Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

“In case, yes. Berthold, I promise.”

A spasm rippled through Hax’s body. His head jerked to one side, and he went limp.

Ilse pressed a hand over her mouth. He’s dead.

She knew it from the dreadful stillness of his body, from the tears on Kosenmark’s face. From a deeper quiet in the room.

Kosenmark took Hax’s hand and pressed it between his. “Good-bye, my friend.”

Footsteps echoed from the entryway, and Mistr

ess Hedda appeared. “My lord.”

She had a small box clutched to her chest. She was panting, and her hair had fallen from its coil. When Kosenmark did not acknowledge her, Mistress Hedda stepped forward and touched Hax’s wrist, then his temple and his neck. She nodded silently. “My lord, I’m so sorry. I was not quick enough.”

Kosenmark let out a long trembling breath. “You … You could not have stopped it, Mistress Hedda. He was old and sick and—” He broke off and wiped his hand over his face. Ilse saw the sheen of tears upon his face; she heard more in his thick voice.

He stood, a bit unsteadily. “See to his body. I must make arrangements for the death rites. Come with me, Mistress Ilse.”

Ilse hurried after him, catching up to him in the stairwell. He headed upward, feet dragging over the tiled stairs. Once he stumbled, then caught himself. Today there was no grace in his step, no image of a hunting leopard. Every movement had turned heavy and slow.

* * *

ILSE WORKED THE entire afternoon under Lord Kosenmark’s direction, but she remembered only certain pieces, and those by the physical clues left behind. Ink stains on her fingers meant she had written letters at Lord Kosenmark’s direction. The ache in her throat and chest were reminders of grief. Receipts stacked on her desk came from public couriers hired to dispatch letters throughout Veraene.

The first went to Hax’s scattered family—a much younger brother who worked a farm in the kingdom of Ysterien, a sister employed in Duenne’s largest counting house, an estranged wife and two sons. Ilse had come to think of Hax as someone born to serve the Kosenmark family, and so the news about this unfamiliar, unexpected past gave her a strange unbalanced feeling. She felt as though she had been walking upon a solid floor, only to have the wood and marble turn transparent and reveal the catacombs beneath.

By evening the letters were dispatched, the body prepared, and the pleasure house was ready to receive those in Tiralien who gathered for the death rites. Lord Kosenmark had met with Mistress Denk and Mistress Raendl, then retired briefly to his private rooms. Ilse spent the last hour picking over her gowns, helpless to decide what was proper. When Kathe found her, she was still dressed in only a shift, weeping over an old scrap of paper with Hax’s handwriting.

“Come,” Kathe said. “The others are below.”

She helped Ilse into her best gown and led her to the pleasant sunlit hall, where they had laid out Maester Hax’s body. Lord Kosenmark stood by the outer doors, greeting the mourners as they arrived in twos and threes from all over Tiralien.

He looked asleep, Ilse thought as she stood a moment by the silk-draped bier. She noticed that someone had brushed out his fine white hair, which for once did not threaten to slip its band and float freely. His hands, now resting still, so still, looked paler than usual. There were still ink stains, as though he had recently been writing, and she could imagine them lifting up to sketch a point in the air.

She had liked him, respected him. For a brief while she had even hated him for mistrusting her so. But then, as mistrust had warmed back into friendship, she had come to love him as a teacher, a friend. Even as the father I wished for.

Tears blurred her vision. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, thinking that she could never laugh again. At her side, Kathe wept openly. So did Mistress Denk, Mistress Ehrenalt, and all the courtesans.

Lord Kosenmark moved to the bier. His eyes were red, she saw, and his face was masklike. Grief lay just behind it, in the gleam of tears upon his lashes and the way he glanced at Hax and immediately away. With a hint of his old grace, he signaled to Lord Iani.

Lord Iani approached the bier and laid his hands over Hax’s. His face went tense with concentration, and his gaze turned inward. “Ei rûf ane gôtter,” he said. “Komen uns Lir unde Toc. Komen uns de kreft unde angesiht.”

A thick green scent overwhelmed that of the flowers, and a silver light burned at Iani’s fingertips. Iani closed his eyes and continued, “Komen uns de lieht. Komen uns de zauberei. Nemen unsre brouder sîn vleisch unde âten unde sêle.”

The light spread over Hax’s body, turning the flesh transparent and transforming the bones into incandescent lines within. Lord Iani continued his litany until a burning nimbus surrounded both him and the body, turning the sunlit hall dark by comparison.

Lord Iani stepped back. Lord Kosenmark lifted his hands. “Vân leben ane tôt,” he said. “Vân tôt ane niuwen leben. En namens Lir unde Toc. Iezuo!”

Light blazed to a painful brilliance, so bright that Ilse saw only pinpoint stars wheeling before her eyes. A fresh summery scent filled the room, like that of roses and lavender and the sharp green scent of crushed grass. When at last her vision cleared. Ilse saw a handful of white ashes where Hax’s body had laid.

Magic, the strongest she had ever witnessed. Her mother would have cringed away, unnerved by such power; her father would have closed his eyes, indifferent. Her grandmother … Once Ilse had believed her grandmother disliked magic—so many in Duszranjo did, even if they did not follow the old laws—but after that brief twinning of souls, and seeing Nadežda Zhalina’s life dream, Ilse thought her grandmother would have observed it as dispassionately as any cat did. It is nothing more than a weapon, to be wielded for good or evil.

“From life to dust, from this one death to the next life,” Iani said softly.

All the mourners stood in silent meditation while the magic drifted and swirled around them. The gods have given us no prayers, Ilse thought. No rituals of cloth and candle and mystic symbols. Only this moment, this silence, as the soul makes its leap into the void.

A sigh went out from all those present. Kosenmark stepped forward and scooped the ashes into a small golden casket. He held the casket a moment, eyes closed, as though bidding Hax a second good-bye, then gave it to a waiting servant. Ilse knew the instructions Hax had left for his death. He wanted the ashes sent east, to his brother in Ysterien, there to be disposed as his brother wished. How would that man feel, receiving the small package next month, possibly a few days after the letter itself? Would he keep the casket in a remembrance chamber, as the old Morennioùens did? Would he bury the ashes as they did in Duszranjo? Would he watch over the ashes and remember his brother from long ago?