Zedd’s face twisted with a sour expression, but he didn’t challenge the point.
Richard tapped his thumb against the hilt of his sword as he ran all the events through his mind for a moment. He couldn’t see any connection between the three events. He couldn’t even imagine any.
That wasn’t true, he realized. Darkness seeking something could be connected to Cara’s feeling that someone was looking into her room in the night— in the dark.
He turned to Nathan. “You said that there’s a woman who works for the palace and that she is visited by small premonitions.”
“That’s right. She’s general kitchen help, usually doing preparation work like cutting up things for the palace cooks, but she helps out with other things when extra people are needed. As a matter of fact, I believe she’s one of the people in the blue robes helping serve tonight.” He glanced around without trying not to look obvious. “I don’t see her at the moment, though.”
“And you said that there was another woman, Lauretta, I think you said her name was, who has a hint of ability. You said that she wanted to see me because she has something for me, some kind of omen.”
Nathan nodded. “That’s right.”
“As soon as we can break away from here I want you to take me to see her.”
“Richard, I’d be happy to take you there, but it’s likely nothing. These kinds of things usually turn out to be a whole lot less than one thinks they are. People often believe that the most mundane and innocent things somehow have sinister implications. It’s likely nothing meaningful.”
“That would please me just fine,” Richard said as he checked on the people waiting for him. “Then I won’t have to worry about it.”
“I suppose so.” Nathan gestured toward the wall of doors behind them. “We’re near the kitchens. Lauretta works for a butcher who helps supply the palace for affairs like the wedding and this gathering here today. Her quarters aren’t far. When you feel like taking a stroll we can go see her.”
Richard nodded. “For now, let’s get back to our guests.”
CHAPTER 9
Richard stepped back to the waiting group of officials, mayors, regents, representatives and even a few kings and queens of some of the lands in what used to be the Midlands before they were all joined into the D’Haran Empire. When Zedd and Kahlan went with him, Nathan tucked the book under his arm, put on his widest smile, and came along.
Nathan, being the only living prophet as well as a Rahl, was well known to just about everyone at the palace. That, and his flamboyant nature, made him a celebrity of sorts. He dressed the part, with a ruffled shirt and a fashionable green cape. Elaborate engraving covered the gold scabbard and sword at his hip.
Richard thought that a wizard of Nathan’s abilities wearing a sword made about as much sense as a porcupine carrying a toothpick to defend himself. Nathan claimed that the sword made him look “dashing.” He enjoyed the looks he got, usually acknowledging them with a broad grin and, if the looks came from a woman, a deep bow. The more attractive the woman, the wider his smile tended to be. The women often blushed, but they almost always returned a smile.
Despite being somewhere near to a thousand years old, Nathan often approached life with the glee and wonder of a child. It was an infectious nature that attracted some people to him. Others, no matter Nathan’s often pleasant nature, considered him to be just about the most dangerous man alive.
A prophet could tell the future and in the future pain, suffering, and death often lay in wait. People believed that, if he chose to, he could reveal what fate awaited them. Nathan dealt with prophecy; he could neither invent it or make it happen. But some still believed he could. That was why many considered him dangerous.
Others considered him profoundly dangerous for an entirely different reason. They feared him because there had been times when prophecies he revealed had started wars.
There were those women who were drawn to that aura of danger about him.
When asked why he would bother to carry a sword, Nathan had reminded Richard that he was a wizard as well, and he carried a sword. Richard protested that he was also the Seeker, and the Sword of Truth was bonded to him. It was part of him, part of who he was. Nathan’s sword was more ornamental. Nathan didn’t need a sword to reduce someone to ash.
Nathan had reminded Richard that, Seeker or not, and no matter how he framed it, Richard was far more deadly than the sword he carried.
“Lord Rahl,” a stocky man in a red tunic asked as everyone gathered close, “may we know if there is some prophetic event lying ahead for us?”
Many in the crowd nodded, relieved that the question had finally been asked, and moved in a little closer. Richard was beginning to suspect that the answers to such questions were the only things they were really interested in hearing from him.
He looked around at all the eager faces watching him. “Prophetic event? What do you mean?”
“Well,” the man said, sweeping an arm expansively, “with so many gifted right here, First Wizard Zorander, the prophet himself, Nathan Rahl”— the man bowed his head toward Richard—“and not least of all you, Lord Rahl, who has more than proven to everyone what a remarkable gift you possess, surely you would have to be privy to the deepest secrets of prophecy. We are all hoping, since we are all gathered here, that you would be willing to share with us what such prophecy has revealed to you, what it holds in store for us.”
People in the gathered crowd voiced their agreement or nodded as they smiled hopefully.
“You want to hear prophecy?”
Heads bobbed and everyone inched in closer, as if they were about to be privy to a palace secret.
“Then heed what I say.” Richard gestured to the gloomy gray light coming from the windows at the far end of the room behind the crowd. Everyone glanced briefly over their shoulder, then turned back, lest they miss what Richard would say.
“There will be a spring storm the likes of which has not been seen for many years. Those of you who wish to return home sooner rather than later should plan to leave at once. Those who delay too long will shortly be stranded here for a number of days.”
A few people whispered among themselves as if Richard had just revealed the secrets of the dead. But most of those waiting for his word on the future seemed to be a great deal less impressed.
The heavyset man in a red tunic held a hand aloft. “Lord Rahl, while that is fascinating, and I am sure quite prophetic, and no doubt useful to some of us here, we were hoping to hear of things more … significant.”
“Like what?” Nathan said in a deep voice that rattled some in the crowd.
A woman in the front dressed with layered golds and greens forced a smile. “Well,” she said, “we were hoping to hear some true words of prophecy. Some of fate’s dark secrets.”
Richard was feeling more uneasy by the moment. “Why the sudden interest in prophecy?”
The woman seemed to shrink a little at his tone. She was trying to find words when a tall man farther back wove his way between people as he stepped forward. He wore a simple black coat with a turned-up, straight collar that went all the way around. The coat was buttoned to his neck so that it pulled the collar nearly closed at his throat. He wore a rimless four-sided hat of the same color.
It was the abbot Benjamin had told Richard about.
“Lord Rahl,” the abbot said as he bowed, “we have all heard warnings from people who have been endowed with an element of insight into the flow of events forward in time. Their dark warnings trouble us all greatly.”
Richard