———
The path was just as Captain Faun had described, and the hill steep and ridged with drifts of snow. But the greater problem was Bitterblue’s sea legs. She walked on land almost as clumsily as she’d walked at first at sea, and Katsa held her up as they climbed toward Po’s front door. The wind gusted from behind, so that it felt as if they were being blown up the hill.
The castle wasn’t much more castlelike from this angle. It seemed a tall white house at the top of a slope, with a number of massive trees overshadowing a courtyard that would be pleasant in better weather; a great tower rising behind the trees; tall windows, high roofs, at least one widow’s walk; stables to one side and a frozen garden to the other; and no indication, as long as one’s ears didn’t catch the crash of waves, that behind it all was a drop to the sea.
They reached the top of the hill. A gust of wind pushed them onto the colorful tiled surface of the courtyard.
Bitterblue sighed, relieved to encounter flat land. They approached the house, and Katsa raised her fist to Po’s great wooden door. Before she could knock, the door swung open and a rush of warmth hit their faces. A Lienid man stood before her, oldish, dressed like a servant in a long brown coat.
“Greetings,” he said. “Please come into the receiving room. Quickly,” the man said, as Katsa stood unmoving, startled by his hasty reception. “We’re letting the heat escape.”
The man ushered them into a dark hall. At first glance, Katsa saw high ceilings, a stairway leading to banistered passageways above, and at least three burning fireplaces. Bitterblue steadied herself on Katsa’s arm.
“I’m Lady Katsa of the Middluns,” Katsa began, but the man waved them forward toward a set of double doors.
“This way,” he said. “My master is expecting you.” Katsa’s jaw went slack with surprise. She stared at the man, incredulous. “Your master! Do you mean he’s here? How is that possible? Where is he?”
“Please, My Lady,” the servant said. “Come this way. The whole family is in the receiving room.”
“The whole family!”
The man swept his hand toward the doors straight ahead. Katsa looked at Bitterblue and knew that the girl’s astonished face must mirror her own. Certainly there had been time for Po to make his way home; Katsa and Bitterblue had been ages in the mountains. But how could he, in such health? And how leave his hiding place, without being seen? Why, how –
The man shooed them forward to the doors, and Katsa tried to formulate a question, any question.
“How long has the prince been here?” she asked.
“The princes have only just arrived,” the man said, and before she could ask what he meant he opened the doors.
“How wonderful,” a voice inside said. “Welcome, my friends! Come in and take your honored place among our happy circle!”
It was a familiar voice, and she caught Bitterblue and held the girl to her side when the child gasped and fell. Katsa looked up to see strangers sitting around the walls of a long room; and at the room’s end, smiling and appraising them through a single eye, King Leck of Monsea.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Welcome. Friends. Honored place. Happy circle.
Katsa felt immediately that there was something she didn’t trust about this man who said such nice things, and in such a nice, warm voice. There was something about him, some quality that kept her senses strung out to a high readiness. She did not like him.
Still, his words were kind and welcoming, and this room of strangers smiled at him, and smiled at her, and there was no reason for her discomfort. No reason to dislike the man so instantly. She hesitated in the doorway, and stepped forward. She would proceed carefully.
The child was sick. Giving in finally, Katsa thought, to the dizzying steadiness under her feet. Bitterblue cried and clung to Katsa, and kept telling her to come away. “He’s lying,” she kept saying. “He’s lying.” Katsa looked at her blankly. Clearly the child didn’t like this man, either. Katsa would take that into consideration.
“My daughter is ill. It pains me to see my daughter suffer,” Leck said; and Katsa remembered and understood that this man was Bitterblue’s father. “Help your niece,” Leck said to a woman on his left. The woman jumped up and came toward them with outstretched arms.
“Poor child,” the woman said. She tried to pull the girl away from Katsa, embracing her and murmuring to her comfortingly; but Bitterblue began to scream and slapped at the woman, and clung to Katsa like a crazed, frightened thing. Katsa took the child in her arms and shushed her, absently. She looked over Bitterblue’s head at the woman who was somehow Bitterblue’s aunt. The woman’s face jarred into her mind. Her forehead, her nose were familiar. Not the color of her eyes, but the shape of them. Katsa glanced at the woman’s hands and understood. This was Po’s mother.
“She’s hysterical,” Po’s mother said to Katsa.
“Yes,” Katsa said. She held the child close. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Where’s my son?” the woman asked, her eyes going wide with worry. “Do you know where my son is?”
“Indeed,” Leck said in his booming voice. He tilted his head, and his single eye watched Katsa. “You’re missing one of your party. I hope he’s alive?”
“Yes,” Katsa said – and then wondered, vaguely, if she’d meant to pretend he was dead. Hadn’t she pretended once before that Po was dead? But why would she have done that?
Leck’s eye snapped. “Is he really? Such wonderful news. Perhaps we can help him. Where is he?”
Bitterblue cried out. “Don’t tell him, Katsa. Don’t tell him where Po is, don’t tell him, don’t tell him – ”
Katsa shushed the girl. “It’s all right, child.”
“Please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t,” Katsa said. “I won’t.” She bent her face into Bitterblue’s hat and decided it was right not to tell this man where Po was, not when it upset the child so.
“Very well,” Leck said. “I see how things are.”
He was silent for a moment. He seemed to be thinking. His fingers fiddled at the hilt of a knife in his belt. His eyes slid to Bitterblue and lingered; and Katsa found herself pulling the child closer to her own body, and covering the child with her arms.
“My daughter isn’t herself,” Leck said. “She’s confused, she’s ill, her mind is disturbed; and she thinks that I would hurt her. I’ve been telling Prince Po’s family about my daughter’s illness.” He swept his hand around the room. “I’ve been telling them about how she ran away from home after her mother’s accident. About how you and Prince Po found her, Lady Katsa, and how you’ve been keeping her safe for me.”
Katsa followed his gesture around the room. More familiar faces, one of them a man older than Leck, a king. Po’s father. His features strong and proud, but a vagueness to his eyes. A vagueness to the eyes of everyone in this room, to these younger men who must be Po’s brothers, and these women who must be their wives. Or was it a vagueness in her own mind that stopped her from seeing their faces clearly? “Yes,” she said, to whatever comment Leck had just made.
Something about Bitterblue’s safety. “Yes. I’ve kept her safe.”
“Tell me,” Leek’s voice boomed. “How did you leave Monsea? Did you cross the mountains?”
“Yes,” Katsa said.