Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(12)

Lanie’s eyes grew wide, and then she dropped Katsa’s hand and ran to the kitchen. Oll and Giddon laughed.

Katsa turned to Giddon. “I’m very grateful.”

“You do nothing to dispel your ogreish reputation,” Giddon said. “You know that, Katsa. It’s no wonder you haven’t more friends.”

How like him. It was just like him, to turn a kind gesture into one of his criticisms of her character. He loved nothing more than to point out her flaws. And he knew nothing of her, if he thought she desired friends.

Katsa attacked her meal and ignored their conversation.

———

The rain didn’t stop. Giddon and Oll were content to sit in the main room and talk with the merchants and the innkeeper, but Katsa thought the inactivity would set her screaming. She went out to the stables, only to frighten a boy, little bigger than Lanie, who stood on a stool in one of the stalls and brushed down a horse. Her horse, she saw, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Katsa said. “I’m only looking for a space to practice my exercises.”

The boy climbed from his stool and fled. Katsa threw her hands into the air. Well, at least she had the stable to herself now. She moved bales of hay, saddles, and rakes to clear a place across from the stalls and began a series of kicks and strikes. She twisted and flipped, conscious of the air, the floor, the walls around her, the horses. She focused on her imaginary opponents, and her mind calmed.

———

At dinner, Oll and Giddon had interesting news.

“King Murgon has announced a robbery,” Oll said. “Three nights past.”

“Has he?” Katsa took in Oll’s face, and then Giddon’s. They both had the look of a cat that’s cornered a mouse.

“And what does he say was robbed?”

“He says only that a grand treasure of the court was stolen,” Oll said.

“Great skies,” Katsa said. “And who’s said to have robbed him of this treasure?”

“Some say it was a Graceling boy,” Oll said, “some kind of hypnotist, who put the king’s guards to sleep.”

“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.