Po and Sicye teased Bitterblue endlessly about her entourage. It wasn't just the guards. Ror was taking the royal position of his sister's daughter very seriously. Soldiers were always arriving, leading horses piled high with supplies, especially as the winter storms began to wind down. Vegetables, breads, fruits; blankets, clothing, dresses for the queen; and always letters from Ror, asking Bitterblue's opinion on this or that matter, updating her on the plans for the coronation, and inquiring after the health of the various members of her party, particularly Po.

"I'm going to ask Ror to send me a sword," Bitterblue said one day at breakfast. "Katsa, will you teach me to use it?"

Skye's face lit up. "Oh, do, Katsa. I haven't seen you fight yet, and I was beginning to think I never would."

"And you imagine I'll make for an exciting opponent?" Bitterblue asked him.

"Of course not. But she'll have to stage a sword fight with a few of the soldiers, won't she, to show you how it's done? There must be a decent fighter or two among them."

"I'm not going to stage a sword fight with unarmored soldiers," Katsa said.

"What about a hand fight?" Skye sat back and folded his arms, a cockiness in his face that Katsa thought must be a family trait. "I'm not such a bad hand fighter myself."

Po exploded with laughter. "Oh, fight him, Katsa. Please fight him. I can't imagine a more entertaining diversion."

"Oh, it's that funny, is it?"

"Katsa could pound you into the ground before you even raised a finger."

Skye was unabashed. "Yes, exactly – that's what I want to see. I want to see you destroy someone, Katsa. Would you destroy Po for me?"

Katsa was smiling. "Po isn't easy to destroy."

Po hooked his feet to the legs of the table and rocked his chair backward. "I imagine I am these days."

"Returning to the question at hand," Bitterblue said, rather sternly. "I should like to learn to use a sword."

"Yes," Katsa said. "Well then, send word to Ror."

"Aren't two soldiers just leaving?" Po asked. "I'll catch them." The legs of his chair clattered down to the floor. He pushed away from the table and went outside. Three pairs of eyes lingered on the door that closed behind him.

"The weather's looking less like winter now," Bitterblue said. "I'm anxious to go to my court and get started with things. But I don't like to until I'm convinced he's well, and frankly, I'm not convinced."

Katsa didn't answer. She ate a piece of bread absentmindedly. She turned to Skye and considered his shoulders, strong and straight like his brother's; his strong hands. Skye moved well. And he was closest in age to Po; he'd probably fought Po a million times growing up.

She narrowed her eyes at the remains of their meal. She wondered what it would be like to fight with no eyes, and distracted by the landscape and the movement of every creature close at hand.

"At least he's finally eating," Bitterblue said.

Katsa jumped. She stared at the child. "He is?"

"He was yesterday, and he was this morning. He seems quite hungry, actually. You didn't notice?"

Katsa let out a burst of air. She pushed her own chair back and headed for the door.

She found him standing before the water, staring unseeing at its frozen surface. He was shivering. She watched him doubtfully for a moment. "Po," she said to his back, "where's your coat?"

"Where's yours?"

She moved to stand beside him. "I'm warm."

He tilted his head to her. "If you're warm and I'm coatless, there's only one friendly thing for you to do."

"Go back and get your coat for you?"

He smiled. Reaching out to her, he pulled her close against him. Katsa wrapped her arms around him, surprised, and tried to rub some warmth into his shivering shoulders and back. "That's it, exactly," Po said. "You must keep me warm." She laughed and held him tighter.

Po said, "Let me tell you something that's happened," and she leaned back and looked into his face, because she heard something new in his voice.

"You know I've been fighting my Grace all these months," he said, "trying to push it away. Trying to ignore most of what it shows me and concentrate on the little bit I need to know."

"Yes."

"Well, a few days ago in a fit of, well, self-pity, I stopped."

"You stopped?"

"Fighting my Grace, I mean. I gave up, I let it all wash over me. And you know what happened?" He didn't wait for her to guess. "When I stopped fighting all the things around me, all the things around me started to come together. All the activity, and the landscape, and the ground and the sky, and even people's thoughts. Everything's trying to form one picture. And I can feel my place in it like I couldn't before. I mean, I'm still overwhelmed. But nothing like before."

She bit her lip. "Po. I don't understand."

"It's easy, Katsa. It's as if when I open myself up to every perception, things create their own focus. I mean, think of us now, standing here. There's a bird in the tree behind me, do you see it?"

Katsa looked over his shoulder. A bird sat on a branch, plucking at the feathers under its wing. "I see it."

"Before, I would have tried to fight off my perception of the bird, so as to concentrate on the ground under my feet and you in my arms. But now I just let the bird, and everything else that's irrelevant, wash over me; and the irrelevant things fade away a bit, naturally. So that you are all of my focus."

Katsa was experiencing an odd sensation. It was as if a nagging ache had suddenly lifted and left her with a stunning absence of pain. It was relief and hope together. "Po. This is good."

He sighed. "It's a great comfort to be less dizzy."

She hesitated, and then decided she might as well say it, seeing as he probably already knew it. "I think it's time you started fighting again."

He smiled slightly. "Oh? Is that what you think?"

She rose nobly to the defensive. "And why not? It'll bring back your strength, improve your balance. Your brother makes a perfect opponent."

He touched his forehead to hers. His voice was very quiet. "Calm yourself, wildcat. You're the expert. If you think it's time I started fighting, then I suppose it's time I started fighting."

He was smiling still, and Katsa couldn't bear it, because it was the smallest and the saddest smile in all the world. But as he raised his fingers to touch her face, she saw that he was wearing his ring.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

It became a kind of school. Katsa made up drills for Skye and Po that were first and foremost a challenge to Po's strength. Skye was satisfied, for the drills favored him. Katsa was satisfied, for she could see Po's progress. She set them always to wrestling, rarely to proper hand fighting, and reminded Po constantly, in his mind and out loud, to muscle rather than Grace his way out of every scrape.

Alongside the grappling brothers, Katsa taught Bitterblue to hold a sword, and then to block with one, and then to strike. Position and balance, strength and motion, speed. The child was as awkward at first with the sword as she had been with the knife, but she worked stubbornly, and like Po she made progress.

And Katsa's school grew. The guards and messengers couldn't resist the spectacle of the Lady Katsa teaching swordplay to their young queen, or the Lienid and his brother wrestling each other into the ground. They gathered round, asking this and that question about a drill she fabricated for the princes, or a trick she taught Bitterblue to compensate for the queen's lack of size and strength. Before Katsa knew it she was teaching the trick to a pair of young soldiers from Monsea's southern shore, and devising a drill to improve the opposite-hand swordplay of Bitterblue's guards. Katsa enjoyed it thoroughly. It pleased her to watch her students grow stronger.