“Others talk about a Graceling man the size of a monster,” Giddon said, “a fighter, who overcame the guards, one by one.”
Giddon laughed outright, and Oll smiled into his supper. “What interesting news,” Katsa said. And then, hoping she sounded innocent, “Did you hear anything else?”
“Their search was delayed for hours,” Giddon said, “because at first they assumed someone at court was to blame. A visiting man who happened to be a Graceling fighter.” He lowered his voice. “Can you believe it? What luck for us.”
Katsa kept her voice calm. “What did he say, this Graceling?”
“Apparently nothing helpful,” Giddon said. “He claimed to know nothing of it.”
“What did they do to him?”
“I’ve no idea,” Giddon said. “He’s a Graceling fighter. I doubt they were able to do much of anything.”
“Who is he? Where is he from?”
“No one’s said.” Giddon elbowed her. “Katsa, come on – you’re missing the point. It makes no difference who he is.
They lost hours questioning this man. By the time they began to look elsewhere for the thieves, it was too late.”
Katsa thought she knew, better than Giddon or Oll could, why Murgon had spent so much time grilling this particular Graceling. And also why he’d taken pains not to publicize from where the Graceling came. Murgon wanted no one to suspect that the stolen treasure was Tealiff, that he’d held Tealiff in his dungeons in the first place.
And why had the Lienid Graceling told Murgon nothing? Was he protecting her?
This cursed rain had to stop, so that they could return to court, and to Raffin.
Katsa drank, then lowered her cup to the table. “What a stroke of luck for the thieves.”
Giddon grinned. “Indeed.”
“And have you heard any other news?”
“The innkeeper’s sister has a baby of three months,” Oll said. “They had a scare the other morning. They thought one of its eyes had darkened, but it was only a trick of the light.”
“Fascinating.” Katsa poured gravy onto her meat.
“The Monsean queen is grieving terribly for GrandfatherTealiff,” Giddon said. “A Monsean merchant spoke of it.”
“I’d heard she wasn’t eating,” Katsa said. It seemed to her a foolish way to grieve.
“There’s more,” Giddon said. “She’s closed herself and her daughter into her rooms. She permits no one but her handmaiden to enter, not even King Leck.”
That seemed not only foolish but peculiar. “Is she allowing her daughter to eat?”
“The handmaiden brings them meals,” Giddon said. “But they won’t leave the rooms. Apparently the king is being very patient about it.”
“It will pass,” Oll said. “There’s no saying what grief will do to a person. It will pass when her father is found.”
The Council would keep the old man hidden, for his own safety, until they learned the reason for his kidnapping.
But perhaps a message could be sent to the Monsean queen, to ease her strange grief? Katsa determined to consider it.
She would bring it up with Giddon and Oll, when they could talk safely.
“She’s Lienid,” Giddon said. “They’re known to be odd people.”
“It seems very odd to me,” Katsa said. She’d never felt grief, or if she had, she didn’t remember. Her mother, Randa’s sister, had died of a fever before Katsa’s eyes had settled, the same fever that had taken Raffin’s mother, Randa’s queen. Her father, a northern Middluns borderlord, had been killed in a raid across the border. It had been a
Westeran raid on a Nanderan village. It hadn’t been his responsibility, but he’d taken up the defense of his neighbors, and gotten himself killed in the process. She hadn’t even been of speaking age. She didn’t remember him.
If her uncle died, she didn’t think she would grieve. She glanced at Giddon. She wouldn’t like to lose him, but she didn’t think she would grieve his loss, either. Oll was different. She would grieve for Oll. And her ladyservant, Helda.
And Raffin. Raffin’s loss would hurt more than a finger sliced off, or an arm broken, or a knife in her side.
But she wouldn’t close herself in her rooms. She would go out and find the one who had done it, and then she’d make that person feel pain as no one had ever felt pain before.
Giddon was speaking to her, and she wasn’t listening. She shook herself. “What did you say?”
“I said, lady dreamer, that I believe the sky is clearing. We’ll be able to set out at dawn, if you like.”
They would reach court before nightfall. Katsa finished her meal quickly and ran to her room to pack her bags.
CHAPTER SIX
The sun was well on its way across the sky when their horses clattered onto the marble floor of Randa’s inner courtyard. Around them on all sides, the white castle walls rose and stood brightly against the green marble of the floor.
Balconied passageways lined the walls above, so that the people of the court could look down into the courtyard as they moved from one section of the castle to another and admire Randa’s great garden of crawling vines and pink flowering trees. A statue of Randa stood in the center of the garden, a fountain of water flowing from one outstretched hand and a torch in the other. It was an attractive garden, if one did not dwell on the statue, and an attractive courtyard – but not a peaceful or private one, with the entire court roaming the passageways above.
This was not the only such courtyard in the castle, but it was the largest, and it was the entrance point for any important residents or visitors. The green floor was kept to such a shine that Katsa could see herself and her horse reflected in its surface. The white walls were made of a stone that sparkled, and they rose so high that she had to crane her neck to find the tops of the turrets above. It was very grand, very impressive. As Randa liked it.
The noise of their horses and their shouts brought people to the balconies, to see who had come. A steward came out to greet them. A moment later, Raffin came flying into the courtyard.
“You’ve arrived!”
Katsa grinned up at him. Then she looked closer – stood on her toes, for he was so very tall. She grabbed a handful of his hair.
“Raff, what’ve you done to yourself? Your hair is positively blue.”
“I’ve been trying a new remedy for headache,” he said, “to be massaged into the scalp. Yesterday I thought I felt a headache coming on, so I tried it. Apparently it turns fair hair lplue.”
She smiled. “Did it cure the headache?”
“Well, if I had a headache, then it did, but I’m not convinced I had one to begin with. Do you have a headache?” he asked, hopefully. “Your hair’s so dark; it wouldn’t turn nearly as blue.”
“I don’t. I never do. What does the king think of your hair?”
Raffin smirked. “He’s not speaking to me. He says it’s appalling behavior for the son of the king. Until my hair is normal again I’m not his son.”
Oll and Giddon greeted Raffin and handed their reins to a boy. They followed the king’s steward into the castle, leaving Katsa and Raffin alone in the courtyard, near the garden and the splashing of Randa’s fountain. Katsa lowered her voice and pretended to focus on the straps that tied her saddlebags to her horse. “Any news?”
“He hasn’t woken,” Raffin said. “Not once.”
She was disappointed. She kept her voice low. “Have you heard of a Lienid noble Graced with fighting?”
“You saw him, did you?” Raffin said, and she swung her eyes to his face, surprised. “As you came into the courtyard? He’s been lurking around. Hard to look that one in the eyes, eh? He’s the son of the Lienid king.”
He was here? She hadn’t expected that. She focused on her saddlebags once more. “Ror’s heir?”
“Great hills, no. He has six older brothers. His name is the silliest I’ve heard for the seventh heir to a throne. Prince Greening Grandemalion.” Raffin smiled. “Have you ever heard the like?”
“Why is he here?”
“Ah,” Raffin said. “It’s quite interesting, really. He claims to be searching for his kidnapped grandfather.”
Katsa looked up from her bags, into his laughing blue eyes. “You haven’t – ”