Last time on Graceling, how do you babies.

Katsa then goes on to inform us this chapter that she also can’t handle skirts. Lovely.

Their business in Estill was with an Estillan borderlord who had arranged to purchase lumber from the southern forests of the Middluns. He had paid the agreed price, but then he’d cleared more than the agreed number of trees. Randa wanted payment for the additional lumber, and he wanted the lord punished for altering the agreement without his permission.

Okay, seriously, you can’t just do that. He’s not their king’s lord, their king doesn’t decide his fate.

They can go crack his head open, in the sense that they are technically capable of doing so, but this is yet another thing that should cause a war. If another land’s king can decide if you live or die, why the hell are you even bothering to support your king? He’s not doing anything for you.

Oll also says that, by the way, theguyhasaGraceddaughterwhomindreads anyway no biggie let’s move on!

Wait what, says Katsa.

“I’m telling you now, My Lady,” Oll said, “and there’s no reason for concern. She’s a child. Most of what she comes up with is nonsense.”
“Well, what’s wrong with her?”
“What’s wrong with her is that most of what she comes up with is nonsense.

There was no editor at all involved in this, was there?

In Estill, as in most of the kingdoms, Gracelings were given up to the king’s use by law. The child whose eyes settled into two different colors weeks, months, or on the rarest occasions years after its birth was sent to the court of its king and raised in its king’s nurseries. If its Grace turned out to be useful to the king, the child would remain in his service. If not, the child would be sent home. With the court’s apologies, of course, because it was difficult for a family to find use for a Graceling. Especially one with a useless Grace, like climbing trees or holding one’s breath for an impossibly long time or talking backward. The child might fare well in a farmer’s family, working among the fields with no one to see or know. But if a king sent a Graceling home to the family of an innkeeper or a storekeeper in a town with more than one inn or store to choose from, business was bound to suffer. It made no difference what the child’s Grace was. People avoided a place if they could, if they were likely to encounter a person with eyes that were two different colors.

This doesn’t make sense.

I mean, the king taking them does, sure. But if useless Graces are common, why do people freak out about them? It’s not like they’d be suspicious because they’d know the kings only send home the useless kids. And someone who can hold their breath a long time or climb well can easily be made useful to a community. People in the real world don’t automatically hate anyone with talent, let alone a completely harmless one.

Also – just, what the hell is the point of rulers in this setting? The lords apparently don’t protect their villagers and the kings don’t protect their lords. They take all the graced children, so families lose a potential talent (the innkeeper with a kid that had super cooking skills certainly wouldn’t suffer for it) unless the king decides that actually the kid is useless and trouble, in which case he makes them deal with it. And people hate gracelings but the king employs lots of them himself. None of this adds up to anything!

Here’s a way of doing it. Gracelings all go to the king, and he’s responsible for the weird ones just as he takes advantage of the useful ones. All gracelings are therefore known to be the servant of a king as soon as you see their eyes. The ones without a useful talent are just employed on normal administrative duties, and often travel around to keep an eye on things, because they can’t be easily impersonated. Add in a dash of superstition, like people assuming all gracelings have a sixth sense about lying or something, or have there be religious beliefs saying they’re blessed by god and should be obeyed, and you end up with people being uneasy around them but respectful without resorting to just “hated because they’re different!!!!!!!!” In fact, where the hell is religion here? Why is it called “grace” if no one seems to think it’s any sort of blessing?

That still allows for the mindreader girl to be here, because we’re already getting a long discussion about how her being sent home until she gets a better handle on her powers is unusual, and the king shouldn’t do that, so just say it’s unusual because usually kings don’t send them home period.

Katsa is creeped out by mind readers.

Randa’s chef was Graced, and his horse handler, and his winemaker, and one of his court dancers. He had a juggler who could juggle any number of items without dropping them. He had several soldiers, no match for Katsa, but Graced with sword fighting. He had a man who predicted the quality of the next year’s harvest. He had a woman brilliant with numbers, the only woman working in a king’s countinghouse in all seven kingdoms.
He also had a man who could tell your mood just by putting his hands on you. He was the only Graceling of Randa’s who repelled Katsa

So. We only get the gender for one of them, but in context, it doesn’t look like graces hit evenly.

See, we know that none of those soldiers can be female, because Katsa keeps making a big damn deal about the fact she’s both female and a fighter. Most of the other occupations listed here are also usually male, and since Katsa points out the one woman who’s doing a normally male job, it’s likely that the rest of them are as well, particularly because the two gender-neutral graces, involving straight up magic, are identified as male. So, at most, I’d say the dancer and juggler could be female.

This is the same issue I had with Mistborn. In Mistborn, we’re directly told that the superpowers hit women as often as men, but almost every single person with them we actually meet is a guy (and of the handful of women who do have powers, almost all are dead or become so.) This book has not said that the graces hit evenly, so it’s not technically violating its own rules, but it’s not like it’s any better if the book deliberately set out to make reasons to avoid women.

Katsa also doesn’t elaborate on what her problem with mind readers is. It doesn’t seem to be the normal uncomfortableness of it, because she’s reacting far more strongly than anyone else, and it doesn’t seem to be worry about someone finding out any particular detail, since she’s horrified by the idea of the guy who can tell your mood and honestly, people can learn to make a pretty good guess of that just by body language, it doesn’t take magic.

She wants to know which kind this one is.

you know how the mind readers are, their Graces always changing, and so hard to pin down. Adults before they’ve grown into their full power. But it seems as if this one reads desires. She knows what it is other people want.”

Huh. When Katsa talked about her own grace before, she said it just hadn’t announced itself yet, which made sense. You can’t know what your grace is until it comes up. But now we’re being told that mind readers function differently and their graces actually change around for a while? And if that’s the case, why hasn’t anyone tried to figure out if you can mold them while they’re still settling? And why do mindreaders work completely differently from the rest?

…honestly, mind reading itself seems kind of violating the rules. The initial description of graces seems like you’re blessed with a super version of an existing talent. So someone super good at reading people, sure, but there’s no existing mind reading ability to enhance with a grace. If it’s flat out magic, then why would something like Katsa’s killing ability have any connection to her actual fighting skill? It should be just that she can magically kill people with magic.

“Good morning, My Lord,” Giddon said. “We apologize for interrupting your breakfast. Do you know why we’re here?”
The lord seemed to struggle to find his voice. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said, his hand at his throat.
“No? Perhaps the Lady Katsa could help you bring it to mind,” Giddon said. “Lady?”
Katsa stepped forward.
“All right, all right.” The lord stood. His legs jarred the table, and a glass overturned.
…
“Ah, you’ve remembered,” Giddon said, “have you? You’ve remembered why we’re here?”
“I believe I owe you money,” the lord said. “I imagine you’ve come to collect your debt.”
“Very good!” Giddon spoke as if to a child. “And why do you owe us money? The agreement was for how many acres of lumber? Remind me, Captain.”
“Twenty acres, My Lord,” Oll said.
“And how many acres did the lord remove, Captain?”
“Twenty-three acres, My Lord,” Oll said.
“Twenty-three acres!” Giddon said. “That’s rather a hefty difference, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A terrible mistake.” The lord’s attempt at a smile was pained. “We never realized we’d need so much. Of course, I’ll pay you immediately. Just name your price.”
“You’ve caused King Randa no small inconvenience,” Giddon said. “You’ve decimated three acres of his forest. The king’s forests are not limitless.”
“No. Of course not. Terrible mistake.”
“We’ve also had to travel for days to settle this matter,” Giddon said. “Our absence from court is a great nuisance to the king.”

…

There are supposed to be the good guys? Giddon is practically getting off on this.

There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this. It’s not like it’s vital to the cause that Giddon draws this out as painfully as possible. There hasn’t been any talk of how they need to pretend to be sadistic so the king will trust them. He’s doing it because he can.

What the hell.

Giddon says that for the mistake, he should pay twice as much gold. The man immediately agrees, and Giddon leaves but says Katsa needs to stay.

The guy begs her not to kill him.

“I don’t kill men who steal three acres of lumber from the king,” she said, “and then pay for it dearly in gold. It’s more the sort of crime that warrants a broken arm or the removal of a finger

Katsa isn’t being particularly dickish, but neither is she making the slightest attempt to be nice here.

It was easier to follow Randa’s orders when they begged or cried, when they gave her nothing to respect.

Ah, there’s the dickery we know to expect from protagonists. So, if people beg her not to hurt them Katsa apparently feels better about hurting them. Empathy, you’re doing it wrong.

Randa didn’t care about his forests; he only cared about the money and the power. Besides, the forests would grow back one day.

Well actually –

See, wood is usually a relatively scarce commodity. Trees take time to grow, and some construction requires boards of a certain size, which won’t regrow in anyone’s lifetime. If you cut too much down, that’s it, there’s no more.

And the guy’s behavior here is something that you really, really don’t want to encourage. Sure, maybe this particular deal just happened to involve twenty acres because it was all the guy wanted, but plenty of the time, that limit is going to be imposed from the other end, because it’s all you can afford to sell. In the latter case, you can’t have people deciding it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and cutting the trees down anyway.

This kind of viewpoint is a very modern one, where it’s assumed resources are basically limitless, so as long as you’re paying a fair price it doesn’t matter how much you end up taking.

Anyway, she’s impressed by his bravery, so instead she knocks him out and then leaves him unharmed.

She considers what will happen if he tells, though why he would is beyond me, it’s more likely someone else will find out.

perhaps she could accuse the lord of lying, to save face.

I think whether or not he’s missing a finger is one of those things that’ll be hard to fake.

She also thinks maybe it’ll lead to Pandaman demanding she bring back evidence after this.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have the strength today to torture a person who didn’t deserve it.
A small figure came tripping into the hall then. Katsa knew who she was even before she saw the girl’s eyes, one yellow as the squash that grew in the north, and one brown as a patch of mud. This girl she would hurt; this girl she would torture if it would stop her from taking Katsa’s thoughts.

Okay, I get that we’re presumably meant to view Katsa’s feelings about mindreaders as some sort of flaw, but we still don’t have any explanation for why she’s so insanely touchy about it.

Also, look! This girl’s eyes aren’t pretty. Who wants to bet she’s not going to be a main character?

Anyway, the poor kid promptly bolts and we end the chapter.