He thought that most people expected a prompt beheading.
Richard was just about to instead ask the guards to escort the crazy old fool out of the People’s Palace and see to it that he and the rest of the people with him never returned, when Kahlan touched his arm. She was staring directly at the Estorian diplomat as she spoke in a low voice to Richard.
“Do not dismiss this threat, Richard.”
Richard could see the aura around Kahlan snapping with faint, flickering flashes not unlike lightning dancing and crackling all across the haze of her aura. Since coming back from the underworld, he had found that he had access to his own inner power in ways he had never expected. One of those was that it gave him the ability to read Kahlan’s aura, much the same as he had often been able to read the complex aura around a sorceress. But knowing Kahlan as well as he did, he didn’t need to see her aura to know her mood.
He inclined his head toward her and spoke in a confidential tone while keeping his gaze on the chief diplomat from Estoria.
“I’m listening.”
She finally turned to direct her fiery green-eyed gaze and that hot aura at him.
“Let me question him. Alone.”
Richard hadn’t expected that. “Don’t you think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, here?”
“No.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a heated whisper. “You need to listen to me in this, Richard. Estorians are diplomats. It’s their nature, their very makeup. I’ve dealt with them many times and I’ve spent time in their land among the people there. They don’t believe in conflict of any type as a solution to anything. They believe that any dispute must be resolved through diplomatic negotiation. They simply don’t believe in absolutes nor do they make unconditional demands. There is no black and white to them. They exist in a gray world of diplomacy.
“I’ve never once seen an Estorian behave this way. Never. Something is very wrong. You need to listen to me in this. This man is dangerous. Let me question him.”
It was an instruction, not a request.
Richard briefly glanced over at Nolo before looking back at Kahlan. What she was proposing, for all practical purposes, was nothing short of an execution, if not of his living form at least of his mind. Richard knew she was dead serious. Kahlan never used her power lightly or without being absolutely convinced of the need. But still…
“Kahlan, do you—”
“I know kings and queens and rulers of every kind and nearly every land. I’ve never once heard of a goddess. Have you? This man has just as good as declared war on behalf of someone unknown to us and made an open, public threat to our lives if we don’t unconditionally comply.”
Richard knew she was right. He had been trying to convince himself that because the demand was so preposterous the old man had to be insane, senile, or demented, but Kahlan was right. They could not let this pass, or allow people to see them let such a threat pass.
He turned a raptor gaze back on Nolo. That look alone caused the expansive room to break out in buzzing and worried whispers. It caused Nolo to avert his gaze.
Richard lifted a hand, wordlessly commanding silence.
“I am the Lord Rahl,” he said in a clear voice that carried back through the hall. “The D’Haran Empire is this world. They are one and the same. I rule the D’Haran Empire along with the Mother Confessor.”
Nolo couldn’t seem to help his amused smile. The fat folds of skin bunched under his chin as he bowed his partially bald head. “That is true for now,” he said as he looked up, “but you are a mere man, a ruler with no successor. Your rule is a dead lineage.” He gestured up at the marble medallion towering behind Richard and Kahlan. “You are the last of the Rahl line. She is the last Confessor. When you two die those bloodlines will die with you. Your kind and your rule are at an end.”
Kahlan slapped her hand down on the table. The sound made everyone jump as it echoed back through the hall.
She shot to her feet. “Enough!”
The room fell dead silent.
People had always been fearful of Confessors in general, and the Mother Confessor in particular. Seeing the Mother Confessor angry had them giving ground as if driven back by a wave crashing to shore.
Kahlan swept an arm out, calling on the soldiers to the side.
“We will take this man to a room where we can have a private conversation.”
Everyone in the vast room knew exactly what that meant. This was to be an execution and it was to be at the hands of the Mother Confessor herself, not some hooded axeman.
Richard rose up beside her, adding his silent backing to her words.
He took up Kahlan’s hand and gave it a squeeze as if to ask if she was sure she wanted to do this.
She gave him a look of resolve he knew all too well. “After all we have fought for, Richard, all we have lost, you promised me that we were now entering a new golden age. I will not have anything take that golden age from all of us. This man has just threatened our lives. He has made himself an enemy of a peaceful future for everyone.”
“He could simply be an old man who has lost his mind and is imagining things,” Richard reminded her.
“He represents a threat to us, Richard—I can feel it in my bones. This is not a time to let down our guard. We need to know the nature of the threat. There is only one way to find out the truth with absolute certainty.”
Cassia leaned in close to them. “I will go with her, Lord Rahl, and protect her while she questions this fool who would think to threaten you both.”
Richard gave her a look. “Do you really think you want to be in the room when a Confessor unleashes her power?”
That gave the Mord-Sith pause. “She’s going to… Oh… Well then”—she straightened—“I will guard the room from outside in case she should need me.”
Kahlan, looking ready to go to war to stop a war before it could start, gestured to the guards.
“Bring him,” she growled.
3
The thick carpet muted Kahlan’s footsteps as she marched down the private corridor. Cassia hurried to keep up. Behind the Mord-Sith a heavily armed detachment guarded the man in gold-embroidered robes as if he were the most dangerous man in the world.
As far as Kahlan was concerned, he was.
A muscular soldier to each side gripped Nolo under his flabby arms, virtually carrying him along. His footsteps only occasionally kissed the floor. He didn’t struggle or protest his indignation at such rough treatment. In fact, he said nothing.
Kahlan needed a place where she could be alone with the Estorian. As angry as she was, if she ended up having to use her Confessor power it could be a danger to anyone too close. The men escorting her had simply followed her without question into the maze of the palace interior. Having been driven by her temper, she suddenly realized, she hadn’t given any thought to where she was going, and she found that she didn’t know where she was. She stopped and turned back to the soldiers.
“I need a private room where I won’t be disturbed. Do you know of one nearby?”
The guard immediately behind the two carrying Nolo lowered his pike to point with it past them to the right. “Take that hallway, Mother Confessor.”
“Then where?”
He hesitated, briefly considering the directions, then changed his mind. “It would be easier if I just showed you.”
Kahlan gestured for the man to take the lead. He hurried past them down the white-plastered hallway and then through several more turns that eventually led them to an expansive, round entryway elaborately detailed with moldings and raised panels all painted a creamy white. While pleasant enough, it had a sterile feel to it. In that broad entryway there was but a single room. It had a heavy oak door with iron strap hinges that, oddly enough, could be bolted from the outside.