Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(23)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Katsa smiled up at him then, for he sounded as she imagined a mother would sound if her child were leaving forever. “Po’s a prince of Lienid,”

she said. “Why do you think he rides such a big horse, if not to carry his bags of gold?”

Raffin’s eyes laughed down at her. “Take this.” He closed her hands over a small satchel. “It’s a bag of medicines, in case you should need them. I’ve marked them so you’l know what each is for.”

Po came forward then and held his hand out to Bann. “Thank you for all you’ve done.” He took Raffin’s hand.

“You’l take care of my grandfather in my absence?”

“He’l be safe with us,” Raffin said.

Po swung onto the back of his horse, and Katsa took Bann’s hands and squeezed them. And then she stood before Raffin and looked up into his face.

“Wel ,” Raffin said. “You’l 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 spil onto her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.

“Wel ,” 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 col ar 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 fol ow 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 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 Lienid searched for his missing grandfather, and it would now be supposed that the 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 fal en 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 final y, when they had sat and chewed in silence for a number of minutes, “you’l get used to me, in time. We’l 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 El is fel ow; 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 thril ing 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 swal owed. 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 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’l go to the inn.”

“Yes,” Po said. “We’l go to the inn.”

The forest road narrowed again and grew quieter once they left Murgon City behind. They stopped before night fel .

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’l 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.