“He is different, in some ways,” Kahlan said. “Even from last autumn, when I first met him. He’s been through a lot. He’s had to sacrifice his old life, and he’s been tested by events. He’s had to learn to fight, or die. He’s had to face the fact that George Cypher wasn’t his real father.”
Nadine looked up in astonishment. “George wasn’t his father? Then who was? Someone named Rahl?”
Kahlan nodded. “Darken Rahl. The leader of D’Hara.”
“D’Hara. Until the boundary came down, I only thought of D’Hara as an evil place.”
“It was,” Kahlan said. “Darken Rahl was a violent ruler who sought conquest through torture and murder. He had Richard captured and tortured nearly to death. Richard’s brother, Michael, had betrayed him to Darken Rahl.”
“Michael? Well, I guess that really doesn’t surprise me. Richard loved Michael. Michael is an important man, but he has a mean streak. If he wants something, he doesn’t care who it hurts. Though no one had the nerve to voice it, I don’t think anyone was too unhappy when he left and never came back.”
“He died in the fight with Darken Rahl.”
Nadine didn’t seem unhappy about this news either. Kahlan didn’t say that Richard had had Michael executed for betraying the people he was supposed to be protecting, for his responsibility in the deaths of so many.
“Darken Rahl was trying to use magic that would have enslaved everyone under his rule. Richard escaped and killed his real father, and saved us all. Darken Rahl was a wizard.”
“Wizard! And Richard defeated him?”
“Yes. We all owe Richard a great debt for saving us from what his father would have taken the world into. Richard is a wizard, too.”
Nadine laughed at what she thought was a joke. Kahlan didn’t so much as smile. Cara stood stone-faced. Nadine’s eyes widened. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Zedd was his grandfather. Zedd was a wizard, as was Richard’s real father. Richard was born with the gift, but he doesn’t know very much about how to use it.”
“Zedd’s gone, too.”
“He came with us. In the beginning, he’s been fighting with us, and trying to help Richard, but a short time ago, in a battle, he was lost. I fear he was killed up at the Wizard’s Keep, up on the mountain above Aydindril. Richard refuses to believe Zedd was killed.” Kahlan shrugged. “Maybe he wasn’t. That old man was the most resourceful person I’ve ever met other than Richard.”
Nadine wiped her kerchief across her nose. “Richard and that crazy old man were best friends. That was what Richard meant, then, when he said that his grandfather taught him about herbs. Everyone comes to my father for remedies. My father knows just about everything about herbs, and I hope someday to know half of what he knows, but my father always said that he wished he knew half as much as old Zedd. I never knew Zedd was Richard’s grandfather.”
“No one did, not even Richard. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you a bit of the more important parts.” Kahlan looked down at her own hands nested in her lap. “After Richard stopped Darken Rahl, he was taken by the Sisters of the Light to the Old World, so that they could teach him to me his gift. They would have kept him at the Palace of the Prophets, in a web of magic that slowed time. They would have had him there for centuries. We thought he was lost to us.
“The Palace of the Prophets turned out to be infested with Sisters of the Dark, and they wanted to free the Keeper of the Underworld. They tried to use Richard to those ends, but he escaped his confinement and stopped them. In the process, the Towers of Perdition that kept the Old and New Worlds separated were destroyed.
“Now, Emperor Jagang, of the Imperial Order in the Old World, is no longer restrained by those towers and is trying to bring all the world under his rule. He wants Richard dead for thwarting him. Jagang is powerful and has a huge army. We have been unwillingly cast into a war for our destiny, our freedom, and for our very existence. Richard leads us in that war.
“Zedd, acting in his capacity as First Wizard, named Richard the Seeker of Truth. It’s an ancient post, created three thousand years ago in the great war that raged at that time. It’s a solemn assignment of rectitude granted when there is grave need. A Seeker is above any law but his own, and backs his authority with the Sword of Truth and its attendant magic.
“Fate occasionally touches us all in ways we don’t always understand, but it sometimes seems to have a death grip on Richard.”
Nadine, her eyes wide, finally blinked “Richard? Why Richard? Why is he in the center of all this? He’s just a woods guide. He’s just a nobody from Hartland.”
“Just because kittens are born in the hearth oven, that doesn’t make them muffins. No matter where they’re born, it’s their destiny to grow up to go out and kill rats.
“Richard is a very special kind of wizard: a war wizard. He is the first wizard with both sides of the magic, Additive and Subtractive, to be born in three thousand years. Richard didn’t choose to do all this; he does this because we are all depending on him to help us remain a free people. Richard isn’t one to stand by and watch while people are hurt.”
Nadine looked away. “I know.” She fumbled with the kerchief in her fingers. “I kind of lied to you before.”
“About what?”
She heaved a sigh. “Well, when I told you about Tommy and Lester. I made it sound like it was me who knocked out their front teeth. The truth is, I was on my way to meet Richard. We were to go for a walk and look for some maple-leafed viburnum. My father needed some of the inner bark to make a decoction for a baby with colic, and he had run out. Richard knew where there was a patch.
“Anyway, when I was on my way through the woods, to Richard’s place, I came across Tommy Lancaster and his friend Lester on their way back from hunting doves. I’d fended off Tommy’s unwanted advances in front of some of his pals, and made him look a fool. I guess I kind of slapped him and called him a name.
“He thought to pay me back when he came across me in the woods. He had Lester hold me down, and he . . . well, about the time he got his pants pushed down around his knees, Richard showed up. That took the starch right out of Tommy. Richard told them to be off, and said that he was going to tell their fathers.
“Instead of doing the smart thing, and leaving, the two of them decided to put a few bird arrows in Richard to teach him a lesson to mind his own business. That’s why Tommy and Lester don’t have any front teeth. He told them that that was for what they wanted to do to me. He broke their valuable yew bows, and told them that that was for what they wanted to do to him. He told Tommy that if he ever again tried to do that to me, he’d slice off . . . well, you know.”
Kahlan smiled. “That sounds like the Richard I know. It doesn’t sound like he’s really changed all that much. The Tommys and Lesters are just bigger, now, and meaner.”
Nadine gave a little shrug. “I guess.” She looked up when Cara held out Nadine’s tin cup, which Cara had filled from the ewer on the washstand. Nadine took a sip. “I can’t believe people are really trying to kill Richard. I can’t believe anyone would want to kill him.” She smirked. “Even Tommy and Lester only want to knock out his teeth.” She settled the cup in her lap. “I can’t believe his own father would want to kill him. You said Darken Rahl had Richard tortured. Why did he do that?”
Kahlan glanced up at Cara. “It’s in the past. I really don’t want to stir up the memories.”
Nadine reddened. “Sorry. I almost forgot that he . . . and you . . .” She drew her fingers across her cheeks, wiping away a fresh tear. “It just doesn’t seem fair.
“You”—Nadine flicked a hand in frustration—“you’ve got everything. You have this, this palace. I never even knew such things existed. It looks like some vision come from the spirit world. And you have such fine things, and magnificent clothes. That dress makes you look like one of the good spirits.”
Nadine looked Kahlan in the eye. “And you’re so beautiful. It doesn’t seem fair
. You even have beautiful green eyes; I just have dumb brown eyes. You must have had men lined up around the palace your whole life, wanting you. You must have had more suitors than most women can even dream of. You have everything. You could have your pick of any man in the Midlands . . . and you pick a man from my home.”
“Love isn’t always fair; it just is. And your eyes are lovely.” Kahlan twined her fingers together and hooked her hands over a knee. “What did Richard mean when he said to you that there is no ‘us,’ and that you of all people should know that?”
Nadine’s eyes slid closed as she turned her face away. “Well, I guess a lot of girls in Hartland wanted Richard, not just me. He wasn’t like anyone else. He was special. I remember one time when he was about ten or twelve and he talked two men out of fighting. He always had a way about him. He got the two men to laughing, and they left my pa’s shop with an arm over each other’s shoulder. Richard was always a rare person.”
“The mark of a wizard,” Kahlan said. “So, Richard must have had a lot of girlfriends?”
“No, not really. He was nice to everyone, and polite, and helpful, but he never seemed to fall for anyone. That only seemed to make them want him all the more. He didn’t have a special person, a love. But a lot of us girls wanted to be the one. After Tommy and Lester tried to . . . to lay claim to me—”
“To rape you.”
“Yeah. I guess that was what it really was. I never like to think that someone would really do that to me, like that—holding me down and all. But I guess that that’s what they were trying to do: rape me.
“Some people don’t call it that, though. Sometimes, if a boy does that to a girl, then he’s laid claim to her, and the parents say that it was because the girl encouraged it, and so they make the girl and boy get married before she turns up pregnant. I know girls who had to do that.
“Many younglings, mostly those of the country folk, have it already decided for them who they’re to marry. But sometimes a boy doesn’t like who he’s supposed to marry, and so he lays claim to who he wants, like Tommy tried to do to me, in the hope that either he’ll get her pregnant and she’ll have to marry him, or their parents will make them wed because she’s been spoiled. Tommy was supposed to wed skinny Rita Wellington, and he hated her. Sometimes, the girl really does encourage it, because she doesn’t like who her parents picked for her. Mostly, though, younglings go along as they’re told.
“My parents never decided for me, some parents don’t. They say that it’s a recipe for trouble as often as it is one for happiness. They said they figured that I’d know for myself what I wanted. A lot of the girls who didn’t have it decided for them wanted Richard. Some of them, like me, waited long past when we should have been married and mothers two or three times over.
“After Richard stopped Tommy, Richard kind of always looked out for me. I started to think it was more than him just watching out for me, at last. I started to think that he really wanted to be with me. It seemed like he was really noticing me, as a woman, not as some kid he knew who he was protecting.
“I was sure of it at the midsummer festival last year. He danced with me more than any of the other girls. They were turning green with envy. Especially when he held me close. Right then and there, I wanted him to be the one. No one else.
“I thought that after the festival things would change, that he would tell me that I meant more to him than I had before. I thought he would come around and court me more serious. He didn’t.”
Nadine held the cup of water between her knees with one hand as she worked her kerchief in the fingers of her other hand. “I had other boys who wanted to court me, and I didn’t want to throw my future away if Richard was never going to come to his senses, so I got it in my head to give him a shove.”
“A shove?”
Nadine nodded. “Besides some of the other boys, Richard’s brother, Michael, was always after me, too. I think just because he always was jealous of Richard. At the time I wasn’t exactly against the idea of Michael courting me. I didn’t know him so well, but he was already making somebody of himself. I thought Richard would never be anything more than a woods guide. Not that that’s bad. I’m nobody special, either. Richard loved the woods.”
Kahlan smiled. “He still does. If he could, I’m sure he would like nothing more than being a simple woods guide. But he can’t. So, what happened, then?”
“Well, I figured that if I kind of made Richard just a bit jealous, maybe he would get down off the fence and make a move for me. Sometimes men need a shove, my ma always says. So I gave him a good shove.”
Nadine cleared her throat. “I let him catch me kissing Michael. I made sure he saw that I was having a good time of it.”
Kahlan drew a deep breath as her eyebrows lifted. Nadine may have grown up with Richard, but she certainly didn’t know him.
“He never even got angry at me, or jealous, or anything,” Nadine said. “He was still nice to me, and he still watched out for me, but he never came visiting, and he never asked me to go for walks after that. When I tried to talk to him about it, to explain, he just wasn’t interested.”
Nadine stared off. “He had that look in his eyes, like he did today. That look that means he just doesn’t care. I never knew what it meant until I saw it again, today. I think he really had cared and expected me to show him I cared by being loyal, but I’d betrayed him.”
Nadine dabbed at her lower lids as she took labored breaths. “Shota told me that Richard was going to marry me, and I was so happy that I just didn’t want to believe it when he said it wasn’t so. I didn’t want to believe that look in his eyes, so I pretended to myself that it didn’t mean anything, but it does. It means everything.”
“I’m sorry, Nadine,” Kahlan said softly.
Nadine stood and set the tin cup on the side table. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped off the side of her jaw. “Forgive me for coming in here like I did. He loves you, not me. He never loved me. I’m happy for you, Mother Confessor; you have a good man who will watch over you and protect you and always be kind. I know he will.”
Kahlan stood and took Nadine’s hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Kahlan. My name is Kahlan.”
“Kahlan.” Nadine still couldn’t meet Kahlan’s eyes. “Does he kiss good? I always wondered. When I laid awake in bed, I always wondered.”
“When you love someone with all your heart, their kisses are always good.”
“I guess. I never had a good kiss. One really enjoyed like the ones I’ve dreamed about, anyway.” She smoothed the front of her dress as she made an effort to compose herself. “I wore this because blue is Richard’s favorite color. You should know that—blue is his favorite color dress.”
“I know,” Kahlan whispered.
Nadine pulled her bag closer. “I don’t know what I’m thinking, forgetting my profession, while I ramble on about what’s over and done.” Nadine rummaged around in her bag, bringing out a small piece of a sheep’s horn with a cork stopper in the square-cut end. The horn was marked with scratches and circles. She pulled the cork stopper and dipped in a finger, then lifted it to Cara.
Cara backed away. “What do you think you are doing?”
“It’s an unguent, made from aum, to take away the sting, and comfrey and yarrow to help stop the bleeding so the wound can heal smooth. The cut on your cheek is still oozing. If this doesn’t stop the blood, then I have some foxglove, but I think this will do it. It’s not only the ingredients but how much of each, my pa says, that’s the secret that makes the medicine work.”
“I don’t need it,” Cara said.
“You’re very pretty. You don’t want to end up with a scar, now do you?”
“I have many scars. You just can’t see them.”
“Where are they?”
Cara scowled, but Nadine didn’t back away.
“All right,” Cara said at last. “Use your herbs, if it will get you away from me. But I’m not undressing so you can pee
r at my scars.”
Nadine smiled assurance and then dabbed the brownish paste on Cara’s cheek. “This will take away the pain of the cut, but it’s going to sting for just a minute, and then it will ease.”
Cara didn’t so much as blink. It must lave surprised Nadine because she paused and looked at Cara’s eyes before resuming her work. When she was finished, Nadine replaced the stopper in the horn and placed it back in her bag.
Nadine glanced around the room. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful room. Thank you for letting me use it.”
“Of course. Do you need anything? Some supplies . . . anything?”
Nadine shook her head, wiped her nose a last time, and stuffed the kerchief back in the pocket. She remembered the cup, downed the rest of the water, and put it in her bag, too.
“It’s a bit of a journey, but I have some silver left. I’ll be fine.” She rested a hand on her bag as she stared down at her trembling fingers. “I never thought my journey would end like this. I’m going to be the laugh of Hartland, running off after Richard like I did.” She swallowed. “What’s Pa going to say?”
“Did Shota tell him, too, that you were going to marry Richard?”
“No. I hadn’t met Shota yet.”
“What do you mean? I thought she was the one who told you to come here—that you were to marry him.”
“Well”—Nadine made a wincing smile—“that wasn’t exactly how it happened.”
“I see.” Kahlan clasped her hands. “Well, exactly how did it happen?”
“It will sound silly—like I’m some moonstruck girl of twelve.”
“Nadine, just tell me.”
Nadine considered a moment before finally sighing. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I started having these, well, I don’t know what to call it. I’d see Richard, or rather, I thought I saw Richard. I’d see him out of the corner of my eye, and I’d turn, but he wouldn’t be there. Like one day, when I was walking in the woods looking for new shoots, and I saw him standing beside a tree, so I stopped, but he was gone.
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