Blood of the Fold (55 page)

“
No, at the Confessors’ Palace.”

Ann signed. “That’s good, at least.”

His brow drew together. “Why is that good?”

She hadn’t realized she had spoke her relief aloud. “Oh, well, it’s just that I’m hoping to see this great man, and if he stays at the Keep, then I wouldn’t be able to. It’s protected by magic, I hear. If he comes out on a balcony at the palace to greet the people, I might get to see him.

“
Well, thank you for your help, Sergeant. I think we best get to Ten Oaks before it gets pitch black. Don’t want one of my horses to step in a hole and break a leg.”

The sergeant bid her a good night and led his column of men up the road, away from Aydindril. Only after they were more than out of earshot did she withdraw the block from Nathan’s voice. It was difficult to maintain such control for long periods of time. Ann mentally braced for the inevitable tirade as she started gathering up their packs from the snow.

“
We best be on our way,” she told him.

Nathan drew himself up with an imperious scowl. “You would give gold to robbers? You should have—”

“
They were only boys, Nathan. They were hungry.”

“
They tried to rob us!”

Ann smiled as she tossed a pack over Bella. “You know as well as I that that would not have happened, but I gave them a little more than gold. I don’t think they will be trying that again.”

He grunted. “I hope the spell you put on it burns their fingers to the bone.”

“
Help me with our things. I want to get to the inn. There was a message in the journey book.”

Nathan was struck speechless for only an instant. “Took her long enough. We left her enough hints for a child of ten to figure it out long before now. We did everything but leave a note pinned to her dress that said, ‘By the way, the Prelate and the Prophet aren’t really dead, you dolt.’”

Ann cinched Bella’s girth strap tight. “I’m sure it wasn’t as easy for her as you make it out to be. It seems obvious to us only because we knew. She had no reason to suspect. Verna figured it out; that’s all that is important.”

Nathan replied with a lofty snort before he finally started helping by gathering up the rest of the packs. “Well, what did she say?”

“
I don’t know yet. When we get settled for the night we’ll find out.”

Nathan lifted a finger in her direction. “You pull the deaf-and-dumb trick on me again and you will live to regret it.”

She turned an angry scowl on him. “And if we again come across people and you start yelling that you’ve been abducted by a mad witch and held prisoner in a magic collar, I’ll make you deaf and dumb for real!”

Nathan huffed sourly as he went back to work. As he turned to his horse, she saw him smile to himself in satisfaction.

By the time they found the inn, and after they had left their horses with a boy at the stable out back, the stars were out and the small winter moon was visible over a distant mountain slope. The woodsmoke hugging the ground also carried the aroma of stew. She gave the stableboy a penny to carry in their things.

Ten Oaks was a small community, and the inn had only a dozen locals at the few tables, most drinking and smoking pipes over stories of soldiers they had seen, and rumored alliances forged by the new Lord Rahl, who not all were sure was really in command of Aydindril, as was claimed. Others asked them to then explain why the D’Haran troops had suddenly become so disciplined, if it wasn’t because someone had finally brought them to task.

Nathan, wearing high boots, brown trousers, a ruffled white shirt buttoned up over his Rada’Han, an open dark green vest, and a heavy dark brown cape hanging almost to the floor, strolled up to the short counter set before a few bottles and kegs. With a noble air, he flipped his cape back over a shoulder as he settled a boot to the footrail. Nathan relished wearing clothes other than the black robes he always wore at the palace. He called it “playing down.”

The humorless innkeeper smiled only after Nathan had slid silver his way and advised that for the high price of lodging, it had better include a meal. The innkeeper shrugged and agreed.

Before she knew it, Nathan was already spinning a tale that he was a merchant traveling with his mistress while his wife was home raising his twelve strapping sons. The man wanted to know what sort of merchandise Nathan dealt in. Nathan leaned close, lowered his commanding voice, and winked at the man as he told him that it would be safer if he didn’t know.

The impressed innkeeper straightened and handed Nathan a mug on the house. Nathan toasted the Ten Oaks Inn, the innkeeper, and the patrons before he started for the stairs, telling the innkeeper to bring a mug for his “woman” when he brought their stew. Every eye in the inn followed him, marveling at the impressive stranger among them.

Pressing her lips tight, Ann vowed not to let herself be distracted again, giving Nathan enough time to make up their pretense at being there. It was the journey book that had distracted her. She wanted to know what it said, but she was apprehensive about it, too. Something could easily have gone wrong, and one of the Sisters of the Dark could have the book and have discovered the two of them were still alive. They couldn’t afford that. She pressed her fingers against a pang in her stomach. For all she knew, the Palace of the Prophets was already in the hands of the enemy.

The room was small, but clean, with two narrow pallets, a whitewashed stand holding a tin washbasin and chipped ewer, and a square table atop which Nathan set an oil lamp he had carried in from the bracket beside the door. The innkeeper was not far behind with bowls of lamb stew and brown bread, followed by the stableboy with their bags. After both had gone and closed the door, Ann sat and scooted her chair up to the table.

“
Well,” Nathan said, “aren’t you going to give me a lecture?”

“
No, Nathan, I’m tired.”

He flourished a hand. “I thought it only fair, in view of the deaf-mute business.” His expression turned dark. “I’ve been held in this collar all but the first four years of my life. How would you feel, being a captive your whole life?”

Ann mused to herself that, being his keeper, she was nearly as much a captive as he. She met his glare. “Though you never believe me when I say it, Nathan, I will tell you again that I wish it weren’t so. It brings me no pleasure to keep one of the Creator’s children a prisoner for no crime but his birth.”

After a long silence, he withdrew the glare. His hands clasped behind his back, Nathan strolled the room, giving it a critical appraisal. His boots thumped across the plank floor. “Not what I’m accustomed to,” he announced to no one in particular.

Ann pushed away the bowl of stew and set the journey book on the table, staring at the black leather cover for a time before finally opening it and turning to the writing.

You must first tell me the reason you chose me the last time. I remember every word. One mistake, and this journey book feeds the fire.

“
My, my, my,” she murmured. “She’s being very cautious. Good.” Nathan peered over Ann’s shoulder as she pointed. “Look at the strokes, at how hard she pressed. Verna looks to be angry.”

Ann stared at the words. She knew what Verna meant.

“
She must really hate me,” Ann whispered as the words on the page wavered in her watery gaze.

Nathan straightened. “So what? I hate you, and it never seems to bother you.”

“
Do you, Nathan? Do you really hate me?”

His only answer was a dismissive grunt. “Have I told you that this plan of yours is madness?”

“
Not since breakfast.”

“
Well it is, you know.”

Ann stared at the words in the journey book. “You’ve worked before to influence which fork is taken in prophecy, Nathan, because you know what can happen down the wrong path, and you also know how vulnerable the prophecies are to corruption.”

“
What good will it do everyone if you get yourself killed with this foolhardy plan? And me with you! I’d like to live to see a thousand, you know. You’re going to get us both killed.”

Ann rose from her chair. She laid gentle a hand on his muscular arm. “Tell me then, Nathan, what you would do. You know the prophecies; you know the threat. You yourself are the one who warned me. Tell me what you would do, if it were up to you.”

He shared a gaze with her for a long moment. The fire left his eyes as he put a big hand over hers. “The same as you, Ann. It’s our only chance. But it doesn’t make me feel any better knowing the danger to you.”

“
I know, Nathan. Are they there? Are they in Aydindril?”

“
One is,” he said quietly as he squeezed her hand, “and the other will be there around the time we arrive; I have seen it in the prophecy.

“
Ann, this age that is upon us is tangled with a warren of prophecies. War draws prophecies like dung draws flies. Branches go in every direction. Every one of them must be negotiated properly. If we take the wrong path on any of them, we walk into oblivion. Worse, there are gaps where I don’t know what must be done. Worse yet, there are others involved who must also take the correct fork, and we have no control over them.”

Ann could find no words, and so nodded instead. She sat back at the table and inched her chair close. Nathan straddled the other chair and broke off a chunk of brown bread, chewing while he watched her draw the stylus from the spine of the journey book.

Ann wrote,
Tomorrow night, when the moon is up, go to the place you found this.
She closed the book and returned it to a pocket in her gray dress.

Nathan spoke around his mouthful of bread. “I hope she is smart enough to justify your faith.”

“
We trained her as best we could, Nathan; we sent her away from the palace for twenty years so she might learn to use her wits. We have done all we can. Now we must have faith in her.” Ann kissed the finger where the Prelate’s ring had been all those years. “Dear Creator, give her strength, too.”

Nathan blew on a spoonful of hot stew. “I want a sword,” he announced.

Her brow wrinkled. “You’re a wizard with full command of his gift. Why in the name of Creation would you want a sword?”

He regarded her as if she were witless. “Because I would look dashing with a sword at my hip.”

“
Please?” Cathryn whispered.

Richard stared into her soft brown eyes as he gently touched the side of her radiant face, brushing a black ringlet back from her cheek. When they looked into each other’s eyes, it was near to impossible for him to look away unless she did so first. He was having that difficulty now. Her hand on his waist sent warm sensations of longing coursing through him. He struggled desperately to put an image of Kahlan in his mind in order to resist the compulsion to take Cathryn in his arms and say yes. His body burned to do so.

“
I’m tired,” he lied. Sleep was the last thing he wanted. “It’s been a long day. Tomorrow we’ll be together again.”

“
But I want—”

He touched her lips to silence her. He knew that if he heard those words from her again, it would be one time too many. The implied offer of her lips as they sucked the end of his finger with a wet kiss was nearly as impossible to resist as the overt invitation of her words. In the fog of his mind, he could hardly form coherent thoughts.

He managed to form one:
Dear spirits, help me. Give me strength. My heart belongs to Kahlan.

“
Tomorrow,” he managed.

“
You said that yesterday, and it took me hours to find you,” she whispered as she kissed his ear.

Richard had been using the mriswith cape to make himself invisible. It was just a little easier to resist when she couldn’t appeal to him directly, but it only delayed the inevitable. When he saw her frantic to find him, he couldn’t bear to see her in distress as she searched for him, and would end up going to her.

As her hand came up to his neck, he took it and administered it a quick kiss. “Sleep well, Cathryn. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Richard glanced to Egan standing ten feet away, with his back to the wall and his arms folded as he stared ahead, as if he saw nothing. Beyond, in the shadows at the end of the gloomy hall, Berdine stood guard, too. She make no pretense at not seeing him standing at the door with Cathryn pressed up against him. She observed without expression. His other guards, Ulic, Cara, and Raina were getting some sleep.