Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth 5)

Richard didn’t like that idea at all. He didn’t want the men confined in such a way. He wanted them to be close, but able to set up a proper defensive position. Despite what anyone else thought, he had to treat this as being potentially hostile territory.

He gestured to the wheat field. “What about here? We will of course reimburse the landowner for the crops we ruin.”

Rowley bowed. “If it pleases you, Lord Rahl. The Minister wished the choice to be yours. The land is Anderith common ground, and the crops excess, of no real value or concern.

“After you see to your escort, at your convenience, the Minister wishes to invite you to dinner. He asked me to relay his eagerness to meet you, and to see the Mother Confessor again.”

“We don’t—”

Kahlan elbowed him again. “We would be happy to join Minister Chanboor for dinner. Please ask him, though, to understand that we have been riding hard, and are tired. We would appreciate it if he kept the dinner small, no more than three courses.”

Rowley was clearly not prepared for this request, but promised to relay it at once.

Once the man was riding back, Du Chaillu stepped up.

“You need a bath,” she announced to Richard. “Jiaan says there is a pond not far over this hill. Come, we will bathe.”

Kahlan’s brow tightened. Du Chaillu smiled sweetly.

“I usually must suggest it,” she said. “He is shy when we bathe together. His face turns red”—she pointed at Richard’s face—“just like that, when we undress to bathe. His face turns red like that whenever he tells me to take off my clothes.”

Kahlan folded her arms. “Really.”

Du Chaillu nodded. “Do you enjoy bathing with him, too? He seems to enjoy it—bathing with women.”

Now Richard knew how displeased Du Chaillu was with her horseback ride, and how she intended to even the score.

Kahlan’s green eyes turned to him. “What is it with you and women and water?”

Richard shrugged, not about to play the game. “You want to join us? It might be fun.” He winked at her and then turned and seized Du Chaillu’s arm. “Come along, then, wife. We’ll go first, maybe Kahlan will join us later.”

Du Chaillu yanked her arm away. The joke had gone too far for her. “No. I do not wish to go near the water.”

Her eyes betrayed obvious fear. She didn’t wish to give the chimes a chance to drown her again.

52

Richard sighed impatiently as he surveyed the people enjoying the dinner. An intimate dinner, Bertrand Chanboor had called it. Kahlan had whispered to Richard that, for Anderith, fifty or sixty people was considered an intimate dinner.

When Richard looked out at the people, many of them, especially the men, glanced away. Many of the women did not. It was fortunate, the way they were batting their lashes at him, that Kahlan was not jealous. She hadn’t really been jealous of Du Chaillu; she knew the woman was simply trying to nettle him. He knew, though, he was going to have to explain how innocent the onetime bath with Du Chaillu had been.

It was hard explaining anything to Kahlan, what with having so many people around all the time. Even when they slept, they had blade masters, and now troops, standing over them every minute. It wasn’t very intimate, much less romantic. He was beginning to forget they were married, for all the time they had alone together.

Their purpose, though, made such considerations pale into insignificance. People dying because of the chimes being loose was not conducive to intimacy.

Sitting close to her, sharing food from the trencher, seeing the lamplight reflect in her green eyes, off her hair, seeing the way her thick tresses nestled in the curve of her neck, he was beginning to think about weeks before, in the spirit house—the last time he had made love to her… remembering her lush naked body. It was an impossible mental image to forget.

Kahlan cleared her throat. “He asked you a question, Richard,” she whispered.

Richard blinked. “What?”

“Minister Chanboor asked you a question.”

Richard turned to the other side. “I’m sorry, my mind was elsewhere. On an important action.”

“Yes, of course,” Minister Chanboor said, smiling. “I was just curious as to where you grew up.”

A long-forgotten memory of youth surfaced in Richard’s mind, a memory of wrestling with his older brother—his half brother, Michael. He had so enjoyed the playful tumbles they had. It had been a time of laughter.

“Oh, you know—wherever there was a good fight.”

The Minister stumbled around for words. “I, I suppose you had a good teacher.”

His half brother had later, when they were grown, betrayed him to Darken Rahl. Michael had betrayed many people. Because of Michael’s betrayal, many innocent people had died.

“Yes,” Richard said, the memory standing in stark relief between him and the Minister’s expectant face. “I did have a good teacher. Last winter I had him beheaded.”

The Minister paled.

Richard turned back to Kahlan. She hid her smile. “Good answer,” she whispered to him from behind a napkin so she couldn’t be heard over the music coming from the harp set before and below their table.

The Lady Chanboor, on Kahlan’s other side, if she was appalled, didn’t show it. Dalton Campbell, on the far side of the Minister, raised an eyebrow. Beyond him, his wife, Teresa, a nice woman, Richard thought, hadn’t heard his words. When Dalton turned and whispered them to her, her eyes went wide, more in titillation than horror.

Kahlan had warned him these people responded to power, and suggested he show them more intimation of force than offers of accommodation if they were to gain the Anders’ cooperation.

The Minister, a piece of rolled beef dripping a red sauce in his fingers, gestured and sought to change the subject to something less bloody.

“Lord Rahl, don’t you wish any meat?”

The meat course seemed to Richard to have gone on for an hour. He decided to tell the man the flat truth.

“I’m a war wizard, Minister Chanboor. Like my father, Darken Rahl, I don’t eat meat.” Richard paused to be certain he had the attention of everyone at the table. “Wizards, you see, must maintain balance in their lives. Not eating meat is balance for all the killing I do.”

The harpist missed a note. Everyone else held their breath.

Richard filled the dragging silence. “I’m certain that by now you have heard the proposal I’ve made for the lands of the Midlands to join with us. The terms are fair and equitable to all. Your representatives would have brought our terms to you. If you join willingly, your people will be welcomed. If you oppose us… well, if you oppose us, then we will have to conquer you and the terms will be harsh.”

“So I’ve been told,” the Minister said.

Kahlan leaned in. “And you have been informed my word backs Lord Rahl’s? You know my advice is for all lands to join us?”

The Minister tipped his head in a slight bow. “Yes, Mother Confessor, and please be assured we value greatly your sound advice.”

“Then is it your intention to join with us, Minister, in our struggle for freedom?”

“Well… you see, Mother Confessor, it is not quite that simple.”

“Fine,” Richard said, beginning to rise. “I will see the Sovereign, then.”

“You can’t,” Dalton Campbell said.

Richard, a scowl growing, sank back down. “And why would that be?”

The Minister licked his lips. “The Sovereign, the Creator watch over his blessed soul, is very ill. He is bedridden. Not even I have been able to see him. He is in no condition to talk, from what the healers and his wife tell me. Speaking with him would be hopeless, since he is rarely conscious.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kahlan said. “We had no idea.”

“We would take you to see him, Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl,” Dalton Campbell said in a sincere-sounding voice, “but the man is so ill he would be unable to offer his advice.”

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The harpist went into a louder, more complex and dramatic piece, using every string, it seemed.

“Then you will have to decide without his advice,” Richard said. “The Imperial Order is already invading the New World. We need everyone we can get to resist their tyranny, lest their dark shadow cover us all.”

“Well,” the Minister said as he intently picked at invisible things on the tablecloth, “I want the land of Anderith to join with you and your noble cause. I really do. As do most of the people of Anderith, I’m sure—”

“Good. Then that’s settled.”

“Well, no, it’s not.” Minister Chanboor looked up. “Though I might wish it, as would my wife, and as Dalton has so forcefully advised we do, we cannot decide something this important on our own.”

“The Directors?” Kahlan asked. “We will speak with them straightaway.”