It was late in the night by the time they returned to the Confessors’ Palace. Soldiers there were already on high alert. Men stood with swords and battle-axes to hand, arrows nocked, and spears leveled. Others patrolled the expansive grounds. A mouse wouldn’t have escaped their intense scrutiny.
As Kahlan, Berdine, Raina, Drefan, and Nadine accompanied him into the gathering hall inside, Richard saw Tristan Bashkar waiting there, hands clasped behind his back as he paced. He halted and looked up when he heard them coming.
Richard drifted to a stop as the contrite-looking ambassador approached. Those escorting Richard gathered in a knot behind him, except Kahlan, who stood close at his side. With a hand in the air, Tristan hailed them.
“Lord Rahl, may I have a word with you, please?”
Richard swept his gaze over the man, noticing that he didn’t rest his hand on a hip so as to show off his fancy knife.
Richard held up a finger. “One moment, please.”
Richard turned a little to the rest of them. “It’s late. We have a lot of work to do, so I want you to get some rest. Berdine, I want you to go up to the Keep and stand guard with Cara tonight.”
Berdine frowned. “Both of us?”
Richard scowled. “Isn’t that what I said? Yes, both of you. With this trouble, I don’t want to take any chances.”
“I will guard the Mother Confessor’s room, then,” Raina said.
“No,” Richard lifted a thumb. “I want you guarding Nadine’s room. She was the one who was attacked.”
“Yes, Lord Rahl,” Raina stammered. “I’ll see to setting up a guard of soldiers outside the Mother Confessor’s room, then.”
“If I wanted soldiers around Kahlan’s room, I’d have told you so, now wouldn’t I?” Raina’s face reddened. “I want all the soldiers doing their jobs patrolling the entrances, the palace grounds, and a perimeter around the grounds. Every one of them! The danger is from out there, not in here. Kahlan is perfectly safe inside the palace. I don’t want men who should be guarding outside instead sitting on their bottoms around Kahlan’s room inside. I’ll not have it, do you hear me?”
“But, Lord Rahl—”
“Don’t question me. I’m not in the mood.”
Kahlan touched his arm. “Richard,” she whispered, “are you sure that—”
“Someone tired to kill Nadine. They nearly succeeded. Or did some of you miss the significance of that? I’ll not take any more chances. I want her protected, and I don’t want to hear any more arguments. Drefan, I want you to start carrying a sword at once. Healers are a target.”
Everyone stared at the floor in silence.
“Good.” Richard turned his glare on Tristan. “What is it?”
Tristan spread his hands. “Lord Rahl, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I realize I seemed insensitive, but I’ve been worried about the people here who are sick and dying. It set my nerves on edge. I meant to cause no ill will between us. I hope you will accept my apology.”
Richard studied Tristan’s eyes. “Yes, of course. Apology accepted, and I’m sorry that I lost my temper. I, too, have been out of sorts.” Richard put a hand on Nadine’s shoulder. “Someone tried to kill one of my healers—a person devoted to helping others. People are beginning to blame healers because the plague continues to spread. I can’t allow harm to come to people who are only trying their best to help.”
“Yes, of course. You are most kind to accept my apology. Thank you, Lord Rahl.”
“Just don’t forget, ambassador, that your time runs out tomorrow.”
Tristan bowed. “I realize that, and you will know my stand by tomorrow, Lord Rahl. You have my word. Good night, then.”
Richard rounded on the rest of them. “We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. It’s very late. As Drefan is constantly reminding me, we need to get some sleep. You all have your orders. Any questions?”
Each answered with a silent shake of the head.
Two hours after they had returned to the palace, and Richard had sent them all to bed, Kahlan thought she saw something move in her room.
The lamp on the far wall was turned down low. The clouds hid the moon, so there was no light coming in the glassed doors to the balcony. The thick carpets silenced the sound of footsteps, if there were any. The weak flame from the lamp was all that betrayed the shape she thought she saw.
Another motion came from across the room—a hint of shadowed movement. She hadn’t seen a person enter her rooms; it could be nothing other than her imagination. The day had left her in an edgy state.
With the next silent step, there was no doubt: there was someone in her room. Someone slipped ever closer to her bed. As furtive as the movements were, he had closed the distance in remarkably short order.
Kahlan didn’t move a muscle as she saw the knife glint in the dim lamplight. She held her breath.
A powerful arm stabbed hatefully into her bed. The arm rose and fell, stabbing in quick succession.
With a finger, Richard pushed on the balcony door. It swung open on silent hinges. Berdine glided across the room the instant Richard gave her a hand signal. When she was in place, he tapped the glass once. Berdine turned up the wick on the lamp.
Tristan Bashkar straightened beside Kahlan’s bed, knife in hand, panting with the effort of what he had just been doing.
“Toss down the knife, ambassador,” Richard said in a quiet tone.
Tristan spun the knife in his fingers, seizing the blade in preparation to throw it.
Berdine’s Agiel to the back of his neck dropped him instantly. She pressed the Agiel down on his shoulder to support herself as she bent and picked up the knife. Tristan howled in pain.
Berdine straightened, coming up with three knives.
“You were right, Richard,” Drefan said from behind.
“I can’t believe it,” Nadine said as she stepped up into the lamplight.
“Believe it,” General Kerson said as he, too, came in from the balcony. “I’d say Tristan Bashkar has nullified his immunity as a diplomat.”
Richard put two fingers between his lips and whistled. Raina charged through the door ahead of a large contingent of D’Haran soldiers bristling steel. Two of them lit more lamps.
Richard hooked his thumbs behind his belt as he stood beside Kahlan, a towering black form defined with gold trim on his tunic and silver ornaments, buckles, and wristbands, watching the soldiers haul Tristan to his feet.
“You were right, Richard,” she said. “He attacked Nadine to draw the guard off me. It was me he was after all along.”
For a while, she had thought he had lost his mind. His performance had convinced everyone, including Tristan.
“Thanks for believing me,” Richard whispered.
When he had first told her what he was doing, Kahlan had suspected that Richard had accused Tristan because of the incident earlier. Kahlan had not put words to it, but she had wondered if Richard was simply acting out of jealousy.
Since she had told him what Shota said, he had now twice displayed jealousy, something she had never before seen from him. He didn’t have any reason to be jealous, but Shota’s words played on his mind, casting in doubt.
Whenever she looked at Nadine, Kahlan understood his feelings. Whenever she saw Nadine so much as standing near him, Kahlan felt the hot claws of jealousy rake through her insides.
She knew what Shota and the spirit had told her the truth. She knew that she would not have Richard. Her mind tried to put rational thought to it, to tell her that it would work out, that they would be together, but her heart knew better. Richard would marry Nadine. Kahlan would marry another man.
Richard refused to believe it. At least, he said he refused to believe it. She wondered.
In her mind’s eye, Kahlan saw Clive Anderson, sitting dead in his chair, holding his dead wife. In comparison to the tragedy that had befallen the Anderson family and so many others, what price was an unhappy marriage? Wouldn’t it be worth that price, if it wou
ld stop the appalling suffering and death?
Nadine slipped up next to Richard on the other side. “Drawing the guard off Kahlan or not, I’d have been dead. Thank you, Richard. I’ve never seen anything like the way you caught that arrow right in front of my face.”
Richard gave her a quick, one-armed hug. “Nadine, you’ve said thank you enough times. You’d have done the same for me.”
Kahlan felt those hot claws again. She suppressed the feeling. As Shota had said, if she loved him, she would want him to have at least the small comfort of it being someone he knew.
“But what if he had killed me? I mean, if he just wanted to draw the guard away from Kahlan, what if he had killed me? What good would that have that done him?”
“He knows I have the gift, and counted on that. If he had happened to kill you, it might still have worked, or he could have faked something similar with Drefan, reinforcing our belief that the target was healers and not Kahlan.”
“Why didn’t he just shoot Kahlan with the arrow?”
Richard watched the one-sided struggle on the other side of Kahlan’s bed. “Because he likes to use that knife of his. He wanted to feel it when he killed her.”
His words gave Kahlan a chill. She knew Tristan; Richard might be right. Tristan would have gotten pleasure from it.
The soldiers wrestled Tristan’s arms behind his back as they hauled him to his feet. He was still full of fight, but he was grossly overpowered. More lamps were lit as the room filled with soldiers.
Kahlan felt embarrassed to have all those people in her bedroom. She guessed it was because the Mother Confessor’s rooms had always been a private sanctuary. A safe place.
A man had invaded that sanctuary. A man intent on stabbing her to death.
“What’s this all about?” Tristan shouted.
“Oh, we just thought we’d like to watch a man stabbing a nightdress stuffed with tow,” Richard said.
General Kerson inspected the prisoner to assure himself that Berdine had found all his weapons. When he was satisfied, he turned to Richard.
“What would you like done, Lord Rahl?”
“Behead him.”
Kahlan turned in shock. “Richard, you can’t do that.”
“You saw him. He thought he was killing you.”
“But he didn’t. He only stabbed my empty bed. The spirits mark a difference between intent and deed.”
“He tried to kill Nadine, too.”
“I did no such thing!” Tristan shouted. “That wasn’t me—I haven’t even left the palace tonight!”
Richard turned a cold glare on Tristan. “You have white hairs on your knees. White goat hairs. You knelt behind that fence while you aimed the crossbow, and got the goat hairs on you.”
Kahlan glanced down, and saw that Richard was right.
“You’re crazy! I never did!”
“Richard,” Kahlan said, “he didn’t kill Nadine, either. He may have tried, but he didn’t. You can’t execute him for intent.”
Richard closed his fist around the amulet at his chest, the amulet representing the dance with death. No mercy.
The general’s eyes left Kahlan and returned to Richard. “Lord Rahl?”
“Richard,” Kahlan insisted, “you can’t.”
Richard glared at Tristan. “He killed those women. He sliced them up with his fancy knife. You like to cut people, don’t you, Tristan?”
“What are you talking about? I never killed anyone—except in war!”
“No,” Richard said, “and you didn’t try to kill Kahlan, and you didn’t try to kill Nadine, and there aren’t white goat hairs on your pants.”
Tristan’s panicked brown eyes turned to Kahlan. “Mother Confessor, I didn’t kill you, I didn’t kill her. You said it yourself, the spirits mark a difference between intent and deed. I didn’t kill anyone. You can’t let him do this!”
Kahlan recalled the whispers about Tristan, the whispers that when he went into battle he drew his knife instead of his sword, and that he got sadistic pleasure from cutting people.
Those women were killed for sadistic pleasure.
“What was it you told me, Tristan? That you often had to resort to the charms of coin for the company of a woman? And that if you broke our rules, you would expect to be subjected to our choice of punishment?”
“What about a trial? I’ve killed no one! Intent is not the same as deed!”
“And what was your intent, Tristan?” Richard asked. “Why did you intend to kill Kahlan?”
“It wasn’t because I wanted to. It wasn’t for pleasure, as you think. It was to save lives.”
Richard lifted an eyebrow. “Killing to save lives?”
“You’ve killed people. You don’t do it for the pleasure of killing, but to save the lives of innocent people. That’s all I’m guilty of—trying to save innocent lives.
“The Imperial Order sent representatives to the royal palace in Sandilar. They told us to join with them, or die. Javas Kedar, our star guide, told me I must watch the skies for a sign.
“When the red moons came, and the plague started, I knew what they meant. I was going to kill the Mother Confessor in order to try to gain favor with the Order, so that they wouldn’t send the plague to us, too. I was only trying to save my people.”
Richard’s eyes turned to Kahlan. “How far is Sandilar?”
“A month, there and back. Maybe a few days less.”
Richard looked back at the general. “Get some officers together to take command of the Jarian forces and capital. Have them take Tristan’s head to the royal family and tell them that he was executed for attempting to kill the Mother Confessor.
“The officers are to offer Jara surrender to D’Hara under the peaceful terms already offered. It’s a month, there and back. The king himself is to return with the surrender documents. I expect him, and the D’Haran guard sent to accompany him, back here within one month from tomorrow.
“Tell the king that if they don’t surrender, and our men don’t return safely, I will personally ride into Sandilar at the head of an army and I will behead every member of the royal family. We will then conquer Jara and occupy the capital. The occupation will not be friendly.”
General Kerson clapped a fist to the chain mail over his heart. “It will be as you say, Lord Rahl.”
“Richard,” Kahlan whispered, “what if what he says is true—that he didn’t kill those women? I could touch him with my Confessor’s power and we would know for sure.”
“No! I’ll not have you touching him, or hearing the things he did to those women. He’s a monster; I don’t want you to have to touch him.”
“But what if he’s telling the truth? What if he didn’t kill those women?”
Richard’s fist gripped the amulet at his chest. “I’m not having him put to death for the murder of those women. He tried to kill you. I saw it. As far as I’m concerned, the intent is the same as the deed. He is going to pay for the intent, the same as he would have paid for the deed.”
Richard turned a cold, dark glare back to the soldiers. “Last night alone, three hundred people died of the plague. He would have joined with the murders who caused it. I want the men on their way to Jara first thing in the morning, and I want his head to go with them. You have your orders. Get him out of here.”
52
When she saw Drefan coming from the other direction, Kahlan set down the basket of clean bandages and rags she was carrying. Even though Richard had only ordered it as part of his ruse to convince Tristan that his plan was working, Drefan was still wearing a sword. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea. Some people were beginning to resent healers because they spoke out against the potions and cures being sold on the streets.
She brushed back her hair. “How are they?”
Drefan sighed as he glanced back up the hall. “One died last night. Most are worse. We have six new ones today.”
“Dear spirits,” she whispered, “what is to happen to us?”
> Drefan lifted her chin. “We will persevere.”
Kahlan nodded. “Drefan, if so many of the staff are coming down sick, and so many have died already, what good is this infernal smoke doing? I’m sick of breathing it.”
“The smoke is doing no good for the plague.”
Kahlan blinked up at him. “Then why must we keep doing it?”
Drefan smiled sadly. “The people think it helps keep the plague from being worse. It makes them feel better that we’re doing something, and that there is hope. If we stop, then they will think there is no hope.”
“Is there? Is there any hope?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Have you heard last night’s report yet?”
He nodded. “In the last week the number of dead has continued to rise. Last night it was up to over six hundred.”
Kahlan looked away despondently. “I wish we could do something.”
Shota had told her that a way would come. The spirit had told her that a way would come. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Richard, but she also couldn’t bear the thought of all the people who were dying.
“Well,” Drefan said, “I’m going to make my rounds through the city.”
Kahlan clasped his forearm. He flinched. It was a reaction that she, as a Confessor, was used to. She took her hand back. “I know you can do nothing to stop it, but thank you for all your aid anyway. Just your words help those living to have hope.”
“A healer’s best aid, words. Most of the time it’s all we can do to help. Most people think being a healer means healing people. That actually happens rarely. I learned a long time ago that being a healer means living with pain and suffering.”
“How’s Richard? Have you seen him this morning?”
“He’s in his office. He looked fine. I made him get some sleep.”
“Good. He needed rest.”
Drefan’s blue eyes searched hers. “He did what he had to with that man who tried to kill you, but I know that despite how resolute he appeared, it was a terribly hard thing for him to do. Killing a man, even one who richly deserves it, is not something that comes easily to Richard.”