Bitterblue

22



WHEN PO BURST back into her rooms an hour later, he was not carrying the crown.

"Where is it?" Bitterblue hissed from her place on the sofa, where she'd spent the hour pushing away the food Helda pressed on her, fending off visits from her puzzled advisers, and pulling at her cuticles.

Po collapsed beside her, rumpled and soaking wet. "I lost him."

"You lost him! How?"

"He had a head start, Bitterblue, and his sister met him just outside, and they ran together, splitting up sometimes. And it's raining, which makes things harder for me. And I cannot keep all your streets in my mind, and all the houses, and all the moving people, while also focusing on someone who grows farther and farther away; I got lost, I had to backtrack. And all the hundreds of folk who saw me were having dramatic reactions at me, wanting to know why I was running around like a lunatic, and I cannot even begin to describe how distracting that is. The power of the rumor mill, if you could feel it as I do, would boggle your mind. Too many people out there know, somehow, that Katsa left abruptly in the middle of the night, sobbing her eyes out, wearing Raffin's clothing, and taking a horse over Winged Bridge. Every one of them who looked at me wanted to know what horrible thing I'd done to her."

"In addition to that," a dignified voice said from the doorway, "look at what a sight he is, Lady Queen. I've never tried running after young men through the city streets myself, but I expect it's difficult with heavy legs and tired eyes. He looks as if he hasn't slept in days, and who can blame him, with his lady up and leaving him?" Coming into the room, Helda went to a side table, poured a cup of cider, and brought it to Po.

"She left because I asked her to, Helda," he said quietly, accepting the cup.

Sitting down across from them, sniffing, Helda said, "Who's going to tell me what's going on?"

Bitterblue was lost. Had Po told Helda his truth, then? Or was he revealing it to her this very moment? Had he even meant to, or had she snuck up on him somehow? If one of the Lienid guards stepped in, or one of the spies, would Po reveal it to them too? Why not hang a banner from the windows?

She tore a hangnail too close to the root and sucked her breath in through her teeth. "Well," she said to Helda, watching the bead of blood grow. "Today, a city person I know was arrested for a murder he didn't commit. He was acquitted. Then Po brought him here so that I could talk to him."

"I saw him when he came in, Lady Queen," Helda said severely, "before Prince Po shooed me back to my rooms and told me to stay there. He looked like an incurable ruffian. And when he began yelling at you, and I came out to knock some sense into him, Prince Po shooed me away again."

"His name is Sapphire," Bitterblue said, swallowing, "and he didn't know until he saw me in the High Court today that I was the queen. I'd told him that I worked in the kitchens."

Helda narrowed her eyes. "I see."

"He's a friend, Helda," Bitterblue said hopelessly. "Except that on the way out, he stole the crown."

Settling herself more firmly into her chair, Helda said again, dryly, "I see."

"I can't see with my eyes," Po said to Helda, perhaps a bit out of the blue, thrusting a hand through his soggy hair. "I believe you've gathered the rest, but if you're to know the whole truth, I should tell you I lost my eyesight eight years ago."

Helda opened her mouth; closed it.

"I sense things," Po went on. "Not just thoughts, but objects, bodies, force, momentum, the world around me, and so my blindness, much of the time, is not the hindrance it would otherwise be. But it's the reason I can't read. I can't see color; the world is gray shapes. The sun and moon are too far away for me to sense and I can't see light."

Still working her mouth, Helda reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, which she handed to Bitterblue. After a moment, she extracted another handkerchief, then set to folding it precisely, as if matching corner to corner were the day's most critical task. When she pressed it to her lips, then dabbed her eyes, Po's head dropped. "Regarding the crown," he said, clearing his throat. "They seemed to be heading east, perhaps toward the silver docks, before I lost them."

"Did you go to the shop?"

"I don't know the location of the shop, Bitterblue. No one's thought the map straight at me. Do it yourself and I'll go there now."

"No," she said, "I'll go."

"I don't advise that."

"I must."

"Bitterblue," Po said, beginning to lose his patience, "I advised you against meeting him the first time and he stole your crown. What do you think he'll do the second time?"

"But if I keep trying—"

"While I stand outside ready to come bursting in to cover for you when he, oh, I don't know, gets it into his head to drag you into the street and start screaming that the boy in the hood is really the queen of the kingdom? I don't have time for this, Bitterblue, and I don't have the energy to keep straightening your tangles!"

White-lipped, Bitterblue rose to her feet. "Shall I stop straightening your tangles, then, too, Po? How often do I lie for your sake? How often did you lie to me in the first years of our acquaintance? You, who are immune to being lied to yourself. How inconvenient it must be when you have to complicate your peace by lying for the sake of others."

"Sometimes," Po said with bitterness, "you are utterly without pity."

"I'd say you've enough pity for yourself," said Bitterblue. "You, of all people, should understand my need for Saf's forgiveness. What I've done to him, you do to everyone all the time. Help me or don't help me; fine. But don't talk to me as if I'm a child who trips around carelessly making messes. There are situations in my city and my kingdom that you know nothing about." Then she sat down again, suddenly, dismal and deflated. "Oh, Po," she said, dropping her face into her hands. "I'm sorry. Please, give me your advice. What should I say to him? What do you say when you've hurt someone with a lie?"

Po was quiet for a moment. Then he almost seemed to be laughing, mournfully, under his breath. "I apologize."

"Yes, I've done that," Bitterblue said, her mind running through

the horrible conversation she'd had with Saf. Then running through it again. "Oh." She stared at Po in dismay. "I never once said I was sorry."

"You must," Po said, gently now. "Beyond that, you must tell him as much of the truth as you possibly can. You must ensure, by whatever means necessary, that he doesn't use it to ruin you. And then you must let him be as angry as he'll be. That's what I do."

And so I must throw myself into my own guilt, and into the hatred of a person I've grown fond of.

Bitterblue contemplated her ruined cuticles. She was beginning to better understand, starkly, Po's crisis. Leaning into him, she touched her head to his shoulder. He put a wet arm around her and held on.

"Helda," Bitterblue said, "how long do you think we can keep everyone from noticing that the crown is missing?"

Helda pursed her lips. "A good long time," she decided with a staunch nod. "I don't anticipate anyone caring about the crown until your uncle's visit, do you, Lady Queen? It's only your spies, your servants, your Council friends, and I in these rooms, and of those, it's only one or two of the servants I'd rather not trust. I'll construct something and throw a cloth over the cushion so it looks like nothing's amiss."

"Don't forget that it depends on Saf as well," Po said. "He's perfectly capable of making it known citywide in any number of ways that your crown is not where it should be, Bitterblue, and plenty of people saw him and me walking to your rooms together after the trial."

Bitterblue sighed. She supposed it was the sort of thing he would do, if he were angry enough. "We've got to find out who framed him for the murder," she said.

"Yes," Po said. "That's an important question. Let me go confront

him about the crown, won't you? Please? I'll see if I can learn anything about the framing as well. I also think I should talk to that false witness, don't you agree?"

"Yes. All right." Bitterblue let go of him, sighing. "I'll stay here. I've some things I need to think through. Helda, will you continue to chase my advisers away?"

IN HER BEDROOM, she paced.

Could Saf really, truly, honestly think I'm behind the silencing of the truthseekers? Behind all of it? When I ran with him over the roofs? When I brought Madlen to them! Could he honestly—

Numbly, she sat on the chest, pulling hairpins out. Could he honestly think I would want misfortune to befall him?

Massaging her scalp, working her newly freed hair into a rat's nest, she found herself at a panicky dead end with that question. She had no control over what Saf thought.

He said that I don't see what I've done or how high I am in the world. That I marooned him. He said we've never been friends, never been equals.

Crossing to the vanity where she sat when Helda did her hair, Bitterblue threw her hairpins into a silver bowl and glared into the mirror. Sunken circles stood like bruises under her eyes, and her forehead, still raw from the attack last night, was purple and grisly. Behind her was reflected the enormity of the room, the bed high and big enough to be a dining table for all her friends, the silver, gold, scarlet walls. The dark ceiling dotted with stars. Fox, or someone, must clean away my cobwebs, she thought. Someone must care for this beautiful rug.

Bitterblue thought of the printing shop, messy and bright. She thought of the apartments behind, small enough to fit into this room, tidy, walls and floors made of rough-hewn wood. She looked in the mirror at her own gown of pale gray silk, perfectly fitted, beautifully tailored, and thought of Saf 's rougher clothing, the places where his sleeve-ends frayed. She remembered how fond he was of Leck's gold pocket watch. She remembered the choker she had pawned without a second thought, barely caring how much money it made her.

She did not think that they were poor. They had work, they had food, they threw sparkling parties. But she supposed that she didn't really know what poor would look like, if she saw it. Would she recognize it? And if they weren't poor, what were they? How did it work, to live in the city? Did they pay someone rent? Who decided how much things cost? Did they pay taxes to the crown that were a strain on them?

Somewhat uncomfortable now, Bitterblue returned to her mother's chest, sat down, and forced herself to touch the edges of the question of just how, exactly, she had marooned Saf. What if the sit- uation were reversed? What if she were the commoner and it had turned out that Saf was the king? Would she have been left marooned?

It was nearly impossible for her to conceive of such a situation. In fact, it was flatly absurd. But then she began to wonder if her inability even to imagine it had to do with her being too high to see that low, as Saf had said.

For some reason, her mind kept returning to the night Saf and she had taken a route along the silver docks. They'd talked of pirates and treasure hunting, and they'd run past the looming ships of the queen. The ships had been lined with the queen's fine soldiers who guarded the silver destined for her treasury, her very own fortress of gold.

* * * * *

WHEN PO ENTERED the bedroom sometime later, even wetter than before and with mud-streaked clothing, he found Bitterblue sitting on the floor, head in hands.

"Po," she whispered, looking up at him. "I'm very wealthy, aren't I?"

Po came and crouched before her, dripping. "Giddon is wealthy," he said. "I'm exceedingly wealthy, and Raffin is more. There's no word for what you are, Bitterblue. And the money at your disposal is only a fraction of your power."

Swallowing, she said, "I don't believe I quite appreciated it before."

"Yes," Po said. "Well. Money does that. It's one of the privileges of wealth never to have to think about it, and one of the dangers too." He shifted, sat. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Bitterblue whispered.

He sat quietly, accepting that.

"You don't seem to have the crown with you," she added.

"The crown is not in the shop," he said. "Saf has passed it on to the subordinates of a black market underlord who calls himself Spook and is said to live hidden away in a cave, if I was reading him right."

"My crown is already on the black market?" cried Bitterblue. "But how will we ever exonerate him?"

"I get the impression that Spook is only involved for safekeeping, Beetle. We may still be able to get it back. Don't despair yet. I'll work on Saf, I'll flatter him with an invitation to a Council meeting or something. When I left, you know, he knelt, kissed my hand, and wished me good dreams. This, after I'd accused him of royal theft."

"How gratifying for you that it's only the Monsean nobility he hates," she said bitterly.

"He would hate me well enough if I broke his heart," said Po quietly.

Bitterblue raised her face to him. "Have I broken his heart, then, Po? Is that what I'm to believe?"

"That's a question for you to ask him, sweetheart."

She noticed, then, that Po was shivering. More than that: She saw, as she studied him more closely, something wild and pained flashing in his eyes. Reaching out, she touched his face. "Po!" she said. "You're burning! Do you feel all right?"

"I feel like my insides are made of lead, actually," he said. "Do you think I have a fever? That would explain why I fell."

"You fell?"

"My Grace sort of starts warping things when I have a fever, you know? Without eyesight, it's disorienting." He grabbed his head vaguely. "I think I fell more than once."

"You're ill," she said, upset, standing up, "and I've sent you twice into the rain, and made you fall. Come, I'm taking you to your rooms."

"Helda is trying to find some way whereby the fact of my being blind explains what she believes to be the perversity of Katsa and me not having children," he said at random.

"What? What are you talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever. Get up."

"I really can't stand it sometimes," he said a bit erratically, still sitting on the floor, "hearing other people's thoughts. People are ridiculous. By the way, Saf is not lying about his Grace; he doesn't know what it is."

He told me so many times that he never lies to me. I suppose I didn't

want to believe it. "Po." Taking Po's hands and pulling, leaning back, yanking, Bitterblue persuaded him to stand. "I'm going to walk you to your rooms and bring you a healer. You need to sleep."

"Did you know that Tilda and Bren live as a couple and they want Teddy to give them a baby?" he asked, swaying, wincing at the room as if he couldn't remember how he got there.

This was too astonishing for words. "I'm bringing you to Madlen," Bitterblue said sternly. "Now, come along."

BY THE TIME Bitterblue returned to her rooms, the light was fading. The sky was purple like Saf's eyes, and her sitting room glimmered with lamps Helda had taken care to light. In her bedroom, she lit candles for herself, sat on the floor by her mother's chest, and ran her fingers over the carvings on its top.

How lonely she felt, trying to understand all that had happened today on her own. Mama? Would you be ashamed of me?

Wiping a tear that had fallen onto the lid of the chest, she found herself peering more closely at the carved designs. She'd noticed before that Ashen had used some of the carvings as models for her embroidery, of course, but she'd never made a study of it. They were arranged in neat rows atop the lid—none repeated—star, moon, candle, sun, for example. Boat, shell, castle, tree, flower, prince, princess, baby, and so on. She knew, from years of staring at the edges of her own sheets, exactly which ones Ashen had borrowed.

The realization crept into her and all through her. Even before she'd bothered to count, she knew. She counted anyway, just to make sure.

The carvings on the chest numbered a hundred. The carvings her mother had borrowed for her embroidery numbered twenty-six.

Bitterblue was looking at a cipher alphabet.