Kristin Cashore

by Graceling

  Katsa didn’t think a person should thank her for not causing pain. Causing joy was worthy of thanks, and causing pain worthy of disgust. Causing neither was neither, it was nothing, and nothing didn’t warrant thanks.

  “You don’t owe me gratitude,” she said. “And I fear this won’t put an end to your troubles with Randa.”

  “Katsa.” It was Oll. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

  “What will Randa do to you?” Giddon asked.

  “Whatever he does,” Oll said, “we’ll support you.”

  “No,” Katsa said. “You won’t support me. I must be on my own in this. Randa must believe that you and Giddon tried to force me to follow his order, but couldn’t.” She wondered if she should injure them, to make it more convincing.

  “But we don’t want to perform this task any more than you do,” Giddon said. “It’s our talk that propelled you to make this choice. We can’t stand by and let you—”

  Katsa spoke deliberately. “If he knows you disobeyed him, he’ll imprison you or kill you. He can’t hurt me the way he can hurt you. I don’t think his entire guard could capture me. And if they did, at least I don’t have a holding that depends on me, as you do, Giddon. I don’t have a wife, as you do, Oll.”

  Giddon’s face was dark. He opened his mouth to speak, but Katsa cut through his words. “You two are no use if you’re in prison. Raffin needs you. Wherever I may be, I will need you.”

  Giddon tried to speak. “I won’t—”

  She would make him see this. She would cut through his obtuseness and make him see this. She slammed her hand on the desk so hard that papers cascaded onto the floor. “I’ll kill the king,” she said. “I’ll kill the king, unless you both agree not to support me. This is my rebellion, and mine alone, and if you don’t agree, I swear to you on my Grace I will murder the king.”

  She didn’t know if she would do it. But she knew she seemed wild enough for them to believe she would. She turned to Oll. “Say you agree.”

  Oll cleared his throat. “It will be as you say, My Lady.”

  She faced Giddon. “Giddon?”

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “Giddon—”

  “It will be as you say,” he said, his eyes on the floor and his face red and gloomy.

  Katsa turned to Ellis. “Lord Ellis, if Randa learns that Captain Oll or Lord Giddon agreed to this willingly, I’ll know that you spoke. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill your daughters. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, My Lady,” Ellis said. “And again, I thank you.”

  Something caught in her throat at this second thanks, when she’d threatened him so brutally. When you’re a monster, she thought, you are thanked and praised for not behaving like a monster. She would like to restrain from cruelty and receive no admiration for it.

  “And now in this room, with only ourselves present,” she said, “we’ll work out the details of what we’ll claim happened here today.”

  THEY ATE DINNER in Giddon’s dining room, in Giddon’s castle, just as they had the night before. Giddon had given her permission to cut his neck with her knife, and Oll had allowed her to bruise his cheekbone. She would have done it without their permission, for she knew Randa would expect evidence of a scuffle. But Oll and Giddon had seen the wisdom of it; or perhaps they’d guessed she would do it whether or not they agreed. They’d stood still, and bravely. She hadn’t enjoyed the task, but she’d caused them as little pain as her skill allowed.

  There was not much conversation at dinner. Katsa broke bread, chewed, and swallowed. She stared at the fork and knife in her hands. She stared at her silver goblet.

  “The Estillan lord,” she said. The men’s eyes jumped up from their plates. “The lord who took more lumber from Randa than he should have. You remember him?”

  They nodded.

  “I didn’t hurt him,” she said. “That is, I knocked him unconscious. But I didn’t injure him.” She put her knife and fork down, and looked from Giddon to Oll. “I couldn’t. He more than paid for his crime in gold. I couldn’t hurt him.”

  They watched her for a moment. Giddon’s eyes dropped to his plate. Oll cleared his throat. “Perhaps the Council work has put us in touch with our better natures,” he said.

  Katsa picked up her knife and fork, cut into her mutton, and thought about that. She knew her nature. She would recognize it if she came face-to-face with it. It would be a blue-eyed, green-eyed monster, wolflike and snarling. A vicious beast that struck out at friends in uncontrollable anger, a killer that offered itself as the vessel of the king’s fury.

  But then, it was a strange monster, for beneath its exterior it was frightened and sickened by its own violence. It chastised itself for its savagery. And sometimes it had no heart for violence and rebelled against it utterly.

  A monster that refused, sometimes, to behave like a monster. When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?

  Perhaps she wouldn’t recognize her own nature after all.

  There were too many questions, and too few answers, at this dinner table in Giddon’s castle. She would like to be traveling with Raffin, or Po, rather than Oll and Giddon; they would have answers, of one kind or another.

  She must guard against using her Grace in anger. This was where her nature’s struggle lay.

  ***

  AFTER DINNER, she went to Giddon’s archery range, hoping the thunk of arrows into a target would calm her mind. There, he found her.

  She had wanted to be by herself. But when Giddon stepped out of the shadows, tall and quiet, she wished they were in a great hall with hundreds of people. A party even, she in a dress and horrible shoes. A dance. Any place other than alone with Giddon, where no one would stumble upon them and no one would interrupt.

  “You’re shooting arrows at a target in the dark,” Giddon said.

  She lowered her bow. She supposed this was one of his criticisms. “Yes,” she said, for she could think of no other response.

  “Are you as good a shot in the dark as you are in the light?”

  “Yes,” she said, and he smiled, which made her nervous. If he was going to be pleasant, then she feared where this was heading; she would much prefer him to be arrogant and critical, and unpleasant, if they must be alone together.

  “There’s nothing you cannot do, Katsa.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  But he seemed determined not to argue. He smiled again and leaned against the wooden railing that separated her lane from the others. “What do you think will happen at Randa’s court tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Truly, I don’t know,” Katsa said. “Randa will be very angry.”

  “I don’t like that you’re protecting me from his anger, Katsa. I don’t like it at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Giddon, as I’m sorry for the cut on your neck. Shall we return to the castle?” She lifted the strap of the quiver over her head, and set it on the ground. He watched her, quietly, and a small panic began to stir in her chest.

  “You should let me protect you,” he said.

  “You can’t protect me from the king. It would be fatal to you, and a waste of your energies. Let’s go back to the castle.”

  “Marry me,” he said, “and our marriage will protect you.”

  Well then, he had said it, as Po had predicted, and it hit her like one of Po’s punches to the stomach. She didn’t know where to look; she couldn’t stand still. She put her hand to her head, she put it to the railing. She willed herself to think.

  “Our marriage wouldn’t protect me,” she said. “Randa wouldn’t pardon me simply because I married.”

  “But he would be more lenient,” Giddon said. “Our engagement would offer him an alternative. It would be dangerous for him to try to punish you, and he knows that. If we say we’re to be married, then he can send us away from court; he can send us here, and he’ll be out of your reach, and you out of his. And there will be
some pretense of good feeling between you.”

  And she would be married, and to Giddon. She would be his wife, the lady of his house. She’d be charged with entertaining his wretched guests. Expected to hire and dismiss his servants, based on their skill with a pastry, or some such nonsense. Expected to bear him children, and stay at home to love them. She would go to his bed at night, Giddon’s bed, and lie with a man who considered a scratch to her face an affront to his person. A man who thought himself her protector—her protector when she could outduel him if she used a toothpick to his sword.

  She breathed it away, breathed away the fury. He was a friend, and loyal to the Council. She wouldn’t speak what she thought. She would speak what Raffin had told her to speak.

  “Giddon,” she said. “Surely you’ve heard I don’t intend to marry.”

  “But would you refuse a suitable proposal? And you must admit, it seems a solution to your problem with the king.”

  “Giddon.” He stood before her, his face even, his eyes warm. So confident. He didn’t imagine she could refuse him. And perhaps that was forgivable, for perhaps no other woman would. “Giddon. You need a wife who will give you children. I’ve never wished children. You must marry a woman who wishes babies.”

  “You’re not an unnatural woman, Katsa. You can fight as other women can’t, but you’re not so different from other women. You’ll want babies. I’m certain of it.”

  She hadn’t expected to have such an immediate opportunity to practice containing her temper. For he deserved a thumping, to knock his certainty out of his head and onto the ground where it belonged. “I can’t marry you, Giddon. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s only to do with me. I won’t marry, not anyone, and I won’t bear any man children.”

  He stared at her then, and his face changed. She knew that look on Giddon’s face, the sarcastic curl of his lip and the glint in his eye. He was beginning to hear her.

  “I don’t think you’ve considered what you’re saying, Katsa. Do you expect ever to receive a more attractive proposal?”

  “It’s nothing to do with you, Giddon. It’s only to do with me.”

  “Do you imagine there are others who would form an interest in a lady killer?”

  “Giddon—”

  “You’re hoping the Lienid will ask for your hand.” He pointed at her, his face mocking. “You prefer him, for he’s a prince, and I’m only a lord.”

  Katsa threw her arms in the air. “Giddon, of all the preposterous—”

  “He won’t ask you,” Giddon said, “and if he did you’d be a fool to accept. He’s about as trustworthy as Murgon.”

  “Giddon, I assure you—”

  “Nor is he honorable,” Giddon said. “A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug.”

  She froze. She stared at Giddon and didn’t even see his finger jabbing in the air, his puffed-up face. Instead she saw Po, sitting on the floor of the practice room, using the exact words Giddon had just used. Before Giddon had used them.

  “Giddon. Have you spoken those words to Po?”

  “Katsa, I’ve never even had a conversation with him when you were not present.” “What about to anyone else? Have you spoken those words to anyone else?”

  “Of course not. If you think I waste my time—”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, I’m certain. What does it matter? If he asked me, I would not be afraid to tell him what I think.”

  She stared at Giddon, disbelieving, defenseless against the realization that trickled into her mind and clicked into place. She put her hand to her throat. She couldn’t catch her breath. She asked the question she felt she had to ask, and cringed against the answer she knew she would receive.

  “Have you had those thoughts before? Had you thought those things, while you were in his presence?”

  “That I don’t trust him? That he’s an opportunist and a thug? I think of it every time I look at him.”

  Giddon was practically spitting, but Katsa didn’t see. She bent her knees and set her bow on the ground, slowly, deliberately. She stood, and turned away from him. She walked, one step at a time. She breathed in and breathed out and stared straight ahead.

  “You’re afraid I’ll cause him offense,” Giddon yelled after her, “your precious Lienid prince. And perhaps I will tell him my opinion. Perhaps he’ll leave more quickly if I encourage him.”

  She didn’t listen, she didn’t hear. For there was too much noise inside her head. He had known Giddon’s thoughts. And he had known her own, she knew he had. When she’d been angry, when she’d thought highly of him. Other times, too. There must be other times, though her head screamed too much for her to think of them.

  She had thought him a fighter, just a fighter. And in her foolishness, she had thought him perceptive. Had even admired him for his perceptiveness.

  She, admire a mind reader.

  She had trusted him. She had trusted him, and she should not have. He had misrepresented himself, misrepresented his Grace. And that was the same as if he’d lied.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SHE BURST into Raffin’s workrooms, and he looked up from his work, startled. “Where is he?” she demanded, and then she stopped in her tracks, because he was there, right there, sitting at the edge of Raffin’s table, his jaw purple and his sleeves rolled up.

  “There’s something I must tell you, Katsa,” he said.

  “You’re a mind reader,” she said. “You’re a mind reader, and you lied to me.”

  Raffin swore shortly and jumped up. He ran to the door behind her and pushed it closed.

  Po’s face flushed, but he held her gaze. “I’m not a mind reader,” he said.

  “And I’m not a fool,” she yelled, “so stop lying to me. Tell me, what have you learned? What thoughts of mine have you stolen?”

  “I’m not a mind reader,” he said. “I sense people.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean? It’s people’s thoughts that you sense.”

  “No, Katsa. Listen. I sense people. Think of it as my night vision, Katsa, or the eyes in the back of my head you’ve accused me of having. I sense people when they’re near me, thinking and feeling and moving around, their bodies, their physical energy. It is only—” He swallowed. “It is only when they’re thinking about me that I also sense their thoughts.”

  “And that’s not mind reading?” She screamed it so loudly that he flinched, but still he held her gaze.

  “All right. It does involve some mind reading. But I can’t do what you think I can do.”

  “You lied to me,” she said. “I trusted you.”

  Raffin’s soft voice broke through her distress. “Let him explain, Katsa.”

  She turned to Raffin, incredulous, flabbergasted that he should know the truth and still take Po’s side. She whirled back on Po, who still dared to hold her eyes, as if he’d done nothing wrong, nothing completely and absolutely wrong.

  “Please, Katsa,” Po said. “Please hear me. I can’t sit and listen in to whatever thoughts I want. I don’t know what you think of Raffin, or what Raffin thinks of Bann, or whether Oll enjoys his dinner. You can be behind the door running in circles and thinking about how much you hate Randa, and all I’ll know is that you’re running in circles—until your thoughts turn to me. Only then do I know what you’re feeling.”

  This was what it felt like to be betrayed by a friend. No. By a traitor pretending to be a friend. Such a wonderful friend he’d seemed, so sympathetic, so understanding—and no wonder, if he’d always known her thoughts, always known her feelings. The perfect pretense of friendship.

  “No,” he said. “No. I have lied, Katsa, but my friendship has not been a pretense. I’ve always been your true friend.”

  Even now he was reading her mind. “Stop it,” she spat out. “Stop it. How dare you, you traitor, imposter, you…”

  She couldn’t find words strong enough. But his eyes dropped from hers now, mise
rably, and she saw that he felt her full meaning. She was cruelly glad his Grace communicated to him what she couldn’t verbalize. He slumped against the table, his face contorted with unhappiness. His voice, when he spoke, toneless.

  “Only two people have known this is my Grace: my mother and my grandfather. And now Raffin and you. My father doesn’t know, nor my brothers. My mother and my grandfather forbade me to tell anyone, the moment I revealed it to them as a child.”

  Well. She would take care of that problem. For Giddon was right, though he couldn’t have realized why. Po was not to be trusted. People must know, and she would tell everyone.

  “If you do,” Po said, “you’ll take away any freedom I have. You’ll ruin my life.”

  She looked at him then, but his image blurred behind tears that swelled into her eyes. She must leave. She must leave this room, because she wanted to hit him, as she had sworn she never would do. She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart that she wouldn’t have given him if she’d known the truth.

  “You lied to me,” she said.

  She turned and ran from the room.

  ***

  HELDA TOOK her damp eyes, and her silence, in stride.

  “I hope no one is ill, My Lady,” she said. She sat beside Katsa’s bath and worked soap through the knots in Katsa’s hair.

  “No one is ill.”

  “Then something has upset you,” Helda said. “It’ll be one of your young men.”

  One of her young men. One of her friends. Her list of friends was dwindling, from few to fewer. “I’ve disobeyed the king,” she said. “He’ll be very angry with me.”

  “Yes?” Helda said. “But that doesn’t account for the pain in your eyes. That will be the doing of one of your young men.”

  Katsa said nothing. Everyone in this castle was a mind reader. Everyone could see through her, and she saw nothing.

  “If the king is angry with you,” Helda said, “and if you’re having trouble with one of your young men, then we’ll make you especially beautiful for the evening. You’ll wear your red dress.”

  Katsa almost laughed at that bit of Helda logic, but the laugh got caught in her throat. She would leave the court after this night. For she didn’t want to be here any longer, with her uncle’s fury, Giddon’s sarcastic, hurt pride, and, most of all, Po’s betrayal.