The Omen Machine (Sword of Truth 12)

Even if that devotion was no longer required, they apparently thought that this was an appropriate time to remind themselves, and Kahlan, of their loyalty.

Kahlan let the chanting go on for a while before she said, “Rise, my children,” the traditional phrase used by the Mother Confessor when people went to a knee to bow before her. She rarely cared about the old tradition.

Today, she cared.

On her command the crowd began coming to their feet. They were much quieter and looked considerably more respectful.

“Mother Confessor,” a woman dressed in a rose and cream silk dress said, “we demanded when we should have listened. I can’t speak for the others, but I, for one, am sorry. I’m not sure what came over us, but we were wrong. You and Lord Rahl have done things for us that no one, much less any leader we’ve ever had, has ever done. You both brought us out of the wilderness of despair. We should have trusted you and realized that you have never had anything but our best interest at heart.”

Kahlan smiled. “Apology accepted.” She glanced around at the crowd. “Does anyone else share this sentiment?”

The throng rushed the dais, clamoring that they did.

Kahlan didn’t prolong their distress. “Well, then, it seems that we’ve assembled the execution teams for nothing. If you are satisfied to leave prophecy to us, we promise to work to understand its true meaning and to heed it where we believe it is necessary to do so in order to protect all of you to the best of our ability. With our last breath if need be.”

A number of people wept with relief, including Queen Catherine. A few people went to a knee to kiss the hem of Kahlan’s dress as she stood on the dais before them. It wasn’t something she approved of.

“Enough of that,” she gently chided. “Please, rise now.”

The terrible weight of fear lifted from the crowd. Everyone, even Queen Orneta, was openly grateful that the ordeal had ended as it had. It was obvious that most of them were also shamed by their behavior.

Kahlan, too, was relieved that the ordeal was over.

Streams of people came to the dais to be heard, to personally thank her for changing her mind, and to assure her that they would let her and Richard handle prophecy as they saw fit. They each apologized for their attitude and promised they would not again be so disagreeable or unreasonable.

Kahlan graciously accepted the apologies and their promises of cooperation and let them know that she would not hold it against them in the future.

As the people at last all filed out of the room, Benjamin joined Kahlan, Cara, and Nicci before the table on the dais.

“You are quite the actress, Mother Confessor.” Benjamin smiled. “You even had me sweating for a moment, and I knew the truth of what you were doing.”

Kahlan let out a sigh. “Thank you for your help, Benjamin. You and your men played your parts well. You helped save us a real problem, even if it wasn’t the way I would have preferred to have gained their cooperation.”

“But you did. At least it’s over.” He gave her a puzzled look. “Where did you ever come up with something as devious as that?”

“It was a trick I learned from Zedd not long after I met Richard.” Kahlan shook her head, distracted by troubling thoughts. “But I’m afraid that it’s not over. We have only averted the problem for the moment. There is something going on that has nothing to do with the true attitudes of those people.

“I know many of these representatives. They’re good people. They all stood by us in the darkest hours of the war and fought with everything they had. Many lost their family. They all lost people they knew and cared about.

“This simply wasn’t like these people. Someone, or something, is manipulating them. We may have stopped the trouble for the moment, but it didn’t originate with these people, so it will undoubtedly resurface.”

“Kahlan is right,” Nicci said. “But even a good person can be swept up with the sentiments of a crowd and come to hold perverse beliefs.”

Cara frowned. “And as a result, run a knife between your ribs.”

“That’s what we need to prevent,” Nicci said. “Until we can get to the source of what’s really happening, I’m afraid that we’re only reacting to the situation, not controlling it.”

Cara sighed in agreement. “Let’s hope that Lord Rahl gets to the bottom of it pretty soon.”

Kahlan gestured to the book Nicci was holding. “By the way, what book is that?”

Nicci held it up. “This? When you sent word that you needed my help, and what you needed, I wasn’t near a library, so I ducked into the kitchen and grabbed this. It’s a cookbook.”

“Well, you cooked up a pretty good prophecy,” Kahlan said.

Nicci smiled distantly. “I wish we could have stopped those two women as easily before they killed their children.”

“At least we stopped the man, that jeweler,” Benjamin said.

Kahlan nodded. “I hope Richard was able to learn something down in the dungeon that can help us.”

CHAPTER 23

Richard closed the double doors behind him as he stepped into the small entry. He had been told that Kahlan was waiting for him. He was eager to see her, to be away from everyone else and alone with her.

As he rounded the corner into the bedroom she looked up at him in the mirror. She was sitting on a padded bench at the dressing table brushing her long hair.

“So, how did it go with the representatives?” he asked.

“In the end they saw the wisdom of leaving prophecy to us.”

Despite how tired he was, and how concerned he was about what had happened down in the dungeon, Richard couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her, at the sparkle of life in her beautiful green eyes as she set down the brush and stood to face him.

“That’s a relief, but I knew you could do it.” Richard put one arm around her waist as he used a finger of his other hand to lift a strand of hair back from her face. “I’m glad you were there to handle it. I’m afraid that I would only have gotten angry and scared the wits out of them. I don’t have your patience for diplomacy. So, what did you say to conv

ince them to back off?”

“I threatened to chop off their heads if they didn’t.”

Richard laughed at her joke, then kissed her forehead. “I imagine you charmed them into submission and had them eating out of your hand by the time you were through.”

Kahlan rested her forearms on his shoulders and clasped her hands behind his head. “Richard, I may have dissuaded them for the moment, but something more is going on than we’re seeing.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.”

“What did the woman who killed her four children have to say?”

Richard sighed as he let his arms slip from her waist. “She said that terrible things are going to happen so she killed her children to spare them.”

“What terrible things?”

“I asked her that. She couldn’t seem to come up with anything. Then she dropped dead, just like the woman who tried to kill you yesterday.”

“She died? The same way, simply dropped dead?”

“I’m afraid so. She convulsed and died like the woman you touched. That would seem to confirm that it had nothing to do with you using your power on her.”

As Kahlan turned away to stare off in thought, Richard looked around at the spacious room. The sunken, white panels of the coffered ceiling were each decorated with gilded moldings in geometric patterns. The wall behind the bed was covered in soft, padded, dark brown fabric. The bed had a canopy with enough sheer fabric to make the tall corner posts, carved into stylized figures of women, look like nothing so much as good spirits spreading gossamer wings. Ornate chairs set opposite a couch were upholstered in striped, dusty green satin.

“I haven’t seen this room before.”

“Neither had I,” Kahlan said. “I had a trying day with all the representatives, so I lay down and rested for a while. I didn’t sense that I was being watched, like I did the last time. Maybe this room is far enough away from the other two rooms that prying eyes won’t find us here and we can get a good night’s sleep.”

“I could use that,” Richard said, absently, as he scanned the room for any hint that someone, or something, was watching them. He didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.