Oll? Is there anything else on the table?”
Oll began to speak then of a Westeran village that had met a Nanderan raiding party with a pair of catapults, given to them by a Westeran lord who was friend to the Council. The Nanderan raiders had fled, thinking they were being attacked by an army. There was laughter at the table, and Oll began another story, but Katsa’s thoughts wandered to Murgon and his dungeons, to the Sunderan forests that likely held the secrets of the kidnapping. She felt Po’s gaze, and she glanced at him across the table. His eyes were on her, but he didn’t see her. His mind was elsewhere. He got that look sometimes, when they sat together after their fights.
She watched his face. The cut on his forehead was no more than a thin red line now. It would leave a scar. She wondered if that would rankle his Lienid vanity, but then she smiled within herself. He wasn’t really vain. He hadn’t cared a bit when she’d blackened his eye. He’d done nothing to hide the gash on his forehead. And besides, no vain person would choose to fight her, day after day. No vain person would put his body at the mercy of her hands.
His sleeves were rolled to his elbows again. His manners were so careless. Her eyes rested on the shadows in the hollows of his neck, then rose to his face again. She supposed he would have reason to be vain. He was handsome enough, as handsome as Giddon or Raffin, with his straight nose and the set of his mouth, and his strong shoulders.
And even those gleaming eyes. Even they might be considered handsome.
His eyes came back into focus then and looked into hers. And then something mischievous in his eyes, and a grin.
Almost as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, exactly what she’d decided about his claims to vanity. Katsa’s face closed, and she glowered at him.
The meeting ended, and chairs scraped. Raffin pulled her aside to speak of something. She was grateful for the excuse to turn away. She wouldn’t see Po again until their next fight. And the fights always returned her to herself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning Randa came to their practice for the first time. He stood at the side, so that everyone in the room was compelled to stand as well and watch him instead of the fighters they’d come to see. Katsa was glad to fight, glad for the excuse to ignore him. Except that she couldn’t ignore him. He was so tall and broad, and he stood against the white wall in bright blue robes. His lazy laugh carried into every corner of the room. She couldn’t shake the sense of him – and there must be something he wanted. He never sought out his lady killer unless there was something he wanted.
She had been running through a drill with Po when Randa had arrived, a drill that was giving her some trouble. It began with Katsa on her knees and Po behind her, pinning her arms behind her back. Her task was to break free of Po’s grip and then grapple with him until she had trapped him in the same position. She could always fight her way free of Po’s grip. That wasn’t the problem. It was the counterpin that frustrated her. Even if she managed to knock him to his knees and trap his arms, she couldn’t keep him down. It was a matter of brute strength. If he tried to muscle himself to his feet, she didn’t have the force to stop him, not unless she knocked him unconscious or injured him seriously, and that wasn’t the point of the exercise. She needed to find a holding position that would make the effort of rising too painful to be worth his while.
They began the drill again. She knelt with Po at her back, and Po’s hands tightened around her wrists. Randa’s voice rose and fell, and one of the stewards responded. Flattering, fawning. Everyone flattered Randa.
Katsa was ready for Po this time. She twisted out of his grip and was on him like a wildcat. She pummeled his stomach, hooked her foot between his legs, and battered him to his knees. She yanked at his arms. His right shoulder –
that was the one he was always icing. She twisted his right arm and leaned all her weight against it, so that any attempt to move would require him to wrench his shoulder and bring more pain to it than she was already causing him to feel.
“I surrender,” he gasped. She released him, and he heaved himself to his feet. He massaged his shoulder. “Good work, Katsa.”
“Again.”
They ran through the drill again, and then once more, and both times she trapped him easily.
“You’ve got it,” Po said. “Good. What next? Shall I try it?”
Her name cut through the air then, and her hackles rose. She’d been right. He hadn’t come only to watch; and now, before all these people, she must act pleasant and civil. She fought against the frown that rose to her face, and turned to the king.
“It’s so amusing,” Randa said, “to see you struggling with an opponent, Katsa.”
“I’m glad it gives you amusement, Lord King.”
“Prince Greening. How do you find our lady killer?”
“She’s the superior fighter by far, Lord King,” Po said. “If she didn’t hold herself back, I’d be in great trouble.”
Randa laughed. “Indeed. I’ve noticed it’s you who comes to dinner with bruises, and not she.”
Pride in his possession. Katsa forced herself to unclench her fists. She forced herself to breathe, to hold her uncle’s gaze even though she wanted to scratch the leer from his face.
“Katsa,” the king said. “Come to me later today. I have a job for you.”
“Yes, Lord King,” she said. “Thank you, Lord King.”
Randa leaned back on his heels and surveyed the room. Then, with his stewards rushing into their places behind him, he exited with a great swish of blue robes, and Katsa stared after him until he and his entourage had vanished; and then she stared at the door the stewards slammed behind him.
Around the room, slowly, lords and soldiers sat down. Katsa was vaguely aware of their movements. Vaguely aware of Po’s eyes on her face, watching her, silently.
“What’s it to be now, Katsa?”
She knew what she wanted. She felt it shooting down her arms and into her fingers, tingling in her legs and feet. “A straight fight,” she said. “Anything fair. Until one of us surrenders.”
Po narrowed his eyes. He considered her tight fists and her hard mouth. “We’ll have that fight, but we’ll have it tomorrow. We’re done for today.”
“No. We fight.”
“Katsa. We’re done.”
She stalked up to him, close, so that no one else could hear. “What’s the matter, Po? Do you fear me?”
“Yes, I fear you, as I should when you’re angry. I won’t fight you when you’re angry. Nor should you fight me when I’m angry. That’s not the purpose of these practices.”
And when he told her she was angry, she realized it was true. And just as quickly, her anger fizzled into despair.
Randa would send her on another strong-arm mission. He would send her to hurt some poor petty criminal, some fool who deserved to keep his fingers even if he was dishonorable. He would send her, and she must go, for the power sat with him.
———
They ate in her dining room. Katsa stared at her plate. He was talking about his brothers, how his brothers would love to see their practices. She must come to Lienid one day and fight with him for his family. They’d be amazed by her skill, and they’d honor her greatly. And he could show her the most beautiful sights in his father’s city.
She wasn’t listening. She was picturing the arms she’d broken for her uncle. The arms, bent the wrong way at the elbow, bone splinters sticking through the skin. He said something about his shoulder, and she shook herself, and looked at him.
“What did you say?” she asked. “About your shoulder? I’m sorry.”
He dropped his gaze and fiddled with his fork. “Your uncle has quite an effect on you,” he said. “You haven’t been yourself since he walked into the practice room.”
“Or maybe I have been myself, and the other times I’m not myself.”