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In a reflective tone, he said, “I wish we could stay in here forever.”
Kahlan pulled the blanket over her lap. She knew what he meant. Outside, the world awaited them.
“Well…” she said, batting her eyelashes at him, “just because Zedd came and told us the elders want their spirit house back, that doesn’t mean we have to surrender it until we’re good and ready.”
Richard took in her frolicsome offer with a mannered smile. “Zedd was just using the elders as an excuse. He wants me.”
She bit into the roll he had given her as she watched him absently break a rice cake in half, his thoughts seeming to drift from what he was doing.
“He hasn’t seen you for months.” With a finger, she wiped away juice as it rolled down her chin. “He’s eager to hear all you’ve been through, and about the things you’ve learned.” He nodded absently as she sucked the juice from her finger. “He loves you, Richard. There are things he needs to teach you.”
“That old man has been teaching me since I was born.” He smiled distantly. “I love him, too.”
Richard enfolded mushrooms, greens, pepper and onion in tava bread and took a big bite. Kahlan pulled strands of limp greens from her roll and nibbled them as she listened to the slow crackle of the fire and the distant music.
When he finished, Richard rooted under the stack of tava bread and came up with a dried plum. “All that time, and I never knew he was more than my beloved friend; I never suspected he was my grandfather, and more than a simple man.”
He bit off half the plum and offered her the other half.
“He was protecting you, Richard. Being your friend was the most important thing for you to know.” She took the proffered plum and popped it in her mouth. She studied his handsome features as she chewed.
With her fingertips, she turned his face to look up at her. She understood his larger concerns. “Zedd is back with us, now, Richard. He’ll help us. His counsel will be a comfort as well as an aid.”
“You’re right. Who better to counsel us than the likes of Zedd?” Richard pulled his clothes close. “And he is no doubt impatient to hear everything.”
As Richard drew his black pants on, Kahlan put a rice cake between her teeth and held it there as she tugged things from her pack. She halted and took the rice cake from her mouth.
“We’ve been separated from Zedd for months—you longer than I. Zedd and Ann will want to hear it all. We’ll have to tell it a dozen times before they’re satisfied.
“I’d really like to have a bath first. There are some warm springs not too far away.”
Richard halted at buttoning his black shirt. “What was it that Zedd and Ann were in such a fret about, last night, before the wedding?”
“Last night?” She pulled her folded shirt from her pack and shook it out. “Something about the chimes. I told them I spoke the three chimes. But Zedd said they would take care of it, whatever it was.”
Kahlan didn’t like to think about that. It gave her gooseflesh to remember her fear and panic. It made her ache with a sick, weak feeling to contemplate what would have happened had she delayed even another moment in speaking those three words. Had she delayed, Richard would now be dead. She banished the memory.
“That’s what I thought I remembered.” Richard smiled as he winked. “Looking at you in your blue wedding dress… well, I do remember having more important things on my mind at the time.
“The three chimes are supposed to be a simple matter. I guess he did say as much. Zedd, of all people, shouldn’t have any trouble with that sort of thing.”
“So, how about the bath?”
“What?” He was staring at the door again.
“Bath. Can we go to the springs and have a warm bath before we have to sit down with Zedd and Ann and start telling them long stories?”
He pulled his black tunic over his head. The broad gold band around its squared edges caught the firelight. He gave her a sidelong glance. “Will you wash my back?”
She watched his smile as he buckled on his wide leather over-belt with its gold-worked pouches to each side. Among other things, they held possessions both extraordinary and dangerous.
“Lord Rahl, I will wash anything you want.”
He laughed as he put on his leather-padded silver wristbands. The ancient symbols worked onto them reflected with points of reddish firelight. “Sounds like my new wife may turn an ordinary bath into an event.”
Kahlan tossed her cloak around her shoulders and then pulled the tangle of her long hair out from under the collar. “After we tell Zedd, we’ll be on our way.” She playfully poked his ribs with a finger. “Then you’ll find out.”
Giggling, he caught her finger to stop her from tickling him. “If you want a bath, we’d better not tell Zedd. He’ll start in on us with just one question, then just one more, and then another.” His cloak glimmered golden in the firelight as he fastened it at his throat. “Before you know it, the day will be done and he’ll still be asking questions. How far are these warm springs?”
Kahlan gestured to the south. “An hour’s walk. Maybe a bit more.” She stuffed some tava bread, a brush, a cake of fragrant herb soap, and a few other small items into a leather satchel. “But if, as you say, Zedd wants to see us, don’t you suppose he’ll be nettled if we go off without telling him?”
Richard grunted a cynical laugh. “If you want a bath, it’s best to apologize later for not telling him first. It isn’t that far. We’ll be back before he really misses us, anyway.”
Kahlan caught his arm. She turned serious. “Richard, I know you’re eager to see Zedd. We can go bathe later, if you’re impatient to see him. I wouldn’t really mind.… Mostly I just wanted to be alone with you a little longer.”
He hugged her shoulders. “We’ll see him when we get back in a few hours. He can wait. I’d rather be alone with you, too.”
As he nudged open the door, Kahlan saw him once again absently reach to touch the sword that wasn’t there. His cloak was a golden blaze as the sunlight fell across it. Stepping behind him into the cold morning light, Kahlan had to squint. Savory aromas of foods being prepared on village cook fires filled her lungs.
Richard leaned to the side, looking behind the short wall.
His raptorlike gaze briefly swept the sky. His scrutiny of the narrow passageways among the jumble of drab, square buildings all around was more meticulous.
The buildings on this side of the village, such as the spirit house, were used for various communal purposes. Some were used only by the elders as sanctuaries of sorts. Some were used by hunters in rites before a long hunt. No man ever crossed the threshold of the women’s buildings.
Here, too, the dead were prepared for their funeral ceremony. The Mud People buried their dead.
Using wood for funeral pyres was impractical; wood of any quantity was distant, and therefore precious. Wood for cook fires was supplemented with dried dung but more often with billets of tightly wound dried grass. Bonfires, such as the ones the night before at their wedding ceremony, were a rare and wondrous treat.
With no one living in any of the surrounding buildings, this part of the village had an empty, otherworldly feel to it. The drums and boldas added their preternatural influence to the mood among the deep shadows. The drifting voices made the empty streets seem haunted. Bold slashes of sunlight slanting in rendered the deep shade beyond nearly impenetrable.
Still studying those shadows, Richard gestured behind. Kahlan glanced over the wall.
In the midst of scattered feathers fluttering in the cold breeze lay the bloody carcass of a chicken.
2
Kahlan had been wrong. It hadn’t been children bothering the chickens.
“Hawk?” she asked.
Richard checked the sky again. “Possibly. Maybe a weasel or a fox. Whatever it was, it was frightened off before it could devour its meal.”
“Well, that should put your mind at ease. It was just some animal after a chicken.?
?
Cara, in her skintight, red leather outfit, had immediately spotted them and was already striding their way. Her Agiel, appearing to be no more than a thin, bloodred leather rod at most a foot in length, dangled from her wrist on a fine chain. The gruesome weapon was never more than a flick of her wrist away from Cara’s grasp.
