Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

“Yes, today. What’s the matter? Does he frighten you?”

“Yes.” She watched in silence while Mistress Hedda repacked her medicines and closed the box. “Do you trust him?”

Mistress Hedda pursed her lips. “Mostly. He’s a fair man. Ah, here is Kathe, who will give you a better picture than I can. I must go to my other patients.”

Kathe had brought Ilse a stack of neatly folded clothes. “We have time enough to make you presentable,” she said, laying out skirts and smocks and stockings. “Luckily, we had plenty in stores.”

Skirt and smock were made of dark brown cotton, and the smock had a high neckline that reminded Ilse of the uniforms worn by maids in her father’s household. Ilse dressed quickly, wondering if the new clothes meant Lord Kosenmark would hire her. She had not seen him once since that first day.

You owe me nothing, he had said.

Or had she misremembered that unsettling conversation?

Once she was presentable, Kathe led Ilse down the familiar corridor, then through a sunny parlor and into a new wing to a stairwell. Up they went, three flights of stairs, past small windows, through which Ilse glimpsed more formal gardens and the stables beyond. At the top, the stairs opened onto a broad landing with a high narrow window facing north. Opposite the stairs was a massive door with carved lintels and a gleaming brass knocker.

A liveried boy stood at attention outside. Kathe ignored him and lifted the knocker herself. The knocker was padded and made a hollow thump against the polished wood. A pause followed, then the door swung open.

Lord Kosenmark stood framed in bright sunlight. “Thank you, Kathe,” he said. “You may go.”

He motioned for Ilse to come inside. She walked past him slowly, her heart beating too fast for her comfort. Behind her, she heard the door close, but her attention was entirely on this new room.

If she had thought him merely wealthy, her guess had fallen short. The floor was laid with wine-red tiles, set with a black marble border. Shelves lined the wall to her right. Some held books, others contained a variety of figurines in ivory or polished gemstone. Drawn by the figurines, Ilse moved toward them, taking in more details of the room as she went. A table and chairs by the fireplace. A globe made with precious metals. A vast sand glass surrounded by smaller glasses attached by pulleys and weights, the whole of which worked in unison to keep track of hours and minutes and moments. It was one of the new timepieces used in Duenne that Ilse had heard about from Ehren.

Beside the sand glass stood a huge desk, covered with more books, stacks of papers, and maps. A door at the far end was closed, but another one opened onto a rooftop garden.

Kosenmark came into the room and indicated the chair in front of his desk. “First, the long-delayed introductions,” he said as he took his own seat. “At least the direct ones, since we have both heard our names from other parties. You told Kathe that your name was Ilse. Do you have another? A family name?”

She shook her head. “None that I would own, my lord.”

He studied her a moment. “As you wish. Mine is Lord Raul Kosenmark.”

Kosenmark. Of House Valentain. Ilse knew the name from Ehren’s letters from university. Wealth indeed, she thought. Wealth and influence and a name as old as the empire, said her brother. Lord Kosenmark must be a younger son, or more likely, a member of a cadet branch.

“Do you know the name?” he asked.

“I’ve heard of it, my lord,” she replied.

“What have you heard?”

His eyes were wide and bright, like a cat’s. Or a hunting leopard’s. “No more than stories, my lord. The same ones we heard of all the great houses.”

“Indeed. So you know something of politics?”

“Nothing,” she said softly.

“Ah. Good. Never claim more knowledge than you possess. Especially when that knowledge springs from hearsay and rumor.”

His voice, that high unsettling voice, carried the same cool assurance Ilse had heard in Baron Eckard’s voice, when he cut off Bartov’s questions about the old king. Eckard had not raised his voice, but Ilse had heard the Imperial Councillor then. Wherever Kosenmark had learned it, she heard it now.

“My lord, I apologize.”

Kosenmark nodded. “Apology accepted. Now let me give you a piece of information, related to the first.” He laid his fingertips together. “You have come to a pleasure house. Mine. That is my business in Tiralien, whatever you heard elsewhere.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “No, my lord, I’m not—”

“I did not say you were. But you do know what the term encompasses. I wondered. For a time, I had thought someone had seduced and abandoned you.”

“No one seduced me, my lord. I … I made a trade. A bad one.”