Passion Play (23 page)

“Don’t tease,” Adelaide said. “It’s not kind.”

“Hah. She likes it. Where are you going, fair Adelaide?” she asked as Adelaide stood up.

“An appointment,” Adelaide said. “Luise expects me within the hour, and I need to dress. So do you. Don’t dawdle too long.”

She left the room silently, her gown fluttering behind. Nadine stretched out on the couch, watching, her slanting eyes narrowed to dark lines. “Do you think her pretty?” she asked Ilse.

Calling Adelaide pretty was like saying Launus Paschke could pluck chords on a guitar, Ilse thought. Adelaide had fair golden skin and hair so black, it had tints of blue. Her face and hands and body were faultless, if one dared to use that word. Ilse could see her in Duenne’s palace, entertaining kings. “She’s beautiful.”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s nice,” Ilse said warily.

“Nice.” Nadine laughed. She rolled over, caught Ilse by the wrist. Before Ilse could jerk her hand free, Nadine kissed her wrist and released her. “If you ever decide that I am nice, you know which is my room. Now go, before Greta sounds the alarm.”

Ilse hurried back to the kitchen and dumped the tray with its dirty plates by the washbasin. She had picked up her washcloth when Kathe reappeared. “One last tray,” Kathe told her. “For Maester Hax. Oh and try not to let Lord Kosenmark see the dishes. He and Mistress Hedda are worried about the poor man’s health.”

“You forgot to tell me to hurry,” Ilse said with a smile.

Kathe laughed. “
You
already know that. And
I
already sound too much like my mother.”

The back stairways were still quiet, but when Ilse reached the landing outside Hax’s office, she found his door open and Lord Kosenmark outside. “We’ve no more business tonight,” Kosenmark was saying to his secretary. “Leave those papers for tomorrow.”

Ilse withdrew, trying to keep the tray out of sight, but Kosenmark beckoned her forward and inspected the dishes. “This is not the diet Mistress Hedda ordered,” he said. Hax had ordered strong tea, biscuits and honey, and grilled fish dotted with pepper.

“Mistress Hedda would physick me with boredom,” Hax retorted. “You might inform her, Lord Kosenmark, that I am used to my spices. I like them. I will not give them up.”

“As much as you like your strong tea and keeping late hours. Berthold, Berthold. You are a horrible old man.”

“I have you to thank, my lord, as both a model and an inspiration.”

Kosenmark grinned. His glance fell on Ilse. The grin altered to a friendly smile, which she found almost as surprising, and he waved her into the room. “Serve this old man his supper, child. If he carps and whines about his indigestion, we shall feed him prunes by the barrel.”

It was unnerving how he knew the doings of his entire household. Embarrassed, she went about pouring the tea, and setting out the silverware on the side table. Kosenmark left with another edged comment to Hax, who was laughing silently. “He is a terrible man,” he said to Ilse. “I wonder that I tolerate him so.”

She smiled but said nothing. Lord Kosenmark was right about Maester Hax, she thought. The old man looked tired, and since she last saw him, his color had turned a pasty yellow. Ilse cut several biscuits and spread them with honey, since he liked to eat as he worked, and laid a napkin ready. When she finished, she saw that Hax was observing her. “I haven’t seen you about these past few weeks,” he said. “Is Greta keeping you busy?”

“Busy enough, sir.”

He tilted his head. “Meaning, you do not wish to offend with your answer. Very well. Thank you for the tea, Mistress Ilse. And the fish.”

No more trays waited for her. Just more dreary smelly work. Someone had left a crate of potatoes to rot in the storerooms, and the potatoes had turned to black sludge. Ilse had mopped up the worst, but Mistress Raendl wanted every groove in the tile floor scoured clean to keep out the rot. Her one consolation was that Janna had murmured her sympathy in passing.

Step by step,
she told herself.
They might even forget where I came from.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts, she didn’t see Hanne huddled on the floor until too late. Her feet tangled in Hanne’s skirt, and she tripped, her tray flying out of her hands. Ilse landed hard on the tiled floor and banged knees and elbows. Beneath her Hanne cried out in alarm.

“Hanne, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

“It’s all right,” Hanne said quickly. “It’s all right. I’m—”

She broke off with a muffled groan. Worried, Ilse knelt and peered at the girl’s tear-streaked face. Hanne’s face looked gray and drawn, her cheek felt warm and damp. “What’s wrong, Hanne?”

“Nothing. It’s all right. I just wanted to rest a bit before I—” She gestured at a tray Ilse had not noticed before—a dish with strawberries, wine carafe, and cups. One of the courtesans must have an early appointment.

“Would you like me to take the tray for you?” Ilse asked.

Hanne shook her head vigorously. “No. I can get by. It’s just the pains, but they’ll pass. They did last month.”

Cramps, then. Bad ones. No wonder the poor girl looked so miserable. “Tell Mistress Raendl. She’d let you lie down, I’m sure.”

“No!” Now Hanne looked terrified. “I don’t want the other girls to know. None of them get sick and I don’t want to make Mistress Raendl angry. I”—she pressed a hand against her stomach—“I’m fine.”

Ilse brushed away a damp strand of hair that had escaped Hanne’s headscarf. “You should talk to Mistress Hedda the next time she visits the house. She has medicine that helps. But for tonight … What if we trade? You can take my tray back to the kitchen. I’ll take yours. Where does it go?”

The other girl appeared to struggle inside a moment. “Spider room. Second floor. East wing. For Adelaide. But I thought you didn’t like …”

“I don’t mind. And the rotten potatoes can wait a few moments longer for me to scrub them away.”

Hanne called up a wan smile in return. “Thank you.”

The spider room was called such because its walls were hung with silvery lacework, shaped and gathered into cloud-shaped webs. A canopy over the bed was of filmy chiffon, dotted with miniscule diamonds to reflect lamplight. Ilse arranged dishes and other items on a side table. She was nearly done when she heard a heavy tread behind her.

“We must be early,” said a husky voice.

An older woman stood in the doorway—a tall, heavyset woman swathed in layers of ruby silks and gray wool. She had a strongly marked face, its deep creases emphasized by the lamplight. Ilse recognized Mistress Luise Ehrenalt, a high-ranking member of the silk weaver’s guild. Behind her came Adelaide, who glided into the room and laid a hand on Ehrenalt’s arm. “Come, Luise. The girl is just leaving. And we’ve your favorite—
strawberries.”

Luise laughed. “You are my favorite, sweet. Or weren’t you listening to me?”

Their attention on each other, they ignored Ilse, who took up the now-empty tray and withdrew. When she had offered to take the tray for Hanne, she had not thought about seeing the courtesans or their clients. Now, as the door closed, she heard Luise’s throaty laugh and Adelaide’s murmured replies. How did Adelaide manage it? Was it truly as she told Kathe—that she saw Mistress Ehrenalt as just an audience? But Ilse had heard genuine affection in the courtesan’s voice, and now … now it did not sound as though she were acting.

I have to see how she does it.

Her heart beating faster, Ilse passed through another room and into the servants’ corridor, which ran between and around the private rooms. Kathe had mentioned spy holes her first day. Since then, Ilse had learned which rooms had them and how they were concealed. She checked in both directions and saw the corridor was empty. She set the tray on the floor and rose onto her toes to peer through the spy hole.

The spider web’s filmy hanging made everything hazy, but Ilse could make out two shadowy figures. Adelaide, taller and slimmer, was feeding strawberries to Luise Ehrenalt, caressing her face as she did. Luise caught her hand and kissed it. The next moment, the two moved swiftly to the bed.

Luise sank down. Still standing, Adelaide drew her tunic over her head and let the filmy cloth drift onto the floor. Lamplight accentuated her muscles as they slid beneath her radiant skin, reminding Ilse of Lord Kosenmark and how he moved. A royal courtesan. Some said she had pleasured Baerne of Angersee himself. And yet she had abandoned such a position to come here, to Tiralien.

Adelaide untied her skirt and let it drop to the floor. Ilse held herself still, hardly breathing. She had to see Adelaide’s face at the moment of passion. Did she pretend, as Ilse had? Was it possible to tell?

“What are you looking at?”

Ilse spun from the spy hole. Lord Kosenmark stood one pace behind her in the corridor, his face half-hidden by the dim light. Quickly, she knelt to pick up the tray. “My lord. I’m sorry I was dawdling. I didn’t mean to—”

Kosenmark stopped her with a gesture. “You’re weeping.”

She hadn’t known, couldn’t recall starting, but her cheeks were wet. More tears spilled when she jerked her head away, falling like stars. Kosenmark knelt in front of her, still a safe distance away. “What happened?”

“Nothing, my lord. I was … watching.”

“Why?”

Ilse hesitated and saw him frown. Gulping down a breath, she said, “To see how Adelaide managed it, my lord.”

“Because of what happened to you?”

She nodded. “I tried pretending. I said … I said I was willing. Once I even—” Her voice failed her then.

Kosenmark touched her arm. “Come with me,” he said softly, his tone entirely different from before. “I’ll have someone notify Greta where you are. Never mind about the tray.”

With a gentle pressure against her back, he guided her to the stairs and up to his office. There he paused and spoke briefly with the runner, who disappeared down the stairs. Ilse continued to weep. She could not stop seeing Alarik Brandt’s face, feeling him inside her, hearing herself cry out. She was dimly aware that Kosenmark had opened the door and was leading her inside.

He led her to the nearest chair. “Sit.”

She sank into the chair. A green light flickered at her right, a hint of magic’s scent curled through the air, then a brighter yellow halo sprang into life. No voices filtered from the rooms below. No music drifted up from the common rooms, which surely were open by now. Only the hiss of the sand glass as it turned to the next hour broke the hush.

Kosenmark pressed a cloth into her hands, a handkerchief, which smelled faintly of cedarwood. She blotted away the tears until the handkerchief was soaked. He took away the cloth then and held a wine cup to her lips. “Drink. Slowly.”

It was wine mixed with water. She tried to take the cup herself, but her hands were shaking badly. Kosenmark wrapped his hands around hers to steady them. “Please do not drop it,” he said mildly. “That is my favorite pattern.”

He was smiling. She tried to smile back, but she was sobbing too hard. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it, she told herself, then realized she was saying the words out loud. Kosenmark appeared unperturbed. He helped her to drink the wine, then took the cup away and sank onto the floor at her feet.

“Tell me,” he said, “was I right? Is your name Therez Zhalina?”

Ilse closed her eyes. “It was. Not any longer.”

“And your father is Petr Zhalina.”

She tensed and nodded.

“I’ve heard his name,” Kosenmark said. “He’s spent a fortune, they say, sending out messengers, offering rewards for news of what happened to you. Why did you leave?”

“My father wished me to marry. His choice, not mine.”

“And you disliked his choice?”

“I did. I met the man once. He frightened me, my lord. I can’t say why.”

“But your father didn’t listen.”

She opened her eyes. Kosenmark’s expression told her as little as his voice. “No, my lord. He said he would sign the contracts the next day. And there was no one who could argue with him.”

“I see,” Kosenmark said softly. “Who was the man?”

“Maester Theodr Galt. He controls the shipping contracts.”

Kosenmark’s only reaction was a sudden thinning of his mouth. “I know that man.” Pause. “Let me guess what else happened. When you discovered no one could help you, you packed a satchel with plain clothes and a few other belongings—whatever you could find in a hurry. You took some gold, and with it, you bought passage to Duenne.”

She blinked in surprise, and he smiled sadly. “Let us say that I was once faced with a similar choice. Similar but not the same. I had chosen my future, and my fears were those of second thoughts. In the end, I decided to stay. The following morning it was too late to undo that decision.”

He was talking about the night before they gelded him. It could be nothing else. “My lord …”

Kosenmark lifted a hand. “What plans did you have for Duenne?”

She covered her confusion by drinking deeply. Even watered, she could tell it was a fine vintage, this wine—light and golden, with hints of summer pears and lemons. A man who bought such wines would find her plans childish.