———
Fighting him was different, now that she knew his true advantages. It was a waste of her energy, she realized, to fake a blow. She could have no mental advantage over him; no amount of cleverness would serve her. Her only advantages were her speed and her ferocity. And now that she knew this, it became easy enough to adjust her strategy.
She didn’t waste time being creative. She only pummeled him as fast and as hard as she could. He might know where she aimed her next blow, but after a barrage of hits he simply couldn’t keep up with her anymore; he couldn’t move fast enough to block her. They struggled and wrestled as the light faded and the night moved in. Over and over again he surrendered and heaved himself back up to his feet, laughing and moaning.
“This is good practice for me,” he said, “but I can’t see what you have to gain from it. Other than the satisfaction of beating me to a pulp.”
“We’ll have to come up with some new drills,” she said. “Something to challenge both of our Graces.”
“Keep fighting me once the sky is dark. You’ll find us more evenly matched then.”
It was true. The night sky closed in around them, a black sky with no moon and no stars. Eventually Katsa could no longer see, could only make out his vaguest outline. Her blows, as she threw them, were approximate. He knew she couldn’t see, and moved in ways that would confuse her. His defense became stronger. And his own strikes hit her squarely.
She stopped him. “It’s that exact, your sense of my hands and feet?”
“Hands and feet, fingers and toes,” he said. “You’re so physical, Katsa. You’ve so much physical energy. I sense it constantly. Even your emotions seem physical sometimes.”
She squinted at him and considered. “Could you fight a person blindfolded?”
“I never have – I could never have tried it, of course, without arousing suspicion. But yes, I could, though it would be easier on flat ground. My sense of the forest floor is too inconsistent.”
She stared at him, a black shape against a blacker sky. “Wonderful,” she said. “It’s wonderful. I envy you. We must fight more often at night.”
He laughed. “I won’t complain. It’d be nice to be on the offensive every once in a while.”
They fought just a bit longer, until they both tripped over a fallen branch, and Po landed on his back, half submerged in the pond. He came up spluttering.
“I think we’ve done enough barreling around in the dark,” he said. “Shall we check on your goose?”
———
The goose sizzled over the fire. Katsa poked at it with her knife, and the meat fell away from the bone. “It’s perfect,” she said. “I’ll cut you your drumstick.” She glanced up at him, and in that moment he pulled his wet shirt over his head. She forced her mind blank. Blank as a new sheet of paper, blank as a starless sky. He came to the fire and crouched before it. He rubbed the water from his bare arms and flicked it into the flames. She stared at the goose and sliced his drumstick carefully and thought of the blankest expression on the blankest face she could possibly imagine. It was a chilly evening; she thought about that. The goose would be delicious, they must eat as much of it as possible, they must not waste it; she thought about that.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she said to him. “I don’t want this goose to go to waste.”
“I’m ravenous.”
He was going to sit there shirtless, apparently, until the fire dried him. A mark on his arm caught her eye, and she took a breath and imagined a blank book full of page after empty page. But then a similar mark on his other arm drew her attention, and her curiosity got the better of her. She couldn’t help herself she squinted at his arms. And it was all right, this was acceptable. For there was nothing wrong with being curious about the marks that seemed to be painted onto his skin. Dark, thick bands, like a ribbon wrapped around each arm, in the place where the muscles of his shoulder ended and the muscles of his arm began. The bands, one circling each arm, were decorated with intricate designs that she thought might be a number of different colors. It was hard to tell in the firelight.
“It’s a Lienid ornamentation,” he said, “like the rings in my ears.”
“But what is it?” she asked. “Is it paint?”
“It’s a kind of dye.”
“And it doesn’t wash away?”
“Not for many years.”
He reached into one of his bags and pulled out a dry shirt. He slipped it down over his head, and Katsa thought of a great blank field of snow and breathed a small sigh of relief. She handed him his drumstick.
“The Lienid people are fond of decoration,” he said.
“Do the women wear the markings?”
“No, only the men.”
“Do the people?”
“Yes.”
“But no one ever sees it,” Katsa said. “Lienid clothing doesn’t show a man’s upper arms, does it?”
“No,” Po said. “It doesn’t. It’s a decoration hardly anyone sees.”
She caught a smile in his eyes that flashed at her in the light. “What? What are you grinning about?”
“It’s meant to be attractive to my wife,” he said.
Katsa nearly dropped her knife into the fire. “You have a wife?”
“Great seas, no! Honestly, Katsa. Don’t you think I would have mentioned her?”
He was laughing now, and she snorted. “I never know what you’ll choose to mention about yourself, Po.”
“It’s meant for the eyes of the wife I’m supposed to have,” he said.
“Whom will you marry?”
He shrugged. “I hadn’t pictured myself marrying anyone.”
She moved to his side of the fire and sliced the other drumstick for herself. She went back and sat down. “Aren’t you concerned about your castle and your land? About producing heirs?”
He shrugged again. “Not enough to attach me to a person I don’t wish to be attached to. I’m content enough on my own.”
Katsa was surprised. “I had thought of you as more of a social creature, when you’re in your own land.”
“When I’m in Lienid I do a decent job of folding myself into normal society, when I must. But it’s an act, Katsa; it’s always an act. It’s a strain to hide my Grace, especially from my family. When I’m in my father’s city there’s a part of me that’s simply waiting until I can travel again. Or return to my own castle, where I’m left alone.”
This she could understand perfectly. “I suppose if you married, it could only be to a woman trustworthy enough to know the truth of your Grace.”
He barked out a short laugh. “Yes. The woman I married would have to meet a number of rather impossible requirements.” He threw the bone from his drumstick into the fire and cut another piece of meat from the goose. He blew on the meat, to cool it. “And what of you, Katsa? You’ve broken Giddon’s heart with your departure, haven’t you?
”
His very name filled her with impatience. “Giddon. And can you really not see why I wouldn’t wish to marry him?”
“I can see a thousand reasons why you wouldn’t wish to marry him. But I don’t know which is your reason.”
“Even if I wished to marry, I wouldn’t marry Giddon,” Katsa said. “But I won’t marry, not anyone. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard that rumor. You were at Randa’s court long enough.”
“Oh, I heard it. But I also heard you were some kind of feckless thug and that Randa had you under his thumb.
Neither of which turned out to be true.”
She smiled then and threw her own bone into the fire. One of the horses whickered. Some small creature slipped into the pond, the water closing around it with a gulp. She suddenly felt warm and content, and full of good food.