No, Dedrick had never mocked him, not like the others. Dedrick had saved his bitterest comments for his own father and the family’s ambitions. Especially his sister’s.
More recent memories overwhelmed the rest. The terrible news from Duenne—a riding accident, according to the official letter, but everyone knew better. Knew that Dedrick had died by order of the king and the King’s Mage. Then, months later, Gerek’s decision to come here, to the house of the man responsible for leading Dedrick to his death.
Voices chattered inside his brain. Relatives dismissing him, consigning him to a useless life, a romantic with few qualities beyond an attention to history, philosophy, and clever handwriting.
Ignoring the voices, he crossed the avenue. That grand central gate was not for him, but for visitors of quality. And, of course, those clients who frequented the other side of Lord Kosenmark’s business—the pleasure house and its many courtesans. But Dedrick had faithfully described the house to Gerek many times, so Gerek knew to look to one side, to a lane leading between the house and a wall demarcating the property from that of the next elegant mansion.
Guards observed his entrance. He knew that, even if he could not see them. They would, however, view him as no threat; simply a large clumsy man ambling toward a service entrance. Gerek tried not to mind.
The lane brought him past a long blank section of wall, then a bare courtyard with a few equally bare trees and a lonely stone bench. Here windows broke up the expanse of golden stonework, but they were all dark, like eyes without the illumination of the soul. Gerek continued on to the side door his cousin had mentioned. The door itself was ordinary, but the story his cousin had told was not—about a young woman beaten and raped and close to death. She had knocked on the door and Raul Kosenmark had taken her in.
Gerek knocked at the door. His large hand thumped against the painted wooden panels, sending echoes down the lane. He stepped back and waited.
It was quiet here—even quieter than the main avenue. From far away, he heard a horse whickering. Flies buzzed past, fat and hopeful. A breeze tickled his bare neck, lifting away the sweat from his fur-lined collar, reminding him of how he must appear. After six days riding in a wagon, spending the nights in the cheapest hostelries, or camped beside the road, he looked more like a tramp than a scholar. Hurriedly he shook the dust from his clothes and swiped a hand through his stiff, tousled hair. His boots were filthy. He bent to rub them with his sleeve.
The lock rattled. He straightened up.
A young woman stood in the doorway. She wore a plain black skirt and a blue smock with the sleeves rolled up. The pale sunlight cast a shadow across her dusky brown face. Gerek blinked, unexpectedly surprised by her ordinary appearance.
“Yes?” she said at last.
He immediately dug out the letter from inside his coat and offered it to her.
She took it, glanced from the paper back to Gerek’s face. He thought she was smiling, but he couldn’t be sure.
“For the duke’s son,” he said. “My n-n-name is-is Gerek Hessler.”
“Ah. They told me that you would arrive today. You are here to apply for the position of Lord Kosenmark’s secretary.”
He released a breath in relief. “Yes. That.”
If the young woman noticed his stuttering, she gave no hint of it. She stood to one side and politely motioned for him to enter.
* * *
HER NAME WAS
Kathe, she told him. Normally she did not attend to admitting visitors—she worked in the kitchens—but so many of the maids were taken sick with colds, and Lord Kosenmark had not wanted to increase the size of his household, even temporarily. Not to worry, she said, they would soon have him settled. He would want to see Mistress Denk, the steward, and after that Lord Kosenmark, but surely he would appreciate a few moments in a private room to recover from his long journey.
Listening to the flow of her chatter, Gerek took away only one detail. She
had
noticed the dust and dirt and sweat. He rubbed in vain at his face and wished he had taken his brother’s advice to stop first at an inn to bathe and dress in fresh clothing. But inns required money, and he had none to spare. Not if today did not produce the position he hoped for.
“I’m sorry,” Kathe said. “I chatter too much, Lord Kosenmark tells me.”
She’d stopped in the middle of a wide corridor. Rooms opened to either side—bright rooms filled with silk-covered couches and chairs, their tiled floors gleaming in the sunlight. The scent of beeswax and fresh herbs hung in the air. There was also the unmistakable scent of expensive perfume, but no other sign of the courtesans Dedrick talked about, nor of Kosenmark himself. Merely the elegant and richly furnished spaces one might expect to find in the household of a wealthy man, the elder son of an influential duke.
“I-I— My apologies,” Gerek said. “What did you s—say?”
She smiled. (A kindly smile, he noticed.) “I can see that you’re tired from your long journey. Would you like a private room where you might bathe your face? You look as though you aren’t used to our southern seasons.”
“N-no,” he said, then felt his cheeks heat. “Yes. Very tired. Could I-I—”
“Right this way,” she said.
Kathe left him in a small sunny room, comfortably furnished with a padded chair and several wooden benches. A high table stood by the single window, which overlooked a lawn and trees beyond. An antique tapestry of Lir and Toc hung from one wall—this one depicting their season of love—and a silk carpet covered the red-tiled floor. There was no fireplace in the room, but the air was pleasantly mild. A brass mirror hung from the opposite wall. Gerek ducked his head to avoid seeing his reflection.
Before he had time to wonder what came next, several maids, some of them red-eyed and sniffling, appeared with towels and robes. He would find the baths in the first basement, they told him, down the stairs located at the end of the hallway.
Gerek muttered something about not keeping the steward waiting, but the girls had already disappeared. Through the half-closed door, he heard them giggling.
Damn them. I’m not a dumb beast. I’m—
Nothing but the second son of a minor branch of an unimportant family. (Never mind the queen’s recognition of Dedrick’s sister, Lady Alia.) Not even that, because to these people, he was an unemployed scholar seeking employment. They were right to laugh at him. Everyone else did.
Everyone except his brother and Dedrick.
Gerek closed and locked the door. Still furious with himself and the maids, he undressed doggedly and put on the robe. The fabric was thick worsted cotton, soft against his skin and warmed by a fire. The warmth and softness irritated him further. He stomped from the room to the stairs, down to the baths. Those, too, drove him to an unreasonable fury. He scrubbed himself clean—hair, nails, and body—from all the grime accumulated in six days of travel. He’d scraped his hands raw from catching the wagon, and bruised his shin against the iron-plated wheels. Good. That felt more believable than this impossibly huge pool, the scented soaps, the surrounding luxury, which, no doubt, he would have to leave behind when Lord Kosenmark refused his service.
Scrubbed and annoyed, he returned to the room to discover the maids had removed all his clothes, even down to his loincloth.
He was about to curse out loud when he remembered Dedrick’s warning:
He listens. To friends, to enemies. There is no one he absolutely trusts. Oh, perhaps Maester Hax, or his new love, but no one else.
Hax was dead, however. And Ilse Zhalina had left Kosenmark five months before.
Gerek scanned the ceiling and spotted a vent placed where none would normally be found. It was true, then, what Dedrick had claimed. The man had rebuilt the house to install listening vents and pipes, closets with secret panels, all manner of means to overhear conversations between the courtesans and their clients, between friends and enemies. And strangers most of all.
“Are you well?”
Kathe stood in the doorway, a tray balanced against one hip.
“Why do you s-say that?” Gerek demanded.
“You were staring so. I knocked,” she added. “And you had left the door unlocked.”
“I-I—” Gerek forced himself to speak deliberately. “I am weary from the road. But I do not wish to keep Lord Kosenmark waiting.”
“You will see Mistress Denk first,” Kathe said. “She knows you’ve arrived. But you have time to refresh yourself. I brought you coffee and tea, and some biscuits and cold meats. Would you prefer wine?”
“No wine,” he said shortly. Wine made his tongue even more uncertain.
Kathe said nothing to his abrupt speech. She slipped past him and set to work, laying out the dishes and cups onto the table by the window. In the room’s diffuse light, he could see her features clearly for the first time. Her face was round and pleasant, her eyes a dark and brilliant brown. Her hands, he noticed, were deft, her fingers slender, and the nails clipped short.
When she finished, she glanced up and met his gaze directly, in a way he found both disconcerting and refreshing. “For your comfort and refreshment,” she said. “And please, do not be anxious. Lord Kosenmark told me himself you were not to hurry on his account.”
Over her shoulder, Gerek caught his reflection in the mirror. Plain round face, the chin blurring into folds of skin. Broad shoulders and chest. A study in brown, even to the robe he wore. His mother affectionately called him her favorite ox.
He jerked his glance away. “Thank you,” he said stiffly.
She paused, as though she expected him to say more. Her eyes narrowed. Assessing.
“You are right to be careful here,” she said, and was gone.
* * *
THE MAIDS BROUGHT
his clothes—brushed and pressed—before he finished his coffee and biscuits. Luckily, none of them offered to help him dress. When he had resumed his clothing, a runner took him through a labyrinth of hallways and galleries, up two flights of stairs, to a wing populated entirely with offices. They were all beautiful and yet utterly businesslike, very unlike the frothy silk-strewn chambers he’d glimpsed below.
Mistress Eva Denk received him with a perfunctory smile. Her office, he noted as he took his seat, was spacious and neat. There were no windows here, but two lamps hung from the ceiling, and a branch of candles sputtered on the table next to her desk. She was exactly like her letters—forthright and competent. He knew her history from his own investigations. She was born in Duenne, had risen from apprentice to senior clerk for one of the leading merchants of the city. After twenty long years with that same merchant, she had given up her position to work for Kosenmark. It spoke of the man’s persuasion.
She offered him wine. He politely refused. That brought another smile. Was she testing him?
“You have an interesting history,” she said.
Gerek shrugged.
Denk frowned slightly and let her gaze fall to the papers on her desk. Among them, Gerek recognized his own résumé, plus several letters that ostensibly came from his previous employers, including the letter of introduction from Maester Aereson, a merchant in Ournes Province. Denk would find no fault with any of them. Gerek had written them himself, modeling his career on that of an old tutor. Informal studies at the University at Duenne, regrettably incomplete. Several years at various posts as tutor, scribe, or general factotum. His latest posting had come to an end when Maester Aereson’s sons grew older, and Gerek thought a warmer climate might suit him. An acquaintance had mentioned that Lord Kosenmark needed a new secretary.
“You understand the terms?” Denk asked.
“I do.” Short sentences were best. He could manage those.
“Your pay? Your duties?”
Again he nodded. He was to handle all correspondence and to keep Lord Kosenmark’s schedule. For that he would receive a monthly sum of ten gold denier, plus his room and board. If his duties required finer clothes, say for a meeting with nobles such as Lord Vieth, Lord Kosenmark would provide them. He would have one rest day every week, plus an afternoon to himself twice a month.
It was all very easy and pleasant. Too easy. Denk asked him fewer questions than he expected, and her apparent lack of interest in his credentials puzzled Gerek. He once tried to expand on his supposed employment with Maester Aereson. Mistress Denk had waved aside his speech with the comment, “Lord Kosenmark will want to know surely. The decision is his, not mine, to make.”
It would be,
Gerek thought. If everything Dedrick had hinted at were true, this man wanted more than a secretary, he wanted an accomplice.
An accomplice for treason,
Gerek thought.
But first I need to find the proof, before I go to the king or any of his people.
And he would find it here—he knew it—in this house.
* * *
“MAESTER HESSLER.”
Lord Kosenmark studied Gerek over the tips of his fingers.
“My lord.” Gerek bowed.
“Sit,” Kosenmark said. “And let us discuss the possibility of your employment here.”
Gerek sat down, unsettled and nervous and trying not to show it. None of Kosenmark’s letters had promised employment outright, but after his interview with Eva Denk, he had begun to relax. He wondered now if he’d given himself away to her, or to Kathe.
I am Maester Gerek Hessler. Second-rate scholar. Nothing more.
The repetition failed to counteract his anxiety. He had taken several great chances in this endeavor. He had used a name nearly like his own, thinking he would remember it better, and trusting that Dedrick would never have mentioned a poor second cousin to this man. He had involved his brother and old tutor to handle any untoward inquiries. At the time, these had seemed like reasonable risks.
The voices chattered at him, more insistent than before.
Fool. Idiot. Useless.
Kosenmark continued to study him in return. He was as handsome as all the reports claimed—golden-eyed and fair, his pale brown skin almost luminescent against his blue-black hair. Sculptors who followed the classicist school might use him as a model for Toc, the brother-god and consort of Lir, except that Toc was blind, and this man’s eyes were whole, unnervingly bright and direct. The one element, which everyone knew about, but which Gerek still found unexpected, was his voice.