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Lord Rahl was in fact a surviving vestige of a bond, an ancient magic
invoked by one of his ancestors to protect the D'Haran people from the dream
walkers. It had long been believed that the dream walkers-created by wizards
to be weapons during that ancient and nearly forgotten great war-had
vanished from the world. The conjuring of strange and varied abilities-of
instilling unnatural attributes in people-willing or not, had once been a
dark art, the results always being at the least unpredictable, often
uncertain, and sometimes dangerously unstable. Somehow, some spark of that
malignant manipulation had been passed down generation after generation,
lurking unseen for three thousand years-until it rekindled in the person of
Emperor Jagang,
Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a
purpose. Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In
Jagang, Kahlan
saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in
her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to
grow tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes-and the ability of a
Confessor. She loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as
those born with blond hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor's special
ability.
Kahlan used her power for valid, moral reasons. Jagang, no doubt,
believed the same of himself, and even if he didn't, most of his followers
certainly did.
Richard, too, had been born with latent power. The ancient, adjunct
defense of the bond was passed down to any gifted Rahl. Without the
protection of the bond to Richard-the Lord Rahl-whether formally spoken or a
silent heartfelt affinity, anyone was vulnerable to Jagang's power as a
dream walker.
Unlike most other permutations conjured by wizards in living people,
the Confessor's ability had always remained vital; at least it had until all
the other Confessors had been murdered by order of Darken Rahl. Now, without
such wizards and their specialized conjuring, only if Kahlan had children
would the magic of the Confessors live on.
Confessors usually bore girls, but not always. A Confessor's power had
originally been created for, and had been intended to be used by, women.
Like all other conjuring that introduced unnatural abilities in people,
this, too, had had unforeseen consequences: a Confessor's male children, it
turned out, also bore the power. After it had been learned how treacherous
the power could be in men, all male children were scrupulously culled.
Kahlan bearing a male child was precisely what the witch woman, Shota,
feared. Shota knew very well that Richard would never allow his and Kahlan's
son to be slain for the past evils of male Confessors. Kahlan, too, could
never allow Richard's son to be killed. In the past, a Confessor's inability
to marry out of love was one of the reasons she could emotionally endure the
practice of infanticide. Richard, in discovering the means by which he and
Kahlan could be together, had altered that equation, too.
But Shota didn't simply fear Kahlan giving birth to a male Confessor;
she feared something of potentially far greater magnitude-a male Confessor
who possessed Richard's gift. Shota had foretold that Kahlan and Richard
would conceive a male child. Shota viewed such a child as an evil monster,
dangerous beyond comprehension, and so had vowed to kill their offspring. To
prevent such a thing from being required, she had given them the necklace to
keep Kahlan from becoming pregnant. They had taken it reluctantly. The
alternative was war with the witch woman.
It was for reasons such as this that Richard abhorred prophecy.
Kahlan watched as Captain Meiffert spoke the devotion a third time,
Cara's lips moving with his. The soft chant was making Kahlan sleepy.
It was a luxury for Kahlan to be able to be down with Richard and Cara
in the sheltered camp, beside the warmth of the fire, rather than having to
stay in the carriage, especially since the night had turned chilly and damp.
With the litter they could move her more easily and without causing her much
pain. Richard would have made the litter sooner, but he hadn't expected to
have to abandon the house he had started to build.
They were far off the narrow, forsaken road, in a tiny clearing
concealed in a cleft in a steep rock wall behind a dense expanse of pine and
spruce. A small meadow close by provided a snug paddock for the horses.
Richard and Cara had
pulled the carriage off the road, behind a mass of deadfall, and hidden
it with spruce and balsam boughs. No one but a D'Haran bonded to their Lord
Rahl had much of a chance of ever finding them in the vast and trackless
forest.
The secluded spot had a fire pit Richard had dug and ringed with rocks
during a previous stay, nearly a year before. It hadn't been used since. A
protruding shelf of rock about seven or eight feet above them prevented the
light of the campfire from shining up the rock wall, helping keep the camp
hidden. Its slope also kept them snug and dry in the drizzle that had begun
to fall. With a fog closing in, too, it was as protected and secure a
campsite as Kahlan had ever seen. Richard had been true to his word.
It had taken more like six hours than four to reach the campsite.
Richard had proceeded slowly for Kahlan's sake. It was late and they were
all tired from a long day of traveling, to say nothing of the attack.
Richard had told her that it looked like it might rain for a day or two, and
they would stay in the camp and rest up until the weather cleared. There was
no urgency to get where they were going.
After the third devotion, Captain Meiffert came haltingly to his feet.
He clapped his right fist to the leather over his heart in salute. Richard
smiled and the two men clasped forearms in a less formal greeting.
"How are you doing, Captain?" Richard grasped the man's elbow. "What's
the matter? Did you fall off your horse, or something?"
The captain glanced at Cara, to his side. "Ah, well, I'm fine, Lord
Rahl. Really."
"You look hurt."
"I just had my ribs . . . tickled, by your Mord-Sith, that's all."
"I didn't do it hard enough to break them," Cara scoffed.
"I'm truly sorry, Captain. We had a bit of trouble earlier today. Cara
was no doubt worried for our safety when she saw you approaching in the
dark." Richard's eyes turned toward Cara. "But she still should have been
more careful before risking injuring people. I'm sure she's sorry and will
want to apologize."
Cara made a sour face. "It was dark. I'm not about to take any foolish
chances with the life of our Lord Rahl just so-"
"I would hope not," Captain Meiffert put in before Richard could
reprimand her. He smiled at Cara. "I was once kicked by a stalwart warhorse.
You did a better job of putting me down, Mistress Cara. I'm gratified to
find Lord Rahl's life is in capable hands. If sore ribs are the price, I
willingly accept it."
Cara's face brightened. The captain's simple concession disarmed a
potentially nettlesome situation.
"Well, if the ribs bother you, let me know," Cara said dryly, "and I'll
kiss them and make them better." In the silence, as Richard glowered at her,
she scratched her ear and finally added, "Anyway, sorry. But I didn't want
to take any chances."
"As I said, a price I willingly pay. Thank you for your vigilance."
"What are you doing here, Captain?" Richard asked. "General Reibisch
send you to see if the Lord Rahl is crazy?"
Although it was impossible to tell in the firelight, Kahlan was sure
that the man's face turned scarlet. "No, of course not, Lord Rahl. It's just
that the general wanted you to have a full report."
"I see." Richard glanced down at their dinner pot. "When's the last
time you ate, Captain? You look a little drawn, besides having sore ribs."
"Well, ah, I've been riding hard, Lord Rahl. I guess yesterday I must
have eaten something. I'm fine, though. I can have something after-" 42
"Sit down, then." Richard gestured. "Let me get you something hot to
eat. It will do you good."
As the man reluctantly settled down on the mossy ground beside Kahlan
and Cara, Richard scooped some rice and beans into a bowl. He cut a big
piece of bannock from what he'd left to cool on the griddle off to the side
of the fire. He held the bowl out to the man. Captain Meiffert saw no way to
prevent it, and was now mortified to find himself being served by none other
than the Lord Rahl himself.
Richard had to lift the food toward him a second time before he took
it. "It's only some rice and beans, Captain. It's not like I'm giving you
Cara's hand in marriage."
Cara guffawed. "Mord-Sith don't marry. They simply take a man for a
mate if they wish him-he gets no say in it."
Richard glanced up at her. Kahlan knew by Richard's tone that he hadn't
meant anything by the comment but he didn't laugh with Cara. He knew all too
well the truth of her words. Such an act was not an act of love, but
altogether the opposite. In the uncomfortable silence, Cara realized what
she'd said, and decided to break some branches down and feed them to the
fire.
Kahlan knew that Derma, the Mord-Sith who had captured Richard, had
taken him for her mate. Cara knew it, too. When Richard would sometimes wake
with a start and cling to her, Kahlan wondered if his nightmares were of
things imaginary or real. When she kissed his sweat-slicked brow and asked
what he had dreamed, he never remembered. She was thankful for that much of
it.
Richard retrieved a long stick that had been propped against one of the
rocks ringing the fire. With his finger, he slid several sizzling pieces of
bacon off the stick and into the captain's bowl, and then set the big piece
of bannock on top. They had with them a variety of food. Kahlan shared the
carnage with all the supplies Richard had picked up along their journey
north to Hartland. They had enough staples to last for a good long time.
"Thank you," Captain Meiffert stammered. He brushed back his fall of
blond hair. "It looks delicious."
"It is," Richard said. "You're lucky: I made dinner tonight, instead of
Cara."
Cara, proud of being a poor cook, smiled as if it were an
accomplishment of note.
Kahlan was sure it was a story that would be repeated to wide eyes and
stunned disbelief: the Lord Rahl himself serving food to one of his men. By
the way the captain ate, she guessed it had been longer than a day since he
had eaten. As big as he was, she figured he had to need a lot of food.
He swallowed and looked up. "My horse." He began to stand. "When
Mistress Cara. . . I forgot my horse. I need-"
"Eat your food." Richard stood and clapped Captain Meiffert's shoulder
to keep him seated. "I was going to check on our horses anyway. I'll see to
yours as well. I'm sure it would like some water and oats, too."
"But, Lord Rahl, I can't allow you to-"
"Eat. This will save time; when I get back, you'll be done and then you
can give me your report." Richard's shape became indistinct as he dissolved
into the shadows, leaving only a disembodied voice behind. "But I'm afraid I
still won't have any orders for General Reibisch."
In the stillness, crickets once again took up their rhythmic chirping.
Some dis-
tance away, Kahlan heard a night bird calling. Beyond the nearby trees,
the horses whinnied contentedly, probably when Richard greeted them. Every
once in a while a feather of mist strayed in under the overhang to dampen
her cheek. She wished she could turn on her side and close her eyes. Richard
had given her some herb tea and it was beginning to make her drowsy. At
least it dulled the pain, too.
"How are you, Mother Confessor?" Captain Meiffert asked. "Everyone is
terribly worried about you."
A Confessor wasn't often confronted with such honest and warm concern.
The young man's simple question was so sincere it almost brought Kahlan to
tears.
"I'm getting better, Captain. Tell everyone I'll be fine after I've had
some time to heal. We're going someplace quiet where I can enjoy the fresh
air of the arriving summer and get some rest. I'll be better before autumn,
I'm sure. By then, I hope Richard will be
of the war."
The captain smiled. "Everyone will be relieved to know you're healing.
I can't tell you how many people told me that when I return they want to
hear how you're doing."
"Tell them I said I'll be fine and I asked for them not to worry
anymore about me, but to take care of themselves."
He ate another spoonful. Kahlan saw in his eyes that there was more to
the man's anxiety. It took him a moment before he addressed it.
"We are concerned, too, that you and Lord Rahl need protection."
Cara, already sitting straight, nevertheless managed to straighten
more, at the same time making the subtle shift in her posture appear
threatening. "Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor are not without protection,
Captain; they have me. Anything more than a Mord-Sith is just pretty brass
buttons."
This time, he didn't back down. His voice rang with the clear tone of
authority. "This is not a matter of disrespect, Mistress Cara, nor is
presumption intended. Like you, I am sworn to their safety, and that is my
proper concern. These brass buttons have met the enemy before in the defense
of Lord Rahl, and I don't really believe a Mord-Sith would want to deter me
from that duty for no more reason than petty pride."
"We're going to a remote and secluded place," Kahlan said, before Cara
could answer. "I think our solitude, and Cara, will be ample protection. If
Richard wishes it otherwise, he will say so."
With a reluctant nod, he accepted her answer. The last of it, anyway,
settled the matter.
When Richard had taken Kahlan north, he had left their guard forces
behind. She knew it was deliberate, probably part of his conviction about
what he felt he had to do. Richard wasn't opposed to the concept of
protection; in the past, he had accepted troops being with them. Cara, too,
had been insistent on having the security of those troops along. It was
different, though, for Cara to admit it directly to Captain Meiffert.
They had spent a good deal of time in Anderith with the captain and his
elite forces. Kahlan knew him to be a superb officer. She thought he must be
approaching his mid-twenties-probably a soldier for a decade already and the
veteran of a number of campaigns, from minor rebellions to open warfare. The
sharp wholesome lines of his face were just beginning to take on a mature
set.
Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures
had mixed
in with the D'Haran, leaving a blend of peoples. Tall and
broad-shouldered, Captain Meiffert was marked as full-blooded D'Haran by
blond hair and blue eyes, as was Cara. The bond was strongest in
full-blooded D'Harans.
After he had finished about half his rice, he glanced over his
shoulder, into the darkness where Richard had gone. His earnest blue eyes
took in both Cara and Kahlan.
"I don't mean it to sound judgmental or personal, and I hope I'm not
speaking out of turn, but may I ask you both a . . . a sensitive question?"
"You may, Captain," Kahlan said. "But I can't promise we will answer
it."
The last part gave him pause for a moment, but then he went on.
"General Reibisch and some of the other officers . . . well, there have been
worried discussions about Lord Rahl. We trust in him, of course," he was
quick to add. "We really do. It's just that . . ."
"So what are your concerns, then, Captain?" Cara put in, her brow
drawing tight. "If you trust him so much."
He stirred his wooden spoon around the bowl. "I was there in Anderith
through the whole thing. I know how hard he worked-and you, too, Mother
Confessor. No Lord Rahl before him ever worried about what the people
wanted. In the past, the only thing that mattered was what the Lord Rahl
wanted. Then, after all that, the people rejected his offer-rejected him. He
sent us back to the main force, and just left us"-he gestured around
himself-"to come here. Out in the middle of nowhere. To be a recluse, or
something." He paused while searching for the right words. "We don't . . .
understand it, exactly."
He looked up from the fire, back into their eyes, as he went on. "We're
worried that Lord Rahl has lost his will to fight-that he simply no longer
cares. Or perhaps . . . he is afraid to fight?"
The look on his face told Kahlan that he feared reprisal for saying the
things he said, and for asking such a question, but he needed the answer
enough to risk it. This was probably why he had come to give a report,
rather than send a simple messenger.
"About six hours before he cooked that nice dinner pot of rice and
beans," Cara said in a casual manner, "he killed a couple dozen men. All by
himself. Hacked them apart like I've never seen before. The violence of it
shocked even me. He left only one man for me to dispatch. Quite unfair of
him, I think."
Captain Meiffert looked positively relieved as he let out a long
breath. He looked away from Cara's steady gaze and back into his bowl to
stir his dinner.
"That news will be well received. Thank you for telling me, Mistress
Cara."
"He can't issue orders," Kahlan said, "because he unequivocally
believes that, for now, if he takes part in leading our forces against the
Imperial Order, it would bring about our defeat. He believes that if he
enters the battle too soon, we will then have no chance of ever winning. He
believes he must wait for the right time, that's all. There's nothing more
to it."
Kahlan felt a bit conflicted, helping to justify Richard's actions,
when she wasn't entirely in favor of them. She felt it was necessary to
check the advance of the Imperial Order's army now, and not give them a
chance to freely pillage and murder the people of the New World.
The captain mulled this over as he ate some bannock. He frowned as he
gestured with the piece he had left. "There is sound battle theory for such
a strategy. If you have any choice in it, you only attack when it's on your
terms, not the enemy's."
He became more spirited as he thought about it a moment. "It is better
to hold an attack for the right moment, despite the damage an enemy can
cause in the interim, than to go into a battle before the right time. Such
would be an act of poor command."
"That's right." Kahlan laid her arm back and rested her right wrist on
her brow. "Perhaps you could explain it to the other officers in those
words-that it's premature to issue orders, and he's waiting for the proper
time. I don't think that's really any different from the way Richard has
explained it to us, but perhaps it would be better understood if put in such
terms."
The captain ate the last bite of his bannock, seeming to think it over.
"I trust Lord Rahl with my life. I know the others do, too, but I think they
will be reassured by such an explanation as to why he is withholding his
orders. I can see now why he had to leave us-it was to resist the temptation
to throw himself into the fray before the time was right."
Kahlan wished she was as confident of the reasoning as the captain. She
recalled Cara's question, wondering how the people could prove themselves to
Richard. She knew he would not be inclined to try it through a vote again,
but she didn't see how else the people could prove themselves to him.
"I'd not mention it to Richard," she said. "It's difficult for him-not
being able to issue orders. He's trying to do what he believes is right, but
it's a difficult course to hold to."
"I understand, Mother Confessor. `In his wisdom we are humbled. We live
only to serve. Our lives are his.' "
Kahlan studied the smooth lines and simple angles of his young face lit
by the dancing firelight. In that face, she saw some of what Richard had
been trying to say to her before. "Richard doesn't believe your lives are
his, Captain, but that they are your own, and priceless. That is what he is
fighting for."
He chose his words carefully; if he wasn't worried about her being the
Mother Confessor, since he hadn't grown up fearing the power and the rule of
such a woman, she was still the Lord Rahl's wife.
"Most of us see how different he is from the last Lord Rahl. I'm not
claiming that any of us understands everything about him, but we know he
fights to defend, rather than to conquer. As a soldier, I know the
difference it makes to believe in what I'm fighting for, because. . ."
The captain looked away from her gaze. He lifted a short branch of
firewood, tapping the end on the ground for a time. His voice took on a
painful inflection, "Because it takes something precious out of you to kill
people who never meant you any harm."
The fire crackled and hissed as he slowly stirred the glowing coals.
Sparks swirled up to spill out from around the underside of the rock
overhang.
Cara watched her Agiel as she rolled it in her fingers. "You . . . feel
that way too?"
Captain Meiffert met Cara's gaze. "I never realized, before, what it
was doing to me, inside. I didn't know. Lord Rahl makes me proud to be
D'Haran. He makes it stand for something right .... It never did before. I
thought that the way things were, was just the way things were, and they
could never change."
Cara's gaze fell away as she privately nodded her agreement. Kahlan
could only imagine what life was like living under that kind of rule, what
it did to people.
"I'm glad you understand, Captain," Kahlan whispered. "That's one
reason he
worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be
proud of. Lives that are your own."
He dropped the stick into the fire. "And he wanted all the people of
Anderith to care about themselves the way he wants us to value our lives.
The vote wasn't really for him, but for themselves. That was why the vote
meant so much to him?"
"That's why," Kahlan confirmed, afraid to test her own voice any
further than that.
He stirred his spoon around to cool his dinner. It no longer needed
cooling, she was sure. She supposed his thoughts were being stirred more
than his dinner.
"You know," he said, "one of the things I heard people say, back in
Anderith, was that since Darken Rahl was his father, Richard Rahl was evil,
too. They said that since his father had done wrong, Richard Rahl might
sometimes do good, but he could never be a good person."
"I heard that too," Cara said. "Not just in Anderith, but a lot of
places."
"That's wrong. Why should people think that just because one of his
parents was cruel, those crimes pass on to someone who never did them? And
that he must spend his life making amends? I'd hate to think that if I'm
ever lucky enough to have children, they, and then their children, and their
children after that, would have to suffer forever for the things I've done
serving under Darken Rahl." He looked over at Kahlan and Cara. "Such
prejudice isn't right."
In the silence, Cara stared into the flames.
"I served under Darken Rahl. I know the difference in the two men." His
voice lowered with simmering anger. "It's wrong of people to lay guilt for
the crimes of Darken Rahl onto his son."
"You're right about that," Cara murmured. "The two may look a little
alike, but anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of both men, as I have,
could never begin to think they were the same kind of men."
Captain Meiffert ate the rest of his rice and beans in silence. Cara
offered him her waterskin. He took it with a smile and his nod of thanks.
She dished him out a second bowlful from the pot, and cut him another piece
of bannock. He looked only slightly less mortified to be served by a
Mord-Sith than by the Lord Rahl. Cara found his expression amusing. She
called him "Brass Buttons" and told him to eat it all. He did so as they
listened to the sounds of the fire snapping and water dripping from the pine
needles onto the carpet of leaves and other debris of the forest floor.
Richard returned, loaded down with the captain's bedroll and
saddlebags. He let them slip to the ground beside the officer and then shook
water off himself before sitting down beside Kahlan. He offered her a drink
from a full waterskin he'd brought back. She took only a sip. She was more
interested in being able to rest her hand on his leg.
Richard yawned. "So, Captain Meiffert, you said the general wanted you
to give a full report?"
"Yes, sir." The captain went into a long and detailed account on the
state of the army to the south, how they were stationed out on the plains,
what passes they guarded in the mountains, and how they planned on using the
terrain, should the Imperial Order suddenly come up out of Anderith and move
north into the Midlands. He reported on the health of the men and their
supply situation-both good. The other half of General Reibisch's D'Haran
force was back in Aydindril, protecting the city, and Kahlan was relieved to
hear that everything there was in order.
Captain Meiffert relayed all the communications they'd received from
around the Midlands, including from Kelton and Galen, two of the largest
lands of the Midlands that were now allied with the new D'Haran Empire. The
allied lands were helping to keep the army supplied, in addition to
providing men for rotation of patrols, scouting land they knew better, and
other work.
Kahlan's half brother, Harold, had brought word that Cyrilla, Kahlan's
half sister, had taken a turn for the better. Cyrilla had been queen of
Galea. After her brutal treatment in the hands of the enemy, she became
emotionally unbalanced and was unable to serve as queen. In her rare
conscious moments, worried for her people, she had begged Kahlan to be queen
in her stead. Kahlan had reluctantly agreed, saying it was only until
Cyrilla was well again. Few people thought she would ever have her mind
back, but, apparently, it looked as if she might yet recover.
In order to soothe the ruffled feathers of Galea's neighboring land,
Kelton, Richard had named Kahlan queen of Kelton. When Kahlan first heard
what Richard had done, she had thought it was lunacy. Strange as the
arrangement was, though, if
suited both lands, and brought them not only peace with each other, but
also into the fold of those lands fighting against the Imperial Order.
Cara was pleasantly surprised to hear that a number of Mord-Sith had
arrived at the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril, in case Lord Rahl needed
them. Berdine would no doubt be pleased to have some of her sister Mord-Sith
with her in Aydindril.
Kahlan missed Aydindril. She guessed the place you grew up could never
leave your heart. The thought gave her a pang of sorrow for Richard.
"That would be Rikka," Cara said with a smile. "Wait until she meets
the new Lord Rahl," she added under her breath, finding that even more to
smile about.
Kahlan's thoughts turned to the people they had left to the Imperial
Order-or more accurately, to the people who had chosen the Imperial Order.
"Have you received any reports from Anderith?"
"Yes, from a number of men we sent in there. I'm afraid we lost some,
too. The ones who returned report that there were fewer enemy deaths from
the poisoned waters than we had hoped. Once the Imperial Order discovered
their soldiers dying, or sick, they tested everything on the local people,
first. A number of them died or became sick, but it wasn't widespread. By
using the people to test the food and water, they were able to isolate the
tainted food and destroy it. The army has been been laying claim to
everything-they use a lot of supplies."
The Imperial Order was said to be far larger than any army ever
assembled. Kahlan knew that much of the reports to be accurate. The Order
dwarfed the D'Haran and Midland troops arrayed against them perhaps ten or
twenty to onesome reports claimed more than that. Some reports claimed the
New World forces were outnumbered by a hundred to one, but Kahlan discounted
that as outright panic. She didn't know how long the Order would feed off
Anderith before they moved on, or if they were being resupplied from the Old
World. They had to be, to some extent, anyway.
"How many scouts and spies did we lose?" Richard asked.
Captain Meiffert looked up. It was the first question Richard had
asked. "Some may yet turn up, but it appears likely that we lost fifty to
sixty men."
Richard sighed. "And General Reibisch thinks it was worth losing the
lives of those men to discover this?"
Captain Meiffert cast about for an answer. "We didn't know what we
would discover, Lord Rahl; that was why we sent them in. Do you wish me to
tell the general not to send in any more men?"
Richard was carving a face in a piece of firewood, sporadically tossing
shavings into the fire. He sighed.
"No, he must do as he sees fit. I've explained to him that I can't
issue orders."
The captain, watching Richard pick small chips of wood from his lap and
pitch them into the fire, tossed a small fan of pine needles into the
flames, where it blazed in short-lived glory. Richard's carving was a
remarkably good likeness of the captain.
Kahlan had, on occasion, seen Richard casually carve animals or people.
She once had strongly suggested that his ability was guided by his gift. He
scoffed at such a notion, saying that he had liked to carve ever since he
was little. She reminded him that art was used to cast spells, and that once
he had been captured with the aid of a drawn spell.
He insisted this was nothing like that. As a guide, he said he'd passed
many an
evening at camp, by himself, carving. Not wanting to carry the added
weight, he would toss the finished piece into the fire. He said he enjoyed
the act of carving, and could always carve another. Kahlan considered the
carvings inspired and found it distressing to see them destroyed.
"What do you intend to do, Lord Rahl? If I may ask."
Richard took a smooth, steady slice that demarcated the line of an ear,
bringing it to life along with the line of the jaw he had already cut. He
looked up and stared off into the night.
"We're going to a place back in the mountains, where other people don't
go, so we can be alone, and safe. The Mother Confessor will be able to get
well there and gain back her strength. While we're there, I may even make
Cara start wearing a dress."
Cara shot to her feet. "What!" When she saw Richard's smile, Cara
realized he was only joking. She fumed, nonetheless.
"I'd not report that part of it to the general, were I you, Captain,"
Richard said.
Cara sank back down to the ground. "Not if Brass Buttons, here, values
his ribs," she muttered.
Kahlan struggled not to chuckle, lest she twist the ever present knives
in her ribs. Sometimes, she felt as if she knew how the chunk of wood
Richard was carving felt. It was good to see Richard, for once, get the best
of Cara. It was usually she who had him flustered.
"I can't help you, for now," Richard said, his serious tone returning.
He went back to his work with his knife. "I hope you can all accept that."
"Of course, Lord Rahl. We know that you will lead us into battle when
the time is right."
"I hope that day comes, Captain. I really do. Not because I want to
fight, but because I hope there to be something to fight for." Richard
stared into the fire, his countenance a chilling vision of despair. "Right
now, there isn't."
"Yes, Lord Rahl," Captain Meiffert said, finally breaking the
uncomfortable silence. "We will do as we think best until the Mother
Confessor is better and you are then able to join us."
Richard didn't argue the time schedule, as the captain had described
it. It was one Kahlan hoped for, too, but Richard had never said it would be
that soon. He had, in fact, made it clear to them that the time might not
ever come. He cradled the wood in his lap, studying what he had done.
He ran his thumb along the fresh-cut line of the nose as he asked, "Did
the returning scouts say . . . how it faired for the people in Anderith . .
. with the Imperial Order there?"
Kahlan knew he was only torturing himself by asking that question. She
wished he hadn't asked; it could do him no good to hear the answer.
Captain Meiffert cleared his throat. "Well, yes, they did report on the
condiions.
"And . . .?"
The young officer launched into a cold report of the facts they knew.
"Jagang set up his troop headquarters in the capital, Fairfield. He took
over the Minister of Culture's estate for himself. Their army is so huge
that it swallowed the city and overflows far out onto the hills all around.
The Anderith army put up little resistance. They were collected and all
summarily put to death. The government of Anderith
for the most part ceased to exist within the first few hours. There is
no rule or law. The Order spent the first week in unchecked celebration.
"Most people in Fairfield were displaced and lost everything they
owned. Many fled. The roads all around were packed solid with those trying
to escape what was happening in the city. The people fleeing the city only
ended up being the spoils for the soldiers in the hills all around who
couldn't fit into the city. Only a trickle mostly the very old and
sickly-made it past that gauntlet."
His impersonal tone abandoned him. He had spent time with those people,
too. "I'm afraid that, in all, it went badly for them, Lord Rahl. There was
a horrendous amount of killing, of the men, anyway-in the tens of thousands.
Likely more."
"They got what they asked for." Cara's voice was as cold as winter
night. "They picked their own fate." Kahlan agreed, but didn't say so. She
knew Richard agreed, too. None of them were pleased about it, though.
"And the countryside?" Richard asked. "Anything known about places
outside Fairfield? Is it going better for them?"
"No better, Lord Rahl. The Imperial Order has been methodically going
about a process of `pacifying' the land, as they call it. Their soldiers are
accompanied by the gifted.
"By far, the worst of the accounts were about one called `Death's
Mistress.' "
"Who?" Cara asked.
" `Death's Mistress,' they call her."
"Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.
"Which ones do you think it would be?" Cara asked.
Richard, cutting the mouth into the firewood face, shrugged. "Jagang
has both Sisters of the Light and Sisters of the Dark held captive. He's a
dream walker; he forces both to do his bidding. It could be either; the
woman is simply his tool."
"I don't know," Captain Meiffert said. "We've had plenty of reports
about the Sisters, and how dangerous they are. But they're being used like
you said, as tools of the army-weapons, basically-not as his agents. Jagang
doesn't let them think for themselves or direct anything.
"This one, from the reports, anyway, behaves very differently from the
others. She acts as Jagang's agent, but still, the word is she decides
things for herself, and does as she pleases. The men who came back reported
that she is more feared than Jagang himself.
"The people of one town, when they heard she was coming their way, all
gathered together in the town square. They made the children drink poison
first, then the adults took their dose. Every last person in the town was
dead when the woman arrived-close to five hundred people."
Richard had stopped carving as he listened. Kahlan knew that unfounded
rumors could also be so lurid as to turn alarm into deadly panic, to the
point where people would rather die than face the object of their dread.
Fear was a powerful tool of war.
Richard went back to the carving in his lap. He held the knife near the
tip of the point, like a pen, and carefully cut character into the eyes.
"They didn't get a name for her, did they? This Death's Mistress?"
"I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone
`Death's Mistress.' "
"Sounds like an ugly witch," Cara said.
"Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said
to be one
of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she
looks like a vision of a good spirit."
Kahlan couldn't help notice the captain's furtive glance at Cara, who
had blue eyes and long blond hair, and was also one of the most beautiful
women you could ever lay eyes upon. She, too, was deadly.
Richard was frowning. "Blond. . . blue eyes . . . there are several it
could be .... Too bad they didn't catch her name."
"Sorry, but they gave no other name, Lord Rahl, only that description
.... Oh yes, and that she always wears black."
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height,
gripping his carving by its throat.
"From what I've been told, Lord Rahl, though she looks like a vision of
one, the good spins themselves would fear her."
"With good reason." Richard said, as he stared into the distance, as if
looking beyond the black wall of mist to a place only he could see.
"You know her, then, Lord Rahl?"
Kahlan listened to the fire pop and crackle as she waited along with
the other two for his answer. It almost seemed Richard was trying to find
his voice as his gaze sank back down to meet the eyes of the carving in his
hand.
"I know her," he said, at last. "I know her all too well. She was one
of my teachers at the Palace of the Prophets."
Richard tossed his carving into the flames.
"Pray you never have to look into Nicci's eyes, Captain."
Look into my eyes, child," Nicci said in her soft, silken voice as she
cupped the girl's chin.
Nicci lifted the bony face. The eyes, dark and wide-set, blinked with
dull bewilderment. There was nothing to be seen in them: the girl was
simple.
Nicci straightened, feeling a hollow disappointment. She always did.
She sometimes found herself looking into people's eyes, like this, and then
wondering why. If she was searching for something, she didn't know what it
was.
She resumed her leisurely walk down the line of the townspeople, all
assembled along one side of the dusty market square. People in outlying
farms and smaller communities no doubt came into the town several times a
month, on market days, some staying overnight if they had come from far
away. This wasn't a market day, but it would suit her purpose well enough.
A few of the crowded buildings had a second story, typically a room or
two for a family over their small shop. Nicci saw a bakery, a cobbler's
shop, a shop selling pottery, a blacksmith, an herbalist, a shop offering
leatherwork-the usual places. One of these towns was much the same as the
next. Many of the town's people worked the surrounding fields of wheat or
sorghum, tended animals, and had extensive vegetable plots. Dung, straw, and
clay being plentiful, they lived in homes of daub and wattle. A few of the
shops with a second story boasted beam construction with clapboard siding.
Behind her, sullen soldiers bristling with weapons filled the majority
of the square. They were tired from the hot ride, and worse, bored. Nicci
knew they were a twitch away from a rampage. A town, even one with meager
plunder, was an inviting diversion. It wasn't so much the taking as the
breaking that they liked. Sometimes, though, it was the taking. The nervous
women only rarely met the soldiers' bold stares.
As she strolled past the scruffy people, Nicci looked into the eyes
watching her. Most were wide with terror and fixed not on the soldiers, but
on the object of their dread: Nicci-or as people had taken to calling her,
"Death's Mistress." The designation neither pleased nor displeased her; it
was simply a fact she noted, a fact of no more significance to her than if
someone had told her that they had mended a pair of her stockings.
Some, she knew, were staring at the gold ring through her lower lip.
Gossip would have already informed them that a woman so marked was a
personal slave to Emperor Jagang-something lower even than simple peasants
such as themselves. That they stared at the gold ring, or what they thought
of her for it, was of even less significance to her than being called
"Death's Mistress."
Jagang only possessed her body in this world; the Keeper would have her
soul
for eternity in the next. Her body's existence in this world was
torment; her spirit's existence in the next would be no less. Existence and
torment were simply the two sides of the same coin-there could be no other.
Smoke, rolling up from the fire pit over her left shoulder, sailed away
on a fitful wind to make a dark slash across the bright blue afternoon sky.
Stacked stones to each side of the communal cooking pit supported a rod
above the fire. Two or three pigs or sheep, skewered on the rod, could be
roasted at once. Temporary sides were probably available to convert the fire
pit into a smokehouse.
At other times, an outdoor fire pit was used, often in conjunction with
butchering, for the making of soap, since making soap was not something
typically done indoors. Nicci saw a wooden ash pit, used for making lye,
standing to the side of the open area, along with a large iron kettle that
could be used for rendering fat. Lye and fat were the primary ingredients of
soap. Some women liked to add fragrance to their soap with herbs and such,
like lavender or rosemary.
When Nicci was little, her mother made her go each autumn, when the
butchering was being done, to help people make soap. Her mother said helping
others built proper character. Nicci still had a few small dots of scars on
the backs of her hands and forearms where she had been splashed and
blistered by the hot fat. Nicci's mother always made her wear a fine
dress-not to impress the other people who didn't have such clothes, but to
make Nicci conspicuous and uncomfortable. The attention her pink dress
attracted was not admiration. As she stood with the long wooden paddle,
stirring the bubbling kettle while the lye was being poured in, some of the
other children, trying to splash the dress and ruin it, burned Nicci, too.
Nicci's mother had said the burns were the Creator's punishment.
As Nicci moved past, inspecting the assembled people, the only sounds
were the horses off behind the buildings, the sporadic coughs of people, and
the flags of flame in the fire pit snapping and flapping in the breeze. The
soldiers had already helped themselves to the two pigs that had been
roasting on the rod, so the aroma of cooking meat had mostly dissipated on
the wind, leaving the sour smells of sweat and the stink of human
habitation. Whether a belligerent army or a peaceful town, the filth of
people smelled the same.
"You all know why I'm here," Nicci announced. "Why have you people made
me go to the trouble of such a journey?" She gazed down the line of maybe
two hundred people standing four and five deep. The soldiers, who had
ordered them out of their homes and in from the fields, greatly outnumbered
them. She stopped in front of a man she had noticed people glancing at.
л Well?"
The wind fluttered his thin gray hair across his balding, bowed head as
he fixed his gaze on the ground at her feet. "We don't have anything to
give, Mistress. We're a poor community. We have nothing."
"You are a liar. You had two pigs. You saw fit to have a gluttonous
feast instead of helping those in need."
"But we have to eat." It was not an argument, so much as a plea.
"So do others, but they are not so fortunate as you. They know only the
ache of hunger in their bellies every night. What an ugly tragedy, that
every day thousands of children die from the simple want of food, and
millions more know the gnawing pain of hunger-while people like you, in a
land of plenty, offer nothing but selfish excuses. Having what they need to
live is their right, and must be honored by those with the means to help.
"Our soldiers, too, need to eat. Do you think our struggle on the
behalf of the people is easy? These men risk their lives daily so you may
raise your children in a proper, civilized society. How can you look these
men in the eye? How can we even feed our troops, if everyone doesn't help
invoked by one of his ancestors to protect the D'Haran people from the dream
walkers. It had long been believed that the dream walkers-created by wizards
to be weapons during that ancient and nearly forgotten great war-had
vanished from the world. The conjuring of strange and varied abilities-of
instilling unnatural attributes in people-willing or not, had once been a
dark art, the results always being at the least unpredictable, often
uncertain, and sometimes dangerously unstable. Somehow, some spark of that
malignant manipulation had been passed down generation after generation,
lurking unseen for three thousand years-until it rekindled in the person of
Emperor Jagang,
Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a
purpose. Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In
Jagang, Kahlan
saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in
her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to
grow tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes-and the ability of a
Confessor. She loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as
those born with blond hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor's special
ability.
Kahlan used her power for valid, moral reasons. Jagang, no doubt,
believed the same of himself, and even if he didn't, most of his followers
certainly did.
Richard, too, had been born with latent power. The ancient, adjunct
defense of the bond was passed down to any gifted Rahl. Without the
protection of the bond to Richard-the Lord Rahl-whether formally spoken or a
silent heartfelt affinity, anyone was vulnerable to Jagang's power as a
dream walker.
Unlike most other permutations conjured by wizards in living people,
the Confessor's ability had always remained vital; at least it had until all
the other Confessors had been murdered by order of Darken Rahl. Now, without
such wizards and their specialized conjuring, only if Kahlan had children
would the magic of the Confessors live on.
Confessors usually bore girls, but not always. A Confessor's power had
originally been created for, and had been intended to be used by, women.
Like all other conjuring that introduced unnatural abilities in people,
this, too, had had unforeseen consequences: a Confessor's male children, it
turned out, also bore the power. After it had been learned how treacherous
the power could be in men, all male children were scrupulously culled.
Kahlan bearing a male child was precisely what the witch woman, Shota,
feared. Shota knew very well that Richard would never allow his and Kahlan's
son to be slain for the past evils of male Confessors. Kahlan, too, could
never allow Richard's son to be killed. In the past, a Confessor's inability
to marry out of love was one of the reasons she could emotionally endure the
practice of infanticide. Richard, in discovering the means by which he and
Kahlan could be together, had altered that equation, too.
But Shota didn't simply fear Kahlan giving birth to a male Confessor;
she feared something of potentially far greater magnitude-a male Confessor
who possessed Richard's gift. Shota had foretold that Kahlan and Richard
would conceive a male child. Shota viewed such a child as an evil monster,
dangerous beyond comprehension, and so had vowed to kill their offspring. To
prevent such a thing from being required, she had given them the necklace to
keep Kahlan from becoming pregnant. They had taken it reluctantly. The
alternative was war with the witch woman.
It was for reasons such as this that Richard abhorred prophecy.
Kahlan watched as Captain Meiffert spoke the devotion a third time,
Cara's lips moving with his. The soft chant was making Kahlan sleepy.
It was a luxury for Kahlan to be able to be down with Richard and Cara
in the sheltered camp, beside the warmth of the fire, rather than having to
stay in the carriage, especially since the night had turned chilly and damp.
With the litter they could move her more easily and without causing her much
pain. Richard would have made the litter sooner, but he hadn't expected to
have to abandon the house he had started to build.
They were far off the narrow, forsaken road, in a tiny clearing
concealed in a cleft in a steep rock wall behind a dense expanse of pine and
spruce. A small meadow close by provided a snug paddock for the horses.
Richard and Cara had
pulled the carriage off the road, behind a mass of deadfall, and hidden
it with spruce and balsam boughs. No one but a D'Haran bonded to their Lord
Rahl had much of a chance of ever finding them in the vast and trackless
forest.
The secluded spot had a fire pit Richard had dug and ringed with rocks
during a previous stay, nearly a year before. It hadn't been used since. A
protruding shelf of rock about seven or eight feet above them prevented the
light of the campfire from shining up the rock wall, helping keep the camp
hidden. Its slope also kept them snug and dry in the drizzle that had begun
to fall. With a fog closing in, too, it was as protected and secure a
campsite as Kahlan had ever seen. Richard had been true to his word.
It had taken more like six hours than four to reach the campsite.
Richard had proceeded slowly for Kahlan's sake. It was late and they were
all tired from a long day of traveling, to say nothing of the attack.
Richard had told her that it looked like it might rain for a day or two, and
they would stay in the camp and rest up until the weather cleared. There was
no urgency to get where they were going.
After the third devotion, Captain Meiffert came haltingly to his feet.
He clapped his right fist to the leather over his heart in salute. Richard
smiled and the two men clasped forearms in a less formal greeting.
"How are you doing, Captain?" Richard grasped the man's elbow. "What's
the matter? Did you fall off your horse, or something?"
The captain glanced at Cara, to his side. "Ah, well, I'm fine, Lord
Rahl. Really."
"You look hurt."
"I just had my ribs . . . tickled, by your Mord-Sith, that's all."
"I didn't do it hard enough to break them," Cara scoffed.
"I'm truly sorry, Captain. We had a bit of trouble earlier today. Cara
was no doubt worried for our safety when she saw you approaching in the
dark." Richard's eyes turned toward Cara. "But she still should have been
more careful before risking injuring people. I'm sure she's sorry and will
want to apologize."
Cara made a sour face. "It was dark. I'm not about to take any foolish
chances with the life of our Lord Rahl just so-"
"I would hope not," Captain Meiffert put in before Richard could
reprimand her. He smiled at Cara. "I was once kicked by a stalwart warhorse.
You did a better job of putting me down, Mistress Cara. I'm gratified to
find Lord Rahl's life is in capable hands. If sore ribs are the price, I
willingly accept it."
Cara's face brightened. The captain's simple concession disarmed a
potentially nettlesome situation.
"Well, if the ribs bother you, let me know," Cara said dryly, "and I'll
kiss them and make them better." In the silence, as Richard glowered at her,
she scratched her ear and finally added, "Anyway, sorry. But I didn't want
to take any chances."
"As I said, a price I willingly pay. Thank you for your vigilance."
"What are you doing here, Captain?" Richard asked. "General Reibisch
send you to see if the Lord Rahl is crazy?"
Although it was impossible to tell in the firelight, Kahlan was sure
that the man's face turned scarlet. "No, of course not, Lord Rahl. It's just
that the general wanted you to have a full report."
"I see." Richard glanced down at their dinner pot. "When's the last
time you ate, Captain? You look a little drawn, besides having sore ribs."
"Well, ah, I've been riding hard, Lord Rahl. I guess yesterday I must
have eaten something. I'm fine, though. I can have something after-" 42
"Sit down, then." Richard gestured. "Let me get you something hot to
eat. It will do you good."
As the man reluctantly settled down on the mossy ground beside Kahlan
and Cara, Richard scooped some rice and beans into a bowl. He cut a big
piece of bannock from what he'd left to cool on the griddle off to the side
of the fire. He held the bowl out to the man. Captain Meiffert saw no way to
prevent it, and was now mortified to find himself being served by none other
than the Lord Rahl himself.
Richard had to lift the food toward him a second time before he took
it. "It's only some rice and beans, Captain. It's not like I'm giving you
Cara's hand in marriage."
Cara guffawed. "Mord-Sith don't marry. They simply take a man for a
mate if they wish him-he gets no say in it."
Richard glanced up at her. Kahlan knew by Richard's tone that he hadn't
meant anything by the comment but he didn't laugh with Cara. He knew all too
well the truth of her words. Such an act was not an act of love, but
altogether the opposite. In the uncomfortable silence, Cara realized what
she'd said, and decided to break some branches down and feed them to the
fire.
Kahlan knew that Derma, the Mord-Sith who had captured Richard, had
taken him for her mate. Cara knew it, too. When Richard would sometimes wake
with a start and cling to her, Kahlan wondered if his nightmares were of
things imaginary or real. When she kissed his sweat-slicked brow and asked
what he had dreamed, he never remembered. She was thankful for that much of
it.
Richard retrieved a long stick that had been propped against one of the
rocks ringing the fire. With his finger, he slid several sizzling pieces of
bacon off the stick and into the captain's bowl, and then set the big piece
of bannock on top. They had with them a variety of food. Kahlan shared the
carnage with all the supplies Richard had picked up along their journey
north to Hartland. They had enough staples to last for a good long time.
"Thank you," Captain Meiffert stammered. He brushed back his fall of
blond hair. "It looks delicious."
"It is," Richard said. "You're lucky: I made dinner tonight, instead of
Cara."
Cara, proud of being a poor cook, smiled as if it were an
accomplishment of note.
Kahlan was sure it was a story that would be repeated to wide eyes and
stunned disbelief: the Lord Rahl himself serving food to one of his men. By
the way the captain ate, she guessed it had been longer than a day since he
had eaten. As big as he was, she figured he had to need a lot of food.
He swallowed and looked up. "My horse." He began to stand. "When
Mistress Cara. . . I forgot my horse. I need-"
"Eat your food." Richard stood and clapped Captain Meiffert's shoulder
to keep him seated. "I was going to check on our horses anyway. I'll see to
yours as well. I'm sure it would like some water and oats, too."
"But, Lord Rahl, I can't allow you to-"
"Eat. This will save time; when I get back, you'll be done and then you
can give me your report." Richard's shape became indistinct as he dissolved
into the shadows, leaving only a disembodied voice behind. "But I'm afraid I
still won't have any orders for General Reibisch."
In the stillness, crickets once again took up their rhythmic chirping.
Some dis-
tance away, Kahlan heard a night bird calling. Beyond the nearby trees,
the horses whinnied contentedly, probably when Richard greeted them. Every
once in a while a feather of mist strayed in under the overhang to dampen
her cheek. She wished she could turn on her side and close her eyes. Richard
had given her some herb tea and it was beginning to make her drowsy. At
least it dulled the pain, too.
"How are you, Mother Confessor?" Captain Meiffert asked. "Everyone is
terribly worried about you."
A Confessor wasn't often confronted with such honest and warm concern.
The young man's simple question was so sincere it almost brought Kahlan to
tears.
"I'm getting better, Captain. Tell everyone I'll be fine after I've had
some time to heal. We're going someplace quiet where I can enjoy the fresh
air of the arriving summer and get some rest. I'll be better before autumn,
I'm sure. By then, I hope Richard will be
of the war."
The captain smiled. "Everyone will be relieved to know you're healing.
I can't tell you how many people told me that when I return they want to
hear how you're doing."
"Tell them I said I'll be fine and I asked for them not to worry
anymore about me, but to take care of themselves."
He ate another spoonful. Kahlan saw in his eyes that there was more to
the man's anxiety. It took him a moment before he addressed it.
"We are concerned, too, that you and Lord Rahl need protection."
Cara, already sitting straight, nevertheless managed to straighten
more, at the same time making the subtle shift in her posture appear
threatening. "Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor are not without protection,
Captain; they have me. Anything more than a Mord-Sith is just pretty brass
buttons."
This time, he didn't back down. His voice rang with the clear tone of
authority. "This is not a matter of disrespect, Mistress Cara, nor is
presumption intended. Like you, I am sworn to their safety, and that is my
proper concern. These brass buttons have met the enemy before in the defense
of Lord Rahl, and I don't really believe a Mord-Sith would want to deter me
from that duty for no more reason than petty pride."
"We're going to a remote and secluded place," Kahlan said, before Cara
could answer. "I think our solitude, and Cara, will be ample protection. If
Richard wishes it otherwise, he will say so."
With a reluctant nod, he accepted her answer. The last of it, anyway,
settled the matter.
When Richard had taken Kahlan north, he had left their guard forces
behind. She knew it was deliberate, probably part of his conviction about
what he felt he had to do. Richard wasn't opposed to the concept of
protection; in the past, he had accepted troops being with them. Cara, too,
had been insistent on having the security of those troops along. It was
different, though, for Cara to admit it directly to Captain Meiffert.
They had spent a good deal of time in Anderith with the captain and his
elite forces. Kahlan knew him to be a superb officer. She thought he must be
approaching his mid-twenties-probably a soldier for a decade already and the
veteran of a number of campaigns, from minor rebellions to open warfare. The
sharp wholesome lines of his face were just beginning to take on a mature
set.
Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures
had mixed
in with the D'Haran, leaving a blend of peoples. Tall and
broad-shouldered, Captain Meiffert was marked as full-blooded D'Haran by
blond hair and blue eyes, as was Cara. The bond was strongest in
full-blooded D'Harans.
After he had finished about half his rice, he glanced over his
shoulder, into the darkness where Richard had gone. His earnest blue eyes
took in both Cara and Kahlan.
"I don't mean it to sound judgmental or personal, and I hope I'm not
speaking out of turn, but may I ask you both a . . . a sensitive question?"
"You may, Captain," Kahlan said. "But I can't promise we will answer
it."
The last part gave him pause for a moment, but then he went on.
"General Reibisch and some of the other officers . . . well, there have been
worried discussions about Lord Rahl. We trust in him, of course," he was
quick to add. "We really do. It's just that . . ."
"So what are your concerns, then, Captain?" Cara put in, her brow
drawing tight. "If you trust him so much."
He stirred his wooden spoon around the bowl. "I was there in Anderith
through the whole thing. I know how hard he worked-and you, too, Mother
Confessor. No Lord Rahl before him ever worried about what the people
wanted. In the past, the only thing that mattered was what the Lord Rahl
wanted. Then, after all that, the people rejected his offer-rejected him. He
sent us back to the main force, and just left us"-he gestured around
himself-"to come here. Out in the middle of nowhere. To be a recluse, or
something." He paused while searching for the right words. "We don't . . .
understand it, exactly."
He looked up from the fire, back into their eyes, as he went on. "We're
worried that Lord Rahl has lost his will to fight-that he simply no longer
cares. Or perhaps . . . he is afraid to fight?"
The look on his face told Kahlan that he feared reprisal for saying the
things he said, and for asking such a question, but he needed the answer
enough to risk it. This was probably why he had come to give a report,
rather than send a simple messenger.
"About six hours before he cooked that nice dinner pot of rice and
beans," Cara said in a casual manner, "he killed a couple dozen men. All by
himself. Hacked them apart like I've never seen before. The violence of it
shocked even me. He left only one man for me to dispatch. Quite unfair of
him, I think."
Captain Meiffert looked positively relieved as he let out a long
breath. He looked away from Cara's steady gaze and back into his bowl to
stir his dinner.
"That news will be well received. Thank you for telling me, Mistress
Cara."
"He can't issue orders," Kahlan said, "because he unequivocally
believes that, for now, if he takes part in leading our forces against the
Imperial Order, it would bring about our defeat. He believes that if he
enters the battle too soon, we will then have no chance of ever winning. He
believes he must wait for the right time, that's all. There's nothing more
to it."
Kahlan felt a bit conflicted, helping to justify Richard's actions,
when she wasn't entirely in favor of them. She felt it was necessary to
check the advance of the Imperial Order's army now, and not give them a
chance to freely pillage and murder the people of the New World.
The captain mulled this over as he ate some bannock. He frowned as he
gestured with the piece he had left. "There is sound battle theory for such
a strategy. If you have any choice in it, you only attack when it's on your
terms, not the enemy's."
He became more spirited as he thought about it a moment. "It is better
to hold an attack for the right moment, despite the damage an enemy can
cause in the interim, than to go into a battle before the right time. Such
would be an act of poor command."
"That's right." Kahlan laid her arm back and rested her right wrist on
her brow. "Perhaps you could explain it to the other officers in those
words-that it's premature to issue orders, and he's waiting for the proper
time. I don't think that's really any different from the way Richard has
explained it to us, but perhaps it would be better understood if put in such
terms."
The captain ate the last bite of his bannock, seeming to think it over.
"I trust Lord Rahl with my life. I know the others do, too, but I think they
will be reassured by such an explanation as to why he is withholding his
orders. I can see now why he had to leave us-it was to resist the temptation
to throw himself into the fray before the time was right."
Kahlan wished she was as confident of the reasoning as the captain. She
recalled Cara's question, wondering how the people could prove themselves to
Richard. She knew he would not be inclined to try it through a vote again,
but she didn't see how else the people could prove themselves to him.
"I'd not mention it to Richard," she said. "It's difficult for him-not
being able to issue orders. He's trying to do what he believes is right, but
it's a difficult course to hold to."
"I understand, Mother Confessor. `In his wisdom we are humbled. We live
only to serve. Our lives are his.' "
Kahlan studied the smooth lines and simple angles of his young face lit
by the dancing firelight. In that face, she saw some of what Richard had
been trying to say to her before. "Richard doesn't believe your lives are
his, Captain, but that they are your own, and priceless. That is what he is
fighting for."
He chose his words carefully; if he wasn't worried about her being the
Mother Confessor, since he hadn't grown up fearing the power and the rule of
such a woman, she was still the Lord Rahl's wife.
"Most of us see how different he is from the last Lord Rahl. I'm not
claiming that any of us understands everything about him, but we know he
fights to defend, rather than to conquer. As a soldier, I know the
difference it makes to believe in what I'm fighting for, because. . ."
The captain looked away from her gaze. He lifted a short branch of
firewood, tapping the end on the ground for a time. His voice took on a
painful inflection, "Because it takes something precious out of you to kill
people who never meant you any harm."
The fire crackled and hissed as he slowly stirred the glowing coals.
Sparks swirled up to spill out from around the underside of the rock
overhang.
Cara watched her Agiel as she rolled it in her fingers. "You . . . feel
that way too?"
Captain Meiffert met Cara's gaze. "I never realized, before, what it
was doing to me, inside. I didn't know. Lord Rahl makes me proud to be
D'Haran. He makes it stand for something right .... It never did before. I
thought that the way things were, was just the way things were, and they
could never change."
Cara's gaze fell away as she privately nodded her agreement. Kahlan
could only imagine what life was like living under that kind of rule, what
it did to people.
"I'm glad you understand, Captain," Kahlan whispered. "That's one
reason he
worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be
proud of. Lives that are your own."
He dropped the stick into the fire. "And he wanted all the people of
Anderith to care about themselves the way he wants us to value our lives.
The vote wasn't really for him, but for themselves. That was why the vote
meant so much to him?"
"That's why," Kahlan confirmed, afraid to test her own voice any
further than that.
He stirred his spoon around to cool his dinner. It no longer needed
cooling, she was sure. She supposed his thoughts were being stirred more
than his dinner.
"You know," he said, "one of the things I heard people say, back in
Anderith, was that since Darken Rahl was his father, Richard Rahl was evil,
too. They said that since his father had done wrong, Richard Rahl might
sometimes do good, but he could never be a good person."
"I heard that too," Cara said. "Not just in Anderith, but a lot of
places."
"That's wrong. Why should people think that just because one of his
parents was cruel, those crimes pass on to someone who never did them? And
that he must spend his life making amends? I'd hate to think that if I'm
ever lucky enough to have children, they, and then their children, and their
children after that, would have to suffer forever for the things I've done
serving under Darken Rahl." He looked over at Kahlan and Cara. "Such
prejudice isn't right."
In the silence, Cara stared into the flames.
"I served under Darken Rahl. I know the difference in the two men." His
voice lowered with simmering anger. "It's wrong of people to lay guilt for
the crimes of Darken Rahl onto his son."
"You're right about that," Cara murmured. "The two may look a little
alike, but anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of both men, as I have,
could never begin to think they were the same kind of men."
Captain Meiffert ate the rest of his rice and beans in silence. Cara
offered him her waterskin. He took it with a smile and his nod of thanks.
She dished him out a second bowlful from the pot, and cut him another piece
of bannock. He looked only slightly less mortified to be served by a
Mord-Sith than by the Lord Rahl. Cara found his expression amusing. She
called him "Brass Buttons" and told him to eat it all. He did so as they
listened to the sounds of the fire snapping and water dripping from the pine
needles onto the carpet of leaves and other debris of the forest floor.
Richard returned, loaded down with the captain's bedroll and
saddlebags. He let them slip to the ground beside the officer and then shook
water off himself before sitting down beside Kahlan. He offered her a drink
from a full waterskin he'd brought back. She took only a sip. She was more
interested in being able to rest her hand on his leg.
Richard yawned. "So, Captain Meiffert, you said the general wanted you
to give a full report?"
"Yes, sir." The captain went into a long and detailed account on the
state of the army to the south, how they were stationed out on the plains,
what passes they guarded in the mountains, and how they planned on using the
terrain, should the Imperial Order suddenly come up out of Anderith and move
north into the Midlands. He reported on the health of the men and their
supply situation-both good. The other half of General Reibisch's D'Haran
force was back in Aydindril, protecting the city, and Kahlan was relieved to
hear that everything there was in order.
Captain Meiffert relayed all the communications they'd received from
around the Midlands, including from Kelton and Galen, two of the largest
lands of the Midlands that were now allied with the new D'Haran Empire. The
allied lands were helping to keep the army supplied, in addition to
providing men for rotation of patrols, scouting land they knew better, and
other work.
Kahlan's half brother, Harold, had brought word that Cyrilla, Kahlan's
half sister, had taken a turn for the better. Cyrilla had been queen of
Galea. After her brutal treatment in the hands of the enemy, she became
emotionally unbalanced and was unable to serve as queen. In her rare
conscious moments, worried for her people, she had begged Kahlan to be queen
in her stead. Kahlan had reluctantly agreed, saying it was only until
Cyrilla was well again. Few people thought she would ever have her mind
back, but, apparently, it looked as if she might yet recover.
In order to soothe the ruffled feathers of Galea's neighboring land,
Kelton, Richard had named Kahlan queen of Kelton. When Kahlan first heard
what Richard had done, she had thought it was lunacy. Strange as the
arrangement was, though, if
suited both lands, and brought them not only peace with each other, but
also into the fold of those lands fighting against the Imperial Order.
Cara was pleasantly surprised to hear that a number of Mord-Sith had
arrived at the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril, in case Lord Rahl needed
them. Berdine would no doubt be pleased to have some of her sister Mord-Sith
with her in Aydindril.
Kahlan missed Aydindril. She guessed the place you grew up could never
leave your heart. The thought gave her a pang of sorrow for Richard.
"That would be Rikka," Cara said with a smile. "Wait until she meets
the new Lord Rahl," she added under her breath, finding that even more to
smile about.
Kahlan's thoughts turned to the people they had left to the Imperial
Order-or more accurately, to the people who had chosen the Imperial Order.
"Have you received any reports from Anderith?"
"Yes, from a number of men we sent in there. I'm afraid we lost some,
too. The ones who returned report that there were fewer enemy deaths from
the poisoned waters than we had hoped. Once the Imperial Order discovered
their soldiers dying, or sick, they tested everything on the local people,
first. A number of them died or became sick, but it wasn't widespread. By
using the people to test the food and water, they were able to isolate the
tainted food and destroy it. The army has been been laying claim to
everything-they use a lot of supplies."
The Imperial Order was said to be far larger than any army ever
assembled. Kahlan knew that much of the reports to be accurate. The Order
dwarfed the D'Haran and Midland troops arrayed against them perhaps ten or
twenty to onesome reports claimed more than that. Some reports claimed the
New World forces were outnumbered by a hundred to one, but Kahlan discounted
that as outright panic. She didn't know how long the Order would feed off
Anderith before they moved on, or if they were being resupplied from the Old
World. They had to be, to some extent, anyway.
"How many scouts and spies did we lose?" Richard asked.
Captain Meiffert looked up. It was the first question Richard had
asked. "Some may yet turn up, but it appears likely that we lost fifty to
sixty men."
Richard sighed. "And General Reibisch thinks it was worth losing the
lives of those men to discover this?"
Captain Meiffert cast about for an answer. "We didn't know what we
would discover, Lord Rahl; that was why we sent them in. Do you wish me to
tell the general not to send in any more men?"
Richard was carving a face in a piece of firewood, sporadically tossing
shavings into the fire. He sighed.
"No, he must do as he sees fit. I've explained to him that I can't
issue orders."
The captain, watching Richard pick small chips of wood from his lap and
pitch them into the fire, tossed a small fan of pine needles into the
flames, where it blazed in short-lived glory. Richard's carving was a
remarkably good likeness of the captain.
Kahlan had, on occasion, seen Richard casually carve animals or people.
She once had strongly suggested that his ability was guided by his gift. He
scoffed at such a notion, saying that he had liked to carve ever since he
was little. She reminded him that art was used to cast spells, and that once
he had been captured with the aid of a drawn spell.
He insisted this was nothing like that. As a guide, he said he'd passed
many an
evening at camp, by himself, carving. Not wanting to carry the added
weight, he would toss the finished piece into the fire. He said he enjoyed
the act of carving, and could always carve another. Kahlan considered the
carvings inspired and found it distressing to see them destroyed.
"What do you intend to do, Lord Rahl? If I may ask."
Richard took a smooth, steady slice that demarcated the line of an ear,
bringing it to life along with the line of the jaw he had already cut. He
looked up and stared off into the night.
"We're going to a place back in the mountains, where other people don't
go, so we can be alone, and safe. The Mother Confessor will be able to get
well there and gain back her strength. While we're there, I may even make
Cara start wearing a dress."
Cara shot to her feet. "What!" When she saw Richard's smile, Cara
realized he was only joking. She fumed, nonetheless.
"I'd not report that part of it to the general, were I you, Captain,"
Richard said.
Cara sank back down to the ground. "Not if Brass Buttons, here, values
his ribs," she muttered.
Kahlan struggled not to chuckle, lest she twist the ever present knives
in her ribs. Sometimes, she felt as if she knew how the chunk of wood
Richard was carving felt. It was good to see Richard, for once, get the best
of Cara. It was usually she who had him flustered.
"I can't help you, for now," Richard said, his serious tone returning.
He went back to his work with his knife. "I hope you can all accept that."
"Of course, Lord Rahl. We know that you will lead us into battle when
the time is right."
"I hope that day comes, Captain. I really do. Not because I want to
fight, but because I hope there to be something to fight for." Richard
stared into the fire, his countenance a chilling vision of despair. "Right
now, there isn't."
"Yes, Lord Rahl," Captain Meiffert said, finally breaking the
uncomfortable silence. "We will do as we think best until the Mother
Confessor is better and you are then able to join us."
Richard didn't argue the time schedule, as the captain had described
it. It was one Kahlan hoped for, too, but Richard had never said it would be
that soon. He had, in fact, made it clear to them that the time might not
ever come. He cradled the wood in his lap, studying what he had done.
He ran his thumb along the fresh-cut line of the nose as he asked, "Did
the returning scouts say . . . how it faired for the people in Anderith . .
. with the Imperial Order there?"
Kahlan knew he was only torturing himself by asking that question. She
wished he hadn't asked; it could do him no good to hear the answer.
Captain Meiffert cleared his throat. "Well, yes, they did report on the
condiions.
"And . . .?"
The young officer launched into a cold report of the facts they knew.
"Jagang set up his troop headquarters in the capital, Fairfield. He took
over the Minister of Culture's estate for himself. Their army is so huge
that it swallowed the city and overflows far out onto the hills all around.
The Anderith army put up little resistance. They were collected and all
summarily put to death. The government of Anderith
for the most part ceased to exist within the first few hours. There is
no rule or law. The Order spent the first week in unchecked celebration.
"Most people in Fairfield were displaced and lost everything they
owned. Many fled. The roads all around were packed solid with those trying
to escape what was happening in the city. The people fleeing the city only
ended up being the spoils for the soldiers in the hills all around who
couldn't fit into the city. Only a trickle mostly the very old and
sickly-made it past that gauntlet."
His impersonal tone abandoned him. He had spent time with those people,
too. "I'm afraid that, in all, it went badly for them, Lord Rahl. There was
a horrendous amount of killing, of the men, anyway-in the tens of thousands.
Likely more."
"They got what they asked for." Cara's voice was as cold as winter
night. "They picked their own fate." Kahlan agreed, but didn't say so. She
knew Richard agreed, too. None of them were pleased about it, though.
"And the countryside?" Richard asked. "Anything known about places
outside Fairfield? Is it going better for them?"
"No better, Lord Rahl. The Imperial Order has been methodically going
about a process of `pacifying' the land, as they call it. Their soldiers are
accompanied by the gifted.
"By far, the worst of the accounts were about one called `Death's
Mistress.' "
"Who?" Cara asked.
" `Death's Mistress,' they call her."
"Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.
"Which ones do you think it would be?" Cara asked.
Richard, cutting the mouth into the firewood face, shrugged. "Jagang
has both Sisters of the Light and Sisters of the Dark held captive. He's a
dream walker; he forces both to do his bidding. It could be either; the
woman is simply his tool."
"I don't know," Captain Meiffert said. "We've had plenty of reports
about the Sisters, and how dangerous they are. But they're being used like
you said, as tools of the army-weapons, basically-not as his agents. Jagang
doesn't let them think for themselves or direct anything.
"This one, from the reports, anyway, behaves very differently from the
others. She acts as Jagang's agent, but still, the word is she decides
things for herself, and does as she pleases. The men who came back reported
that she is more feared than Jagang himself.
"The people of one town, when they heard she was coming their way, all
gathered together in the town square. They made the children drink poison
first, then the adults took their dose. Every last person in the town was
dead when the woman arrived-close to five hundred people."
Richard had stopped carving as he listened. Kahlan knew that unfounded
rumors could also be so lurid as to turn alarm into deadly panic, to the
point where people would rather die than face the object of their dread.
Fear was a powerful tool of war.
Richard went back to the carving in his lap. He held the knife near the
tip of the point, like a pen, and carefully cut character into the eyes.
"They didn't get a name for her, did they? This Death's Mistress?"
"I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone
`Death's Mistress.' "
"Sounds like an ugly witch," Cara said.
"Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said
to be one
of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she
looks like a vision of a good spirit."
Kahlan couldn't help notice the captain's furtive glance at Cara, who
had blue eyes and long blond hair, and was also one of the most beautiful
women you could ever lay eyes upon. She, too, was deadly.
Richard was frowning. "Blond. . . blue eyes . . . there are several it
could be .... Too bad they didn't catch her name."
"Sorry, but they gave no other name, Lord Rahl, only that description
.... Oh yes, and that she always wears black."
"Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height,
gripping his carving by its throat.
"From what I've been told, Lord Rahl, though she looks like a vision of
one, the good spins themselves would fear her."
"With good reason." Richard said, as he stared into the distance, as if
looking beyond the black wall of mist to a place only he could see.
"You know her, then, Lord Rahl?"
Kahlan listened to the fire pop and crackle as she waited along with
the other two for his answer. It almost seemed Richard was trying to find
his voice as his gaze sank back down to meet the eyes of the carving in his
hand.
"I know her," he said, at last. "I know her all too well. She was one
of my teachers at the Palace of the Prophets."
Richard tossed his carving into the flames.
"Pray you never have to look into Nicci's eyes, Captain."
Look into my eyes, child," Nicci said in her soft, silken voice as she
cupped the girl's chin.
Nicci lifted the bony face. The eyes, dark and wide-set, blinked with
dull bewilderment. There was nothing to be seen in them: the girl was
simple.
Nicci straightened, feeling a hollow disappointment. She always did.
She sometimes found herself looking into people's eyes, like this, and then
wondering why. If she was searching for something, she didn't know what it
was.
She resumed her leisurely walk down the line of the townspeople, all
assembled along one side of the dusty market square. People in outlying
farms and smaller communities no doubt came into the town several times a
month, on market days, some staying overnight if they had come from far
away. This wasn't a market day, but it would suit her purpose well enough.
A few of the crowded buildings had a second story, typically a room or
two for a family over their small shop. Nicci saw a bakery, a cobbler's
shop, a shop selling pottery, a blacksmith, an herbalist, a shop offering
leatherwork-the usual places. One of these towns was much the same as the
next. Many of the town's people worked the surrounding fields of wheat or
sorghum, tended animals, and had extensive vegetable plots. Dung, straw, and
clay being plentiful, they lived in homes of daub and wattle. A few of the
shops with a second story boasted beam construction with clapboard siding.
Behind her, sullen soldiers bristling with weapons filled the majority
of the square. They were tired from the hot ride, and worse, bored. Nicci
knew they were a twitch away from a rampage. A town, even one with meager
plunder, was an inviting diversion. It wasn't so much the taking as the
breaking that they liked. Sometimes, though, it was the taking. The nervous
women only rarely met the soldiers' bold stares.
As she strolled past the scruffy people, Nicci looked into the eyes
watching her. Most were wide with terror and fixed not on the soldiers, but
on the object of their dread: Nicci-or as people had taken to calling her,
"Death's Mistress." The designation neither pleased nor displeased her; it
was simply a fact she noted, a fact of no more significance to her than if
someone had told her that they had mended a pair of her stockings.
Some, she knew, were staring at the gold ring through her lower lip.
Gossip would have already informed them that a woman so marked was a
personal slave to Emperor Jagang-something lower even than simple peasants
such as themselves. That they stared at the gold ring, or what they thought
of her for it, was of even less significance to her than being called
"Death's Mistress."
Jagang only possessed her body in this world; the Keeper would have her
soul
for eternity in the next. Her body's existence in this world was
torment; her spirit's existence in the next would be no less. Existence and
torment were simply the two sides of the same coin-there could be no other.
Smoke, rolling up from the fire pit over her left shoulder, sailed away
on a fitful wind to make a dark slash across the bright blue afternoon sky.
Stacked stones to each side of the communal cooking pit supported a rod
above the fire. Two or three pigs or sheep, skewered on the rod, could be
roasted at once. Temporary sides were probably available to convert the fire
pit into a smokehouse.
At other times, an outdoor fire pit was used, often in conjunction with
butchering, for the making of soap, since making soap was not something
typically done indoors. Nicci saw a wooden ash pit, used for making lye,
standing to the side of the open area, along with a large iron kettle that
could be used for rendering fat. Lye and fat were the primary ingredients of
soap. Some women liked to add fragrance to their soap with herbs and such,
like lavender or rosemary.
When Nicci was little, her mother made her go each autumn, when the
butchering was being done, to help people make soap. Her mother said helping
others built proper character. Nicci still had a few small dots of scars on
the backs of her hands and forearms where she had been splashed and
blistered by the hot fat. Nicci's mother always made her wear a fine
dress-not to impress the other people who didn't have such clothes, but to
make Nicci conspicuous and uncomfortable. The attention her pink dress
attracted was not admiration. As she stood with the long wooden paddle,
stirring the bubbling kettle while the lye was being poured in, some of the
other children, trying to splash the dress and ruin it, burned Nicci, too.
Nicci's mother had said the burns were the Creator's punishment.
As Nicci moved past, inspecting the assembled people, the only sounds
were the horses off behind the buildings, the sporadic coughs of people, and
the flags of flame in the fire pit snapping and flapping in the breeze. The
soldiers had already helped themselves to the two pigs that had been
roasting on the rod, so the aroma of cooking meat had mostly dissipated on
the wind, leaving the sour smells of sweat and the stink of human
habitation. Whether a belligerent army or a peaceful town, the filth of
people smelled the same.
"You all know why I'm here," Nicci announced. "Why have you people made
me go to the trouble of such a journey?" She gazed down the line of maybe
two hundred people standing four and five deep. The soldiers, who had
ordered them out of their homes and in from the fields, greatly outnumbered
them. She stopped in front of a man she had noticed people glancing at.
л Well?"
The wind fluttered his thin gray hair across his balding, bowed head as
he fixed his gaze on the ground at her feet. "We don't have anything to
give, Mistress. We're a poor community. We have nothing."
"You are a liar. You had two pigs. You saw fit to have a gluttonous
feast instead of helping those in need."
"But we have to eat." It was not an argument, so much as a plea.
"So do others, but they are not so fortunate as you. They know only the
ache of hunger in their bellies every night. What an ugly tragedy, that
every day thousands of children die from the simple want of food, and
millions more know the gnawing pain of hunger-while people like you, in a
land of plenty, offer nothing but selfish excuses. Having what they need to
live is their right, and must be honored by those with the means to help.
"Our soldiers, too, need to eat. Do you think our struggle on the
behalf of the people is easy? These men risk their lives daily so you may
raise your children in a proper, civilized society. How can you look these
men in the eye? How can we even feed our troops, if everyone doesn't help