The sorceress hesitated. “I hope so. At least for now she and the twins are alive and together. With the mother’s breath we have a chance. Now, I must hurry and prepare the medicine she needs.”
“What can I do to help?” Richard asked as he followed close behind her as she hurried back to the fire.
Shale paused and considered a moment, looking toward the lean-to beyond a crackling fire before gazing at the three plants resting in her hand.
“I need to prepare the remedy, but that is going to take several hours. Since you were able to bring three plants, and considering the seriousness of the situation”—she handed Richard the one with the longest taproot—“maybe there is something you can do to help. Take this one, go to her, break off the bottom tip of the root, and then let the milky fluid drip into her mouth. She needs to swallow it. Do it only when you have it over her mouth so you don’t waste any. It is a very rare and precious substance.”
“If I’m going to let some of the milk drip into her mouth, why do you need to prepare a remedy?”
Shale didn’t shy away from his gaze. “Lord Rahl, please do as I ask, and hurry.”
Richard was concerned that she was deviating from the plan of preparing the plants first. He knew a great deal about plants and herbs, but he didn’t know anything about mother’s breath or how it needed to be prepared. He did know that there were plants that when prepared properly could heal. But he also knew that when raw and not properly prepared they could kill.
“Will it harm her to give her the raw milk of the plant? Are you sure you shouldn’t prepare it first?”
Shale touched her fingers to the hollow of her neck as she considered it a moment. It was apparently a question that worried her, too.
“To tell you the truth, I can’t be sure. I’ve never heard that mother’s breath is poisonous, but also, I’ve never heard of giving a miscarrying woman the milk of the plant raw, rather than in a prepared remedy. I do know that the healing power of the plant lies in the milk.” She held up a hand and rubbed her first two fingers together with her thumb. “It’s a sticky substance, much stickier than the milky sap in any other plant. I believe that sticky quality is what may be the key to how the plant helps stop a miscarriage.
“I was told by an herb woman I knew that she believed the sticky milk of the mother’s breath plant strengthens the bond the mother’s body has with the unborn babies, keeping them in her womb. But to be honest, I’ve never heard of the milk being given raw. My thought is that women are always given the prepared potion but that may be because living plants are never at hand, whereas the preparation can be made up ahead of time and kept in stock, sealed in jars, ready for when needed in an emergency.”
“Then to be safe, why not just wait until you can prepare the plants the way you were taught?”
Shale gave him a meaningful look. “Because it took you a long time to find the plant. Too long. I realize that’s not your fault, and it is remarkable that you were even able to find it at all, but as far as the life of the Mother Confessor is concerned, it took too long. That’s the reality.
“The only reason she hasn’t miscarried and she is still alive is because I was there right when it started and so I was able to put her into that deep state of sleep before it had advanced too far. Traditionally the remedy is prepared by an herb woman for those times when it is urgently needed. That is often later when a healer has been summoned, so much time would have already passed by the time any help reached the mother. My intention was to prepare the plant in that way. But it took you a long time to return. Too long.”
“But if you were to prepare it—”
“To be honest, Lord Rahl, even though she is in a deep sleep, I don’t think your wife can last long enough for me to prepare the plants. My hope is that the raw milk will stop the miscarriage and keep the three of them alive and together until the preparation is ready. For all I know, the raw milk might even work better and then the prepared potion wouldn’t even be needed.
“But what I can’t say is that it won’t do harm. In my judgment we have to chance it.”
“It’s a big chance,” he said.
“It is,” Shale agreed with a nod. “I leave the choice to you, then. You are her husband and would know best what her wishes would be. You decide for her. What would she want you to do?”
Richard didn’t have to think about it. “She would say that it’s the only chance for her and the babies, so we have no choice but to try it.”
Shale offered him a brief smile. “Hurry, then, and give it to her.”
Richard gripped the plant in his hand as he nodded. “How long will it take you to prepare the other two?”
She looked over at the fire. “To boil it down and prepare the remedy will take a few hours. I think you have made the right decision in the meantime. You must give her some of the raw milk now.”
Richard looked down at the plant she had handed him. “Could it hurt her? Could it hurt her if it’s raw, or hurt the babies?”
“I already told you that I just don’t know.” The sorceress glanced over the fire to the still Mother Confessor. “But I think that the problem may actually be if it works too well.”
Richard frowned. “What do you mean?”
Shale looked back at him. “I mean that it may bind the babies into her so well that it may prove difficult for her to give birth.”
“Well then, maybe—”
“Lord Rahl, there is no time. It is already long past when she should have been given the potion that I have yet to cook. By all rights, she shouldn’t even still be alive. I doubt she will be for much longer. If you have made your decision, then you must do it now or she will be lost.”
Richard let out a troubled sigh as he gently gripped the plant in his fist. He knew that there was really no choice. He just wished it were not a choice he had to make.
Shale put a hand on his forearm as if to steel him. “Hurry now. Go to her.”
5
Richard’s fear for Kahlan had him feeling like he was watching himself from somewhere high above the campsite as he rushed around the fire to the lean-to. If he had made the wrong decision, he could very well be about to poison the only woman he had ever loved, the only woman he ever could love.
He found Kahlan laid out just under the shelter of the lean-to on a bed of grass. She was covered with blankets. He marveled at how exquisite she looked in her deep sleep. It was the perfect innocence and beauty of a child. He hoped the sleep was a peaceful one. He knew, though, that if Shale really had succeeded in putting Kahlan in that nowhere place between the world of the living and the world of the dead, it was anything but peaceful there.
The Keeper of the underworld would be whispering promises to her, urging her to take that last step and enter his eternal realm of rest. Richard knew all too well that it was a seductive call and difficult to resist. But he knew, too, that she would be trying with all her will to resist so that her babies would have the chance to live. If she was able to resist that longing to be free of pain and suffering, it would be for them.
Cassia was there as well, on the opposite side of Kahlan from the fire, sitting on the ground beside her, holding her hand in both of hers. As Richard knelt down beside her, Cassia offered a hopeful smile as she moved back out of the way.
“How is she?” he asked back over his shoulder.