Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

“Your pay? Your duties?”

Again he nodded. He was to handle all correspondence and to keep Lord Kosenmark’s schedule. For that he would receive a monthly sum of ten gold denier, plus his room and board. If his duties required finer clothes, say for a meeting with nobles such as Lord Vieth, Lord Kosenmark would provide them. He would have one rest day every week, plus an afternoon to himself twice a month.

It was all very easy and pleasant. Too easy. Denk asked him fewer questions than he expected, and her apparent lack of interest in his credentials puzzled Gerek. He once tried to expand on his supposed employment with Maester Aereson. Mistress Denk had waved aside his speech with the comment, “Lord Kosenmark will want to know surely. The decision is his, not mine, to make.”

It would be, Gerek thought. If everything Dedrick had hinted at were true, this man wanted more than a secretary, he wanted an accomplice.

An accomplice for treason, Gerek thought. But first I need to find the proof, before I go to the king or any of his people.

And he would find it here—he knew it—in this house.

* * *

“MAESTER HESSLER.”

Lord Kosenmark studied Gerek over the tips of his fingers.

“My lord.” Gerek bowed.

“Sit,” Kosenmark said. “And let us discuss the possibility of your employment here.”

Gerek sat down, unsettled and nervous and trying not to show it. None of Kosenmark’s letters had promised employment outright, but after his interview with Eva Denk, he had begun to relax. He wondered now if he’d given himself away to her, or to Kathe.

I am Maester Gerek Hessler. Second-rate scholar. Nothing more.

The repetition failed to counteract his anxiety. He had taken several great chances in this endeavor. He had used a name nearly like his own, thinking he would remember it better, and trusting that Dedrick would never have mentioned a poor second cousin to this man. He had involved his brother and old tutor to handle any untoward inquiries. At the time, these had seemed like reasonable risks.

The voices chattered at him, more insistent than before. Fool. Idiot. Useless.

Kosenmark continued to study him in return. He was as handsome as all the reports claimed—golden-eyed and fair, his pale brown skin almost luminescent against his blue-black hair. Sculptors who followed the classicist school might use him as a model for Toc, the brother-god and consort of Lir, except that Toc was blind, and this man’s eyes were whole, unnervingly bright and direct. The one element, which everyone knew about, but which Gerek still found unexpected, was his voice.

He speaks like a woman. A woman with a husky voice, but nevertheless not a man, not even a tenor.

In his latter years, when his mind ran feverishly upon conspiracies, Baerne of Angersee had insisted on a peculiar sacrifice by his nearest councillors. They would be gelded, or they would lose their place, and therefore their influence. Later, when he took the throne, Baerne’s grandson had dismissed these men from Duenne’s Court. Some said it was a way for Armand to establish his own rule, to declare that his famous grandfather would not overshadow his reign. Others said Lord Markus Khandarr had influenced the new king to ensure his own preeminence.

Most of those unwanted councillors hid themselves away. They had sacrificed their manhood and could not bear it when Armand dismissed them. But this man—he lived. More than that. He had fashioned a network of advisers and colleagues and agents throughout Veraene—a shadow court, through which Kosenmark continued to influence Veraene’s politics from afar.

Clever, handsome, determined. And only a year or two older than Gerek himself.

Everything I am not.

“Do I meet with your approval, Maester Hessler?” Kosenmark said drily.

Gerek shook himself into attention. “My apologies, my lord. I-I was merely—”

“Wondering about my sexual habits and how I might satisfy them, in spite of my shortcomings. You need not stutter. The entire world knows.”

Gerek’s cheeks burned with humiliation. For once, anger kept his tongue under control. “What the world knows is not my concern, my lord. My thoughts are my own. Whether or not you’ve guessed their shape correctly, I will not discuss their finer details.”

Kosenmark blinked. Then his lips curved into a slow smile. “Harlaef the Younger. Of the late empire, in his letter to the emperor answering certain unfounded charges. So you are a scholar.”

“Did you doubt me, my lord?”

“Not exactly. But there are degrees of truth, just as there are degrees of scholarship.”

He likes to play with words and double meanings. He likes to provoke people.

“If you doubt me, s-send me away,” Gerek said. “My lord. As you must kn-know from my history, it would not be the first time.”