Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Kosenmark studied her a moment. No pity. No amusement. It was an expression she had not seen upon his face before. Then he smiled gently. “Of course. I’ll send him a note today.”

* * *

HER VISIT WITH Maester Hax turned out to be short, but less difficult than she feared.

“So,” Hax said, when the servants admitted her into his bedroom. “We are to be colleagues again.”

She heard no sarcasm in his tone, but she couldn’t be certain. “A chief secretary and his assistant are hardly colleagues.”

“Ordinarily no,” Hax agreed. “But ours is not the ordinary household. You brought your writing case? Good. Unlike Lord Kosenmark, I do have a few tasks for you, and for these you will need to get the details exact. Write this down please …”

And off he launched into a series of complicated tasks, so much like that first day that Ilse nearly expected him to hand her another list of names. He looked stronger, she thought, writing as fast as she could to keep up. She could see how his color had improved, even since yesterday. His voice, too, had more strength, and his gestures were once more airy and quick.

“You’re smiling,” Hax observed. “Do you find our topic amusing?”

He had been expounding on better accounting methods for the pleasure house expenses. Ilse shook her head but continued to smile. She would get no apology from Maester Hax, but she found she didn’t care. He was better, and she was glad. When he mentioned that she would see a greater quantity of correspondence than before, she nearly laughed.

“All the letters this time?” she said, under her breath.

“All of them,” Hax said drily.

He turned a very bland expression toward her. That alone confirmed her suspicions that he had withheld most of the letters before.

She spent the rest of that day immersed in work. By evening, it seemed as though the past week had not occurred. There were a few reminders—the book of Tanja Duhr’s poetry in her rooms, the new keys Lord Kosenmark s

ent to her, giving her access to his office, and a slight but noticeable difference in how Mistress Denk and Mistress Raendl addressed her.

The changes rippled through her days. While Hax slowly recovered from his illness, Ilse took on more of his duties. Hax ordered new copies of keys for his office so that she might refer to his files. Lord Kosenmark reworked the spells for his own office so that she might have full access to all his correspondence.

Hax had not lied about giving her all the letters. She read all Lord Kosenmark’s letters before Hax himself and, once Lord Kosenmark determined the answer, handled all the replies. Doing so, she learned to associate these names with faces she’d seen at Lord Vieth’s. Emma Theysson sent letters by private courier, in which she enumerated changes in the royal shipping patrols. Lord Iani wrote more obliquely, using excerpts from ballads and epic sagas, whose lines contained names for known points in Anderswar’s ever-changing realms. At times, his letters made no sense, speaking of color signatures and voice memories.

“He is hunting Leos Dzavek,” Lord Kosenmark explained. “A soul leaves imprints in Anderswar. The imprints fade over time, but never completely disappear, so Benno has the difficult task of sorting through three hundred years of Leos Dzavek’s journeys.”

“Is Lord Iani the only hunter?” Ilse asked.

“No,” Kosenmark said softly. “We must expect that Lord Khandarr is searching there as well. That is the danger.”

Hax supervised Ilse’s work from his rooms. She would visit him each morning to have him review what she wrote and how she sorted the letters. Lord Kosenmark was present for several of those sessions, and then they discussed not just the letters but also their implications.

“You think Armand will be sensible, my lord?” Hax said.

“Baerne was sensible,” Kosenmark said. “So was Armand’s father before he sank into drink and madness. Armand has the seeds to make a good strong king.”

“You talk as though to convince yourself,” Hax observed.

“I am convinced.”

“For now.”

Kosenmark glanced at his secretary. “For now,” he agreed, but he sounded uncertain.

A month after Lord Vieth’s banquet, Hax resumed his duties, but with a less rigorous schedule than before. He spent his mornings with Lord Kosenmark. Most afternoons, he slept, waking in time to spend an hour or two with Ilse, reviewing her work and giving her new assignments for the next day. After a light dinner, he read, often falling asleep before the bells struck eight. The routine suited him, he said, and Ilse had adjusted her day to fit his.

“Has Lord Khandarr left Tiralien?” she asked him one afternoon when Hax had declared that he felt too wakeful to nap. None of the letters implied that Khandarr had departed the city, but Ilse knew that Lord Kosenmark sometimes received news by visitors to the pleasure house.

Hax shrugged. “Not yet. We’ve sent inquires to friends in Duenne, but we use roundabout messengers, as you can guess. Word should come back by next week, if the roads are good.”

The roads were not good. Spring rains had washed out several highways, mudslides had made other points impassible for the caravans, and the Gallenz River had risen several feet, overflowing its banks at points. News traveled slowly, even by private courier, and though Lord Kosenmark hid his moods well, she knew he was fretful. He would be, until he had word that Lord Khandarr had appeared in court.