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Stentor Street. At least he had managed to find the correct street. Past the market on Stentor Street, Mistress Sanderholt had said. He winked at the girl while he chewed. “What vermin?” he asked the old woman.
“My son,” the old woman said as her eyes flicked down, indicating the girl, “and her mother, they’ve deserted us to stay near the palace, waiting for the gold promised. I told them to work, but they say I’m old and foolish in my ways, that they can be given more than they could earn, if they just wait there for what’s owed them.”
“How do they reason it’s ‘owed them’?”
She shrugged. “Because someone from the palace said so. Said they were entitled to it. Said all the people were. Some, like those two, believe it; it appeals to my son’s lazy ways. The young are lazy nowadays. So they sit and wait, to be given, to be taken care of, instead of seeing to their own needs. They fight over who should be given the gold first. Some of the weak and old have been killed in those fights.
“Meanwhile, fewer work, and so the prices keep going up. We can hardly afford enough bread, now.” Her face set into a bitter expression. “All because of a foolish lust for gold. My son had work, for Chalmer the baker, but now he waits to be handed gold, instead of working, and she grows more hungry.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye at the girl, and smiled kindly. “She works, though. Helps me make my cakes, she does, so we can feed ourselves. I won’t let her roam the streets, like many of the young do, now.”
She looked up again with a somber expression. “Them’s the vermin: them who take what little we can earn or make with our hands so as to promise it right back to us, expecting us to be thankful at their kind hearts; them who tempt good people to be lazy so they can rule us like they do sheep at a trough; them who took our freedom and our ways. Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don’t think for themselves; they only think about themselves. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
When she finally seemed to have run out of breath, he gestured to the coin in her fist as he swallowed the mouthful of honey cake. Richard gave her a meaningful look. “I’d appreciate it, for now, if you would forget about what my sword looks like.”
She bobbed her head knowingly. “Anything. Anything for you, m’lord. The good spirits be with you. And give the vermin a wack for me.”
Richard moved up the street a ways, and sat a moment on a barrel beside an alleyway to take a bite of his honey cake. It was good, but he wasn’t really paying much attention to the taste, and it didn’t do anything to quell the apprehensive feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t the same feeling as when he sensed the mriswith, he realized; it was more the feeling he had always gotten when someone’s eyes were on him, and the fine hairs at the base of his neck stiffened. That was what he felt—someone watching him, someone watching and following. He scanned the faces, but didn’t see anyone who looked as if they were interested in him.
Licking the honey off his fingers, he wove his way across the street, around horses pulling carts and wagons, and between the crush of people going about their business. At times, it was like trying to swim upriver. The din, the jangling of tack, the thud of hooves, the rattle of cargo in wagons, the creak of axles, the crunch of the compacted snow, the shouting of the hawkers, the cries of hucksters, and the buzz of talking, some in a singsong or a chatter of languages he didn’t understand, was unnerving. Richard was used to the silence of his woods, where the wind in the trees or water rushing over rocks was the most sound he ever heard. Though he had often gone into Hartland, it was hardly more than a small town, and nothing to compare to the cities, like this one, that he had seen since he left home.
Richard missed his woods. Kahlan had promised him that she would return there with him one day for a visit. He smiled to himself as he thought about the beautiful places he would take her—the overlooks, the falls, the hidden mountain passes. He smiled more at the thought of how astonished she would be, and at how happy they would be together. He grinned at the memory of her special smile, the one she gave no one but him.
He missed Kahlan more than he could ever miss his woods. He wanted to get to her as fast as he could. Soon, he would, but first he had a few things to do in Aydindril.
At the sound of shouting he looked up and realized that in his daydreaming he hadn’t been paying any attention to where he was going, and a column of soldiers was about to trample him. The commander cursed as he drew his men to a sudden halt.
“Do you be blind! What kind of fool walks under a column of horsemen!”
Richard glanced around. The people had all moved away from the soldiers, and seemed to be trying their best to look as if they had never had any intention of venturing anywhere near the center of the street. They worked at pretending the soldiers didn’t exist. Most looked as if they wanted to become invisible.
Richard peered up at the man who had yelled at him, and briefly gave thought to becoming invisible himself before there was trouble and someone was hurt, but the Wizard’s Second Rule came to mind: the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. He had learned that when you mixed in magic, the results could be disastrous. Magic was dangerous and had to be used carefully. He quickly decided that a simple apology would be prudent, and would work best.
“Sorry. I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going. Forgive me.”
He didn’t recall having ever seen soldiers like these, all atop mounts standing in neat, precise rows. Each grim-faced soldier’s armor was blinding in the sunlight. Besides the impeccably polished armor, their swords, knives, and lances glinted in the sunlight. Each man wore a crimson cape draped in exact fashion over the flank of his white horse. They looked to Richard like men about to pass in review before a great king.
The man who had yelled glared down from under the brim of a gleaming helmet topped with a red horsehair plume. He held the reins to his powerful gray gelding easily in one gauntleted hand as he leaned over.
“Get out of our way, half-wit, or we’ll trample you and be done with it.”
Richard recognized the man’s accent; it was the same as Adie’s. He didn’t know what land Adie was from, but these men had to be from the same place.
Richard shrugged as he took a step back. “I said I was sorry. I didn’t know there was such urgent business about.”
“Fighting the Keeper always be urgent business.”
Richard took another step back. “Can’t argue with you about that. I’m sure he’s shivering in a corner right now, waiting for you to come vanquish him, so you best be on with it, then.”
The man’s dark eyes shone like ice. Richard tried not to let his wince show. He wished he could learn not to be flip. He guessed it was a result of his size.
Richard had never liked fighting. As he had grown, he had become the target of others wanting to prove themselves. Before he had been given the Sword of Truth, and it had taught him the need of sometimes releasing the anger he had always kept under tight control, he had learned that he could use a smile and humor to smooth the feelings of agitated foes, and disarm those simply wanting to start a fight. Richard knew his own strength, but that confidence had lent his easy humor a tendency to become flippant. Sometimes it seemed as if he just couldn’t help himself; his mouth simply moved before he thought.
“You have a bold tongue. Maybe you be one beguiled by the Keeper.”
“I assure you, sir, you and I fight the same foe.”
“The Keeper’s minions lurk behind arrogance.”
Just as Richard was thinking that he didn’t need any trouble, and it was time to make a quick retreat, the man made to dismount. At the same instant, powerful hands grabbed him. Two huge men, one at each shoulder, lifted him from his feet.
“On your way, dandy,” the one at his right shoulder said to the horseman. “This one is none of your concern.” Richard tried to twist his head around, but he could only manage to see the brown leather of D’Haran uniforms on the men
who held him from behind.
The soldier froze with his foot just out of the stirrup. “We be on the same side, brother. This one needs to be questioned—by us—and then to learn some humility. We will—”
“I said, be off!”
Richard opened his mouth to say something. Immediately, the heavily muscled arm of the D’Haran at his right came out from under a thick, dark brown, wool cape. As a massive hand clamped over his mouth, Richard saw a band of gold-colored metal just above the elbow, its razor-sharp projections glinting in the sunlight. The bands were deadly weapons used to rip open an opponent in close combat. Richard nearly choked on his own tongue.
Most D’Haran soldiers were big, but these two were well beyond merely big. Worse, they were not simply regular D’Haran soldiers; Richard had seen men like these before, with bands just above their elbows. They were Darken Rahl’s personal guards. Darken Rahl almost always had two men like these with him.
The two men lifted Richard easily in their fists; he was as helpless as a stick doll. In his two-week race to Aydindril, to get to Kahlan, he had not only had little food, but little sleep. The fight with the mriswith, only hours before, had drained nearly all the energy he had left, but his fright brought a reserve of strength to his muscles. Against these two, it was not enough.
The man on the horse started swinging his leg over its flanks again, to dismount. “I told you, this one be ours. We intend to question him. If he serves the Keeper, he will confess.”
The D’Haran at Richard’s left shoulder growled in a menacing voice. “Come down here, and I’ll lop off your head and use it to play a game of bowls. We’ve been looking for this one, and he’s ours, now. When we’re done with him, you can question his corpse all you want.”
Frozen half off his horse, the man glared down at the D’Harans. “I told you, brother, we be on the same side. We both fight the Keeper’s evil. There be no need for us to fight one another.”
