“There are no terms. The surrender must be unconditional.”
Richard arched an eyebrow. That didn’t sound like his idea of a diplomatic negotiation.
He sat up straighter. “What is your name?”
The man blinked, as if the question had been unexpected and totally irrelevant. For some reason he had difficulty looking directly at Richard. He averted his eyes whenever possible.
“My name has no bearing here and is unimportant in the matter before you,” he said, confirming the bewildered expression on his face.
“Important or not, I would like to know your name.”
Long bracelets dangled from the man’s thick wrists as he spread his plump hands. His droopy eyes searched absently left and right, as if he didn’t know what to do about the unexpected request. “I am only here with instructions to accept your surrender on behalf of my patron.”
“Who is this patron?”
“The goddess.”
Richard was taken aback. He had heard of goddesses only in mythology. He didn’t think goddesses, in mythology anyway, hired professional diplomats.
“We are gathered here to address the issues of those who come before us. This ‘goddess’ is not here. You are.” The patience left Richard’s voice. “Give me your name.”
The man hesitated, avoiding looking directly at Richard. He picked up a long lock of gray hair that had fallen forward over his dark eyes and placed it back down over the bald top of his head. He licked his finger and then smoothed the lock down to paste it in place.
“If it will help ensure that you comply with the demand of the goddess, my name is Nolodondri, but I am known by Nolo.”
“Tell me, Nolo, why has this goddess not come in person to request the surrender of the D’Haran Empire?”
The man lifted the freshly licked finger to make a correction. “Not your empire, Lord Rahl, your world. And it is not a request. It is a command.”
“Ah. My world. I stand corrected. And it is a command, not a request. Duly noted.” Richard rolled his hand. “So you worship this goddess, do you?”
Nolo’s brow twitched. “No, not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Would the sky expect the veneration of the ants on the ground beneath it?”
“Well then, why would this goddess send an ant to do her bidding instead of coming herself to make such a monumentally important demand?”
Nolo bowed his head slightly. “The goddess does not bother with petty tasks such as the surrender of worlds, so she directed me to come here to command compliance with her wishes.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard could see Kahlan’s aura darkening.
“You say that this was her ‘command’—that I surrender my world?”
Nolo bowed his head deeper, as if Richard were dense. “Yes, of course. I thought that I had made that clear.”
Cassia’s white leather creaked as she leaned in from behind Richard’s right shoulder to whisper to him. “Please, Lord Rahl,” she said as she pulled her single blond braid forward over her shoulder as if holding her own leash, “I’m begging you. Let me kill him.”
Berdine, also in white leather, leaned in beside Cassia. “Lord Rahl, you left me here, unable to protect you, for ages. I think I deserve to be the one to kill him.”
“Maybe we can decide that later,” Richard said to them with a small smile. “For now, let me handle this?”
Both rolled their eyes as they straightened, but they released their Agiel, letting the weapons hang from their wrists on fine gold chains, always at the ready.
2
Richard was doing this public audience only because Kahlan had asked him to. She had told him that allowing people to come before the First Wizard with petitions or concerns was an ancient practice. She had in the past overseen the wizards’ council as Mother Confessor in a time when there had been no First Wizard. Because of that experience, she’d said, she knew the good it did.
Richard had protested at first, saying that a wizards’ council was a thing of the past, and besides, this was now the D’Haran Empire, not merely the Midlands.
She said that made it all the more important. She had argued that the need was not a thing of the past and that as the Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Empire and the new First Wizard, he was far more important than a wizards’ council had ever been. She believed that because he held absolute rule people needed to know that it was fair and just rule. For that to happen they needed to be able to witness that rule firsthand. This was one way, she had told him, of letting people know that as part of the D’Haran Empire their voice would be heard and they would be treated fairly.
Richard had always found it difficult, if not impossible, to go against Kahlan’s advice, especially since it was almost always sound advice. As the Mother Confessor, Kahlan knew a great deal more about the protocol of rule than he ever would.
While Richard was no longer a simple woods guide, Kahlan, too, was much more than the woman he had met in the Hartland woods that day so long ago. She was the Mother Confessor—the last Confessor. She’d held sway over the Midlands council, and thus the Midlands. Kings and queens trembled on bended knee before her. She knew about authority and rule.
They had fought a long and bitterly difficult war to finally bring peace to the world. In that struggle they had lost many dear friends and loved ones, as had nearly everyone else. She and Richard were each the last of their kind, and together they were the hope of their world.
In the end he had known that Kahlan was right about holding such an event.
For three days they had been giving an audience to people who had traveled from far and wide to come before the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor with their concerns, or to see others do so. While he found it tedious and most of the matters achingly trivial, he realized that the people who had gathered to see it done found it not only exciting, but riveting and reassuring.
For those gathered, it was, in a way, a celebration of the end of wars, a joyous gathering with those who had saved their world and brought them peace, a time when rulers from far and wide came to swear their loyalty to the empire.
Richard just wanted it to be over so he could be alone with Kahlan.
While most people who had come before them were sincere, even if some stuttered in terror to be standing before the Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor, this man, Nolo, was unlike the others. As far as Richard was concerned, he didn’t seem to represent any real danger. Richard thought that maybe he was simply senile or possibly deranged in his old age. Richard noted, though, that Kahlan thought differently.
There were a great many people waiting for their turn to speak with them. This man had already wasted enough of their time with his nonsense, but worse, he had clearly upset Kahlan. Before Richard could say anything else, the man spoke again.
“Lord Rahl”—the Estorian’s voice turned harsh, losing the polish of polite diplomatic tolerance—“it would be in your own best interest if you surrendered your world without further delay. You can either do so voluntarily, thereupon to be executed in a humane fashion, or, should you refuse, you will be assassinated in a most brutal fashion.”
Richard leaned forward, put both forearms on the table, and folded his fingers together. With such a direct threat, especially after such hard-won peace, but especially against Kahlan, this man had just crossed a line.
Richard’s patience was at an end.
Many hundreds of people were crowded in on the main floor observing from each side of the petitioners who were waiting to be heard. Many more watched from the balconies. All of them leaned forward in anticipation of what the Lord Rahl might say or do. This was a memorable event in their lives—the very stuff of legend—and it now held the distinct air of mortal peril.