Kathe remained silent, still. He could sense her presence, however, just on the other side of his desk. He wanted to order her away, but he could tell his tongue would not obey him, not for many long moments. Nor did he dare to open his eyes and meet her gaze. He could not tell what he might do if he saw pity on her face. He’d had enough of pity.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Kathe said softly.
So she had understood. He opened his mouth to speak, felt a betraying tremor in his throat, and shook his head. After another long silence, he heard her quietly exit the room.
He let his head sink onto his hands. It was always the same.
My father and grandfather are right. I am a fool. Oh Dedrick. You needed a bolder, braver cousin than I.
From far away came the soft chimes of the quarter hour, echoed by the house clocks. He drew a long breath and glanced at his meal with distaste. The delicately spiced fish, the rice dotted with leeks and peppercorn, all cooked and presented with care, turned his stomach. He drank his cup of water slowly to ease the nausea. Tomorrow was his first full holiday. He wished it had come today. He badly wanted to escape this house for a few hours.
He stacked the dishes onto the tray and carried it to the sideboard for later. Back at his desk, he picked up the next book from the crate. Another set of memoirs, from a member of court in the late empire days. Gerek sighed. The task reminded him of the few, vague life dreams that visited his sleep.
I have always been a clerk, writing down others’ deeds.
“Hessler.”
Lord Kosenmark stood in the open doorway. Had he knocked? Gerek couldn’t remember. He curbed the urge to touch the diary, hidden inside his jacket. “My lord?”
“There’s been a change in my schedule,” Kosenmark said.
He still wore his riding clothes from this morning—a sober costume of dark blue wool, edged in darker blue silk, and speckled with raindrops. Blue, the mourning color of Károví. Was that a subtle signal, or merely coincidence? Then Gerek took in more of Kosenmark’s appearance. The tense, straight line of his mouth. How the man’s eyes had turned opaque, as if the eternal golden sun behind them had set.
“Well?” Kosenmark said. “Why aren’t you writing this down?”
“My lord?”
“A visit to Lord Demeyer’s country estates,” Kosenmark said, with the tone of repeating himself. “Expect me to be absent three days. Make my excuses to anyone who requires it. That is one of your responsibilities, no? Never mind. I do not need an answer today.”
He swept from the room, leaving Gerek teetering between apology and outrage.
* * *
WITHIN THE HOUR,
Lord Kosenmark had departed on horseback. A carriage with trunks and servants and outriders followed. It was all so unnecessary, Gerek thought, as he returned to his office and his untouched meal. A great deal of show for nothing at all. He nibbled at the rice, then forced down a few mouthfuls of fish and a sweet pale pudding. With food, his headache eased, and he was able to concentrate on the current situation.
Kosenmark had left. He would not return for three days—the number of trunks guaranteed that. So. Yes. It was time for the next stage of Gerek’s long-laid plans.
No one would notice anything he did. They all expected him to hide in his office or his private chambers. Gerek set the dinner tray outside his office for the kitchen maids. He locked his door with keys and magic provided by Kosenmark himself. (A sign that Kosenmark did not entirely trust his household. Gerek reminded himself to note this later in his book.)
Up the silent echoing staircase he padded, past the bright-lit windows overlooking the grounds, to the landing outside Kosenmark’s private rooms. With the lord absent, no runner waited in the alcove beside the door. Gerek had prepared an excuse just in case, but he breathed in relief that he didn’t need to explain himself.
The door to Kosenmark’s office was locked. Gerek had expected that. He withdrew a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket, which he laid against the keyhole.
The idea had come to him six months ago, soon after he learned about Dedrick’s death. He’d been researching the early empire days, and the closer relationship between mages and rulers, when he came across the spell. It involved hiding the user’s identity, their magical signature, behind another. Used without embellishment, it created a blank in place of the signature. Tricky. And not necessarily foolproof. A trained mage could detect its use. But the only mage among Lord Kosenmark’s friends was Lord Iani, and his later investigations confirmed that Lord Iani had not visited the house for months.
There was a second variation of the spell. If you added the physical traces of a second magic worker, the spell would imprint that other person’s signature atop your own. The older accounts spoke of flesh or skin. Gerek had dismissed that as too difficult. But then Kosenmark had come to Gerek’s office with a fresh-bleeding cut from his morning weapons drill. Gerek had offered Kosenmark his own handkerchief, then accepted the cloth back with barely concealed excitement.
Ei rûf ane gôtter. Komen mir de strôm.
The air pulsed, turned thicker and more pungent—a clear sign that he had deflected a portion of magic’s current into the ordinary world. It was a sensation he had grown used to over the past few months. He was no expert magic-worker, of course. But he had a scholar’s stubbornness and the luxury of solitude, which had allowed him to study and to practice until he had achieved success with a handful of spells.
Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane Lir unde Toc.…
Now a strong fresh scent washed over him, like grass crushed underfoot, or the traces of pine carried by the mountain breeze. He breathed it in, sensed a new fluency in his poor lame tongue. There were a thousand descriptions of how magic tasted and smelled. None of them were right, all of them were true. Gerek continued to recite the spell, words of the long-dead Erythandran language, which rolled from his mouth with an ease he’d never experienced before.
Lâzen mir drînnen Lord Raul Anton Maximilian Kosenmark.
His skin rippled, as though he were a metal speck caught halfway between two powerful magnets. Then he felt an inward ping. The current vanished, and the latch gave an audible click of release.
Gerek had to stop himself from laughing out loud. The spell had worked, mangled tongue and all. Then the urgency of his position overtook him. He stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and pushed the door open.
Eight days. Twice or three times each day, he had entered this room. Today, he saw everything with fresh eyes, and a mind undisturbed by the presence of others.
It was a place of beauty and quiet and light. Polished red tiles lined the floors. Shelves with books and fine rare statuary covered nearly every wall. Here and there were tables with carvings in ivory or gemstones, done in the modern style. Off in the corner stood the sand glass he’d noticed that first day, an expensive contraption built from pulleys and weights, fashioned from rare metals and pure blown glass of enormous size. Through the windows of the opposite wall he glimpsed the rooftop garden—as yet unexplored territory. The scent of sandalwood hung in the air, like a memory of the man who ruled here.
Gerek went immediately to the iron letter box next to Kosenmark’s desk. His key opened the top lid. Inside was a wide slot where Kosenmark had instructed him to insert any letters that arrived during his master’s absence. He laid the handkerchief over the hinges and lock.
Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane Lir unde Toc.
The magic current sighed into existence. Faster now, he recited the words for the spell and spoke Lord Kosenmark’s full name again. The current flickered with a short-lived tension. Disappeared almost before he could register its presence. A long moment passed before he could take that in. Less confident now, he tried the spell for his own letter box, but substituting Kosenmark’s name. Nothing, not even the faintest buzz of magic, as though the current itself recognized the futility of his attempt.
Gerek blew out a breath, disappointed.
Well, and if the first interpretation of an old document yields nothing, we try another theory, another approach.
Or another room.
Two more doors opened from Kosenmark’s office. One led onto the rooftop gardens. Gerek would explore that region later, if necessary. If he had time and opportunity. The second door was the key, he decided. It led into Kosenmark’s inner rooms—to his bedroom, and other secret chambers that Dedrick had mentioned to Gerek alone, and then only briefly, almost reluctantly.
He turned the chosen door handle. It gave way at once—unlocked. Not surprising, he told himself. The man employed dozens of guards to patrol the grounds. Still, his pulse beat faster as Gerek stepped cautiously over the threshold.
It was a dimly lit world of branching corridors that he faced. One lamp burned low in its bracket just inside the door, and farther off, a shaft of light penetrated from a window set in the ceiling, but for the most part, he had to pick his way through darkness. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he took in the details—a miniature reading room off to one side, a closet with rich costumes, another closet with clothing wrapped in herb-scented covers. He passed by these, then paused beside a long narrow corrider, fitted with grills in the floor and along its walls. That had to be the listening room, where Kosenmark could spy on his own courtesans and guests, if he wished. Dust covered the floor, untouched.
The bedroom itself offered more surprises. From Dedrick’s comments, Gerek had expected an unrestrained opulence—a room swathed in silks and pearls, to use the fanciful words of the more romantic poets. Perhaps he had banished the excessive luxury along with Dedrick, because though the room was furnished with items of good quality, it was hardly a sybaritic vision.
He started with the superficial and the obvious—the clothes-presses, the vast trunk in one corner, the closets, and underneath the bed itself. Off in one corner stood a small desk. Gerek lifted the lid to find the usual writing materials, a few half-finished letters about nothing. If those were coded, they were beyond him. Maybe the next time he visited, he could make copies.
He had a momentary burst of excitement when he discovered a series of recessed buttons behind the desk’s main compartment. He pressed one. The bottom of the desk’s interior slid back to reveal a small space. Inside, however, was nothing more than a single book.
Gerek picked up the book. A volume of poems, by Tanja Duhr. An antique, judging by the worn leather cover and old-fashioned lettering. Tucked between the pages was a thin strip of paper, with writing in Kosenmark’s hand.
To Ilse Zhalina. A gift in return for your gift of conscience and truth. Thank you.
Carefully he replaced the book and shut the desk. It took him several moments to recover his outward composure. His inward composure was another matter. Clearly the book was a gift from one lover to another. And she had returned it. Did that mean their break was genuine? If it was, why did he keep the book in a desk by his bed?
Questions and more questions. He’d come for answers.
A further, more careful search revealed no secret compartments in the bedposts, nor any loose planks in the floor. The few other spells he’d mastered revealed nothing.
After an hour, he worked his way back through the various chambers and rooms and closets, to the outer office once more. Though no fire burned on the fourth floor, his clothes were soaked through with sweat, and he itched from the dust coating his skin. He sank into the chair behind Kosenmark’s desk and surveyed the room.
Imagine yourself in the writer’s skin,
one of his professors had said.
Use their words to see and smell and taste the world they lived in. History is not an abstract. It is blood and passion. It is real.
Gerek tried to imagine being Lord Raul Kosenmark, a man born to wealth and privilege. Someone ambitious enough at fourteen to have himself emasculated, just to retain his family’s position as councillors to the king.
Impossible. I cannot imagine it.
He made a second, more perfunctory search of the desk and drawers. Nothing. Either Kosenmark was entirely innocent, or he’d hidden everything in that damned letter box, locked with a spell Gerek could not begin to guess at.
He hauled the letter box onto the desk and began to examine its surface. It was square, its width and height no longer than his forearm. The polished iron surface showed a blurry reflection of Gerek’s face. Much like Kosenmark’s eyes.
He ran his fingers over the surface. There were no obvious signs of magic, but he knew Kosenmark would have protected this box with magic set into the iron itself. Any attempt to break through the sides would trigger another set of spells to destroy its contents. Still, for every spell to safeguard a box, there existed another to breach those protections. He was no mage, but he could hire one to do the work. Or he might risk everything and simply carry the box to Duenne. He was calculating how he might smuggle himself and the box from the house when he heard footsteps. He heaved the box off the desk and tried to erase all traces of his activities.
Not soon enough.
The door crashed open. Raul Kosenmark appeared in the gap. He stared at Gerek with a hard unblinking gaze.
“So,” he said. “Maester Hessler. No, let us use your proper name. Lord Haszler. Lord Gerek Haszler. Have you found what you were looking for?”
CHAPTER NINE
GEREK FROZE. ONE
hand still gripped the letter box by its handles, the other the edge of the desk. He considered a mad dash for the door. Quashed the urge before he’d done more than make a convulsive movement to stand. A far deeper silence had dropped over the room, and he distinctly heard the sand hissing as it fell from one globe to another in the vast hourglass behind him.
“Don’t bother answering,” Kosenmark said. “I doubt you could just now.”
Blood rushed to Gerek’s cheeks. He released his hold on the letter box and straightened up. “I-I can s-speak, my lord.”