Blood of the Fold

Chapter 33

If there were any bodies at the farm, the men had removed them by the time Kahlan reached it. They had started a fire in the roughly built hearth, but it hadn’t had time to thaw the iron chill from the deserted home.

Cyrilla was carefully carried to the remains of a straw mattress in a back bedroom. There was another cramped room with two pallets, probably for children, and the main room with a table and little else. By the broken bits of a cupboard and chest, and the remains of personal items, Kahlan knew the Order had been through here on their way to Ebinissia. She wondered again what the men had done with the bodies; she didn’t want to find them in the night if she had to go outside to relieve herself.

Zedd peered around at the room as he rubbed his hands on his stomach.

“How long until dinner is ready?” he asked in a cheery tone.

He wore heavy maroon robes with black sleeves and cowled shoulders. Three rows of silver brocade circled the cuffs of his sleeves. Thicker, gold brocade ran around the neck and down the front, the outfit gathered at the waist with a red satin belt set with a gold buckle. Zedd hated the flashy accoutrements that Adie had insisted he purchase as a disguise. He preferred his simple robes, but they were long gone, as was his fancy hat with the long feather that he had “lost” somewhere along the way.

Kahlan grinned in spite of herself. “I don’t know. What are you cooking?”

“Me? Cook? Well, I suppose . . .”

“Dear spirits, spare us that man’s cooking,” Adie said from the doorway. “We would be better served to eat bark and bugs.”

Adie limped into the room, followed by Jebra, the seer, and Ahern, the coach driver who had carried Zedd and Adie on their recent journeys. Chandalen, who had accompanied Kahlan from the Mud People’s village months ago, had departed after Kahlan had been with Richard one wondrous night in a place between worlds. He wanted to return to his home and people. She couldn’t blame him; she knew what it was to miss friends and loved ones.

With Zedd and Adie, she felt as if they were almost all together. When Richard caught up with them, then truly they would all be together again. Though it would probably be weeks yet, Kahlan still couldn’t help being excited by each breath, because each breath brought her one moment closer to having her arms around him.

“My bones do be too old for this weather,” Adie said as she crossed the room.

Kahlan retrieved a simple wooden chair and dragged it along as she took Adie’s arm and walked her to the fire. She put the chair close to the flames and urged the sorceress to sit and warm herself. Unlike Zedd’s original clothes, Adie’s simple, flaxen robes, with yellow and red beads sewn at the neck in ancient symbols of her profession, had survived their journey. Zedd scowled every time he saw them thinking it more than a little odd that her simple robes had managed to make the journey and his had been lost.

Adie always smiled and said it was a wonder and insisted that he looked grand in his fine clothes. Kahlan suspected she really did like him better in his new outfit. Kahlan, too, thought Zedd looked grand, though not so wizardlike as his traditional fashion made him look. Wizards of his high rank wore the simplest robes. There was no rank above Zedd: First Wizard.

“Thank you, child,” Adie said as she warmed her hands near the flames.

“Orsk,” Kahlan called.

The big man scurried forward. The scar over his missing eye was white in the firelight. “Yes, mistress?” He stood ready to carry out her instructions. What they might be was of no importance to him, his only concern being that he had a chance to please her.

“There’s no pot in here. Could you get us one, so we can make some dinner?”

His dark leather uniform creaked as he bowed and turned to hurry from the room. Orsk had been a D’Haran soldier from the Imperial Order’s camp. He had tried to kill her, and in the struggle she touched him with her power, the magic of the Confessors destroying forever who he had been and filling him with blind loyalty to her. That blind loyalty and devotion was a wearing presence to Kahlan, a constant reminder of what and who she was.

She tried not to see the man he had been: a D’Haran soldier who had joined with the Imperial Order, one of the killers who had participated in the slaughter of the helpless women and children of Ebinissia. As the Mother Confessor, she had sworn no mercy on any of the men of the Order, and there had been none. Only Orsk still lived. Though he lived, the man who had fought for the Order was dead.

Because of the death spell Zedd had cast over her to aid in their escape from Aydindril, few knew Kahlan as the Mother Confessor. Orsk only knew her as his mistress. Zedd, of course; Adie; Jebra; Ahern; Chandalen; her half brother, Prince Harold; and Captain Ryan knew her true identity, but everyone else thought the Mother Confessor was dead. The men she had fought with knew her only as their queen. Their memory of her being the Mother Confessor had been confused and muddled into remembering her as Queen Kahlan, no less their leader, but not the Mother Confessor.

After snow had been melted, Jebra and Kahlan added beans and bacon, cut up a few sweet roots to toss into the pot, and spooned in some molasses. Zedd stood rubbing his hands as he watched the ingredients being added. Kahlan grinned at his childlike eagerness and, from a pack, retrieved some hard bread for him. He was pleased, and ate the bread while the beans boiled.

While dinner cooked, Kahlan thawed leftover soup they had brought in a small pot and took it in to Cyrilla. She set a candle on a slat she stuck in a crack in the wall and sat on the edge of the bed in the quiet room. She wiped a warm cloth on her half sister’s forehead for a while, and was happy to see Cyrilla’s eyes open. A panicked gaze darted around the dim room. Kahlan grabbed Cyrilla’s jaw and forced her to look up into her eyes.

“It’s me, Kahlan, my sister. You are safe, alone with me. You are safe. Be at ease. Everything is all right.”

“Kahlan?” Cyrilla clutched at Kahlan’s white fur mantle. “You promised. You won’t go back on your word. You mustn’t.”

Kahlan smiled. “I promised, and I will keep the promise. I am the queen of Galea, and will be the queen until the day you wish the crown back.”

Cyrilla sagged back in relief, still clutching the fur mantle. “Thank you, my queen.”

Kahlan urged her to sit up. “Come on, now. I’ve brought you some warm soup.”

Cyrilla turned her face from the spoon. “I’m not hungry.”

“If you want me to be the queen, then you must treat me as queen.” A questioning frown came to Cyrilla’s face. Kahlan smiled. “This is an order from your queen. You will eat the soup.”

Only then would Cyrilla eat. When she had finished it all, and had started shaking and crying again, Kahlan hugged her tight until she slipped into a trancelike state, staring blindly up at nothing. Kahlan tucked the heavy blankets tight around her and kissed her forehead.

Zedd had scrounged up a couple barrels, a bench, a stool from the barn, and somewhere found another chair. He had asked Prince Harold and Captain Ryan to join Adie, Jebra, Ahern, Orsk, Kahlan, and himself for dinner. They were close to Ebinissia, and had to talk about their plans. Everyone crowded around the small table as Kahlan broke up hard bread and Jebra dished out steaming bowls of beans from the pot sitting in the fire. When the seer was finished, she sat down on the short bench beside Kahlan, all the while giving Zedd puzzled looks.

Prince Harold, a barrel-chested man with a head of long, thick, dark hair, reminded Kahlan of her father. Harold had only that day returned with his scouts from Ebinissia.

“What news have you from your home,” she asked him.

He broke his bread with his thick fingers. “Well,” he sighed, “it was the same as you described it. It doesn’t look as if anyone else has been there, I think it’ll be safe enough for us there. With the Order’s army destroyed—”

“The one in this area,” Kahlan corrected.

He conceded the point with a wave of his bread. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble for now. We don’t have many men yet, but they’re good men, and we have enough to protect the city from up in the passes in the mountains all around, as long as they don’t come in numbers like before. Until the Order brings more men, I think we can hold the city.” He gestured toward Zedd. “And we have a wizard.”

Zedd, busy spooning beans into his mouth, only slowed enough to grunt in agreement.

Captain Ryan swallowed a big mouthful of beans. “Prince Harold is right. We know these mountains. We can defend the city until they bring a large force. By then, maybe we’ll have more men joining with us, and we can start to move.”

Harold dunked his bread in his bowl, scooping up a chunk of bacon. “Adie, what do you judge our chances of getting help from Nicobarese?”

“My homeland be in turmoil. When Zedd and I were there, we learned that the king be dead. The Blood of the Fold has moved to seize power, but not all the people be pleased about it. The sorceresses be most displeased. If the Blood takes power, those women will be hunted down and killed. I expect them to back the forces in the army who resist the Blood.”

“With civil war,” Zedd said, interrupting his speedy spoon work, “it doesn’t bode well for sending troops to aid the Midlands.”

Adie sighed. “Zedd be right.”

“Maybe some of the sorceresses could help?” Kahlan asked.

Adie stirred her spoon in her beans. “Maybe.”

Kahlan looked to her half brother. “But you have troops from other areas you can call in.”

Harold nodded. “We sure do. At least sixty or seventy thousand, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand could be marshaled, though not all of those will be well trained or well armed. It’ll take time to get them organized, but when we do, then Ebinissia will be a force to be reckoned with.”

“We had nearly that many here before,” Captain Ryan reminded them without looking up from his bowl, “and it wasn’t enough.”

“True,” Harold said flourishing his bread. “But that’s just for a beginning.” He looked to Kahlan. “You can bring more of the lands together, can’t you?”

“That’s our hope,” she said. “We must rally the Midlands around us, if we’re to have a chance.”

“What about Sanderia?” Captain Ryan asked. “Their lances are the best in the Midlands.”

“And Lifany,” Harold said. “They make a lot of weapons, and know how to use them.”

Kahlan picked a soft pinch out of the center of her bread. “Sanderia relies on Kelton for summer grazing for their sheep herds. Lifany buys iron from Kelton, and sells them grain. Herjborgue relies on Sanderia’s wool. I think they all might go where Kelton goes.”

Harold stabbed his spoon into his beans. “There were Keltish dead among the ones who attacked Ebinissia.”

“And Galeans.” Kahlan put the bread in her mouth and chewed for a moment as she watched him clench his spoon as if it were a knife. He glared into his bowl.

“There were insurgents and murderers from many lands who joined them,” she said after she had swallowed. “That does not mean their homelands will. Prince Fyren of Kelton had committed his land to the Imperial Order, but he’s dead, now. We are not at war with Kelton; they are part of the Midlands. We are at war with the Imperial Order. We need to stand together. If Kelton joins with us, the others will almost have to, but if they go with the Order, then we will have trouble convincing the others to join us. We need to win over Kelton and bond them to us.”

“I’d bet on Kelton joining with the Order,” Ahern said. Everyone turned his way. He shrugged. “I’m Keltish. I can tell you that they’ll go where the Crown goes; it’s the way of our people. With Fyren dead, then that would make Duchess Lumholtz next in line. She and her husband, the duke, will go to the side they think will win, no matter who that may be. At least that’s my opinion from what I’ve heard about her.”

“That’s foolish!” Harold threw his spoon down. “As much as I don’t trust Keltans—no offense intended, Ahern—and know their scheming ways, at the heart of it, they’re Midlanders. They may want to grab whatever scrap of a farm lies on a disputed border and call it Keltish, but the people are still Midlanders.

“The spirits know that Cyrilla and I had our fights, but when it came to trouble, we stood together. Same with our lands; when D’Hara attacked last summer, we fought to protect Kelton, despite some of our disagreements. If it means the future of the Midlands, they’ll go with us. The Midlands means more than what anyone come new to the crown has to say about it.” Harold snatched up his spoon and waved it at Ahern. “What have you to say about that?”

Ahern shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”

Zedd’s eyes moved between the two men. “We are not here to argue. We are here to fight a war. Speak what you believe, Ahern. You are Keltish, and would know more of it than we.”

Ahern scratched his windburned face as he thought on Zedd’s words. “General Baldwin, the commander of all Keltish forces, and his generals, Bradford, Cutter, and Emerson, will go where the Crown goes. I don’t know the men, I’m just a driver, but I go a lot of places and I hear a lot of talk, and that’s what’s always said of them. People have a joke that if the queen tossed her crown out the window and it caught on a buck’s antlers, the whole of the army would be grazin’ on grass within a month.”

“And from the talk you hear, do you really believe this duchess become queen will go with the Order just for a chance at power, if it means breaking with the Midlands?” Zedd asked.

Ahern shrugged. “It’s just my opinion, understand, but I think it would be so.”

As Kahlan spooned out a sweet root without looking up, she spoke. “Ahern’s right. I know Cathryn Lumhollz, and her husband, the duke. She will be queen, and even though she takes counsel from her husband, she is of like mind anyway. Prince Fyren would have been king, and I thought he would have stuck with us no matter what, but someone from the Order won him to their side, and he betrayed us. I’m sure the Order will make Cathryn Lumholtz similar offers. She will see power in those offers.”

Harold reached across the table and snatched up some more bread. “If she does, and Ahern’s right, then we’ve lost Kelton. If we’ve lost Kelton, then we’ve got the first crack of ruin.”

“This not be good,” Adie observed. “Nicobarese be in trouble, Galea be weakened when so many of her army be killed in Ebinissia, and Kelton be leaning toward the Order, and with her will go a number of lands that be trade partners.”

“And then there are some of the others who when—

“Enough.” The quiet, clear ring of authority in Kahlan’s voice lowered a pall of silence over the table. She remembered what Richard always said when they were in more trouble than they knew how to wiggle out of: think of the solution, not the problem. If your mind was filled only with thoughts of why you were going to lose, then you couldn’t think of how to win.

“Stop telling me why we can’t bring the Midlands back together, and why we can’t win. We already know there are problems. We need to discuss the solutions.”

Zedd smiled over his spoon. “Well put, Mother Confessor. I think we must have some ideas. For one, there are a number of smaller lands that will remain loyal to the Midlands no matter what. We must gather their representatives in Ebinissia and begin rebuilding the council.”

“That’s right,” Kahlan said. “They might not be as powerful as Kelton, but there is a quality to numbers that has influence.”

Kahlan opened her fur mantle. The crackling fire was warming the room a bit and the food was warming her belly, but it was worry that was beginning to make her sweat. She couldn’t wait for Richard to join them; he would have ideas. Richard never sat around letting events dictate as they would. She watched the others as they bent over their bowls, each with a frown as they pondered their options.

“Well,” Adie said as she set her spoon down, “I be sure we could get some sorceresses from Nicobarese to join with us. They would be a powerful aid. While some would refuse to fight, as it be against their convictions, they would not be averse to helping in other ways. None want to see the Blood, or their allies, the Imperial Order, take the Midlands. Most know the terror of times past, and would not want them to come anew.”

“Good,” Kahlan said. “That’s good. Do you think you could go there and convince them to join with us, maybe get some of the regular army to help, too? After all, the civil war is a part of the larger war, and it would not be going on if at least some didn’t want to aid the Midlands.”

Adie’s completely white eyes regarded Kahlan for a moment. “For something this important, of course I will try.”

Kahlan nodded. “Thank you, Adie.” She looked to the others. “What else? Any ideas?”

Harold rested an elbow on the table as he frowned in thought. He waggled his spoon. “I think if I sent some officers, as an official delegation, to some of the smaller lands, they could be convinced to send representatives to Ebinissia. Most hold Galea in high regard, and know how the Midlands has protected their freedom. They will come to our aid.”

“And perhaps,” Zedd said with a sly smile, “if I went to visit this Queen Lumholtz, as First Wizard, mind you, I could convince her that the Midlands is not without power of its own.”

Kahlan knew Cathryn Lumholtz, but she didn’t want to douse the warm hope of Zedd’s idea. She was the one, after all, who had said they needed to think of solutions instead of the problems.

What held her in the grip of terror, was the thought of being the Mother Confessor who lost the Midlands.

When dinner was finished, Prince Harold and Captain Ryan went to see to the men. Ahern threw his longcoat around his broad shoulders and said he had to check on his team.

After they were gone, Zedd caught Jebra’s arm as she went about helping Kahlan collect the bowls.

“Do you want to tell me, now, what it is you’re seeing every time you look my way?”

Jebra turned her blue eyes from his gaze and gathered another spoon into her hand with the others. “It’s nothing.”

“I would like to be the judge of that, if you don’t mind.”

She halted, and at last looked up at him. “Wings.”

Zedd lifted an eyebrow. “Wings?”

She nodded. “I see you with wings. You see? It makes no sense. It has to be a vision that means nothing. I told you, I get those kind sometimes.”

“That’s it? Just wings?”

Jebra fussed with her short, sandy hair. “Well, you are up in the air, with these wings, and you are dropped into a huge ball of flame.” The fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened. “Wizard Zorander, I don’t know what it means. It’s not an event—you know how my visions work sometimes—but a sense of events. I don’t know what they mean, all jumbled together like that.”

Zedd released her arm. “Thank you, Jebra. If you learn anything else, you will tell me?” She nodded. “And at once. We need all the help we can get.”

Her eyes sought the floor as she nodded again. Her head tilted toward Kahlan. “Circles. I see the Mother Confessor running around in circles.”

“Circles?” Kahlan asked as she stepped closer. “Why am I running in circles?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Well, I feel as if I’m running in circles right now, trying to find a way to pull the Midlands back together.”

Jebra looked up hopefully. “That may be it.”

Kahlan offered her a smile. “Maybe it is. Your visions aren’t always of calamity.”

As they all started to go back to cleaning up, Jebra spoke again. “Mother Confessor, we mustn’t leave your sister alone with any ropes.”

“What do you mean?”

Jebra let out a breath. “She is dreaming of hanging herself.”

“You mean that you have seen a vision of her hanging herself?”

Jebra laid a concerned hand to Kahlan’s arm. “Oh no. Mother Confessor, I’ve not seen that. It’s just that I can see the aura, see that she is dreaming of doing it. It does not mean she will, only that we must watch her, so she won’t have the chance before she can recover.”

“That sounds like sound advice,” Zedd offered.

Jebra tied the leftover bread in a cloth. “I will sleep with her tonight.”

“Thank you,” Kahlan said. “Why don’t you let me finish cleaning up, and you go to bed now, in case she wakes.”

Zedd, Adie, and Kahlan shared the chores after Jebra took her bedroll into the room with Cyrilla. When they were finished, Zedd placed a chair before the fire for Adie. Kahlan loosely twined her fingers together and stood looking into the flames.

“Zedd, when we send the delegations to the smaller lands to ask them to come to a council in Ebinissia, it would be easier to convince them if it were an official delegation from the Mother Confessor.”

Zedd finally broke the quiet. “They all think the Mother Confessor is dead. If we let them know you’re alive, then you become a target, and it would bring the Order down on us before we could gather a strong enough force.”

Kahlan turned and gripped his robes. “Zedd, I’m tired of being dead.”

He patted her hand on his arm. “You’re the queen of Galea, and you can use your influence in that way, for now. If the Imperial Order finds out you’re alive, then we’ll have more trouble than we’re prepared to handle.”

“If we’re going to unite the Midlands, then they need a Mother Confessor.”

“Kahlan, I know you don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the lives of those men out there. They’ve just won a costly battle; they aren’t strong enough yet. We need more gathered to our side. If anyone knows you are the Mother Confessor then you become a target and they will have to fight to protect you. If you must fight, it must be for the right reasons. We don’t need more problems than we can handle right now.”

Kahlan pressed the tips of her fingers together as she stared into the fire. “Zedd, I am the Mother Confessor. I’m terrified I will be the Mother Confessor who presides over the destruction of the Midlands. I was born a Confessor. It’s more than my job. It is who I am.”

Zedd hugged her shoulders. “Dear one, you are still the Mother Confessor. That’s why we must hide your identity for now. We need the Mother Confessor. When the time comes, you will rule over the Midlands again, a Midlands stronger than it has ever been. Have patience.”

“Patience,” she muttered.

“Ah, well,” he said with a grin, “there is magic in patience, too, you know.”

“Zedd be right,” Adie said from her chair. “The wolf does not survive if he announces to the herd he be a wolf. He makes his plans of attack, and only at the last moment, lets the prey know that it be he, the wolf, who be after them.”

Kahlan rubbed her arms. There was more to it—another reason.

“Zedd,” she whispered with the pain of it, “I can’t stand this spell any longer. It’s driving me mad. I can feel it all the time, like death walking in my flesh with me.”

Zedd pulled her head to his shoulder. “My daughter used to say the same thing. Those very words, in fact, ‘like death walking in my flesh with me.’ ”

“How did she stand it all those years?”

Zedd sighed. “Well, when Darken Rahl raped her, I knew that if he thought she was alive, he would come after her. There was no choice. I wanted to protect her more than I wanted to go after him. I took her to the Midlands, where Richard was born, and then she had another reason to hide. If Darken Rahl ever knew, he might have come after Richard, too, so she had to endure it.”

Kahlan shuddered. “All those years. I wouldn’t have the strength. How could she stand it?”

“Well, there was no alternative, for one thing, and for another, she said that after a time she became used to it a bit, and it wasn’t so bad as it was in the beginning. The feeling will ease a bit over time. You will get used to it, and hopefully, you will not have to go on long like this.”

“I hope so,” Kahlan said.

The firelight flickering on Zedd’s thin face. “She also said that having Richard lessened the burden.”

Kahlan’s heart leapt at the mere mention aloud of his name. She grinned. “That will surely help.” She clutched Zedd’s arm. “He’ll be here soon. He won’t let anything hold him back. He’ll be here in a couple of weeks at the most. Dear spirits, how will I ever wait that long?”

Zedd chuckled. “You have as little patience as that boy. You two were made for each other.” He brushed back her hair. “Your eyes look better already, dear one.”

“Then when Richard is with us, and we start pulling the Midlands back together, you can take this death spell off me. Then the Midlands will have a Mother Confessor again.”

“It can’t be soon enough for me, either.”

Kahlan frowned. “Zedd, if you go away to see Queen Cathryn, and I need to get this spell off, how can I do it?”

Zedd looked back to the flames. “You can’t. If you were to announce that you were the Mother Confessor, people would believe you no more than if Jebra were to announce that she was the Mother Confessor. The spell won’t leave because you simply declare who you are.”

“Then how do I get it off?”

Zedd sighed. “Only I can do that.”

Kahlan felt a sudden flush of fear. She didn’t want to voice it, but she would be trapped with the spell if anything happened to Zedd.

“But surely there must be another way to remove the spell. Perhaps Richard?”

Zedd shook his head. “Even if Richard knew how to be a wizard, he could not remove the web. Only I can do it.”

“And that’s the only way.”

“Yes.” He looked back to her eyes. “Unless, of course, another with the gift were to deduce your true identity. If such a man were to see you, understand who you were, and name you aloud, then it would break the spell, and all would once again know your identity.”

There was no hope of that. She felt her hopes sink. Kahlan squatted and shoved another stick of wood in the fire. The only way she was going to gel the death spell off was for Zedd to do it, and he wasn’t going to do it until he was good and ready.

As Mother Confessor, she would not order a wizard to do something both knew was wrong.

Kahlan watched the sparks swirling up. She brightened. Richard would be with her soon, and it wouldn’t be so bad, then. When Richard was with her she wouldn’t think about the spell; she would be too busy kissing him.

“What’s funny?” Zedd asked.

“What? Oh, nothing.” She stood and brushed her hands off on her pants. “I think I’ll go check on the men. Maybe some cold air will get this spell off my mind.”

The cold air did feel good. She stood in the clearing outside the small farmhouse and took a deep breath. The woodsmoke smelled good. She recalled the previous days when they were on the march, and her feet and fingers felt frozen, when her ears burned with the bite of cold, and her nose ran, how she daydreamed about woodsmoke because it meant the warmth of a fire, Kahlan strolled across the field outside the house. She stared up at the stars, her breath drifting slowly in the still air. She could see small fires dotting the valley beyond, and she could hear the murmurs of conversation of the men sitting around the fires. She was glad they, too, could have fires this night. Soon they would be to Ebinissia and they could be warm again.

Kahlan took a deep breath of the cold air, trying to forget die spell. The whole sky was aglitter with stars, like sparks from a huge fire. She wondered what Richard was doing right now, and if we was riding hard, or getting sleep. She longed to see him, but she also wanted him to get enough sleep. When he finally reached her, she could sleep in his arms. She grinned at the thought.

Kahlan frowned as a swath of stars went dark. Almost as soon as they darkened, they winked back to points of light. Had she really seen them go dark for an instant? Must be her imagination, she thought.

She heard a thud as something hit the ground. No alarm went up. Only one thing could get through the ring of defenders and not raise and alarm. She tingled in sudden gooseflesh, and it wasn’t the spell.

Kahlan yanked her knife free.