Blood of the Fold

Chapter 45

When the coach stopped, the mriswith climbed out, leaving the door open. Kahlan glanced out the window to one side and the door to the other, seeing that the mriswith were moving off to talk. The two of them were at last alone.

“What do you think is going on?” she whispered. “Where are we?”

Adie leaned to the side, looking out the window, “Dear spirits,” she whispered in dismay, “we be in the heart of enemy territory.”

“Enemy territory? What are you talking about? Where are we?”

“Tanimura,” Adie whispered. “That be the Palace of the Prophets.”

“The Palace of the Prophets! Are you sure?”

Adie straightened in the seat. “I be sure. I spent time here when I be younger, fifty years ago.”

Kahlan stared incredulously. “You went to the Old World? You have been to the Palace of the Prophets?”

“It be a long time ago, child, and a long story. We not have time for the story just now, but it be after the Blood killed my Pell.”

They rode until well after dark, and were on their way long before the sun came up each day, but Kahlan and Adie were at least able to get some sleep in the coach. The men riding horseback got little sleep. A mriswith, and sometimes Lunetta, always guarded them, and they hadn’t been able to speak more than a few words in weeks. The mriswith didn’t care if they slept, but had warned them what would happen if they spoke. Kahlan didn’t doubt their word.

Over the weeks as they traveled south, the weather had become warmer, and she no longer shivered in the coach, she and Adie pressed together for a little warmth.

“I wonder why they brought us here?” Kahlan said.

Adie leaned closer. “What I wonder is why they haven’t killed us.”

Kahlan peeked out the window to see a mriswith speaking with Brogan and his sister. “Because we are of more value to them alive, obviously.”

“Value for what?”

“What do you think? Who would they want? When I tried to rally the Midlands, they sent that wizard to kill me, and I had to flee as Aydindril slipped into the hands of the Imperial Order. Who is forging the Midlands in opposition to them now?”

Adie’s eyebrows went up above her white eyes. “Richard.”

Kahtan nodded. “That’s all I can think of. They had started to take the Midlands, and were having success by getting lands to join with them. Richard changed the rules, and disrupted those plans by forcing the lands to surrender to him.”

Kahlan stared off out the window. “As much as it hurts to admit it, Richard may have done the only thing that has a chance to save the people of the Midlands.”

“How can we be used to get to Richard?” Adie patted Kahlan’s knee. “I know he loves you, Kahlan, but he not be stupid.”

“Neither is the Imperial Order.”

“What else could it possibly be, then?”

Kahlan looked into Adie’s white eyes. “Have you ever seen the Sanderians hunt a mountain lion? They tie one of their lambs to a tree, letting it bleat for its mother. Then they sit and wait.”

“You think we be lambs tied to a tree?”

Kahlan shook her head. “The Imperial Order may be vicious and cruel, but they are not stupid. By now they will not believe Richard is, either. Richard would not trade one life in exchange for the freedom of all, but he has also shown them that he is not afraid to act. They could be tempting him to think he could effect a rescue without having to surrender anything.”

“Do you think they be right?”

Kahlan sighed. “What do you think?”

Adie’s cheeks pushed back in a humorless smirk. “As long as you be alive, he would draw his sword on a lightning storm.”

Kahlan watched Lunetta climb down from her horse. The mriswith were walking away, toward the rear of the columns of crimson-caped men.

“Adie, we have to escape, or Richard will come after us. The Order must be counting on his coming, or we would be dead.”

“Kahlan, I cannot even light a lamp with this cursed collar around my neck.”

Kahlan sighed in frustration as she looked back out the window and saw the mriswith moving off into the dark woods. As they walked, they drew their capes around themselves and vanished.

“I know, I can’t touch my power either.”

“Then how can we escape?”

Kahlan watched the sorceress dressed in scraps of different-colored cloth as she approached the coach. “If we could turn Lunetta to our side, she could help us.”

Adie let out a disagreeable grunt. “She will not turn against her brother.” Adie’s brow wrinkled in puzzled thought. “She be an odd one. There be something strange about her.”

“Strange? Like what?”

Adie shook her head. “She touches her power all the time.”

“All the time?”

“Yes. A sorceress, or a wizard for that matter, only calls upon their power when they need it. She be different. For some reason, she be touching her power all the time. I have never seen her not clutching it around herself, like her colored cloth patches. It be very odd.”

Both of them fell to silence as Lunetta huffed with the effort of climbing into the coach. She dropped into the seat opposite and gave them a pleasant smile; she looked to be in a good mood. Kahlan and Adie returned the smile. As the coach lurched ahead, Kahlan rearranged herself in the seat, taking the opportunity to check out the window. She didn’t see any mriswith, but that didn’t always mean anything.

“They be gone,” Lunetta said.

“What?” Kahlan cautiously asked.

“The mriswith be gone.” The all grabbed the handles in the coach as it bounced over ruts. “They told us to go on alone.”

“To where?” Kahlan asked, hoping to engage the woman in conversation.

Lunetta’s eyes brightened beneath her fleshy brow. “The Palace of the Prophets.” She leaned forward excitedly. “It be a place full of streganicha.”

Adie scowled. “We not be witches.”

Lunetta blinked. “Tobias says we be streganicha. Tobias be the lord general. Tobias be a great man.”

“We not be witches,” Adie repeated. “We be women with the gift, given us by the Creator of all things. The Creator would not give us something vile, would he?”

Lunetta didn’t hesitate for an instant. “Tobias says the Keeper gave us our vile magic. Tobias never be wrong.”

Adie smiled at the growing scowl on Lunetta’s face. “Of course not, Lunetta. Your brother seems a great and powerful man, just as you say.” Adie rearranged her robes as she crossed a leg. “Do you feel as if you be evil, Lunetta?”

Lunetta frowned in thought a moment. “Tobias says I be evil. He tries to help me do good, to make up for the Keeper’s taint. I help him root out evil so he can do the Creator’s work.”

Kahlan could tell that Adie was getting nowhere, except perhaps to anger Lunetta, and so changed the subject before things went too far. Lunetta, after all, had control of their collars.

“Have you been to the Palace of the Prophets often?

“Oh, no,” Lunetta said. “This be the first time. Tobias says it be a house of evil.”

“Why would he take us there, then?” Kahlan asked in an offhanded manner.

Lunetta shrugged. “The messengers said we are to go there.”

“Messengers?”

Lunetta nodded. “The mriswith. They be the Creator’s messengers. They tell us what to do.”

Kahlan and Adie sat in stunned silence. At last Kahlan found her voice. “If it’s a house of evil, it seems odd that the Creator would want us go there. Your brother doesn’t seem to trust the Creator’s messengers.” Kahlan had seen Brogan casting scowls in their direction as they walked off into the woods.

Lunetta’s beady eyes moved between them. “Tobias said I should not talk about them.”

Kahlan twined her fingers together over a knee. “You don’t think the messengers would hurt your brother, do you? I mean, if the palace is a place of evil, as your brother says . . .”

The squat woman leaned forward. “I would not let them. Mamma said I was always to protect Tobias, because he be more important than me. Tobias be the one.”

“Why did your mamma—”

“I think we should be quiet now,” Lunetta said in a dangerous tone.

Kahlan relaxed back in the seat and looked out the window. It didn’t seem to take much to raise Lunetta’s ire. Kahlan decided that it would be best if Lunetta were not pressed for now. Lunetta, at Brogan’s urging, had already experimented with the control the collar afforded her.

Kahlan watched as the buildings of Tanimura went past the window and tried to imagine Richard being here, seeing the same sights. It made her feel closer to him, seeing things his eyes had seen, and eased the terrible longing in her heart.

Dear Richard, please don’t come into this trap to save me. Let me die. Save the Midlands, instead.

Kahlan had seen a great many cities, every one in the Midlands, and this was the equal to most. On the outskirts, there were ramshackle huts, many no more than lean-tos erected against some of the older, shabby buildings and warehouses. As they moved on into the city, the buildings became more grand, and there were shops of every sort. They passed several large markets with jumbles of people in every bright color of dress.

Everywhere in the city was the constant beat of drums. It was a slow rhythm, and grating on the nerves. As Lunetta glanced around, her eyes searching out the men at drums when they became louder as they rode along, Kahlan could see that she didn’t like them either. Out the window, Kahlan could see Brogan riding close to the coach, and the drums were making him jumpy, too.

The three of them grabbed at the handles again as the coach bounced up onto a stone bridge. The iron wheels let out a grating racket as they crossed the stone. Through the window, Kahlan could see the palace looming overhead as they crossed the river.

In an expansive courtyard of green lawns fringed with trees near soaring sections of the palace, the coach rocked to a halt. The crimson-caped men all about sat tall in their saddles, making no move to dismount.

Brogan’s sour face suddenly appeared in the window. “Get out,” he growled. Kahlan started to rise. “Not you. I’m talking to Lunetta. You stay where you are until you’re told to move.” He knuckled his mustache. “Sooner or later, you’re mine. Then you pay for your filthy crimes.”

“The mriswith aren’t going to let their little lapdog have me,” Kahlan said. “The Creator won’t allow one such as you to put your filthy hands on me. You are nothing more than dirt under the Keeper’s fingernails, and the Creator knows it. He hates you.”

Kahlan felt the collar send a searing pain into her legs, preventing her from moving, and another shard into her throat, squelching her voice. Lunetta’s eyes were ablaze. But Kahlan had said what she had wanted to say.

If Brogan killed her, Richard wouldn’t come into this trap to rescue her.

Brogan’s eyes bulged and his face went as crimson as his cape. He ground his teeth. Suddenly, he reached into the coach for her. Lunetta seized his hand, pretending she thought it was meant for her.

“Help me down, my lord general? My hip do be aching from the bumpy ride. The Creator do be kind to give you such strength, my brother. Heed his words.”

Kahlan tried to call out, to taunt him, but her voice wouldn’t come. Lunetta was preventing her from talking.

Brogan seemed to come to his senses, and grudgingly helped Lunetta climb down. He was about to turn back to the coach when he saw someone approaching. She waved him away with an arrogant flip of her hand. Kahlan couldn’t hear what the woman said, but Brogan snatched up the reins to his horse and motioned his men to follow him.

Ahern was told to get down from the driver’s seat and to go with the men of the Blood. He cast her a quick, sympathetic glance over his shoulder. Kahlan prayed to the good spirits that they wouldn’t kill him, now that his coach had delivered its cargo. In a racket of sudden movement, the men on horseback all followed after Brogan and Lunetta.

The early-morning air quieted as the men moved off, and Kahlan felt the grip of the collar at her neck slacken. Again she remembered with anguish making Richard put one of these collars around his neck, and every day she thanked the good spirits that he had finally came to understand that she had done it to save his life, to keep his gift from killing him. But the collars she and Adie wore were not to help them, as Richard’s had been. These collars were no more than manacles in another form.

A young woman strode up to the door and peered in. She wore a clinging red dress that left little doubt as to the perfection of her figure. The long mass of hair that framed her face was as dark as her eyes. Kahlan suddenly felt like a clod of dirt in this stunningly sensuous woman’s presence.

The woman’s eyes took in Adie. “A sorceress. Well, perhaps we can find a use for you.” Her knowing gaze turned to Kahlan. “Come along.”

She turned without further word and started away. Kahlan felt a hot stab of pain in her back that propelled her out of the coach, stumbling to catch her balance when she landed on the ground. She turned just in time to put a hand out for Adie before she fell. The two of them rushed to catch up with the woman before she gave them another jab of pain.

Kahlan and Adie hurried along at the woman’s heels, Kahlan feeling like a bumbling fool the way the collar’s control made her legs twitch, shepherding her along, urging her to keep up, while the woman in the red dress strode along with the bearing of a queen. Adie was not prodded along as was Kahlan. Kahlan ground her teeth, wishing she could strangle the haughty woman.

There were other women, and a few men in robes, strolling along in the fine morning air. Seeing all the clean people was a keen reminded of the layers of road dust covering her. She hoped, though, that they wouldn’t let her have a bath; maybe Richard wouldn’t recognize her under all the dirt. Maybe he wouldn’t come for her.

Please, Richard, protect the Midlands. Stay there.

They walked on down roofed walkways that had vine-covered lattices to the sides holding fragrant white blossoms and then were led through a gate in a high wall. Guards’ eyes took in the sight, but they didn’t make any move to challenge the woman leading them. After crossing a shady path under spreading trees, they entered a large building that looked nothing like the rat-infested dungeon Kahtan had expected. It looked more a proper guest wing for visiting dignitaries to the palace.

The woman in the red dress slowed to a halt before a carved door set back in a massive stone casing. She flicked the lever on the door and threw it open, entering ahead of them. The room was elegant, with heavy drapes overlooking a drop of perhaps thirty feet. There were several chairs richly upholstered in gold brocade fabric, a mahogany table and desk, and a canopied bed.

The woman turned to Kahlan. “This is to be your room.” She displayed a brief smile. “We want you to be comfortable. You will be our guests until we are done with you.

“Try to go through the shield I leave on the door and window, and you will be on your hands and knees vomiting until your ribs feel as if they are breaking. That’s just for the first infraction. After the first, you will find you have no desire to attempt such a thing again. You don’t want to know about the second infraction.”

She lifted a finger to Adie, but kept her dark eyes on Kahlan. “Cause me any trouble, and I will punish your friend here. Even if you think you have strong stomach, I assure you, you will find otherwise. Do you understand?”

Kahlan nodded, afraid she wasn’t supposed to speak.

“I asked a question,” she said in a wickedly quiet tone. Adie crumpled to the floor with a cry. “You will answer me.”

“Yes! Yes, I understand! Don’t hurt her, please!”

When Kahlan turned to help Adie as she gasped for breath, the woman told her to leave the “old woman” to recover on her own.

Kahlan reluctantly straightened, letting Adie come to her feet. The woman’s critical gaze glided down the length of her and back up. The smirk on her face heated Kahlan’s blood.

“Do you know who I am?” the woman asked.

“No.”

An eyebrow arched. “Well, well, that naughty boy. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Richard didn’t mention me to his future wife, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“I am Merissa. Now do you know who I am?”

“No.”

She let out a soft laugh, as annoyingly elegant as the rest of her. “Oh, he’s so naughty, keeping such lascivious secrets from his future wife.”

Kahlan wished she could keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t. “What secrets?”

Merissa shrugged indifferently. “When Richard was a student here, I was one of his teachers. I spent great deal of time with him.” The smirk returned. “Many a night, we spent in each other’s arms. I taught him many things. Such a strong and attentive lover. If you’ve ever lain with him, then you would be the beneficiary of my more . . . tender instruction.”

Merissa’s soft lilting laugh returned as she strode from the room, giving Kahlan one last smiling look before she shut the door.

Kahlan stood clenching her fists so hard her nails were cutting her palms. She wanted to scream. When Richard had been taken away to the Palace of the Prophets, it had been in a collar she had made him put on. He thought it was because she didn’t love him. He thought she had sent him away and never wanted to see him again.

How could he resist a woman as beautiful as Merissa? He would have had no reason to.

Adie gripped her shirt at the shoulder and pulled her around. “Don’t you listen to her.”

Kahlan felt her eyes filling with tears. “But . . .”

“Richard loves you. She only be tormenting you. She be a cruel woman, and be enjoying to make you suffer.” Adie lifted a finger as she quoted an old proverb. “Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there be a man in her line of sight. Merissa has Richard in her line of sight. I have seen that look of lust before. It not be a lust to have your man. It be a lust for his blood.”

“But . . .”

Adie shook the finger. “Don’t you lose your faith in Richard because of her. That be what she wants. Richard loves you.”

“And I will be the death of him.”

With a sob of agony, Kahlan fell into Adie’s arms.