Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(16)
Author: Kristin Cashore

He raised his cup to his lips and drank, then lowered it, watching her. “What will he ask you to do this time?”

She pushed the fire down that rose up from her stomach. She wondered what would happen if she slammed her plate on the ground, how many pieces it would break into.

“It’l be some lord who owes him money,” she said, “or who refused to agree to some bargain, or who looked at him wrong. I’ll be told to hurt the man, enough so that he never dishonors my uncle again.”

“And you’l do what he tell s you to do?”

“Who are these fools who continue to resist Randa’s will ? Haven’t they heard the stories? Don’t they know he’l send me?”

“Isn’t it in your power to refuse?” Po asked. “How can anyone force you to do anything?”

The fire burst into her throat and choked her. “He is the king. And you’re a fool, too, if you think I have choice in the matter.”

“But you do have choice. He’s not the one who makes you savage. You make yourself savage, when you bend yourself to his will .”

She sprang to her feet and swung at his jaw with the side of her hand. She lessened the force of the blow only at the last instant, when she realized he hadn’t raised his arm to block her. Her hand hit his face with a sickening crack. She watched, horrified, as his chair toppled backward and his head slammed against the floor. She’d hit him hard. She knew she’d hit him hard. And he hadn’t defended himself.

She ran to him. He lay on his side, both hands over his jaw A tear trickled from his eye, over his fingers, and onto the floor. He grunted, or sobbed – she didn’t know which. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Did I break your jaw? Can you speak?”

He shifted then, pushed himself up to a sitting position. He felt at the side of his jaw and opened and closed his mouth. He moved his jaw left and right.

“I don’t think it’s broken.” His voice was a whisper.

She put her hand to his face and felt the bones under his skin. She felt the other side of his face to compare. She could tell no difference, and she caught her breath with relief.

“It’s not broken,” he said, “though it seems it should be.”

“I pulled back,” she said, “when I realized you weren’t fighting me.” She reached up to the table and dipped her hands into the water pitcher.

She scooped blocks of ice onto a cloth and wrapped them up. She brought the ice to his jaw. “Why didn’t you fight back?”

He held the ice to his face and groaned. “This’l hurt for days.”

“Po…”

He looked at her, and sighed. “I told you before, Katsa. I won’t fight when you’re angry. I won’t solve a disagreement between us with blows.”

He lifted the ice and fingered his jaw. He moaned, and held the ice to his face again. “What we do in the practice rooms – that’s to help each other.

We don’t use it against each other. We’re friends, Katsa.”

Shame pricked behind her eyes. It was so elemental, so obvious. It wasn’t what one friend did to another, yet she’d done it.

“We’re too dangerous to each other, Katsa. And even if we weren’t, it’s not right.”

“I’ll never do it again,” she said. “I swear to it.”

He caught her eyes then, and held them. “I know you won’t. Katsa. Wildcat. Don’t blame yourself. You expected me to fight back. You wouldn’t have struck me otherwise.”

But stillshe should have known better. “It wasn’t even you who angered me. It was him.”

Po considered her for a moment. “What do you think would happen,” he said, “if you refused to do what Randa ordered?”

She didn’t know, really. She only imagined him sneering at her, his words crackling with contempt. “If I don’t do what he says, he’l become angry. When he becomes angry, I’ll become angry. And then I’ll want to kill him.”

“Hmm.” He worked his mouth back and forth. “You’re afraid of your own anger.”

She stopped then and looked at him, because that seemed right to her. She was afraid of her own anger.

“But Randa isn’t even worth your anger,” Po said. “He’s no more than a bul y.”

Katsa snorted. “A bul y who chops off people’s fingers or breaks their arms.”

“Not if you stop doing it for him,” Po said. “Much of his power comes from you.”

She was afraid of her own anger: She repeated it in her mind. She was afraid of what she would do to the king – and with good reason. Look at Po, his jaw red and beginning to swel . She’d learned to control her skil , but she hadn’t learned to control her anger. And that meant she stil didn’t control her Grace.

“Should we move back to the table?” he said, for they were stillsitting on the floor.

“You should probably go see Raff,” she said, “just to be sure nothing’s broken.” Her eyes dropped. “Forgive me, Po.”

Po heaved himself to his feet. He reached for her hand and pulled her up. “You’re forgiven, Lady.”

She shook her head, disbelieving his kindness. “You Lienid are so odd; your reactions are never what mine would be. You, so calm, when I’ve hurt you so badly. Your father’s sister, so strange in her grief ”

Po narrowed his eyes then. “What do you mean?”

“About what? Isn’t the Queen of Monsea your father’s sister?”

“What’s she done, my father’s sister?”

“The word is, she stopped eating when she heard of your grandfather’s disappearance. You didn’t know? And then she closed herself and her child into her rooms. And wouldn’t let anyone enter, not even the king.”

“She wouldn’t let the king enter,” he repeated, puzzlement in his voice.

“Nor anyone else,” Katsa said, “except a handmaiden to bring them meals.”

“Why did no one tell me about this before?”

“I assumed you knew, Po. I’d no idea it would matter so much to you. Are you close to her?”

Po stared at the table, at the mess of melting ice and their half-eaten meal. His mind was elsewhere, his brow furrowed.

“Po, what is it?”

He shook his head. “It’s not how I would’ve expected Ashen to behave,” he said. “But it’s no matter. I must find Raffin, or Bann.”

She watched his face then. “There’s something you’re not tell ing me.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “How long will you be away on Randa’s errand?”

“It’s not likely to be more than a few days.”

“When you return, I must speak with you.”

“Why don’t you speak with me now?”

He shook his head. “I need to think. I need to work something out.”

Why were his eyes so uneasy? Why was he looking at the table and the floor, but never into her face?

It was concern, for his father’s sister. It was worry for the people he cared about. For that was his way, this Lienid.

His friendship was true.

He looked at her then. The small est of smiles flickered across his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t feel too kindly toward me, Katsa.

Neither of us is blameless as a friend.”

He left her then, to find Raffin. She stood and stared at the place where he’d just been. And tried to shake off the eerie sense that he had just answered something she’d thought, rather than something she’d said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Not that it was the first time he’d left her with that feeling. Po had a way about him. He knew her opinions, sometimes, before she expressed them. He looked at her from across a table and knew she was angry, and why; or that she’d decided he was handsome.

Raffin had told her she wasn’t perceptive. Po was perceptive. And talkative. Perhaps that was why they got along so well . She didn’t have to explain herself to Po, and he explained himself to her without her having to ask. She’d never known a person with whom she could communicate so freely – so unused was she to the phenomenon of friendship.

She mused about this as the horses carried them west, until the hil s began to even out and give way to great grassy flatlands, and the pleasure of smooth, hard riding distracted her. Giddon was in good humor, for this was his country.

They would visit his estate on their way to one just beyond his. They would sleep in his castle, first on their outward journey and then again on their return. Giddon rode eagerly and fast, and though Katsa didn’t relish his company, for once she couldn’t complain of their pace.

“It’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?” Oll said, when they stopped at midday to rest. “For the king to have asked you to punish your neighbor?”

“It is awkward,” Giddon said. “Lord El is is a good neighbor. I can’t imagine what has possessed him to create this trouble with Randa.”

“Wel , he’s protecting his daughters,” Oll said. “No man can fault him for that. It’s El is’s bad luck that it puts him at odds with the king.”

Randa had made a deal with a Nanderan underlord. The underlord couldn’t attract a wife, because his holding was in the south-central region of Nander, directly in the path of Westeran and Estil an raiding parties. It was a dangerous place, especial y for a woman. And it was a desolate holding, without even sufficient servants, for the raiders had killed and stolen so many. The underlord was desperate for a wife, so desperate that he was will ing to forgo her dowry. King Randa had offered to take the trouble to find him a bride, on the condition that her dowry went to Randa.

Lord El is had two daughters of marriageable age. Two daughters, and two very great dowries. Randa had ordered El is to choose which daughter he would prefer to send as a bride to Nander. “Choose the daughter who is stronger in spirit,” Randa had written, “for it is not a match for the weak-hearted.”

Lord El is had refused to choose either daughter. “Both of my daughters are strong in spirit,” he wrote to the king, “but I will send neither to the wastelands of Nander. The king has greater power than any, but I do not think he has the power to force an unsuitable marriage for his own convenience.”

Katsa had gasped when Raffin told her what Lord El is said in his letter. He was a brave man, as brave as any Randa had come up against.

Randa wanted Giddon to talk to El is, and if talk didn’t work, he wanted Katsa to hurt El is – in the presence of his daughters, so that one of them would step forward and offer herself to the marriage to protect her father. Randa expected them to return to his court with one or the other of the daughters, and her dowry.