Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(106)

“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.

Leck threw back his head and laughed. “I thought you must have, when we lost track of you. I very nearly decided to sit back and wait. I knew you’d surface somewhere, eventually. But when I made inquiries, I learned that you weren’t welcome at your own court, Lady Katsa. And it made me crazy, absolutely crazy, to sit around doing nothing while my dear child was – ” His eye rested again on Bitterblue and he rubbed his hand over his mouth. “While my girl was apart from me. I decided to take a chance. I ordered my people to continue the search, of course, across the other kingdoms; but I decided to try Lienid myself.”

Katsa shook her head, but the fog in her mind wouldn’t clear. “You needn’t have worried,” she said. “I’ve kept her safe.”

“Yes,” he said. “And now you’ve brought her to me, straight to my doorstep, to my castle here on Lienid’s western shore.”

“Your castle,” Katsa said dully. She had thought this was Po’s castle. Or had she thought it was her own castle? No, that was absurd; she was a lady of the Middluns, and she had no castle. She must have misunderstood something someone said, somewhere.

“Now it’s time for you to give my child back to me,” Leck said.

“Yes,” Katsa said, but it worried her to relinquish care of the girl, who had stopped struggling but was collapsed now against Katsa muttering nonsense to herself and whimpering. Repeating the words Leck said over and over, in whispered bewilderment, as if she were testing how they sounded in her own voice.

“Yes,” Katsa said again. “I will – but not until she’s feeling better.”

“No,” Leck said. “Bring her to me now. I know how to make her feel better.”

Katsa truly did not like this man. The way he ordered her around – and the way he looked at Bitterblue, with something in his gaze Katsa had seen before but couldn’t quite place. Bitterblue was Katsa’s responsibility. Katsa raised her chin. “No. She’ll stay with me until she’s feeling better.”

Leck laughed. He looked around the room. “The Lady Katsa is nothing if not contrary,” he said. “But I don’t suppose any of us should blame her for being protective. Well, no matter. I’ll enjoy my daughter’s company” – his eye flicked to the girl again – “later.”

“And now will you tell me of my son?” the woman beside Katsa asked. “Why isn’t he here? He isn’t injured, is he?”

“Yes,” Leck said. “Comfort an anxious mother, Lady Katsa. Tell us all about Prince Po. Is he nearby?”

Katsa turned to the woman, flustered, trying to work out too many puzzles at once. Certainly there were some things it was safe to say about Po; but weren’t some topics meant to be kept quiet? The categories were blurring. Perhaps it was best to say nothing at all. “I don’t wish to talk of Po,” she said.