Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(13)
Author: Kristin Cashore

She sat up on her heels and felt the spot, below her breast. “It hurts, but it’s not bad.”

“Your bones are made of rock. You walk away from these fights without a sore spot, while I limp away and spend the day icing my bruises.”

He didn’t wear his rings while they fought. He’d come without them the first day. When she’d protested that it was an unnecessary precaution, his face had assumed a mask of innocence.

“I promised Giddon, didn’t I?” he’d said, and that fight had begun with Po ducking, and laughing, as Katsa swung at his face.

They didn’t wear their boots, either, not after Katsa accidental y clipped him on the forehead. He had dropped to his hands and knees, and she saw at once what had happened. “Cal Raft’!” she’d cried to Oll , who watched on the side.

She’d sat Po on the floor, ripped off her own sleeve, and tried to stop the flow of blood that ran into his dazed eyes.

When Raffin had given him the go-ahead to fight a few days later, she’d insisted they fight barefoot. And in truth, she had taken more care of his face since then.

They almost always practiced in front of an audience. A scattering of soldiers, or underlords. Oll , whenever he could, for the fights gave him so much pleasure. Giddon, though he always seemed to grow grumpy as he watched and never stayed long. Even Helda came on occasion, the only woman who did, and sat with wide eyes that grew wider the longer she sat.

Randa did not come, which was pleasant. Katsa was glad of his tendency to keep her at arm’s length.

They ate together most days, after practicing. In her dining room, alone, or in Raffin’s workrooms with Raffin and Bann. Sometimes at a table Raffin had brought into Tealiff’s room. The grandfather was stillvery il , but company seemed to cheer and strengthen him.

When they sat together talking, sometimes the silver and gold of Po’s eyes caught her off guard. She could not become used to his eyes; they muddled her. But she met them when he looked at her, and she forced herself to breathe and talk and not become overwhelmed. They were eyes, they were only his eyes, and she wasn’t a coward. And besides, she didn’t want to behave toward him as the entire court behaved toward her, avoiding her eyes, awkwardly, coldly. She didn’t want to do that to a friend.

He was a friend; and in the final few weeks of summer, for the first time in her life, Randa’s court became a place of contentment for Katsa. A place of good hard work and of friends. Oll’s spies moved steadily, learning what they could from their travels to Nander and Estil . The kingdoms, amazingly, were at peace. The heat and the closeness of the air seemed to bring a lul to Randa’s cruelty as well, or perhaps he was merely distracted by the flood of foods and wares that always washed into the city from every trade route at that time of year. Whatever the reason, Randa did not summon Katsa to perform any of his nasty errands. Katsa found herself daring to relax into summer’s end.

She never ran out of questions for Po.

“Where’d you get your name?” she asked him one day as they sat in the grandfather’s room, talking quietly so as not to wake him.

Po wound a cloth wrapped with ice around his shoulder. “Which one? I’ve got lots to choose from.”

Katsa reached across the table to help him tie the cloth tight. “Po. Does everyone cal you that?”

“My brothers gave me that name when I was little. It’s a kind of tree in Lienid, the po tree. In autumn its leaves turn Silver and gold. Inevitable nickname, I guess.”

Katsa broke a piece of bread. She wondered if the name had been given fondly, or if it had been an attempt by Po’s brothers to isolate him – to remind him always that he was Graceling. She watched him pile his plate high with bread, meat, fruit, and cheese and smiled as the food began to disappear almost as fast as he’d piled it up. Katsa could eat a lot, but Po was something else altogether.

“What is it like to have six older brothers?”

“I don’t think it was for me what it would be for most others,” he said. “Hand fighting is revered in Lienid. My brothers are great fighters, and of course I was able to hold my own with them, even though I was small – and eventual y surpass them, every one of them. They treated me like an equal, like more than an equal.”

“And were they also your friends?”

“Oh yes, especial y the younger ones.”

Perhaps it was easier, then, to be a fighter if one was a boy or in a kingdom that revered hand fighting; or perhaps Po’s Grace had announced itself less drastical y than Katsa’s had. Perhaps if Katsa had six older brothers, she would also have six friends.

Or maybe everything was different in Lienid.

“I’ve heard the Lienid castles are built on mountain peaks so high that people have to be lifted up to them by ropes,”

she said.

Po grinned. “Only my father’s city has the ropes.” He poured himself more water and turned back to the food on his plate.

“Wel ?” Katsa said. “Are you going to explain them to me?”

“Katsa. Is it too much for you to understand that a man might be hungry after you’ve beaten him half to death? I’m beginning to think it’s part of your fighting strategy, keeping me from eating. You want me weak and faint.”

“For someone who’s Lienid’s finest fighter,” she said, “you have a delicate constitution.”

He laughed and put his fork down. “Al right, all right. How can I describe this?” He picked his fork up again and used it to draw a picture in the air as he spoke. “My father’s city sits at the top of this enormous, tal rock, tal as a mountain, that rises straight up from the plains below. There are three ways up to the city. One is a road built into the sides of the rock, that winds around and around it, slowly. The second is a stairway built into one side of the rock. It bends back and forth on itself until it reaches the top. It’s a good approach, if you’re strong and wide awake and don’t have a horse, though most who choose that route eventual y tire and end up begging a ride from someone on the road.

My brothers and I race it sometimes.”

“Who wins?”

“Where’s your confidence in me, that you need to ask that question? You would beat us all, of course.”

“My ability to fight has no bearing on my ability to run up a flight of stairs.”

“Nonetheless, I can’t imagine you all owing anyone to beat you at anything.”

Katsa snorted. “And the third way?”

“The third way is the ropes.”

“But how do they work?”

Po scratched his head. “Wel , it’s fairly simple, really. They hang from a great wheel that sits flat, on its side, at the top of the rock. They dangle down over the edge of the rock, and at the bottom they’re attached to platforms. Horses turn the wheel, the wheel pul s the ropes, and the platforms rise.”

“It seems a terrible amount of trouble.”

“Mostly everyone uses the road. The ropes are only for great shipments of things.”

“And the whole city sits up in the sky?”

Po broke himself another piece of bread and nodded.

“But why would they build a city in such a place?”

Po shrugged. “I suppose because it’s beautiful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wel , you can see forever from the edges of the city. The fields, the mountains and hil s. To one side, the sea.”

“The sea,” Katsa said.

The sea put an end to her questions for a moment. Katsa had seen the lakes of Nander, some of them so wide she could barely make out the opposite shore. But she’d never seen the sea. She couldn’t imagine that much water. Nor could she imagine water that rocked, and crashed against the land, as she’d heard the sea did. She stared absently at the walls of Tealiff’s small room, and tried to think of it.

“You can see two of my brothers’ castles from the city,” Po said. “In the foothil s of the mountains. The other castles are beyond the mountains, or too far to see.”

“How many castles are there?”

“Seven,” Po said, “just as there are seven sons.”

“Then one is yours.”

“The small est one.”

“Do you mind that yours is the small est?”

Po chose an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table. “I’m glad mine is the small est, though my brothers don’t believe me when I say so.”

She didn’t blame them for disbelieving. She’d never heard of a man, not even her cousin, who didn’t want as large a holding as he could have.

Giddon was always comparing his estate to that of his neighbors; and when Raffin listed his complaints about Thigpen, he never neglected to mention a certain disagreement over the precise location of the Middluns’ eastern border. She’d thought all men were like that. She’d thought she wasn’t like that because she wasn’t a man.

“I don’t have the ambitions of my brothers,” Po said. “I’ve never wanted a large holding. I’ve never wanted to be a king or an overlord.”

“No,” Katsa said, “nor have I. I’ve thanked the hil s countless times that Raffin was born the son of Randa, and I only his niece, and his sister’s daughter at that.”

“My brothers want all that power,” he said. “They love to get wrapped up in the disputes of my father’s court. They actual y revel in it. They love managing their own castles and their own cities. I do believe sometimes that they all wish to be king.”

He leaned back in his chair and absently ran his fingers along his sore shoulder.

“My castle doesn’t have a city,” he said. “It’s not far from a town, but the town governs itself. It doesn’t have a court, either. really it’s just a great house that’l be my home for the times when I’m not traveling.”

Katsa took an apple for herself. “You intend to travel.”

“I’m more restless than my brothers. But it’s so beautiful, my castle; it’s the most wonderful place to go home to. It sits on a cliff above the sea.

There are steps down to the water, cut into the cliff. And balconies hanging over the cliff – you feel as if you’l fal if you lean too far. At night the sun goes down across the water, and the whole sky turns red and orange, and the sea to match it. Sometimes there are great fish out there, fish of impossible colors. They come to the surface and rol about – you can watch them from the balconies. And in winter the waves are high, and the wind’l knock you down. You can’t go out to the balconies in winter. It’s dangerous, and wild.”