Then Po had been right. The deaths at Leck’s court began to make even more sense to Katsa. Leck probably arranged for many people to die – people whose use had become more trouble than it was worth, because he’d hurt them so grievously that they’d begun to comprehend the truth.
“So then he kidnapped Grandfather,” Bitterblue said, “because he knew there was no one my mother loved more. He told my mother he was going to torture Grandfather, unless she agreed to hand me over. He told her he was going to bring him to Monsea and kill him in our sight. We hoped it was all just his usual lies. But then we got letters from Lienid and knew Grandfather was really missing.”
“Grandfather was neither tortured nor killed,” Po said. “He’s safe now.”
“He could have just taken me,” Bitterblue said, her voice breaking with sudden shrillness. “He has an entire army that would never defy him. But he didn’t. He has this… sick patience. It didn’t interest him to force us. He wanted to hear us say yes.”
Because it was more satisfying to him that way, Katsa thought.
“My mother barricaded us inside her rooms,” Bitterblue said. “The king ignored us for a while. He had food and drink brought to us, and water and fresh linen. But he would talk to us through the door sometimes. He would try to persuade my mother to send me out. He would confuse me sometimes. Sometimes he would confuse her. He would come up with the most convincing reasons why I should come out, and we had to keep reminding ourselves of the truth. It was very frightening.”
A tear ran down her face now, and she kept talking, quickly, as if she could no longer contain her story. “He began to send animals in to us, mice all cut up, dogs and cats, still alive, crying and bleeding. It was horrible. And then one day the girl who brought our food had cuts on her face, three lines on each cheek, bleeding freely. And other injuries, too, that we couldn’t see. She wasn’t walking well. When we asked her what happened, she said she couldn’t remember.
She was a girl my age.”
She stopped for a moment, choked with tears. She wiped her face on her shoulder. “That’s when my mother decided we had to escape. We tied sheets and blankets together and dropped out through the windows. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, for fear. But my mother talked me through it, all the way down.” She stared into the flames. “My mother killed a guard, with a knife. We ran for the mountains. We hoped the king would assume we’d taken the Port Road to the sea. But on the second morning we saw them coming after us, across the fields. My mother twisted her ankle in some foxhole. She couldn’t run. She sent me ahead, to hide in the forest.”
The girl breathed furiously, wiped her face again, clenched her hands into fists. Through some massive force of will, she stopped the fall of her tears. She grasped the knife that lay in her lap and spoke bitterly. “If I were trained in archery. Or if I could use a knife. Perhaps I could have killed my father when this whole thing started.”
“By some accounts, it’s too late,” Po said. “But I’ll kill him tomorrow, before he does anything more.”
Bitterblue’s eyes darted to his. “Why you? Why not her, if she’s the better fighter?”
“Leck’s Grace doesn’t work on me,” Po said. “It works on Katsa. This we learned today, when we met him in the fields. I must be the one to kill him, for he can’t manipulate me or confuse me as he can Katsa.”
He offered Bitterblue one of the quail, skewered on a stick. She took it and watched him closely. “It’s true that his Grace lost some of its power over me,” she said, “when he hurt my mother. And it lost some of its power over my mother when he threatened me. But why does it not work on you?”
“I can’t say,” Po said. “He’s hurt a lot of people. There may be many for whom his Grace is weak – but none likely to admit it, for fear of his vengeance.”
Bitterblue narrowed her eyes. “How did he hurt you?”
“He kidnapped my grandfather,” Po said. “He murdered my aunt before my eyes. He threatens my cousin.”
Bitterblue seemed satisfied by this; or, at least, she turned to her food and ate ravenously for a number of minutes.
She glanced at him occasionally, at his hands as he tended the fire.
“My mother wore a lot of rings, like you,” she said. “You look like my mother, excepting your eyes. And you sound like her, when you talk.” She took a deep breath and stared at the food in her hands. “He’ll be camping in the forest tonight, and he’ll be looking for me again tomorrow. I don’t know how you’ll find him.”
“We found you,” Po said, “didn’t we?”
Her eyes flashed up into his and then back to her food. “He’ll have his personal guard with him. They are all Graced.
I’ll tell you what you’ll be facing.”
———
It was a simple enough plan. Po would set out early, before first light, with food, a horse, the bow, the quiver, one dagger, and two knives. He would work his way back into the forest and hide his horse. He would find the king –
however long that took. He would come no closer to the king than the distance of the flight of an arrow. He would aim, and he would fire. He would ensure that the king was dead. And then he would run, as fast as he could, back to his horse and to the camp.
A simple plan, and Katsa grew more and more uneasy as they talked it through, for both she and Po knew that it would never play out so simply. The king had an inner guard, made up of five Graced sword fighters. These men were little threat to Po; they always stood beside the king, and Po expected never to step within their range. It was the king’s outer guard that Po must be prepared to encounter. These were ten men who would be positioned in a broad circle around Leck, some distance from him and from each other, but surrounding the king as he moved through the forest.
They were all Graced, some fighters, a couple crack shots with a bow. One Graced with speed on foot; one enormously strong; one who climbed trees and jumped from branch to branch like a squirrel. One with extraordinary sight and hearing.
“You will know that one by his red beard,” Bitterblue said. “But if you’re close enough to see him, then he’s most certainly spotted you already. Once you’re spotted they’ll raise the alarm.”
“Po,” Katsa said. “Let me come with you as far as the outer circle. There are too many of them, and you may need help.”
“No,” Po said.
“I would only fight them and then leave.”
“No, Katsa.”
“You’ll never – ”
“Katsa.” His voice was sharp. She crossed her arms and glared into the fire. She took a breath and swallowed hard.
“Very well,” she said. “Go to sleep now, Po, and I’ll keep watch.”
Po nodded. “Wake me in a couple of hours and I’ll take over.”
“No,” she said. “You need your sleep if you’re to do this thing. I’ll keep watch tonight. I’m not tired, Po,” she said as he started to protest. “You know I’m not. Let me do this.”
And so Po dropped off to sleep, huddled in a blanket beside Bitterblue. Katsa sat in the dark and went over the plan in her mind.
If Po didn’t return to their camp above the gully by sunset, then Katsa and Bitterblue must flee without him. For if he didn’t return, it might mean the king was not dead. If the king was not dead, then nothing would protect Bitterblue from him, except distance.
Leave Po behind, in this forest of soldiers. It was unimaginable to Katsa, and as she sat on a rock in the cold and the dark, she wouldn’t let herself think it. She watched for the slightest movement, listened for the smallest sound. And refused to think about all that could happen tomorrow in the forest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX