Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(9)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Davit had asked the same question twice before Katsa heard him and turned from the Lienid’s uneven stare to answer.

She supposed she would have to face those eyes soon. They would have to talk; she would have to decide what to do with him.

She thought that Lord Davit would be less nervous if he knew there was no chance of Randa offering him her suit.

“Lord Davit,” she said, “have you a wife?”

He shook his head. “It’s the only thing my estate lacks, My Lady.”

Katsa kept her eyes on her venison and carrots. “My uncle is very disappointed in me, because I intend never to marry.”

Lord Davit paused, and then spoke. “I doubt your uncle is the only man who finds that disappointing.”

Katsa considered his pointy face, and could not stop herself from smiling. “Lord Davit,” she said, “you’re a perfect gentleman.”

The lord smiled in return. “You think I didn’t mean it, My Lady, but I did.” Then he leaned in and ducked his head.

“My Lady,” he whispered, “I wish to speak with the Council.”

The voices of the dinner guests were lively, but she heard him perfectly. She pretended to focus on her dinner. She stirred her soup. “Sit back,”

she said. “Act as if we were only talking. Don’t whisper, for it draws attention.”

The lord settled back into his seat. He raised his finger for a serving girl, who brought him more wine. He ate a few bites of his venison and turned to Katsa once more.

“The weather has been very kind to my aging father this summer, My Lady,” he said. “He suffers in the heat, but it’s been cool in the northeast.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Katsa said. “Is it information, or a request?”

The lord spoke around his mouthful of carrots. “Information.” He sliced another piece of venison. “It becomes more and more difficult to care for him, My Lady.”

“Why is that?”

“The elderly are prone to discomforts. It’s our duty to keep them comfortable,” he said, “and safe.”

Katsa nodded. “True words, indeed.” She kept her face even, but excitement rattled at the edges of her mind. If he had information about the kidnapping of the Lienid grandfather, they would all want to hear it. She reached under the heavy tablecloth and rested her hand on Giddon’s knee.

He leaned toward her slightly, without turning away from the lady on his other side.

“You’re a man of great information, Lord Davit,” she said to the lord, or rather, to her plate, so that Giddon could hear. “I hope we’l have the opportunity to speak with you more during your stay at court.”

“Thank you, My Lady,” Lord Davit said. “I hope so, too.”

Giddon would spread the word. They would meet that night, in her own rooms – because they were secluded and because they were the only rooms not traveled by servants. If she could, she’d find Raffin beforehand. She’d like to visit Grandfather Tealiff. Even if he was stillsleeping, it would be good to see with her own eyes how he was faring.

Katsa heard the king speak her name, and her shoulders stiffened. She didn’t look at him, for she didn’t wish to encourage him to draw her into his conversation. She couldn’t make out his words; most likely he was tell ing some guest the story of something she’d done. His laughter rolled across the tables in the great marble hall. Katsa tried to push back the scowl that rose to her face.

The Lienid prince was watching her. She felt that, too. Heat licked at her neck and crawled along her scalp. “My Lady,” Lord Davit said, “are you quite all right? You look a bit flushed.”

Giddon turned to her then, his face flashing with concern. He reached for her arm. “You aren’t il ?”

She pulled back, away from him. “I’m never il ,” she snarled, and she knew suddenly that she must leave the hall.

She must leave the clatter of voices and the sound of her uncle’s laugh, Giddon’s smothering concern, the Lienid’s burning eyes; she must get outside, find Raffin, or be on her own. She must, or she would lose her temper, and something unthinkable would happen.

She stood, and Giddon and Lord Davit stood with her. Across the room the Lienid prince stood. One by one, the rest of the men saw her standing, and rose. The room quieted, and everyone was looking at her.

“What is it, Katsa?” Giddon asked, reaching for her arm again. So that he wouldn’t be shamed before everyone in the hal , she all owed him to take it, though his hand was like a brand that burned into her skin.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She turned to the king, the only man in the room who wasn’t on his feet.

“Forgive me, Lord King,” she said. “It’s nothing. Please, sit down.” She waved her hand around the tables. “Please.”

Slowly, the gentlemen sat, and the voices picked up again. The king’s laugh rang out, directed at her, she was sure.

Katsa turned to Lord Davit. “Please excuse me, My Lord.” She turned to Giddon, whose hand stillgrasped her elbow.

“Let go, Giddon. I want to take a walk outside.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said. He started to rise, but at the warning in her eyes he sat back again. “Very well, Katsa, do what you will .”

There was an edge to his voice. She had probably been rude, but she didn’t care. all that mattered was that she leave this room and go to a place where she couldn’t hear the drone of her uncle’s voice. She turned, careful not to catch the eyes of the Lienid. She forced herself to walk slowly, calmly, to the doorway at the foot of the room. Once through the doorway, she ran.

She ran through corridors, around corners, past servants who flattened themselves trembling against walls as she flew by. finally she burst into the darkness of the courtyard.

She crossed the marble floor, pul ing pins from her hair. She sighed as her curls fel around her shoulders and the tension left her scalp. It was the hairpins, and the dress, and the shoes that pinched her feet. It was having to hold her head stilland sit straight, it was the infuriating earrings that brushed against her neck. That was why she couldn’t stand to spend one moment longer at her uncle’s fine dinner. She took off her earrings and hurled them into her uncle’s fountain. She didn’t care who found them.

But that was no good, because then people would talk. The entire court would speculate about what it meant, that she’d thrown her earrings into her uncle’s fountain.

Katsa kicked off her shoes, hitched up her skirt, and climbed into the fountain, sighing as the cold water ran between her toes and lapped at her ankles. It was a great improvement over her shoes. She would not put them on again tonight.

She waded out to the glimmers she saw in the water and retrieved her earrings. She dried them on her skirt, dropped them into the bodice of her dress for safekeeping, and stood in the fountain, enjoying the coolness enveloping her feet, the drifting air of the courtyard, the night noises – until a sound from inside reminded her of how much the court would talk if she were found wading, barefoot and wild haired, in King Randa’s fountain. They would think her mad.

And perhaps she was mad.

A light shone from Raffin’s workrooms, but it wasn’t his company she sought after all. She didn’t want to sit and talk. She wanted to move.

Movement would stop the whirring of her mind.

Katsa climbed out of the fountain and hung the straps of her shoes over her wrists. She ran.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The archery range was empty, and dark except for the lone torch that glowed outside the equipment room. Katsa lit the torches along the back of the range so that when she returned to the front, the man-shaped dummies stood black against the brightness behind them. She grabbed a bow randomly from the supplies and col ected handfuls of the lightest-colored arrows she could find. Then she drove arrow after arrow into the knees of her targets. Then the thighs, then the elbows, then the shoulders, until she’d emptied her quiver. She could disarm or disable any man with this bow at night, that was clear enough. She exchanged the bow for another. She yanked the arrows from the targets. She began again.

She’d lost her temper at dinner, and for no reason. Randa hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even looked at her, had only said her name. He loved to brag of her, as if her great ability were his doing. As if she were the arrow, and he the archer whose skil drove her home. No, not an arrow – that didn’t quite capture it. A dog. To Randa she was a savage dog he’d broken and trained. He set her on his enemies and all owed her out of her cage to be groomed and kept pretty, to sit among his friends and make them nervous.

Katsa didn’t notice her heightened speed and focus, the ferocity with which she was now whipping arrows from her quiver, the next arrow notched in the string before the first had hit home. Not until she sensed the presence behind her shoulder did she stir from her preoccupation and realize how she must look.

She was savage. Look at her speed, look at her accuracy, and with a poor bow, curved badly, strung badly. No wonder Randa treated her so.

She knew it was the Lienid who stood behind her. She ignored him. But she slowed her movements, made a show of taking aim at thighs and knees before she fired. She became conscious of the dirt under her feet and remembered, too, that she was barefoot, with her hair fal ing around her shoulders and her shoes in a pile somewhere near the equipment room. He would have noticed. She doubted there was much those eyes didn’t notice. well, he wouldn’t have kept such stupid shoes on his feet, either, or left pins in his hair if his scalp were screaming. Or perhaps he would. He seemed not to mind his own fine jewelry, in his ears and on his fingers. They must be a vain people, the Lienid.

“Can you kill with an arrow? Or do you only ever wound?”

She remembered his raspy voice from Murgon’s courtyard, and it was taunting her now, as it had done then. She didn’t turn to him. She simply took two arrows from her quiver, notched them together, pul ed, and released. One flew to her target’s head, and the other to its chest. They hit with a satisfying thud, and glowed palely in the flickering torchlight.

“I’ll never make the mistake of chal enging you to an archery match.”

There was laughter in his voice. She kept her back to him and reached for another arrow. “You didn’t forfeit our last match so easily,” she said.

“Ah, but that’s because I have your fighting skil . I lack your skil with a bow and arrow.”

Katsa couldn’t help herself She found that interesting. She turned her eyes to him, his face in shadows. “Is that true?”

“My Grace gives me skil at hand-to-hand combat,” he said, “or sword-to-sword. It does little for my archery.”