“Brophy!” she admonished. “Have you been following us?”
“Only to protect you, Mistress.”
Richard’s jaw dropped. He wondered how hard he had been hit on the head. “He can talk! I heard him! That wolf can talk!”
Zedd and Kahlan both looked up at his wide eyes. Zedd glanced at her. “I thought you said you told him.”
Kahlan winced a little. “Well, I guess I didn’t remember to tell him everything.” She frowned at Zedd. “It’s hard to remember everything he doesn’t know. We have lived it our whole lives. You just forget he hasn’t.”
“Come on,” Zedd grumbled. “Let’s go back to the camp. All of us.”
The wizard led them with the torch, Kahlan following, the wolf slinking along at her side, ears lowered, tail dragging the ground.
When they sat around the fire, Richard addressed the wolf as it sat on its haunches next to Kahlan. “Wolf, I guess…”
“Brophy. The name’s Brophy.”
Richard sat back a little. “Brophy. Sorry. My name is Richard, and this is Zedd. Brophy, I would like to thank you for saving my life.”
“Don’t mention it,” he growled.
“Brophy,” Kahlan said in a disapproving voice, “what are you doing here?”
The wolf’s ears flattened. “There is danger for you. I have been protecting you.”
“You have been released,” she scolded.
“Was that you, last night?” Richard asked.
Brophy regarded him with yellow eyes. “Yes. Whenever you camped, I cleared the area of heart hounds. And a few other nasty things. Last night, close to morning, one came near to your camp. I took care of it. This hound tonight was hunting you. He could hear your heart beating. I knew Mistress Kahlan would be unhappy if he ate you, so I kept him from doing it.”
Richard swallowed hard. “Thank you,” he said in a weak voice.
“Richard,” Zedd asked, rubbing his chin, “the hounds are underworld beasts. They haven’t bothered you up until now. What’s changed?”
Richard almost choked. “Well, Adie gave Kahlan a bone to carry, to get us through the boundary, and to protect us from underworld beasts. I had an old bone, that my father gave me, and Adie said it would do the same thing. But I lost it a day or two ago.”
Zedd’s face was wrinkled up in thought. Richard looked to the wolf, hoping to change the subject. “How come you can talk?”
Brophy drew his long tongue around his lips. “Same reason you can talk. I can talk because…” He looked up at Kahlan. “You mean he doesn’t know what I am?”
She gave him a look, and he sank to the ground, resting his head on his paws.
Kahlan locked her fingers around a knee, clicking her thumbnails together. “Richard, do you remember when I told you that sometimes, when we took a confession, the person turned out to be innocent? And once in a great while, one who was to be executed would ask to give a confession so as to prove his innocence?” Richard nodded. She cast an eye to the wolf. “Brophy was to be executed for killing a little boy….”
“I don’t kill children,” the wolf growled, coming to his feet.
“Do you wish to tell the story?”
The wolf sank back down. “No, Mistress.”
“Brophy would have rather been touched by a Confessor’s power than be thought a child killer. Not to mention what else was done to that little boy. He requested a Confessor. It’s something done only rarely—most men choose the executioner—but it meant that much to him. I told you we have a wizard with us, when we take confessions. One reason is for protection, but there is another reason. In a case like this, where the person is unjustly accused, and found to be innocent, he is still left touched by our power, he cannot be returned to who he was. So, the wizard changes him to something else. The changing takes away some of the magic, of the Confessor, and gives him enough concern for himself to start over with a new life.”
Richard was incredulous. “You were innocent? And yet you are to be left like this? For life?”
“Completely innocent,” Brophy confirmed.
“Brophy.” Kahlan spoke his name in a rising tone Richard was familiar with.
The wolf sank back down. “Of killing that boy.” His cowering eyes looked up at Kahlan as she watched him. “That’s all I meant. Innocent of killing that boy.”
Richard frowned. “What does that mean?”
Kahlan looked over to him. “It means that when he gave his confession, he confessed to other things he was not accused of. You see, Brophy had been engaged in occupations of a dubious nature.” She glanced down at the wolf. “At the gray edges of law.”
“I was an honest businessman,” the wolf protested.
Kahlan cast an eye toward Brophy while she spoke to Richard. “Brophy was a trader.”
“My father was a trader,” Richard said, his anger rising.
“I don’t know what traders in Westland trade, but in the Midlands, some traders deal in things of magic.”
Richard thought about the Book of Counted Shadows. “So what?”
Kahlan lifted an eyebrow to him. “Some of them happen to be alive at the time.”
Brophy rose up on his front paws. “How am I to tell! You can’t always tell. Sometimes, you think something is just an artifact, like a book, that a collector will pay handsomely for. Sometimes it’s something more, a stone, a statue, or a staff, or perhaps a… Well, how am I to know if they are alive?”
Kahlan still had her eye on the wolf. “You traded things of magic other than books and statues,” she scolded. “In this innocent business of his, he would also get himself into disagreements with people. Disagreements such as rights of ownership. When Brophy was a man, he was as big for a man as he is for a wolf. He sometimes used his size to ‘persuade’ people to do as he wished. Is this not true, Brophy?”
The wolf’s ears wilted. “It’s true, Mistress. I have a temper. A temper as big as my muscles. But it only came out when I was wronged. A lot of people think they can cheat traders; they think we are little more than thieves and will not stand up for ourselves. When I settled disagreements with my temper, they tended to stay settled.”
Kahlan gave the wolf a little smile. “Brophy had a reputation that, although not unearned, was larger than the truth.” She looked up at Richard. “The business he was in was dangerous, and therefore very profitable. Brophy made enough money at it to support his ‘hobby.’ Almost no one knew about it until after I touched him, and he made his confession.”
The wolf put his paws over his head. “Oh, Mistress, please! Must we?”
Richard frowned. “What was this ‘hobby’?”
Kahlan’s smile widened. “Brophy had a weakness. Children. As he traveled around in search of things to trade, he would stop at orphanages and see to it they had what they needed to take care of the children. All the gold he made ended up in different orphanages, so the children could be cared for, and not go hungry. He twisted the arms of the people running the orphanages, to swear them to secrecy. He didn’t want anyone knowing. Of course, he didn’t have to twist very hard.”
Brophy’s paws were still over his head, and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Mistress, please,” he whined, “I have a reputation.” He opened his eyes and rose up on his front paws. “And a well-earned one at that! I’ve broken my share of arms and noses! I’ve done some pretty despicable deeds!”
Kahlan lifted an eyebrow to him. “Yes, you have. Some were reason enough to get you thrown in prison for a time. But none were reason enough to chop off your head.” She looked back up at Richard. “You see, since Brophy had been seen around orphanages, and because of his reputation, no one was too surprised when he was accused of the murder of a little boy.”
“Demmin Nass,” Brophy growled. “Accused by Demmin Nass.” His lips curled back, showing his long teeth as he growled.