Kahlan looked up. “You know this woman? And who are you?”
The woman abruptly realized who she was speaking to. She flashed a sudden smile and curtsied awkwardly. “I am the Lady Ordith Condatith de Dackidvich, Mother Confessor. I’m so pleased to meet you, at last. I’ve been wanting to talk . . .”
Kahlan cut her off. “Who is this woman? Do you know her?”
“Know her?” Her sour expression returned. “She is my body servant. Her name is Jebra Bevinvier. I’ll have the lazy wench thrashed!”
“Body servant?” a man said. “I don’t think so. I’ve had dinner with Lady Jebra, and I can assure you, she is a lady.”
Lady Ordith sniffed. “She’s an imposter.”
“Then you must pay her well,” the man said sarcastically. “She stays in the finest inns, and pays with gold.”
Lady Ordith gave the man another haughty sniff and snatched a guard’s arm. “You! Take this wench to my quarters. I’m staying at the Kelton Palace. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Kahlan came to her feet and gave the Lady Ordith a withering glare. “You will do no such thing. Unless you are presuming to tell the Mother Confessor what to do in her own palace?”
Lady Ordith stammered an apology. Kahlan snapped her fingers to the side while holding Lady Ordith’s gaze. Guards jumped forward.
Kahlan turned. “Take Lady Jebra to a guest room. Have a servant bring her some ginger tea, cold towels for her head, and anything else she wants. I do not want her disturbed by anyone, and that includes the Lady Ordith. I’m retiring for the night, and I do not wish to be disturbed by anyone, either. I have an early session with the council. After I meet with the council, I want Lady Jebra brought to me.”
The guards saluted and bent to Lady Jebra.
When Kahlan reached her room, she was brought out of her troubled thoughts by the sight of two Keltish guards, from the Kelton Palace, at the doors to her room. When the guards saw her, one of them coolly tapped on the door with the butt of his spear. Someone was in her rooms. Kahlan glared at the impassive guards as she stalked through the doors.
No one was in the outer room. She stormed into the bedroom. When she saw him, she froze to a halt. Prince Fyren was standing on her bed, with his back to her.
He gave her a smirk over his shoulder while he urinated in the center of her bed.
When he was finished, Prince Fyren turned while he buttoned his trousers.
“What in the name of the spirits do you think you are doing?” she whispered.
He lifted an eyebrow to her as he strutted past. “Just letting the Mother Confessor know how happy we all are to have her home.” His coat was open. He smoothed the ruffles on the front of his white shirt as he paused at the door. “Sleep well, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan yanked six times on the bell cord. Six breathless maidservants met her as she was charging down the hall.
“You wanted something, Mother Confessor?”
Kahlan gritted her teeth. “Take my mattress and bedcovers outside to the courtyard and burn them.”
The girl blinked. “Mother Confessor?”
“Drag the mattress from my bed, along with all the bedcovers, out into the courtyard below my balcony, and set them on fire.” Kahlan clenched her fists. “What part don’t you understand?”
The six flinched back a step. “Yes, Mother Confessor.” They stood trembling, their eyes wide. “Now, Mother Confessor?”
“If I wanted it done tomorrow, I would have called you tomorrow!”
Kahlan reached the stairs over grand entrance just in time to see Prince Fyren joining the man in plain robes waiting there for him. His dark eyes met hers for a long moment.
“Guards!” She screamed down toward the doors. The men in uniform looked up as they came running. “Diplomatic privilege is suspended! If I see that Keltish pig or any of his personal guard in this palace before the council session tomorrow morning, I will personally skin you all alive after I kill him!”
They saluted. Kahlan saw Lady Ordith in the hall leading to the entrance, watching everything that had just happened.
“Lady Ordith.” Lady Ordith was already staring up. “I believe you said you were a guest of the Kelton Palace. Get out of mine.”
She was stammering her good-byes as Kahlan spun on her heel and headed back to her room. She picked up a handful of guards on the way.
Outside her rooms, she waited until they were lined up before her doors. “If anyone comes into my room tonight, it had better be over your corpses. Do you understand?”
They all saluted to indicate that they did. Inside, Kahlan threw the white mantle around her shoulders and went out onto the balcony, into the bitter cold night. She stood with her back straight, near the railing, as she looked down on the scene in the courtyard below.
She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She was the Mother Confessor. She had to do what all the Mother Confessors before her had done—protect the Midlands. She was alone, and had no one to help her in her duty.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched flames leap up from her bed; the bed she had promised Richard.
Chapter 58
The reflections of the Mother Confessor, in her white dress, rotated around the polished black columns as she marched down the gallery, the Mother Confessor’s private entrance to the council chambers. Kahlan was an hour early. She planned to be sitting in the First Chair as she watched all the councilors arrive. She didn’t want them talking among themselves before she was present.
She froze to a halt as she threw the doors open. The room was packed. Every council chair was occupied. The galleries were all packed with people—not only officials, administrators, staff, and nobility, but ordinary people: farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, cooks, tradesmen, wagon drivers, and laborers. Men and women of every sort. Every eye was on her as she stood before the doors.
Across the huge room, the councilors all sat in their chairs. No one made a sound. Someone was sitting in the First Chair. From this distance, she couldn’t see who it was, but she knew.
Kahlan touched her fingers to the bone necklace at her throat and prayed to the good spirits for protection and strength. Her boots echoed off the marble as she strode through patches of sunlight. There was something on the floor before the dais, but she couldn’t tell what it was.
When Kahlan reached the curved desk, the man sitting in the First Chair was not the one she expected. Stretched out on a litter before the dais lay the body of Prince Fyren. His skin was pasty. His arms were folded, his hands laid over the blood-soaked ruffles of his shirt. His sword rested across his body. Prince Fyren’s throat had been sliced open nearly to his spinal column.
Kahlan looked up to the solemn, dark eyes watching her. He came forward from the back of the First Chair and folded his hands together on the desk. A quick glance revealed what she hadn’t noticed before: a ring of guards around the room.
She glared up at the man with the dark hair and beard. “Get out of my chair, or I will kill you myself.”
The room rang with the sound of swords being drawn. Without taking his dark eyes from her, the man gestured with a flick of his hand. Every sword went hesitantly back into its scabbard.
“You are done killing people, Mother Confessor,” he said in a quiet voice. “Prince Fyren was your last victim.”
Kahlan frowned. “Who are you?”
“Neville Ranson.” Still, his eyes did not leave her as he turned his hand up. A ball of flame ignited above his palm. “Wizard Neville Ranson.”
Still, his eyes did not leave her as he cast the ball of flame skyward. It rose obediently toward the peak of the dome, where it broke, with a pop, into thousands of sparkles. Astonished gasps filled the room.
Wizard Ranson leaned back and drew open a scroll. “We have a great many charges, Mother Confessor. Where would you like to begin?”
Without turning her head, Kahlan’s eyes took a sweep of what she could see of the room. There was no chance of escape. None. Even if t
he man before her were not a wizard.
“Since they will all be invented, I guess it doesn’t matter. Why don’t we just dispense with the mockery, and simply proceed to the execution.”
The room remained dead silent. Wizard Ranson did not smile. His eyebrows lifted.
“Oh, no mockery, Mother Confessor, but serious charges. We are here to get to the truth of them. Unlike the Confessors, I refuse to put an innocent person to death. Before we are finished today, everyone here will know the truth of your treason. I want the people to know the full extent of your vile tyranny.”
Kahlan clasped her hands together as she stood with her back straight. She wore her Confessor’s face. The people all leaned forward a little.
“Since it is a long list,” Ranson said, “we might as well begin with the most serious charge.” He glanced down. “Treason.”
“And since when is defending the people of the Midlands treason?”
Wizard Ranson slammed his fist to the desk as he shot to his feet. “Defending the people of the Midlands! I have never in my life heard such filth from the mouth of a woman!” He smoothed his tan robes at his stomach and then sat back down. “Your ‘defense’ of the people was to plunge them into war. You would condemn thousands to die, to assuage your dread that someone other than yourself would rule. And rule with the unanimous agreement of the council, I might add.”
“It is hardly unanimous if the Mother Confessor dissents.”
“Dissents for her own selfish motives.”
“And who is it that you would have rule the Midlands? Kelton? Yourself?”
“The saviors of all people. The Imperial Order.”
A prickling sensation rose up her legs. Kahlan felt as if the whole of the dome overhead were collapsing down on her. Her head spun. She thought she might be sick right there, in front of everyone. She forced her stomach to behave.
“The Imperial Order! The Imperial Order slaughtered Ebinissia! They crush all opposition to steal rule for themselves!”
“Lies. The Imperial Order is dedicated to benevolent rule. They simply wish to put your murderous intents to an end.”
“Benevolent! They raped and butchered the people of Ebinissia!”
Ranson chuckled. “Come, come, Mother Confessor. The Imperial Order has murdered no one.” He turned to a man Kahlan didn’t recognize. “Councilor Thurstan, has your crown city been harmed by anyone?”
The jowly man looked surprised. “I have just arrived two days ago from the beautiful city of Ebinissia, and they know nothing of their slaughter.”
The crowd chuckled with him. Ranson smiled petulantly at her.
“Did you not expect, Mother Confessor, that we would have witnesses to expose your preposterous stories? This is simply a fiction meant to inflame people’s fears, and stir them to war.”
Ranson snapped his fingers. A woman in drab, worn clothes came in and stood to the side. Ranson gently told her not to be frightened, and to tell her story. The woman told of how her children had to go to bed hungry, because she had no money. She said she had been forced into prostitution to feed her children. Kahlan knew it was a lie. There was no scarcity of charitable people and groups who would help anyone truly needing it.
For the next hour, one witness after another was paraded in, and each told a story of hunger and want, and how the palace would not give them money to feed and clothe themselves, not caring if their children starved. The people in the balconies listened with rapt attention to the sad stories, some weeping with the witnesses.
Kahlan recognized a few of the people testifying. She remembered Mistress Sanderholt offering them work in the past. She had told Kahlan that when they had come in, they scoffed at the things they were asked to do. Mistress Sanderholt ended up having to do many of the tasks herself.
Wizard Ranson rose to his feet, after the last witness had told his tearful story, and turned to each side, addressing the people gathered. “The Mother Confessor has a vast treasury, and she intended to use it to finance a war against the people of the Midlands who would wish to be free of her rule. She first takes the food from your mouths, and the mouths of your children, and then, to keep you from thinking about the gnawing hunger in your gut, invents an enemy, and starts a war with your hard-earned money, which she has stolen for her already wealthy friends.
“While you people go hungry, she eats well! While you need clothes, she would buy weapons! While your sons would bleed to death in battle, she lounges in the lap of luxury! When your family members are unjustly accused of crimes, she uses her magic to make them confess to crimes they did not commit to silence their protests against her tyranny!”
People were weeping. A few cried out with anguish at the last part. Still more angrily demanded justice. Kahlan began to doubt that she would be beheaded. This mob would probably tear her apart before she ever made it to the block.
Ranson held his arms open to the people gathered. “As a representative of the Imperial Order, I direct that the people get what they really need. The treasury of Aydindril will be put to its best use. It will be turned back to the oppressed. I direct that every family shall be entitled to one gold piece a month, to clothe and feed your children. There will be no starvation allowed under the rule of the Imperial Order.”
Cheering erupted in the great hall. The wild applauding and huzzahs went on unabated for a good five minutes. Ranson sat and steepled his fingers while he listened to the celebration. He never took his eyes from Kahlan, nor she from his.
Kahlan knew that life’s hardships were not that simple to eradicate. She knew that seeming kindness could in truth be cruel. She calculated that the payments would take, at most, six months to empty the treasury. She wondered what would happen the following month, when the money was gone, and people would have by then stopped working, or planting, to provide for themselves. Then there certainly would be hunger and starvation—in the guise of generosity.
At last the noise died out. Ranson leaned forward.
“There is no way of telling how many people have gone hungry, or starved to death, or died in war, by your command, Mother Confessor. It is obvious you are guilty of treason against the people of the Midlands. I see no reason to draw the evidence out, as we could, for weeks.” The other councilors all voiced yeas of agreement. Ranson slapped his hand to the desk. “Guilty of the first charge then: treason.”
The people cheered, again. Kahlan stood with her back stiff, wearing her Confessor’s face. Ranson read off charges she could scarcely believe could be read with a straight face. Witnesses came forward and testified to atrocities that Kahlan thought anyone with common sense would laugh at. No one laughed.
People she had never met before confided their intimate knowledge of what Confessors did in secret. A lump rose in Kahlan’s throat as she heard what people thought of her. People repeated irrational fears and rumors of every sort of outrage committed by Confessors, and the Mother Confessor in particular.
For her whole life she had sacrificed everything, as had the other Confessors, to protect these people, and the whole time they believed these monstrosities instead. Kahlan thought, when she heard a witness testify that in order to retain their magical power, Confessors had to dine regularly on human flesh, that there would be laughter at the charge. Instead, wide-eyed people leaned forward and gasped. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting into tears, not because she was being charged with such things, but because people truly believed them of her.
Kahlan finally stopped listening. As Ranson listed charges, brough forth witnesses, and the council found her guilty of charge after charge, she thought about Richard. She tried to remember all the moments she had spent with him, all the times he had smiled, all the times he had touched her. She tried to remember every kiss.
“You think it amusing!” Ranson railed.
Kahlan looked up. She realized she was smiling. “What?”
A woman was standing to the side, weeping into a kerchief. Kahlan bl
inked at her, and then looked up to Ranson.
“I’m sorry, I guess I missed her performance.”
The crowd grumbled in anger. Ranson leaned back in his chair with a disgusted shake of his head.
“Guilty, of practicing your Confessor’s magic on children.”
“What? Are you insane? Children?”
Ranson held a hand out toward the woman, who broke into wild wailing. “She has just testified that her child is missing, and has told how other women have had their children disappear, too, and how it is common knowledge that the children are taken so that Confessors may practice their magic on them. As a wizard, I can verify the truth of this.” The crowd howled with rage.
Kahlan blinked up at him. “I have a headache. Why don’t you just chop it off for me.”
“Uncomfortable, Mother Confessor? Uncomfortable that the people would be given the chance to face their oppressor, and hear the extent of her heinous crimes?”
Kahlan held her Confessor’s face to keep from tears. “I am sorry only that I have given my whole life to the people of the Midlands. Had I known they would be so ungrateful, and believe instead such filth after what I have sacrificed for them, I would have been more selfish and left them to true tyranny.”
Ranson scowled down at her. “You have worked your whole life for the Keeper.” The crowd gasped again. “That is who you serve. That is what you work for. You offer the souls of your people to your master, the Keeper, in the underworld.”
People in the balconies wailed with terror. Cries of anger and calls for vengeance echoed in the dome. Shaking their fists, the crowd on the main floor tried to push forward, but the guards spread their arms and held them back. Ranson lifted his hands, calling for calm and quiet.
Kahlan moved her gaze over the people to each side.
“I give you to the Imperial Order,” she called out in a loud voice. “I work no longer to save you. You will be punished for your unthinking willingness to believe these lies. Punished by what your own selfish desires will bring upon you. You will come to regret the torment you have willingly cast yourselves into. I am joyful that I will be dead, so I will not be tempted to help you. I regret only that I have ever shed a tear for your suffering. To the Keeper with all of you!”
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