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Adie always smiled and said it was a wonder and insisted that he looked grand in his fine clothes. Kahlan suspected she really did like him better in his new outfit. Kahlan, too, thought Zedd looked grand, though not so wizardlike as his traditional fashion made him look. Wizards of his high rank wore the simplest robes. There was no rank above Zedd: First Wizard.
“Thank you, child,” Adie said as she warmed her hands near the flames.
“Orsk,” Kahlan called.
The big man scurried forward. The scar over his missing eye was white in the firelight. “Yes, mistress?” He stood ready to carry out her instructions. What they might be was of no importance to him, his only concern being that he had a chance to please her.
“There’s no pot in here. Could you get us one, so we can make some dinner?”
His dark leather uniform creaked as he bowed and turned to hurry from the room. Orsk had been a D’Haran soldier from the Imperial Order’s camp. He had tried to kill her, and in the struggle she touched him with her power, the magic of the Confessors destroying forever who he had been and filling him with blind loyalty to her. That blind loyalty and devotion was a wearing presence to Kahlan, a constant reminder of what and who she was.
She tried not to see the man he had been: a D’Haran soldier who had joined with the Imperial Order, one of the killers who had participated in the slaughter of the helpless women and children of Ebinissia. As the Mother Confessor, she had sworn no mercy on any of the men of the Order, and there had been none. Only Orsk still lived. Though he lived, the man who had fought for the Order was dead.
Because of the death spell Zedd had cast over her to aid in their escape from Aydindril, few knew Kahlan as the Mother Confessor. Orsk only knew her as his mistress. Zedd, of course; Adie; Jebra; Ahern; Chandalen; her half brother, Prince Harold; and Captain Ryan knew her true identity, but everyone else thought the Mother Confessor was dead. The men she had fought with knew her only as their queen. Their memory of her being the Mother Confessor had been confused and muddled into remembering her as Queen Kahlan, no less their leader, but not the Mother Confessor.
After snow had been melted, Jebra and Kahlan added beans and bacon, cut up a few sweet roots to toss into the pot, and spooned in some molasses. Zedd stood rubbing his hands as he watched the ingredients being added. Kahlan grinned at his childlike eagerness and, from a pack, retrieved some hard bread for him. He was pleased, and ate the bread while the beans boiled.
While dinner cooked, Kahlan thawed leftover soup they had brought in a small pot and took it in to Cyrilla. She set a candle on a slat she stuck in a crack in the wall and sat on the edge of the bed in the quiet room. She wiped a warm cloth on her half sister’s forehead for a while, and was happy to see Cyrilla’s eyes open. A panicked gaze darted around the dim room. Kahlan grabbed Cyrilla’s jaw and forced her to look up into her eyes.
“It’s me, Kahlan, my sister. You are safe, alone with me. You are safe. Be at ease. Everything is all right.”
“Kahlan?” Cyrilla clutched at Kahlan’s white fur mantle. “You promised. You won’t go back on your word. You mustn’t.”
Kahlan smiled. “I promised, and I will keep the promise. I am the queen of Galea, and will be the queen until the day you wish the crown back.”
Cyrilla sagged back in relief, still clutching the fur mantle. “Thank you, my queen.”
Kahlan urged her to sit up. “Come on, now. I’ve brought you some warm soup.”
Cyrilla turned her face from the spoon. “I’m not hungry.”
“If you want me to be the queen, then you must treat me as queen.” A questioning frown came to Cyrilla’s face. Kahlan smiled. “This is an order from your queen. You will eat the soup.”
Only then would Cyrilla eat. When she had finished it all, and had started shaking and crying again, Kahlan hugged her tight until she slipped into a trancelike state, staring blindly up at nothing. Kahlan tucked the heavy blankets tight around her and kissed her forehead.
Zedd had scrounged up a couple of barrels, a bench, a stool from the barn, and somewhere found another chair. He had asked Prince Harold and Captain Ryan to join Adie, Jebra, Ahern, Orsk, Kahlan, and himself for dinner. They were close to Ebinissia, and had to talk about their plans. Everyone crowded around the small table as Kahlan broke up hard bread and Jebra dished out steaming bowls of beans from the pot sitting in the fire. When the seer was finished, she sat down on the short bench beside Kahlan, all the while giving Zedd puzzled looks.
Prince Harold, a barrel-chested man with a head of long, thick, dark hair, reminded Kahlan of her father. Harold had only that day returned with his scouts from Ebinissia.
“What news have you from your home,” she asked him.
He broke his bread with his thick fingers. “Well,” he sighed, “it was the same as you described it. It doesn’t look as if anyone else has been there. I think it’ll be safe enough for us there. With the Order’s army destroyed—”
“The one in this area,” Kahlan corrected.
He conceded the point with a wave of his bread. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble for now. We don’t have many men yet, but they’re good men, and we have enough to protect the city from up in the passes in the mountains all around, as long as they don’t come in numbers like before. Until the Order brings more men, I think we can hold the city.” He gestured toward Zedd. “And we have a wizard.”
Zedd, busy spooning beans into his mouth, only slowed enough to grunt in agreement.
Captain Ryan swallowed a big mouthful of beans. “Prince Harold is right. We know these mountains. We can defend the city until they bring a large force. By then, maybe we’ll have more men joining with us, and we can start to move.”
Harold dunked his bread in his bowl, scooping up a chunk of bacon. “Adie, what do you judge our chances of getting help from Nicobarese?”
“My homeland be in turmoil. When Zedd and I were there, we learned that the king be dead. The Blood of the Fold has moved to seize power, but not all the people be pleased about it. The sorceresses be most displeased. If the Blood takes power, those women will be hunted down and killed. I expect them to back the forces in the army who resist the Blood.”
“With civil war,” Zedd said, interrupting his speedy spoon work, “it doesn’t bode well for sending troops to aid the Midlands.”
Adie sighed. “Zedd be right.”
“Maybe some of the sorceresses could help?” Kahlan asked.
Adie stirred her spoon in her beans. “Maybe.”
Kahlan looked to her half brother. “But you have troops from other areas yo
u can call in.”
Harold nodded. “We sure do. At least sixty or seventy thousand, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand could be marshaled, though not all of those will be well trained or well armed. It’ll take time to get them organized, but when we do, then Ebinissia will be a force to be reckoned with.”
“We had nearly that many here before,” Captain Ryan reminded them without looking up from his bowl, “and it wasn’t enough.”
“True,” Harold said flourishing his bread. “But that’s just for a beginning.” He looked to Kahlan. “You can bring more of the lands together, can’t you?”
“That’s our hope,” she said. “We must rally the Midlands around us, if we’re to have a chance.”
“What about Sanderia?” Captain Ryan asked. “Their lances are the best in the Midlands.”
“And Lifany,” Harold said. “They make a lot of weapons, and know how to use them.”
Kahlan picked a soft pinch out of the center of her bread. “Sanderia relies on Kelton for summer grazing for their sheep herds. Lifany buys iron from Kelton, and sells them grain. Herjborgue relies on Sanderia’s wool. I think they all might go where Kelton goes.”
Harold stabbed his spoon into his beans. “There were Keltish dead among the ones who attacked Ebinissia.”
“And Galeans.” Kahlan put the bread in her mouth and chewed for a moment as she watched him clench his spoon as if it were a knife. He glared into his bowl.
“There were insurgents and murderers from many lands who joined them,” she said after she had swallowed. “That does not mean their homelands will. Prince Fyren of Kelton had committed his land to the Imperial Order, but he’s dead, now. We are not at war with Kelton; they are part of the Midlands. We are at war with the Imperial Order. We need to stand together. If Kelton joins with us, the others will almost have to, but if they go with the Order, then we will have trouble convincing the others to join us. We need to win over Kelton and bond them to us.”
