kept her voice calm. “What did he say, this Graceling?”

  “Apparently nothing helpful,” Giddon said. “He claimed to know nothing of it.”

  “What did they do to him?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Giddon said. “He’s a Graceling fighter. I doubt they were able to do much of anything.”

  “Who is he? Where is he from?”

  “No one’s said.” Giddon elbowed her. “Katsa, come on—you’re missing the point. It makes no difference who he is. They lost hours questioning this man. By the time they began to look elsewhere for the thieves, it was too late.”

  Katsa thought she knew, better than Giddon or Oll could, why Murgon had spent so much time grilling this particular Graceling. And also why he’d taken pains not to publicize from where the Graceling came. Murgon wanted no one to suspect that the stolen treasure was Tealiff, that he’d held Tealiff in his dungeons in the first place.

  And why had the Lienid Graceling told Murgon nothing? Was he protecting her?

  This cursed rain had to stop, so that they could return to court, and to Raffin.

  Katsa drank, then lowered her cup to the table. “What a stroke of luck for the thieves.”

  Giddon grinned. “Indeed.”

  “And have you heard any other news?”

  “The innkeeper’s sister has a baby of three months,” Oll said. “They had a scare the other morning. They thought one of its eyes had darkened, but it was only a trick of the light.”

  “Fascinating.” Katsa poured gravy onto her meat.

  “The Monsean queen is grieving terribly for Grandfather Tealiff,” Giddon said. “A Monsean merchant spoke of it.”

  “I’d heard she wasn’t eating,” Katsa said. It seemed to her a foolish way to grieve.

  “There’s more,” Giddon said. “She’s closed herself and her daughter into her rooms. She permits no one but her handmaiden to enter, not even King Leck.”

  That seemed not only foolish but peculiar. “Is she allowing her daughter to eat?”

  “The handmaiden brings them meals,” Giddon said. “But they won’t leave the rooms. Apparently the king is being very patient about it.”

  “It will pass,” Oll said. “There’s no saying what grief will do to a person. It will pass when her father is found.”

  The Council would keep the old man hidden, for his own safety, until they learned the reason for his kidnapping. But perhaps a message could be sent to the Monsean queen, to ease her strange grief? Katsa determined to consider it. She would bring it up with Giddon and Oll, when they could talk safely.

  “She’s Lienid,” Giddon said. “They’re known to be odd people.”

  “It seems very odd to me,” Katsa said. She’d never felt grief, or if she had, she didn’t remember. Her mother, Randa’s sister, had died of a fever before Katsa’s eyes had settled, the same fever that had taken Raffin’s mother, Randa’s queen. Her father, a northern Middluns borderlord, had been killed in a raid across the border. It had been a Westeran raid on a Nanderan village. It hadn’t been his responsibility, but he’d taken up the defense of his neighbors, and gotten himself killed in the process. She hadn’t even been of speaking age. She didn’t remember him.

  If her uncle died, she didn’t think she would grieve. She glanced at Giddon. She wouldn’t like to lose him, but she didn’t think she would grieve his loss, either. Oll was different. She would grieve for Oll. And her ladyservant, Helda. And Raffin. Raffin’s loss would hurt more than a finger sliced off, or an arm broken, or a knife in her side.

  But she wouldn’t close herself in her rooms. She would go out and find the one who had done it, and then she’d make that person feel pain as no one had ever felt pain before.

  Giddon was speaking to her, and she wasn’t listening. She shook herself. “What did you say?”

  “I said, lady dreamer, that I believe the sky is clearing. We’ll be able to set out at dawn, if you like.”

  They would reach court before nightfall. Katsa finished her meal quickly and ran to her room to pack her bags.

  Chapter Six

  THE SUN was well on its way across the sky when their horses clattered onto the marble floor of Randa’s inner courtyard. Around them on all sides, the white castle walls rose and stood brightly against the green marble of the floor. Balconied passageways lined the walls above, so that the people of the court could look down into the courtyard as they moved from one section of the castle to another and admire Randa’s great garden of crawling vines and pink flowering trees. A statue of Randa stood in the center of the garden, a fountain of water flowing from one outstretched hand and a torch in the other. It was an attractive garden, if one did not dwell on the statue, and an attractive courtyard—but not a peaceful or private one, with the entire court roaming the passageways above.

  This was not the only such courtyard in the castle, but it
was the largest, and it was the entrance point for any important residents or visitors. The green floor was kept to such a shine that Katsa could see herself and her horse reflected in its surface. The white walls were made of a stone that sparkled, and they rose so high that she had to crane her neck to find the tops of the turrets above. It was very grand, very impressive. As Randa liked it.

  The noise of their horses and their shouts brought people to the balconies, to see who had come. A steward came out to greet them. A moment later, Raffin came flying into the courtyard.

  “You’ve arrived!”

  Katsa grinned up at him. Then she looked closer—stood on her toes, for he was so very tall. She grabbed a handful of his hair.

  “Raff, what’ve you done to yourself? Your hair is positively blue.”

  “I’ve been trying a new remedy for headache,” he said, “to be massaged into the scalp. Yesterday I thought I felt a headache coming on, so I tried it. Apparently it turns fair hair blue.”

  She smiled. “Did it cure the headache?”

  “Well, if I had a headache, then it did, but I’m not convinced I had one to begin with. Do you have a headache?” he asked, hopefully. “Your hair’s so dark; it wouldn’t turn nearly as blue.”

  “I don’t. I never do. What does the king think of your hair?”

  Raffin smirked. “He’s not speaking to me. He says it’s appalling behavior for the son of the king. Until my hair is normal again I’m not his son.”

  Oll and Giddon greeted Raffin and handed their reins to a boy. They followed the king’s steward into the castle, leaving Katsa and Raffin alone in the courtyard, near the garden and the splashing of Randa’s fountain. Katsa lowered her voice and pretended to focus on the straps that tied her saddlebags to her horse. “Any news?”

  “He hasn’t woken,” Raffin said. “Not once.”

  She was disappointed. She kept her voice low. “Have you heard of a Lienid noble Graced with fighting?”