Bitterblue

the earth. He'd tossed her his watch to comfort her height sickness. They'd heard the clock chime together. Oh, Po, I don't understand what's happening here. Someone is lying. What am I to do? If I tell the truth, my advisers will know I've been sneaking out, and I can't bear them knowing, I just can't, they'll never trust me again, they'll fight me on everything, they'll try to control me. And the whole kingdom will speculate about whether I'm having a secret affair with a Lienid sailor who's a thief. I'll lose my credibility with everyone. I'll shame myself and everyone who supports me. What do I do? What's the way out of this?

Where are you?

You don't hear me, do you. You're not coming.

'The accused has offered an alibi, Lady Queen,' Piper continued. 'He claims to have been stargazing with a friend on his roof. He further claims that his friend lives in the castle but that he doesn't know the friend's true identity. Perversely, he then refuses to describe the friend for us so that we might produce him. Which is all in the way of saying that he has no alibi at all.'

Which is all in the way of saying that even when faced with the charge of murder, Saf protects the secrets of the people he considers to be friends. Even when he doesn't have the privilege of knowing those secrets himself.

Saf's expression hadn't changed, except to grow harder, tighter, more bitterly amused. She saw no softness for herself there. The softness had been for Sparks, and Sparks was gone now.

Po. I have no choice.

Bitterblue rose and said, 'Everyone remain seated.' She couldn't control her trembling. To stop herself from hugging her own arms, she took hold of her sword hilt. Then she looked into Saf's face and said, 'I know his companion's true name.'

The doors at the back of the courtroom crashed open and Po exploded through so forcefully that the audience spun around on their benches, craning to see what the ruckus was. Standing in the center aisle, himself bruised and gasping, Po called up to Bitterblue, 'Cousin! Sticky door you've got there!' Then he pretended to pass his eyes over the people in the room. What followed was the most masterly impression of shocked recognition that Bitterblue had ever seen. Po's body went still and his face registered perfect amazement. 'Saf,' he said. 'Great seas, is that you? You're not accused of something, are you?'

Bitterblue's relief was premature, she knew that. Still, it was the only emotion she could feel as she fell into her chair. She wasn't going to say a thing until she understood exactly what Po was up to, other than, perhaps, the single word Piper, so that Piper would know to run through the charges against Saf once more and Po could go through the dramatics of pretending to be astonished and appalled.

'But, this is extraordinary,' Po said, walking up the aisle, coming alongside the prisoner's hold, where Saf sat gaping at Po as if Po were a dancing bear that had just jumped out of a cake. In one easy motion, Po swung himself over the gate, pushed through Saf's startled, rising guards, and took Saf's shoulder. 'Why are you protecting me, man? Don't you know what happens to murderers in Monsea? Lady Queen, he didn't murder that man. He was on the roof that night, just as he says, and I was with him.'

THANK YOU, PO. Thank you. Thank you.

She was like the paper glider she'd watched Po fling into the wall. She thought she might slide right off the edge of her chair and crumple onto the floor.

A furious argument had begun between Po and her judges.

'My business is none of your business,' Po said flatly when Lord Quall asked, with a smarmy smile, why he'd been stargazing on a roof with a sailor in the east city at midnight. 'Nor does it have anything to do with whether Saf is innocent or guilty.' And later, 'What do you mean, how long have I been friends with him? Haven't you asked him?' I don't know if they've asked him, Bitterblue thought to him; but apparently Po had already determined that they hadn't—which was lucky—for he continued without missing a beat. 'We met for the first time that night. Can you wonder that I fell in talking with him? Look at him! I don't ignore my own people!'

Don't draw any more attention to him than you need to, Po. He's not coping well. For if Po's apparent surprise at finding his new best friend on trial for murder was well acted, it paled in comparison to Saf's confoundedness at finding the Graceling prince of Lienid at his side, knowing who he was, claiming to be his friend, knowing obscure details about his whereabouts two nights ago, and lying to the High Court on his behalf.

Quall asked Po if he could furnish any other witnesses.

Po took a step to the front of the hold. 'Am I on trial here? Perhaps you think the two of us killed the man together.'

'Naturally not, Lord Prince,' said Quall. 'But you'll understand our hesitation in trusting a Lienid Graceling who claims to have no Grace.'

'When have I ever claimed to have no Grace?'

'Not you, of course, Lord Prince. The accused.'

Po spun back to Saf. 'Saf? Did you tell these judges that you have no Grace?'

Saf swallowed. 'No, Lord Prince,' he whispered. 'I only claimed not to know my Grace, Lord Prince.'

'You do perceive the difference?' Po asked, rather sarcastically, turning back to Quall.

'And still, it's certain that the accused lied, Lord Prince, for he also claimed not to know your true identity.'

'It's obvious he lied to protect me and my business,' Po said impatiently. 'He is loyal to a fault.'

'My Prince,' Saf piped up miserably, 'I would rather be convicted of a crime I didn't commit than put you in jeopardy.'

Oh, finish this, Po, please, thought Bitterblue. I cannot bear how pathetic he is.

And then Po shot Bitterblue the briefest of sardonic expressions. Bitterblue, hardly able to believe it, studied Saf more closely. Surely his humility wasn't an act? Could Saf act in a moment like this?

'He is proud of lying!' Quall said triumphantly.

Bitterblue had given up on identifying the authenticity of anyone's emotions. She only knew that Po seemed genuinely fed up with Quall. Swinging himself over the gate of the hold—not quite as smoothly as he had before—he came to stand before the dais. 'What is your problem?' he asked Quall. 'Do you doubt the truth of my testimony?'

Quall worked his mouth. 'Not at all, Lord Prince.'

'Then you acknowledge that he must be innocent; but still, you can't let it go. Why don't you like him? Is it because he's Graced? Or might it be because he's Lienid?'

'He's a funny sort of Lienid,' said Quall, with a touch of contempt that suggested some personal disregard.

'To your eyes, perhaps,' Po said coolly, 'but he would not be wearing those rings or that gold in his ears if the Lienid didn't consider him to be Lienid. Many Lienid look just like him. While your Monsean king was murdering people indiscriminately, our Lienid king was opening his arms to Gracelings seeking freedom. A Lienid is the reason your queen is alive today. Her Lienid mother had a mind stronger than any of the rest of you. Your Monsean king killed my father's Lienid sister. Your own queen is half Lienid!'

Po, Bitterblue thought, beginning to be thoroughly confused. We're getting off course here, don't you think?

'Your Monsean witness is the one who's a criminal liar,' Po said, extending his hand toward a broad, handsome man in the first row of the audience.

Po! No one's told you which one is the witness! Bitterblue jumped to her feet so that everyone would have to focus on figuring out whether to rise or remain seated, rather than on Po's strange perceptiveness. Pull yourself together, she snapped at him. 'Arrest the witness,' she snapped at the guards around Sapphire, 'and release the accused from the hold. He's free to go.'

'He did break the arm of a member of the Monsean Guard, Lady Queen,' Piper reminded her.

'Who was arresting him for a murder he didn't commit!'

'Nonetheless, Lady Queen, I don't believe we can tolerate behavior like that. He also lied to the court.'

'I sentence him to the black eye and bloody mouth he already has,' Bitterblue said, gazing at Piper squarely.