Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

Ah, yes. His secretary. Ilse dropped her gaze to the covers, where her hands made two small humps underneath. She had nearly fo

rgotten.

You must never forget again, she told herself. He is your master, not your friend. Nothing has changed.

* * *

TO HER RELIEF, she did not receive another visit from Lord Kosenmark for nearly three days. Others came to visit, but for the most part, she drowsed and slept and drowsed again. Judging from Mistress Hedda’s muttered comments, her arm was healing well. She would always have a twisting scar from her forearm to her elbow, but the wound had closed, the muscles and flesh were no longer so bruised, and there was no sign of infection.

Her strength came back rapidly, and by the fourth day she grew bored. Another good sign, according to Kathe. With Mistress Hedda’s permission, Lord Kosenmark had Ilse’s locked letter box moved into her bedroom, where she sorted through his dwindling correspondence. Most of the letters she could forward directly to Lord Kosenmark—they came from his father, the duke, and concerned the family estates, or from Lord Kosenmark’s younger brother, who had recently married. Nothing came from Duenne or Károví, or even from agents located within Tiralien.

“I sent word out about the recent … incident,” Kosenmark told her, when she commented on this. “Faulk and I need to devise a new set of codes. And Faulk does not trust all our couriers these days. Until things are more secure, we can only work through slower channels.”

He made it sound as though they had suffered only a temporary setback to their plans. But Ilse had other visitors from within the pleasure house, and from those conversations, she pieced together a different picture.

“Poor Lord Dedrick,” Kathe said. “Lord Kosenmark paid him a visit yesterday, which did not go well. Or rather, he paid Baron Maszuryn a visit. A very short one. I doubt Lord Kosenmark will repeat it.”

She said nothing more, but Mistress Denk added later that Baron Maszuryn had ordered his son to remain at home for the next month. “They had a rare argument, Lord Dedrick and his father. In the end, Lord Dedrick won another six months at home, but eventually he must return to Duenne or forfeit half his inheritance.”

That, Ilse thought, might account for Lord Kosenmark’s distracted manner. Strange that he had not mentioned the episode to her. It’s his private affair, she reminded herself. He might have discussed such a matter with Berthold Hax, who had served Lord Kosenmark and his family for decades, but not her.

Still, she found it unsettling when it was Hanne, and not Lord Kosenmark, who told her about the many new guards patrolling the grounds, and how all deliveries to the kitchen were inspected before Mistress Raendl allowed them inside. “Janna says it’s because someone is making war on Lord Kosenmark. That is why they attacked him in the streets, and you, too, when you tried to warn him.”

“Are you afraid?” Ilse asked her.

“Oh, no. Well, sometimes. Janna tells me not to be foolish. They won’t attack here, not with six guards at every window, and the city watch making extra patrols in our neighborhood.”

Ilse watched Hanne’s face as the girl chattered on, telling her more about the guards, and how some were women, and she had never imagined that women could fight, too, though she ought to have guessed, since Ilse took lessons from Maester Ault.

“Is it true you killed a man?” Hanne said in a breathless voice.

“I don’t know. I tried. Is it true that you’re happier?”

Hanne flushed and dropped her gaze. “Yes. I still miss my mother. And my older sister. Not my brothers,” she added with a shy smile. “But Kathe says I might make a trip north this summer. Just for a visit.”

Eventually the ten days came to an end. It was a bright hot day. The sun was little more than a white smudge overhead as Lord Kosenmark helped Ilse into the carriage that would take her to Mistress Hedda’s rooms. He seemed more preoccupied than usual, she thought.

“I wish you success,” he said.

“And you, my lord,” she replied.

He started. “In what matter?”

She glanced pointedly at the three guards just mounting the carriage, then toward the driver with his club and the two other guards on their horses. Kosenmark’s gaze followed hers, and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Oh that. Yes, we can talk more about those matters tomorrow.”

“Today,” she said. “If your schedule permits. And I know it does.”

Kosenmark muttered something under his breath, but he was smiling.

Mistress Hedda lived just a few streets away, where she rented a set of rooms above a prosperous inn. As Ilse came into the common room, escorted by her guards, Hedda took in the scene with a grimace, but said nothing. “Come with me. They”—she indicated the guards—“can wait down here. I won’t have your concentration broken by their fidgeting.”

Her rooms occupied one corner of the second floor. The main room was large and sunny, cluttered with tables and benches in a brightly colored chaos of jars and vials and books and artifacts. Herbs hung from the ceiling and more herbs grew in pots by the window. Ilse sniffed. She smelled magic, mixed with the scents of rosemary and thyme and damp earth.

“I would think you didn’t need the herbs,” she said. “Though they do smell nice.”

“And that’s good enough for me,” Hedda said as she puttered about the room, collecting candles and boxes as she went. “Besides, magic costs more than a few herbs do. It costs me and it costs my patients, and I’m not just talking about money. It changes us. Like poison, some say. Sit over there,” she said, pointing to the table and its benches.

Ilse took a seat while Hedda set a candle on the table, then scattered dried herbs around. A light green scent filled the air around them. Hedda touched her fingers to the candle and spoke a few words in Erythandran. A light sparked at her fingertips, then a flame caught at the candle’s wick. “We start slowly. We start with you, your thoughts, and your concentration. Nothing more. Did you ever work magic before Lord Kosenmark showed you?”