Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

A last glance from the door showed her Raul with his head tipped back against the wall, his throat exposed, as though offering it to an unseen knife.

* * *

RAIN BEGAN SHORTLY after midnight. Ilse heard it thrumming against the windows and upon the roof in her dreams. In the morning, sunlight broke through the clouds, but by afternoon the downpour had resumed.

Raul did not appear that morning for drill. Ilse practiced knife blocks for an hour, jumping every time she heard footsteps outside the courtyard. Eventually Maester Ault dismissed her. “You’re not thinking. Besides, it’s too muddy and wet, and you don’t know enough about fighting in muck.”

If the schedule held, she would spend her next few hours with Raul. On coming to her office, however, she found a short message from him. We have no business today.

No signature. No magic to seal its contents.

She let out a long breath. That, too, was predictable.

Throughout the day, she heard a dozen stories about what happened. Lord Kosenmark had tired of Lord Dedrick. No, it was Lord Dedrick who had broken with Lord Kosenmark. It was Baron Maszuryn who had forced the break. No, the break was Lord Kosenmark’s fault, because he had not pressed harder to see Lord Dedrick the past month. Whatever the cause, Lord Kosenmark had taken the matter badly.

Ilse smothered a pained laugh when she heard that last comment, spoken in whispers among the chambermaids. Badly seemed such an inadequate word for what she had witnessed last night. However, she said nothing, only shook her head and went about her work.

For three days Lord Kosenmark kept to his rooms. When he did finally emerge, he made no pronouncement nor gave any explicit orders, but he made it clear that he wished to be left alone. Ilse met with him but once a day, for less than an hour, while he reviewed his schedule with her. A schedule of nothing, she thought. He drilled alone these days. He spoke little to Ilse or anyone else, she learned from Kathe, though he was unfailingly polite. He spent his mornings writing letters to his family and sending them by runner to Ilse, who posted them. He spent long hours in his rooftop gardens.

In this way late summer passed away into autumn. Hanne made her visit to her family up north, and returned with breathless stories and laughter and a fervent wish never to repeat such a long journey again. The hills above Tiralien faded from green into yellow, the skies deepened in color, and the seas became an indigo expanse brushed with gray. Unusual storms were driving in from the oceans, some making their way into the bay. That same night, the temperature had inexplicably dropped and snow was

falling, a bizarre autumn snow that melted as soon as the flakes touched the ground.

Even though her office had no windows, Ilse had the impression she could hear and feel the snow brushing against its walls. Cold and soft and relentless, like her father’s whisper. One of the lamps flickered, sending shadows over her desk. She paused in her work, a sheaf of papers in her hand. She had come to this house on the verge of winter.

Just one year ago, she thought. It seemed longer.

She doubted anyone remembered, however. Nor that she had turned seventeen the previous month. Certainly not Lord Kosenmark. She sighed and went back to reading her notes about Duke Feltzen. Feltzen and his son had requested an interview with Lord Kosenmark. They had recently come from Duenne’s Court and wished to discuss the current situation. According to her notes, Feltzen was an unambitious man whose family had their duchy from the civil wars, three hundred years ago. Strange that he would choose to visit Lord Kosenmark so openly. Perhaps Lord Kosenmark knew the reason, but he had not shared it with her.

With another sigh, she put away her notes and checked over her writing materials. Paper for taking notes. Blotting paper. Pens and a penknife. Ink and water. All ready, including her self-control. She gathered up her materials and descended to the second-floor parlor where the meeting would take place. Raul had already arrived. He stood, bent over a table spread with papers. He glanced up, his expression the usual one of blank politeness. “Mistress Ilse, you are early.”

“Yes, my lord.” She took a seat in the corner and opened her writing case.

Raul turned his gaze to the papers, leaving Ilse free to watch him in silence. He looked weary, grieved and weary, as he had ever since Dedrick left him. Faint shadows circled his eyes, and his luminous skin was drawn taut beside his mouth. Oh but he was beautiful in her sight. It was not the gold of his eyes, but their shape when he studied something intently, the light catching the iris just so. Not the full mouth, but the shadow his lip made when he laughed. Not the long lean hands, but the way they gripped a knife or wielded a pen. He was unaware of her, and yet he had made it impossible not to love or desire him.

Love. Once she had thought never to feel love or desire. Alarick Brandt, her time with the caravan, had burned away all such hopes. But then, like the bare trees, when winter gave way to spring, she had felt the warmth of passion. A painful, consuming emotion. A dangerous one.

I wish my heart had remained dead, she thought.

With a start, she realized Raul had stopped reading and was studying her in return.

“You look wan,” he said. “Are you ill?”

She shrugged. “Tired, my lord.”

Raul went back to reading. Ilse fiddled with her pens, rearranging them in order by size. It had been a mistake to come early. It was all a mistake. No matter how she tried, she could not rout out this exquisite pain. The poets said it was the lover’s choice, to follow the knife from tip to hilt.

But I am not a poet, and I do not wish to die of love.

“Lord Kosenmark?”

“Yes, Mistress Ilse?”

“I need to speak with you, my lord. After your meeting with Duke Feltzen, of course. But soon. Please.”

“What about?”

She drew a breath to steady herself. “About finding you a new secretary.”