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“I am home, Nadine.”
Nadine, at last, could think of no counter.
“Nadine, who told you all this… this marriage business?”
The fire had gone out of her. “A mystic named Shota.”
Kahlan tensed at the sound of that name. Shota was the true threat. No matter what Nadine said, or wanted, it was Shota who had the power to cause trouble.
“Shota!” Richard wiped a hand across his face. “Shota. I might have known.”
And then Richard did the last thing Kahlan would have expected: he chuckled. He stood there, with everyone watching him, threw his head back, and laughed aloud.
Somehow, it magically melted Kahlan’s fears. That Richard would simply laugh off what Shota might do somehow trivialized the threat. Suddenly, her heart felt buoyant. Richard said that the Mud People were going to marry them, as they both wanted, and the fact that Shota wished otherwise was worth no more than a chuckle. Richard’s arm around her waist tightened with a loving squeeze. She felt her cheeks tighten with a grin of her own.
Richard waved an apology. “Nadine, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that Shota has been playing her little tricks on us for a long time. It’s unfortunate that she’s used you in her scheme, but it’s just one of her wretched games. She’s a witch woman.”
“Witch woman?” Nadine whispered.
Richard nodded. “She’s taken us in with her little dramas in the past, but not this time. I no longer care what Shota says. I’m not playing her games anymore.”
Nadine looked perplexed. “A witch woman? Magic? I’ve been plied with magic? But she said that the sky had spoken to her.”
“Is that so. Well, I don’t care if the Creator Himself has spoken to her.”
“She said that the wind hunts you. I was worried. I wanted to help.”
“The wind hunts me? Well, it’s always something with her.”
Nadine’s gaze drifted from his. “But what about us…?”
“Nadine, there is no ‘us.’” The edge returned to his voice. “You, of all people, know the truth of that.”
Her chin lifted with indignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He watched her for a long moment, as if considering saying more than he finally did. “Have it your way, Nadine.”
For the first time, Kahlan felt embarrassed. Whatever the exchange had meant, she felt like an intruder hearing it. Richard seemed uncomfortable, too. “I’m sorry, Nadine, but I have things I have to take care of. If you need help getting home, I’ll see what I can do. Whatever you need—a horse, supplies, whatever. Tell everyone back in Hartland that I’m fine, and I send my best wishes.”
He turned to the waiting Ulic. “Is General Kerson here?”
“Yes, Lord Rahl.”
Richard took a step toward the door. “I’d best go see what his problem is.”
General Kerson instead entered from right around the doorway when he heard his name. Graying, but muscular and fit, and a head shorter than Richard, he cut an imposing figure in his burnished leather uniform. His upper arms bore scars of rank, their shiny white furrows showing through the short, chain mail sleeves.
He clapped a fist to his heart in salute. “Lord Rahl, I need to speak with you.”
“Fine. Speak.”
The general hesitated. “I meant alone, Lord Rahl.”
Richard looked in no mood to dally with the man. “There are no spies here. Speak.”
“It’s about the men, Lord Rahl. A great many of them are sick.”
“Sick? What’s wrong with them?”
“Well, Lord Rahl, they… that is…”
Richard’s brow tightened. “Out with it.”
“Lord Rahl”—General Kerson glanced among the women before clearing his throat—“I’ve got over half my army, well, out of commission, squatting and groaning with debilitating bouts of diarrhea.”
Richard’s brow relaxed. “Oh. Well, I’m sorry. I hope they’re better soon. It’s a miserable state to be in.”
“It’s not an uncommon condition among an army, but to be this widespread it is, and because it is so widespread, something has to be done.”
“Well, be sure they get plenty to drink. Keep me informed. Let me know how they’re doing.”
“Lord Rahl, something has to be done. Now. We can’t have this.”
“It’s not like they’re stricken with spotted fever, general.”
General Kerson clasped his hands behind his back and took a patient breath. “Lord Rahl, General Reibisch, before he went south, told us that you wanted your officers to voice their opinions to you when we thought it important. He said that you told him that you may get angry if you didn’t like what we had to say, but you wouldn’t punish us for voicing our views. He said you wanted to know our opinions because we’ve had more experience at dealing with troops and with command of an army than you.”
Richard wiped a hand back and forth across his mouth. “You’re right, general. So what is it that’s so vital?”
“Well, Lord Rahl, I’m one of the heros of the Shinavont province revolt. That’s in D’Hara. I was a lieutenant at the time. There were five hundred of us, and we came upon the rebel force, seven thousand strong, encamped in a scrag wood. We attacked at first light, and ended the revolt before the day was out. There were no Shinavont rebels left by sunset.”
“Very impressive, general.”
General Kerson shrugged. “Not really. Nearly all their men had their pants down around their ankles. You ever try to fight when the grips had your guts?” Richard admitted that he hadn’t. “Everyone called us heros, but it doesn’t take a hero to split a man’s skull when he’s so dizzy with diarrhea that he can hardly lift his head. I wasn’t proud of what we did, but it was our duty, and we ended the revolt, and undoubtedly prevented the greater bloodshed that would have occurred if their force had gotten well and escaped us. No telling what they would have done, how many more would have died.
“But they didn’t. We took them down because they were sick with dysentery and couldn’t keep their feet.” He swept his arm around, indicating the surrounding countryside. “I’ve got over half my men down. We’ve not a full force because General Reibisch went off to the south. What’s left isn’t in fighting condition. Something has to be done. A sizable enough foe attacks now, and we’re in trouble. We’re vulnerable. We could lose Aydindril.
“I’d be grateful if you knew something we could do to reverse the situation.”
“Why are you bringing this to me? Don’t you have healers?”
“The healers we have are for those kinds of problems caused by steel. We tried going to some of the herb sellers and healers here in Aydindril, but they couldn’t begin to handle the numbers.” He shrugged. “You’re the Lord Rahl. I thought you would know what to do.”
“You’re right, the herb dealers wouldn’t have anything in that kind of quantity.” Richard pinched his lower lip as he thought. “Garlic will take care of it, if they eat enough. Blueberries will help, too. Get plenty of garlic into the men, and supplement it with blueberries. There would be enough of those around.”
The general leaned in with a dubious frown. “Garlic and blueberries? Are you serious?”
“My grandfather taught me about herbs and remedies and such things. Trust me, general, it will work. They’ve got to drink plenty of tannin tea from quench oak bark, too. Garlic, blueberries, and the quench oak tea should take care of it.” Richard looked over his shoulder. “Right, Nadine?”
She nodded. “That would do it, but it would be easier yet if you gave them powdered bistort.”
“I thought of that, but we’ll never find any bistort this time of year, and the herb sellers wouldn’t begin to have enough.”
“It doesn’t take that much in powered form, and it would work best,” Nadine said. “How many men, sir?”
“Last report was in the neighborhood of fifty thousand,” the general said. “By now? Who
knows.”
Nadine’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at the number. “I’ve never seen that much bistort in my life. They’d be old men before that much could be gathered. Richard’s right, then: garlic, blueberries, and quench oak tea. Comfrey tea would work, too, but no one will carry that kind of quantity. Quench oak is your best bet, but it’s hard to find. If there aren’t quench oaks to be had, arrow-wood would at least be better than nothing.”
“No,” Richard said. “I’ve seen quench oak up in the high ridges, to the northeast.”
General Kerson scratched his stubble. “What’s a quench oak?”
“An oak tree. The kind of oak tree that will be what your men need. It has a yellow inner bark that you use to make the tea.”
