Bitterblue

'Hm,' said Madlen wryly. 'That's not generally my first line of action when left alone in a stranger's home with a sleeping patient. Anyway, Lady Queen, you'll be glad Teddy woke, because he was quite forthcoming.'

'Really!'

'Have you seen his arms, Lady Queen?'

Teddy's arms? She'd seen Saf's arms; Saf had had Lienid markings on his upper arms like the ones Po had. Less ornate than Po's, though no less effective at drawing the eye. And no less attractive. More, she thought sternly, just in case Po was awake and having his ego stroked. 'What about Teddy's arms?' she asked, rubbing her eyes, sighing.

'He has scars on one arm, Lady Queen. They've the look of burns—as if he's been branded. I asked him how it happened, and he said it was the press. He'd been trying to wake his parents, he said, and failed, and fell asleep himself, lying against the printing press, until Tilda dragged him out. It didn't sound like anything sensical to me, Lady Queen, so I asked him if his parents had had a printing shop that had burned. He began to giggle—he was drugged, you understand, Lady Queen, and perhaps saying more than he would otherwise, and making less sense —and told me that his parents had had four printing shops that had burned.'

'Four! Was he hallucinating?'

'I can't be certain, Lady Queen, but when I challenged him, he was adamant that they'd had four shops, and that one after another, they'd burned. I said it seemed a remarkable coincidence, and he said no, it was exactly what was bound to have happened. I asked if his parents were particularly incautious, and he giggled again, and said yes, in Leck City it had been particularly incautious to run a printing shop.'

Oh. And now Bitterblue understood the story; she saw the level on which it made perfect sense. 'His parents,' she said. 'Where are they?'

'They died in the fire that scarred him, Lady Queen.'

She had known it would be the answer, and still, it was difficult to hear. 'When?'

'Oh, ten years ago. He was ten.'

My father killed Teddy's parents, thought Bitterblue. I couldn't blame him if he hated me.

'And then,' Madlen said, 'he said something I could make so little sense of that I wrote it down, Lady Queen, so I wouldn't mix it up when I told you. Where is it?' Madlen asked herself, poking crossly at the mountain of books and papers on her bedside table. She leaned out of bed and grabbed at the discarded clothing on the floor. 'Here it is,' she said, fishing a folded paper from a pocket and flattening it against the mattress. 'He said, 'I suppose the little queen is safe without you today, for her first men can do what you would. Once you learn cutting and stitching, do you ever forget it, whatever comes between? Even if Leck comes between? I worry for her. It's my dream that the queen be a truthseeker, but not if it makes her someone's prey.' '

Madlen stopped reading and looked across at Bitterblue, who stared back at her blankly.

'That's what he said?'

'That's it, as best I could remember, Lady Queen.'

'Who are my 'first men'?' Bitterblue asked. 'My advisers?' And—prey?

'I've no idea, Lady Queen. Given the context, perhaps your best male healers?'

'It's probably drug-induced nonsense,' Bitterblue said. 'Let me see it.'

Madlen's handwriting was big and careful, like a child's. Bitterblue sat with her legs curled in the chair, puzzling over the message for some time. Cutting and stitching? Did that mean healing work? Or sewing work? Or something terrible, like what her father had used to do to rabbits and mice with knives? It's my dream that the queen be a truthseeker, but not if it makes her someone's prey.

'He did speak a lot of gibberish, Lady Queen,' said Madlen, plucking her eye patch from its hook on her bedpost and tying it behind her head. 'And when the other three returned, they had the look of young people quite pleased with themselves.'

'Oh, right.' Bitterblue had forgotten about the antics of the other three. 'Were they carrying anything?'

'Indeed. A small sack that Bren brought upstairs before I could get a close look at it.'

'Did it make any noise? A clinking? A jingle?'

'No noise, Lady Queen. She held it close and carefully.'

'Could it have been silver coins?'

'Just as surely as it could have been flour, Lady Queen, or coal, or the jewels from the crowns of all six kings.'

'Five kings,' Bitterblue informed her. 'Drowden is deposed. I found out this morning.'

Madlen sat up straight and dropped her feet to the floor. 'Great floods,' she said, staring at Bitterblue solemnly. 'This is a day for astonishment. When you tell me King Thigpen is deposed, I'll fall off my bed.'

Thigpen was the King of Estill. Estill was the kingdom Madlen said she'd escaped from, though Madlen was rather close-mouthed about her past, and spoke with an accent that Bitterblue couldn't match to any part of the seven kingdoms she knew. Madlen had come to Bitterblue's court seeking employment seven years ago, alluding to the fact, during her interview, that in all the seven kingdoms but Lienid and Monsea, and particularly in Estill, Gracelings were enslaved to their kings, a circumstance she did not find acceptable. Bitterblue had had the tact not to ask Madlen if she had taken out her own eye to hide her Graceling identity during her escape. If she had—well, Madlen's Grace was healing, so she'd probably known the best way to do it.

DINNER TOOK PLACE in her sitting room, early. A clock gently ticked and her crown caught the white light of a sun that wasn't even thinking about setting yet. I must stay awake, thought Bitterblue, so that I can go see Teddy.

Po joined her and Helda for dinner. Helda had once been Katsa's ladyservant in the Middluns, and had been a Council ally for some time now. She fussed over Po like he was a long-lost grandson.

I must not think about how I need to sneak out tonight without Po knowing. I can think about sneaking out. I must only avoid thinking about sneaking out without him knowing, for then he'll know immediately. Of course, the other side of Po's Grace was that he sensed the physicality of everyone and everything, so he would probably sense the departure of her body whether or not he knew her thoughts. Which he probably did by now, anyway, so determinedly had she been thinking about how she mustn't think about them.

And then, mercifully, Po got up to take his leave. Giddon appeared, ravenous, slapping Po on the shoulder, falling into Po's chair. Helda went off somewhere with a pair of spies who'd arrived. Bitterblue sat across from Giddon, nodding over her plate. I must ask him about Nander, she thought to herself. I must make polite conversation and I must not tell him my plans for sneaking out. He's nicelooking, isn't he? A beard quite suits him. 'Puzzles,' she said stupidly.

'What's that, Lady Queen?' he asked, putting his knife and fork down, looking into her face.

'Oh,' she said, realizing she'd spoken aloud. 'Nothing. I'm plagued by puzzles, is all. I'm sorry for the state I was in when we met earlier today, Giddon. It's not how I would have preferred to welcome you to Monsea.'

'Lady Queen,' he said with instant sympathy, 'you mustn't apologize for that. I was in much the same state the first time I was involved in someone's death.'

'Were you?' she said. 'How old were you?'

'Fifteen.'

'Forgive me, Giddon,' she said, embarrassed to find herself fighting off a yawn. 'I'm exhausted.'

'You must rest.'

'I must stay awake,' she said—then apparently dozed off, for she woke sometime later in confusion, in her bed, to which Giddon had presumably helped her. He seemed to have taken her boots off, unbound her hair, and tucked her under the sheets. The memory came to her: her own voice saying, 'I cannot sleep with all these pins in my hair.' Lord Giddon's deep voice responding: He would go and get Helda. And Bitterblue, half asleep, saying forcefully, 'No, it cannot wait,' and yanking at her wound-up braids, and Giddon reaching to stop her, sitting beside her on her own bed and helping her, saying things to calm her. She leaning against him as he took down her hair, he murmuring with gentlemanly sympathy as she sighed against his chest, 'I'm so tired. Oh, I haven't slept in ever so long.'

Oh, she thought. How mortifying. And now her throat stung; her muscles ached, as if she'd been through one of Katsa's fighting lessons. I killed a man today, she thought, and with that thought, tears began to run down her face. She cried freely, hugging