The news of the Imperial Order reinforcements, just as the news of departure of the Galeans and Keltans, spread through the camp faster than a storm wind. Kahlan, Zedd, Warren, Verna, Adie, General Meiffert, and all the rest of the officers held nothing back from the men. Those men were risking their lives daily and had a right to the truth. If Kahlan was passing through the camp, and a soldier was brave enough to ask her, she told him what she knew. She tried to give them confidence, too, but she didn’t lie to them.
The men, having struggled for so long, were beyond fear. The bleak mood was a palpable pall smothering the spark of life out of them. They went about their tasks as if numb, accepting their fate, which now seemed sealed, resigned to the inevitable. The New World offered no shelter, no safe place, nowhere to hide from the boundless menace of the Imperial Order.
Kahlan showed the soldiers a determined face. She had no choice. Captain Ryan and his men, having been through such despair before, were less troubled by the news. They couldn’t die; they were already dead. Along with Kahlan, the young Galeans had long ago taken an oath of the dead, and could only be returned to life when the Order was destroyed.
None of it mattered much to Captain Zimmer and his men. They knew what needed to be done, and they simply kept at it. Each of them now had multiple strings of ears. They began new strings at one hundred. It was a matter of honor to them that they kept only the right ear, so no two ears could be from the same man.
Representative Theriault of Herjborgue was as good as his word. The white wool cloaks, hats, and mittens arrived weekly, helping hide the men who regularly went on missions, while the weather was in their favor, to attack the Imperial Order. With the sickness in the Order’s camp leaving so many of them weak, along with so many of the enemy having impaired vision, those missions were extraordinarily successful. Troops wearing the concealing cloaks were also sent to lie in wait and intercept any supply trains, hoping to neutralize the reinforcements before they could join with the enemy’s main force.
Still, the attacks were little more than an annoyance to the Order.
Kahlan, after a meeting with a group just returned, found Zedd alone in the lodge, looking over the latest information that had been added to the maps.
“Good fortune,” she said when he looked up, watching as she removed her fur mantle. “The men who just got in had few casualties, and they caught a large group out on patrol. They were able to cut them off and take them all out, including one of Jagang’s Sisters.”
“Then why the long face?”
She could only lift her hands in a forsaken gesture of futility.
“Try not to be so disheartened,” Zedd told her. “Despair is often war’s hand-maiden. I can’t tell you how many years it was, back when I was young, that everyone fighting for their lives in that war back then thought that it was only a matter of time until we were crushed. We went on to win.”
“I know, Zedd. I know.” Kahlan rubbed at the chill in her hands. She almost hated to say it, but she finally did. “Richard wouldn’t come to lead the army because he said that the way things stand now, we can’t win. He said whether or not we fight the Order, the world will fall under its shadow, and if we fight, it will only result in more death—that our side will be destroyed, the Order would still rule the world, and any chance for winning in the future would be lost.”
Zedd peered at her with one eye. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Richard said we can’t win, but, dear spirits, I can’t let myself believe that. I would rather die fighting to be free, to help keep my people free, than to live the death of a slave. Yet, I know I’m violating Richard’s wishes, his advice, and his orders. I gave him my word…. I feel as if I’m treading the quicksand of betrayal, and taking everyone with me.”
She searched his face for some sign that Richard might have been wrong. “You said that he had figured out the Wizard’s Sixth Rule on his own—that we must use our minds to see the reality of the way things are. I had hopes. I thought he had to be wrong about the futility of this war, but now…”
Zedd smiled to himself, as if finding fancy in something she saw as only horrifying.
“This is going to be a long war. It is far from beyond hope, much less decided. This is the agony of leadership in such a struggle—the doubts, the fears, the feelings of hopelessness. Those are feelings—not necessarily reality. Not yet. We have much yet to bring to bear.
“Richard said what he believed based on the way matters stood at the time he said them. Who is to say that the people are not now prepared to prove themselves to him? Prove themselves ready to reject the Order? Perhaps what Richard needed in order for him to commit to the battle, has already come about.”
“But I know how strongly he warned me against joining this battle. He meant what he said. Still… I don’t have Richard’s strength, the strength to turn my back and let it happen.” Kahlan gestured to her inkstand on the table. “I’ve sent letters asking that more troops be sent down here.”
He smiled again, as if to say that proved it could be done.
“It will take continual effort to grind down the enemy’s numbers. I think we have yet to deal the Order a truly serious blow, but we will. The Sisters and I will come up with something. You never know in matters of this kind. It could be that we will suddenly do something that will send them reeling.”
Kahlan smiled and rubbed his shoulder. “Thanks, Zedd. I’m so thankful to have you with us.” Her gaze wandered to Spirit, standing proudly above the hearth. She stepped over to the mantel, as if to an altar that held the sacred carving. “Dear spirits, I miss him.”
It was a question without the words, hoping he would surprise her with something that he had thought of to help get Richard back.
“I know, dear one. I miss him, too. He’s alive—that’s the most important thing.”
Kahlan could only nod.
Zedd clapped his hands together, as if taken with a gleeful thought. “What we need, more than anything, is something to get everyone’s mind off of the task at hand for a while. Something to give them a reason to cheer together for a while. It would do them more good than anything.”
Kahlan frowned over her shoulder. “Like what? You mean some kind of game, or something?”
His face was all screwed up in musing. “I don’t know. Something happy. Something to show them that the Order can’t stop us from living our lives. Can’t stop us from the enjoyment of life—of what life is really all about.” He stroked a thumb along the sharp line of his jaw. “Any ideas?”
“Well, I can’t really think of—”
Just then, Warren strode in. “Just got a report from over in the Drun Valley. Our lucky day—no activity, as we expected.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, his hand still holding the door lever, looking from Kahlan to Zedd and back again.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on? Why are you two looking at me like that?”
Verna came up behind Warren and gave him a shove into the lodge. “Go on, go on, get in there. Close the door. What’s the matter with you? It’s freezing out there.”
Verna huffed and shut the door herself. When she turned around and saw Zedd and Kahlan, she backed a step.
“Verna, Warren,” Zedd said in a honeyed voice, “come on in, won’t you?”
Verna scowled. “What are you two scheming and grinning at?”
“Well,” Zedd drawled as he winked at Kahlan, “the Mother Confessor and I were just discussing the big event.”
Verna’s scowl darkened as she leaned in. “What big event? I’ve heard nothing about any big event.”
Even Warren, rarely given to scowling, was scowling now. “That’s right. What big event?”
“Your wedding,” Zedd said.
Both Verna and Warren’s scowls evaporated as they straightened. They were overcome with surprised, silly, radiant grins.
“Really?” Warren asked.
“Really?” Verna asked.
“Yes, really,” Kahlan said.
Chapter 43
It took more than two weeks to prepare for Verna and Warren’s wedding. It wasn’t that it couldn’t have been done more quickly, but rather, as Zedd had explained to Kahlan, he wanted to “drag out the whole affair.” He wanted to give everyone ample time to ponder it and to dream up lavish doings; time to organize, to make decorations, to cook special foods, to get the camp ready for a grand party; time to have a stretch where everyone could gossip about it as they eagerly looked forward to the big event.
The soldiers, at first merely pleased, soon got caught up in the spirit of the occasion. It became a grand diversion.
They all liked Warren. He was the sort of man that everyone felt a little sorry for, a bit protective of—the awkward shy type. Most didn’t have the foggiest understanding of many of the things he babbled about. They thought that he just wasn’t the type who would ever win a woman. That he had, to them seemingly against all odds, gave the men an inner pride that he was one of theirs, and he had done it: he’d won a woman’s heart. It gave them hope that they might one day have a wedding, a wife, and a family, even if they were afraid that they, too, were often awkward and shy.
The men even openly expressed happiness for Verna. She was a woman they respected, but had never exactly felt warmly toward. Their bold well-wishes flummoxed her.
The entire camp was caught up in the spirit of the event even more than Kahlan had hoped. After a brief pause in the beginning, while it sank in, the men, so weary not only of fighting against such odds, the loss of friends, and being in the field away from their homes and loved ones for so long, but also the harsh, difficult, dreary weather, took to the diversion with gusto.
A large central area was cleared—tents moved, and the area cleaned of snow down to the bare ground. At the head of the cleared area, they built a platform—laid across anchored supply wagons—atop which the wedding was to take place. The platform was needed so that the men would have a better chance to see the ceremony. A dance area was set aside and those men with musical instruments, and not out on duty, spent night and day practicing. A choir was formed and went off to a secluded ravine to rehearse. Wherever Kahlan went, she could hear pipes and drums, or the piercing notes of a shawm, or the melodic chords of strings. Men came to fear playing off-key more than they feared the Imperial Order.
With over a hundred Sisters available, it was suggested that there could be dancing after the ceremony. The Sisters liked the idea, until they started doing the math and realized how many men there were to each woman, and how much dancing they would be doing. Still, they were titillated at the prospect of having attention lavished on them at a dance, and approved the idea. Women centuries old were blushing like girls again at all the requests from men in their teens and twenties for the promise of a turn with them at the wedding dance.
As the wedding approached the men made streets, of sorts, in a winding course through the camp, so that after the ceremony, the wedding party could pass in review through the entire camp. All the men wanted a chance to be a part in greeting the newly married couple and wishing them well.
Kahlan had the idea that, after the wedding, Warren and Verna should have the lodge. It was to be her wedding gift to them, so, for the most part, she kept it a secret. Kahlan had Cara direct the public pretense of having a tent set aside and reserved for the newly married couple. Cara moved Verna’s things in the tent, and freshened it up with herbs and frozen sprigs with wild berries. The diversion worked; Verna believed the tent was to be hers and Warren’s, and wouldn’t let him into it until after they were married.
The day of the wedding dawned with sparkling blue skies, and wasn’t so cold that people were likely to get frostbite. The fresh snow of the day before was quickly cleared out of the central area so that the festivities could take place without the Sisters getting snow down their boots as they danced. Some of the Sisters came out to inspect the dance floor, sauntering around, giving the men a look at who they might get to have a turn with—if they were lucky. It was all done with much humor and good cheer.
While Verna spent the early afternoon in her tent, submitting to having her hair fussed over, her face painted, and her wedding dress tended to by a gaggle of Sisters, Kahlan was finally able to have the secrecy she needed in order to decorate the lodge. Inside, she secured fragrant, feathery, balsam boughs to a cord and draped it in swags around the top of every wall. She tied red berries—as that was all she could come by—into the boughs to give them some color.
One of the Sisters had given Kahlan some plain weave fabric that Kahlan had made into a curtain for the window. She had worked on it when she retired to the lodge at night, stitching designs to give the simple material a lacy look. She kept it under her bed so that when they came in to go over battlefield strategy, Verna and Warren wouldn’t know what she was doing. Kahlan was finally able to put the scented candles, donated by different Sisters as gifts, all around the room, and at last hang the curtain on a straight limb she stripped of bark.
The one thing Kahlan wouldn’t leave to brighten the lodge for the newly wedded couple was Spirit. That, she would take to her new tent.
As Kahlan was making up the bed with fresh bedding, Cara came in with an armload of something blue.
Kahlan folded the blanket under the foot of the straw-filled mattress as she watched Cara shut the door.
“What have you got there?”
“You won’t believe it,” Cara said with a grin. “Wide blue silk ribbon. The Sisters have Verna tied to a chair while they’re fussing over her, and Zedd has Warren off doing something, so I thought you and I could use the ribbon to decorate the place a little. Drape it around. Make it look pretty.” She pointed. “Like up there—we could wind it around the balsam you hung to give it a fancy look.”
Kahlan blinked in surprise. “What a good idea.”
She didn’t know what was more astonishing, actually seeing Cara with blue silk ribbon, or hearing her say “decorate” and “pretty” in the same breath. She smiled to herself, happy to have heard such a thing. Zedd was more of a wizard than he knew.
Kahlan and Cara each stood on a log round, working their way along the wall as they wove the ribbon through and around the swagged balsam boughs. It was so beautiful seeing the first wall completed that Kahlan couldn’t stop gazing and grinning. They started in on the second wall, opposite the door, using extra ribbon for best effect when Verna and Warren first entered and saw their new place.
“Where did you ever get all this ribbon, away?” Kahlan asked around a mouthful of pins.
“Benjamin got it for me.” Cara chuckled as she threaded the ribbon around the cord. “Can you believe it? He made me promise not to ask him where he got it from.”
Kahlan took the pins from her mouth. “Who?”
“Who what?” Cara mumbled before she stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth while wiggling a pin into a tight place.
“Who did you say got you the ribbon?”
Cara lifted another length of blue silk to the ceiling. “General Meiffert. I don’t have a clue where he—”
“You said Benjamin.”
Cara lowered the ribbon and stared at Kahlan. “No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You said Benjamin.”
“I said General Meiffert. You only thought—”
“I never knew that General Meiffert’s first name was Benjamin.”
“Well…”
“Is ‘Benjamin’ General Meiffert’s first name?”
Had Cara been wearing her red leather, her face would have matched it. As it was, her dark scowl matched the brown leather she had on.
“You know it is.”
A smile grew on Kahlan’s lips. “I do now.”
Kahlan wore her white Mother Confessor’s dress. She was a bit surprised to notice that it fit a little loosely, but all things considered, she supposed it was to be expected. Because of the cold, she also wore the wolf fur mantle Rich
ard had made for her, but draped it around her shoulders more like a stole. She stood with her back straight and chin held high, overseeing the ceremony and gazing out at the tens of thousands of quiet faces. Behind her was a rich verdant wall of woven boughs that enabled distant spectators to more easily pick out the six people up on the platform. An ethereal mist of silent breath lifted in the still, golden, late-afternoon air.
As he conducted the wedding ceremony, Zedd’s back was to her. Kahlan was fascinated to see his wavy white hair, perpetually in disarray, now brushed and smoothed down. He wore his fine maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled shoulders. Silver brocade circled the cuffs, while gold brocade ran around the neck and down the front. A red satin belt set with a gold buckle gathered the outfit at his waist. Adie stood beside him, wearing her simple sorceress’s robes with their yellow and red beads at the neckline. Somehow, the contrast looked as grand.
Verna wore a rich violet dress done up with gold stitching at the square neckline. The intricate gold needlework ran down the tight sleeves showing under slashed sham sleeves tied at the elbow with gold ribbon. The delicate smocking over the midriff extending in a funnel shape down into a gored skirt flaring nearly to the floor. Verna’s wavy brown hair was festooned with blue, gold, and crimson flowers the sisters had made from little pieces of silk. With her serene smile, she made a beautiful sorceress bride standing beside the handsome blond groom in his violet wizard’s robes.
Everyone seemed to lean in a little as the ceremony reached the climax.
“Do you, Verna, take this wizard to be your husband for life,” Zedd went on in a clear tone that carried out over the crowd, “mindful of his gift and duty to it, and swear to both love and honor him without pause for as long as you live?”
“I do,” Verna said in a silken voice.
“Do you, Warren,” Adie said, her voice all the more raspy in contrast to Verna’s, “take this sorceress to be your wife for life, mindful of her gift and duty to it, and swear to both love and honor her without pause for as long as you live?
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