Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(49)
Author: Kristin Cashore

IN THE GREAT courtyard, Bitterblue paused to glare at a shrubbery of a bird, bright with autumn leaves. She was clenching her one good fist, hard.

Going to the fountain, she sat on the cold edge, trying to work out what she was so frustrated about.

I suppose this is part of being a queen, she thought. And part of being injured, and part of Saf not wanting me around, and part of everyone knowing where, and who, I am all the time: I must sit and wait while other people run around investigating things, then come back and give me reports. I'm stuck here, waiting, while everyone else has adventures.

I don't like it.

"Lady Queen?"

She looked up to find Giddon standing over her, snowflakes melting in his hair and on his coat. "Giddon! Po was just saying this morning that you should be back soon.

I'm so pleased to see you."

"Lady Queen," he said gravely, running a hand through wet hair. "What happened to your arm?"

"Oh, that. Runnemood tried to kill me," she said.

He stared at her in amazement. "Runnemood, your own adviser?"

"There's a lot going on, Giddon," she said, smiling. "My city friend stole my crown. Po's inventing a flying machine. I've dismissed Thiel and discovered that my mother's embroidery is all ciphered messages."

"I wasn't even gone three weeks!"

"Po's been sick, you know."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, with no expression.

"Don't be an ass. He's actual y been quite unwel ."

"Oh?" Now Giddon was looking uncomfortable. "What do you mean, Lady Queen?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?"

"I mean, is he all right?"

"He's a bit better now."

"Is he—he's not in danger, Lady Queen?"

"He'l be fine, Giddon," she said, relieved to hear the touch of anxiety in his voice. "I've a list of names to give you.

Where are you going first? I'll walk with you."

GIDDON WAS HUNGRY. B itterblue was racked with shivers from the cold air and moisture of the fountain, and wanted to hear about Piper's tunnel and Estil . And so he invited her to join him for a meal. When she accepted, he led her through the east vestibule and into a crowded corridor.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I thought we'd go to the kitchens," Giddon said. "Do you know your kitchens, Lady Queen? They abut the southeast gardens."

"Once again," said Bitterblue dryly, "you're giving me a tour of my own castle."

"The Council has contacts there, Lady Queen. I'm hoping Po will join us too. Are you as cold as you look?" he asked.

She saw what he saw, an approaching man who balanced a colorful tower of blankets in his arms. "Ah, yes," she said.

"Let's corral him, Giddon."

Moments later, Giddon helped her drape a mossy green- gold blanket over her injured arm and her sword. "Very nice," he said. "This color reminds me of my home."

"Lady Queen," said a woman Bitterblue had never seen before, bustling between her and Giddon. She was tiny, old, wrinkled— shorter even than Bitterblue. "Al ow me, Lady Queen," said the woman, grabbing the front of Bitterblue's blanket, which Bitterblue was holding closed with her tired right hand. The woman produced a plain, tin brooch, gathered both sides of the blanket together, and pinned them tight.

"Thank you," Bitterblue said, astonished. "You must tell me your name so that I can return your brooch to you."

"My name is Devra, Lady Queen, and I work with the cobbler."

"The cobbler!" Bitterblue patted the brooch as the traffic in the corridor swept her and Giddon on their way. "I didn't know there was a cobbler," she said aloud to herself, then glanced sidelong at Giddon, sighing. Her blanket trailed behind her like the train of a grand and expensive cape, making her feel, oddly, like a queen.

BITTERBLUE HAD NEVER heard so much roaring noise or seen so many people working at such a frantic pace as in the kitchens. She was amazed to discover that there was a rather wild-eyed Graceling who could tell from the look and, especial y, the smel of a person what would, at that moment, be most satisfying for her or him to eat. "Sometimes it's nice to be told what you want," she said to Giddon, inhaling the steam that rose from her cup of melted chocolate.

When Po arrived, coming to stand warily before Giddon, mouth tight and arms crossed, Bitterblue saw him as Giddon would and realized that Po had lost weight. After a moment of mutual assessment, Giddon said to him, "You need food. Sit down and let Jass sniff you."

"He makes me nervous," said Po, obediently sitting down.

"I worry about how much he senses."

"The ironies abound," said Giddon dryly around a spoonful of ham and bean soup. "You look terrible. Have you got your appetite back?"

"I'm ravenous."

"Are you cold?"

"Why, so you can lend me your soggy coat?" asked Po with a sniff at the offending article. "Stop flitting around me like it's my last day. I'm fine. Why is Bitterblue wearing a blanket cape? What did you do to her?"

"I've always liked you better when Katsa's around," Giddon said. "She's so rotten to me that you seem positively pleasant in contrast."

Po's mouth twitched. "You provoke her on purpose."

"She is so easy to provoke," said Giddon, shoving a board of bread and cheese to where Po could reach it.

"Sometimes I can do it just with the way I breathe. So," he said brusquely. "We have a few problems and I'll state them plainly. The people of Estil are determined. But it's just as Katsa said: They have no plan beyond deposing Thigpen.

And Thigpen has a small orbit of favorite lords and ladies, avaricious types, loyal to their king, but even more loyal to themselves. they'll need to be neutralized, every one of them, or else one of them is likely to rise to power in Thigpen's place and be no sort of improvement whatsoever. The people I talked to don't want to have anything to do with the Estil an nobility. They're deeply mistrusting of anyone in Estil who hasn't been suffering as they have."

"And yet, they trust us?"

"Yes," Giddon said. "The Council is out of favor with all the worst kings, and the Council helped depose Drowden, so they trust us. I believe that if Raffin went to them next, as the next King of the Middluns and as Randa's disgraced son, he might get through to them, for he's so unpushy. And you need to go too, of course, and do"—Giddon gestured aimlessly with his spoon—"whatever it is you do. I suppose it's best that you didn't join me this time if you were about to fall sick as a dog. But I could've used your company in that tunnel, and I needed you in Estil . I'm sorry, Po."

Surprise sprang onto Po's face. It was not a thing that Bitterblue got to see there very often. Po cleared his throat, blinking. "I'm sorry too, Giddon," he said, and that was that.

Bitterblue was stung with the wish that Saf would forgive her so graceful y.

Jass came, sniffed Po, resniffed Giddon, and apparently decided that the two of them would find it satisfying to eat half the kitchen. Bitterblue sat, listening to them plot and plan, sipping her chocolate, trying to find a position that hurt less than the others, pulling apart every word of their conversation, and occasional y offering an argument, especial y whenever Po veered to the topic of Bitterblue's safety. all the time, she was also absorbing the wonder that was the castle kitchens. The table at which they sat was in a corner near the bakery. From that corner, the wal s seemed to spread endlessly in both directions. To one side were the ovens and fireplaces, which were built into the castle's outer wal s. The high kitchen windows had no glass, and snowflakes gusted through them now, plopping wetly on stoves and people.

A mountain of potato peels sat on the floor under a table nearby.

Anna, the head baker, went to a row of enormous bowls that were covered with cloths, lifted the cloths, and, one after the other, punched down the dough in the bowls. A sharp yell brought a cavalcade of helpers with sleeves rol ed, who lined themselves up at the table, took the great gobs of dough from the bowls, and kneaded them, throwing backs and shoulders into the work. Anna also stood in the line, kneading, with one arm. She held her other arm close to her body. There was something in the stiff way it hung that made Bitterblue suspect an injury of some kind. Her working arm muscles bulged as she kneaded, her neck and shoulders bulging too. The strength of her mesmerized Bitterblue, not because she was kneading one-handed but simply because she was kneading, it was work that was both rough and smooth, and Bitterblue wished she could know what that silky dough felt like. She understood that sometime soon—if not tonight, then perhaps tomorrow—if not this batch of dough, then the next one—she would be eating potato bread with her meal.

It gratified her, in a way that almost hurt, to sit beside the bakery. The warm, yeasty air was so familiar. She breathed it deeply, waking her lungs with it, feeling that she'd been taking Shall ow breaths for years. The smel of baking bread was so comforting; and the memory of a story she had told to herself, a story she had told Saf, about her work and about her living mother, was so real, so tangible as she sat in this place, and so sad.

Chapter 28

WHEN CAPTAIN SMIT reported the next morning— and the morning after, and the morning after that—that there was nothing to report, Bitterblue began to be amazed by the depths to which her own frustration could plumb.

Runnemood had now been missing for six days and no progress whatsoever had been made.

On the seventh day, when Captain Smit's report was the same, Bitterblue shot up from her desk and began a systematic exploration. If she could pound her feet down every hal way of the castle and clap her hand to every wal , if she could see into every workshop and learn what vista to expect around every corner, then maybe she could calm her restlessness—and her anxieties about Saf as wel . For that was part of what was making these empty days so hard to bear: There was no news of Spook or the crown either, and no communication from Teddy or Saf.

She stomped down the stairs of her tower, greeted the clerks who stared back at her blankly, then went off to look for the cobbler's shop, so that she might return Devra's brooch.

She found it in the artisan courtyard, which rang with the raps and dings of coopers, carpenters, tinkers. It smel ed too of the leather- worker's bitter oils and the chandler's beeswax, and in one shop, a wizened old woman made harps and other musical instruments.

Why did she never hear music in her castle? For that matter, why did she never encounter a single soul, other than Death, in the library? Surely some people could read.

And why, when she walked through the hal s, did she get a sense sometimes, looking into people's faces, of a strange thing she couldn't shake—a hard-driven sort of emptiness? They bowed to her, but she wasn't certain that they truly saw her.