Kristin Cashore

by Graceling

  She waited a moment, and then she thought it. Po.

  He nodded. “That’s all it takes.”

  “Well. That was easy.”

  “And you’ll notice it caused no abuse to the horse.”

  “Very funny. Can we practice, while we’re riding?”

  And for the rest of the day she called to him on occasion, in her mind. Every time, he raised his hand, to show that he’d heard. Even when she whispered. So then she decided to stop calling to him, for it was clear that it worked, and she didn’t want to badger him. He looked back at her then and nodded, and she knew that he had understood her. And she rode behind him with her eyes wide and tried to make some sense of their having had an entire conversation, of sorts, without saying a word.

  THEY MADE CAMP beside a pond, surrounded by great Sunderan trees. As they unhooked their bags from the horses, Katsa was sure she saw a goose through the reeds, waddling around on the opposite shore. Po squinted.

  “It does appear to be a goose,” he said, “and I wouldn’t mind a drumstick for dinner.”

  So Katsa set out, approaching the creature quietly. It didn’t notice her. She decided to walk right up to it and break its neck, as the kitchen women did in the chicken houses of the castle. But as she snuck forward, the goose heard her and began to squawk and run for the water. She ran after the bird, and it spread its massive wings and took to the air. She leaped and wrapped her arms around its middle. She brought it down, straight into the pond, surprised by its size. And now she was wrestling in the water with an enormous, flapping, biting, splashing, kicking goose—but only for a moment. For her hands were around its neck, and its neck was snapped, before it could close its sharp beak around any part of her body.

  She turned to the shore then, and was surprised to find Po standing there, gaping. She stood in the pond, the water streaming from her hair and clothing, and held the huge bird up by the neck for him to see. “I got it,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment, his chest rising and falling, for he had run, apparently, at the sight of the underwater struggle. He rubbed his temples. “Katsa. What in Lienid are you doing?”

  “What do you mean? I’ve caught us a goose.”

  “Why didn’t you use your knife? You’re standing in the pond. You’re soaked through.”

  “It’s only water,” she said. “It was time I washed my clothing anyway.”

  “Katsa—”

  “I wanted to see if I could do it,” she said. “What if I’m ever traveling without weapons and I need to eat? It’s good to know how to catch a goose without weapons.”

  “You could’ve stood at our camp and shot it, across the pond, if you wanted. I’ve seen your aim.”

  “But now I know I can do this,” she said, simply.

  He shook his head and held out a hand. “Come out of there, before you catch a chill. And give me that. I’ll pluck it while you change into dry clothing.”

  “I never catch a chill,” she said as she waded to shore.

  He laughed then. “Oh, Katsa. I’m sure you don’t.” He took the goose from her hands. “Do you still have a fight in you? We can practice while your goose is cooking.”

  FIGHTING HIM was different, now that she knew his true advantages. It was a waste of her energy, she realized, to fake a blow. She could have no mental advantage over him; no amount of cleverness would serve her. Her only advantages were her speed and her ferocity. And now that she knew this, it became easy enough to adjust her strategy. She didn’t waste time being creative. She only pummeled him as fast and as hard as she could. He might know where she aimed her next blow, but after a barrage of hits he simply couldn’t keep up with her anymore; he couldn’t move fast enough to block her. They struggled and wrestled as the light faded and the night moved in. Over and over again he surrendered and heaved himself back up to his feet, laughing and moaning.

  “This is good practice for me,” he said, “but I can’t see what you have to gain from it. Other than the satisfaction of beating me to a pulp.”

  “We’ll have to come up with some new drills,” she said. “Something to challenge both of our Graces.”

  “Keep fighting me once the sky is dark. You’ll find us more evenly matched then.”

  It was true. The night sky closed in around them, a black sky with no moon and no stars. Eventually Katsa could no longer see, could only make out his vaguest outline. Her blows, as she threw them, were approximate. He knew she couldn’t see, and moved in ways that would confuse her. His defense became stronger. And his own strikes hit her squarely.

  She stopped him. “It’s that exact, your sense of my hands and feet?”

  “Hands and feet, fingers and toes,” he said. “You’re so physical, Katsa. You’ve so much physical energy. I sense it constantly. Even your emotions seem physical sometimes.”

  She squinted at him and considered. “Could you fight a person blindfolded?”

  “I never have—I could never have tried it, of course, without arousing suspicion. But yes, I could, though it would be easier on flat ground. My sense of the forest floor is too inconsistent.”

  She stared at him, a black shape against a blacker sky. “Wonderful,” she said. “It’s wonderful. I envy you. We must fight more often at night.”

  He laughed. “I won’t complain. It’d be nice to be on the offensive every once in a while.”

  They fought just a bit longer, until they both tripped over a fallen branch, and Po landed on his back, half submerged in the pond. He came up spluttering.

  “I think we’ve done enough barreling around in the dark,” he said. “Shall we check on your goose?”

  THE GOOSE sizzled over the fire. Katsa poked at it with her knife, and the meat fell away from the bone. “It’s perfect,” she said. “I’ll cut you your drumstick.” She glanced up at him, and in that moment he pulled his wet shirt over his head. She forced her mind blank. Blank as a new sheet of paper, blank as a starless sky. He came to the fire and crouched before it. He rubbed the water from his bare arms and flicked it into the flames. She stared at the goose and sliced his drumstick carefully and thought of the blankest expression on the blankest face she could possibly imagine. It was a chilly evening; she thought about that. The goose would be delicious, they must eat as much of it as possible, they must not waste it; she thought about that.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” she said to him. “I don’t want this goose to go to waste.”

  “I’m ravenous.”

  He was going to sit there shirtless, apparently, until the fire dried him. A mark on his arm caught her eye, and she took a breath and imagined a blank book full of page after empty page. But then a similar mark on his other arm drew her attention, and her curiosity got the better of her. She couldn’t help herself; she squinted at his arms. And it was all right, this was acceptable. For there was nothing wrong with being curious about the marks that seemed to be painted onto his skin. Dark, thick bands, like a ribbon wrapped around each arm, in the place where the muscles of his shoulder ended and the muscles of his arm began. The bands, one circling each arm, were decorated with intricate designs that she thought might be a number of different colors. It was hard to tell in the firelight.

  “It’s a Lienid ornamentation,” he said, “like the rings in my ears.”

  “But what is it?” she asked. “Is it paint?”

  “It’s a kind of dye.”

  “And it doesn’t wash away?”

  “Not for many years.”

  He reached into one of his bags and pulled out a dry shirt. He slipped it down over his head, and Katsa thought of a great blank field of snow and breathed a small sigh of relief. She handed him his drumstick.

  “The Lienid people are fond of decoration,” he said.

  “Do the women wear the markings?”

  “No, only the men.”

  “Do the people?”

  “Yes.”

  “But no one ever sees it,” Katsa said. “Lienid clothing doesn�
�t show a man’s upper arms, does it?”

  “No,” Po said. “It doesn’t. It’s a decoration hardly anyone sees.”

  She caught a smile in his eyes that flashed at her in the light.

  “What? What are you grinning about?”

  “It’s meant to be attractive to my wife,” he said.

  Katsa nearly dropped her knife into the fire. “You have a wife?”

  “Great seas, no! Honestly, Katsa. Don’t you think I would have mentioned her?”

  He was laughing now, and she snorted. “I never know what you’ll choose to mention about yourself, Po.”

  “It’s meant for the eyes of the wife I’m supposed to have,” he said.

  “Whom will you marry?”

  He shrugged. “I hadn’t pictured myself marrying anyone.”

  She moved to his side of the fire and sliced the other drumstick for herself. She went back and sat down. “Aren’t you concerned about your castle and your land? About producing heirs?”

  He shrugged again. “Not enough to attach me to a person I don’t wish to be attached to. I’m content enough on my own.”

  Katsa was surprised. “I had thought of you as more of a—social creature, when you’re in your own land.”

  “When I’m in Lienid I do a decent job of folding myself into normal society, when I must. But it’s an act, Katsa; it’s always an act. It’s a strain to hide my Grace, especially from my family. When I’m in my father’s city there’s a part of me that’s simply waiting until I can travel again. Or return to my own castle, where I’m left alone.”

  This she could understand perfectly. “I suppose if you married, it could only be to a woman trustworthy enough to know the truth of your Grace.”

  He barked out a short laugh. “Yes. The woman I married would have to meet a number of rather impossible requirements.” He threw the bone from his drumstick into the fire and cut another piece of meat from the goose. He blew on the meat, to cool it. “And what of you, Katsa? You’ve broken Giddon’s heart with your departure, haven’t you?”

  His very name filled her with impatience. “Giddon. And can you really not see why I wouldn’t wish to marry him?”

  “I can see a thousand reasons why you wouldn’t wish to marry him. But I don’t know which is your reason.”

  “Even if I wished to marry, I wouldn’t marry Giddon,” Katsa said. “But I won’t marry, not anyone. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard that rumor. You were at Randa’s court long enough.”

  “Oh, I heard it. But I also heard you were some kind of feckless thug and that Randa had you under his thumb. Neither of which turned out to be true.”

  She smiled then and threw her own bone into the fire. One of the horses whickered. Some small creature slipped into the pond, the water closing around it with a gulp. She suddenly felt warm and content, and full of good food.

  “Raffin and I talked once about marrying,” she said. “For he’s not wild about the idea of marrying some noblewoman who thinks only of being rich or being queen. And of course, he must marry someone, he has no choice in the matter. And to marry me would be an easy solution. We get along, I wouldn’t try to keep him from his experiments. He wouldn’t expect me to entertain his guests, he wouldn’t keep me from the Council.” She thought of Raffin bending over his books and his flasks. He was probably working on some experiment right now, with Bann at his side. By the time she returned to court, perhaps he would be married to some lady or another. He married, and she not there for him to come to and talk of it; she not there to tell him her thoughts, if he wished to hear them, as he always did.

  “In the end,” she said, “it was out of the question. We laughed about it, for I couldn’t even begin to consider it seriously. I wouldn’t ever consent to be queen. And Raffin will require children, which I’d also never consent to. And I won’t be so tied to another person. Not even Raffin.” She squinted into the fire, and sighed over her cousin whose responsibilities were so heavy. “I hope he’ll fall in love with some woman who’ll make a happy queen and mother. That would be the best thing for him. Some woman who wants a whole roost of children.”

  Po tilted his head at her. “Do you dislike children?”

  “I’ve never disliked the children I’ve met. I’ve just never wanted them. I haven’t wanted to mother them. I can’t explain it.”

  She remembered Giddon then, who had assured her that this would change. As if he knew her heart, as if he had the slightest understanding of her heart. She threw another bone into the fire and hacked another piece of meat from the goose. She felt Po’s eyes, and looked up at him, scowling.

  “Why are you glaring at me,” he asked, “when for all I can tell, you’re not angry with me?”

  She smiled. “I was only thinking Giddon would have found me a very vexing wife. I wonder if he would’ve understood when I planted a patch of seabane in the gardens. Or perhaps he would’ve thought me charmingly domestic.”

  Po looked puzzled. “What’s seabane?”

  “I don’t know if you have another name for it in Lienid. It’s a small purple flower. A woman who eats its leaves will not bear a child.”

  THEY WRAPPED themselves in their blankets and lay before the dying fire. Po yawned a great, deep yawn, but Katsa wasn’t tired. A question occurred to her. But she didn’t want to wake him, if he was falling asleep.

  “What is it, Katsa? I’m awake.”

  She didn’t know if she would ever get used to that.

  “I was wondering whether I could wake you,” she said, “by calling to you inside your mind when you’re sleeping.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t sense things while I’m sleeping, but if I’m in danger or if someone approaches, I always wake. You may try it”—he yawned again—”if you must.”

  “I’ll try it another night,” she said, “when you’re less tired.”

  “Aren’t you ever tired, Katsa?”

  “I’m sure I am,” she said, though she couldn’t bring a specific example to mind.

  “Do you know the story of King Leck of Monsea?”

  “I didn’t know there was a story.”

  “There is,” Po said, “a story from ages ago, and you should know it if we’re to travel to his kingdom. I’ll tell it to you, and perhaps you’ll feel more tired.”

  He rolled onto his back. She lay on her side and watched the line of his profile in the light of the dying fire.

  “The last King and Queen of Monsea were kind people. Not particularly great state minds,” he said, “but they had good advisers, and they were kinder to their people than most today could even imagine, for a king and queen. But they were childless. It wasn’t a good thing, Katsa, as it would be for you. They wanted a child desperately, so that they might have an heir—but also just because they wanted one, as I suppose most people do. And then one day, a boy came to their court. A handsome boy of about thirteen years, clever-looking, with a patch over one eye, for he’d lost an eye when he was younger. He didn’t say where he came from, or who his parents were, or what had happened to his eye. He only came to court begging and telling stories in return for food and money.

  “The servants took him in, for he told such wonderful stories—wild stories about a place beyond the seven kingdoms, where monsters come out of the sea and air, and armies burst out of holes in the mountains, and the people are different from anyone we’ve ever known. Eventually the king and queen learned of him and he was brought before them to tell his stories. The boy charmed them completely—charmed them from the first day. They pitied him, for his poverty and loneliness and his missing eye. They began to bring him into their presence for meals, or ask for him when they’d returned from long journeys, or call him to their rooms in the evenings. They treated him like a noble boy; he was educated, and taught to fight and ride. They treated him almost as if he were their own son. And when the boy was sixteen and the king and queen still didn’t have a child of their own, the king did something extraordinary. He
named the boy his heir.”

  “Even though they knew nothing of his past?”

  “Even though they knew nothing of his past. And this is where the story truly becomes interesting, Katsa. For not a week after the king had named the boy his heir, the king and queen died of a sudden sickness. And their two closest advisers fell into despair and threw themselves into the river. Or so the story goes. I don’t know that there were any witnesses.”

  Katsa propped herself on her elbow and stared at him.

  “Do you think that strange?” he asked. “I’ve always thought it strange. But the Monsean people never questioned it, and all in my family who’ve met Leck tell me I’m foolish to wonder. They say Leck is utterly charming, even his eyepatch is charming. They say he grieved for the king and queen terribly and couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with their deaths.”

  “I’ve never known this story,” Katsa said. “I didn’t even know Leck was missing an eye. Have you met him?”

  “I haven’t,” Po said. “But I’ve always had a feeling I wouldn’t take to him as others have. Despite his great reputation for kindness to the small and the powerless.” He yawned and turned onto his side. “Well, and I suppose we’ll both learn soon enough whether we take to him, if things go as I expect. Good night to you, Katsa. We may reach the inn tomorrow.”

  Katsa closed her eyes and listened to his breath grow steady and even. She considered the tale he’d told. It was hard to reconcile King Leck’s pleasant reputation with this story. Still, perhaps he was innocent. Perhaps there was some logical explanation.

  She wondered what reception they would receive at the inn, and whether they’d be lucky enough to cross paths with someone who held the information they sought. She listened to the sounds of the pond and the breeze in the grasses.

  When she thought Po had fallen asleep, she said his name aloud once, quietly. He didn’t stir. She thought his name once, quietly, like a whisper in her mind. Again, he didn’t stir, and his breathing didn’t change.