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"Savidlin!" Weselan scolded in a scandalized tone. She turned to them. "If he didn't already have a hurt, I would have given him one. A good one."
"So how did you get this hurt?" Richard asked.
Savidlin shrugged. "Like I told my men: it was easy. You just stand there like a surprised rabbit while a trespasser puts a spear through you."
"And why didn't he finish you?"
"Because I put a few ten-step arrows in him." He pointed at his throat. "Here."
"What's a ten-step arrow?"
Savidlin reached to the side and pulled a barbed, fine-pointed arrow from his quiver. "One of these. See the dark stain? Poison. Ten-step poison. When it sticks you, you get only ten steps, and then you are dead." He laughed. "My men decided to think of a different way to get those women to carry them."
Weselan leaned over and stuffed the rest of her tava bread in her husband's mouth. She turned to Kahlan. "Men enjoy telling the most awful stories." She broke into a shy smile. "But I worried for him until he was well. I knew he was well when he came to me and made Siddin. Then I did not worry anymore."
Kahlan realized she had translated before she had paid attention to the meaning of the words. She felt her ears burn. Instead of looking at Richard, she paid close attention to eating her porridge. She was glad her hair covered her ears, at least.
Savidlin gave Richard a look of a put-upon male. "You will find that women, too, like to tell stories."
Kahlan tried desperately to think of a new direction for the conversation. She couldn't. Thankfully, Savidlin did. He leaned back, looking out the door.
"It will soon be the time to go."
"How do you know what time we are to go?"
Savidlin shrugged. "I am here, you are here, some of the men are here. When they are all here, that is the time to go."
Savidlin went to the corner and retrieved a bow that was taller than the one Kahlan had seen him use before. Taller for Richard. With the aid of his foot, Savidlin stretched the cord to the bow.
Richard had a wide grin on his face. He told Savidlin it was the finest bow he had ever seen. Savidlin beamed with pride and gave him a quiver full of arrows.
Richard tested the weight of the draw. "How did you know how strong to make the pull? It's just right."
Savidlin pointed at his chin. "I remembered how strong your respect for my strength was when we first met. It is too heavy for me, but I estimated it was right for you."
Kahlan stood up next to Richard. "Are you sure you want to go? How does your head feel?"
"Terrible. But I have the leaves; they help a little. I think I'll be all right. Savidlin is looking forward to this. I don't want to disappoint him."
She rubbed her hand on his shoulder. "Should I come with you?"
Richard kissed her forehead. "I don't think I'll need anyone to translate to tell me how badly I'm being beaten. And I don't think I want to give Chandalen's men any excuse to humiliate me any worse than they are already going to."
"Zedd told me you were pretty good. In fact, he told me you were better than good."
Richard stole a look at Savidlin, who was stringing his own bow. "It's been a long time since I've shot a bow. Zedd was just trying to stir up trouble, I'll bet."
He stole a kiss while Savidlin was finishing and then went out the door with him. Kahlan leaned against the doorframe still feeling the print of his lips on hers as she watched him walking away.
Showing no emotion, Chandalen stared up from sighting down one of his arrows. Prindin and Tossidin gave sly smiles. They were looking forward to this. Richard glanced around, meeting the eyes of all the men as he walked past. They fell in behind him. He was a good head taller than any of them. They looked like a bunch of children following an adult. But these children had poison arrows, and some of them didn't hold any favor for Richard. Suddenly she didn't like this.
Weselan stood next to her, watching the men go. "Savidlin said he will watch Richard's back. Don't be concerned, Chandalen would not do anything foolish."
"I worry about what Chandalen considers foolish."
Weselan wiped her hands on a cloth, turning back to keep a watchful eye on Siddin. Siddin wanted to go out, and was sitting, poking a finger along the ground, looking dejected because his mother said she wanted him to stay inside. Weselan stood over him a long moment watching. He looked up, his chin resting in one palm. She gave him a gentle snap with the cloth.
"Go outside and play." Weselan sighed as he tore through the door with a squeal of glee. She shook her head to herself. "The young don't know how dear life is. Or how fragile."
"Maybe that is why we all wish we were young again."
Weselan nodded. "Maybe so." A handsome smile came to her tanned face. Her dark eyes sparkled. "What color would you like to wear when you wed your man?"
With both hands, Kahlan pulled her long hair back over her shoulders and thought a minute. A smile welled up from within. "Richard favors blue."
Weselan twined her fingers together. "Oh, that would be just right, then. I have just the thing. I have been saving it for something special."
She went into her small bedroom and came back with a bundle. Sitting on the bench next to Kahlan, she carefully unfolded it in her lap. The cloth was finely woven, a rich blue with a print of lighter blue flowers dappled across it. Kahlan thought it would make a gorgeous dress.
She tested the weave between her finger and thumb. "It's beautiful. Where did you get it?"
"I traded for it." She flicked her hand over her head. "With people from the north. They like the bowls I make. I traded with them for it."
Kahlan knew fine cloth when she saw it. Weselan would have had to make many bowls for this cloth. "I wouldn't feel right using it, Weselan. You worked hard for this. It is yours."
Weselan held up the corners of the blue fabric, giving it a critical appraisal. "Nonsense. You two come here and teach our people how to make roofs that don't leak. You save Siddin from those shadow things, and in the process rid us of an old fool and make it so Savidlin can be one of the six elders. He has never been so happy. When Siddin is carried off, you find him and bring him back to us. You destroy the man who would have enslaved us. You two are guardians to our people. What is a piece of cloth?
"I will be proud the Mother Confessor of all the Midlands is wedded in a dress I make. Me, just a simple woman. For you, my friend, from all those far away places, with all those grand things that I cannot even imagine. You would not be taking something from me. You would be giving me something."
Kahlan's eyes filled with tears. Her lower lip trembled. "You can't know the joy you have given me, Weselan. To be a Confessor is to be feared. My whole life, people have feared and shunned me. No one has ever treated me as just a woman; talked to me as a woman. Only as a Confessor. No one before Richard ever saw me as a person. No woman before you ever welcomed me into her home. No woman has ever let me hold their child." She wiped away some of the tears. "It will be the most beautiful dress I have ever worn, the most treasured dress I will ever have. I will wear it, proud that a friend made it for me."
Weselan gave her a sidelong look. "When your man sees you in this dress, he will make you a child of your own."
Kahlan laughed and cried and hugged her. She had never dared to dream that all these things could happen in her life; that she could ever be treated as anything but a Confessor.
Kahlan and Weselan spent the better part of the morning starting the dress. Weselan seemed as excited about making the dress as Kahlan was about wearing it. The seamstresses back in Aydindril had nothing over Weselan with her fine bone needles. They settled on a simple design fashioned something like a kirtle.
They had a simple lunch of tava bread and chicken broth. Weselan said she would work on the dress later, and asked what Kahlan wanted to do in the afternoon. Kahlan said she really would like to cook something.
Kahlan never ate meat when she was here before on official business because she knew the Mud Peop
le ate human flesh, ate their enemies to gain their knowledge. To avoid offending them, she had always used the excuse that she didn't eat meat. The night before, Richard had reacted strangely to eating meat, so Kahlan didn't say anything to change the menu when Weselan suggested a vegetable stew.
The two of them cut up tava, some other rust colored roots Kahlan didn't recognize, peppers, beans, some nutty kuru, and then added greens and dried mushrooms into the big iron kettle hanging over the little fire in the corner cooking hearth. Weselan pushed a few sticks of hardwood into the fire as she told Kahlan the men probably wouldn't be back until dark. She suggested they go to the common area with the other women and bake some tava bread in the ovens.
"I would like that," Kahlan said.
"We will talk about the wedding with them. Talk of weddings always makes for good conversation." She smiled. "Especially when there are no men around."
Kahlan was happy to find that the young women talked to her now. In the past they had always been too shy. The older women wanted to talk about the marriage. The younger women wanted to talk about faraway places. They wanted to know if it was really true that men followed her orders, that they did as she said.
Their eyes were wide as Kahlan told them about the Central Council and how she protected the interests of peoples like the Mud People from the threat of invasion by more powerful lands so the Mud People and others in small communities could live as they wished. She explained that although she was able to command people, she did so only because she was the servant to all the people. When they asked if she commanded armies of men in battle, Kahlan told them that it wasn't like that; that what she did was try to help the different lands work together so there wouldn't be fighting. They wanted to know how many servants she had and what sorts of fabulous dresses she had. The questions were beginning to make the older women nervous, and to frustrate Kahlan.
