Kristin Cashore

by Graceling

“Well,” Raffin said. “You’ll let us know how you’re faring, when you’re able?”

  “Of course,” Katsa said.

  He looked at his feet and cleared his throat. He rubbed his neck, and sighed. How she wished again that he weren’t here. For the tears would spill onto her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.

  “Well,” Raffin said. “And I’ll see you again someday, my love.”

  She reached up for him then and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he lifted her up off the ground and hugged her tight. She breathed into the collar of his shirt and held on.

  And then her feet were on the ground again. She turned away and climbed into her saddle. “We leave now,” she said to Po. As their horses cantered out of the stable yard, she didn’t look back.

  THEIR ROUTE was rough and changeable, for their only certain plan was to follow whatever path seemed likely to bring them closer to the truth of the kidnapping. Their first destination was an inn, south of Murgon City, three days’ ride from Randa City—an inn sitting along the route which they supposed the kidnappers had taken. Murgon’s spies frequented the inn, as did merchants and travelers from the port cities of Sunder, often even from Monsea. It was as good a place to start as any, Po thought, and it didn’t take them out of their way, if their ultimate destination was Monsea.

  They didn’t travel anonymously. Katsa’s eyes identified her to anyone in the seven kingdoms who had ears to hear the stories. Po was conspicuously a Lienid and enough the subject of idle talk to be recognized by virtue of his own eyes and by the Graceling company he kept. The story of Katsa’s hasty departure from Randa’s court with the Lienid prince would spread. Any attempt to disguise themselves would be foolish; Katsa didn’t even bother to change from the blue tunic and trousers that marked her as a member of Randa’s family. Their purpose would be assumed, for it was well enough agreed that the Graceling Lienid searched for his missing grandfather, and it would now be supposed that the Graceling lady assisted him. Their inquiries, the route they chose, the very dinners they ate would be the stuff of gossip.

  But still, they would be safe in their deception. For no one would know that Katsa and Po searched not for the grandfather but for the motive of his kidnapping. No one would know that Katsa and Po knew of Murgon’s involvement and suspected Leck of Monsea. And no one could even guess how much Po could learn by asking the most mundane questions.

  He rode well, and almost as fast as she would have liked. The trees of the southern forest flew past. The pounding of hooves comforted her and numbed her sense of the distance stretching between her and the people she’d left behind.

  She was glad of Po’s company. Their riding was companionable. But then when they stopped to stretch their legs and eat something, she was shy of him again, and didn’t know how to be with him, or what to say.

  “Sit with me, Katsa.”

  He sat on the trunk of a great fallen tree, and she glared at him from around her horse.

  “Katsa,” he said. “Dear Katsa, I won’t bite. I’m not sensing your thoughts right now, except to know that I make you uncomfortable. Come and talk to me.”

  And so she came and sat beside him, but she didn’t talk, and she didn’t exactly look at him either, for she was afraid of becoming trapped in his eyes.

  “Katsa,” he said finally, when they had sat and chewed in silence for a number of minutes, “you’ll get used to me, in time. We’ll find the way to relate to each other. How can I help you with this? Should I tell you whenever I sense something with my Grace? So you can come to understand it?”

  It didn’t sound very appealing to her. She’d prefer to pretend that he sensed nothing. But he was right. They were together now, and the sooner she faced this, the better.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Very well then, I will. Do you have any questions for me? You have only to ask.”

  “I think,” she said, “if you always know what I feel about you, then you should always tell me what you’re feeling about me, as you feel it. Always.”

  “Hmm.” He glanced at her sideways. “I’m not wild about that idea.”

  “Nor am I wild about you knowing my feelings, but I have no choice.”

  “Hmmm.” He rubbed his head. “I suppose, in theory, it’d be fair.”

  “It would.”

  “Very well, let’s see. I’m very sympathetic about your having left Raffin. I think you’re brave to have defied Randa as you did with that Ellis fellow; I don’t know if I could’ve gone through with it. I think you have more energy than anyone I’ve ever encountered, though I wonder if you aren’t a bit hard on your horse. I find myself wondering why you haven’t wanted to marry Giddon, and if it’s because you’ve intended to marry Raffin, and if so, whether you’re even more unhappy to have left him than I realized. I’m very pleased you’ve come with me. I’d like to see you defend yourself for real, fight someone to the death, for it would be a thrilling sight. I think my mother would take to you. My brothers, of course, would worship you. I think you’re the most quarrelsome person I’ve ever met. And I really do worry about your horse.”

  He stopped then, broke a piece of bread, and chewed and swallowed. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

  “That’s all, for now,” he said.

  “You can’t possibly have been thinking all those things, in that moment,” she said, and then he laughed, and the sound was a comfort to her, and she fought against the gold and silver lights that shone in his eyes, and lost. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

  “And now I’m wondering,” he said, “how it is you don’t realize your eyes ensnare me, just as mine do you. I can’t explain it, Katsa, but you shouldn’t let it embarrass you. For we’re both overtaken by the same—foolishness.”

  A flush rose into her neck, and she was doubly embarrassed, by his eyes and by his words. But there was relief for her, too. Because if he was also foolish, then her foolishness bothered her less.

  “I thought you might be doing it on purpose,” she said, “with your eyes. I thought it might be a part of your Grace, to trap me with your eyes and read my mind.”

  “It’s not. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Most people won’t look into my eyes,” she said. “Most people fear them.”

  “Yes. Most people don’t look into my eyes for very long either. They’re too strange.”

  She looked at his eyes then, leaned in and really studied them, as she hadn’t had the courage to do before. “Your eyes are like lights. They don’t seem quite natural.”

  He grinned. “My mother says when I opened my eyes on the day they settled, she almost dropped me, she was so startled.”

  “What color were they before?”

  “Gray, like most Lienid. And yours?”

  “I’ve no idea. No one’s ever told me, and I don’t think there’s anyone left I could ask.”

  “Your eyes are beautiful,” he said, and she felt warm suddenly, warm in the sun that dappled through the treetops and rested on them in patches. And as they climbed back into their saddles and returned to the forest road, she didn’t feel exactly comfortable with him; but she felt at least that she could look him in the face now and not fear she was surrendering her entire soul.

  THE ROAD LED them around the outskirts of Murgon City and became wider and more traveled. Whenever Katsa and Po were seen, they were stared at. It would soon be known in the inns and houses around the city that the two Graceling fighters traveled south together along Murgon Road.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stop in on King Murgon,” Katsa said, “and ask him your questions? It would be much faster, wouldn’t it?”

  “He made it quite clear after the robbery that I was no longer welcome at his court. He suspects I know what was stolen.”

  “He’s afraid of you.”

  “Yes, and he’s the type to do something foolish. If we arrived at his court he’d probably mount an offensive, and we’d have to start hurting people. I’d prefer to avoid
that, wouldn’t you? If there’s going to be an enormous mess, let it be at the court of the guilty king, not the king who’s merely complicitous.”

  “We’ll go to the inn.”

  “Yes,” Po said. “We’ll go to the inn.”

  The forest road narrowed again and grew quieter once they left Murgon City behind. They stopped before night fell. They set up camp some distance from the road, in a small clearing with a mossy floor, a cover of thick branches, and a trickle of water that seemed to please the horses.

  “This is all a man needs,” Po said. “I could live here, quite contented. What do you think, Katsa?”

  “Are you hungry for meat? I’ll catch us something.”

  “Even better,” he said. “But it’ll be dark in a few minutes. I wouldn’t want you to get lost, even in the pitch dark.”

  Katsa smiled then and stepped across the stream. “It’ll only take me a few minutes. And I never get lost, even in the pitch dark.”

  “You won’t even take your bow? Are you planning to throttle a moose with your bare hands, then?”

  “I’ve a knife in my boot,” she said, and then wondered, for a moment, if she could throttle a moose with her bare hands. It seemed possible. But right now she only sought a rabbit or a bird, and her knife would serve as weapon. She slipped between the gnarled trees and into the damp silence of the forest. It was simply a matter of listening, remaining quiet, and making herself invisible.

  When she came back minutes later with a great, fat, skinned rabbit, Po had built a fire. The flames cast orange light on the horses and on himself. “It was the least I could do,” Po said, drily, “and I see you’ve already skinned that hare. I’m beginning to think I won’t have much responsibility as we travel through the forest together.”

  “Does it bother you? You’re welcome to do the hunting yourself. Perhaps I can stay by the fire and mend your socks, and scream if I hear any strange noises.”

  He smiled then. “Do you treat Giddon like this, when the two of you travel? I imagine he finds it quite humiliating.”

  “Poor Po. You may content yourself with reading my mind, if you wish to feel superior.”

  He laughed. “I know you’re teasing me. And you should know I’m not easily humiliated. You may hunt for my food, and pound me every time we fight, and protect me when we’re attacked, if you like. I’ll thank you for it.”

  “But I’d never need to protect you, if we were attacked. And I doubt you need me to do your hunting, either.”

  “True. But you’re better than I am, Katsa. And it doesn’t humiliate me.” He fed a branch to the fire. “It humbles me. But it doesn’t humiliate me.”

  She sat quietly as night closed in and watched the blood drip from the hunk of meat she held on a stick over the fire. She listened to it sizzle as it hit the flames. She tried to separate in her mind the idea of being humbled from the idea of being humiliated, and she understood what Po meant. She wouldn’t have thought to make the distinction. He was so clear with his thoughts, while hers were a constant storm that she could never make sense of and never control. She felt suddenly and sharply that Po was smarter than she, worlds smarter, and that she was a brute in comparison. An unthinking and unfeeling brute.

  “Katsa.”

  She looked up. The flames danced in the silver and gold of his eyes and caught the hoops in his ears. His face was all light.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Whose idea was the Council?”

  “It was mine.”

  “And who has decided what missions the Council carries out?”

  “I have, ultimately.”

  “Who has planned each mission?”

  “I have, with Raffin and Oll and the others.”

  He watched his meat cooking over the fire. He turned it, and shook it absently, so the juice fell spitting into the flames. He raised his eyes to her again.

  “I don’t see how you can compare us,” he said, “and find yourself lacking in intelligence, or unthinking or unfeeling. I’ve had to spend my entire life hammering out the emotions of others, and myself, in my mind. If my mind is clearer, sometimes, than yours, it’s because I’ve had more practice. That’s the only difference between us.”

  He focused on his meat again. She watched him, listening.

  “I wish you would remember the Council,” he said. “I wish you would remember that when we met, you were rescuing my grandfather, for no other reason than that you didn’t believe he deserved to be kidnapped.”

  He leaned into the fire then and added another branch to the flames. They sat quietly, huddled in the light, surrounded by darkness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  IN THE MORNING, she woke before he did. She followed the dribble of water downstream, until she found a place where it formed something larger than a puddle but smaller than a pool. There she bathed as well as she could. She shivered, but she didn’t mind the coldness of air and water; it woke her completely. When she tried to untie her hair and untangle it she met with the usual frustration. She yanked and tugged, but her fingers could not find a way through the knots. She tied it back up. She dried herself as best she could, and dressed. When she walked back into the clearing, he was awake, tying his bags together.

  “Would you cut my hair off, if I asked you?”

  He looked up, eyebrows raised. “You’re not thinking of trying to disguise yourself?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it drives me mad, and I’ve never wanted it, and I’d be so much more comfortable if I could have it all off.”

  “Hmm.” He examined the great knot gathered at the nape of her neck. “It is rather wound together, like a bird’s nest,” he said, and at her glare, he laughed. “If you truly wanted me to, I could cut it off, but I don’t imagine you’d be particularly pleased with the result. Why don’t you wait until we’ve reached the inn and have the innkeeper’s wife do it, or one of the women in town?”

  Katsa sighed. “Very well. I can live with it for one more day.”

  Po disappeared down the path from which she’d come. She rolled up her blanket and began to carry their belongings to the horses.

  THE ROAD grew narrower as they continued south, and the forest grew thicker and darker. Po led, despite Katsa’s protests. He insisted that when she set the pace, they always started out reasonably, but without fail, before long they were racing along at breakneck speed. He was taking it upon himself to protect Katsa’s horse from its rider.

  “You say you’re thinking of the horse,” Katsa said, when they stopped once to water the horses at a stream that crossed the road. “But I think it’s just that you can’t keep up with me.”

  He laughed at that. “You’re trying to bait me, and it won’t work.”

  “By the way,” Katsa said, “it occurs to me that we haven’t practiced our fighting since I uncovered your deception and you agreed to stop lying to me.”

  “No, nor since you punched me in the jaw because you were angry with Randa.”

  She couldn’t hold back her smile. “Fine,” she said. “You’ll lead. But what about our practices? Don’t you want to continue them?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Tonight, perhaps, if it’s still light when we stop.”

  They rode quietly. Katsa’s mind wandered; and she found that when it wandered to anything to do with Po, she would check herself and proceed carefully. If she must think of him, then it would be nothing significant. He would gain nothing from his intrusions into her mind as they rode along this quiet forest path.

  It occurred to her how susceptible he must be to intrusions. What if he were working out some complicated problem in his mind, concentrating very hard, and a great crowd of people approached? Or even a single person, who saw him and thought his eyes strange or admired his rings or wanted to buy his horse. Did he lose his concentration when other people filtered into his mind? How aggravating that would be.

  And then she wondered: Could she get his attention, without saying a word? If she needed hi
s help or wanted to stop, could she call to him in his mind? It must be possible; if a person within his range wanted to communicate with him, he must know it.

  She looked at him, riding before her, his back straight and his arms steady; his white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, as always. She looked at the trees then, and at her horse’s ears, and at the ground before her. She cleared her mind of anything to do with Po. I’ll hunt down a goose for dinner, she thought. The leaves on these trees are just beginning to change color. The weather is so lovely and cool.

  And then, with all her might, she focused her attention on the back of Po’s head and screamed his name, inside her mind. He pulled on his reins so hard that his horse screeched and staggered and almost sat down. Her own horse nearly collided with his. And he looked so startled and flabbergasted—and irritated—that she couldn’t help it: She exploded with laughter.

  “What in the name of Lienid is wrong with you? Are you trying to scare me out of my wits? Is it not enough to ruin your own horse, but you must ruin mine as well?”

  She knew he was angry, but she couldn’t stop laughing. “Forgive me, Po. I was only trying to get your attention.”

  “And I suppose it never occurs to you to start small. If I told you my roof needed rebuilding, you’d start by knocking down the house.”

  “Oh, Po,” she said, “don’t be angry.” She stifled the laugh that rose into her throat. “Truly, Po, I had no idea it would startle you like that. I didn’t think I could startle you. I didn’t think your Grace allowed it.”

  She coughed, and forced her face into a mask of penitence, which wouldn’t have fooled even the most incompetent of mind readers. But she hadn’t meant it, truly she hadn’t, and he must know that. And finally his hard mouth softened, and a flicker of a smile played across his face.

  “Look at me,” he said, unnecessarily, for the smile had already trapped her. “Now, say my name, in your mind, as if you wanted to get my attention—quietly. As quietly as you would if you were speaking it aloud.”