Stone of Tears (58 page)

Sister Verna broke her gaze into the distance and redirected it to him. “There are spells of every sort. Some are spells of despair. To be snared in one is to have your soul wander in despair for all time. Some are spells of joy and delight, in which one is lost in enchantment for all time. Some are pure destruction, and will tear you apart. Some will show you things you fear, to make you run into the clutches of things that lurk behind. Some tempt with things you hope for. If you give in to the desire …” She leaned closer to him. “You must stay close to me, keep going. You must ignore any desire you have, both fear and longing, to do otherwise. Do you understand?”

Richard finally nodded. Sister Verna returned her gaze to the shimmering forms. She sat motionless, watching. In the distance, beyond the wavering light, he though he saw thunderheads, dark and ominous, drifting across the horizon. He felt, more than heard their thunder. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t clouds, but magic. When Bonnie tossed her head, Richard gave her a reassuring pat on her neck.

After watching a while, he looked over to the Sister. She sat still and tense.

“What are you waiting for Sister? Courage?”

She answered without moving. “Exactly. I am waiting for courage, child.”

He felt no anger this time at her calling him “child,” but rather, that it might be an appropriate characterization, as far as his abilities were concerned.

In a whisper, and still without looking away from the sunbaked inferno ahead, she went on. “You were still in swaddling clothes when I came through, but I remember every detail as if it happened yesterday. Yes, I am waiting for courage.”

He gave Bonnie a squeeze with his legs, urging her ahead. “The sooner we start, the sooner we are through.”

“Or lost.” She walked her horse after him. “So anxious to be lost, Richard?”

“I am already lost, Sister.”

They were confronted by steps, twenty strides wide, that revealed themselves for what they were only at the far right, where the wind had funneled down next to the sweeping, pink marble balustrade and kept the snow clear. Pausing for only a moment as she realized they had reached her destination, Kahlan set her snowshoes firmly into the snowdrift that covered the steps, and ascended to the portico, its fascia decorated with a row of statues swathed in cut stone that mimicked the drape of cloth so well it seemed as if it might move in the light breeze. Ten white columns to each side held the massive entablature at a dizzying height above the arched entrance. Bodies fallen in a desperate battle were sprawled atop one another all over the snow covered lawns, and sat as if in repose against the walls of the domed, exterior entrance hall.

The ornate doors, displaying delicately carved royal shields of the House of Amnell, held aloft by twin mountain lions, lay in splinters on the floor of the vestibule. Flanking the rope-carved, stone arch at the far end stood life-size statues of Queen Bernadine and King Wyborn, each holding a spear and shield in one hand, the Queen a sheaf of wheat in the other, and the King a lamb. The Queen’s breasts were broken away; flakes of stone and stone dust littered the rust colored marble tiles. Both statues were without their heads.

With nearly numb fingers, Kahlan untied the bindings of her snowshoes and leaned them against the Queen’s statue. Chandalen followed her example before following her into the reception hall lined with broken mirrors and torn tapestries. She pulled her mantle tight around herself as clouds of their breath rose lazily into dead still air that was somehow much colder than that outside.

“What is this place used for?” Chandalen asked in a whisper, as if afraid he might wake the spirits of the dead.

She had to force herself not to whisper. “It is the home of the Queen of this land. Her name is Cyrilla.”

His doubting voice echoed down the stone hall. “One person lives in a place such as this?”

“Many people live here. There are advisors, much like the elders among your people, and others that are responsible for governing the needs of the land, and people who tend to their needs so they may perform their duties. Many people call this their home, but the Queen is the head of the household, as she is the head of her land. She is above them all.”

Chandalen followed silently behind as she began to search the palace. His eyes slid from one wondrous object to another; from elaborately carved furniture that now lay everywhere in splinters, to the heavy red, blue, gold, or green draperies that adorned the ten foot tall, square-top windows, all broken now.

She descended a flight of stairs to the lower rooms, the oak treads creaking with every step in the cold. He insisted on entering each room first, pushing doors open with a foot and gliding in behind a fully drawn ten step arrow, before allowing her to search inside.

They found only the dead. In a few of the rooms they found some of the staff that had been lined up against a wall and pincushioned with arrows. In the kitchens it looked as if after executing the cooks, cooks helpers, wine stewards, assistants, dish washers, pot boys, spit boys and scullions, the invaders had sat down and had a drunken feast. The ale and wine casks were empty. It appeared they had thrown more food at the walls than they had eaten.

While Chandalen checked the ransacked larder, Kahlan’s eye was caught by the bodies of two young women, kitchen help, on the floor behind a long chopping block. One was completely naked, and the other had but one brown, woolen stocking, bunched down around her thin ankle. Her first assumption had been wrong. Not all the help had been killed before the drunken feast.

Her face as still as those of the dead women, she turned and strode from the kitchen and started up the servants’ stairs to check the upper floors. Chandalen’s thumping footfalls came charging up behind as he took three steps at a time to catch her.

She knew he didn’t like it that she had left without him, but he didn’t voice it. “There is salted meat. Maybe we could take a little? I do not think these people would think it wrong for us to do so. They would not deny us a little food.”

Kahlan put her hand to the railing as she climbed with a steady cadence, but then pulled the hand back inside her mantle because the polished maple was so cold to the touch it stung her fingers. “If you eat the meat, you will die. They will have poisoned it, so that if any of the dead’s countrymen return to this place and eat any of the food here, they, too, will die.”

They found the main floor clear of bodies. It looked to have been used as an army headquarters. Empty barrels of wine and rum lay about the ballroom floor. Food scraps, mugs and cups, broken dishes, pipe ashes, bloody bandages, oily rags, broken or bent swords, spears and maces, dark wood shavings from a walnut table leg someone had whittled away until it was nothing but a stub, basins of frozen water, dirty linen, bed sheets ripped into strips, and filthy, quilted bedcovers of every color littered the carpeted floor. Dirty boot prints were everywhere, even on the tabletops. By the swirling scratches, it looked as if men had danced atop them.

Chandalen walked through the rubble, inspecting various bits. “Two, maybe three days they were here.”

She nodded her agreement as her eyes cast about. “It looks that way.”

He rolled a wine barrel back and forth with his foot, testing if it was empty. It was. “I wonder why they stayed so long? Just to drink, and dance?”

Kahlan sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe they were resting and tending to their wounded. Maybe they just went on a drunken binge to celebrate their victor over these people.”

He looked up sharply. “Killing is not a thing to celebrate.”

“It is, for the people who did this killing.”

Reluctantly, Kahlan at last climbed the stairs to the top floor. She didn’t want to look up there. That was where the bedchambers were.

They checked the west wing first: the men’s apartments. They looked to have been used by the troops as sleeping quarters. With an army of as many men as had to have done this, they would have had many men of rank. The officers probably stayed here, in the fine rooms. The soldiers under their command would have used the inns and more common houses.

With a deep breath to strengthen her resolve, she set her jaw and crossed the center hall, with its balcony that overlooked the grand, central stairs, to the east wing rooms. Chandalen, close at her heels, wanted to open the doors for her and check the rooms first, but she wouldn’t allow it. Her hand paused for a moment on the doorknob, then finally opened the first door. She stood for a time, staring at the scene inside. She went to the next door and flung it open, and then the next.

All the rooms were occupied. Each bedchamber had women in it. None were clothed. Room after room after room were all the same. By the filthy condition of the carpets, there looked to have been a steady stream of traffic. Wood shavings lay in little piles about the floor, where a man had passed the time whittling on whatever was handy while he waited his turn.

“Now we know why they spent several days here,” Kahlan said without meeting Chandalen’s eyes. He remained silent. She couldn’t bring forth more than a whisper. “So they could do this.”

Those few days had undoubtedly been the longest of these womens’ lives. Kahlan prayed that their spirits were at peace, now.

She reached the door at the end, the door to the room the younger girls shared. Slowly, she opened it, and stood looking in, Chandalen close behind her looking past her shoulder.

Stifling a gasp, she turned and put a hand to his chest. “Please, Chandalen, wait here.”

He nodded as he furiously studied his boots.

Kahlan closed the door behind herself and stood with her back against it for a time. One hand at her side, and the other covering her mouth, she skirted an overturned, wracked wardrobe, and walked the length of the frigid room, between the rows of beds, looking from one side to the other. The precious hand mirrors, brushes, combs and pins that at one time had been arranged with loving care on tables between the beds, now lay scattered about the floor. The blue moire curtains billowed slightly in the icy air coming through the broken windows.

These were the queen’s ladies in waiting. Girls of fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, a few a little older. These were not just nameless corpses; Kahlan knew many of these girls.

The Queen had taken them with her when she had traveled to Aydindril to speak before the Council. Kahlan could not have failed to notice them, their vibrancy, their wide-eyed excitement at being in Aydindril. Seeing the grandeur of Aydindril through their young eyes had given Kahlan new vision to the things around her, and brought a smile to her lips. She had longed to give them a tour, personally, but being with the Mother Confessor would have frightened them, and so she hadn’t. But she had admired them from afar, and envied their lives of possibility.

Kahlan stopped at various beds, her back stiff, her head held high, her jaw rigid, as she reluctantly cast her eyes down at faces she knew. Juliana, one of the younger girls, had always been self-confident and assertive. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t timid about going after it. She had always been smitten with boys in uniform: soldiers. One time, it had brought her to grief with her chaperone, Mistress Nelda. Kahlan had surreptitiously interceded on her behalf, informing Mistress Nelda that despite the girl’s dalliances, the Aydindril home guard were all men of impeccable honor, and would never lay a finger on a queen’s lady. Her wrists were now tied to the headpost, and by the way they had bled, looked to have been that way through the whole of her ordeal. Kahlan silently cursed the spirits for their cruel humor in giving the girl what she had thought she wanted.

Little Elswyth was in the next bloodsoaked bed. Her breasts had been stabbed countless times, and her throat slit, as were many of the rest, like hogs at slaughter. At the end of the room, Kahlan stopped at the foot of the last bed. Ashley, one of the older girls, had each ankle tied to a footpost. She had been strangled with a curtain tieback. Her father was one of the Galean aides to the ambassador in Aydindril. Her mother had been thrilled to tears when Queen Cyrilla had agreed to take Ashley on as one of her ladies in waiting. How would she ever find the words to tell Ashley’s father and mother what had happened to their little girl while in the service of their Queen?

As Kahlan returned the length of the room, taking a last look at each dead girl, at each face frozen in horror, or in blank submission, she idly wondered why she wasn’t crying. Shouldn’t she cry? Shouldn’t she fall to her knees, scream in anguish, pound her fists, and cry until she drowned in tears? Shouldn’t she cry? But she didn’t. She felt as if there were no tears to be had. In fact, she felt only numb.

Perhaps there were too many. Perhaps she had seen so many that day that it had simply numbed her to it. Like when you first get into a tub of water for a bath, and it seems too hot to stand, that surely you are being scalded, but after a few minutes, it seems only warm.

She softly pulled the door closed. Chandalen stood in the exact same spot she had left him. His knuckles were white on his bow. Kahlan walked past him, expecting him to follow. He didn’t.

“Most women would cry,” he said as he stared at the door.

She felt a flush of heat in her cheeks. “I am not most women.”

Chandalen didn’t take his eyes from the door. “No, you are not.”

His eyes finally left the door to look down at his bow. The tension left his shoulders as he pulled a deep breath, as if it was the first he had taken in a time. “I wish to tell you a story.”

Kahlan waited a few paces away. “I do not wish to hear a story right now, Chandalen. Perhaps later.”

He turned his fierce brown eyes to her. “I wish to tell you a story,” he repeated, a little louder this time.

She sighed. “If it’s important to you, then tell me.”

Holding her gaze, he closed the distance between them. He was a scant inch shorter than she, but right then he looked taller to her. “When my grandfather was as young, and strong,” —he tapped his puffed up chest— “as I am now, he already had a wife, and two sons. Many peoples came to our village to trade. We let all come. We kept no one away. All were welcome. The Jocopo were one of these people who came to trade.”

“Who are the Jocopo?” Kahlan knew every people in the Midlands, but had never heard of these.

“People who lived to the west, closer to where the boundary was.”

Kahlan frowned as her mind searched a mental map. “No one lives to the west of the Mud People. That land is deserted.”

Chandalen watched her from under his eyebrows. “The Jocopo were big people.” He held his hand a head higher than he was, before letting it fall to his side. “But they were always peaceful. Like the Bantak. Like our people. Then they made war on us. We do not know the reason. But our people were very afraid. They would shake at night, in the fear that the Jocopo might come again the next day. They would come to our village, and cut the men’s throats, and take women, and do these things to them.” He flicked his hand self-consciously at the door.