Passion Play (16 page)

A tall man dressed in dark blue silks leaned against the door frame. Ilse recognized him at once—it was Lord Kosenmark, the one with the ambiguous voice. “You may go,” he said to Kathe as he came into the room. “Leave the tea, in case she wants more.”

Kathe curtsied and retreated from the room. Lord Kosenmark fetched a chair and sat next to Ilse’s bed. He was a handsome man with his honey-brown skin and full mobile mouth. When he leaned close and laid a hand against her forehead a whiff of his scent came to her, warm and personal.

Kosenmark said something under his breath. Warmth flowed outward from his hand, and her tense muscles unlocked. He smoothed a strand of hair from her face—a light, impersonal gesture. “Better?” he asked.

She nodded. He knew magic. Why then had he called in a healer?

“You must have some questions.”

“Too many to ask, my lord.”

He smiled. “Fair enough. Well, to save you the effort of speaking, I will offer you a handful of answers. You have a place here until your health mends. After that, I can offer you work, if you like. Wages, room, and board. We’ll discuss particulars once you’ve recovered.”

She tried to detect any hidden demands behind his offer. Though she heard none, but then, she hadn’t with Alarik Brandt. “Thank you, my lord.”

Kosenmark tilted his head. “I hear so many contradictory things in that cool and proper tone. For one, you do not trust me.”

Because I trusted too easily before.

He must have guessed some of what she thought, because he said, “Never mind about it for now. You owe me nothing, child. Not even gratitude. Can you accept that?”

He expected an answer this time. “Yes, my lord.”

“But you are still uneasy. Why?”

“Because you have no reason to help me.”

He sighed. “Then think of it as charity, if you like. Do you have any more questions?”

Ilse shook her head.

“Now that is untrue,” he said. “I see a hundred lurking behind your eyes.”

“No more than you have questions for me, my lord. And yet you have not asked them.”

At that, his mouth puckered, and she saw laughter in those golden eyes. “You are observant. And stubborn, as Mistress Hedda observed. Yes, I have questions. I shall not ask them, however, because I doubt you would answer.”

Laughter with a knife’s edge,
she thought. The phrase sounded like a quote, but she couldn’t remember the poem, or even if it came from a poem.

“If you asked me, I would answer you honestly,” she said.

He was still studying her with that same expression. “Perhaps you would indeed.”

*  *  *

ILSE SPENT THE
first week confined to bed. She slept, waking for visits from Mistress Hedda, who came to renew her spells, or when Kathe fed Ilse the willow syrup and other concoctions Mistress Hedda had prepared. It was a strange house she had come to. Mornings were always quiet. Afternoons brought the muffled sounds of chambermaids at work, but it wasn’t until night that the house woke, with laughter and more voices and music drifting up from the rooms below.

The second week, Ilse made a slow shuffling circuit of her room. Within a few days, she could walk unaided down the corridor. She spent her mornings sitting on a sunny terrace by the house’s formal gardens, wrapped in blankets. Other houses were just visible above the trees and stone walls—dark red and copper roofs, chimneys, and farther off, a bell tower. Once or twice, she thought of home. Of Klara and her grandmother. She winced away from those memories, as from a still-tender wound. She wanted more time—months and years—before she could think upon them with any clarity.

As for today, and this strange new house … Well, there, too, she found herself unable to dwell upon anything more than the small surface details. The transparent sunlight of winter. The bittersweet flavor of the tea Kathe brought her. The scent of soap and sweet herbs she smelled on her pillow. Luck had brought her to Lord Kosenmark’s doorstep. His kindness had rescued her from death. What came next, she had no idea. It was enough to sit quietly and let her body mend.

Kathe sometimes joined Ilse on the terrace, when her duties permitted. Ilse soon learned that Kathe’s mother was Lord Kosenmark’s chief cook and that Kathe was her mother’s assistant. Mother and daughter had worked together for a household in Duenne before coming east to serve Lord Kosenmark, and Kathe told Ilse stories about those years, bright amusing tales that featured some of Veraene’s most famous names. But for all Kathe chattered, she told Ilse nothing about this particular house, or about Lord Kosenmark.

One morning, at the end of the month, Mistress Hedda announced that Ilse was cured. Or mostly cured. “You are both young and lucky. Mostly lucky.”

She poured out a thick black concoction and muttered a few words, before handing the mug to Ilse. “Drink all of it.”

Ilse pinched her nose shut and drank the medicine down. In spite of the strong taste, her stomach settled immediately. A moment later, her skin tingled with warmth. “What is it for?”

“Cleansing your blood,” Mistress Hedda said shortly. “If I were one of the old mage-surgeons, I’d tell you that it purges your soul in preparation for magic. Myself, I call it a strengthener. Whatever its name, you will need it for your interview with Lord Kosenmark today.”

Ilse set the mug down quickly. “Today?”

“Yes, today. What’s the matter? Does he frighten you?”

“Yes.” She watched in silence while Mistress Hedda repacked her medicines and closed the box. “Do you trust him?”

Mistress Hedda pursed her lips. “Mostly. He’s a fair man. Ah, here is Kathe, who will give you a better picture than I can. I must go to my other patients.”

Kathe had brought Ilse a stack of neatly folded clothes. “We have time enough to make you presentable,” she said, laying out skirts and smocks and stockings. “Luckily, we had plenty in stores.”

Skirt and smock were made of dark brown cotton, and the smock had a high neckline that reminded Ilse of the uniforms worn by maids in her father’s household. Ilse dressed quickly, wondering if the new clothes meant Lord Kosenmark would hire her. She had not seen him once since that first day.

You owe me nothing,
he had said.

Or had she misremembered that unsettling conversation?

Once she was presentable, Kathe led Ilse down the familiar corridor, then through a sunny parlor and into a new wing to a stairwell. Up they went, three flights of stairs, past small windows, through which Ilse glimpsed more formal gardens and the stables beyond. At the top, the stairs opened onto a broad landing with a high narrow window facing north. Opposite the stairs was a massive door with carved lintels and a gleaming brass knocker.

A liveried boy stood at attention outside. Kathe ignored him and lifted the knocker herself. The knocker was padded and made a hollow thump against the polished wood. A pause followed, then the door swung open.

Lord Kosenmark stood framed in bright sunlight. “Thank you, Kathe,” he said. “You may go.”

He motioned for Ilse to come inside. She walked past him slowly, her heart beating too fast for her comfort. Behind her, she heard the door close, but her attention was entirely on this new room.

If she had thought him merely wealthy, her guess had fallen short. The floor was laid with wine-red tiles, set with a black marble border. Shelves lined the wall to her right. Some held books, others contained a variety of figurines in ivory or polished gemstone. Drawn by the figurines, Ilse moved toward them, taking in more details of the room as she went. A table and chairs by the fireplace. A globe made with precious metals. A vast sand glass surrounded by smaller glasses attached by pulleys and weights, the whole of which worked in unison to keep track of hours and minutes and moments. It was one of the new timepieces used in Duenne that Ilse had heard about from Ehren.

Beside the sand glass stood a huge desk, covered with more books, stacks of papers, and maps. A door at the far end was closed, but another one opened onto a rooftop garden.

Kosenmark came into the room and indicated the chair in front of his desk. “First, the long-delayed introductions,” he said as he took his own seat. “At least the direct ones, since we have both heard our names from other parties. You told Kathe that your name was Ilse. Do you have another? A family name?”

She shook her head. “None that I would own, my lord.”

He studied her a moment. “As you wish. Mine is Lord Raul Kosenmark.”

Kosenmark. Of House Valentain. Ilse knew the name from Ehren’s letters from university.
Wealth indeed,
she thought. Wealth and influence and a name as old as the empire, said her brother. Lord Kosenmark must be a younger son, or more likely, a member of a cadet branch.

“Do you know the name?” he asked.

“I’ve heard of it, my lord,” she replied.

“What have you heard?”

His eyes were wide and bright, like a cat’s. Or a hunting leopard’s. “No more than stories, my lord. The same ones we heard of all the great houses.”

“Indeed. So you know something of politics?”

“Nothing,” she said softly.

“Ah. Good. Never claim more knowledge than you possess. Especially when that knowledge springs from hearsay and rumor.”

His voice, that high unsettling voice, carried the same cool assurance Ilse had heard in Baron Eckard’s voice, when he cut off Bartov’s questions about the old king. Eckard had not raised his voice, but Ilse had heard the Imperial Councillor then. Wherever Kosenmark had learned it, she heard it now.

“My lord, I apologize.”

Kosenmark nodded. “Apology accepted. Now let me give you a piece of information, related to the first.” He laid his fingertips together. “You have come to a pleasure house. Mine. That is my business in Tiralien, whatever you heard elsewhere.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “No, my lord, I’m not—”

“I did not say you were. But you do know what the term encompasses. I wondered. For a time, I had thought someone had seduced and abandoned you.”

“No one seduced me, my lord. I … I made a trade. A bad one.”

“Was the trade voluntary?”

Her stomach fluttered. “My lord, you said you would not ask me any questions.”

“I lied. Please answer me. Did you sleep with the man willingly?”

“Men,” she whispered. “I slept with thirty men. More. As for willing …” She drew a sharp-edged breath. “The answer is yes and no. But I made the choice. The blame is mine.”

“Did you end the transaction, or did they?”

“I did. My lord, why must you ask me these questions?”

“To judge your character. What changed that you first sold your body and then found the trade unacceptable?”

Her face had turned hot, from anger and shame. “I offered myself in exchange for a promise. The caravan master was about to break that promise. So I left.”

“Where was the caravan bound?”

“Duenne, my lord. I hoped to work there.”

“Yet you came east instead.”

“We were north of Donuth when I left. Tiralien was closer and … I wished to avoid the caravan master. He was not willing to let me go, you see.”

Kosenmark’s gaze did not shift from her face. Slowly, Ilse became aware of the largest sand glass, turning within its frame in response to the weights shifting in the smaller ones. Fine silvery sand trickled through the narrow opening. As it did, she sensed the tension bleeding from the air.

“You left out some details,” Kosenmark said softly. “Such as braving the wilderness alone, without weapons or shelter or food.”

“I had a knife, my lord. A stone knife.”

He tilted his head. “What else?”

She couldn’t tell if he was mocking her, or if he was truly interested. “A blanket, my lord. Later on, I found a tinderbox and another knife. And after the first day, I learned how to forage for my food.”

“Alone,” he said musingly. “And for weeks, from what I gather. You were both very brave and very foolish.”

Ilse made a quick throwaway gesture. “I had to leave, my lord. I had to. Someone gave me a chance, and I took it.”

“I understand. Will you let me give you such a chance? One that does not involve selling your body?”

The weight against her chest eased. He did understand, she could tell from his face and voice. “What else could I do here, my lord?”

Kosenmark smiled faintly and let his gaze drift to his hands instead of Ilse’s face. “My house is for entertainment. For that, I employ those who cook, those who clean, those who fetch, and those who guard these premises. Yes, some who work here do offer their bodies for pleasure—but willingly. I do not make slaves, nor do I use children the way someone has used you.”

She saw how his fingers tensed momentarily. “My lord, I’m grateful—”

He looked up. “Gratitude—”

“—can prove a bitter root that does not feed the benefactor nor his charge. And yet I am grateful, willingly grateful, my lord. And that is a sweeter dish.”