Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Servants were passing among the mourners, handing out cups of wine. More servants laid out platters of food on the side table. The company would pass the evening telling stories about Hax and spend their grief in talk. Ilse remained apart from the others, and when Kathe offered her a wine cup, she shook her head. Too soon, she thought. Too soon for talk or drink or even food. She drifted toward the windows and, leaning over the sill, breathed in the scent of roses. A trace of magic’s green lingered here. Iani and Kosenmark had not entirely erased their magic, and she could discern both Lord Iani’s fair signature and Lord Kosenmark’s darker one.

She felt a warm brush of air. Someone touched her sleeve. Ilse looked up to see Lord Kosenmark, a wine cup in his hand. “Please come with me,” he murmured.

He headed toward the door, catching up a wine carafe as he went. Ilse hurried after him, and she saw how a few glanced up at their passing.

Kosenmark paused briefly outside the hall, then indicated the nearest stairs. When they reached his office, he dismissed the waiting runner and motioned for Ilse to precede him into the room. She went inside and paused, uncertain, but Kosenmark walked past her to the garden doors, so she hurried after him.

It had been weeks since she last visited Lord Kosenmark’s rooftop garden. The sparse gray and brown branches were now draped in luxuriant greens. Flowering vines curled around the tree trunks, and she saw flashes of dark blue and ruby and gold between the silver brown trees.

Kosenmark continued along the looping path until they came to the low stone wall that marked the garden’s edge. Below, she could see the various sections of the pleasure house grounds—the rolling lawn, several formal gardens divided by walls and hedges, the wilderness patch where she and Nadine had talked. Beyond lay more buildings and stables, but these were invisible behind the trees of the lower gardens.

Kosenmark dropped onto a stone bench and poured wine into his cup. Ilse remained standing, watching his face for clues.

“I brought only one cup,” he said. “My apologies.”

On impulse, Ilse reached toward him. “My lord, may I share your cup?”

Kosenmark regarded her with a strangely intent look. “If you like.”

He tilted his hand toward the bench. She sat beside him and accepted the cup.

When she had drunk, he took back the cup and refilled it. Instead of drinking, he cradled the cup between his hands. Some of his distress had leaked away, and he smiled pensively. “You startled me just then,” he said. “I thought you had found a way to listen to my thoughts. You see, I wanted to ask you a very great favor. To share my cup, if you will.”

Her pulse leapt in surprise. “How so, my lord?”

“It involves a promise I made Berthold. Three years ago. The one he reminded me of just this morning.”

He drank, then handed the cup back to Ilse. She accepted it, observing how his hands rested uneasily in his lap. They were long and lean hands—as expressive as Berthold Hax’s had been, but stronger. Able to wield swords and pens and influence and wealth.

Kosenmark turned his face upward toward the sky. “My friend is gone,” he said softly. “I cannot change that, no matter how I wish otherwise. What I can do is to continue the work that he and I first planned two, nearly three years ago. But for that I need someone I can trust, someone with a mind and heart to match Berthold’s. Will you do me this favor? Will you take his place?”

Surprise stopped her from speaking for a moment. “My lord, I don’t know enough to help you.”

“You know more than you admit. For the rest … I’ll teach you. What’s important is that you are intelligent and honest. You will tell me when I am wrong. When I’m arrogant. When my so-called concern for the kingdom falls into petty intrigue. I value that. Will you help me, Ilse Zhalina?”

She suddenly had the same sensation as when Alarik Brandt had offered his trade. Danger lay in that direction. Danger and misery and possibly death.

Ah, but if she chose to refuse Lord

Kosenmark, that would leave him without a friend and councillor. He trusted so rarely.

There was a ritual in Duszranjo, when two men declared blood friendship—her grandmother had described it. Lord Kosenmark was no brother, but the intent was the same. Ilse poured new wine into their cup. She dipped a finger into the wine and ran it along the cup’s rim. Water from my body, wine from a single cup, the ritual said. Mingle yours with mine, and thus we are bound together.

Ilse intended to perform only half the ritual, to declare her loyalty, but before she could drink, Kosenmark stopped her. “My turn.”

He dipped his finger as she had and circled the cup’s rim. “Now drink.” He offered her the cup.

“But my lord—”

“I know the ritual. I also know the vow must be mutual.”

So it was, she thought, but she had not expected that from him.

Heart beating fast, she took the cup and drank. Kosenmark did the same.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FOR A MONTH following Berthold Hax’s death, Lord Kosenmark closed his pleasure house to business. Visitors instead of patrons filled its many rooms, and they spent the hours talking about Berthold Hax—stories from his past, longer stories about how his life intersected theirs. Ilse listened at times, surprised more than once by the unexpected details these stories revealed.