To her surprise, Kosenmark flushed. “No, of course not.”
He did not linger, but took his leave with just a few words. Ilse closed the door behind him and leaned against it. Only then did she see a small wrapped package on Kosenmark’s chair.
She took it up and unwrapped it. A book. An old book—centuries old judging by the faded ink and delicate parchment.
Carefully, she opened the cover and drew a sharp breath. It was a rare volume of Tanja Duhr’s poetry—a priceless object. Hardly believing what she held, Ilse carefully turned the pages, breathing in the scent of old paper and leather. This was the same volume she had hoped to find in Duenne’s book markets, the volume of Duhr’s poetry from after the first wars. There, there was the poem she had written for her lover.
When you are gone, I feel more than absence.
The moon dims. The summer warmth recedes.
The air itself grows thin …
A thin strip of paper fluttered from between the pages. Cradling the book in one hand, Ilse retrieved the paper.
To Ilse Zhalina. A gift in return for your gift of conscience and truth. Thank you.
* * *
SHE SPENT THE afternoon outside on Lord Kosenmark’s extensive grounds, wandering the intricate paths of the several formal gardens. When she tired of them, she took refuge in the tiny patch of wilderness, hidden in a grassy ravine between the paths. There, amid the luxurious tangle of old dried raspberry brambles, she found a bench carved to the likeness of a gnarled trunk. A few hardy wildflowers had spouted beneath it.
She made herself comfortable and leaned back, eyes closed, listening to the birds twittering. Off in the distance, Tiralien’s bells rang, but she did not count the hours or the quarter hours. She sat. She soaked in the warm sunlight, which told her about time’s passage by the change in shadows as they drifted across the clearing.
After a time, she heard leaves crackle along the path above her. Ilse said nothing, and soon the footsteps retreated. Another quiet interlude passed. She heard one of the kitchen cats hunting mice. She heard the birds twittering in the trees and the first frog chorus of the season. The sun was sinking, she could tell by the cooling of the air. More footsteps approached—louder and swifter—then a crashing sound as someone scrambled down the slope, ignoring the path.
Ilse did not open her eyes. If it was Lord Kosenmark, she did not wish to speak with him. Not yet.
“Ilse.”
The sense of floating within a timeless empty bubble vanished, and Ilse reluctantly opened her eyes.
Nadine stood over her. Nadine dressed like a boy in loose cotton trousers, and looking not at all like an expensive courtesan.
Nadine folded her arms and glared at Ilse, plainly annoyed. “Idiot. Kathe searched the entire grounds looking for you. She came by here—I know it. But you hid.”
“I didn’t hide. I just … didn’t want to talk.”
“I call that hiding. Don’t you care how much you worried her? She was frantic. I told her I would dig you out of your hiding place and drag you back inside.” She tilted her head. “You do look ill. Lord Kosenmark told us you were, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Now you do?”
“Maybe.” She dropped gracefully into the second seat. “Why did you come out here?”
“Because I hated staying in my rooms.”
“Ah.” Nadine plucked one of the wildflowers and murmured a spell. Slowly, the petals unfolded into a velvety pincushion. “For you,” she said, handing the flower to Ilse.
Ilse accepted it with a smile. “Thank you. And I’m sorry I worried Kathe. I just needed time to myself.”
“Thinking time?”
Ilse nodded. “What about you? Aren’t you on duty?”
“I have permission,” Nadine said cryptically.
An unpleasant thought occurred to Ilse. “Did Lord Kosenmark send you out here?”
At that, Nadine laughed, a long wondrous peal of laughter that seemed to make the sun shine brighter. “Oh dear, no. I do nothing for Lord Kosenmark, nothing but pleasure his clients, which is why he values my services. I came out here for me. And you.”
Ilse’s skin prickled with dismay. She took refuge in smelling the flower.
“Did you quarrel with him?” Nadine asked.
Ilse smothered a laugh. “Is nothing secret?”
“Nothing,” Nadine said cheerfully. “Now tell me. No, I shall tell you. You quarreled with Lord Kosenmark. A good thing, I say. He’s far too arrogant and handsome and powerful and rich. He needs a tiny sharp goad. And you are tiny,” she said with a glance at Ilse. “Am I right my friend?”
“Right enough.” Ilse sighed, thinking of how she disliked quarrels.
“Are you leaving us?” Nadine said more quietly.
“I don’t know.”
Nadine hesitated. “I hope you stay.” Then she flicked her chin away, in a nervous gesture. “Rosel is gone. To the city hospital, they tell me. And Mistress Raendl looked a perfect thundercloud, as though she had eaten an entire wagonload of prunes.”
Ilse said nothing. Any thought of Rosel made her queasy. Her own role in that matter was not entirely without blame.
“He was worried about you, too.”
No need to ask who Nadine meant.
“I heard from Kathe that he insisted on attending you himself. He even fetched your meals and would not let the chambermaids do their duty. He chased them away, saying you needed quiet.”
“Perhaps he felt guilty,” Ilse said drily, “about working me so hard the week before.”
Nadine smirked. “You lie badly. What happened at the banquet? I’ve heard interesting stories about you and Lord Kosenmark.”
Her pointed look made clear what kind of stories she’d heard, and Ilse’s cheeks warmed. “He was avoiding someone, and he asked me to help. Nothing more.”
“He should pay you extra for such favors. Ah, I didn’t mean to make you unhappy. I’ll be quiet, if you let me sit here a while longer. Eduard is teaching Mikka and Tatiana how to play the new hammer strings, and I cannot bear the noise.”
Ilse made a gesture of acquiescence. They sat in silence, a thing so rare with Nadine that Ilse wondered if another courtesan had disguised herself as Nadine. Or was this young woman the true Nadine, and the other a performance, given to everyone and not just those she pleasured?
She was a lovely young woman, Ilse thought. Like a dark brown cat, draped over her seat as though she reclined upon silken cushions. Her lean face could be in turn sensuous or asexual, and her expression flickered from merry to serious and back. Where had she come from? How had she come into Lord Kosenmark’s service? As the setting sun glanced through the bare trees, its light reflected from a thin silvery scar along Nadine’s throat.
Ilse reached out and traced its length. “Who did that?”
Nadine shivered and closed her eyes, her long lashes brushing her cheeks. “A friend.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Oh yes. Sometimes friends make mistakes. Grievous ones that cry out for us to stay and prove we are true friends.”
“Does that mean we never disown our friends, no matter what?”
She heard a whispering sigh, as though Nadine recalled a difficult choice in her past. “It depends.”
“On what?”
Nadine tilted her head and smiled, her teeth flashing white in the sun. “It depends on the friend. And you. And what you find in your heart.”
She flowed to her feet and ran back along the path toward the pleasure house, branches swishing behind her.
Ilse remained outside another hour, thinking of what Nadine said, of what her own feelings were. (And what were those feelings? Strange and confused. Did it really matter what she felt or believed? Apparently Lord Kosenmark believed it mattered, or else he would not have lowered himself so, spoken so honestly. That is, if she could trust him to be honest and not playing yet another role.)
She made a disgusted noise. Stop it. Either
believe him or not.
Twilight had fallen before she finally came inside. There, she found that the maids had swept, dusted, and aired her rooms. Lamps were burning in both her bedroom and her sitting room. A carafe of good wine and a meal waited on the usual table. She took the tray into the nearest parlor and ate there, listening to the faint sounds of music rising up from the common rooms.
Stay or go. Help Lord Kosenmark or choose a different path. The questions pursued her back to her rooms. The lamps had guttered, so she relit one and took it with her into her bedchamber. The room felt more silent than usual. She could barely hear the music from below, and she wondered if Lord Kosenmark sat above, or wherever the listening vent opened, and listened to her footsteps over tile and carpet, the hiss of the brush through her hair, the minute sounds as she changed into her nightgown. That he listened no longer bothered her as much, and she wondered what that said about her.
Sometimes friends make mistakes. Grievous ones.
Did that make Lord Kosenmark her friend? And could she make a difference if she stayed?
Destiny or free will? She had a choice, she decided. Which meant she ought to choose wisely.
And if I cannot choose wisely, I must choose the best I know how.
She glanced up at the vent. He would be listening, she was sure of it.
“I’ll stay,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, however, she was at a loss how to act. She had expected Lord Kosenmark to hear her declaration to the air and to send a runner with a summons, but the hours trickled away, bell by bell, until those of high noon sounded. No one came to her during the hour she spent in the library. She walked through the lower gardens one more time and noted how all the wildflowers had bloomed. But no one came to her with a message, though she frequently left word of her whereabouts.
She returned to her rooms but immediately left them. She could not bring herself to visit Lord Kosenmark’s office, or even hers, without a formal invitation. And going to Maester Hax was impossible until she spoke with Lord Kosenmark. The common rooms would still be empty at this hour, and she decided to spend an hour there.
She met Kathe on the stairs. Kathe looked tired and somewhat distracted, and she was carrying a tray of covered dishes. “Ah, there you are,” Kathe said with some relief. “I’ve come with your dinner.”
“When did you start carrying trays?” Ilse asked.
“When I was seven,” Kathe said. “And whenever we are shorthanded. Come. I imagine you are sick of your rooms. You can take your lunch on the balcony, and we can have a small chat.”
She led Ilse down a gallery on the second floor to the balcony where they had chatted when Ilse first came to the pleasure house. Against Ilse’s protests, she laid out the dishes, just as though Kathe were the serving girl, and Ilse her mistress. “You could be,” she said. “If I had come to your house up north.”
“But you didn’t. And I didn’t stay there,” Ilse said.
“No, we both came here. And I’m glad for that. I hate the cold.”
“It’s not so terrible …”
“Frost and ice and snow showers, from what I’ve heard.” Kathe shuddered. “Ugh. And speaking of chills and cold, you should eat while your soup is hot. Here’s a nice spot, with plenty of sun but not too much.”
Ilse applied herself to eating while Kathe chatted to her about all the house trivia. How Janna had tried to befriend Hanne. How Steffi and Dana had come to shouts and scratches over one of the stable boys, then made up the next hour when they discovered he had bedded the newest chambermaid. Her voice lost some of its humor as she told Ilse how Rosel suddenly took ill the day before, and how Lord Iani himself, who was visiting the house, tried to cure her fever, but things took a bad turn. Ilse listened and compared the scraps of truth amid all the lies and distortions. She wondered what Lord Kosenmark had told the guards to make sure of their silence.
“And we lost Lys,” Kathe added, with a self-conscious glance at Ilse.
Ilse paused, her soup spoon halfway to her mouth. “Lys is gone?”
“She gave notice yesterday,” Kathe said. “She told us how Rosel had no one else in the city to look after her. But when my mother could not tell her which sick house, she demanded the answer from Lord Kosenmark, and he refused. She said some words to him. I thought he would throw her from the house himself, but he did not. He … He was very odd. Anyway, my mother had offered Lys a letter of recommendation and Lys refused it. That made my mother so angry she couldn’t speak.” She smiled ruefully. “Yesterday was not the best of days.”
No, it was not, Ilse thought. Her stomach felt queasy, thinking of Rosel, then Lys who followed her friend into a kind of exile. She had not expected Lys to prove so loyal.
“I’m sorry that you’ve lost two girls so quickly,” she said.
“Not your doing,” Kathe said. “Besides, though they were our best girls, I think we shall do better with them gone. Janna told me about her cousin’s friend, who is looking for a better posting, and I thought I might ask Hanne if she had a sister or brother who would like to come south. That would give her some company from home.”
Their conversation was curtailed by a runner from Mistress Raendl, saying that the new pastry cook had arrived and would Mistress Kathe please attend the first interview.
“Ah, the pastry cook,” Ilse said.
“We’ve taken to calling them by number and week,” Kathe grumbled. “Though not to their faces.”
She hurried off, leaving Ilse to ponder what might happen if Kathe took over as chief cook and left her mother to do the pastries herself. That was as likely as her taking over Lord Kosenmark’s business.
Lord Kosenmark. He would not send for her, she realized. And he would relay no orders. He was waiting for her decision. Should she seek him out? But the thought of traversing the pleasure house made her stomach flutter.
A hint first, she thought. One for him, and one for me.
Someone had returned her writing case to her rooms during the morning. Ilse wrote a quick note, apologizing for her delay, and asking Lord Kosenmark what her next assignment should be. “Take this message to Lord Kosenmark,” she told the first runner she met. “But do not disturb him if he’s occupied.”
Within the quarter hour, the runner had returned with a fresh note in Lord Kosenmark’s script: Come to me upstairs, please.
She came with writing case in hand. The alcove outside his office was empty, and the door stood open. Kosenmark stood by the doors leading to his rooftop garden, but his desk was covered with stacks of letters, maps, and scrolls, while another table held the remains of his breakfast. Dinner, too, she thought, taking in the quantities of dirty dishes.
“Mistress Ilse.” He looked at her expectantly.
She found it strangely hard to speak. “My lord. I’ve come to ask about my day’s work. If you have any for me, that is.”
“Ah.” His mouth relaxed into a pensive smile. “Work. Yes. We have much to do.”
He gestured toward the chairs by the fireplace. “I wanted to talk with you about the meeting at Lord Vieth’s—the one Lord Khandarr interrupted so easily.”
“Was there more than one?” Ilse said, half to herself. She caught the briefest of changes to Kosenmark’s expression. “I’m right … there was more than one meeting. Wasn’t there?”
Kosenmark tilted his head and regarded her with a half smile. “What do you think?”
“There were two meetings,” she said slowly, watching his expression for clues. “More than two. One was the public meeting where you expected an interruption. Now I remember how disappointed Lord Khandarr looked. He expected to discover more of the people in your shadow court, but you brought only the ones he knew about. When you left me to wait outside the ballroom, you met secretly with the others one by one. Or perhaps in pairs.”
He was shaking his head. “You are too clever, Mistress Ilse. I’m glad you never did spy upon me. Yes, it happened j
ust as you just described. However, because we could not meet all together, we were unable to reach any conclusion about the news from Károví. Since then, we’ve suspended any further meetings.”
To resolve other matters, she thought. Yes. How much had he told the other members of his shadow court about his suspicions?
“They know,” Kosenmark said softly. “Both the beginning and the end of that affair. You should know that Mistress Ehrenalt disagreed with my methods—with very loud and plain words. But enough of that. You asked about your day’s work. I have only one task for you right now. Or rather, a question.”
He motioned again for her to sit. She did, but he remained standing, pacing around the chairs as he talked. “It’s about King Leos. And the news about his search for the jewels. We have watchers and listeners in both courts—Lady Theysson calls that keeping a vigilant guard.” He paused in his flow of speech. “You spoke very strongly against intrigue and spies. I cannot say you are wrong or naïve, but I cannot agree. Not entirely. If we close our eyes, we walk in blindness.”
“If we stop our ears, we live as the deaf, our senses muffled by a willful ignorance,” Ilse said, completing the quote.
He smiled. “So you did read all those texts I gave you. Yes. We must watch and listen and gather our clues. But as you warned me, we cannot watch only for clues we expect. Lady Theysson and Lord Joannis expect war. Lord Iani expects a search for the jewels. Baron Eckard admits he does not know what to expect, and that troubles him more than anything. So I ask you: What do you expect?”
Ilse thought for several long moments before she answered. This was a test of sorts, whether Lord Kosenmark intended it for one or not. “Not war,” she said at last. “Not unless Veraene begins one.”
“Interesting. Why?”
“Because it’s not like his nature. You gave me books to read about his earlier years, and I’ve heard stories from my grandmother, who lived under his rule for thirty years. He’s known as a good king. A strong and careful king. He would not launch a war unless provoked. And … he’s old.”
Passion Play Page 26
