Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

Kathe greeted the girls and continued into the cold room to check the supplies of meat. Veal and lamb in adequate supply. The beef, however, seemed off. She would have to speak to the butcher. Perhaps she could use this excuse to escape the house and visit the market for fresh supplies.

Coward.

Why not?

You know very well why not.

Still arguing with herself, she returned to the main kitchen, in time to hear Janna chattering to Steffi. “Gone,” she was saying. “As quick as a blink and in such a terrible mood. I even heard Micha say—”

She broke off at Kathe’s appearance. Steffi gulped down a nervous laugh. Janna drove both fists into the bowl of dough. She stopped herself in time and proceeded at a gentler pace. Some day she would make a fine pastry cook, but first she would need to learn control. More important, Kathe would have to speak honestly with her mother. Until then …

“Do you mean Lord Kosenmark?” Kathe asked casually. “Has he gone away?”

Steffi and Janna exchanged glances. “I thought you had heard,” Janna said. “He rode away at dawn. And…” Her gaze flicked toward Steffi. “And, well, it was sudden.”

So there were secrets. No doubt Kathe would hear the details soon enough. She smiled, in that brisk manner she used to disguise her unease at Lord Kosenmark’s doings. “Well, then,” she said. “That guarantees us a quieter day, no?”

The girls all laughed, though it was a fluttering, uncertain laugh. Kathe held on fast to her own smile, but underneath came a stream of unbidden memories. This was just like the time before, when Kosenmark departed suddenly with a company of guards. Gerek had spent the next few weeks secluded in his office, hardly speaking to anyone except the senior runners and perhaps Mistress Denk. He, too, had abruptly left the city, and not by his free will, as she later learned.

It’s not the same, she told herself firmly. It could not be.

Still thinking of that other time, she laid out a tray with coffee, bread, and pastries, the kind Gerek loved best. If nothing were wrong, if Janna had exaggerated … Well, Kathe was simply taking her beloved a late-morning refreshment as she almost always did.

Her first check to these comforting thoughts came at Gerek’s office. Locked—not just with his key but with magic. Kathe was no mage, but she had lived six years in this household with its layers of spells on every door. She knew magic when she touched it.

She set the tray on the floor next to Gerek’s office door and mounted the stairs to the fourth floor. Even before she rounded the next landing, she heard the commotion of servants hurrying back and forth. That alone was unusual, but as she climbed the last few stairs, she saw more signs of a crisis. No runner waiting in the alcove to carry messages. The door itself—always shut and locked—now stood open to reveal an army of servants swarming through Lord Kosenmark’s office. Lord Kosenmark was not in view, nor was Gerek.

Then she caught sight of Mistress Denk, supervising the work.

“Mistress Denk.”

The other woman glanced toward her. Kathe hesitated. All the questions she needed to ask, she had to ask in private, not here, with dozens of servants about. She shook her head. Denk gave her a sardonic smile, as if she understood Kathe’s dilemma.

Kathe turned back toward the stairs. Now she truly wanted to find Gerek, and at once.

The wing of offices was empty. She thought she would have better luck with the next, which included a small library and several parlors, but Gerek was not in the library, nor the first two rooms she checked. With growing unease, Kathe entered the next, a favorite among the courtesans for its soft couches and the grand view of the lawns and the gardens. Doves gathered on the ledge below the window and their murmur was like a chorus of water flutes, only much softer.

Today, the parlor stood empty and quiet. Even the doves were silent. Brilliant sunlight poured through the arched windows. It was a day to tempt the kitchen girls to make excuses to visit the gardens, or loiter in the markets.

It was then Kathe realized where Gerek had gone.

She hurried to the window. Even as she scanned the grounds, a solitary figure emerged from the shadows of the house and crossed the lawn. The person was Gerek, clad in dun-colored robes. Ignoring the bench and roses, Gerek made directly for a gap in the bushes that led into a wilderness garden. Kathe knew from experience that a person could just see the edge of Lord Kosenmark’s grounds from that point. Beyond were the stables and a maze of small lanes that led into the city.

My love, you must not …

Gerek sank onto the grass. The movement came so quickly, her own heart leapt in sudden apprehension. She spun around and nearly collided with a maid outside the parlor. Kathe called back an apology. Whatever the girl said in reply was lost on her. Kathe skimmed down the stone stairwell to the bottom floor. Hanne and Gerda were carrying trays with coffee and fruit into the common room. Hanne turned, as if to speak to Kathe. Kathe waved her aside. A dozen more steps brought her down a seldom-used corridor to a side door, which opened onto a narrow lane.

The same door where Ilse Zhalina knocked, three years ago.

She had no desire to revisit memories of that night, or of that visitor, however. Kathe sped along the lane, through a series of small alcoves bordered by more ornamental trees, until she came to the grassy lawn. There she paused and shaded her eyes, searching for the still dark figure she had glimpsed from the window.

This midday hour the grounds were empty, the air shimmering with dust and warmth. But there, ahead, was Gerek. He sat upon the grass, heedless of the unforgiving sun.

Quietly she approached her betrothed. He did not acknowledge her presence. She did not expect it, and simply knelt in the grass a few feet away. She could tell he had not slept at all the previous night. His clothes were rumpled, the skin beneath his eyes bruised and creased, and his hair looked as though crows had played havoc with it. He was a large man, built like an ox, as his mother often said. Brown and sturdy. Very clever. Dependable. Until she came to know him, she had not realized how much she wanted a man she could trust. Oh, to be sure, Kathe loved his intelligence, the warmth and passion and tenderness of his embrace, but the matter of trust was like a key to the entire treasure of Gerek Haszler.

For several moments she did nothing but drink in the scents and sights of the surrounding gardens, the proximity of her beloved. Summer had come upon them without her noticing. All the flowering trees had shed their blossoms after spring. The rosebushes were still in bloom, their scent thick in the air, and from farther away came the sharp fragrance of crushed grass. Bees hummed among the bushes.

“I-I can almost imagine it,” Gerek said softly. “A whole c-city, complete, filled with … booksellers and scholars and merchants and artisans and all manner of people free to walk the streets. I remember … I remember a bench overlooking the harbor, where you can just hear the waves hissing against the shore.”