Richard watched the top of her bowed head as she played with the thread. “I guess that was to be expected. That was what their parents wanted.”
Nadine didn’t look up from her thread. “He beats the stuffing out of her. I had to give her poultices and herbs one time when he made her bleed . . . you know, down there. People say it’s none of their business and pretend not to know it’s happening.”
Richard wasn’t sure what she was getting at; he certainly wasn’t going back to Hartland to rattle a conscience into Tom Lancaster’s head. “Well, if he keeps at it, her brothers might end up giving him a lesson in cracked skulls.”
Nadine didn’t look up. “That could have been me.” She cleared her throat. “I could have been married to Tommy, crying to anyone who’d listen about how . . . well, it could have been me. It could have been me pregnant, wondering if he’d beat me till I lost this one, too.
“I reckon I owe you, Richard. And you being a boy from Hartland and all . . . I just wanted to help if you were in trouble.” She shrugged her one shoulder again. “Kahlan’s real nice. Most women would have . . . I guess she’s about the prettiest woman I ever saw. Nothing like me.”
“I never figured you owed me anything, Nadine; I’d have done the same no matter who Tom had caught alone that day but you have my sincere gratitude for helping Kahlan.”
“Sure. I guess that was stupid of me to think you stopped him because . . .”
Richard realized by the way she sounded on the verge of tears that he hadn’t put it very well, so he laid a hand tenderly on her shoulder. “Nadine, you’ve grown into a beautiful woman, too.”
She peered up with a growing smile, “You think I’m beautiful?” She smoothed her blue dress at her hips.
“I didn’t dance with you at the midsummer festival because you were still clumsy little Nadine Brighton.”
She started winding the string again, “I liked dancing with you. You know, I carved the initials ‘N. C.’ on my betrothal trunk. For Nadine Cypher.”
“I’m sorry, Nadine. Michael is dead.”
She looked up with a frown. “Michael? No . . . that’s not what it meant. It meant you.”
Richard decided that this conversation had gone far enough. He had more important things to worry about.
“I’m Richard Rahl now. I can’t live in the past. My future is with Kahlan.”
Nadine caught his arm as he started turning away. “I’m sorry. I know that. I know I made a big mistake. With Michael, I mean.”
Richard caught himself just in time to bite off a caustic retort. What would be the purpose? “I appreciate that you helped Kahlan. I suppose you’ll want to be heading home. Tell everyone I’m well. I’ll be back for a visit when—”
“Kahlan invited me to stay a while.”
Richard was caught off guard; Kahlan had neglected to tell him that part of it. “Oh. And you wish to stay for a day or two?”
“Sure. I thought I’d like that. I’ve never been away from home before. If it’s all right with you, I mean. I wouldn’t want to . . .”
Richard gently pulled his arm from her hand. “Fine. If she invited you, then it’s fine with me.”
She brightened, as if oblivious to the disapproval on his face. “Richard, did you see the moon last night? Everyone is abuzz about it. Did you see it? Was it as extraordinary, as remarkable, as they say?”
“That, and more,” he whispered, his mood darkening. Before she could get in another word, he marched off.
His soft knock on the door produced a rotund woman in a staff uniform. Her ruddy face peered out through the narrow crack.
“Lord Rahl, Nancy is just helping the Mother Confessor get dressed. She’ll be finished in a minute.”
“Dressed!” he called to the closing door. The latch clicked into place. “She’s supposed to be in bed!” he called through the heavy, ornately carved door.
Getting no response, he decided to wait rather than cause a scene. Once, when he looked up, he saw Nadine peeking around the corner. Her head swiftly disappeared back around the corner. He paced before the door until the rubicund woman finally opened it wide and held an arm out in invitation.
Richard stepped into the room, feeling as if he was entering another world. The Confessors’ Palace was a place of splendor, power, and history, but the Mother Confessor’s quarters were the place that, more than anywhere else in the palace, reminded him that he was really just a woods guide. It made him feel out of his element.
The Mother Confessor’s rooms were a majestic, quiet sanctuary befitting the woman to whom knelt kings and queens. If Richard had seen this room before he came to know Kahlan, he wondered if he would have ever had the nerve to speak to her. Even now, it embarrassed him to recall teaching her to build snares and dig roots when he didn’t know who, or what, she was.
It made him smile, though, to remember her eagerness to learn. He was thankful he had come to know the woman before he came to understand the post she filled, and the magic she wielded. He thanked the good spirits she had come into his life, and prayed she would be a part of it forever. She meant everything to him.
The three marble fireplaces in the Mother Confessor’s sitting room were ablaze. The heavy drapes on the ten-foot-tall windows hung open slightly, forming tall slits, letting in only enough light, muted by the sheer panels behind, to make lamps unnecessary. He guessed that bright sunlight was inappropriate in a sanctuary. There were only a few houses in Hartland that wouldn’t fit in this room alone.
On a glossy, gold-embellished mahogany table to the side sat a silver tray with tea, soup, biscuits, sliced pears, and brown bread. None of it had been touched. The sight reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since noon the day before, but failed to summon his appetite.
The three women in crisp gray dresses with white lace collars and cuffs watched him expectantly, as if waiting to see if he would dare to simply walk in on the Mother Confessor, or fall into a show of some other scandalous behavior.
Richard glanced at the door at the far end of the room, his sense of propriety making him ask the obvious. “Is she dressed?”
The one who had cracked the door before reddened. “I wouldn’t have let you in, sir, had she not been.”
“Of course.” He headed soundlessly across the plush, dark-hued carpets. He stopped and turned back. They watched like three owls. “Thank you, ladies. That will be all.”
They bowed and reluctantly took their leave. He realized as the last one stole a quick glance over her shoulder while pulling the door closed that they probably considered it the height of indecency for a man engaged to a woman to be alone with her in her bedroom. Doubly so for the Mother Confessor.
Richard forced out an annoyed breath; whenever he was anywhere near the Mother Confessor’s rooms, some member of the staff always managed to show up every other minute checking to see if she needed anything. The variety of things they suspected she might be needing never failed to surprise him. He sometimes expected one of them to come right out and ask her if she might need her virtue protected. Outside her rooms the staff was friendly, even joking with him when he put them at ease, or helped them carry things. A few were afraid of him. But not in her rooms. In her rooms, they all turned into bold, protective mother hawks.
Inside the bedroom, against the far paneled wall, stood the huge bed, its four great dark polished posts rising up like columns before a palace. The thick, embroidered bedcover cascaded down the sides of the bed like a colorful waterfall frozen in place. A slash of sunlight cut across the dark, sumptuous carpets and over the lower half of the bed.
Richard remembered Kahlan describing her bed to him, telling him how she couldn’t wait to have him in it, when they were married. He very much wanted to be in bed with her; it had been since that night between worlds that he had been alone with her—in that way—but he had to admit that he was intimidated by that bed of hers. He thought he might lose her in it. She had promised there would be no chance of that.
When he tenderly touched her shoulder, she started.
She turned, a beaming smile on her face as she looked up at him. “I thought you were Nancy, come back in.”
“What do you mean, you thought I was Nancy? You didn’t know it was me?”
“How would I know it was you?”
He shrugged. “Because I always can tell when it’s you who’s walked into a room. I don’t have to see you.”
Her brow furrowed in disbelief. “You cannot.”
“Of course I can.”
“How?”
“You have a unique fragrance. I know the sounds you make, the sound of your breathing, the way you move, the way you pause. They’re all unique to you.”
Her frown grew. “You’re not kidding? You mean it? You’re serious?”
“Of course. Can’t you tell me by those things?”
“No. But I guess you’ve spent much of your life in the woods, watching, smelling, listening.” She slipped her good arm around his. “I still don’t know if I believe you.”
“Then test me some time.” Richard stroked his fingers down her hair. “How are you feeling? How’s your arm?”
“I’m all right. It’s not so bad. Not as bad as that time elder Toffalar cut me. Remember? That was worse than this.”
He nodded. “What are you doing out of bed? You were told to rest.”
She pushed at his stomach. “Stop. I’m fine.” She looked him up and down.
“And you look more than fine. I can’t believe you had that made for me. You look magnificent, Lord Rahl.”
Richard tenderly met her lips. She tried to pull him into a more passionate kiss, but he pulled back. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” he said.
“Richard, I’m fine, really. I was exhausted before because I used my power, along with all the rest of it. People mistook that for me being hurt worse than I was.”
He appraised her for a long moment, before bending to the kind of kiss he had been longing to give her.
“That’s better,” she breathed on parting. She pushed back. “Richard, did you see Cara? You left so quickly, and you had that look in your eye. I didn’t have time to really talk to you. It wasn’t her fault.”
“I know. You told me.”
“You didn’t yell at her, did you?”
“We had a talk.”
She squinted. “Talk. What did she have to say for herself? She didn’t try to tell you that she was . . . ?”
“What’s Nadine still doing here?”
She was looking at him. She snatched his wrist. “Richard, you have blood on you . . . your arm . . .”
She looked up in alarm. “What did you do? Richard . . . you didn’t hurt her, did you?” She lifted his arm higher into the light. “Richard, this looks like . . . like when you . . .”
She seized his shirt. “You didn’t hurt her? Tell me that you didn’t hurt her!”
“She wanted to be executed. She gave me the choice of doing it, or she would. So I used the sword, like that time with the Mud People elders.”
“She’s all right? She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“She’s all right.”
Kahlan, concern in her expression, looked into his eyes. “And you? Are you all right?”
“I’ve been better. Kahlan, what is Nadine still doing here?”
“She’s just staying for a visit, that’s all. Have you met Drefan yet?”
Richard held her away when she moved to lay her head to his chest. “What is she doing here? Why did you invite her to stay?”
“Richard, I had to. Trouble from Shota isn’t so easily dismissed. You ought to know that. We have to know what’s going on before we can do something to make sure Shota can’t cause us trouble.”
Richard went to the glassed door and stared out at the mountain towering over the city. The Wizard’s Keep stared back. “I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
“Neither do I,” she said from behind him. “Richard, she helped me. I didn’t think she would have the guts to keep her head, but she did. She’s confused by all this, too. Something more than we’re seeing is going on, and we have to use our heads, not hide under the blankets.”
He heaved a sigh. “I still don’t like it, but you have a point. I only marry smart women.”
He could hear Kahlan absently smooth her dress behind him. The fragrance of her calmed him.
“I can see why you liked her. She’s a lovely woman, besides being a healer. It must have hurt you.”
The Keep seemed to absorb the morning sunlight in its dark stone. He should go up there. “What must have hurt me?”
“When you caught her kissing Michael. She told me how you caught her kissing your brother.”
Richard wheeled around, staring in slack-jawed disbelief. “She told you what?”
Kahlan gestured back toward the door, as if Nadine might appear to speak for herself. “She said that you caught her kissing your brother.”
“Kissing him.”
“That’s what she said.”
Richard turned his glare back to the window. “Did she, now?”
“What was she doing, then? You mean you caught—”
“Kahlan, we have sixteen men who died down by the pit last night, and a dozen more who may not live the day. I’ve got guards I can’t trust to protect the woman I love. We’ve got a witch woman who has made it her life’s mission to cause us trouble. We’ve got Jagang sending us messages in walking dead men. We’ve got a Sister of the Dark loose somewhere. We’ve got half the army in Aydindril sick and unable to fight if they have to. We’ve got representatives waiting to see us. I’ve got a half brother I never knew I had downstairs under guard. I think we have more important things to discuss than Nadine’s . . . than Nadine’s difficulty with the truth!”
Kahlan’s green eyes watched him tenderly for a moment. “That bad. Now I understand what put that look in your eyes.”
“Remember what you told me one time? ‘Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there’s a man in her line of sight.’ ”
She put a hand over his shoulder. “Nadine isn’t picking my path. I asked her to stay for my own reasons.”
“Nadine sticks to what she wants like a hound on scent, but I’m not talking about Nadine. I’m talking about Shota. She’s pointing down a path, and you’re walking right down it.”
“We have to find out what’s down that path, and Shota’s reasons for pointing to it.”
Richard turned back to the glassed door. “I want to know what else Marlin—Jagang—had to say. Every word. I want you to try to remember every word.”
“Why don’t you just yell at me and get it over with?”
“I don’t want to yell at you. You scared me to death, going down there. I just want to hold you, to protect you. I want to marry you.” He turned back and looked into her green eyes. “I think I have a way for it to work. With the Mud People, I mean.”
She stepped closer. “Really? How?”
“First, you tell me everything Jagang said.”
Richard idly watched the Keep as she went through the whole story: how Jagang said he watched the Ja’La game and that in his native tongue the name meant the Game of Life; that he wanted to witness the glory of what Marlin had done; how he wanted Sister Amelia to return to him before he revealed himself; that he had found prophecies other than those Richard had destroyed, and that he had invoked one called a bound fork prophecy.
“That’s all I remember,” she said. “Why are you watching the Keep so intently?”
“I’m wondering why Sister Ame
lia went there. And what Marlin was going to do there. Any ideas?”
“No. Jagang wouldn’t say. Richard, have you seen the prophecy in the pit?”
His stomach roiled. “Yes.”
“And? What does it say?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to translate it.”
“Richard Rahl, you may be able to tell it’s me who has walked into a room without seeing me, but I can tell when you’re not telling me the truth without even having to look into your eyes.”
Richard couldn’t manage to smile. “Prophecies are more complicated than their words. You know that. Just hearing their words doesn’t mean it’s what it sounds like. Besides, just because Jagang found a prophecy, that doesn’t mean he can invoke it.”
“Well, that’s all true enough. I told him as much myself. He said that proof he had invoked the prophecy would come on a red moon. Not much chance of that—”
Richard spun around. “What did you say? You didn’t tell me that before. What did Jagang say?”
Her face paled. “I forgot . . . until you said . . . I told Jagang that I didn’t believe him—about invoking the prophecy. He said that proof would come on the red moon. Richard, do you know what that means?”
Richard’s tongue felt thick. He made himself blink.
“The moon was red last night. I’ve been outdoors my whole life. I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it. It was like looking at the moon through a glass of red wine. It gave me goose bumps. That was why I came back early.”
“Richard, what did the prophecy say? Tell me.”
He stared at her, trying to think of a lie he could make her believe. He couldn’t. “It said,” he whispered, “ ‘On the red moon will come the firestorm. The one bonded to the blade will watch as his people die. If he does nothing, then he, and all those he loves, will die in its heat, for no blade, forged of steel or conjured of sorcery, can touch this foe.’ ”
Silence rang through the still room. Kahlan’s face was white. “What’s the rest of it? Jagang said it was a bound fork prophecy. What’s the rest of it”—her voice broke—“the other fork? You tell me, Richard. Don’t you lie to me. We’re in this together. If you love me, then you tell me.”
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