Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Therez shrugged and pretended to study her water cup. But she could sense Klara’s attention. Her friend might pretend indifference, but she was watching Therez closely. “Oh, a scholar,” she said lightly. “I remember ink stains on my fingers. I had a lover, too. Another scholar. I remember us wandering through a library filled with books about everything in the world. About history and poetry, about Lir and Toc. About …” About magic and Lir’s jewels, gifts from the goddess to Erythandra’s priests in ancient times, she thought. She had been a scholar more than once, but she didn’t want to tell Klara that part.

Klara, however, was smiling thoughtfully. “Scholar,” she said softly. “That I can believe. Do you remember how it ended, your time with your lover?”

Which one? Therez thought. The answer was the same for both. In the darkness, running from a man I’d known years and lives before. But who her lover was, or who the other man was, she still did not know.

She turned her head away. “It ended badly. That’s all I know. What about you?”

“Ah, mine.” Klara smiled pensively. “Mine are little more than vague dreams—shadows in the night, as the poets call them. But this I do remember—how in all of them I always had friends. It gives me joy to think that.”

Some of the ache in Therez’s chest eased. “And so it should.”

A brisk knock startled them both. Klara arched her eyebrows. “It cannot be your father,” she whispered. “He never knocks.”

“Klara, do not make a joke, please—”

She broke off as the door opened to a liveried boy. “Mistress Therez,” he said. “Your mother would see you at once in her parlor.”

Klara immediately stood and shook out the folds of her loose summer gown. “A summons, I see. Then I shall not detain you a single moment.” She leaned close and whispered, “We shall continue our talk tomorrow, my scholarly friend.”

I should not have told her anything, Therez thought as she escorted her friend down the stairs. That was the danger of the word-linking game. Admit one secret and the rest come spilling out. It had nearly happened when her mother first mentioned the cousin’s invitation. She’d wanted to cheer or laugh, both of them inappropriate reactions. Both guaranteed to convince her father she ought to stay home. Oh, not that she had any true plans. Just hopes and wishes that a twelve-month at Veraene’s capital city would let chance show itself. That she might meet a poet or a scholar—anyone who was not a merchant’s son.

Or even a merchant’s son. As long as he is not like my father, I shall not care.

She parted from Klara at the next landing, and turned into the family’s private wing. All the house was quiet, except when Petr Zhalina held meetings or dinners for his colleagues, but the silence here was deeper, and the air lay heavy, thick with the scent of crushed herbs. Therez drew a deep breath, wishing for a cleansing northern wind, then hurried onward to her mother’s rooms.

She found her mother surrounded by a handful of servants who were laying out pens and ink bottles, parchment, drying dust, and packets of sealing wax. A tray with cups and two carafes occupied the center of the table.

Isolde Zhalina turned at her daughter’s entrance. “There you are, Therez. I’m sorry to have interrupted your visit, but we have much to do. Your father has decided to hold a dinner party next week, and you’re to help with the arrangements. I’m sending out the invitations today.”

“Next week?” Therez asked. “Why the hurry? Papa said nothing before.”

Her mother glanced briefly toward the servants. “Why ever the hurry? Therez, don’t ask such questions.”

So there were business matters afoot. Therez obediently seated herself at the table and poured herself a cup of tea. She waited until her mother had dismissed the servants before she spoke again.

“What is the matter?” she asked. “Can you tell me now?”

“Business,” her mother said, taking her own seat with a heavy sigh. “Your father decided to start contract negotiations early this year. He’s anxious. So is Ehren.”

Late summer brought the annual contract negotiations when merchants settled with the caravan companies and shipping guilds for next year’s transportation. Other guilds often set their contracts as well—the silk guilds who provided raw silks, or woven fabrics, or finished goods; the miners’ guilds who specialized in marble and granite and gemstones; the sundry smaller guilds and artisans who commissioned merchants to sell their wares. The season’s negotiations made for tense conversations at dinner. Still, that did not explain the urgency in her mother’s voice.

“Your father is fretting about losing influence,” her mother continued. “The City Council didn’t invite him to the debate on caravan tolls, and even though they apologized, saying they thought him too ill to attend, I cannot believe the oversight was entirely accidental. Then there are the rumors about higher taxes, talk about closing the border …”

“We heard those rumors last year.”

“Yes, but the rumors are louder this year. Much louder. I didn’t pay attention at first, but Ehren says he heard the same reports in Duenne. The king is anxious, and because he’s anxious, he wants more taxes, more fees, and stricter controls between all Morauvín’s cities and Károví. And if the king does close the borders, we shall have to depend on smugglers or forgo our trade across the border. Your father would dislike that, especially after he’s invested so much time and money in opening those routes.”

She poured herself a cup of black tea from the other carafe and stirred in a spoonful of honey. The pale sunlight, filtered through the room’s smoky glass, was not kind to her delicate features. Therez could plainly see faint lines crisscrossing her face, and silvery strands glinted from her neatly dressed hair, like frost upon the mountains. Her mother’s troubled look was not new, not since her father’s illness last spring, but this volubility about taxes and trade was a marked change.

“That’s not all, is it?” Therez said softly.

Her mother glanced toward the door. “No,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Maester Galt has taken charge of the shipping guild, and he’s proposing changes to the fee structure. Talk says he’s already given the best terms to Maester Friedeck and his son. Your father thinks …” Another beat of hesitation. “We do not know if Ehren can return to the university, or if you can make your visit.”

Therez’s chest squeezed tight in sudden distress. It took her a moment before she knew she had her voice under control. “Ah, I see. I had no idea how difficult the year had been.”

Her mother shrugged. “We are not in danger of poverty. But you know your father.”

“Yes, I do.” Therez fell silent. Her tea stood cooling, hardly touched, but she no longer had any desire for its delicate flavor. She had always told herself that her plans might be overturned, but she had not realized how much she had depended on them. Her thoughts flicked back to her word game with Klara. Melnek. Home. Hurt. The sequence was not far from the truth. If only she could live a year—or even two—away from home, perhaps she could determine if hurt was a necessary part of life.