Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(52)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Not looking at Bitterblue, he climbed through the window.

Then he unhitched a rope that was tied to a wide belt he was wearing. Throwing the rope out the window, he yanked the window shut, still not looking at her. A knit hat hid his hair and made his facial features more defined, and also adorable. Autumn hadn't faded his freckles.

"Come on," he said, walking away from the windows altogether, toward one of the ends of the empty room.

Bitterblue followed. Through a window, Fox glanced at them, then returned to work.

They stood in a long, narrow room that had arrow loops overlooking the drawbridge and moat, a room meant to be fil ed with archers in the event of a siege. From where Saf positioned them, they could see the doorway at each end and all the trapdoors in the ceiling. She wished now that she'd taken a moment to learn more about how this space was used. What if sentries were stationed on the roof above? What if they came down through the trapdoors at the changing of the guard? It would look odd, the queen shivering in this obscure room with her window caulker.

"What do you want?" Saf asked shortly.

"My Captain of the Monsean Guard has gone missing," she managed to say, berating herself for her own stupid sadness in his presence. "After days and days of no news, he told me he believed that Runnemood was solely responsible for all the crimes against truthseekers, then disappeared. Everyone's tell ing me he's gone to the silver refineries on some urgent matter to do with pirates. But something doesn't feel right, Saf. Have you heard anything about it?"

"No," he said. "And if it's true, then Runnemood's alive and wel in the east city, for an apartment where we store contraband was set on fire last night and a friend kill ed in the flames."

Po, B itterblue thought breathlessly. I know you're leaving soon and I'm sure you're buried in preparations. But before you go, do you have time for one more pass through the east city to look for Runnemood? It couldn't be more important.

"I'm sorry," she said aloud.

He flicked his hand in annoyance.

"There are rumors too," she went on, trying not to be stung by his rejection of her sympathy. "Rumors of the crown.

Have you heard them? Once the Monsean Guard hears them, I won't be able to hide that I don't have it, Saf."

"Gray's only trying to make you nervous," Saf said. "So that you'll panic—as you're doing now—and do whatever he wants."

"Wel , what does he want?"

"I don't know," said Saf, shrugging. "When he wants you to know it, you will ."

"I'm trapped here," Bitterblue said. "Useless, powerless. I don't know how to find Runnemood or even what I'm looking for. I don't know what to do about Gray. My friends have their own priorities, and my men don't seem to understand that something is urgently wrong. I don't know what to do, Saf, and you won't help me either, because I hid my power from you once, and now it's all you can see. I think you don't realize your own power over me. I know it, from when we touched each other. I—" Her voice broke. "There is a way you and I could muddle toward a balance, if you would let me touch you."

For a moment, he didn't speak. Final y, he said with a quiet sort of bitterness, "It's not enough. It's not enough that you feel an attraction; find someone else to be attracted to."

"Saf," she cried, "that's not all I feel. Listen to the words I'm saying. We were friends."

"And so what, then?" he said roughly. "What do you imagine? Me, stuck in this castle, your special commoner friend, bored out of my skul ? Are you going to make a prince out of me? Do you think I want anything to do with any of this? What I want is what I thought I had," he said. "I want the person you weren't."

"Saf," she whispered, tears stinging behind her eyes. "I'm so sorry I lied. I wish I could tell you about so many true things. The day you stole my crown, I discovered a cipher my mother wrote and hid from my father. Reading it isn't easy. If you ever decide to forgive me and you want to hear about my real mother, I'll tell you."

He watched her for a moment, then stared at his feet, mouth tight. Then he raised his coat sleeve to his eyes and it stunned her, the notion that he might be crying; it stunned her so that she said one more thing.

"I wouldn't give it back," she said, "what we did. I'd give it back for my mother to be alive. I'd give it back to know my kingdom better and be a better queen. Maybe I'd even give it back to have caused you less pain. But you gave me a gift you don't realize you gave me. I'd never done anything like that before, Saf, not with anyone. Now I see there are things in life that are open to me that I never quite believed I could do, before I knew you. I wouldn't give that back, any more than I would give up being queen. Not even to make you stop punishing me."

He stood with his arms clasped together and his head bent.

He reminded her of one of Bel amew's lonely sculptures.

"Wil you say anything?" she whispered.

He made no response. Not a movement, not a sound.

Bitterblue turned and slipped down the steps.

Chapter 30

THAT NIGHT, RAFFIN, Bann, and Po had dinner with her and Helda. She thought they were oddly subdued, for a group of reunited friends, and wondered if the worry for Katsa was becoming epidemic. If so, their worries did nothing to soothe her own worries.

"Good job not drawing attention to your association with Saf," said Po sarcastical y.

"No one saw us," retorted Bitterblue, waiting patiently while Bann cut her pork chop. She worked the muscles of her injured shoulder gently, trying to work out some of the end- of-the-day soreness. "Anyway, who exactly do you think you are, giving orders around my castle?"

"Saf's a pain in the ass, Beetle," said Po. "But a useful pain in the ass. Should something happen with the crown, we're all better off if he's where we can reach him. And who knows? Maybe he'l overhear something interesting for us.

I've asked Giddon to keep an eye on him after I go."

"I'll help, if he needs a few days," said Bann.

"Thank you, Bann," said Po.

Bitterblue paused, not understanding this exchange, but her mind caught on another question. "How much of my history with Saf have you explained to Giddon, Po?"

Po opened his mouth, then closed it. "I don't know all that much about your history myself, Bitterblue, and I've taken care not to ask either of you about it. Giddon," said Po, pausing to push some carrots around with his fork, "knows that if he observes Saf disrespecting you in any way, he's to put Saf through a wal ."

"Saf would probably like that."

Po made an exasperated noise. "I'll go into the east city tomorrow," he said. "I wish I weren't going to Estil . I'd tear the entire city apart for Runnemood, then I'd ride down to the refineries and find your captain myself."

"Is there time for me or Giddon to go find Smit?" asked Bann.

"Good question," said Po, scowling at him. "Let's figure that out."

"And what about you two?" said Bitterblue, turning to Raffin and Bann. "Did you accomplish your Council business in Sunder?"

"It was not actual y a Council trip, Lady Queen," said Raffin, looking abashed.

"No? What were you doing?"

"It was a royal mission. My father insisted I talked to Murgon about marrying his daughter."

Bitterblue's mouth dropped open. "You can't marry his daughter!"

"And so I told him, Lady Queen," Raffin said, and that was all he said. His lack of elaboration pleased her. It was none of her business.

Of course, it was impossible, in this company, not to think about balances of power. Raffin and Bann glanced at each other now and then, sharing silent agreement, teasing each other, or just resting their eyes on each other, as if each man was a comfortable resting place for the other. Prince Raffin, heir to the Middluns throne; Bann, who had no title, no fortune. How she longed to ask them questions that were too nosy for asking, even by her standards. How did they balance money matters? How did they make decisions? How did Bann cope with the expectation that Raffin marry and produce heirs? If Randa knew the truth about his son, would Bann be in danger? Did Bann ever resent Raffin's wealth and importance? What was the balance of power in their bed?

"Where is Giddon, anyway?" she asked, missing him. "Why isn't he here?"

The reaction was immediate: The table went quiet and her friends considered each other with troubled expressions.

Bitterblue's stomach dropped. "What is it? Is something wrong?"

"He's not injured, Lady Queen," said Raffin in a voice that didn't convince her. "Not in body, anyway. He wished to be alone."

Now Bitterblue shot to her feet. "What happened?"

Taking a breath, letting it out slowly, Raffin answered in the same bleak voice. "My father has convicted him of treason, Lady Queen, on the basis of both his participation in the overthrow of the King of Nander and his continued monetary contributions to the Council. He's been stripped of his title, land, and fortune, and if he returns to the Middluns, he'l be executed. Just to be thorough, Randa has burned his estate and leveled it to the ground."

BITTERBLUE COULD NOT get to Giddon's rooms fast enough.

He was in a chair in the far corner, his arms flung and his legs spread and his face frozen with shock.

Going to him, Bitterblue dropped to her knees before him, took his hand, and wished that she had more than one hand to give.

"You should not kneel before me," he whispered.

"Shut up," she said, bringing his hand to her face and cradling it, hugging it, kissing it. Tears slid down her cheeks.

"Lady Queen," he said, leaning toward her, cupping her face gently, tenderly, as if this were the most natural thing in the world for him to do. "You're crying."

"I'm sorry. I can't help it."

"It's comforting to me," he said, wiping her tears away with his fingers. "I can't feel anything."

Bitterblue knew that species of numbness. She also knew what followed, once it passed. She wondered if Giddon realized what was coming, if he had ever known that kind of catastrophic grief.

IT SEEMED TO help Giddon to ask him questions, as if by answering, he was fil ing in the blank spaces and remembering who he was. And so she asked him things, letting each answer supply her next question.

This was how Bitterblue learned that Giddon had had a brother who'd died in a fall from a horse at the age of fifteen —Giddon's horse, which had not liked to be ridden by others and which Giddon had goaded him to ride, never anticipating the consequences. Giddon and Arlend had fought incessantly, not just over horses; they would probably have fought over their father's estate had Arlend lived.