Passion Play

by Beth Bernobich

  “You requested my presence,” she said warily. Kosenmark’s tone sounded forced, though the situation might account for that.

  “So I did. Have you brought the letters from Baron Eckard?”

  Ilse glanced from Hax to Kosenmark. “The letters?”

  “Yes, the letters that arrived this morning. He told me at Lord Vieth’s that he often found it difficult to post his letters because of all the chaos about his daughter’s household. I’m glad to see nothing prevented him this last time.”

  Ilse stared from one man to the other. Kosenmark had lied to her. They never meant to explain things to her. They only wanted her to help flush out the spy, who might be listening right now through one of the pipes or vents.

  Before she could say anything, the doors opened and Lys came into the room with a heavily loaded tray. Kosenmark turned to Hax, as though nothing had happened, and said something about the latest afternoon party given by a Lady Issnôlt. The two exchanged desultory comments about the affair, seemingly unaware of Lys or Ilse. Lys went about her work silently. Only once did she glance toward Ilse, a brief look that was impossible to read.

  Ilse waited until Lys had left the room. “My lord was not entirely truthful with me,” she said quietly.

  Hax rattled his papers noisily. Masking her words, perhaps? Kosenmark’s next move confirmed it. He rose swiftly and silently to stand by her side. “We were as truthful as we dared to be,” he whispered. “Hush. I will answer your questions, but speak softly. Please.”

  She met his gaze, tight-lipped. But when she spoke, she, too, whispered. “You do not trust me. Very well. But tell me this: Will you talk to the king? Will you tell him everything you’ve learned?”

  “We have,” Kosenmark said, still speaking in low tones. “Many times over. I think war—this war—is wrong. Wrong because it is unprovoked. Wrong because it serves no purpose other than to forward one man’s ambitions and another man’s obsession. But I recognize that we must remain prepared. I would not wish Veraene to sleep while Leos Dzavek launched an invasion.”

  Ilse paused. “You told the king?”

  He nodded. “Dozens of times. We sent our reports. I offered … not my advice, exactly, but my concerns. The king never replied, and after the third time, he sent our runners away from court.”

  She let out her breath, not certain how to reply. When Kosenmark gestured to one of the chairs, she sat and accepted the cup of coffee he poured with his own hands. She sipped and let the heat sink into her bones, gradually feeling more a part of the outside world.

  Kosenmark refilled her cup without her asking. “I do listen,” he said softly. “Not always well. Not always with my full attention. I can be overhasty, as you know, and good intentions are no excuse for any injustice. But I am willing to learn.”

  She glanced at Hax, whose pale eyes watched her steadily. “We will talk,” he said. “After we resolve a few matters. You understand the risks, I believe, Mistress Ilse. Grant us a few moments of your trust, and we shall grant you hours or days of ours, if necessary.”

  They used none of the constraint she had noticed in the past few weeks. Was it because they trusted her at last? Or were these words for whoever listened?

  “Is there no other way?” she said. “Short of intrigue?”

  “None that we have discovered,” Kosenmark said.

  “Unless you count a direct challenge,” Hax said.

  “And that I will not—”

  A knocking interrupted him. Kosenmark broke off and stood. “Come in.”

  The door opened onto one of the guards. “Captured, my lord. Just as you said.”

  Ilse started up. The spy.

  Kosenmark and the guard had already vanished through the doors. Ilse spared a glance for Maester Hax, who sank back into his pillows. He looked exhausted, but he waved her on. “Go. See who it is.”

  A knot of guards told her where to look—the servants’ corridor between Maester Hax’s quarters and another set of rooms. A girl was crying and babbling loudly, all mixed together, but in all the noise, Ilse could not make out who it was.

  Kosenmark had made his way into the center of the commotion. “Let her go,” he said. “She won’t get away this time.”

  A scuffle broke out. Then the girl broke through the guards and fell to her knees in front of Ilse.

  Rosel. But I thought—

  She’d thought the spy would be Lys. Lys who hated Ilse. It was far easier to believe she also harbored ill-will toward Ilse’s master, not Rosel, who only wanted to please her best friend.

  Or perhaps she wanted to please someone else.

  With a scowl, Rosel jumped to her feet and tried to push past Ilse, but Kosenmark caught her by one arm. Rosel squawked and tried to twist free, but he held her easily.

  “I didn’t do it!” she cried out. “I didn’t do anything. I swear. It was her!”

  She jabbed her finger at Ilse. Kosenmark dragged her back from Ilse. “No lies,” he said. “We can tell the difference. Especially now that we know where to look. Benno. Come here, please.”

  Lord Iani squeezed between the guards. “This closet?” he asked Kosenmark, pointing to a wide door set in the wall.

  “That one, yes.”

  Iani ran his hands over the doorframe, his expression turned inward. “Ei rûf ane gôtter,” he murmured. “Komen mir de strôm. Widerkêren mir de zeît. Ougen mir.”

  The air went taut and thick, and a sharp green scent filled the corridor. Ilse heard a noise off to the side—the guards were subduing their prisoner—but though her stomach turned at the sounds, she could not take her gaze from the closet. Its outline had turned indistinct, as though a mist rose from the floor, but there was no mist.

  Iani continued with a stream of Erythandran, and the green scent intensified. Now Ilse could make out figures moving through the mist. Lys. Janna. One of the runners. Two of the chambermaids. Ilse even saw herself, walking slowly along the corridor, then pausing, as though uncertain where she was. One chambermaid opened the door and took out several blankets and a stack of clean sheets.

  Next came Rosel, hurrying down the corridor with a tray filled with dirty dishes. The girl paused and looked around, clearly nervous. She set the tray on the floor and drew a thin metal rod from a cord around her neck. Ilse strained to see what Rosel did with the rod but the girl’s shadowy form had disappeared into the closet.

  Time flickered past and Rosel emerged with a stunned expression on her face. She snatched up her tray and ran down the hall, her image growing fainter with every step.

  “More,” Kosenmark said. “I want to see more.”

  Iani gave a sharp nod. Now he spoke so quickly that his words became a hum, as blurred as the images he conjured up from the past. Time flickered and spun and jumped. Impressions from the weeks and days past overlaid each other. Runners. Guards. Maids. An errant cat. Ilse saw Rosel enter the closet more than a dozen times, always with that thin rod in her hand.

  “Enough,” Kosenmark said abruptly.

  With one last phrase, Iani scattered the magic into nothing. Ilse drew a long breath, aware now of an ache in her chest. Rosel was sobbing and pleading to everyone and no one. She had not meant any harm. She had only wanted to help her friend. It was for Lys. Lys who was treated so unfairly after that bitch—

  Kosenmark slapped her across the face. “Shut up. You spied on me. You knew the consequences. You cannot tell me you did not.”

  Rosel gasped once and went silent. Her cheek flamed red where he’d struck her. Without any apology, Kosenmark fished out the cord from beneath her collar. The metal rod dangled and spun from its clasp. “A thief’s finger,” he commented, handing his findings to Iani.

  Iani examined the device a moment. “Treated with magic to draw the tumblers into position. An expensive tool. Whoever suborned the girl has money.”

  “That much we already guessed. Take her upstairs,” Kosenmark said to the guards. “And keep her under control until Lord Iani and I arr
ive.”

  Rosel wailed once, then went limp. Undeterred, the guards hooked their hands under her arms and dragged her away. It was all too much like her own ordeal, Ilse thought. She leaned against the wall, faint with disgust at herself and everyone else.

  Garbled voices sounded on all sides. Kosenmark speaking with Iani. Kosenmark giving more orders to the remaining guards. Runners who arrived, only to be sent speeding away on errands. Ilse kept her eyes closed, wishing them all away. She sensed a presence close behind her. A hand gently touched her arm, and Kosenmark’s voice spoke into her ear. “You may go if you wish.”

  She turned her face away. She knew what came next. Iani and Kosenmark would question Rosel. They might lock her away, or hand her directly to the watch. Or perhaps they would mete out their own punishment. After all, Lord Kosenmark’s was a shadow court. It might have its own shadow judges.

  Kosenmark had gone. So had the others, thankfully.

  Curiosity pricked at her. She hesitated. Curiosity was a dangerous thing in this household.

  Ilse swung the door open. It was just an ordinary linen closet, lined with shelves that extended from floor to ceiling, all stacked with pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and baskets of clean rags. Ordinary, except for the magic permeating the air. Old faint magic from Rosel’s several visits with her lock pick. Fresh strong magic from Lord Iani.

  Someone had pushed the baskets to either side on one shelf. Ilse saw a square panel measuring about a foot in either direction—a listening portal. A small lock, made of dark metal, was set into the panel’s left side.

  She placed her palm over the lock. Even with all the magic buzzing around her, or perhaps because of it, she could tell the lock was metal and nothing more.

  Careless, she thought. Or perhaps he had assumed he would never hold sensitive discussions in Maester Hax’s bedroom. A dozen other explanations and counterexplanations presented themselves, spilling through her mind like glittering beads.

  I don’t care. I don’t care anymore what he does. What or why or when.

  Another wave of faintness came over her. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to sleep. She wandered through the wing, going from sitting room to parlor and once into a room obviously used by the courtesans. None were right. She needed to be private, secure from any chance visitor.

  At last, she returned, unwillingly, to her rooms.

  Someone (Kathe? Lord Kosenmark?) had thoughtfully left a tray of food for her on the table. Ilse ate mechanically. She rejected the coffee, and drank down mugfuls of water instead, trying to clear the sour residue from her mouth. She tried to think about her situation, but she was too tired and too distracted. Her thoughts flitted from Rosel’s pleas, to the crack of Kosenmark’s palm against the girl’s face, to the strong scent of magic inside the linen closet.

  A quarter bell sounded. Another one. Finally a cascade of bells marked noon, and with it a soft knock sounded. A moment later the door opened and Kosenmark came inside. He surveyed the room briefly, then took the chair opposite her. “My apologies for intruding, but we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

  Ilse shrugged, too tired to show any anger. “What else do we need to discuss? You caught your spy.”

  Kosenmark folded his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees. “I came to apologize for lying. And to say I would lie again, if that meant I could prove you innocent.”

  “My word wasn’t enough.”

  He hesitated. “For me, yes. Berthold is harder to convince. He said I ought to watch your face when we caught Khandarr’s spy.”

  Ah. Yes. And she thought it was for her benefit that Hax ordered her to observe the capture. She might have been angry, if she had not been so worn out by her own ordeal. As it was, she only felt a great weariness.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “We do. Both of us.”

  She shook her head. “What about Rosel? What are you doing to her?”

  He dropped his gaze, distinctly uncomfortable with the question. “Lord Iani is with her still, to put our safeguards in place, before she leaves this house.”

  Safeguards. A chill passed through Ilse. “What kind of safeguards?”

  Another uncomfortable pause. “Lord Iani has operated upon her with magic,” he said slowly. “Rosel is sleeping now. She feels no pain, but when she wakes up, she will be in a sick house, fevered and unable to remember anything that happened in the past two months.”

  Ilse’s stomach turned over. Briefly she wondered what Lys would say about her best friend’s sudden departure. From there, it was an obvious leap to her own situation. “Is that what you planned for me?”

  “Yes.”

  Wrong. That was so very wrong. “Why that?” she whispered. “Why not dismiss her from the household? Send her to another city where she cannot do you any harm.”

  “That city does not exist. We have allies and colleagues everywhere in Veraene, even in Károví. Besides, I was trying to protect her.”

  “How? By destroying her wits?”

  “We have not—” With an obvious effort, Kosenmark lowered his voice. “We have not damaged her. We simply removed the dangerous memories—the ones that are as dangerous to her as they are to me. Ilse, look at me.”

  He reached toward her, but she recoiled. Kosenmark vented a sigh. “I am telling you the truth. If we did nothing but dismiss Rosel, the men and women who hired her would kill her, for no other reason than to make certain she could not tell anyone about them. Now they must realize she cannot betray them. It was the best I could do.”

  And he would have done the same with her. He would have obliterated her memories and tossed her into Tiralien’s streets without any regret. Once, she had admired him. Now …

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I do,” she whispered. “That is what frightens me.”

  Kosenmark opened and closed his mouth. “I wish I could convince you that I’m not a monster. But that might be another lie.” A pause, while he appeared to struggle for what to say next. “Can you possibly understand how it was, in Baerne’s Court? Yes, we practiced intrigue. We had to so we could survive. Politically survive, I mean. Then came Armand as the king, with Markus as his adviser, and the survival became literal. Fara—”

  He broke off and rubbed a hand over his eyes. That name was like a cry, and for a moment, a much younger Raul Kosenmark sat opposite her.

  When he did continue, he kept his hand shading his face. “Fara was the Countess Hanau. You wouldn’t know her. She took me as her student when I was a boy. She taught me about political factions and alliances and how they shifted from one quarter hour to the next. She told me, bluntly, that my personal disappointments were nothing compared to my duties to king and kingdom. Then she taught me how to fulfill those duties. How to think. To listen. Yes, in that way, too. And when they said to me, Oh you cannot be a lover, you cannot be a man, she said, Oh yes, you can. Then Armand killed her.”

  She had not thought the silence could deepen, but it had. It was like a tangible thing, heavy and dark.

  Kosenmark eventually lowered his hand. He kept his face averted, but Ilse could see a silvery gleam in his eyes. “She trusted,” he said. “So did I. We hoped that Armand would prove another Baerne—Baerne in his younger days. It was a foolish hope, given what we knew about Armand’s character, but not completely unreasonable. We had not reckoned with Markus Khandarr. He saw Fara as a rival. He convinced Armand that she was dangerous to his authority. Then, one day, she complained of a headache and dizziness. Twelve hours later, she lay unconscious in a wasting fever. But she didn’t die. Not right away. Not for three months.”

  His voice wavered. He clenched his fist and went on in a harsher tone. “The mage-physicians who attended her, one after the other, could do nothing. They couldn’t even help her to an easier death. She lay there, burning and burning and yet never able to die. Not until Khandarr decided she had suffered enough. No, I have no proof, other than the man’s character. He
might have assassinated her. He might have struck her down suddenly. But it is a sign of his character that he did not want to simply eliminate a perceived adversary. He wanted to punish her. Of that I am certain.”

  She had heard scraps of this tale from Mistress Raendl and others, but nothing so harrowing as the complete story. “I’m sorry about what happened. Very sorry. It does … explain things.”

  Kosenmark flexed his hand and studied it dispassionately. “Perhaps. But it does not entirely justify how I treated you. You had it right. I am both arrogant and afraid. To that I can add ashamed and sorry. More than sorry.” He laughed a dry pained laugh. “Khandarr hardly needs to plot against me. I do well enough myself. You see, we can always arrange another meeting, but I cannot replace someone who cares as deeply as you do for truth and honor.”

  Ilse shook her head, uncomfortable with his praise.

  “It’s true,” he said. “Whether you accept it or not.” Now he drew a deep breath. “We’ve made a false beginning. I would like to make amends, but though such grievous misunderstandings can be mended …”

  “They cannot be forgotten,” Ilse said, finishing the quote from Mandel of Ysterien’s essays on alliances. She smiled faintly. “You gave me those essays to read last week.” And then she saw where the conversation was heading. “Do you want me here still?”

  “I do. Do you wish to stay?”

  She meant to say no. But what came out was “I don’t know.”

  He nodded, his manner subdued. “Please take another day—as many as you need—to decide. If you decide to leave, I can recommend several good households in Tiralien. Or even Duenne, if that still appeals to you. You might go anywhere you like.”

  “What about …”

  “My shadow court?” He smiled briefly. “A good name for it. Shadows are dark things. We need more light. Let me just say that I trust you. I would not make you a prisoner for my own shortcomings. Meanwhile, you’ve had a difficult week. Stay in your rooms and rest before you make any decisions.”

  “I’d rather not rest here,” she murmured.