Naked Empire (Sword of Truth 8)

“I’m not going to start a war. I just want to get a good look around at the place.”

Kahlan stepped closer. “The two of them can scout the town and give you a report. You can rest—they will only be gone a few hours.”

“I know, but I don’t think I want to wait that long.”

By the way she appraised his eyes, he thought she must be able to see how much pain he was in. She didn’t argue the point further but instead nodded her agreement.

Richard pulled the baldric and sword belt off over his head. He slipped it all over Kahlan’s head, laying the baldric across her shoulder.

“Here. I pronounce you Seeker of Truth.”

She accepted the sword and the honor by planting her fists on her hips. “Now don’t you go starting anything while you’re in there. That’s not the plan. You and Anson will be alone. You wait until we’re all together.”

“I know. I just need to get the antidote and then we’ll be back in no time.”

Beside getting the antidote, Richard wanted to see the enemy forces, how they were placed, and the layout of the town. Having the men draw a map in the dirt was one thing, seeing it for himself was another; these men didn’t know how to evaluate threat points.

One of the men took off his light coat, something a number of the men wore, and held it out to Richard. “Here, Lord Rahl, wear this. It will make you look more like one of us.”

With a nod of thanks, Richard drew the coat on. He had changed out of his war wizard’s outfit into traveling clothes, so he didn’t think he would look out of place with the way the men from the town of Witherton looked. The man was nearly Richard’s size, so the coat fit well enough. It also hid his belt knife.

Jennsen shook her head. “I don’t know, Richard. You just don’t look like one of them. You still look like Lord Rahl.”

“What are you talking about?” Richard held out his arms, looking down at himself. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

“Don’t stand up so straight,” she said.

“Hunch your shoulders and hang your head a little,” Kahlan offered.

Richard took their advice seriously; he hadn’t thought about it, but the men did tend to hunch a lot. He didn’t want to stand out. He had to blend in if he didn’t want to raise the suspicions of the soldiers. He bent over a little.

“How’s that?”

Jennsen screwed up her mouth. “Not much different.”

“But I’m bending down.”

“Lord Rahl,” Cara said in a soft voice as she gave him a meaningful look, “you remember how it was to walk behind Denna, when she held the chain to the collar around your neck. Make yourself like that.”

Richard blinked at her. The mental image of his time as a captive of a Mord-Sith hit him like a slap. He pressed his lips tight, not saying anything, and conceded with a single nod. The memory of that forsaken time was depressing enough that he would have no trouble using it to fall into the role.

“We had better be on our way,” Anson said. “Now that the sun is falling behind the mountains, darkness comes quickly.” He hesitated, then spoke again. “Lord Rahl, the men of the Order will not know you—I mean they probably will not realize you aren’t from our town. But our people do not carry weapons; if they see that knife, they will know you are not from our town, and they will send up an alarm.”

Richard lifted open the coat, looking at the knife. “You’re right.” He loosened his belt and removed the sheath holding the knife. He handed it to Cara for safekeeping.

Richard cupped a hand quickly to the side of Kahlan’s face as a way of saying his good-bye. She seized the hand in both of hers and pressed a quick kiss to the backs of his fingers. Her hands looked so small and delicate holding his. He sometimes kidded her that he didn’t see how she could possibly get anything done with such small hands. Her answer was that her hands were a normal size and perfectly adequate, and his were simply outsized.

The men all noticed Kahlan’s gesture of affection. Richard was not embarrassed that they did. He wanted them to know that other people were the same as they in important, human ways. This was what they were fighting for—the chance to be human, to love and cherish loved ones, to live their lives as they wanted.

The light faded quickly as Richard and Anson made their way through the woods running beside fields of wild grasses. Richard wanted to work around to where the forest came in closer to the men out weeding in the gardens and tending to animals. With the nearby mountains to the west being so high, the sun vanished behind them earlier than what would normally be sunset, leaving the sky a swath of deep bluish green and the valley in an odd golden gloom.

By the time he and Anson had reached the place where they would leave the woods, it was still a little too light, so they waited a short while until Richard felt the murky light in the fields was dim enough to hide them. The town was some distance away and since Richard couldn’t make out any men outside the gates, he reasoned that if soldiers were watching, then they couldn’t see him, either.

As they moved quickly through the field of wild grass, staying low and out of sight, Anson pointed. “There, those men going back to town, we should follow them.”

Richard spoke quietly back over his shoulder. “All right, but don’t forget, we don’t want to catch up with them or they might recognize you and make a fuss. Let them stay a good distance ahead of us.”

When they reached the town walls, Richard saw that the gates were no more than two sections of the picket walls. A couple of posts no bigger than Richard’s wrist had been tied sideways to stiffen two sections of wall and make them into gates. The ropes that tied the posts together served as the hinges. The sections were simply lifted and swung around to open or close them. It was far from a secure fortification.

In the murky light of twilight, the two guards milling around just inside the gates and watching workers return couldn’t really see much of Richard and Anson. To the guards, they would appear to be two more workers. The Order understood the value of workers; they needed slaves to do the work so that the soldiers might eat.

Richard hunched his shoulders and hung his head as he walked. He remembered those terrible times as a captive when, wearing a collar, he walked behind Denna, devoid of all hope of ever again being free. Thinking of that inhuman time, he shuffled through the open gates. The guards didn’t pay him any attention.

Just as they were nearly past the guards, the closest one reached out and snatched Anson’s sleeve, spinning him back around.

“I want some eggs,” the young soldier said. “Give me some of the eggs you collected.”

Anson stood wide-eyed, not knowing what to do. It seemed ludicrous that these two young men were allowed to serve their cause by being bullies. Richard stepped up beside Anson and spoke quickly, remembering to bow his head so that he wouldn’t loom over the man.

“We have no eggs, sir. We were weeding the bean fields. I’m sorry. We will bring you eggs tomorrow, if it pleases you.”

Richard glanced up just as the guard backhanded him, knocking him flat on his back. He instantly took a firm grip on his anger. Wiping blood from his mouth, he decided to stay where he was.

“He’s right,” Anson said, drawing the guard’s attention. “We were weeding beans. If you wish it, we will bring you some eggs tomorrow—as many as you want.”

The guard grunted a curse at them and swaggered off, taking his companion with him. They headed for a nearby long, low structure with a torch lashed to a pole outside a low door. In the flickering light of that torch, Richard couldn’t make out what the place was, but it appeared to be a building dug partway into the ground so that the eaves were at eye level. After the two soldiers were a safe distance away, Anson offered Richard a hand to help him up. Richard didn’t think he’d been hit that hard, but his head was spinning.

As they started out, faces back in doorways and around dark corners peeked out to watch them. When Richard looked their way, the people ducked back i

n.

“They know you are not from here,” Anson whispered.

Richard didn’t trust that one of those people wouldn’t call the guards. “Let’s hurry up and get what we came here for.”

Anson nodded and hurriedly led Richard down a narrow street with what looked like little more than huts huddled together to each side. The single torch burning outside the long building where the soldiers had gone provided little light down the street. The town, at least what Richard could see of it in the dark, was a pretty shabby-looking place. In fact, he wouldn’t call it a town so much as a village. Many of the structures appeared to be housing for livestock, not people. Only rarely were there any lights coming from any of the squat buildings and the light he did see looked like it came from candles, not lamps.

At the end of the street, Richard followed Anson through a small side door into a larger building. The cows inside mooed at the intrusion. Sheep rustled in their pens. A few goats in other pens bleated. Richard and Anson paused to let the animals settle down before making their way through the barn to a ladder at the side. Richard followed Anson as he climbed quickly to a small hayloft.

At the end of the loft, Anson reached up over a low rafter to where it tied into the wall behind a cross brace. “Here it is,” he said as he grimaced, stretching his arm up into the hiding place.

He came out with a small, square-sided bottle and handed it to Richard. “This is the antidote. Hurry and drink it, and then let’s get out of here.”

The large door banged open. Even though it was dark outside, the torch down the street provided just enough light to silhouette the broad shape of a man standing in the doorway. By his demeanor, he had to be a soldier.

Richard pulled the stopper from the bottle. The antidote had the slight aroma of cinnamon. He quickly downed it, hardly noticing its sweet, spicy taste. He never took his eyes off the man in the doorway.

“Who’s in here?” the man bellowed.

“Sir,” Richard called down, “I’m just getting some hay for the livestock.”

“In the dark? What are you up to? Get down here right now.”

Richard put a hand against Anson’s chest and pushed him back into the darkness. “Yes, sir. I’m coming,” Richard called to the soldier as he hurried down the ladder.