XIII. INNOCENT
Kahlan staggered back a step as her eyes returned to their normal blue. "What just happened?" she gasped.
Zedd peered down at the pile of ashes that had been a man moments before. "The souls of banelings belong irrevocably to the Keeper," he said. "Perhaps this stops them from being taken by your magic." He squatted in the dirt, poking at the mound with a long, gnarled finger, "Or perhaps the Keeper called this one back to keep us from learning what it would say."
Richard still held the Sword of Truth at the ready; his heart had yet to stop pounding wildly in his chest. He stepped closer to her. "Are you all right? Did he do anything to you?"
"No," said Kahlan with a shake of her head. "Nothing." Slowly, she lowered the hand she'd wrapped around the baneling's throat, wiping the remaining traces of ash from her palm. "I'm fine," she promised in a faint voice, squaring her shoulders as she spoke. But he could see the effort it took for her to pull everything back behind the calm exterior of the Mother Confessor. The baneling's words had shaken her as much as they had him. She rubbed a hand over her belly, as if to reassure herself the child was still there, and then she looked to Bran.
He had collapsed once more beside his wife's body, and sat stroking her hair with one hand and cradling their son in the other. Kahlan's eyes filled with tears that she blinked away. "We have to help him," she said in a fierce whisper before going to Bran's side and kneeling down herself, heedless of the blood and the dirt.
In the end, they built a funeral pyre atop one of the rolling hills. All around them the fields were golden and full of the harvest, and the sky was as blue as a robin's egg. It would have been a beautiful day but for the young woman they surrendered to the flames. The infant wailed as if he already knew his loss. The rest of them stood in silence, watching as the fire burned higher and higher.
When the pyre had at last been consumed, the body lost forever to billowing smoke and flame, Bran turned around on shaky feet. He looked to Kahlan, her hood as white as snow against the dark of her hair, and spoke, "My Marla would have been honored to have you here, Mother Confessor. She loved you so." He drew in a wet, heavy breath still full of tears. "Always wanted to go to Aydindril to meet you, she did."
"I would have loved to have met her," said Kahlan with a warm, sad, beautiful smile. Richard watched in quiet amazement how she drew closer to the widower, forgetting her own fears and worries to comfort him. It was hard to fathom, and yet somehow easy to accept that all of the Midlands followed her word as law.
Bran was nodding, smoothing a dirty hand over his son's head. "She'd be glad too to know there's going to be more Confessors, if you don't mind my saying so," he said in a hesitant voice. "She's been worried your kind was going to be no more, and Marla always said the Midlands needs a Mother Confessor, or we men will get to forgetting the Creator's a woman. I told her we're not so foolish as that, but she never believed me." He chuckled a little as his eyes filled with tears.
The corner of Kahlan's mouth twitched up into a half-smile. "Your wife must have been a remarkable woman," she said as she pushed her hood back. The wind caught her hair immediately, whipping it about. Behind her, the flames danced and crackled, and her smile faded. "Not too many people feel that way about Confessors."
Bran's ears turned red, and he looked down at his feet, shuffling them back and forth. "I know," he muttered. "Used to be one of them myself. Used to be so scared a Confessor would come along one day and decide to confess me, but my Marla told me not to be afraid. That I was a good man, and Confessors wouldn't take honorable men as mates."
Richard watched as Kahlan smiled at the widower despite his clumsy words about something he knew only brought her pain. He could never understand how other men feared her for her magic; being confessed to her seemed a small price to pay for her love. She laid a gentle hand on Bran's arm. "That's right," she told him. "You're quite safe."
Bran gave her a watery smile. "It's a pity there's no other way for Confessors. Seems wrong someone as nice as you can't have an honorable man to be father to your child."
Richard felt his face burn, and he turned away, staring out at the smoke and the rolling hills. He could feel Kahlan's eyes on him, beseeching him to look at her. Instead, he reached for the Sword of Truth, gripping the hilt hard enough to make his knuckles ache. He welcomed the hot, angry magic, pulling a constant trickle from the sword until it throbbed and wounded like a barb beneath his skin.
"No," said Kahlan, and he heard her though he tried not to listen. He could tell by the tone of her voice that her cheeks had flushed pink. "It's different for me. The Seeker is my child's father."
"You confessed the Seeker?" asked Bran, shock momentarily erasing the constant note of grief from his voice.
"No, no, of course not. We, ah…" Kahlan paused, and Richard's shoulders shook with the magic of the sword coursing through him. He wished it would get easier, but it never did. The days and nights he'd spent merciless at the end of Denna's Agiel had been far, far easier to bear than this. "We found another way," said Kahlan quietly, and he felt like a coward when he just stood there and let her leave it at that. He wondered what Bran would think of the Seeker if he knew the truth, knew that he had pinned the Mother Confessor to the ground and raped her while she wept.
The fury of the sword escalated unchecked at the memory until, for a moment, he could not see for the agony. He stood there blind and trembling on the hilltop, the air still strong with the smell of the burning dead.
"That's nice," Bran was saying. "That's what's important. Like my Marla. I, I don't know what I'm going to do without…" His curiosity faded quickly in the face of his loss, leaving his voice hollow. "She can't really be gone…"
As Kahlan began to comfort the young man again, the anger and pain from the sword abated some. The hills glimmered green and golden as they drifted back into focus. But his heart was still a painful thing inside his chest, and he fled with it, slipping away from the group to walk down the hill alone.
He wandered around the outside of Bran's simple cottage, trying not to imagine what it would be like to share such a home with Kahlan. The trees that ringed the cottage were crowned with leaves of red and gold, and they rustled every time the wind blew. The air felt charged with grief. When his eyes landed on a nearly depleted stack of firewood, Richard hunted down the widower's axe and threw himself into the task of rebuilding the pile. He thought it might be a long time before Bran could bear to look at another axe, and he was happy for the work.
He paused to yank off his shirt as he began to sweat with the effort, and then fell back into the task, letting the splitting of logs consume him. His body took over for his mind, muscles flexing and straining in a well remembered rhythm of swing and chop. For a blessed hour, he thought of nothing but the task before him.
When he was finished, he felt a little better. Grief and anger had dulled, retreating into dormancy once more. Richard ducked his head in a barrel of rainwater to wash away the sweat, and then went around the front to look for the others, pulling his shirt on as he walked. The door to the cottage stood open, and it was Kahlan he found when he looked inside.
She didn't see him at first, and for a moment he was free to stare at her unnoticed. She stood turned sideways to the door so he could see the swell of their babe in her belly just beginning, and in her arms she held Bran's son. Pressing her lips to the infant's brow, Kahlan cooed some soft, indistinguishable sound, soothing him. It seemed to Richard that he intruded on something private and holy – some side of her that no one saw. And yet he knew it was every bit as much the true Kahlan as the warrior with her glinting daggers he'd fallen in love with.
She turned around then, surprise flashing across her face when she saw him, replaced quickly by a smile. "There you are," she said and tilted her head towards the fireplace, "Help me with that water?"
Richard nodded and crossed the threshold, avoiding her eyes to study his feet instead. He did as she asked, bringing water from a kettle on the hearth and pouring some into a bowl for her. A rush of steam filled the air, and she dropped a cloth into the bowl as well, swishing it around with a fingertip.
"Zedd's with Bran outside," she said in a soft voice. "He doesn't know what to do for the baby at all without his wife, so I said I'd wash him up for him. Cara's gone to see if there's someone at one of the farms nearby that could stay with them for awhile."
As she spoke, Kahlan eased the infant down onto a folded towel she'd arranged on the table. He fussed a moment, waving tiny fists in the air, but then quieted. Richard stood to the side and tried to think of something to do with his hands. He picked up a pitcher only to set it down again, then he lifted a mug, only to abandon it too. Finally, he gave up, letting them hang awkward and useless at his side. Kahlan didn't seem to notice. She was busy testing the water, her lips pursed together as she considered the temperature. She said nothing of how he'd disappeared without a word, though he knew he deserved it, and he loved her all the more for that.
She wrung out the cloth, the excess water splattering back into the bowl, and began to wipe the baby clean, humming what sounded like a lullaby as she worked. It wasn't hard to imagine her doing this for their unborn daughter, and somehow, nothing had ever seemed more right to him than that. Something ancient and instinctive stirred in his heart as he watched her, and he rested a hand against the sword at his hip. She was love embodied and his child grew inside her; her safety came before the world's.
"Bran named him Richard," said Kahlan when she stopped to wet the cloth again. "Because you saved his life."
"Oh…"
She pushed her hair back with a damp hand and glanced his way. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No," said Richard softly. He took a step closer to the table, looking down at the child. He was small and wrinkled and red. He was innocent and good. "I'm honored, but I don't-"
"Spirits help me, Richard, if you say you don't deserve it," she interrupted in a suddenly sharp, shaky voice. "You do. More than anyone, you do."
He swallowed the words he'd been about to say and cleared his throat. "I've never had anyone name a baby after me before."
She gave a nod but didn't look up, and they were both silent as she finished bathing the other Richard. "There are cloths folded in the cradle," she said at last. "Would you bring me one?" He hurried to do as she asked, and she took the cloth from him with a fleeting smile. "Marla had everything ready for him," she murmured, lifting the infant from the towel to swaddle him in the fresh cloth.
And then Kahlan was easing the baby into his arms almost before he knew what was happening. "You should hold him," she whispered. "Seeing as you're his namesake." But her voice trembled as she spoke, and when he looked up, her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"Kahlan?"
She shook her head and turned away, picking up the washcloth. She wrung it out again and again until not a drop of water was left. Kahlan wept easily these days – though she always tried to hide it – but something told him this time meant more.
"Kahlan," he pleaded, rocking the infant in his arms. "What's wrong?"
She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles white. "It's my fault he has no mother."
Richard blinked his astonishment, "What are you talking about? How could that possibly be your fault?"
"Marla was with child," she said, letting out a little moan. "You know the prophecy! What if the baneling killed her because he thought she might have been me?"
"You look nothing alike. She was a farmer's wife and days away from giving birth, and you're not at all…" He stopped abruptly as he looked down at her belly, his tongue knotting itself and his cheeks flushing. "There's no way he mistook her for the Mother Confessor," he amended.
A solitary tear rolled down Kahlan's face to drip from her chin. "Still…"
"Kahlan, banelings kill every day!" said Richard. He lowered his voice when the baby began to fuss in his arms. "That man would've killed someone today, no matter what. And even if he attacked Marla in some desperate hope it might be you and he'd earn the Keeper's favor, that was his choice. You can't blame yourself for the wicked things other people do."
Kahlan gave him a thin lipped smile and nodded her head. "You're right." She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. "I know you're right. It's just what happened to her and Bran was so awful. No one should have to suffer that." She brushed away another tear as it started to fall and said, "We have to find the Stone of Tears soon. We have to fix this. I don't know what I'd do if another child lost its mother because of me."
"We'll find the stone soon," said Richard, trying not to think of how the compass led them in circles. "I promise we will."
"Okay," she said, and he could tell she was satisfied with his promise, empty as it was. It was yet another reason why he couldn't fail – failing Kahlan would be worse than failing the world. She kissed her fingertip and pressed it to the infant's puckered brow. "Richard?" she said quietly.
"What is it?" he asked.
She was so near to him, her warmth washing over him. The sunlight from the window played across her face, and though he saw her every day, her beauty still entranced him. "You'll be like Bran, right, and raise our daughter by yourself if something happens to me?"
Richard felt his heart clench. "Nothing is going to happen to you."
"We don't know that." She leaned closer and began fussing with the swaddling cloth. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "You heard what the baneling said."
"Nothing is going to happen to you," he said again. "I won't let it."
Kahlan shook her head and stared at the child instead of him, tracing a tiny ear with her fingertip. "If a Confessor dies before her children are grown, the Mother Confessor is supposed to see that they are taken away from their father. When the Midlands was at war with D'Hara, Aydindril got sloppy about things like that. The way Dennee and I were raised, the way…" She hesitated, drawing in a shaky breath before saying, "the way Annabelle was raised – it's not supposed to happen that way. Unconfessed men aren't seen as fit to raise their Confessor daughters because too often they hold what was done to them against those daughters."
He knew she was speaking from the bitterest of personal experience. The wounds her father dealt her ran deep; it was plain in her voice how much effort it took for her to speak of him at all.
Kahlan finally raised her head to look at him, "I'm not saying it's like that with us, Richard. I know it's different, but you didn't get a choice either and…" Tears brimmed in her eyes and hung like pearls from her eyelashes. "Please…tell me that you'll love her?"
He wondered that she would even need to ask. "Kahlan, I already do."
"Really?" she said in a small, wobbly voice.
Richard nodded. "Yes."
She pressed her hand to the infant's cheek, tears spilling down her face as she smiled at him. "Me too," she whispered. Though the baby slept, he stirred at her touch, latching onto her finger with the whole of a tiny fist. Kahlan laughed softly in delight. It was the happiest sound he'd heard all day.