Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(51)
Author: Kristin Cashore

“Of course you will ,” Bitterblue said soothingly.

“It’s not permanent, is it?” Katsa asked, turning to the captain. She then noticed for the first time that the captain was looking at her differently.

So were Patch and Jem. Their faces white, and something shocked and quiet in their eyes.

They believed her now, that she hadn’t stolen the ring, and they believed that their prince had given it to her. And Katsa was relieved that at least that part of this ordeal was behind them. “I can give it back to him,” she asked the captain, “can’t I?”

The captain cleared her throat. She nodded. “Yes, Lady Princess.”

“Great hil s,” Katsa said, distressed. “Don’t cal me that.”

“You may give it back to him at any time, Lady Princess,” the captain said, “or give it to someone else. And he may reclaim it. In the meantime, your position entitles you to every power and authority held by a prince of Lienid. It’s ours to do your bidding.”

“I’ll be content if you’l take us quickly to Po’s castle on the western shore,” Katsa said, “and stop cal ing me Princess.”

“It’s your castle now, Lady Princess.”

Katsa’s temper was beginning to throw out sparks, for she wanted none of this treatment; but before she could argue, a man knocked on the door frame. “We’re ready, Captain.”

Katsa pulled Bitterblue to the side as the room erupted with commotion. The captain began to bark instructions.

“Patch, get back to your post and get us out of here. Jem, see to Bear. And clean up that mess in the corner. I’m needed on deck, Lady Princess. Come above, if you wish. Princess Bitterblue’s seasickness will be less there.”

“I’ve told you not to cal me that,” Katsa said.

The captain ignored her and marched to the doorway. Katsa swept Bitterblue under her arm and followed her, glaring at the woman’s back as they passed through the corridor. And then in the blackness at the foot of the ladder, the captain stopped. She turned back to Katsa. “Lady Princess,” she said. “What you’re doing here – and why you’re disguised, and why the child princess is in danger – is your affair. I won’t ask for an explanation. But if there’s any assistance I can give, you need only to voice it. I’m at your service, completely.”

Katsa reached to her breast and touched the circle of gold. She was thankful, after all, for the power it gave her, if that power would help her to serve Bitterblue. And that might be an explanation for Po’s gift as well ; perhaps he’d only wanted her to have ful authority, so that she might protect the child better. But she didn’t want everyone on deck to see the ring, if it inspired such adoration. She didn’t want everyone talking about it and pointing it out and treating her this way. She loosened the neck of her coat and tucked the ring inside.

“Prince Po is recovering from his injuries?” Captain Faun asked; and Katsa heard the worry, the authentic worry, as if the captain were inquiring after a member of her own family. And Katsa also heard the royal title, less easily dropped from Po’s name than added to her own.

“He’s recovering,” she said.

And it occurred to her to wonder then if the Lienid would love their prince so much if they knew the truth of his Grace.

It was all too confusing, all that had happened since she’d come aboard this vessel, and too many parts of it hurt her heart.

On deck, she led Bitterblue to the side of the ship. Together they breathed the sea air and watched the dark sparkle of the water.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especial y when the waves were high and the ship rose and fel , or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face.

The men laughed and told each other that Princess Katsa was a born sailor. To which Bitterblue added, once Bitterblue was well enough to come above deck and join in their banter, that Katsa was born to do anything normal people might consider terrifying.

What she really wanted was to climb into the highest riggings of the highest mast and hang down from the sky; and one clear day when Patch, who happened to be the first mate, sent a fel ow named Red up to unravel a tangle of ropes, he told her to go along.

“You shouldn’t encourage her,” Bitterblue said to Patch, her hands on her h*ps and her face turned up to glare into his. Her countenance fierce, for all that she was a fifth Patch’s size.

“Lady Princess, I reckon she’l go up there eventual y with or without my say-so, and I’d rather it be now while I’m watching, than at night, or during a squall.”

“If you think sending her up there now will keep her from – ”

“Watch yourself,” Patch said as the deck lurched and Bitterblue pitched forward. He caught her and lifted her into his arms. They watched Katsa climb hand and foot up the mast behind Red; and when Katsa finally looked down at them from her place in the sky, swinging so wildly back and forth that she marveled at Red’s ability to untangle anything, she thought of how Bitterblue had trusted no man when first they’d met. And now the girl all owed this enormous sailor to pick her up and hold her, like a father, and the girl’s arm was around Patch’s neck, and she and Patch laughed up at Katsa together.

———

The captain predicted the journey would last four or five weeks, give or take. The ship moved fast, and most of the time they were alone on the ocean. Katsa never climbed up into the riggings without straining her eyes behind them for some sign of pursuit, but no one was after them. It was a relief not to feel hunted, and not to feel as if one must hide. It was safe on the open sea, isolated with Captain Faun and her crew, for not one sailor seemed to look upon them with suspicion, and she came gradual y to trust that none had been touched by any rumors of Leck’s.

“We weren’t even a day in Suncliff,” the captain told her. “You’re lucky, Lady Princess. You have my Grace to thank for it.”

“And for our speed,” Katsa said. For it was a stormy winter at sea, and though they changed course so often their path must look like some odd dance across the water, they managed to avoid the worst of it. Their progress west was steady.

Katsa had told the captain of Leck’s Grace and the reasons they fled, in the first few days when Bitterblue had been very sick and Katsa had had nothing to do but care for the girl and think. She’d told the captain because it had occurred to her, with a sinking feeling, that the forty-some men aboard this ship knew exactly who she and Bitterblue were and exactly where they were going. That made forty-some informants, once Katsa and Bitterblue were delivered to their destination and the ship returned to its trade route.

“I can vouch for the confidence of most of my men, Lady Princess,” Captain Faun said. “Most, if not all.”

“You don’t understand,” Katsa said. “Where King Leck is involved I can’t even vouch for my own confidence. It’s not good enough for them to swear to say nothing to no one. If one of Leck’s stories touches their ears, they’l forget their vows.”

“What would you have me do then, Lady Princess?”

Katsa hated to ask it, and so she stared at the charts on the table before them, pursed her lips, and waited for the captain to understand her. It didn’t take long.

“You want us to remain at sea, once we’ve left you in Lienid,” the captain said, her voice sharp and growing sharper as she spoke. “You want us to hold at sea, out of the way, all winter – longer, perhaps indefinitely – until you and Prince Po, who aren’t even in communication, have found some way to immobilize the King of Monsea. At which point I suppose we must wait for someone to come in search of us and invite us back ashore? What’s left of us, because we’l run out of supplies, Lady Princess – we’re a trade vessel, you know, designed to sail from port to port and replenish our food and water at each stop. It’s strain enough that we go now straight back to Lienid – ”

“Your cargo hold is ful of the fruits and vegetables of your trade,” Katsa said, “and your men know how to fish.”

“We’l run out of water.”

“Then ride your ship into a storm,” Katsa said.

The captain’s face was incredulous. Katsa supposed it was an absurd suggestion – all of it absurd, for her to expect this ship to turn circles in some frozen corner of the sea, waiting for the approach of news that might never come. all for the safety of one young life. The captain made a noise part disbelief and part laughter, and Katsa prepared for an argument.

But the woman stared into her hands, thinking; and when she finally spoke, she surprised Katsa.

“You ask a great deal,” she said, “but I can’t pretend I don’t understand why you ask it. Leck must be stopped, and not just for the sake of Princess Bitterblue. His Grace is limitless, and a king with his proclivities is a danger to all seven kingdoms. If my crew avoids any contact with gossip and rumors, that’s forty-three men and one woman whose minds are clear to the task at hand.”

“And,” she continued, “I’ve promised to help you in any way I can.”

It was Katsa’s turn now to disbelieve. “You’l really do this thing?”

“Lady Princess,” the captain said. “It’s not in my power to refuse anything you ask. But this thing I’ll do will ingly, for as long as I can without endangering my men and my ship. And on the condition that I’ll be reimbursed for my lost trade.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Nothing in business goes without saying, Lady Princess.”

And so they made an agreement. The captain would hold at sea in a place near to Lienid, a specific place just west of an uninhabited island she could describe and another vessel could find, until such time as the other vessel came for her, or circumstances aboard her ship rendered it impossible for her isolation to continue.

“I’ve no idea what I’ll tell my crew,” the captain said.

“When the time comes for explanations,” Katsa said, “tel them the truth.”

———

The captain asked Katsa and Bitterblue one day, as they sat in the gal ey over a meal, how they’d gotten to Suncliff without being seen.

“We crossed the Monsean peaks into Sunder,” Katsa said, “and traveled through the forests. When we reached the outskirts of Suncliff, we traveled only by night.”

“How did you cross the mountain pass, Lady Princess? Wasn’t it guarded?”

“We didn’t cross at the mountain pass. We took Grel a’s Pass.”