The archery range was empty, and dark except for the lone torch that glowed outside the equipment room. Katsa lit the torches along the back of the range so that when she returned to the front, the man-shaped dummies stood black against the brightness behind them. She grabbed a bow randomly from the supplies and collected handfuls of the lightest-colored arrows she could find. Then she drove arrow after arrow into the knees of her targets. Then the thighs, then the elbows, then the shoulders, until she’d emptied her quiver. She could disarm or disable any man with this bow at night, that was clear enough. She exchanged the bow for another. She yanked the arrows from the targets. She began again.
She’d lost her temper at dinner, and for no reason. Randa hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t even looked at her, had only said her name. He loved to brag of her, as if her great ability were his doing. As if she were the arrow, and he the archer whose skill drove her home. No, not an arrow – that didn’t quite capture it. A dog. To Randa she was a savage dog he’d broken and trained. He set her on his enemies and allowed her out of her cage to be groomed and kept pretty, to sit among his friends and make them nervous.
Katsa didn’t notice her heightened speed and focus, the ferocity with which she was now whipping arrows from her quiver, the next arrow notched in the string before the first had hit home. Not until she sensed the presence behind her shoulder did she stir from her preoccupation and realize how she must look.
She was savage. Look at her speed, look at her accuracy, and with a poor bow, curved badly, strung badly. No wonder Randa treated her so.
She knew it was the Lienid who stood behind her. She ignored him. But she slowed her movements, made a show of taking aim at thighs and knees before she fired. She became conscious of the dirt under her feet and remembered, too, that she was barefoot, with her hair falling around her shoulders and her shoes in a pile somewhere near the equipment room. He would have noticed. She doubted there was much those eyes didn’t notice. Well, he wouldn’t have kept such stupid shoes on his feet, either, or left pins in his hair if his scalp were screaming. Or perhaps he would. He seemed not to mind his own fine jewelry, in his ears and on his fingers. They must be a vain people, the Lienid.
“Can you kill with an arrow? Or do you only ever wound?”
She remembered his raspy voice from Murgon’s courtyard, and it was taunting her now, as it had done then. She didn’t turn to him. She simply took two arrows from her quiver, notched them together, pulled, and released. One flew to her target’s head, and the other to its chest. They hit with a satisfying thud, and glowed palely in the flickering torchlight.
“I’ll never make the mistake of challenging you to an archery match.”
There was laughter in his voice. She kept her back to him and reached for another arrow. “You didn’t forfeit our last match so easily,” she said.
“Ah, but that’s because I have your fighting skill. I lack your skill with a bow and arrow.”
Katsa couldn’t help herself She found that interesting. She turned her eyes to him, his face in shadows. “Is that true?”
“My Grace gives me skill at hand-to-hand combat,” he said, “or sword-to-sword. It does little for my archery.”
He leaned back against the great slab of stone that served as a table for the equipment of the archers. His arms were crossed. She was becoming accustomed to this look, this lazy look, as if he could nod off to sleep at any moment, but it didn’t fool her. She thought if she were to spring at him, he’d react quickly enough.
“Then, you need to be able to grapple with your opponent, to have an advantage,” she said.
He nodded. “I may be quicker to dodge arrows than someone Ungraced. But in my own attack, my skill is only as good as my aim.”
“Hmm.” Katsa believed him. The Graces were odd like that; they didn’t touch any two people in quite the same way.
“Can you throw a knife as well as you shoot an arrow?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re unbeatable, Lady Katsa.” She heard the laughter in his voice again. She considered him for a moment and then turned away and walked down the course to the targets. She stopped at one, the one she’d “killed,” and yanked the arrows from its thighs, its chest, its head.
He sought his grandfather, and Katsa had what he sought. But he didn’t feel safe to her, this one. He didn’t feel quite trustworthy.
She walked from target to target, pulling out arrows. He watched her, she felt it, and the knowledge of his eyes on her back drove her to the back of the range, where she put the torches out, one by one. As she extinguished the last flame, darkness enveloped her, and she knew she was invisible.
She turned to him then, thinking to examine him in the light of the equipment room without his knowing. But he slouched, arms crossed, and stared straight at her. He couldn’t see her, it wasn’t possible – but his gaze was so direct that she couldn’t hold it, even knowing he didn’t know she stared.
She walked across the range and stepped into the light, and his eyes seemed to change focus. He smiled at her, ever so slightly. The torch caught the gold of one eye and the silver of the other. They were like the eyes of a cat, or a night creature of some kind.
“Does your Grace give you night vision?” she asked.
He laughed. “Hardly. Why do you ask?”
She didn’t answer. They looked at each other for a moment. The flush began to rise into her neck again, and with it, a surging irritation. She’d grown far too used to people avoiding her eyes. He would not rattle her so, simply by looking at her. She wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m going to return to my rooms now,” she said.
He straightened. “Lady, I have questions for you.”
Well, and she knew they must have this conversation eventually, and she preferred to have it in the dark, where his eyes wouldn’t unnerve her. Katsa pulled the quiver over her head, and laid it on the slab of stone. She placed the bow beside it.
“Go on,” she said.
He leaned back against the stone. “What did you steal from King Murgon, Lady,” he said, “four nights past?”
“Nothing that King Murgon had not himself stolen.”
“Ah. Stolen from you?”
“Yes, from me, or from a friend.”
“Really?” He crossed his arms again, and in the torchlight he raised an eyebrow. “I wonder if this friend would be surprised to hear himself so called?”
“Why should he be surprised? Why should he think himself an enemy?”
“Ah,” he said, “but it’s just that. I thought the Middluns had neither friends nor enemies. I thought King Randa never got involved.”
“I suppose you’re wrong.”
“No. I’m not wrong.” He stared at her, and she was glad for the darkness that kept his strange eyes dim. “Do you know why I’m here, Lady?”
“I was told you’re the son of the Lienid king,” she said. “I was told you seek your grandfather, who’s disappeared.
Why you’ve come to Randa’s court, I couldn’t say. I doubt Randa is your kidnapper.”
He considered her for a moment, and a smile flickered across his face. Katsa knew she wasn’t fooling him. It didn’t matter. He may know what he knew, but she had no intention of confirming it.
“King Murgon was quite certain I was involved in the robbery,” he said. “He seemed quite sure I knew what object had been stolen.”
“And that’s natural,” Katsa said. “The guards had seen a fighter, and you’re no other than a fighter.”
“No. Murgon didn’t believe I was involved because I was Graced. He believed I was involved because I’m Lienid.
Can you explain that?”
And of course she would give him no answer to that question, this smirking Lienid. She noticed that the neck of his shirt was now fastened. “I see you close your shirt for state dinners,” she heard herself saying, though she didn’t know where such a senseless comment came from.
His mouth twitched, and his words, when he spoke, did not conceal his laughter. “I didn’t know you were so interested in my shirt, Lady.”
Her face was hot, and his laughter was infuriating. This was absurdity, and she would put up with it no longer. “I’m going to my rooms now,” she said, and she turned to leave. In a flash, he stood and blocked her path.
“You have my grandfather,” he said.
Katsa tried to step around him. “I’m going to my rooms.” He blocked her path again, and this time he raised his arm in warning.