Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(50)
Author: Kristin Cashore

“Bring them in,” the voice said, “and let me see this gold.” They followed Jem into a well -lit room that reminded Katsa of one of Raffin’s workrooms, always cluttered with open books, bottles of oddly colored liquids, herbs drying from hooks, and strange experiments Katsa didn’t understand. Except here, the books were replaced by maps and charts, the bottles by instruments of copper and gold Katsa didn’t recognize, the herbs by ropes, cords, hooks, nets – items Katsa knew belonged on ships but didn’t know the purpose of any more than she knew the purpose of Raffin’s experiments. A narrow bed stood in one corner, a chest at its foot. This, too, was like Raffin’s workrooms, for sometimes he slept there, in a bed he’d instal ed for those nights when his mind was more on his work than his comfort.

The captain stood before a table, a sailor almost as big as Bear at her side, a map spread out before them. She was a woman past childbearing years, her hair steel gray and pulled tightly into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her clothing like that of the other sailors: brown trousers, brown coat, heavy boots, and a knife at her belt. Her left eye pale gray, and her right a blue as bril iant as Katsa’s blue eye. Her face stern, and her gaze, as she turned to the two strangers, quick and piercing. Katsa felt for the first time, in this bright room with this woman’s bright eyes flashing over them, that their disguises had come to the end of their usefulness.

Jem dropped Katsa’s coins into the captain’s outstretched hand. “There’s plenty more of it, too, Captain, in this purse.”

The captain considered the gold in her hand. She raised narrowed eyes to Katsa and Bitterblue. “Where did you get this?”

“We’re friends of Prince Greening of Lienid,” Katsa said. “It’s his gold.”

The big sailor beside the captain snorted. “Friends of Prince Po,” he said. “Of course they are.”

“If you’ve stolen from our prince – ” Jem began, but Captain Faun held up a hand. She looked at Katsa so hard that Katsa felt as if the woman’s gaze were scraping at the back of her skull . She looked at Katsa’s coat, at her belt, at her trousers, her boots, and Katsa felt nak*d before the intel igence of those uneven eyes.

“You expect me to believe that Prince Po gave a purse of gold to two raggedy Sunderan boys?” the captain finally asked.

“I think you know we’re not Sunderan boys,” Katsa said, reaching into the neck of her coat. “He gave me his ring so you may know to trust us.”

She pulled the cord over her head. She held the ring out for the captain to see. She registered the woman’s shocked expression, and then the outraged cries of Jem and Bear alerted her to the room’s sudden descent into bedlam. They were lunging toward her, both of them, Jem brandishing his knife, Bear swinging his sword; and the sailor beside the captain had also pulled a blade.

Po could have mentioned that at the sight of his ring his people devolved into madness; but she would act now and contemplate her annoyance later. She swirled Bitterblue into the corner so that her own body was between the child and everyone else in the room. She turned back and blocked Jem’s knife arm so hard that he cried out and dropped the blade to the floor. She knocked his feet out from under him, dodged the swing of Bear’s sword, and swung her boot up to clock Bear on the head. By the time Bear’s body had crumpled to the ground, Katsa held Jem’s own knife to Jem’s throat. Hooking her foot under Bear’s sword and kicking it up into the air, she caught it with her free hand and held it out toward the remaining sailor, who stood just out of her range, knife drawn, ready to spring. The ring stilldangled from its cord, gripped in the same hand that gripped the sword, and it was the ring that held the gaze of the captain.

“Stop,” Katsa said to the remaining sailor. “I don’t wish to harm you, and we’re not thieves.”

“Prince Po would never give that ring to a Sunderan urchin,” Jem gasped.

“And you do your prince little honor,” Katsa said, digging her knee into his back, “if you think a Sunderan urchin could’ve robbed him.”

“Al right,” the captain said. “That’s more than enough. Drop those blades, Lady, and release my man.”

“If this other fel ow comes toward me,” Katsa said, pointing the sword at the remaining sailor, “he’l end up sleeping beside Bear.”

“Come back, Patch,” the captain said to her man, “and lower that knife. Do it,” she said sharply, when Patch hesitated. The expression he shot at Katsa was ugly, but he obeyed.

Katsa dropped her blades to the floor. Jem stood, rubbed his neck, and focused a scowl in her direction. Katsa thought of a few choice words she would like to say to Po. She looped his ring back around her neck.

“What exactly have you done to Bear?” the captain asked. “He’l wake soon enough.”

“He’d better.”

“He will .”

“And now you’l explain yourself,” the captain said. “The last we heard of our prince, he was in the Middluns, at the court of King Randa. Training with you, if I’m not mistaken.”

A noise came from the corner. They turned to see Bitterblue on her knees, huddled against the wall, vomiting onto the floor. Katsa went to the girl and helped her to her feet. Bitterblue clung to her clumsily. “The floor is moving.”

“Yes,” Katsa said. “You’l get used to it.”

“When? When will I get used to it?”

“Come, child.”

Katsa practical y carried Bitterblue back to the captain. “Captain Faun,” she said, “this is Princess Bitterblue of Monsea. Po’s cousin. As you’ve guessed, I’m Katsa of the Middluns.”

“I would also guess there’s nothing wrong with that eye,” the captain said.

Katsa pulled the cloth away from her green eye. She looked into the face of the captain, who met her gaze cool y.

She turned to Patch and Jem, who looked back at her, understanding now, eyebrows high. So familiar, in the features of their faces, their dark hair, the gold in their ears. The evenness with which they looked into her eyes.

Katsa turned back to the captain. “The princess is in great danger,” she said. “I’m taking her to Lienid to hide her from… from those who wish to harm her. Po said you would help us when I showed you his ring. But if you won’t, I’ll do everything in the power of my Grace to force your assistance.”

The captain stared at her, eyes narrowed and face hard to read. “Let me see that ring more closely.”

Katsa stepped forward. She wouldn’t remove the ring from its place around her neck again, not when the sight of it inspired such madness. But the captain didn’t fear her, and she reached out to Katsa’s throat to take the gold circle in her fingers. She turned it this way and that in the light. She dropped the ring and narrowed her eyes at Bitterblue. She turned back to Katsa.

“Where is our prince?” she asked.

Katsa deliberated and decided that she must give this woman pieces, at least, of the truth. “Some distance from here, recovering from injury.”

“Is he dying?”

“No,” Katsa said, startled. “Of course not.”

The captain peered at her, and frowned. “Then why did he give you his ring?”

“I told you. He gave it to me so that a Lienid ship would help us.”

“Nonsense. If that’s all he wanted, then why didn’t he give you the king’s ring, or the queen’s?”

“I don’t know,” Katsa said. “I don’t know the meanings of the rings, aside from which people they represent. This is the one he chose to give me.”

The captain humph ed. Katsa clenched her teeth and prepared herself to say something very caustic, but Bitterblue’s voice stopped her.

“Po did give the ring to Katsa,” she said miserably. Her voice was thick, her body hunched over itself. “Po meant for her to have it. And as he didn’t explain what it meant, you should explain for him. Right now.”

The captain considered Bitterblue. Bitterblue raised her chin, grim and stubborn. The captain sighed. “It’s very rare for a Lienid to give away one of his rings, and almost unheard of for him to give away the ring of his own identity. To give that ring is to forsake his own identity. Princess Bitterblue, your lady has around her neck the ring of the Seventh Prince of Lienid. If Prince Po had truly given her that ring, it would mean that he’d abdicated his princehood. He’d no longer be a prince of Lienid. He’d make her a princess and give her his castle and his inheritance.”

Katsa stared. She pulled at a chair and sat down hard. “That can’t be.”

“Not one in a thousand Lienid gives that ring away,” the captain said. “Most wear it to their graves in the sea. But occasional y – if a woman is dying and wants a sister to take her place as the mother of her children, or if a dying shopkeeper wants his shop to go to a friend, or if a prince is dying and wants to change the line of succession – a Lienid will make a gift of that ring.” The captain turned to glare at Katsa. “The Lienid love their princes, most especial y the youngest prince, the prince. To steal Prince Po’s ring would be considered a terrible crime.”

But Katsa was shaking her head, from confusion that Po should have done such a thing, and from fear of the word the captain kept saying over and over. Dying. Po wasn’t dying. “I don’t want it,” she said. “That he should give me this, and not explain – ”

Bitterblue leaned against the table, her face gray, and moaned. “Katsa, don’t worry. You can be sure he had some reason.”

“But what reason would he have? His injuries weren’t so bad – ”

“Katsa.” The child’s voice was patient but tired. “Think. He gave you the ring before he was injured. It wasn’t such a strange thing for him to do, knowing he might die in the fight.”

Katsa saw then what it meant; and her hand went to her throat. It was just like him. And now she was fighting back tears because it was just the sort of mad thing he would get it into his mind to do – mad and foolish, far too kind, and unnecessary, because he wasn’t going to die. “Why in the Middluns didn’t he tell me?”

“If he had,” Bitterblue said, “you wouldn’t have taken it.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t have taken it. Can you see me taking such a thing from Po? Can you see me agreeing to such a thing? And he’s right to have given it, because he is going to die, because I’m going to kill him when next I see him, for doing such a thing and frightening me and not tell ing me what it meant.”