Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(42)
Author: Kristin Cashore

Bitterblue watched Katsa’s face for a moment. Then she watched Po, who stared into the fire.

“We’re leaving you, then,” she said to Po.

He looked up at the child and nodded.

“Here?”

“No, cousin. When morning comes we’l search for a hiding place.”

Bitterblue kicked at the ground. She crossed her arms and considered Po. “What will you do in your hiding place?”

“I’ll hide,” Po said, “and recover my strength.”

“And when you’re strong again?”

“I’ll join you in Lienid, or wherever you are, and we’l plan the death of King Leck.”

The girl considered Po for a moment longer. She nodded. “We’l look for you, cousin.”

Katsa glanced up to see the slightest smile on Po’s face, at the child’s words. Then Bitterblue turned away to help Katsa with the medicines.

The child’s teeth chattered as she knelt beside Katsa. She had no coat, and the blanket she wore as they traveled was threadbare. The girl carried their packages to the horse, brought water to Po, and shivered.

Why had Katsa not saved the hides of the rabbits she’d kill ed?

She would have to do something. She would have to find Bitterblue something warmer to wear. For this child’s protection was her charge, and she must think of everything. Her care of Bitterblue must be worthy of Po’s sacrifice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

In the pink of dawn they stumbled upon a small cabin with little to offer except its shel ; an abandoned cabin, perhaps once the lair of some Monsean hermit. It stood in a hol ow more grassy than rocky, with a tree or two and a patch of weeds that looked as if it might once have served as a garden. Broken shutters and a cold fireplace. A blanket of dust on the rough wooden floor, on the table and the bed, on the cabinet that leaned on three lopsided legs with its door hanging open crookedly.

“This is where I’ll hide,” Po said.

“This is a place to live, Po,” Katsa said. “It’s not a place to hide. It’s far too obvious; no one will pass it without going inside.”

“But I could stay here, Katsa, and hide someplace nearby if I hear them coming.”

And what hiding place had he sensed nearby? “Po – ”

“I wonder if there’s a pond anywhere near?” he said. “Come with me, ladies. I’m sure I hear water running.”

There was no sound of water that Katsa could hear, which meant that Po could hear none, either. She sighed. “Yes,”

she said. “I think I hear it, too.”

They moved across the grasses behind the cabin. Po leaned against Katsa, and Bitterblue led the horse. Soon Katsa actual y did hear water, and when they topped a brownish rise and the grass gave way to boulders, she saw it. Three great streams clambered down from the rocks above, joined together, and poured over a ledge into a deep pool. Here and there at its edges the pool overflowed, and a number of streams trickled downward and eastward toward the Monsean forest.

Very well, Katsa thought to him. And where’s the hiding place?

“There’s a waterfal like this in the mountains near my brother Skye’s castle,” Po said. “We were swimming one day, and we found a tunnel underwater that led to a cave.”

Katsa knew where this was going, and Bitterblue’s puzzled look – no, it would be more accurate to cal it her suspicious look – suggested that Po had already said more than enough. Katsa sat Po down. She pulled off one of her boots. “If there’s a hiding place in this pool, Po, I’ll find it for you.” She pulled off her other boot. “But just because a hiding place exists doesn’t mean it’ll do you any good. You can’t get from the cabin to this pool on your own.”

“I can,” he said, “to save my life.”

“What will you do? Crawl?”

“There’s no shame in crawling when one can’t walk. And swimming requires less balance.”

She glared at him, and he looked calmly back, the slightest hint of amusement on his face. And why shouldn’t he be amused? For she was about to plunge into near-freezing water to search for a tunnel that he already knew existed, and explore a cave of which he already knew the exact size, shape, and location.

“I’m taking my clothes off,” she said, “so look away, Lord Prince.” For she could at least spare her clothing; and if this entire episode was a performance for Bitterblue, then they might as well also pretend Po was in no position to see her with her clothes off. Though Katsa didn’t suppose Bitterblue was any more fooled by that pretense than by the others. She stood beside the horse and kept her own counsel; and her eyes were big and childlike, but they were not unseeing.

Katsa sighed. She pulled off her coat. Point me in the right direction, Po.

She followed his gaze to the base of the waterfall. She threw her trousers onto the rocks beside her coat and boots.

She clenched her teeth against the cold and stepped into the pool. Its bottom sloped steeply, and with a yelp she was submerged. She dived.

The rocks of the pool floor shone green far below her, and silver fish flashed in the light. She was surprised by the depth of this water hole. She kicked toward the waterfall. Her vision was all but useless in the cascade of bubbles at its base, but she felt along the rocks with her hands and found, in the dark below the pouring water, a cavity that must be Po’s tunnel. She smiled, despite herself. She would never have found this secret place on her own; likely not a single person had ever done what she was about to do. She shot to the surface for a breath of air, then dived back down and pulled herself through the opening.

It was dark in this tunnel, black, and the water was even colder than the water in the pool. She could see nothing.

She kicked forward through the tunnel and counted steadily. Rocks scratched her arms, and she felt in front of her with her hands to avoid cracking her head against anything unexpected. It was narrow, but not dangerously so. Po would have no trouble, if he were well enough to swim.

As her count neared the number thirty, the passageway widened, and then the tunnel walls disappeared all around.

She shot upward, hoping to break through the surface, for she didn’t know where to find the air of this black cave if it wasn’t straight above. She was conscious now of her sense of direction, at which Po had always marveled. If she lost the tunnel in this darkness, and if she couldn’t find an opening to the surface, it was over for Katsa. But Katsa knew exactly where the tunnel was, behind her and below her. She knew how far she’d gone, and in what direction; she knew up and down, east and west. The darkness wouldn’t claim her.

And of course, Po would never have sent her into this cave if it were a place she could not endure. Her shoulder hit rock, and she heard a muffled slap that sounded like surface water on shore. She kicked forward toward the sound, and then her head burst above water, and she was breathing. She felt around and found the rock whose underside she’d struck. It jutted above the surface and felt flat and mossy on top. She pulled herself onto it, teeth chattering.

It was blacker in this cave than any night she had ever known. There was not a flash on the water, not even a thinner blackness to give shape to the space around her. She stretched her arms but touched nothing. She had no sense of the height of the ceiling or the depth of these wall s. She thought she heard water slapping against rock for some distance, but she couldn’t be sure without exploring. And she wouldn’t explore, because they hadn’t the time.

So this was Po’s cave. He would be safe enough here, if he could get himself here, for no one who didn’t share his Grace could ever find him in this cold, black hole under the mountain.

Katsa slipped back into the icy water and dived for the tunnel.

———

She came ashore with a pair of wriggling fish in her hands. “I found your cave,” she said. “It’l be easy enough for you to manage, if by some wonder of medicine and healing you’re able to swim. The tunnel is just below the fal of water. And here’s your dinner.” She threw the fish onto the rocks and dried herself with a cloth Bitterblue brought to her. She dressed. She held out her hand for Po’s knife, and he tossed it to her. She beheaded the fish and cut them open.

She threw the entrails back into the pond.

“You must go now,” Po said. “There’s no point in delay.”

“There’s some point in delay,” Katsa said. “What’l you eat after these fish are gone?”

“I’ll manage.”

Katsa snorted. “You’l manage? You don’t even have a bow, and even if you did I’d like to see your aim right now.

We’l not leave until you’ve plenty of food and firewood.”

“Katsa, honestly. You must go, you simply must – ”

“The horse needs the rest of a morning,” Katsa said. “From now on it will ride hard. And – and – ” She refused, simply refused, to give in to the panic that rattled around inside her. And winter’s coming, and you can make me leave you here, but you can’t make me leave you here to starve to death.

Po rubbed his eyes. He sighed.

“You’l need a lot of firewood. I’ll get started,” Bitterblue said, and Po laughed outright.

“I’m outnumbered,” he said. “Very well, Katsa. Do what you must. But before morning passes, you’l be on your way.”

———

The morning was a whirlwind. The faster Katsa moved, the less she could think, and so she moved as fast as her feet and her fingers were capable of. She caught him two rabbits, which he could cook with the fish that night and store safely for a number of days. She cursed the weather.

It was cold enough for Po to be uncomfortable during the day, when he couldn’t risk a fire. But it wasn’t cold enough for freezing meat; nor did they have salt to treat it. She couldn’t kill him meat now to last the winter, or even to last him a number of weeks. And in a number of weeks the hunting would become difficult for even those hunters who walked steadily on their feet and carried a bow.

“Have you ever made a bow?” she asked him.

“Never.”

“I’ll find you the wood,” she said, “before we leave. And you’l have the hides of these rabbits to reinforce the stave, and for the string. I’ll explain to you how it’s done.”

She cursed herself for the feathers she’d discarded from all of the birds she’d kill ed. But when her rushed passage over the rocks disturbed a roost of quail, she swept stones up from the ground and managed to knock the majority of them down. They would be Bitterblue’s dinner and her own, and Po would have the feathers for arrows.