Allegiance, page 32
part #3 of River of Souls Series
“My love. What happened?”
“It’s … it’s what he said before. He…”
He mumbled but she could not understand him. He had lost too much blood. She had to get him back to Duenne as quickly as possible. She nearly laughed to think of time, here in Anderswar. She had to bite down on her lip to break the panic. Come, my love. I will not fail you now.
Her heartbeat slowed. Her vision spiraled down to the point between breaths, the point between magic and the mundane, between terror and courage. She had forgotten Anderswar and its void. She could think only of Duenne and its towers. Of the streets filled with bellsong and a wind that carried the scent of Veraene’s endless plains. Of a golden palace where Tanja Duhr and her beloved once lived.
The mist ebbed from them like the tide rolling out. Once more she saw the worlds wheeling beneath them. Above, bright points marked where souls journeyed to their next lives. Ilse gathered Raul into her arms.
“Ei rûf ane gôtter,” she whispered. “Komen mir de zoubernisse. Komen mir der wërlt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HER BODY HAD turned numb. Her breath had frozen inside her. Her thoughts came to her in single words, collecting like raindrops from the mist, until they gathered the weight to plummet from nothing into substance, into the pool of consciousness.
Black. Void. Death and blood. A senseless babbling in her ears.
It was like a game of word links drawn from the nightmare that was Anderswar.
Gradually, as though from a distance, she became aware of her surroundings. She drew a deep breath and felt an ache deep within. Voices thrummed in her ears, like that of Lir’s jewels before they returned to magic’s plane. Raul lay motionless in her arms, his skin burning with fever. She pressed her face against his chest. If he was so warm, she told herself, he could not be dead.
A hand gripped her shoulder. “Ilse.”
She jerked her head up. Benno Iani bent over her. His eyes were buried in darkness, lines etched into his face. And that look on his face, as though he had witnessed something impossible.
“You are home,” he whispered. “Home. Do you understand?”
She could barely comprehend what he said. Home? What did that mean? She blinked and tried to take in her surroundings. She was dimly aware of many, many people gathered around. There was the gleam of swords, and the brighter, sharper glitter of jewels. She lifted her head to see a vast open space. The palace, she remembered. They were in the middle of the grand audience hall where she had argued for Raul’s innocence.
“Benno,” she whispered. “How…”
“You and he vanished five days ago. Your shadows appeared in this chamber yesterday. I’ve been waiting.” In milder tones, he said, “You must let him go.”
Ilse released her grip on Raul. She fell backward, into a cloud of scented silk. Her head lay pillowed on a woman’s breast, and a gentle hand brushed the sweat-soaked hair from her face. “You must never, ever frighten us so,” Nadine murmured into her ear. “I am a selfish creature, remember? I cannot bear to spend a lifetime thinking I might have saved you, but did not.” She kissed Ilse lightly and her breath fluttered against Ilse’s cheek. “My love, my brave and true love. Do you know what you have done? You have saved the kingdom. Come. Do not weep. Lord Iani will cure your beloved of whatever ails him.”
“I will hold you to that promise,” Ilse whispered.
Nadine laughed and helped her to stumble over to Iani’s side. Iani barely acknowledged them. His attention was locked on Raul, who lay shuddering and sweating on the marble floor. Raul’s shirt was soaked with sweat and blood, his golden eyes staring upward as though he could see to the river of souls and beyond. All around the magic shimmered in a thick cloud.
“A curious knot,” Benno murmured. “I wonder … Ah.”
He rocked back onto his heels, his face gone blank with amazement.
“What is it?” Ilse said. She clutched at his arm. “What is wrong, Benno?”
Iani did not respond at first. He rubbed his free hand over his eyes, stared again at Raul. “I did not think it possible…” Then he glanced around, as though suddenly aware of the audience that surrounded them. “He is ill,” he said in a louder voice. “He needs quiet and rest. With that, he will recover soon enough.”
He stood and, with an air Ilse had not thought possible from the man, barked out orders. A litter for Lord Kosenmark, another for Mistress Ilse. They were to take both of his patients at once to the duke’s new suite of rooms. Tell the kitchens to send up trays with food fit for invalids. He flung out his hands and runners scattered to obey. Then Iani reached down to Ilse. “Come. I will tend you both together.”
The litters arrived. Benno oversaw the carriers settling Raul and Ilse on the cushions. Nadine covered Ilse with a blanket and smoothed her hair from her face. “Do not kill her from neglect,” she said to Benno Iani in a soft silken voice. “Or I shall hunt you down.”
“That I believe,” Benno said just as quietly. “You forget, however, that she is just as much my friend as Raul Kosenmark is.”
* * *
THE CARRIERS RAN without pause through the corridors, up a winding staircase, and into a different wing, one far grander than the one Ilse remembered. A dozen men and women in the royal livery stood guard along its length. More guards in the Valentain uniform flanked the double doors that marked the Kosenmark suite. One lifted her into his arms and carried her through the doors, into an apartment that might serve a prince, if not a king.
Once inside, attendants took over and laid Raul on a bed of soft linens and feather quilts. The guard carrying Ilse set her on a second bed. She struggled to stand up, but her body refused to obey, and she collapsed into a heap. Iani came to her side at once. “You and he spent days between Anderswar and the ordinary world,” he said. “You must have nourishment. And speaking of which…”
Servants arrived with bread, hot broth, and watered wine. Nadine had insinuated herself between them and knelt beside Ilse. “Allow me,” she said. She raised Ilse and arranged the pillows so that Ilse could sit upright, then fed her spoonfuls of broth. Her manner was brisk and gentle as she coaxed Ilse to take yet another sip of the broth.
“When did you become a nurse?” Ilse whispered.
“Since my brother took ill and our mother could not spare any attention from the harvest. You did not know I had a brother. I did. A horrible mischievous brother. Also, two sisters and a dozen or more useless cousins. My father remains a mystery, alas, though we considered him a valuable source for the stories we told on winter nights.”
Nadine prattled on about her brother and sisters, and her life in the hill country of Veraene’s northern province of Ournes. She kept her voice pitched low and soft and soothing, while she broke up pieces of bread and soaked them in the broth. “You must eat,” she said, when Ilse objected. “Eat so that you can be strong.”
“But Raul.”
“Hush. Let me poke our Lord Grand Physician.”
A short whispered conference took place between Nadine and Benno Iani. Ilse could overhear enough to know the extent of Raul’s injuries. Two broken ribs, several others cracked or bruised. Markus Khandarr’s cold magic had seared Raul’s face, leaving it raw and bleeding. The deepest wounds were gashes, delivered with the precision of a surgeon’s knife, one over Raul’s left eye, another on his thigh. He suspected internal injuries as well, which accounted for the gray pallor and weakness. And then there was a fever …
“Is he dying?” Ilse said.
Benno’s gaze jerked up to meet hers. “No.”
“Then what is wrong? What is not possible, as you called it?”
Benno glanced to one side, clearly uneasy. “He’s lost a great deal of blood. Khandarr might have killed him outright, but he did not.”
His lips pressed together, he gestured toward Raul. Ilse waved away Nadine’s hand and crawled to Raul’s side. It took her a moment before she could focus properly and another moment before she could take in the significance of what she saw.
Raul’s cheeks were rough with an unshaved beard. A soft down of fur covered his chest, what little she saw of it. When she at last understood the import, her breath came short with shock.
Oh. Yes.
There was one injury, chosen by Raul when he was too young or headstrong to understand the consequences. The reason he never returned home, after Baerne of Angersee died and his grandson Armand dismissed his inner council. Raul had spent thirteen years reinventing himself as the man who spoke as a woman, and pretending it did not matter.
“Khandarr has changed him,” she repeated in a whisper. “Yes. Now I understand. Oh, my love,” she whispered, and pressed a kiss upon his feverish lips.
Raul’s eyelids fluttered open. “My love.”
His voice was harsh and deep, at once strange and familiar.
“My love,” she said. “You are—”
“An ugly man, from what Benno said.”
She tried to laugh, but could not. “Oh, no. You were much uglier that other time, when we nearly died in Tiralien. Do you remember?”
His mouth, swollen and discolored, quirked into a smile. “Which one was that? There were so many, as I recall.”
She heard a muttered exclamation from Nadine, but she paid no attention to anyone but Raul, who lay before her transformed and yet the same man she loved from life to life. “You must remember,” she said. “It was the time Markus Khandarr lured you into the streets with a false message. Dedrick and I ran to warn you. We were nearly too late.”
“Ah, that time.” His tone was pensive. “I remember. I led my people to death. And Dedrick. I failed them all.”
His gaze went diffuse, as though he had lost sight of this world, and now gazed upon the souls of those dead men and women. Ilse gripped his hands within hers, willing him to remain in this life, in this moment.
“If you remember that, do you remember what you told me?” she asked fiercely. “You told me not to grieve. We make mistakes, you said. But we shall not make the same ones ever again. You live, my love. You and I live. Let us rejoice.”
She leaned forward to kiss him, but Raul turned his face away. “Do you know what Markus did to me?” he said.
“I do. Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. I feel … as though he stole my body and set a stranger in its place.”
Now they had come to the crux of the matter.
“We are changed, you and I,” Ilse said. “Changed by death. We fall into each new life weak and helpless, and yet we overcome. This is no different, my love.”
She leaned over Raul once more. This time, he did not turn his head away. Their lips brushed, his were fever warm and dry. She started to pull back, but Raul lifted a hand to her cheek. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Not quite yet.” And kissed her once more.
* * *
ILSE SPENT THE next three days recovering, while Nadine and the Kosenmark sisters tended to her needs. The Kosenmark family had taken her under their protection within their extensive suite of rooms, with the assurance that once she had recovered, she might petition the Regent Councillors for her own quarters. Until then, they would provide her with whatever she needed.
What Ilse needed was sleep and information. The sleep she could manage for herself, but for the information, she depended on Raul’s sisters. From them she learned what had transpired during that mad and chaotic night and the five days after. Duke Kosenmark had survived, battered, bloody, and more than a bit bruised, but alive. Baron Mann had vanished, only to reappear two days later from the depths of the sewers, his strange manic energy having leaked away and leaving him subdued.
“He is very glad to know you have returned,” Marte said. “If I did not know him better, I would say he was smitten with you. As it is, I can only say that you have earned his allegiance.”
Ilse ignored her comment. “What about Galt? I struck him down, but—”
Olivia smiled grimly. “He lives. The guards took him prisoner, and the council holds him as a vital witness to the events that night. For that reason alone, I am so glad you did not kill him, though I would have understood.”
Ilse wanted to laugh, but her throat hurt too much. She had spent all her courage and strength. Even weeping was beyond her.
Raul himself mended more slowly. Benno Iani healed the worst and most obvious of his injuries—the burns and broken bones. The fever took longer to expel and even once he could eat without vomiting it back, he was unable to stay awake longer than a few hours at a time. They had had to shave off his hair to dress his wounds. After that, he had insisted on keeping his hair shorn close to his skull.
Three weeks after Armand’s death, the trials commenced.
Ilse received her summons at night, after her daily visit with Raul.
“Do they think me guilty?” she said to Olivia.
Olivia shook her head. “I doubt that. But the city is in a panic. Our king is dead. We … I had not told you yet, but we have no heir. The queen and her children have vanished. My father believes they have escaped, but we’ve had no reliable news about them, only wild gossip. Lord Alberich de Ytel has organized a search for the heir and has vowed to uncover all plots against the king. That is in your favor, and my brother’s. Once we prove your innocence, no one can accuse you in the future.”
Ilse was not so certain, but the following day, she dressed in her new clothes, provided weeks ago by Duke Kosenmark, when she first appeared in his household. She would not give her own testimony until the third day, but she wanted to learn more about the events of the night Armand died and the days after.
The palace guards were summoned first. From them, the council learned of orders, ostensibly given by the king, commanding them to arrest Duke Kosenmark, his family, and other nobles connected to a supposed plot to murder the king. Did they have the orders directly from the king? Lord Ytel asked. No, but that was not unusual. The orders carried the imprint of Armand’s thumb, and came from Lord Markus Khandarr or his secretary.
A straightforward explanation, except that other squads had been ordered to arrest various different squads. The soldiers, those who had survived the night, remembered nothing more than a vague accusation of treason. Except the commanders for those squads testified to their loyalty, and insisted they had never received notice for such an arrest.
He wanted to create confusion, Ilse thought. He wanted to disguise his own actions while he eliminated all his enemies.
On the third day, Ilse was called to give her own story.
“Why did you come to Duenne?”
“To deliver a letter from Duke Karasek of Károví and to give evidence of Lord Kosenmark’s innocence.”
“When did you last speak with Duke Kosenmark?”
“The night before I stood before the king and council.”
“And with his son?”
“Before I brought the letter? On Hallau Island, where we hoped to send the queen of Morennioù home. If you mean in Duenne, I last spoke with Lord Kosenmark when he stood in chains, with a false order for his execution.”
A loud chatter rose from the audience. The council had to wait until that subsided before they could proceed with their questions. When they did, they were far gentler than Ilse expected. They requested, and she gave them, a precise account of that night, from the moment Nadine came to warn the family, to Ilse’s inspection of the orders for Raul’s execution, and then the events outside and within the king’s offices.
“Do you wish to know what happened in Anderswar?” she asked.
The chief questioner shook his head. “That is not necessary.”
Ilse held her breath a moment. Did that mean they knew how Markus Khandarr had died, and did not care? Or did they have other witnesses, to argue against her testimony? All the guards had died …
Dismissed, she took a seat in the gallery beside Nadine and Heloïse Kosenmark. “I should go.”
“No,” Nadine said. “We must hear this next man. That includes you, my love. Especially you.”
The next witness was a prisoner, bound in chains and surrounded by a half dozen guards. Ilse could not fathom who that might be. Another mage? An influential noble, once aligned with Markus Khandarr? It was an older man, with hair streaked in gray and white, and dressed in the same dun-colored prison garb Raul Kosenmark had worn.
The guards took hold of their charge and thrust him into a wooden chair, where they bound him securely.
Ilse drew a sharp breath as she recognized the man.
Theodr Galt.
He had changed since that evening, long ago, when he entered her father’s house. No longer the finely dressed gentleman, he sat bent and broken in the witness chair. His face was gaunt and discolored by bruises. His hair lay in gray and white clumps. He scanned the council chamber with furious eyes. When his gaze caught on Ilse’s, he stopped. His mouth moved and he attempted to rise. The guards thrust him back into his seat.
“Do not be afraid,” Olivia said.
“I am not afraid,” Ilse said. “I am angry.”
Galt did not wish to testify, that was obvious. He clamped his mouth shut. When the guards slapped him, he laughed, a high-pitched laugh that made Ilse grow cold.
“Why should I give you the satisfaction of obeying?” he said. “You will execute me no matter what.”
After a brief consultation, the council summoned a mage. Ilse could not tell who she was. She had silver-white hair, and her robes were dyed in the deepest blue. She laid a hand on Galt’s forehead. He struggled to escape her, but she merely smiled. “Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane strôm…”
She bound him with magic and ordered him to tell the truth.
“The truth?” he whispered. “All of it?”
“Everything,” she said.
He did. He talked of his desire for Therez Zhalina. His fury at her escape. How he joined the trade delegation from Melnek and how his path had crossed that of Lord Markus Khandarr. Many of the details sickened Ilse. She forced herself to listen, however, as he recounted his dealings with the Mage Councillor, Markus Khandarr. Treason, she thought. Treason to the king and kingdom, all for the sake of a few coins in taxes, and the satisfaction of revenge.
