Kahlan had indeed fought for him. She had more than once selflessly risked her life for him. What could Pasha know of the terrors Kahlan had bravely faced, and conquered. Pasha wasn't woman enough to serve Kahlan tea.
He stuffed the lock of hair back into his pocket. He forced his thoughts of Kahlan from his mind. He couldn't endure the pain. He had other things to do.
Going into the bedroom, he positioned the ash framed, standing mirror, and then retrieved his pack from the corner. Richard pulled out the black mriswith cape. He threw it around his shoulders, and stood inspecting his image in the mirror.
It looked like a normal cape. He thought it quite handsome, actually. The cut and length was right; the mriswith had been about his size. The heavy fabric was inky black, almost as black as a night stone that Adie had given him to help him across the pass, almost as black as the boxes of Orden. Almost as black as eternal death.
But the pleasing cut of the cape was not what intrigued him.
Richard moved back against the light brownish wall. He pulled the hood up, cowling it around his face, and drew the cape closed. As he watched his image in the mirror, he concentrated on the wall he was standing against.
In the span of a breath, his image vanished.
The cape had become the color of the wall he stood against, to such a degree that only if he stared, focusing on the edges of the cape, could he distinguish himself standing against the wall. If he moved, it was only slightly easier to pick out his shape against the wall. Though his face was exposed, somehow the magic of the cape, or possibly the cape's magic along with his own, served to mask it, too, to enfold it somehow into the concealing color.
This explained why the mriswith appeared to be different colors.
Richard moved objects behind himself, to discover what effect they had. He stood in front of the wall and partly in front of a chair with his red coat draped over it. The cape produced a blotch of red that did a good job of mimicking the color and shape behind. Though it wasn't as flawless as when he stood before a plain wall, it would still be easy to miss him if he stood still.
Movement would distort the complicated images, as the cape changed to accommodate new conditions, though it still fooled the eye into missing him, but if he stood still, he virtually vanished in front of anything. The effect, at times, could be dizzying to watch. When he stopped concentrating, the cape would return to black.
This, he thought as he looked at himself in the mirror standing in a simple black cape, was going to be useful.
56
As the weeks passed, Richard was constantly busy.
He remembered that Kahlan and Zedd had told him that there were no wizards with the gift left in the Midlands. Small wonder; they seemed to all be at the Palace of the Prophets. There were well over a hundred boys and young men at the Palace. From what Richard could discover, a goodly number of the older ones, at least, were from the Midlands, with some even from D'Hara.
Killing a mriswith had earned Richard celebrity status among the younger boys. Two of them, Kipp and Hersh, were the most persistent. They followed him around, begging to hear stories of his adventures. At times they seemed to have the maturity, almost wisdom, of old men. At other times they, like all boys, seemed interested in nothing more than mischief.
The object of this mischief was usually a Sister. The boys never seemed to tire of thinking up new tricks to pull on them. Most of the pranks seemed to involve either water, mud, or reptiles. The Sisters only occasionally erupted in anger when caught up in the boys' antics, and even then, they quickly forgave them. As far as Richard could tell, the boys never earned more than a stern lecture.
In the beginning, the young boys thought to number Richard among their targets. Richard had things to do, and had no time or patience for it. When the boys learned that Richard was neither shy nor slow with discipline, they quickly moved on to other targets with their buckets of water.
The fact that Richard set limits made Kipp and Hersh like him all the more. They seemed starved for older male companionship. Richard rewarded them with adventure stories, or sometimes, when he was going from one place to another, and their presence wouldn't impede his progress, he taught them about the woods, tracking, and animals.
They coveted staying in Richard's good graces, so when he wanted or needed to be alone, and signaled with a finger or a nod, they vanished. Richard let them be around often when he was with Pasha, since he couldn't do more important tasks then anyway. Frustrated, because she couldn't seem to find time alone with him, Pasha was somewhat mollified when Richard got her excluded from the boys' list of targets. She appreciated not having her fine dresses drenched or having to worry about discovering a snake in her shawl.
Richard occasionally asked Kipp and Hersh to preform little errands, just to test them. He had plans for their talents.
The other young men in collars wanted to show Richard the city. Two, Perry and Isaac, who lived in Gillaume Hall with him, took him into the city and showed him the tavern where many of the guards drank, and he soon after bought swordsman Kevin Andellmere the ale he had promised him.
Richard discovered that most of the young men spent their nights away from the Palace, staying in various fine inns around the city. It didn't take Richard long to figure out why. They were provided money, the same as he, and they were practiced at spending it. They bought themselves fancy clothes, dressing like princes, and on their overnight stays they picked the finest accommodations.
There was no shortage of women wanting to share those accommodations. Astonishingly beautiful women.
When Perry and Isaac took him to the city, they were always quickly surrounded by pretty girls. Richard had never seen women this brazen. Every evening, the two men would each select a woman, sometimes several, and buy them presents, maybe a dress or a bauble, and then depart for their rooms.
The two told him that if he didn't want to bother with spending time buying gifts, he could simply go to any of the houses of prostitution, but they assured him that those women were not as young, or nearly as pretty, as the girls that approached them on the streets. They admitted, though, that they went to prostitutes sometimes when they didn't feel like wasting time being sociable for no more that a simple coupling.
When he was spotted with a collar, Richard drew women the same as Perry and Isaac. Richard was beginning to see in a new light what Sister Verna meant about him soon finding another pair of pretty legs. The other two men thought Richard was mad to turn down all the offers. Sometimes, Richard wondered if they might not be right.
Richard asked Perry and Isaac if they weren't afraid of a woman's father cracking their skulls. The laughed and said that fathers sometimes brought their daughters to them. Richard threw his arms up and asked if they weren't concerned about getting some woman they didn't even know pregnant. They explained that if a woman "got herself" pregnant, the Palace would provide for her and the child, even her whole family.
When Richard had asked Pasha what was behind such a bizarre convention, she folded her arms across her breasts and presented her back to him while she explained that men had uncontrollable urges, and those urges would be a distraction to learning to use their Han, so the Sisters encouraged the men to satisfy their needs. That was why she didn't go to the city with him at night. She was restricted from interfering with his... needs.
She had turned back to him and begged him to come to her with his needs, saying she would see to it that he had no desire to go to other women, or if he did go to the city, to at least allow her to be one of the women he slept with. She told him that she could satisfy him better that any other girl, and offered to prove it.
Richard was dumbfounded by such talk, to say nothing of the behavior. He told Pasha that he only went to the city to see the sights. Having grown up in the woods, he had never roamed around in a city before. He told her that where he came from it wasn't right to treat women in such a way.
He promised that if he was ever overcome wi
th need, he would come to her first. She was so happy to hear this that she didn't mind when he reminded her that he wasn't ready yet. She had no idea that there were times when he felt so lonely that he was sorely tempted to give in to her. She was unquestionably alluring, and it was sometimes difficult for him to make himself keep her at arms length.
Richard had Pasha show him everything she could of the Palace. He had her show him some of the city, and take him on a tour of the docks, to see the big boats. She said they were called ships, because they went to sea. Richard had never seen anything that large afloat. She told him that they brought trade from cities of the Old World farther down the coast.
Pasha went with him to the sea, and they sat for hours, watching the waves, or explored the tide pools. Richard was astounded to learn that the sea went up and down, with tides, all by itself. She assured him that it was not the magic of the Palace, but did such a thing everywhere. Richard was spellbound by the ocean. Pasha was content to simply sit with him. But Richard couldn't afford to sit and watch the ocean too often. He had things to do.
Pasha wasn't permitted to go with him to the city in the evening, in case he would choose to be with a woman. He had to constantly reassure her that that was not why he went out at night. Since it was the truth that he wasn't sleeping with any of the women, he had no difficulty being sincere and convincing her. He did not tell her the truth, however, about what he really was doing.
Richard decided that as long as the Palace wanted to provide him with money, he was going to allow them to finance their own undoing. He spent the Palace's money wherever it would help him. He became a regular at the taverns and inns the Palace guards frequented. Whenever he was around, they never paid for a drink.
Richard made an effort to learn all their names. At night, he would write down the name of any new guard he had met, and everything he could discover about him or any of the other guards. He paid the most attention to those who guarded the Prelate's compound, and any other place he discovered he was forbidden access. He stopped by their posts whenever he was at the Palace, and inquired idly about their lives, their girlfriends, their wives, their parents, their children, their food, their problems.
Richard bought Kevin special expensive chocolates that his girlfriend favored, but which Kevin could ill afford on his wages. The chocolates earned Kevin favors from his girlfriend. Kevin always brightened at Richard's approach, even when he looked tired from the favors.
Richard loaned money to any guard who asked, knowing it would never be repaid. When a few made excuses as to why they didn't have the money to pay back, Richard would not hear their reasons, telling them that he understood and that he would feel bad if they were to worry about it.
Two of the toughest, who guarded a restricted area on the west side of the Palace, would let him buy their ale, but wouldn't warm to him. Richard took it as a challenge. He finally struck on the idea of hiring them the services of four prostitutes—two each, just to get their attention. They wanted to know why. Richard told them how the Palace provided him with money and he didn't see why only he should enjoy it. He told them that since they had to stand up all day guarding the Palace, he thought it only fair for the Palace to pay to put a lady under them when they laid down.
The offer was too much for them to resist. They were soon giving him surreptitious winks when he passed. Once they became amenable to his offers, he saw to it that they had reason to give him the winks on a more frequent basis.
As Richard knew they would, the two guards began bragging about their romps. When some of the other men found out that Richard had been willing to provide those two with the services of ladies, they pointed out to Richard that it wasn't fair to the others that they should be excluded. Richard conceded that he saw the logic of their argument. He soon discovered that he didn't have the time to handle individual requests, so he struck on an idea.
He found a mistress of a brothel open to an inventive business arrangements. He put the establishment on retainer, open only to his "friends." He calculated that in this manner, he was actually saving the Palace money, over a piecemeal arrangement.
He wanted the men to remember to whom they owed their gratitude, so required they give the mistress the code phrase "a friend of Richard Cypher" before they would be granted admittance. There were no other restrictions. Richard gave the mistress a healthy raise in the retainer when she complained to him that business was steadier than she had anticipated.
Richard soothed his conscience about the morals of what he was doing by reminding himself that he couldn't change what people chose to do, and it might save him from having to kill the guards when the time came. In that light, it made sense.
One day when Pasha was with him, and a man gave him a wink, she asked why. He told her it was because he was with the most attractive woman at the Palace. She smiled for an hour.
Richard accustomed the guards to seeing him in the black cape of the mriswith. He kept Pasha happy when he was with her by frequently wearing the red coat she liked best. Sometimes he wore the others; the blue, the dark blue, the brown, or the green. Pasha most liked taking him to the city, but she went for hikes in the surrounding countryside to try to be a part of his interests.
Richard learned that the guards were soldiers in the Imperial Order, on special detachment to the Palace. The Imperial Order ruled all of the Old World, but seemed to have a nonintervention policy with the Palace of the Prophets. They never interfered with any Sister, or any man wearing a Rada'Han.
The guards were stationed at the Palace to handle all the people who came to Halsband island. Every day, people poured over the bridges to come to the Palace. Sisters saw petitioners of every want. Some wanted charity, some intervention in disputes, and some wished to be guided in the Creator's wisdom. Others came to worship in the courtyards scattered throughout the island. They viewed the place where Sisters of the Light lived as hallowed.
Richard learned that the city of Tanimura, vast though it was, was merely an outpost of the Old World, at the fringe of the Empire. Apparently, the Emperor of the Imperial Order had an arrangement with the Palace to provide guards, but not law. Richard suspected that the guards were the Emperor's eyes in an area of his Empire where he was denied dominion. Richard wondered what the Emperor received in return for this arrangement.
Richard also learned that in at least one of the restricted areas, the Sisters had a "special guest", who never came out, but he was unable to discover any more.
Richard began testing the guards' loyalty to him with simple, innocuous requests. He told Kevin that he wanted a special rose for Pasha that grew only in the Prelate's compound. Richard made a point of parading Pasha, wearing the yellow rose, past Kevin. Kevin smiled with pride.
At other restricted areas, Richard used the flower excuse, or said that he wanted to get a view of the sea from atop a particular wall. He made sure to remain in sight at all times, to reassure the guards, and dull their sense of caution.
It wasn't long before he had all the guards accustomed to his forays. After a time, he was coming and going almost as he pleased. He was their friend—a trusted and valuable friend.
Since he was collecting so many rare flowers from the restricted areas, he used them to an advantage—he presented them to the Sisters who practiced with him. They were puzzled as to why he would give them flowers from restricted areas. He explained that he considered the Sisters who trained him to be special, and he therefore didn't want them to have just any flowers, but those that were special, and artfully obtained. Besides making them blush, this explanation also disarmed an otherwise inevitable suspicion if he frequented restricted areas.
Though, as near as Richard could tell, there were close to two hundred Sisters, only six worked with him.
Sisters Tovi and Cecilia were older, and as kind as doting grandmothers. Tovi always brought cookies or some other treat to their sessions. Cecilia insisted on combing his hair back off his forehead with her fingers and planting
a kiss there before she left. Both blushed furiously when he gave them rare flowers. Richard had difficulty thinking of either as potential enemies.
The first time Sister Merissa showed up at his door, Richard almost swallowed his tongue. Her dark hair and the way she filled her red dress made him stumble over his words like a fool. Sister Nicci, who never wore any color but black, had the same effect on him. When Sister Nicci locked her blue eyes on his, he had trouble remembering how to breathe.
Sisters Merissa and Nicci were older than Pasha—his age, or maybe at most a couple of years older. They carried themselves with confidence and slow grace. Though Merissa was dark, and Nicci blond, they seemed to be cut from the same rare cloth.
The power of their Han radiated from each, making them almost seem to glow. Richard sometimes thought he could almost hear the air crackle around them. Neither walked. Both glided—like swans, serene and cool. Yet he was sure either could smelt iron ore with their placid glances.
Neither ever grinned. They bestowed small, subdued smiles. And only while looking him in the eye. Richard could feel his heart thumping faster when they did.
Once, he offered Sister Nicci one of his rare flowers from a restricted area. His explanation of where it had come from and the story of why he was giving it to her flew right out of his head. She took the white rose gingerly between a finger and thumb, as if it might soil her hand, and while her gaze held his, she gave him one of her subdued smiles and said in an indifferent tone, "Why thank you, Richard." What Pasha had told him about boys bringing Sisters frogs came to his mind. He never gave either Sister Nicci or Merissa a flower again. Anything less than priceless jewels seemed an insult.
Neither ever offered to sit on the floor for their sessions. In fact, the very idea of Sisters Merissa ar Nicci sitting on the floor seemed ludicrous to him. The older Sisters, Tovi and Cecilia, sat on the floor, the same as Pasha, and it seemed perfectly natural. Sisters Merissa and Nicci sat in chairs, and held his hands across a small table. It somehow seemed an erotic experience. It made him sweat.
Stone of Tears Page 92