Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [251]
Her voice became softer, weaker. “I hate that the most. No one who is guilty would call for a Confessor; it would only prove them to be guilty. Even before I touch these men, I know they are innocent, but I must do it anyway. If you ever saw the look in their eyes when I touch them… you would understand. So when we are called, and even though these men are innocent, they are left…”
Richard swallowed. “How many confessions have you… taken.”
She shook her head slowly. “Too many to count. I have spent half my life in prisons and dungeons, with the most vicious and loathsome animals you could imagine, yet most look to be nothing more than a kindly shopkeeper, or brother, or father, or neighbor. After I touch them, I have heard them all tell me the things they have done. For a long time, in the beginning, it gave me such nightmares I feared sleeping. The stories of the things they had done… you can’t even imagine…”
Richard tossed the stick aside and took her hand in his, squeezing it tightly. She was starting to cry. “Kahlan, you don’t have to…”
“I remember the first man I killed.” Her lip quivered. “I still have dreams about him. He confessed to me the things he had done to his neighbor’s three daughters… the oldest was only five… he looked up at me with wide eyes after he told me the most ghastly things you could imagine… and he said, ‘What is your wish, my mistress’… and without thinking, I said, ‘My wish is for you to die.’ “ She wiped some of the tears off her cheek with trembling fingers. “He dropped dead on the spot.”
“What did the people there say?”
“What would they dare to say to a Confessor who has just made a man drop dead in front of their eyes simply by her command? They all just backed up and got out of our way when we left. It is not something every Confessor can do. It even scared my wizard speechless.”
Richard frowned. “Your wizard?”
She nodded as she finished wiping the tears away. “Wizards see it as their duty to protect us, as we are universally feared and hated. Confessors almost always travel with the protection of a wizard. One is… well, one was, assigned to each of us when we were called to take a confession. Rahl managed to separate us from our wizards, and now they are dead too. Except Zedd, and Giller.”
Richard picked up the rabbit. It was getting cold. He cut off another piece and handed it to her, then tore off a piece for himself. “Why would the Confessors be feared and hated?”
“The relatives and friends of the man to be executed hate us because they often don’t believe their loved one would do the things they confess to. They would rather believe we somehow trick them in to confessing.” She picked at the meat, pulling off little pieces and chewing them slowly. “I have found that people do not often want to believe the truth. It is of little value to them. Some have tried to kill me. This is one of the reasons a wizard was always with us, to protect us until our power is recovered.”
Richard swallowed his mouthful. “That doesn’t sound like enough reason to me.”
“It is more than simply what we do. This must all sound very strange to someone who has not lived with it. The ways of the Midlands, of magic, must seem very odd to you.”
Odd was not the right word, he thought. Frightening was more like it.
“Confessors are independent; people resent that. Men resent that none of them can rule us, or even tell us what to do. Women resent that we do not live the kind of life they do, that we do not live in the traditional role of women; we do not take care of a man, or submit to one. We are seen as privileged. Our hair is long, a symbol of our authority; they are made to keep their hair short, as a sign of submission to their man and every other person of higher status than they. It may seem a small matter to you, but to our people, no matter having to do with power is small. A woman who allows her hair to grow beyond the length appropriate