Passion Play (39 page)

Kosenmark continued along the looping path until they came to the low stone wall that marked the garden’s edge. Below, she could see the various sections of the pleasure house grounds—the rolling lawn, several formal gardens divided by walls and hedges, the wilderness patch where she and Nadine had talked. Beyond lay more buildings and stables, but these were invisible behind the trees of the lower gardens.

Kosenmark dropped onto a stone bench and poured wine into his cup. Ilse remained standing, watching his face for clues.

“I brought only one cup,” he said. “My apologies.”

On impulse, Ilse reached toward him. “My lord, may I share your cup?”

Kosenmark regarded her with a strangely intent look. “If you like.”

He tilted his hand toward the bench. She sat beside him and accepted the cup.

When she had drunk, he took back the cup and refilled it. Instead of drinking, he cradled the cup between his hands. Some of his distress had leaked away, and he smiled pensively. “You startled me just then,” he said. “I thought you had found a way to listen to my thoughts. You see, I wanted to ask you a very great favor. To share my cup, if you will.”

Her pulse leapt in surprise. “How so, my lord?”

“It involves a promise I made Berthold. Three years ago. The one he reminded me of just this morning.”

He drank, then handed the cup back to Ilse. She accepted it, observing how his hands rested uneasily in his lap. They were long and lean hands—as expressive as Berthold Hax’s had been, but stronger. Able to wield swords and pens and influence and wealth.

Kosenmark turned his face upward toward the sky. “My friend is gone,” he said softly. “I cannot change that, no matter how I wish otherwise. What I can do is to continue the work that he and I first planned two, nearly three years ago. But for that I need someone I can trust, someone with a mind and heart to match Berthold’s. Will you do me this favor? Will you take his place?”

Surprise stopped her from speaking for a moment. “My lord, I don’t know enough to help you.”

“You know more than you admit. For the rest … I’ll teach you. What’s important is that you are intelligent and honest. You will tell me when I am wrong. When I’m arrogant. When my so-called concern for the kingdom falls into petty intrigue. I value that. Will you help me, Ilse Zhalina?”

She suddenly had the same sensation as when Alarik Brandt had offered his trade. Danger lay in that direction. Danger and misery and possibly death.

Ah, but if she chose to refuse Lord Kosenmark, that would leave him without a friend and councillor. He trusted so rarely.

There was a ritual in Duszranjo, when two men declared blood friendship—her grandmother had described it. Lord Kosenmark was no brother, but the intent was the same. Ilse poured new wine into their cup. She dipped a finger into the wine and ran it along the cup’s rim.
Water from my body, wine from a single cup,
the ritual said.
Mingle yours with mine, and thus we are bound together.

Ilse intended to perform only half the ritual, to declare her loyalty, but before she could drink, Kosenmark stopped her. “My turn.”

He dipped his finger as she had and circled the cup’s rim. “Now drink.” He offered her the cup.

“But my lord—”

“I know the ritual. I also know the vow must be mutual.”

So it was,
she thought, but she had not expected that from him.

Heart beating fast, she took the cup and drank. Kosenmark did the same.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FOR A MONTH
following Berthold Hax’s death, Lord Kosenmark closed his pleasure house to business. Visitors instead of patrons filled its many rooms, and they spent the hours talking about Berthold Hax—stories from his past, longer stories about how his life intersected theirs. Ilse listened at times, surprised more than once by the unexpected details these stories revealed.

Most of her time, however, she spent with Lord Kosenmark in Berthold Hax’s old office, now hers, discussing Károví’s plans and how they involved Lir’s jewels.

“We have a drought,” Kosenmark said, studying the map he had spread over Ilse’s desk. “A drought of information.”

He traced his finger along the border between Károví and Veraene. Using his reports from the past few months, Kosenmark had laid out markers to show troop numbers and locations for both kingdoms. Green for tens, blue for hundreds, red for thousands. The number had shifted several times over the past six months, according to what Ilse had read. Károví had concentrated its troops along the northern east plains, where several well-known passes led through the mountains into Immatra and Veraene. Veraenen troops were thickest at the kingdom’s border near Melnek, but lately Armand had increased the troops in Ournes, on the opposite side of the mountains from those same Károvín troops.

Kosenmark’s restless tracing had dislodged several of the markers. Ilse replaced them carefully. The sight of so many markers near her old home gave her pause. “You knew that he was raising the levies,” she said, more for herself than to remind Kosenmark.

He released an unhappy sigh. “Yes, I knew that. But the picture brings home what words and numbers cannot. Armand has managed to erect a barrier nearly as impenetrable as the one out there.”

He indicated a wavering line drawn through the oceans east of the continent. Toc’s Judgment. Lir’s Veil. The name varied with the speaker, but they all referred to the burning wall of magic that had appeared three hundred years before, during the second and bloodiest of the wars between Veraene and Károví.

The analogy was apt. Three couriers had gone missing in the border mountains in the past month. Ilse knew the passage to be a difficult one—rockslides, sudden storms, an accidental fall—all these could kill even the most experienced tracker. But three in a single month …

Kosenmark tapped the markers, causing them to skitter over the maps. “Never mind,” he said, when Ilse tried to put them right. “We don’t need to know where Armand and Leos have put their troops. The only thing that matters is that the borders are closed to us.”

And to everyone else, Ilse added silently. No tolerance for smugglers. No trade except with special permits, issued by the regional governors and confirmed by auxiliary representatives from the capital. The many new troops stationed at passes and border towns were there to enforce and assist. Kosenmark had sent out orders to his agents to stop sending back reports, but he could not tell if they had received those orders.

“What if you sent your messengers through Immatra?” she said, indicating the northern plains. “Armand doesn’t keep many troops along that border. Or would that still prove too dangerous?”

“Too far,” Kosenmark said shortly. “By the time we get a report, the situation has changed five times over. We need wings,” he said softly. “If we had the wings of birds, we might fly across the mountains.”

Ilse studied the map. The border was the difficulty. High mountains guarded those borders even better than all of Armand’s troops. Leos Dzavek had used that border to his advantage in both wars. If only they could erase those mountains, or even carve a new unknown pass through them.

“Ships,” she said, at the same time as Kosenmark.

He grinned at her. “It must be a good idea, since we both thought of it. Tell me more, Mistress Ilse.”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I was thinking merchant ships, but that seems too simple.”

“True. Armand will require all the merchant ships to carry special permits. Ah, but the fishing fleets—they go out to sea for weeks or months.”

Meaning that hardly anyone would notice if they took a few weeks longer for their catch. Ilse traced the curve of the Károvíen coastline. Islands dotted the waters there and there. To the north, a few larger islands made a barrier against the winter storms. A lone fishing boat could land undetected either place.

Kosenmark rested his head on his arms and studied the map through slitted eyes. “It still won’t be easy. We’ll need bribes for whoever carries the message or messenger to the islands. And careful planning to deal with the coastal patrols. Unless”—he glanced at Ilse—“you think I’m pursuing more of those useless games.”

She knew the question was genuine, but the answers that came to her were suspect. Was it because Lord Kosenmark’s activities had changed, or was it because her perspective had changed, from prisoner to trusted subordinate? The latter, she suspected.

“You are thinking hard,” he observed.

Ilse colored. “Not as hard as I did a few weeks ago.”

Kosenmark laughed, albeit hesitantly. “Perhaps you are being too harsh.”

“Upon myself? Or upon you?” she murmured. “But I do wonder … I saw nothing wrong at first, only after you locked me up.”

“And so you do not trust your judgment. But before you condemn yourself for inconstancy, ask yourself if there is a difference between what we did last month and today. Or rather, can you see one now?”

Ilse felt her way slowly through the answer. “No and yes,” she said at last. “Both involved intrigue and deception. One does concern the future. But I don’t know …”

Her glance met Kosenmark’s. He was watching her closely with those bright golden eyes. Unsettled by his gaze, she made a show of rearranging the markers into neater rows. The markers represented living soldiers now, but if Armand had his way, they might soon represent dead ones.

“Armand would be wrong to start a war without provocation,” she said at last. “Leos would be right to defend himself, but not at any cost. That much seems clear, but the rest … I lose the rest in shades of gray and brown. Even good intentions are not always enough.”

“Sometimes they are all we have. We must guard them carefully and not—”

A knock interrupted them. Kosenmark frowned and glanced over his shoulder. Ilse thought he might ignore the knock—he sometimes did—but when a second rapid knock followed, a peculiar expression came over his face. “I wonder …” he said under his breath.

Before he could complete that sentence, the door swung open. Lord Dedrick stood in the foyer, one hand resting on the doorframe. His hair was wind-blown, and he still wore his dust-covered riding clothes, as though he had just dismounted from a long journey.

Dedrick came into the office and knelt at Kosenmark’s feet. “I came as soon as I heard. How are you?”

Kosenmark opened and closed his mouth, so plainly astonished that it took him a moment to answer. “I— Never mind how I am. How did you get back here? Did your father—”

“He doesn’t know.” Dedrick took Kosenmark’s hands in his and kissed them. “I left home as soon as I heard about Berthold, my love. I even have a gift for you—one of those old books you like so much. I found it on a trip into town, in between drudging about on the estates with my brother. The bookseller tells me it’s quite rare.”

“The baron will not be pleased,” Kosenmark murmured.

Dedrick exhaled sharply and let his gaze drop to their hands. “No. He will not. I shall have to persuade him with soft words and clever arguments. At least this time I have my sister’s support in the matter. That should count for something.”

Kosenmark closed his eyes. He seemed not to hear Dedrick’s flow of words, explaining how he first heard the news in a letter from his sister, Lady Alia, who had it from someone else among the Queen’s Companions, and that several days before Raul’s own letter had arrived. Ilse had once thought Kosenmark’s face unreadable. Today she could read his emotions far too easily. He looked, she thought, like a starved man come upon an unexpected feast.

“Come upstairs,” he said in a hoarse voice. “We must talk. Now.”

Without saying more, he led Dedrick from the room and the two were soon running up the stairs. As the door swung shut, Ilse could hear their voices echoing from the stairwell. She let out a long breath. So. The beloved had returned. Hardly surprising, given their long attachment. Why then did her head hurt so?

I’m an idiot. A selfish blind idiot.

With greater force than necessary, she rolled up the map, scattering markers over the floor. Ilse cursed fluently and gathered them up from the corners of her office. She stowed everything away and cleared off her desk.
Letters,
she thought.
I can always sort letters.

She used up a half hour, but when she found herself rereading each letter six times without comprehending its contents, she stopped. No use working today. As Lord Kosenmark had said, they had a drought of news from all quarters. And Lord Kosenmark would not conduct any more business today, except that of the most personal kind.

Her stomach twinged. Enough, she told herself. She washed her face, and drank deeply of the water in her room. Tepid and stale, it nevertheless washed away the bitter taste in her mouth.

Downstairs, the common room was relatively quiet. Lord Iani was asleep on the couch, his head on Lady Theysson’s lap. Adelaide and Johanna sat apart, involved in some private conversation, but Eduard and Josef were talking with Lady Theysson and Lothar Faulk, one of Lord Kosenmark’s senior agents who oversaw the network of couriers and runners. Nadine perched on the corner of a nearby chair, weaving intricate patterns with a length of string.