Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(12)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Katsa jumped up from her seat. “That’s enough, Giddon – if you think I need you to defend me – ”

“A guest to this court, a total stranger – ”

“Giddon – ”

“Lord Giddon.” Po had risen to his feet, and his voice cut through hers. “If I’ve insulted your lady,” he said, “you must forgive me. I rarely have the pleasure of practicing with someone of her caliber, and I couldn’t resist the temptation. I can assure you she did more damage to me than I did to her.”

Giddon didn’t take his hand from his sword, but his grimace lessened.

“I’m sorry to have insulted you, as well,” Po said. “I see now I should’ve taken greater care of her face. Forgive me.

It was unpardonable.” He reached his hand across the table.

Giddon’s angry eyes grew warm again. He reached out and shook Po’s hand. “You understand my concern,” Giddon said.

“Of course.”

Katsa looked from one of them to the other, the two of them shaking hands, understanding each other’s concern. She didn’t see where Giddon came off feeling insulted. She didn’t see how Giddon had any place in it at all. Who were they, to take her fight away from her and turn it into some sort of understanding between themselves? He should’ve taken more care of her face? She would knock his nose from his face. She would thump them both, and she would apologize to neither.

Po caught her eyes then, and she did nothing to soften the silent fury she sent across the table to him. “Shal we sit?”

someone said. Po held her eyes as they sat. There was no trace of humor in his expression, no trace of the arrogance of his exchange with Giddon. And then he mouthed two words. It was as clear as if he’d said them aloud. “Forgive me.”

Wel .

Giddon was stilla horse’s ass.

Sixteen Council members attended the meeting, in addition to Po and Lord Davit: Katsa, Raffin, Giddon, Oll , and Oll’s wife, Bertol; two soldiers under Oll’s command, two spies who worked with him, three underlords of Giddon’s rank, and four servants – one a woman who worked in the kitchens of the castle, one a stable hand, one a washerwoman, and one a clerk in Randa’s countinghouse. There were others in the castle involved with the Council.

But most nights, these were their representatives, along with Bann, when he could get away.

Since the meeting had been cal ed to hear Lord Davit’s information, the Council wasted no time.

“I regret I can’t tell you who kidnapped Prince Tealiff,” Davit said. “You would, of course, prefer that type of information. But I may be able to tell you who didn’t. My lands border Estil and Nander. My neighbors are the borderlords of King Thigpen and King Drowden. These borderlords have worked with the Council, and some of them are in the confidence of Thigpen’s and Drowden’s spies. Prince Raffin,” Davit said, “these men are certain that neither King Thigpen nor King Drowden was involved in the kidnapping of the Lienid.”

Raffin and Katsa caught each other’s eyes.

“Then it must be King Birn of Wester,” Raffin said.

And so it must, though Katsa couldn’t imagine the motive.

“Tel us your sources,” Oll said, “and your sources’ sources. We’l look into it. If this turns out to be true information, we’l be that much closer to an explanation.”

———

The meeting did not go on long. The seven kingdoms had been quiet, and Davit’s news was enough to occupy Oll and the other spies for the time being.

“It would help us, Prince Greening,” Raffin said, “if you’d all ow us to keep your grandfather’s rescue a secret for now. We can’t guarantee his safety if we don’t even know who attacked him.”

“Of course,” Po said. “I agree.”

“But perhaps a cryptic message to your family,” Raffin said, “to say that all ’s well with him…”

“Yes, I think I could fashion such a message.”

“Excel ent.” Raffin clapped his hands on the table. “Anything else? Katsa?”

“I’ve nothing,” Katsa said.

“Good.” Raffin stood. “Until we hear some news, then, or until Grandfather Tealiff remembers more. Giddon, will you take Lord Davit back to his rooms? Oll , Horan, wall er, Bertol, will you come with me? I wish a moment. We’l take the inner passage, Katsa, if you don’t mind a parade through your sleeping room.”

“Go ahead,” Katsa said. “It’s better than a parade through the corridors.”

“The prince,” Raffin said. “Katsa, will you take the prince – ”

“Yes. Go on.”

Raffin turned away with Oll and the spies; the soldiers and the servants said their good-byes, and departed.

“I trust you’ve recovered from your il ness at dinner, Katsa,” Giddon said, “if you’ve been starting fights. Indeed, it sounds as if you’re back to your normal self.”

She would be civil to him in front of Po and Lord Davit, though he laughed now in her face. “Yes, thank you, Giddon. Good night to you.”

Giddon nodded and left with Lord Davit. Po and Katsa were alone. Po leaned back against the table. “Am I not trusted to find my way through the hal s by myself?”

“He meant for me to take you through an inner passageway,” Katsa said. “If you’re seen wandering around the hal ways of Randa’s court at this hour, people will talk. This court will turn the most mundane thing into something to talk about.”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe that’s the case with most courts.”

“Do you plan to stay long at the court?”

“I should like to stay until my grandfather’s feeling better.”

“Then we’l have to come up with an excuse for your presence,” Katsa said. “For isn’t it general y known that you seek your grandfather?”

Po nodded. “If you agreed to train with me,” he said, “that might serve as an excuse.”

She began to put out the torches. “What do you mean?”

“People would understand,” he said, “if I stayed in order to train with you. They must see that in our view, it’s a valuable opportunity. For both of us.”

She paused before the last torch and considered his proposal. She understood him completely. She was tired of fighting nine or ten men at once, ful y armored men, none of them able to touch her, and she always tempering her blows. It would be a thril , a pure thril , to fight Po again. To fight him regularly, a dream.

“Wouldn’t it seem as if you’d given up the search for your grandfather?”

“I’ve already been to Wester,” he said, “and Sunder. I can travel to Nander and Estil under the guise of seeking information, can’t I, using this city as my base? No city’s more central than Randa’s.”

He could do that, and no one would have reason to question it. She put out the last torch and walked back to him.

Half of his face was lit by the light in the hal outside the door. It was his gold eye, his blackened eye, that was il uminated. She looked up at him and set her chin.

“I’ll train with you,” she said. “But don’t expect me to take more care of your face than I did today.”

He burst into laughter, but then his eyes sobered, and he looked at the floor. “Forgive me for that, Katsa. I wished to make an all y of Lord Giddon, not an enemy. It seemed the only way.”

Katsa shook her head with impatience. “Giddon is a fool.”

“He reacted natural y enough,” he said, “considering his position.”

He brought his fingertips to her chin suddenly. She froze, forgetting the question she’d been about to ask, regarding Giddon, and what in the Middluns his position should be. He tilted her face to the light.

“It was my ring.”

She didn’t understand him.

“It was my ring that scratched you.”

“Your ring.”

“Wel , one of my rings.”

It was one of his rings that scratched her, and now his fingertips touched her face. His hand dropped, returning to his side, and he looked at her calmly, as if this were normal, as if friends she’d only just made always touched her face with their fingertips. As if she ever made friends. As if she had any basis for comparison, to decide what was normal when one made friends, and what was not.

She was not normal.

She marched to the doorway and grabbed the torch from the wall. “Come,” she said. For it was time to get him out of here, this strange person, this cat-eyed person who seemed created to rattle her. She would knock those eyes out of his face the next time they fought. She would knock the hoops from his ears and the rings from his hands.

It was time to get him out of here, so that she could return to her rooms and return to herself.

CHAPTER TEN

He was a marvelous opponent. She couldn’t get to him. She couldn’t hit him where she meant to, or as hard as she wanted. He was so quick to block or to twist, so quick to react. She couldn’t knock him from his feet, she couldn’t trap him when their fight had devolved into a wrestling match on the floor.

He was so much stronger than she, and for the first time in her life, she found her lesser strength to be a disadvantage. No one had ever gotten close enough to her for it to matter, before this.

He was so finely tuned to his surroundings, and to her movements; and that was also part of the chal enge. He always seemed to know what she was doing, even when she was behind him.

“I’ll grant you don’t have night vision if you’l grant you have eyes in the back of your head,” she said once, when she’d entered the practice room and he’d greeted her without looking round to identify her.

“What do you mean?”

“You always know what’s happening behind you.”

“Katsa, do you never notice the noise you make when you burst into a room? No one flings doors open the way you do.”

“Perhaps your Grace gives you a heightened sense of things,” she said.

He shook his head. “Perhaps, but no more than your own.”

He stillgot the worst of their fights, because of her flexibility and her tireless energy, and mostly because of her speed. She might not hit him how she wanted, but she stillhit him. And he suffered pain more. He stopped the fight once while she grappled to pin his arm and his legs and his back to the ground and he hit her repeatedly in the ribs with his one free hand.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” he said, gasping with laughter. “Don’t you feel it? I’ve hit you possibly twelve times, and you don’t even flinch.”