If she had to, she could always resort to her Confessor's power, but in her condition that was a dubious proposition. She had never had to call upon her power when in anything like the condition in which she now found herself. She reminded herself that the three of them would be long gone before the men returned, and besides, Richard and Cara would never let them get near her.
Kahlan had a more immediate fear, though, and that one was all too real. But she wouldn't feel it for long; she would pass out, she knew. She hoped.
She tried not to think of it, and instead put her hand gently over her belly, over their child, as she listened to the nearby splashing and burbling of a stream. The sound of the water reminded her of how much she wished she could take a bath. The bandages over the oozing wound in her side stank and needed to be changed often. The sheets were soaked with sweat. Her scalp itched. The mat of grass that was the bedding under the sheet was hard and chafed her back. Richard had probably made the pallet quickly, planning to improve it later.
As hot as the day was, the stream's cold water would be welcome. She longed for a bath, to be clean, and to smell fresh. She longed to be better, to be able to do things for herself, to be healed. She could only hope that as time passed, Richard, too, would recover from his invisible, but real, wounds.
Cara finally returned, grumbling about the horses being stubborn today.
She looked up to see the room was empty. "I had better go look for him and make sure: he's safe."
"He's fine. He knows what he's doing. Just wait, Cara, or he will then have toy go out and look for you."
Cara sighed and reluctantly agreed. Retrieving a cool, wet cloth, she set to mopping Kahlan's forehead and temples. Kahlan didn't like to complain when people; were doing their best to care for her, so she didn't say anything about how much it hurt her torn neck muscles when her head was shifted in that way. Cara never complained about any of it. Cara only complained when she believed her charges were in needless danger-and when Richard wouldn't let her eliminate those she viewed as a danger.
Outside, a bird let out a high-pitched trill. The tedious repetition was becoming, grating. In the distance, Kahlan could hear a squirrel chattering an objection to something, or perhaps arguing over his territory.
He'd been doing it for what seemed' an hour. The stream babbled on without letup.
This was Richard's idea of restful.
"I hate this," she muttered.
"You should be happy-lying about without anything to do."
"And I bet you would be happy to trade places?"
"I am Mord-Sith. For a Mord-Sith, nothing could be worse than to die in bed." Her blue eyes turned to Kahlan's. "Old and toothless," she added. "I didn't mean; that you-"
"I know what you meant."
Cara looked relieved. "Anyway, you couldn't die-that would be too easy.
You never do anything easy."
"I married Richard."
"See what I mean?"
Kahlan smiled.
Cara dunked the cloth in a pail on the floor and wrung it out as she stood. "It` isn't too bad, is it? Just lying there?"
"How would you like to have to have someone push a wooden bowl under yours. bottom every time your bladder was full?"
Cara carefully blotted the damp cloth along Kahlan's neck. "I don't mind doing it for a sister of the Agiel."
The Agiel, the weapon a Mord-Sith always carried, looked like nothing more; than a short, red leather rod hanging on a fine chain from her right wrist. A Mord~. Sith's Agiel was never more than a flick away from her grip.
It somehow functioned: by means of the magic of a Mord-Sith's bond to the Lord Rahl.
Kahlan had once felt the partial touch of an Agiel. In a blinding instant, it could inflict the kind of pain that the entire gang of men had dealt Kahlan. The touch of a, Mord-Sith's Agiel was easily capable of delivering bone-breaking torture, and just as easily, if she desired, death.
Richard had given Kahlan the Agiel that had belonged to Denna, the Mord-Sith who had captured him by order of Darken Rahl. Only Richard had ever come to understand and empathize with the pain an Agiel also gave the Mord-Sith who °' wielded it. Before he was forced to kill Denna in order to escape, she had given. him her Agiel, asking to be remembered as simply Derma, the woman beyond the appellation of Mord-Sith, the woman no one but Richard had ever before seen a understood.
That Kahlan understood, and kept the Agiel as a symbol of that same respect for women whose young lives had been stolen and twisted to nightmare purposes and duties, was deeply meaningful to the other Mord-Sith. Because of that compassion-untainted by pity-and more, Cara had named Kahlan a sister of the Agiel. It was an informal but heartfelt accolade.
"Messengers have come to see Lord Rahl," Cara said. "You were sleeping, and Lord Rahl saw no reason to wake you," she added in answer to Kahlan's questioning look. The messengers were D'Haran, and able to find Richard by their bond to him as their Lord Rahl. Kahlan, not able to duplicate the feat, had always found it unsettling.
"What did they have to say?"
Cara shrugged. "Not a lot. Jagang's army of the Imperial Order remains in Anderith for the time being, with Reibisch's force staying safely to the north to watch and be ready should the Order decide to threaten the rest of the Midlands. We know little of the situation inside Anderith, under the Order's occupation. The rivers flow away from our men, toward the sea, so they have not seen bodies to indicate if there has been mass death, but there have been a few people who managed to escape. They report that there was some death due to the poison which was released, but they don't know how widespread it was. General Reibisch has sent scouts and spies in to learn what they will."
"What orders did Richard give them to take back?"
"None."
"None? He sent no orders?"
Cara shook her head and then leaned over to dunk the cloth again. "He wrote letters to the general, though."
She drew the blanket down, lifted the bandage at Kahlan's side, and inspected its weak red charge before tossing it on the floor. With a gentle touch, she cleaned the wound.
When Kahlan was able to get her breath, she asked, "Did you see the letters?"
"Yes. They say much the same as he has told you-that he has had a vision that has caused him to come to see the nature of what he must do. He explained to the general that he could not give orders for fear of causing the end of our chances."
"Did General Reibisch answer?"
"Lord Rahl has had a vision. D'Harans know the Lord Rahl must deal with the terrifying mysteries of magic.