Kahlan put a comforting hand on Richard’s shoulder. He felt little comfort. He was watching all his work being consumed by the heat from the flame of lies.
“Dear Creator,” Director Prevot called out, lifting his clasped hands to the sky, “we give thanks for our new Sovereign. A man of peerless talent and unrivaled devotion, the most ethical Sovereign ever to reign over us. Please, dear Creator, give him strength against the wicked ways of Lord Rahl.”
Director Prevot spread his arms. “I ask you, good people, to consider this man from afar. A man who took the Mother Confessor of all the Midlands to be his wife.”
The crowd grumbled in growing displeasure—the Mother Confessor, after all, was their Mother Confessor.
“Yet this man, this man who shouts for all to hear of his moral leadership, of his desire for what is right, already has another wife! Wherever he goes, he takes her, too, fat with his child! Yet as this other wife still carries his unborn child, he marries the Mother Confessor, and drags her with him, too, as his concubine! How many more women will this sinful man take to sire his wicked offspring? How many bastard children has he created here, in Anderith? How many of our women have fallen to his boundless lust?”
The crowd was genuinely shocked. Besides the moral implications, this was a disgrace to the Mother Confessor.
“This other woman proudly admits being Lord Rahl’s wife, and further confirms it to be his child! What kind of man is this?
“Lady Chanboor was so shocked by this uncivilized conduct she took to her bed, weeping, to recover her senses! The Sovereign is beside himself with the scandal of such behavior being brought into Anderith. They both ask that you reject this rutting pig from D’Hara!”
Du Chaillu pulled on Richard’s sleeve. “This is not true. I will go explain it to them, so they may see it is not evil, as this man says. I will explain it.”
Richard put a restraining hand on her. “You’re doing no such thing. These people wouldn’t listen.”
Jiaan spoke in heated words. “Our spirit woman is not a woman who would be immoral. She must explain that she has acted by the law.”
“Jiaan,” Kahlan said, “Richard and I know the truth. You and Du Chaillu and the others with you, you all know the truth. That is what matters. These people have no ears for the truth.
“This is how tyrants win the will of the people: with lies.”
Having seen enough, Richard was about to turn to go when a bright orange whoosh of fire erupted out in the crowd. A candle, presumably, ignited a girl’s dress. She let out a piercing scream. Her hair caught fire.
By the speed of the fire, Richard realized it was no accident.
The chimes were among them.
Not far away, a man’s clothes caught flame. The crowd went into a terrible fright, screaming in fear that Lord Rahl was using magic against them.
It was a frightening, sickening sight, seeing the girl and the man flailing as crackling flames raced up their clothes, the sizzling fire catching as if they had been dunked in pitch, as if the fire were a thing alive.
The crowd scattered in panic, knocking old and young sprawling. Parents tried to cover the burning girl with a shirt to put out the fire, but it, too, ignited, adding fuel to the conflagration. The burning man crumbled to the ground. He was little more than a dark stick figure in the center of an intense yellow-orange blaze.
As if the good spirits themselves could no longer stand it, the skies opened up in a downpour. The roar of the rain drumming the dry ground covered the roar of the fire and the shouts and cries of the people. Darkness descended as the candles were extinguished by the rain. In the square, two fires continued to burn: the girl and the man. The chimes danced over their flesh in liquid light. There was nothing to be done for the two souls lost.
If Richard didn’t do something, there would be nothing to be done for anyone; the chimes would consume the world of life.
Kahlan pulled Richard away. It required little effort. They ran back through the darkness and rain and gathered up their horses and the rest of the men. Richard, leading his horse by the reins, guided them to a side route through Fairfield.
“The reports were accurate,” Richard said as he leaned toward Kahlan. “It’s clear these people have been turned against us.”
“Fortunately the vote is only a few days off,” Kahlan answered back through the din of rain. “We may lose some people here, but at least we have a chance with the rest of Anderith.”
As they walked their horses through the rain, Richard moved the reins to his other hand and put an arm around Kahlan’s shoulders. “Truth will win out.”
Kahlan didn’t answer.
“The important thing is the chimes,” Du Chaillu said. She looked both saddened and frightened. “Whatever else happens, the chimes must be stopped. I do not want to die again by them. I do not want our child to die by them.
“Whatever happens here, this is only one place. The chimes, though, are everywhere. I do not want to bring my baby into a world with the chimes. There will be no safe place if they are not stopped. That is your true job, Caharin.”
Richard put his arm around her shoulders. “I know. I know. Maybe I can find the thing I need in the library at the estate.”
“The Minister and Sovereign have taken the other side,” Kahlan said. “They may not be interested in allowing us to use the library any longer.”
“We’re using it,” Richard said, “one way, or another.”
He guided them down a street that paralleled the main avenue, a street that once out of the city would turn to join into the main road toward the Minister’s estate. It was on that road, closer to the estate, that their troops were stationed.
Richard noticed Kahlan staring off at something. He followed her gaze in the rain and darkness to a small visible in the lamplight coming from a window beneath it.
The sign offered herbs for sale and the services of a midwife.
Du Chaillu was huge. Richard supposed that she must be near to having her baby—whether she wanted it to be born into such a world or not.
61
It had been a long day, the last hour of it spent slogging through the drenching downpour to where the remainder of their troops were stationed. Well over half of them had been sent off around Anderith to oversee the upcoming vote. Feeling ill, Du Chaillu was in no condition to ride; it was a miserable walk and exhaustion finally claimed her—not something she would have admitted lightly. Richard and Jiaan took turns carrying her the remaining distance.
Richard was thankful for the rain for one reason, though. It had cooled the tempers of the throng in Fairfield and sent them home.
Ordinarily Richard would have insisted that Du Chaillu go straight off to her own tent, but after the events in Fairfield,
he understood her gloomy mood and realized she needed their company more than she needed rest. Kahlan must have understood, too, for rather than chasing the spirit woman from their tent, as she had had to do on more than one occasion, she gave her a dried tava biscuit to suck on, saying it would settle her stomach. Kahlan sat Du Chaillu down on the padded blanket that was the bed and with a towel dried her face and hair while Jiaan went to get her some dry clothes.
Richard sat at the small folding table he used to write messages, orders, and letters, mostly to General Reibisch. After having been to the city, he desperately wanted to write the general and order him into Anderith.
From outside the tent, a muffled voice asked permission to enter. When Richard granted it, Captain Meiffert lifted back the heavy flap, propping it up with a pole to act as a little roof to keep the rain from their doorway. He shook himself, as best he could, under the small roof before stepping inside.
“Captain,” Richard said, “I would like to compliment you and your men on the reports. They have been dead accurate about what’s going on in Fairfield. The spirits know I wish I could yell at you and dismiss the messengers for getting it wrong, or embellishing the facts, but I can’t. They were only too right.”
Captain Meiffert didn’t look pleased to have gotten it right. The situation was nothing to be pleased about. With a finger, he wiped his wet blond hair across his forehead.
“Lord Rahl, I believe we should now bring General Reibisch’s army south, into Anderith. The situation is growing more tenuous by the day. I have a fistful of reports about special Ander guard troops. They are reported to be not at all like the regular Anderith army we have seen.”
“I agree with the captain,” Kahlan said from the ground beside Du Chaillu. “We need to be in the library, trying to find something of use against the chimes. We don’t have time to counter the things being said to sway people to reject us.”
“That’s just here,” Richard said.