Soul of the Fire (85 page)

Bertrand tapped his thumbs as he smiled. “Then we will just, as I said before, have to stall them, won’t we, my dear?”
 

The D’Haran troops were a dark ribbon on the road behind them as Richard and Kahlan led them toward the Minister of Culture’s estate. A dark ribbon bristling steel. The sun was not an hour from setting behind scattered clouds, but at least they had arrived.

Richard pulled his damp D’Haran shirt away from his chest as he watched a curious raven circling overhead. With raucous calls, it let its lordly presence be known, as was the way with ravens.

It had been a warm and humid day. He and Kahlan both wore extra clothes the soldiers brought so their own would be clean and fit for the meeting they both knew would soon come.

Richard glanced back over his shoulder and received a murderous look from Du Chaillu. He had made her ride a horse so they could make the distance and not take another day. Their journey had taken far too long as it was.

The Baka Tau Mana did not like riding horses. As often as not, Du Chaillu would simply have ignored him when he told her to ride. This time, she knew if she ignored the order she would be left behind.

It had apparently taken Cara some time to locate General Reibisch’s forces and send an escort of troops. Richard, Kahlan, and the Baka Tau Mana had been on foot, slogging through late spring deluges, for far too long. They hadn’t made a lot of distance before the D’Haran troops finally arrived with horses.

Du Chaillu had also slowed their journey, although not purposely. She endlessly protested that riding would harm her baby before it was born—the baby Richard had suggested she bear. Because of her unborn child, Richard was reluctant to force her to ride.

He hadn’t wanted her along in the first place. After the D’Haran troops had arrived with supplies and extra horses, she refused to return home as she had previously promised she would.

To her credit, she never complained about the difficulty of the journey. But when Richard made her ride, it put her in a vile mood.

Kahlan, at first cool about having the Baka Tau Mana’s spirit woman along, had warmed to the situation ever since the day he fell from his horse. Kahlan credited Du Chaillu with saving his life. Richard appreciated Du Chaillu’s eagerness to help, but didn’t believe it was her doing that kept him alive.

He wasn’t at all sure what had happened. Since seeing the Dominie Dirtch, and hearing how they had chimed on their own at the same time he felt the crippling pain, he knew the whole thing had to be tied together somehow, and he didn’t believe Du Chaillu held much sway over it. This was something much bigger than she realized, or Richard could understand.

Since Richard had seen the Dominie Dirtch, he hadn’t slowed for anything, even her pregnant condition. Since being close to those stone bells and feeling some of what he felt, she had been more cooperative about his hurry.

Richard lifted a hand when he spotted the rider trailing a plume of dust. He could hear orders being relayed back through the ranks in response to his signal, bringing the entire column to a jangling halt. Only in the sudden silence, after they had stopped, did he realize how much noise it made when they were on the move.

“
This will be our greeting,” Kahlan said.

“
How far to the Minister’s estate?” Richard asked.

“
Not far. We’re more than half way from Fairfield. Maybe a mile.”

Richard and Kahlan dismounted to meet the approaching rider. A soldier took the reins to Kahlan’s horse. Richard handed his back to the man, too, and then stepped out away from the others. Kahlan alone walked with him. He had to signal with a hand to keep the soldiers from forming a defensive ring around them.

The young man leaped from his horse before it had skidded to a stop. Holding the reins in one hand, he went to a knee in a bow. Kahlan greeted him in the way of the Mother Confessor and he rose. He wore livery of black boots, dark trousers, white shirt with a fancy collar and cuffs, and tan quilted doublet with black-and-brown braiding around the edges.

The man bowed a head of red hair to Richard. “Lord Rahl?”

“
Yes, that’s right.”

He straightened. “I’m Rowley. The Minister of Culture sent me to greet you and extend his joy to have you and the Mother Confessor grace the people of Anderith with your presence.”

“
I’m sure,” Richard said.

Kahlan elbowed his ribs. “Thank you, Rowley. We will need a place for our men to set up camp.”

“
Yes, Mother Confessor. The Minister wanted me to tell you that you’re welcome to choose any ground in our land. If it would be acceptable, you may have the grounds at the estate for your use.”

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.

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.”