Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Here, then, was

the crux.

“Lady Theysson wants you to take the crown, doesn’t she?” she asked.

“She has suggested it.”

“And so did Maester Hax. And others, too. Am I right?”

He nodded.

Puzzles within puzzles, and schemes within schemes. Even those in the shadow court had their intrigues and their factions.

“But you don’t agree,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Kosenmark regarded her for several long moments. “Because I see a king who needs direction, not opposition. Besides, there are other players, and other ambitions at work. Remember, it is far harder to rebuild a kingdom than to fracture one.”

“But what if that kingdom were like a ship about to founder because its captain cannot or will not see the rocks?”

“For that …” He drew a deep breath. “For that I would have to be certain beyond doubt of those rocks.”

They had come back to his original question: how to act when neither choice was entirely good, and yet act they must. Perhaps that was a part of the difficulty, she thought. Lord Kosenmark had trained all his efforts to influence, and not to action.

Kosenmark fell to studying the book again, as though he could read its contents through the wrappings. Such a small object, hardly wider than his hands, the pages so fragile she could see a dusting from the paper all over the ground by Kosenmark’s feet. What if? she thought. What if Simkov had never written those memoirs? What if Dedrick had not visited that particular antiquarian? As well to say what if Armand of Angersee were born with a different nature.

“If only the king had had a different father, and a different grandfather,” she said softly.

“So I often thought,” Kosenmark said. “He was different, as a young child. He needs more courtiers like you, who see the man and not the king.”

She shook her head. “I see the king, too. And only from a distance.”

“But your observation is the key, I think. Perhaps you should be Veraene’s ruler instead of Mad Armand or Khandarr the Merciless …”

“Or Lord Kosenmark, the Meddler Prince.”

Ilse froze, hand over her mouth, aghast at what she’d said. Kosenmark had a peculiar expression on his face—she couldn’t tell if he was furious or simply astonished.

Finally he released a long audible breath. “I would make a very bad king, I think.”

“Not so very bad,” she managed to say.

There was another brief pause. Then Kosenmark tilted back his head and laughed, long peals of real laughter. He was still laughing when he wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “I did ask you to be honest, didn’t I?”

Ilse’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Once or twice,” she muttered.

He was grinning at her now, a look of pure delight that she had not seen for at least a month. Her own heart lifted and she found herself grinning back. Just as quickly she glanced away and covered her mouth with a hand.

Kosenmark took hold of her hand. “You must not take back those words,” he said. “I need your honesty as much as I need your fine sense of honor or even your cleverness, all of which you’ve gifted me with today.”

Ilse shook her head. Her pulse beat far too quickly for comfort, and she did not trust herself to speak. Her companion merely smiled. “Come,” he said. “I meant what I said. Bring your case inside. We have letters to write and plans to make and books to read.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WHEN LORD KOSENMARK said books, he meant one particular book—Simkov’s memoirs.

“Read to the bookmark,” he said. “So you can accustom yourself to his style.”

“Why do you want me to read this book?” she asked. They sat side by side, at Kosenmark’s desk, with the book carefully opened to its front page. Even though she itched to turn the page and read, she mistrusted this apparently sudden change in Kosenmark’s thinking.