“Ovens.” Kahlan frowned in thought. “Yes, I remember the place. It’s not far from here, in fact. Up a little higher above the Nareef Valley.”
“How far?”
Kahlan shrugged one shoulder. “We could be there in a couple of hours, by midafternoon, if it’s important for some reason.”
“Ander talks about it in these scrolls. He obliquely mentions it in conjunction with the demons—the Dominie Dirtch. That was the passage where I
put the two together.”
Richard looked down the path to the group of people gathered, waiting patiently. “After we talk to these people, I would like to go up there and have a look around.”
Kahlan took his arm. “It’s a pretty place. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Now, let’s go tell these people why we need them to mark their circle to join us.”
The expectant faces were mostly Haken. Most worked on farms around the small town of Westbrook. Like all the people come to see them as they had traveled around Anderith, these people were concerned and worried. They knew change was in the wind. To most people, change was dangerous.
Rather than addressing them coldly, Richard walked among them, asking their names, smiling at their children, trailing a hand or a thumb along the cheek of the young ones. Because this was really the way Richard was, because it was sincere and not an act, within a matter of minutes he had a gaggle of children around him. Mothers smiled as he touched young heads, dark-haired and redheaded alike. The worried creases in the foreheads of fathers, too, loosened.
“Good people of Anderith,” Richard began as he stood among them, “the Mother Confessor and I have come to talk with you, not as rulers, but as your humble champions. We do not come to dictate, but to help you understand the choices ahead of us all, and the chance you have to decide for yourselves what your future will be.”
He beckoned with an arm, and Kahlan gently worked her way through the throng of smiling children to join him at his side. She had thought they might fear a big man like Richard, dressed as he was in a black and gold outfit that made him look all the more imposing, but many pressed up against him as if he was a favorite uncle.
It was the white dress of the Mother Confessor they feared, warned as most in the Midlands were from birth of the Mother Confessor and her power. They made way for her, doing their best not to come in contact with her white dress as they tried to remain close to Richard. Kahlan ached to have them crowd around her the way they crowded around Richard, but she understood. She had a lifetime of understanding.
“The Mother Confessor and I were married because we love each other. We also love the people of the Midlands and D’Hara. Just as we wanted to be joined in marriage so that we could look forward to life together, we want the people of Anderith to be joined with us and the other people of the Midlands, to go with us into a strong and secure future, one which provides you and your children hope for a better life.
“Tyranny is marching up from the Old World. The Imperial Order would enslave you. They offer you no choice but to submit or to die. Only if you join with us will you have a chance to be safe.
“The Mother Confessor and I believe that if we join the people of the Midlands and D’Hara together, all standing together as one to uphold our freedom, we can repel this threat to our homes and security… and to our children’s future.
“If we timidly submit to tyranny, we will never have the chance to test our wings. Never again will our spirits lift proudly on the winds of hope. No one will have the chance to raise a family in peace, or be able to dream their children will do better, or achieve more.
“If we do not stand against the Imperial Order, we will live under the shadow of slavery. Once that happens, we will descend forever into the darkness of oppression.
“This is why we have come to speak with you. We need you to stand with us, to stand with peace-loving people, with those who know the future can be bright and filled with hope.
“We need you to join with us and mark a circle to complete our alliance for freedom.”
Kahlan listened, as she had for weeks, as Richard spoke from his heart about what it would mean to join with them in the cause of freedom.
At first, the people were tense and cautious. Before long, Richard’s nature had won most over. He had them laughing, and then brought them to the verge of tears as he pulled forth their yearning for the freedom to chance greatness by showing them the simple power they could have if they and their children were permitted to learn, to read.
At first, this made people nervous, until Richard put it in terms they could understand: a letter written to a parent living elsewhere, or to a child gone in search of a better life. He made them understand the value of knowledge and how it could make their life better in ways that had meaning to them with opportunities for better work, or accomplishing more in the work they had.
“But the Imperial Order will not allow you to learn, because knowledge is dangerous to oppressors. To those who would dominate you, knowledge must be crushed, because people who understand are people who will stand against the unfairness of the elite.
“I would have everyone learn, so they can decide for themselves what they want. That is the difference: I trust you to learn, to do better, to strive for your goals, simple and great. The Imperial Order trusts not, but will dictate everything.
“Together, we will have one land, with one set of laws that make it safe for all people, where no one man—be he magistrate or Minister or emperor—is above the law. Only when all must bow to the same law is every person free.
“I came into this not to rule, but to uphold the principle of freedom. My own father, Darken Rahl, was a dictator who ruled through intimidation, torture, and murder. Not even he was above the law I hope us all to live by. I took over his rule so that he could no longer abuse his people. I lead free people—I do not rule subjects.
“I don’t wish to tell you how to live, I instead wish to have all of you live in peace and safety the lives you choose for yourselves. I would like nothing more for myself and the Mother Confessor—my wife—than to raise a family together in peace and security with little need to devote myself to matters of ruling.
“I would ask you to mark a circle, and join with us, for your own sake, for the sake of those to come.”
Dalton leaned a shoulder against the corner of the building and folded his arms as he listened. Director Prevot, from the Office of Cultural Amity, spoke from a balcony above a large crowd in one of the city squares. He had been going on for quite a while.
The crowd, mostly Haken, had gathered to hear of the coming events. Rumors were coursing through the city. People were frightened. They had come, mostly, not to see how they might avoid a calamity, but to see if they need bother to worry about the rumors.
Dalton viewed the situation with concern.
“Shall you suffer while the special few are rewarded?” Director Prevot called out to the crowd. They answered with a collective “No.”
“Shall you be worked to death while the chosen ones from D’Hara only grow richer?”
Again the crowd shouted, “No!”
“Shall we let our good works of helping all Hakens rise above their nature be cast aside by this one man? Shall we allow our people to again be led astray by the cruel deception of education?”
The crowd shouted their agreement with Director Prevot, some waving their hats, as Dalton had instructed them to do. There were perhaps fifty of his Haken messengers in the crowd, dressed in their old clothes, doing their best to pump emotion into the responses to Director Prevot’s speech.
There were people caught up in the passion of the words, no doubt, but for the most part the crowd silently watched, judging if their own lives would be altered by what they heard. Most people weighed matters on a scale, with their life on one side, and the events before them on the other side. Most people were satisfied with the way things were, so only if the events on the other side of the scale threatened to outweigh or change their lives did they become concerned.
Dalton was not pleased. These people, while agreeing, did not see the events on the other side of the scales as much affecting their life.
Dalton knew they had a problem.
The message was getting out, but it was falling on little more than indifferent ears.
“He is making a lot of good points,” Teresa said.
Dalton hugged her shoulders. “Yes, he is.”
“I think the man is right.
The poor Hakens will only be hurt if we don’t continue to see to their well-being. They aren’t prepared to handle the cruelty of life on their own.”
Dalton’s gaze moved among the people standing like statues as they watched the Director pour out his passion.
“Yes, darling, you’re right. We must do more to help the people.”
Dalton realized, then, what was missing, and what he must do.
56
“No,” Richard said to Du Chaillu.
She folded her arms in smoldering anger. The way her big round belly stuck out made her pose look almost humorous.
Richard leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Du Chaillu, can’t you understand I would like to be alone with my—with Kahlan, for just a little while? Please?”
Du Chaillu’s anger faltered. Her frown melted.
“Oh, I see. You want to be intimate with your other wife. This is good. It has been a long time.”
“That’s not—” Richard put his fists on his hips. “And just how would you know, anyway?”
She didn’t answer his question, but smiled. “Well, all right then. If you promise not to take too long.”
He wanted to say it would take as long as it took, but he feared what her answer might be. Richard straightened and said simply, “We promise.”
Captain Meiffert, a big, blond-headed D’Haran officer in charge of the troops sent to escort Richard and Kahlan to Anderith, didn’t like the idea of them being alone any more than did Du Chaillu, but he was more circumspect in expressing his objections. General Reibisch had apparently told the man he could speak his mind to the Lord Rahl, if it were an important matter, without fear of punishment.
“Lord Rahl, we would be too far away to respond should you need us.… To help protect the Mother Confessor,” he added as an afterthought, thinking it might sway Richard’s decision.
“Thank you, Captain. There is only this one trail up there. Since no one knew where we were headed, no one could be laying in wait. It isn’t far and we won’t be gone long. You and your men will patrol down here while Kahlan and I go have a look.”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Meiffert said in resignation. He immediately began issuing orders to his men, spreading them out at stations and sending some on scout.