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He smiled. "I'm glad we're on good terms again."
A man approached, and was waved forward by the Captain. "What is it, Sergent Frost?"
Sergent Frost gave a salute of his fist to his heart. "We sent a few men out, and in an abandoned barn they found some crushed chalk and other things needed to make whitewash. We have some wooden tubs we can mix it in. You said you wanted it in something big. They're big enough to bathe in."
"How many of these tubs do you have?" Kahlan asked.
"A dozen, Mother Confessor."
"Put the tubs near each other, and pitch a tent around each. Use the largest tents you have, even if it is the command tents. Make the whitewash with hot water, and place the heated stones inside the tents, to keep it as warm as possible inside. Let me know when all this is seen to."
Keeping his obvious questions to himself, the sergent saluted and rushed off to see it done.
Captain Ryan gave her a curious frown. "What do you want with whitewash?"
"We've just gotten back on good terms, let's not spoil it for a bit. I'll tell you after things are prepared. Are the wagons ready?"
"Should be."
"Then I must see to them. Did you send the sentries and lookouts?""First thing."
As she walked through the camp to the wagons, men came to her constantly. "The wagon wheels, Mother Confessor. As we destroy things we should stave in the wheels," and "Their battle standards, shouldn't we burn them, so they can't rally their men around them?" and "Couldn't we set fire to their baggage, so if the weather turns colder they'll freeze?" and "If we were to throw manure in their barrels of drinking water, they would have to waste time melting snow," and a hundred other ideas, from the absurd to the worthwhile. She listened to each with attention, giving her honest opinion, and, in a few cases, her orders to see it done.
Lieutenant Hobson came at a trot holding out a tin bowl. That was the last thing she needed.
"Mother Confessor! I kept some stew hot for you!"
Beaming, he handed her the bowl as she walked. She tried to act grateful. He walked along next to her, watching, grinning. She forced herself to take a spoonful, and to tell him how wonderful it tasted. It was all she could do to keep that one spoonful down.
After using her power, a Confessor needed time to recover. For some it was days; for her it took a couple of hours. Rest, if she could get it, was the best thing for a Confessor after using her power. The little rest she had gotten was now wasted. She could get no more now, and probably would get none this night either.
The last thing a Confessor needed while recovering her power was food. It diverted her energy to the food instead of returning her strength. She had to think of a way out of eating the bowl of stew or it would end up on the ground, to the embarrassment of all.
Thankfully, she reached the wagons before she had to take another mouthful. She asked lieutenant Hobson to get Chandalen and the two brothers, and bring them to her. After he left, she set the bowl down on the splinter bar of the dray with the casks of ale and climbed up.
She motioned Captain Ryan up on the wagon as she counted. "Get some men. Unload the top rows so we can get at them all. Right the casks on the bottom row, and withdraw the plugs." As he motioned for men to help with the task, she asked, "Did Chandalen have you all make a troga?"
A troga was a simple, stout piece of cord or a wire with a wooden handle on each end, and long enough so that when it was given a twist, it made a loop that was the right size to drop over a man's head. It was applied from behind, and then the handles yanked apart. If it was made of wire, placed correctly at the neck joints, and the man wielding it had arms big enough, his troga could decapitate a person before the victim had a chance to make a sound. Even if it wasn't wire, or his arms were not that strong, the victim still made no sound before he died.
Captain Ryan reached behind his back, under his coat, and retrieved a wire troga, holding it up for her to see. "He gave us a little demonstration. He was gentle, but I'm still glad I wasn't the one he demonstrated on. He says he and Prindin and Tossidin will use these to take the sentries and lookouts. I don't think he believes we can sneak up on them like he can. But many of us have spent a lot of time hunting, and we're more clever..."
Captain Ryan leapt with a yelp. Chandalen had poked him in the ribs, having come up unseen behind him. The Captain comforted his ribs and scowled at a smiling Chandalen. Prindin and his brother climbed up to help unload the barrels.
"You wish something, Mother Confessor?" Chandalen asked.
Kahlan held her hand out. "Give me your bandu. Your ten-step poison."
His brow wrinkled into a scowl, but he reached into the pouch at his waist and pulled out the bone box, leaning over to hand it to her. The brothers fished out their boxes, too, and handed them to her.
"How much will I be able to poison with it? How many casks can I make poison?
Chandalen stepped around Captain Ryan, balancing atop the sides of the round barrels. "You are going to put it in this drink?" Kahlan nodded. "But then we won't have any more. We must have it with us. We may need it."
"I'll leave a bit for emergencies. Every one we can kill in this way is one less to fight."
"But they might discover it's poison," Captain Ryan said. "Then we won't even have them drunk."
"They have dogs," Kahlan said. "That's why I want to send them food, too. They will throw the dogs some of the meat, to make sure it's good. I'm hoping they will be put at ease after testing the food on the dogs, and anxious enough for the ale that the idea of it being poisoned won't come into their heads."
Chandalen counted the barrels silently, and then straightened. "There are thirty six. Twelve for each of our bandu." He scratched his head of black hair while he pondered. "It will not kill them, unless they drink much, but it will make them sick."
"How sick? What will it do?"
"It will make them weak. They will be sick in their stomachs. Their heads will spin inside. Maybe, some will die in a hand of days from the poison sickness."
Kahlan nodded. "It will be a great help."
"But this is hardly enough for all their men," Captain Ryan said. "Only some will drink this."
"Some will go to the unit who plundered it, and the rest will be divided among the men of rank first, with what is left going to the soldiers. The men of rank are the
ones I'm after."
All the top rows were unloaded, leaving only the bottom row, which the men stood up so the plugs could be removed.
"Why are six of these barrels smaller?"
"They're rum," the Captain said.
"Rum? The drink of nobility?" Kahlan smiled. "The commanders will take the rum first." She straightened from peering into one of the open casks. "Chandalen, will they be able to taste it? Will the taste give them warning, if I put more in some?"
He dipped a finger in a cask of rum, and sucked it clean. "No. This is bitter enough. Bitter things hide the taste of bandu."
Kahlan used her knife point to divide the poison from Chandalen's box into sixths. She swished each sixth off her knife point into the round openings in the smaller casks—those with the rum.
Chandalen watched what she was doing. "That much, in the smaller barrels, will probably kill them by morning, the next day for sure. But now you have none for the other six."
Kahlan handed Chandalen back his bone box with a little of the bandu left in the corners and climbed down from the dray. "Six of the casks of ale will have no poison so that we can be sure the rum will kill those who drink it." She put a knife point laden with poison from Tossidin's box into each of the next twelve. "Mix all the barrels up. I don't want the rum on the bottom. The commanders might not see it and take the ale instead."
Kahlan went to the last twelve and opened Prindin's box. She looked up. "You don't have very much. What have you done with yours?"
Prindin looked like he wished she hadn't asked that question. He gestured vaguely. "When we left, I was not thinking so good. You were in a hurry, and so I forgot to see that my bandu box was full."
Chandalen put his fists on his hips and glared down from atop the wagon. "Prindin, how many times have I said that you would forget to take your feet could you walk away without them?"
"It doesn't matter," Kahlan said. Prindin looked relieved to have her interrupt Chandalen's questioning. "This will make them sick. That is all that matters."
As she was putting it in the barrels, she heard men in the distance hailing her. When she had swirled the poison into the last barrel, she looked up to see two huge draft horses trotting toward her. She frowned at seeing men riding them bareback, and calling out to her.
