Blood of the Fold (32 page)

Richard knew Elayne was going to die. A midwife wouldn’t have come for Zedd unless there was serious trouble. Richard had never seen a dead person; he didn’t want the first to be Elayne. He remembered her laughter when she had taught him to dance. His face had been red the whole time, but she pretended not to notice.

And then, while he sat at the table, staring off, thinking the world was a very terrible place indeed, there was a last scream, more agonizing than the rest, that sent a shiver down his spine. It died out in forlorn misery. He squeezed his eyes shut, in the dragging silence, damming in the tears.

Digging a grave in the frozen ground was going to be near to impossible, but he promised himself that he would do it for Elayne. He didn’t want them to keep her frozen body in the undertakers’ shed until spring. He was strong. He would do it if it took him a month. She had taught him to dance.

The door to the bedroom squeaked opened, and Zedd shuffled out carrying something. “Richard, come here.” He handed over a gory mess with tiny arms and legs. “Wash him gently.”

“
What? How do I do that?” Richard stammered.

“
In warm water!” Zedd bellowed. “Bags, my boy, you did heat water, didn’t you?” Richard pointed with his chin. “Not too hot, now. Just lukewarm. Then swaddle him in those blankets and bring him back into the bedroom.”

“
But Zedd … the women. They should do it. Not me! Dear spirits, can’t the women do it?”

Zedd, his white hair in disarray, peered at him with one eye. “If I wanted the women to do it, my boy, I wouldn’t have asked you, now would I?”

In a flurry of robes, he was off. The door to the bedroom banged closed. Richard was afraid to move for fear he would crush the little thing. It was so tiny he could hardly believe it was real. And then something happened—Richard began to grin. This was a person, a spirit, new to the world. He was beholding magic.

When he took the bathed and blanketed marvel into the bedroom, he was moved to tears to see that Elayne was very much alive. His trembling legs were hardly able to hold him.

“
Elayne, you sure can dance” was the only thing he could think to say. “How did you manage to do such a wondrous thing?” The women around the bed stared at him as if he were daft.

Elayne smiled through her exhaustion. “Someday you can teach Bradley to dance, bright eyes.” She held her hands out. Her grin grew as Richard gently put her child into her arms.

“
Well, my boy, seems you figured it out after all.” Zedd lifted an eyebrow. “Learn anything?”

Bradley must be ten by now, and called him Uncle Richard.

As he listened to the quiet, returning from the memories, Richard thought about what Cara had said.

“
Yes, you will,” He told her at last in a gentle tone. “Even if I have to command it, you will. I want you to feel the wonder of a new life, a new spirit, in your arms, so that you can feel magic other than that Agiel at your wrist. You will bathe him, and swaddle him, and burp him, so that you will know your tender care is needed in this world, and that I would trust my own child in that care. You will make foolish sounds to him, so that you can laugh with joy at the hope for the future, and perhaps forget that you have killed people in the past.

“
If you can understand none of the rest, I hope you can understand at least this much of my reasons for what I must do.”

He relaxed back in the chair, letting his muscles slacken for the first time in hours. The hush seemed to hum around him. He thought about Kahlan, and let his mind drift.

Cara whispered through tight lips and tears: a soft sound almost lost in the huge room and its tomblike silence, “If you get yourself killed trying to rule the world, I will personally break every bone in your body.”

Richard felt his cheeks tighten with a smile. The darkness behind his eyelids swirled with dark plumes of color.

He was acutely aware of the chair around him: the Mother Confessor’s chair, Kahlan’s chair. From it she had ruled the Midlands alliance. He could feel the eyes of the first Mother Confessor and her wizard glaring down at him as he sat in the hallowed place after having demanded the surrender of the Midlands and the end of an alliance that they had forged to be the foundation for an everlasting peace.

He had came into this war fighting for the cause of the Midlands. He now commanded his former enemy, and had placed his sword at the throats of his allies.

In one day, he had turned the world upside down.

Richard knew he was breaking the alliance for the right reasons, but he agonized about what Kahlan was going to think. She loved him, and would understand, he told himself. She had to.

Dear spirits, what was Zedd going to think?

His arms rested heavily where Kahlan’s had. He imagined her arms around him, now, as they had been the night before in that place between worlds. He didn’t think he had ever been that happy in his whole life, or felt so loved.

He thought he could hear someone telling him he should find a bed, but he was already asleep.

Despite returning to find several thousand brutish D’Haran troops surrounding his palace, Tobias was in a good mood. Things were turning out splendidly—not the way he had originally planned that morning, but splendidly nonetheless. The D’Harans made no effort to hinder his entrance, but warned him that he had better not come out again that night.

Their effrontery was galling, but he was more interested in the old woman Ettore was preparing than in the D’Harans’ lack of protocol. He had questions and was impatient for the answers. She would be ready to give them by now; Ettore was well practiced at his craft. Even though this was the first time he had been trusted to handle the preparations for a questioning without a more experienced brother overseeing his hand, that hand had already proven to be talented and steady at the task. Ettore was more than ready for the responsibility.

Tobias shook the snow from his cape onto the ruby and gold carpet, not bothering to clean his boots before he marched across the spotless anteroom toward the corridors leading to the stairs. The wide halls were lit by cut-glass lamps hung before polished silver reflectors that sent wavering rays of light dancing over the gilt woodwork. Crimson-caped guards patrolling the palace touched fingertips to their foreheads as they bowed. Tobias didn’t trouble himself with returning the salutes.

With Galtero and Lunetta right behind, he took the steps two at time. While the walls on the main level were trimmed with ornate paneling adorned with portraits of Nicobarese royalty and decorated tapestries depicting their fabled, largely fictitious exploits, the walls on the lower level were simple stone block, cold to the eye as well as the touch. The room he was headed for, though, would be warm.

As he knuckled his mustache, he winced at the ache in his bones. The cold seemed to make his joints ache more of late. He admonished himself to be more concerned with the Creator’s work and less with such mundane matters. The Creator had blessed him with more than a good amount of help this night; it must not be wasted.

On the upper levels the halls had been well guarded by the men of the fist, but downstairs the drab corridors were empty; there was no way into or out of the palace from the lower levels. Galtero, ever watchful, eyed the length of the hall outside the door to the questioning room. Lunetta waited patiently with a smile. Tobias had told her she had done well, especially with the last spell, and she was a glowing reflection of his good graces.

Tobias stepped into the room and came face-to-face with Ettore’s familiar, wide grin.

The eyes, however, were filmed with death.

Tobias froze.

Ettore was hanging by a cord tied to either end of an iron pin driven through his ears. His feet dangled just clear of a dark, coagulated puddle.

There was a neat slice from a razor all the way around the middle of his neck. Below that, every inch of him had been skinned. Pale strips of it lay to the side in an oozing heap.

An incision just below the rib cage gaped open. On the floor in front of his gently swinging body lay his liver.

It had a few bites out of each side. The bites on one side were edged with irregular tears left by larger teeth; on the other side were those of small, orderly teeth.

Brogan spun with a wail of rage and backhanded Lunetta with his fist. She crashed to the wall beside the fireplace and slid to the floor.

“
This be your fault,
streganicha
! This be your fault! You should have stayed here and attended Ettore!”

Brogan stood, fists at his side, glaring at the skinned body of one of his Blood of the Fold. If Ettore wasn’t dead, Brogan would have killed him himself, with his bare hands if need be, for letting that old hag escape justice. To let a baneling escape was inexcusable. A true baneling hunter would kill the evil one before he died, no matter what it took. Ettore’s mocking grin incensed him.

Brogan struck the cold face. “You have failed us, Ettore. You are discharged with dishonor from the Fold. Your name will be expunged from the roster.”

Lunetta cowered against the wall, holding her bloody cheek. “I told you that I should stay and attend him. I told you.”

Brogan glowered down at her. “Don’t give me your filthy excuses,
streganicha
. If you knew how much trouble the old hag was going to be, then you should have stayed.”

“
But I told you I should.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “You made me come with you.”

He ignored her and turned to his colonel. “Get the horses,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

He should kill her. Right now. He should slit her throat and be done with it. He was sick of her vile taint. This night it had cost him valuable information. The old woman, he was now sure, would have been a trove of information. If not for his loathsome sister, he would have had it.

“
How many horses, Lord General?” Galtero whispered.

Brogan watched his sister staggering to her feet, regaining her composure as she cleaned blood from her cheek. He should kill her. This very moment.

“
Three,” Brogan growled.

Galtero extracted a cudgel from the interrogation tools before he glided through the door, silent as a shadow, and vanished down the hall. The guards obviously hadn’t seen her, although with banelings that didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it was always possible the old woman could still be around. Galtero didn’t need to be told that if she were found she was to be taken alive.

Impetuous vengeance with a sword would gain no benefit. If she were found, she would be taken alive, and questioned. If she were found, she would pay the price of her profanity, but she would tell all she knew, first.

If she were found. He looked to his sister. “Do you sense her anywhere near?”

Lunetta shook her head. She wasn’t scratching her arms. Even if there weren’t a couple thousand D’Haran troops around the palace, with the storm raging as it was it would be impossible to track anyone. Besides, as much as he wanted the old woman, Brogan had a quarry of greater profanity to go after. And then there was the matter of Lord Rahl. If Galtero found the old woman, fine, but if not, they couldn’t spare the time for a difficult, and most likely fruitless, hunt. Banelings were hardly a rarity; there would always be another. The lord general of the Blood of the Fold had more important work to see to: the Creator’s work.

Lunetta hobbled to Brogan’s side and slipped an arm around his waist. She stroked his heaving chest.

“
It be late, Tobias,” she cooed intimately. “Come to bed. You have had a hard day doing the Creator’s work. Let Lunetta make you feel better. You will be pleased, I promise.” He said nothing. “Galtero had his pleasure, let Lunetta give you yours. I will do a glamour for you,” she offered. “Please, Tobias?”

He considered it only a moment. “There be no time. We must leave at once. I hope you have learned a lesson this night, Lunetta. I won’t tolerate your misbehaving again.”

Her head bobbed. “Yes, my lord general. I will try to do better. I will do better. You will see.”

He led her up out of the lower levels to the room where he had talked to the witnesses. Guards stood before the door. Inside, from the long table, he picked up his trophy case and strapped it to his belt. He started for the door, but turned back. The silver coin he had left on the table, the one the old woman had given him, was gone. He looked to a guard.