The Queen didn’t seem to believe her. Behind the royal party, a small girl came gliding down the stairs. She wore a pink satin dress and jewelry that was too large for her. She strode up beside the Queen, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder. She did not bow.
“My daughter, the Princess Violet. Violet, dear, this is the Mother Confessor.”
Princess Violet scowled up at Kahlan. “Your hair is too long. Perhaps we should cut it for you.”
Richard detected the slightest smile of satisfaction on the Queen’s face. He decided it was time to elevate her level of worry.
The Sword of Truth came out, sending its distinctive ring around the huge room, the stone amplifying the sound. With the sword point an inch from Princess Violet’s nose, he let the anger of it rage through him, to make his words more dramatic.
“Bow to the Mother Confessor,” he hissed, “or die.”
Zedd acted bored. Kahlan waited calmly. No one else had eyes as wide as the Princess as she stared at the sword point. She dropped to her knees and bowed her head. Standing back up, her eyes went to him, as if asking if the bow was all right.
“Be careful how you use that tongue,” Richard sneered. “The next time I will separate it from you.”
She nodded and walked around her mother, standing on the far side of her. Richard sheathed his sword, turned, bowed deeply to Kahlan, who didn’t look at him, and returned to his station behind her.
The demonstration had the desired effect on the Queen, her voice becoming a bright singsong. “Yes, well, as I was saying, it is grand having you here. We are all simply delighted. Let us show you to our finest room. You must be tired from your journey. Perhaps you would like to rest before dinner, and then after dinner we can all have a nice long…”
“I am not here to eat.” Kahlan cut her off. “I am here to inspect your dungeon.”
“Dungeon?” She made a face. “It’s filthy down there. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather…”
Kahlan started walking. “I know the way.” Richard and Zedd fell in behind her. She stopped, and turned back to the Queen. “You will wait here”—her voice was like ice—“until I am finished.” As the Queen began bowing her assent, Kahlan strode off with a swish of her dress as she turned on her heels.
If Richard hadn’t known her as well as he did, the entire encounter would have scared the breath out of him. In fact, he wasn’t sure it hadn’t.
Kahlan led them downstairs and through rooms that became less and less grandiose the deeper they went into the castle. Richard was amazed at the size of the place.
“I was hoping Giller would have been there,” Kahlan said. “Then we wouldn’t need to do this.”
“Me too,” Zedd grumbled. “You just make a quick inspection, ask if anyone
wants to give a confession, and when they say no, we go back up and ask to see Giller.” He gave her a smile. “You’ve handled it well so far, dear one.” She returned the smile to the two of them. “And Richard,” he cautioned, “you keep away from that artist, James.”
“Why? He might draw a bad likeness of me?”
“Wipe that grin off your face. You stay away from him because he might draw a spell around you.”
“A spell? Why would you need an artist to put a spell on someone?”
“Because there are many different languages in the Midlands, though the main one is the same as is spoken in Westland. To be spelled, you have to be able to understand it. If you can’t speak their language, you can’t put a spell on them. But everyone can understand a drawing. He can draw a spell on almost anyone, not Kahlan or me, but he can on you. Stay away from him.”
Their footsteps echoed as the three quickly descended stone steps. The walls, far belowground, leaked water and were covered in places with slime.
Kahlan indicated a heavy door to the side. “Through here.”
Richard pulled it open by the iron ring, the strap hinges creaking. Torchlight lit the way down a narrow stone corridor with a ceiling he had to stoop to avoid hitting with his head. Straw covered the wet floor, and smelled of decay. Near the end she slowed to a walk and approached an iron door with a grille in it. Eyes peered out at them when she stopped.
Zedd leaned around her. “The Mother Confessor, here to see the prisoners,” he growled. “Open the door.”
Richard could hear the echo of a key turning in the lock. A squat man in a filthy uniform pulled the door inward. An axe hung from his belt next to the keys. He bowed to Kahlan, but looked to be annoyed by it. Without a word, he led them through the little room just inside the door, where he had been sitting at a table, eating, and down another dark hall to another iron door. He pounded on it with his fist. The two guards inside bowed in surprise. The three guards took torches from iron stanchions and led them down a short hall and through a third iron door that they all had to duck through.
Flickering torchlight pierced the darkness. Behind crosshatched, flat iron bars to each side, men pushed themselves back into the corners, shielding their eyes with their hands from the sudden light. Kahlan spoke Zedd’s name quietly, indicating that she wanted something. He seemed to understand, and took a torch from one of the guards and held it up in front of Kahlan so all the men in the cells could see her.
There were gasps from the darkness when they recognized who she was.
Kahlan addressed one of the guards. “How many of these men are sentenced to die?”
He stroked his round, unshaven jaw. “Why, all of them.”
“All of them,” she repeated.
He nodded. “Crimes against the Crown.”
She pulled her gaze away from him after a moment, turning to the prisoners. “Have all you men committed capital offenses?”
After a moment of silence, a hollow-faced man came and gripped the bars. He
spat at her. Kahlan swept her hand back to stop Richard before he had a chance to move.
“Come to do the Queen’s dirty work, Confessor? I spit on you and your filthy queen.”
“I do not come here on behalf of the Queen. I come here on behalf of the truth.”
“The truth! The truth is none of us has done a thing! Except maybe speaking up against the new laws. And since when is speaking up against your family starving, or freezing to death, a capital crime? The Queen’s tax collectors came and took most of my crops, they barely left enough to feed my family. When I sold the precious little I could spare, they said I was overcharging people. The prices of everything are going wild. I’m doing nothing more than trying to survive. Yet I am to be beheaded for price gouging. These men in here with me are all innocent farmers, or tradesmen, or merchants. We are all to die for trying to earn a living from our work.”
Kahlan looked to the men in the corner. “Do any of you wish to make a confession to prove your innocence?”
There were hushed whispers. A gaunt man in the darkness stood, came forward. His frightened eyes looked out at them from the gloom. “I do. I have done nothing, yet I am to be beheaded, my wife and children left to fend for themselves. I will give a confession.” He pushed his arm through the bars, reaching for her. “Please, Mother Confessor, take my confession.”
More men stood, coming forward, all asking to give a confession. Soon, they were all at the bars, begging to give a confession. Kahlan and Zedd exchanged a grim look.
“In my whole life I have seen only three men ask to give a confession,” she whispered to the wizard.
“
Kahlan?
” The familiar voice came from the cell on the other side, from the darkness.
Kahlan gripped the bars with spread fingers. “Siddin? Siddin!” She spun to the guards. “These men have all given the Mother Confessor their confessions, I find them to all be innocent. Open the bars!”
“Now, hold on. I can’t be letting all these men out.”
Richard drew the sword in an arc as he spun. The sword crashed a swath through the iron bars, and shards of hot steel and sparks filled the air. He spun around and kicked the iron door shut behind the startled guards. He had the sword at their faces before a single one of them managed to clear an axe from his belt.
“Open the bars or I will slice you in half and take the keys from your belt that way!”
The shaking guard with the keys jumped to do as he was told. The door swung open and Kahlan rushed in, going back into the darkness. She came back holding a frightened Siddin in her arms, holding his head against her shoulder. She whispered in his ear, calming him. Siddin jabbered back in the Mud People language. She smiled and told him things he smiled back at. As she came out, the guard was opening the other cell door. She held Siddin in one arm, and with her free hand she grabbed the guard’s shirt collar.
“The Mother Confessor finds all these men innocent.” Her voice was as hard
as the iron around her. “They are to be released upon my order. You three are to escort them to safety, outside the city.” He was a head shorter than she; she pulled his face closer to hers. “If you fail in any way, you will answer to me.”
He nodded vigorously. “Yes, Mother Confessor. I understand. It will be done as you say. On my word.”
“On your life,” she corrected.
She released him. The prisoners poured out of the cells, falling to their knees around her, crying, taking the hem of her dress in their hands, kissing it. She shooed them away.
“Enough of that. Be on your way, all of you. Just remember. Confessors serve no one. They serve only the truth.”
They all swore they would remember, and followed the guards out. Richard saw that many of their shirts were shredded, or streaked with dried blood, their backs covered with welts.
Before they entered the room where the Queen waited, Kahlan stopped and put Siddin into Zedd’s arms. With her hands she smoothed his hair, then her dress, and with a deep breath, her face.
“Just keep in mind what we are here for. Mother Confessor,” the wizard said.
She gave him a nod, put her chin up, and strode into the room with the Queen. Queen Milena waited where they had left her, her entourage still with her. The Queen’s impatient scowl caught on Siddin.
“I trust you have found everything in order. Mother Confessor?”
Kahlan’s face stayed calm, but her voice had a cold edge to it. “Why is this child in your dungeon?”
The Queen’s hands spread wide. “Well, I’m not sure. I believe I remember he was found stealing, and was put there until his parents could be found, that’s all. I can assure you, it was nothing more than that.”
Kahlan regarded her coolly. “I have found all the prisoners innocent, and ordered them released. I trust you are pleased to find I have saved you from executing innocent men, and will see to it that their families are compensated for the trouble this ‘error’ has caused. If an ‘error’ such as this is repeated, the next time I return I will not only empty the prison, I will also empty the throne.”
Richard knew he wasn’t seeing Kahlan putting on a show to get the box; he was seeing her doing her job. This was why the wizards created the Confessors. This was who she was: the Mother Confessor.
The Queen’s eyes opened wide. “Why… yes. Of course. I have some overly ambitious army commanders, and they must have done this. I had no knowledge of it. Thank you… for saving us from making a grave mistake. I will personally see to it that it is taken care of, just as you wish. Which, of course, is no less than I would have done myself had I…”
Kahlan cut her off. “We will be leaving now.”
The Queen’s face brightened. “Leaving? Oh, what a shame. We were all so looking forward to the honor of your presence at dinner. I’m so sorry you must go.”
“I have other pressing business. Before I go, I wish to speak with my wizard.”
“Your wizard?”
“Giller,” she hissed.
For the briefest of moments, the Queen’s eyes flicked toward the ceiling. “Well… that would not be… possible.”
Kahlan leaned closer to her. “Make it possible. Right now.”
The color drained from the Queen’s face. “Please believe me, Mother Confessor, you wouldn’t want to see Giller in his present condition.”
“Right now,” Kahlan repeated.
Richard loosened the sword in its scabbard just enough to catch her attention.
“Very well. He is… upstairs.”
“You will wait here until I am finished with him.”
The Queen looked at the floor. “Of course, Mother Confessor.” She turned to one of the men in the pantaloons. “Show her the way.”
The man led them up the grand stairway to the top floor, and down several halls, then up a spiral stone stairway to the top room in a tower, finally stopping with a weak look at a heavy wooden door on the landing. Kahlan dismissed him. He bowed, glad to leave. Richard opened the door, they entered, and he closed it behind them.
Kahlan gasped and hid her face against Richard’s shoulder. Zedd pressed Siddin’s face to his robes.
The room was destroyed. Completely. The roof was gone, as if it had been blasted away, letting in the sunlight and sky. Only a few of the exposed beams remained. A rope hung from one of the beams.
Giller’s naked body swung slightly as it hung, upside down, from the end of the rope, a meat hook driven through the bone of his ankle. Were it not for the open roof, the stench would have driven them from the room.
Zedd handed Siddin to Kahlan and, ignoring the body, began walking slowly around the circular room, a thoughtful frown on his face. He stopped and touched splinters of furniture that had been driven into the walls, as if the stone were made of butter.
Richard stood, transfixed, staring at Giller’s body.
“Richard, come look at this,” Zedd called to him.
The wizard reached out and ran a finger through a gritty black area on the wall. There were two black areas, in fact. They stood next to each other. Two blackened spots, in the shapes of men standing at attention, as if the men had gone and left their shadows behind. Just above each elbow, instead of the black, was a band of gold-colored metal melted into the stone of the wall.
Zedd turned, raising an eyebrow to him. “Wizard’s fire.”
Richard was incredulous. “You mean these were men?”
Zedd nodded. “Burned them right into the wall.” He tasted the black smudge on the end of his finger. He smiled to himself. “But this was more than just wizard’s fire.” Richard frowned. Zedd pointed at the black on the wall. “Taste it.”