Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Her father took a seat next to her.

Therez suppressed a shiver. Marina Bartos and her mother were to have sat in these two seats. Breathe, she thought. And listen.

Happily, the servers were filling wine cups and handing out the first course, a dish of aromatic rice balls, flavored with rare spices from Pommersien, in the south of Veraene. The music had started again, but softer, with just the water flute and a descant flute in minor harmonies.

“We were discussing art,” Mann said to her father. “Most interesting. Maester Galt here prefers sculptures and painting. What are your preferences, Maester Zhalina?”

Therez’s father shrugged. “My time is taken up entirely by my business, alas. I make a poor judge in these matters.”

“What about you, Mistress Therez?”

Therez shook her head.

“A quiet, secretive girl,” Mann said. “You must tell me later when we dance. Maester Galt, I meant to ask, before we were called to dinner, why such a decided opinion against theater and song?”

Galt flaked his rice, as though picking through various responses. “Perfection,” he said, half to himself. “Once your artist carves his flawless statue, nothing can spoil his work. Unlike with theater or song, his patrons do not depend upon such vagaries as the actors’ moods, or the lighting, or whether the audience itself might disturb their enjoyment.”

Mann’s lips parted in a strange smile. “So, you are a collector.”

Galt sent him a keen glance. “Call it what you like, my lord. Those are my tastes.”

“Tastes are born of our nature,” Mann replied. “Myself, I prefer variety and spontaneity. Whereas you like your treasures immutable. Predictable. Controlled.”

His voice was pleasant, but Therez detected a tension in the air, and she held her breath. Why was he baiting Galt? Had he heard the rumors about him? Did he know something more? In the background, Paschke’s water flute played its rippling silvery melody. Galt studied Mann a long moment; however, he said nothing more than “As my lord wishes.”

Mann smiled again, a more predatory one than before, then applied himself to his plate.

“Was my son helpful to you, my lord?” Petr Zhalina said to Baron Eckard.

“Very helpful. He’s convinced me that little has changed in Duenne in the past three years.”

His tone piqued Therez’s curios

ity. “How long did you live in Duenne, my lord?”

Her father shot her a swift look, but Eckard smiled pleasantly. “Thirty years, Mistress Therez. Thirty long and interesting years.”

“A city of a thousand opportunities,” Mann said musingly. “Some worthy. Others …”

“Others we shall not mention,” Eckard said with a pointed glance that Therez found intriguing.

“Is that why you left, my lord?” said Galt. “Because you disliked the opportunities there?”

Eckard shook his head. “Opportunities change, Maester Galt. I served Baerne of Angersee until his death. Like any new master, Baerne’s grandson wished for new advisers, and so you find me here.”

“But what of the old king?” said Lev Bartov, who had remained silent until now. “I heard that he had become most peculiar in his latter days. In fact, I heard—”

He stopped at Eckard’s level glance. “Baerne ruled well and long,” Eckard said quietly. “More than that I would not hazard saying. Nor should you.”

A brief silence followed, after which Petr Zhalina asked Baron Eckard for his opinion on trade matters with Károví. Eckard answered politely, and the conversation turned to more ordinary topics.

Therez picked at her food, half listening to the baron’s views on various treaties, but she hardly tasted the roasted venison with its honey glaze. Her thoughts remained on Eckard and Duenne. A city of opportunity—exactly what she hoped for, though she knew her ideas to be very different from those of an ex-councillor in the King’s Court. Perhaps she could ask him later about the city?

The servants cleared away the last course; the guests proceeded into the larger salle for dancing. Baron Mann claimed Isolde Zhalina’s hand for the first dance, while Petr and Ehren Zhalina took Lavena Friedeck and Mina Hess as their partners.

Quite unexpectedly, Therez found herself facing Baron Eckard. “My dear,” he said. “Will you honor me?”

Whispers rose and fell around them. Aware of the audience, Therez could do no more than murmur a yes. Eckard led her onto the floor as the music sighed into life. Palm against palm, he stepped to the left, and she to the right. Then he lightly clasped her hand and spun her into the first movement of the dance.