Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(26)

My brothers and I race it sometimes.”

“Who wins?”

“Where’s your confidence in me, that you need to ask that question? You would beat us all, of course.”

“My ability to fight has no bearing on my ability to run up a flight of stairs.”

“Nonetheless, I can’t imagine you allowing anyone to beat you at anything.”

Katsa snorted. “And the third way?”

“The third way is the ropes.”

“But how do they work?”

Po scratched his head. “Well, it’s fairly simple, really. They hang from a great wheel that sits flat, on its side, at the top of the rock. They dangle down over the edge of the rock, and at the bottom they’re attached to platforms. Horses turn the wheel, the wheel pulls the ropes, and the platforms rise.”

“It seems a terrible amount of trouble.”

“Mostly everyone uses the road. The ropes are only for great shipments of things.”

“And the whole city sits up in the sky?”

Po broke himself another piece of bread and nodded.

“But why would they build a city in such a place?”

Po shrugged. “I suppose because it’s beautiful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you can see forever from the edges of the city. The fields, the mountains and hills. To one side, the sea.”

“The sea,” Katsa said.

The sea put an end to her questions for a moment. Katsa had seen the lakes of Nander, some of them so wide she could barely make out the opposite shore. But she’d never seen the sea. She couldn’t imagine that much water. Nor could she imagine water that rocked, and crashed against the land, as she’d heard the sea did. She stared absently at the walls of Tealiff’s small room, and tried to think of it.

“You can see two of my brothers’ castles from the city,” Po said. “In the foothills of the mountains. The other castles are beyond the mountains, or too far to see.”

“How many castles are there?”

“Seven,” Po said, “just as there are seven sons.”

“Then one is yours.”

“The smallest one.”

“Do you mind that yours is the smallest?”

Po chose an apple from the bowl of fruit on the table. “I’m glad mine is the smallest, though my brothers don’t believe me when I say so.”

She didn’t blame them for disbelieving. She’d never heard of a man, not even her cousin, who didn’t want as large a holding as he could have. Giddon was always comparing his estate to that of his neighbors; and when Raffin listed his complaints about Thigpen, he never neglected to mention a certain disagreement over the precise location of the Middluns’ eastern border. She’d thought all men were like that. She’d thought she wasn’t like that because she wasn’t a man.

“I don’t have the ambitions of my brothers,” Po said. “I’ve never wanted a large holding. I’ve never wanted to be a king or an overlord.”

“No,” Katsa said, “nor have I. I’ve thanked the hills countless times that Raffin was born the son of Randa, and I only his niece, and his sister’s daughter at that.”

“My brothers want all that power,” he said. “They love to get wrapped up in the disputes of my father’s court. They actually revel in it. They love managing their own castles and their own cities. I do believe sometimes that they all wish to be king.”





He leaned back in his chair and absently ran his fingers along his sore shoulder.

“My castle doesn’t have a city,” he said. “It’s not far from a town, but the town governs itself. It doesn’t have a court, either. Really it’s just a great house that’ll be my home for the times when I’m not traveling.”

Katsa took an apple for herself. “You intend to travel.”

“I’m more restless than my brothers. But it’s so beautiful, my castle; it’s the most wonderful place to go home to. It sits on a cliff above the sea. There are steps down to the water, cut into the cliff. And balconies hanging over the cliff –

you feel as if you’ll fall if you lean too far. At night the sun goes down across the water, and the whole sky turns red and orange, and the sea to match it. Sometimes there are great fish out there, fish of impossible colors. They come to the surface and roll about – you can watch them from the balconies. And in winter the waves are high, and the wind’ll knock you down. You can’t go out to the balconies in winter. It’s dangerous, and wild.”

“Grandfather,” he said suddenly. He jumped up and turned to the bed.

Informed that his grandfather had awoken, Katsa thought wryly, by the eyes in the back of his head.

“You speak of your castle, boy,” the old man said.

“Grandfather, how are you feeling?”

Katsa ate her apple and listened to them talk. Her head was full of the things Po had said. She hadn’t known there were sights in the world so beautiful a person would want to spend an age staring at them.

Po turned to her then, and a torch on the wall caught the gleam of his eyes. She focused on breathing. “I have a weakness for beautiful sights,” he said. “My brothers tease me.”