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“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Please hurry.”
He motioned for her to precede him. Anxious now, Ilse took the corridors at a run. Was Hax ill again? Was there news from court or Valentain? She glanced over her shoulder once or twice, but the man urged her forward.
Two more guards stood outside Hax’s suite. Ilse’s escort continued inside with her. “They are waiting for you in there,” he said, motioning toward the bedchamber. He took up a stand outside the door, while Ilse, her heart beating fast, went inside.
Hax was sitting up in bed and speaking in an undertone with Lord Kosenmark. Ilse let her breath trickle out. So it was not a relapse. It has to be news about Lord Khandarr.
At her appearance, Hax broke off talking, and Kosenmark turned around. She caught a flicker of tension in his mouth before his expression turned blank.
“My lord? Maester Hax? You wanted to see me?”
Kosenmark pointed to a spot in the middle of the room. “Yes. Stand over there.”
Puzzled, Ilse obeyed. Kosenmark looked as though he had not slept at all. Faint lines etched his face, and bruises marred the fine golden skin beneath his eyes. News must have arrived during the night, but what kind of news would make both men stare at her so?
“Begin,” Hax whispered to Kosenmark. “You shall not be easy until you know the truth.”
“Not even then,” Kosenmark murmured. “Very well. You are right. Mistress Ilse, I would like you to tell me about the day you left Melnek. And why you did so.”
Ilse flinched at his soft even tone. “Why, my lord? You asked me these questions before.”
“I did, but Maester Hax was not present. He would like to hear your account in your voice, with your words, not mine. Besides, I need to hear the answers again. So. Tell me why you left your father’s house.”
She needed another moment to collect herself. Start at the beginning, she told herself. Go forward.
She began with the dinner party. But the dinner party didn’t explain enough about why, so she backtracked to her hopes about spending a year with her cousins in Duenne, then leapt forward to Theodr Galt’s arrival at her father’s house. Already the account sounded muddled. It didn’t help that Hax was studying her face with a strange intense expression. Kosenmark’s face remained a blank.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. She described the dinner, including Baron Eckard’s talk about Duenne and its opportunities, but skipped the rest of the details about dances and music and conversation, and went directly to her father’s abrupt declaration that she would marry. She finished with the final moments in her room, when she decided to run away.
“It was foolish,” she said. “I know it now. But I’m not sure I could do anything different.”
Kosenmark and Hax exchanged glances. Had she said something wrong? Before she could say anything more, Kosenmark launched into a series of pointed questions about the dinner party itself. He wanted more details about her conversation with Baron Eckard. What had she asked him? Why had she listened to a stranger’s vague account of a distant city? From there, he jumped forward in her story to the caravan: why she stayed and then why she left; why she chose Tiralien when she had endured so much to reach Duenne. Ilse answered everything as completely as she could, adding more and more details to cover the silences between. All the while, Hax studied her with a remote expression that was the twin of Lord Kosenmark’s.
“You met no one after you left the caravan in Donuth. How did you pass the sentries at the city gate? They don’t often allow vagrants inside.”
“Farmers.” At Kosenmark’s prompting, she gave their names. Nela and Gregor and Maxi and Uwe. “They fed me and gave me a ride in their wagon.”
“But you left them after you passed the gates. Why?”
Ilse closed her eyes, feeling dizzy and sick. Why and why and why. She heard Kosenmark repeat the question, a touch of impatience in his voice. “They didn’t have much room or money for themselves,” she said. “But they did give me names and places where I might find work. I … I had hoped to find a position that same day. It was stupid, I know.”
She got no response except a request for more details about the places where she tried to find work. It was like reliving those first days, and her face went hot as she went over her encounters at Becker’s tavern, the nearby inn, the house with the sympathetic cook. At one point, Hax made a sign to Lord Kosenmark, who leaned close while they conferred in undertones.
“We can trace the farmers through that tavern,” Kosenmark said. “From there we should be able to locate these other people.”
“If they aren’t inventions, my lord. We have no dates. Very few details and just a few names …”
“Why would I lie?” Ilse broke in.
Another whispered exchange.
“I disagree, my lord. We should not—”
“We should, I say. Let her hear the accusations.”
