'Mistress Sanderholt. I'm so pleased to see you again.'
'Mother Confessor!' The woman fell to her knees, clasping her hands together. 'Oh, Mother Confessor, forgive me! I didn't recognize you. Oh, good spirits be praised, is it really you?'
Kahlan pulled the wiry woman to her feet. 'I've missed you so, Mistress Sanderholt.' Kahlan held out her arms. 'Give me a hug?'
Mistress Sanderholt fell into Kahlan's arms. 'Oh, child, It's so good to see you!' She pushed away, tears running down her face. 'We didn't know what had become of you. We were so worried. I thought I might never see you again.'
'It has been a long and difficult time. I can't tell you how good it is to see your face again.'
Mistress Sanderholt started pulling Kahlan toward a side table. 'Come. You need a bowl of soup. I have some on now, if these featherbrains who do what scarcely passes for cooking haven't ruined it with too much pepper.'
The welter of cooks and help caught the words and kept their heads down, applying their attention to their tasks. The sounds of whisks and spoons on bowls stepped up. Men picked up sacks and hurried away. Brushes worked at pots with greater zeal. Butter hissed in hot pans, and bread in ovens and meat on spits suddenly needed checking.
'I don't have time, right now, Mistress Sanderholt.'
'But I have things I must tell you. Important things.'
'I know. I have things to tell you, too. But right now I must see the council. It's urgent. I've been traveling a long time, and I'm exhausted, but I must see the council before I rest. We will talk tomorrow.'
Mistress Sanderholt couldn't resist another hug. 'Of course, child. Rest well. We will talk tomorrow.'
Kahlan took the shortest route, through the immense hall used for important ceremonies and celebrations. Fires in the large, magnificent fireplaces set around the room between fluted columns sent shadows of herself spiraling around her as she crossed the green slate floor. The room was empty, now, allowing her footsteps to echo overhead from the intricate lierne vaulting with the wavelike, sweeping ribs. Her father used to set thousands of walnuts and acorns, representing troops, all over the floor of this room, to teach her battle tactics.
She turned down the hall at the far end, toward the corridor to the council chambers. In the Confessors' private gallery, groups of four glossy black marble columns to each side supported a progression of polychrome vaults. At the end, before the council chambers, was a round, two-story-high pantheon dedicated to the memory of heroines: the founding Mother Confessors. Their portraits, in frescoes between the seven massive pillars ranging to the skylight, were twice life size.
Kahlan always felt like a pretender to the post in the presence of the seven stern faces that overlooked the room. She felt they were saying, 'And who are you, Kahlan Amnell, to think you could be the Mother Confessor?' Knowing the histories of those heroines only made her feel all the more inadequate.
Grabbing both brass levers, she threw the tall, mahogany doors open and marched into the council chambers.
A huge dome capped the enormous room. At the far end, the main vault was decorated with an ornate fresco celebrating the glory of Magda Searus, the first Mother Confessor. Her fingers were touching the back of the hand of her wizard, Merritt, who had laid down his life to protect her. Together, now, for all time in the colorful fresco, the two oversaw the Mother Confessors who followed and sat in the First Chair, and their wizards.
Between the colossal gold capitals of the columns thrusting up around the room were sinuous, polished mahogany railings at the edge of balconies that overlooked the elegant chamber. The arched openings, set at intervals around the room and leading up to the balconies, were decorated with sculpted stuccos of heroic scenes. Beyond were windows looking out over the courtyards. Round windows around the lower edge of the dome also let light into the glistening chamber. At the far end was the semicircular dais where the councilors sat, behind an elaborate, curved desk. The opulent First Chair in the center was the tallest.
A clump of men were gathered around the First Chair. By the numbers, Kahlan judged about half the council to be present. As she strode across long swaths of sunlight on the patterned marble floor, the heads began to follow her progress.
Someone was sitting in the First Chair. Although not enforced in recent times, it was a capital offense for a councilor to take the First Chair, as it was considered tantamount to a declaration of revolution. The conversation hushed as she approached.
It was High Prince Fyren, of Kelton, sitting in the chair. His feet were up on the desk, and he didn't take them down as he watched her draw near. His eyes were on her, but he was listening to a man with smoothed-down dark hair and beard, streaked with a touch of gray, leaning over whispering to him. The man's hands were in the opposite sleeves of his plain robes. Strange, she thought, for an advisor to be dressed so, like a wizard.
Prince Fyren lifted his eyebrows in delight. 'Mother Confessor!' With deliberate care he took his polished boots down and came to his feet. He put his hands to the desk and leaned over, looking down. 'So good to see you!'
Before, Kahlan had always had a wizard; now, she had none. No protection. She could not afford to appear timid or vulnerable.
She glared up at Prince Fyren. 'If I ever again catch you in the chair of the Mother Confessor, I will kill you.'
He straightened with a smirk. 'You would use your power on a councilor?'
'I will slit your throat with my knife, if I have to.'
The man in the plain robes watched her with unmoving dark eyes. The other councilors blanched.
Prince Fyren pulled his dark blue coat open and rested a hand on his hip. 'Mother Confessor, I meant no offense. You have been gone for a long time. We all thought you were dead. There has been no Confessor in the palace for ... what?' He looked to a few of the other men. 'Four, five, six months?' Hand still on his hip, he held his other out and gave a bow. 'I meant no offense, Mother Confessor. Your chair is returned to you, of course.'
Kahlan eyed the remaining men. 'It is late. The council will meet in full session first thing in the morning. Every councilor will be present. The Midlands is at war.'
Prince Fyren lifted an eyebrow. 'War? On whose authority? We have not discussed such a grave matter.'
Kahlan swept her gaze over the councilors, letting it finally settle on Prince Fyren. 'On my authority as the Mother Confessor.' Whispering broke out among the men. Prince Fyren never let his eyes leave hers. When she glowered at the men who were whispering, it sputtered out. 'I want every councilor here, first thing in the morning. You are adjourned, for now, gentlemen.'
Kahlan turned on her heel and marched from the room.
She didn't recognize any of the guards she saw throughout the palace, but then she wouldn't; Zedd had told her before how most of the Home Guard had been killed in the fall of Aydindril to D'Hara. She missed the old faces.
The center of the Confessors' Palace in Aydindril was dominated by a monumental eight-branched staircase, lit, from four stories overhead, by natural light that came through the glass roof. The vast square was surrounded at midlevel by arcaded corridors, their arched openings separated by polished columns of wildly variegated gold and green marble standing on square plinth blocks, each decorated with a medallion of a past ruler of one of the lands of the Midlands. The hundreds upon hundreds of glistening, vase-shaped balusters had been turned from a mellow yellow stone that seemed to glow from within. The square newels, made of a dusky brown granite, were nearly as tall as she, and each was capped with a gold-leafed lamp. Florid carvings in stone covered expansive panels under the complex bands of dentil moldings that ran in mitered bands over the tops of the capitals. The center landing held statues of eight Mother Confessors. Kahlan had seen modest palaces that would fit within the space the staircase occupied.
The monumental staircase and the room that held it had taken forty years to build, the expense borne entirely by Kelton, in partial recompense for their opposition to the joinin
g of the lands into the Midlands, and the war it spawned. It was also decreed that no leader of Kelton could ever be honored with a medallion at the base of the columns. The staircase was dedicated to the people of the Midlands, and was to honor them, not those who built it as penalty. Kelton was now a powerful land of the Midlands in good standing, and Kahlan thought it foolish to rebuke a people for something their ancestors had done centuries ago.
As she reached the central landing and turned up the second flight toward her room, she saw a phalanx of servants waiting at the top of the stairs. They all bowed as one when her eyes fell on them. She thought it must look absurd -nearly thirty sparkling, combed and buffed people in clean, crisp uniforms, all bowing to a filthy woman in wolf hides, carrying a bow and heavy pack. Well, this could only mean one thing: word of her arrival had swept through the whole of the palace already. There wasn't likely to be a gardener in the farthest greenhouse that didn't by now know the Mother Confessor was home.
'Rise, my children,' Kahlan said when she reached the top of the stairs. They moved back to make way for her.
And then it started. Would the Mother Confessor like a bath, would the Mother Confessor like a massage, would the Mother Confessor like her hair washed and brushed, would the Mother Confessor like her nails buffed, would the Mother Confessor care to take any petitioners, would the Mother Confessor like to see any advisors, would the Mother Confessor like any letters written, would the Mother Confessor like, wish, want, need, or require a whole list of things.
Kahlan addressed the mistress of the maidservants. 'Berna-dette, I would like a bath. Nothing else. Just a bath.'
Two women rushed off to see to the bath.
Mistress Bernadette's eyes made an involuntary flick down at Kahlan's attire. 'Would the Mother Confessor like to have any of her clothes mended, or cleaned?'
Kahlan thought about the blue dress in her pack. 'I guess I have a few things that need cleaning.' She thought about all the rest of her clothes, most soaked with blood from one battle or another. 'I guess I have a lot of things that need to be washed.'
'Yes, Mother Confessor. And would you like me to lay out your white dress for tonight?'
'Tonight?'
Mistress Bernadette reddened. 'Runners have already been sent to Kings Row, Mother Confessor. Everyone will want to welcome the Mother Confessor home.'
Kahlan groaned. She was dead tired. She didn't want to greet people, just to tell women how fine their hair looked all pinned and decorated, or men how fine the cut of their coat was, or to listen patiently to supplications that invariably involved the distribution of funds and always sought to prove that the appellant was in no way seeking advantage, but only relief from the inequitable situation in which he was mired.
Mistress Bernadette gave her a corrective look, as she had done when Kahlan was little, as if to say, 'Look here, young lady, you have obligations, and I expect no trouble about it.'
What she said, though, was 'Everyone has been fraught with concern over the safe return of the Mother Confessor. It would do their hearts good to see you safe and well.'
Kahlan doubted that. What Mistress Bernadette really meant was that it would do Kahlan good to remind people that the Mother Confessor was still alive and in charge. Kahlan sighed. 'Of course, Bernadette. Thank you for reminding me people have kept me in their hearts and been worried.'
Mistress Bernadette smiled as she bowed her head. 'Yes, Mother Confessor.'
As the rest of the servants rushed off, Kahlan leaned toward Mistress Bernadette. 'I remember when you would have added a swat on my behind for having to remind me of things.'
Mistress Bernadette's smile returned. 'I think you are too smart, now, for that, Mother Confessor.' She rubbed an invisible spot from the back of her hand. 'Mother Confessor ... did you bring any of the other Confessors home with you? Will any of the others be returning, soon?'
Kahlan's features slid into her Confessor's face, as her mother had taught her. 'I'm sorry, Bernadette, I thought you knew. They are all dead. I am the last living Confessor.'
Mistress Bernadette's eyes filled with tears as she whispered a prayer. 'May the good spirits be with them always.'
'Why should they commence now,' Kahlan said tersely. They didn't bother to be with Dennee the day the quad caught her.'
The fireplaces in her rooms were all blazing, as she had known they would be, and would have been every day she had been away, month after month. The fires in the Mother Confessor's rooms would never be allowed to go out in the winter, in case she returned. There was a silver tray on a table, with a fresh loaf of bread, a pot of tea, and a steaming bowl of spice soup. Mistress Sanderholt knew spice soup was her favorite.
Spice soup reminded Kahlan of Richard, now. She remembered making it for him, and he for her.
After dropping her pack and bow to the floor, Kahlan crossed the plush carpets and went into the next room. She stood, idly rubbing her fingers on one of the great, polished posts at the foot of her bed, staring, remembering that she was supposed to be here with Richard. The day they arrived in Aydindril they were to already have been wed. She had promised him this big bed.
Kahlan remembered the joy in her heart the day they talked about being wed and coming to Aydindril as husband and wife. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She gasped a deep breath against the hot pain that burned through her chest, and wiped the tear away with her fingertips.
Kahlan went to the glassed doors, opening them out onto the expansive balcony. She put her trembling fingers to the broad, icy railing and stood in the cold air, looking up the mountainside to the Wizard's Keep, its dark stone walls standing out in the last golden rays of the sunset.
'Where are you, Zedd?' she whispered. 'I need you.'
----------
He came awake with a gasp as he slid and thumped his head. He sat up, blinking. An old woman with straight, black and white, jaw-length hair was sitting opposite him, cowering in a corner. The two of them were inside a coach. It rolled abruptly, sliding him across to the other side. The woman was staring in his direction. He blinked in surprise at her. Her eyes were completely white.
'Who are you?' he asked.
'Who be you?' she asked right back.
'I asked first.'
'I ...' She drew her cloak around her fine, green dress. 'I don't know who I be. Who be you?'
He held a finger skyward. 'I'm ... I'm ...' He let out a thin sigh. 'I'm afraid I don't know who I am, either. Don't I look like anyone you recognize?'
She pulled her cloak a little tighter. 'I do not know. I be blind. I cannot see what you look like.'
'Blind? Oh. Well, I'm sorry.'
He rubbed his head where he had hit it on the side of the coach. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing fine clothes; a maroon robe with black sleeves that had three rows of silver brocade around them. Well, he thought, at least I must be wealthy.
He picked a black cane off the floor, giving its fine silver-work a look. He turned and thumped it against the roof, in the direction of where the driver must be sitting, up top. The old woman jumped with a fright.
'What be that noise!'
'Oh, sorry. I was trying to get the driver's attention.'
The driver must have heard. The coach slid to a stop, and then rocked as someone climbed down. When the door drew open and he saw the size of the man in a longcoat sticking his windburned face in, he clutched his cane and slid back.
'Who are you?' he asked, brandishing the cane.
'Me? I'm just a big fool,' the big man growled. His deeply creased face softened into a little smile. 'Name's Ahern.'
'Well, Ahern, what are you doing with us? Have you kidnapped us? Are we being held for ransom?'
Ahern chuckled. 'More like the other way around, I'd say.'
'What do you mean? How long have we been asleep? And who are we?'
Ahern looked to the sky. 'Dear spirits, how do I get myself into these things?' He let out a sigh. 'You've both been asleep since late
yesterday. You've slept last night, and all day today. Your name is Ruben. Ruben Rybnik.'
'Ruben?' He harrumphed. 'Ruben. Well, that's a fine name.'
And who be I?' the woman asked.
'You are Elda Rybnik.'
'Her name is Rybnik, too?' Ruben asked. Are we related?'
Ahern hesitated. 'Yes and no. You two are husband and wife. Sort of.'
Ruben leaned toward the big man. 'I think that needs explaining.'
Ahern gave a sigh, and a nod. 'Your name's Ruben, and hers is Elda. But that's not your real names. You told me that for now, it would be best if I not tell you your real names.'
'You have kidnapped us! You've knocked us on the head and spirited us away!'
'Just calm down, and I'll explain.'
2 - Stone of Tears Page 101
