Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [238]
Father Rahl smiled a small smile to the Queen. “The wizard and I are going to go now, and have a private conversation.” He turned and walked out of the room, white robes flying behind him. The man holding Giller up in the air followed Father Rahl. The other man stepped in front of the door and folded his arms. Giller’s feet didn’t touch the ground as he was carried away.
Rachel wanted to run after Giller, she was so scared for him. She saw his head turn back and look at the people. His dark eyes were wide, and for a second, they looked right at her, right into her eyes. When they did, she heard his voice in her head, as clear as if he had yelled to her. The voice in her head screamed only one word.
Run.
Then he was gone. Rachel wanted to cry. Instead, she sucked the hem of her dress. All the people around the Queen started talking at once. James, the court artist, started picking up some of the pieces of the fake box, turning them over in his one hand, looking at them, holding them against the stump of his other. Princess Violet took one of the big pieces from him and looked at the jewels, running her fingers over them.
Rachel kept remembering the voice in her head, Giller’s voice, yelling at her to run. She looked around; no one was paying any attention to her. She went around the tables, keeping her head down, below the tabletops, so they wouldn’t be able to see her. When she got to the other side of the room, she poked her head up to see if anyone was looking. They weren’t.
She reached up and took some food off the plates: a piece of meat, three bread rolls, and a big piece of hard cheese. She stuffed them all in her pockets, then checked the people again.
Then she ran for the hall. She kept herself from getting tears, to be brave for Giller. Her bare feet ran down the carpets, past the picture rugs hanging on the walls. Before she got to the guards at the doors, she slowed down, so they wouldn’t see her running. When they saw her coming, they pulled up the big bolt and didn’t say anything as she went through the door. The guards on the outside of the door just glanced at her as she came through, then looked back out, watching the grounds.
Rachel wiped some tears off her face as she went down the cold stone steps. She had tried to keep them from coming, but a few got out before she could stop them. The guards on patrol ignored her as she walked fast over the cobblestones, toward the garden.
Away from the torches hung on the walls outside the castle it was dark, but she knew her way. The grass was wet on her bare feet. At the third urn, she knelt down, looking to see that no one was watching, then reached under the flowers. She felt the cloth around the bread, and pulled it out. Untying the knots, she laid the four corners back, then reached in her pockets and put the meat, the three hard rolls, and the cheese on top of the bread and tied the corners of the cloth back up.
Just before she started running for the outer-wall gate, she remembered, and made a little gasp. She froze stiff, her eyes wide.
She had forgotten Sara! Her doll was still in her sleeping box! Princess Violet would find her doll, she would throw Sara in the fire! Rachel couldn’t leave her doll there; she was running away and not coming back. Sara would be afraid without her. Sara would get burned up.
She pushed the bundle with the bread back under the flowers, looked around, and ran for the castle. She had to slow down and walk when she got close, back into the torchlight. One of the guards at the door looked down at her.
“I just let you out,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “I know. But now I have to go back in for a few minutes.”
“Forget something?”
She nodded and managed to make herself say, “Yes.”
He shook his head and lifted the little window. “Open the door,” he said to the guard inside. She heard the heavy bolt open.
Once back inside, she looked down the hall. The big room with the