Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Raul held up a hand. “Don’t leave your post. I’ll take care of Mistress Ilse myself. Send a runner to Captain Gerrit and tell him to double the guards right away.”

Ilse vaguely heard shouts as the guards summoned a runner. Her head was swimming from pain and weariness. She could do little more than hang on to Raul with her good arm. He bent down, as though to lift her into his arms, then grunted and swore softly. “Just a few steps farther. I’m sorry I cannot carry you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “We are home.”

“Home, yes.” She felt his chest shake with strange laughter. “Home for us both.”

Holding her close, Raul brought her through the grounds and to the nearest door, which stood by the practice courtyard. The sun had risen above the house; the warm sweet scent of lilies drifted through the yard, and the dust of their passage hung in the air. It was as though they had stepped into a small quiet bubble, while far off she could hear the noise and shouts sparked by their arrival. There would be more noise and fussing inside, once Kathe and Mistress Hedda saw their condition.

To her surprise, Raul Kosenmark did not open the door. “One moment,” he said softly. “And then we shall give ourselves over to the nurses and the surgeons. Can you stand, or do you need me to hold you?”

She thought she would be numb to anything, after all the shocks and terrors of the previous night, but she found she was mistaken. Raul Kosenmark stood very close to her, and for a moment she could see nothing else in the world but his bruised face, his one eye swollen shut, the other like a great golden sun. “I can stand,” she said, not quite trusting her voice.

“Liar,” he said, and leaned her against the wall. He took both her hands in his. “You saved my honor once before. Tonight you saved my life. Thank you, Anike.”

His hands were warm, and she thought she could still catch a whiff of the magic he had worked hours ago. It made her giddy, or was that because of the blood she lost?

“You do not need to thank me,” she said. Then she added, “Stefan.”

At that he laughed. It was a raspy smothered laugh, but she heard his wonder and delight plain enough. “Oh, Anike, if only—”

A clamor swept from the house, breaking the quiet. Ault and a crowd of guards appeared, followed by Kathe and Mistress Denk and more runners bearing a litter. Kathe took charge of Ilse at once, shooing away Raul. “We’ve sent for Mistress Hedda,” Kathe told her. “What happened?”

Ilse shook her head. Above the din, she heard Raul giving an explanation to the rush of questions. Something about Ilse delivering a critical message. The appearance of brigands. All of it true, and yet not all the truth. Stefan and Anike were gone. Lord Kosenmark and Mistress Ilse had taken their place.

And what if you were king? What would we call each other then?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE NEXT FEW hours passed in a confused jumble of faces and voices. At Mistress Hedda’s orders, Kathe took charge of Ilse. She soon had Ilse lying in her own bed, dressed in clean clothes and with most of the blood washed away. Within the hour, Mistress Hedda came to her side, and with Kathe assisting, she cleaned out Ilse’s many scrapes and cuts, muttering words like stupid and arrogant and reckless all the while.

We were both stupid. Stupid and careless, Ilse thought hazily. Raul should have gone directly to Lady Theysson’s house instead of trying to lure out Khandarr’s agents himself. And she, she ought to have notified the watch the moment Lord Dedrick came with his news. But the watch patrols were stretched thin these past few weeks, with everyone clamoring for more patrols, and more guards, in every quarter of the city.

Warm water splashed over the gash in her arm. A shock of pain went through her, and she cried out. Dimly she heard a commotion outside the door, but then Mistress Hedda’s face appeared above hers. Someone placed a knotted cloth between Ilse’s teeth. “Bite down.”

Ilse bit down while more warm water flowed over her arm. A pause. Then the pungent scent of garlic filled the air. Mistress Hedda dabbed at the wound with a gentle touch, commenting, “Wine is well enough, I guess, if there’s nothing else, but for today, you’ll stink a bit so we can clean out the infection. Tomorrow we try rose tea. At least he knew better than to close the wound. Otherwise, I’d have to cut it open to pick out all the dirt and threads.”

“How is he?” Ilse whispered.

“Well enough,” Mistress Hedda said drily. “Better than he deserves. There’s a lovely long gash across his scalp. He’s been kicked and scratched and slashed and even bitten. I did work enough magic to open that eye, but he’s not so pretty right now.” She paused in winding a fresh bandage around Ilse’s arm. “He told me one of those thugs made a mess of his ribs, but that you helped him use magic to mend them enough so he could walk.”

“A little.”

“Interesting. Is that why Lord Kosenmark asked me to teach you magic?”

Her pulse jumped in surprise. “When did he say that?”

“Last hour. In between cursing me for scrubbing his tender scalp too hard.” Hedda set aside the roll of bandages, then carefully soaked a sponge in the garlic mixture. “Come. We must clean out these scratches and scrapes. Even the tiny ones can be death.”

She worked with a gentle and sure touch. Still Ilse was trembling before she had done. “It didn’t hurt so much last night.”

“You were too busy to notice,” Hedda said with a sympathetic smile. “And what with you and Lord Kosenmark working magic, that held off the worst of the aches. Which was lucky for both of you. Otherwise I doubt you or he would have lasted so long. You never told me that you knew magic.”

“I don’t. Just a few words.”

“Perhaps you had a talent in a previous life. That happens, you know.” Hedda patted Ilse’s skin dry with a fresh cloth. The garlic mixture stung, marking all her scrapes with pinpricks. Knuckles. Mouth. Knees. Palms. Her throat still hurt when she swallowed. Tentatively she ran her fingers over it. The flesh felt swollen, and she could almost feel the imprint of fingers around her throat.

She glanced up to see Mistress Hedda shaking her head. “What’s wrong?”