It was time to get him out of here, so that she could return to her rooms and return to herself.
CHAPTER TEN
He was a marvelous opponent. She couldn't get to him. She couldn't hit him where she meant to, or as hard as she wanted. He was so quick to block or to twist, so quick to react. She couldn't knock him from his feet, she couldn't trap him when their fight had devolved into a wrestling match on the floor.
He was so much stronger than she, and for the first time in her life, she found her lesser strength to be a disadvantage. No one had ever gotten close enough to her for it to matter, before this.
He was so finely tuned to his surroundings, and to her movements; and that was also part of the challenge. He always seemed to know what she was doing, even when she was behind him.
"I'll grant you don't have night vision if you'll grant you have eyes in the back of your head," she said once, when she'd entered the practice room and he'd greeted her without looking round to identify her.
"What do you mean?"
"You always know what's happening behind you."
"Katsa, do you never notice the noise you make when you burst into a room? No one flings doors open the way you do."
"Perhaps your Grace gives you a heightened sense of things," she said.
He shook his head. "Perhaps, but no more than your own."
He still got the worst of their fights, because of her flexibility and her tireless energy, and mostly because of her speed. She might not hit him how she wanted, but she still hit him. And he suffered pain more. He stopped the fight once while she grappled to pin his arm and his legs and his back to the ground and he hit her repeatedly in the ribs with his one free hand.
"Doesn't that hurt?" he said, gasping with laughter. "Don't you feel it? I've hit you possibly twelve times, and you don't even flinch."
She sat up on her heels and felt the spot, below her breast. "It hurts, but it's not bad."
"Your bones are made of rock. You walk away from these fights without a sore spot, while I limp away and spend the day icing my bruises."
He didn't wear his rings while they fought. He'd come without them the first day. When she'd protested that it was an unnecessary precaution, his face had assumed a mask of innocence.
"I promised Giddon, didn't I?" he'd said, and that fight had begun with Po ducking, and laughing, as Katsa swung at his face.
They didn't wear their boots, either, not after Katsa accidentally clipped him on the forehead. He had dropped to his hands and knees, and she saw at once what had happened. "Call Raft'!" she'd cried to Oll, who watched on the side. She'd sat Po on the floor, ripped off her own sleeve, and tried to stop the flow of blood that ran into his dazed eyes. When Raffin had given him the go-ahead to fight a few days later, she'd insisted they fight barefoot. And in truth, she had taken more care of his face since then.
They almost always practiced in front of an audience. A scattering of soldiers, or underlords. Oll, whenever he could, for the fights gave him so much pleasure. Giddon, though he always seemed to grow grumpy as he watched and never stayed long. Even Helda came on occasion, the only woman who did, and sat with wide eyes that grew wider the longer she sat.
Randa did not come, which was pleasant. Katsa was glad of his tendency to keep her at arm's length.
They ate together most days, after practicing. In her dining room, alone, or in Raffin's workrooms with Raffin and Bann. Sometimes at a table Raffin had brought into Tealiff's room. The grandfather was still very ill, but company seemed to cheer and strengthen him.
When they sat together talking, sometimes the silver and gold of Po's eyes caught her off guard. She could not become used to his eyes; they muddled her. But she met them when he looked at her, and she forced herself to breathe and talk and not become overwhelmed. They were eyes, they were only his eyes, and she wasn't a coward. And besides, she didn't want to behave toward him as the entire court behaved toward her, avoiding her eyes, awkwardly, coldly. She didn't want to do that to a friend.
He was a friend; and in the final few weeks of summer, for the first time in her life, Randa's court became a place of contentment for Katsa. A place of good hard work and of friends. Oll's spies moved steadily, learning what they could from their travels to Nander and Estill. The kingdoms, amazingly, were at peace. The heat and the closeness of the air seemed to bring a lull to Randa's cruelty as well, or perhaps he was merely distracted by the flood of foods and wares that always washed into the city from every trade route at that time of year. Whatever the reason, Randa did not summon Katsa to perform any of his nasty errands. Katsa found herself daring to relax into summer's end.
She never ran out of questions for Po.
"Where'd you get your name?" she asked him one day as they sat in the grandfather's room, talking quietly so as not to wake him.
Po wound a cloth wrapped with ice around his shoulder. "Which one? I've got lots to choose from."
Katsa reached across the table to help him tie the cloth tight. "Po. Does everyone call you that?"
"My brothers gave me that name when I was little. It's a kind of tree in Lienid, the po tree. In autumn its leaves turn Silver and gold. Inevitable nickname, I guess."
Katsa broke a piece of bread. She wondered if the name had been given fondly, or if it had been an attempt by Po's brothers to isolate him – to remind him always that he was Graceling. She watched him pile his plate high with bread, meat, fruit, and cheese and smiled as the food began to disappear almost as fast as he'd piled it up. Katsa could eat a lot, but Po was something else altogether.
"What is it like to have six older brothers?"
"I don't think it was for me what it would be for most others," he said. "Hand fighting is revered in Lienid. My brothers are great fighters, and of course I was able to hold my own with them, even though I was small – and eventually surpass them, every one of them. They treated me like an equal, like more than an equal."
"And were they also your friends?"
"Oh yes, especially the younger ones."
Perhaps it was easier, then, to be a fighter if one was a boy or in a kingdom that revered hand fighting; or perhaps Po's Grace had announced itself less drastically than Katsa's had. Perhaps if Katsa had six older brothers, she would also have six friends.
Or maybe everything was different in Lienid.
"I've heard the Lienid castles are built on mountain peaks so high that people have to be lifted up to them by ropes," she said.
Po grinned. "Only my father's city has the ropes." He poured himself more water and turned back to the food on his plate.
"Well?" Katsa said. "Are you going to explain them to me?"
"Katsa. Is it too much for you to understand that a man might be hungry after you've beaten him half to death? I'm beginning to think it's part of your fighting strategy, keeping me from eating. You want me weak and faint."
"For someone who's Lienid's finest fighter," she said, "you have a delicate constitution."
He laughed and put his fork down. "All right, all right. How can I describe this?" He picked his fork up again and used it to draw a picture in the air as he spoke. "My father's city sits at the top of this enormous, tall rock, tall as a mountain, that rises straight up from the plains below. There are three ways up to the city. One is a road built into the sides of the rock, that winds around and around it, slowly. The second is a stairway built into one side of the rock. It bends back and forth on itself until it reaches the top. It's a good approach, if you're strong and wide awake and don't have a horse, though most who choose that route eventually tire and end up begging a ride from someone on the road. My brothers and I race it sometimes."