Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [265]
His gaze returned at last to her. “No.”
“May I know why?”
“Because I respect you for who you are. The Kahlan I know wouldn’t want to fool people by trying to make them think she is less than she is. Even if you did fool some, it would change nothing. You are who you are: the Mother Confessor. We all can be no more, or less, than who we are.” He smiled. “A wise woman, a friend of mine, told me that once.”
“Any man would leap for the chance to cut a Confessor’s hair.”
“Not this one. This one is your friend.”
She gave a nod, her arms still folded against her stomach. “She must be cold. She didn’t even take a blanket.”
“She didn’t take any food either, other than that loaf of bread she’s saving for some reason, and she was starving.”
Kahlan smiled at last. “She ate more than you and me together. At least her belly is full. Richard, when she gets to Horners Mill…”
“She isn’t going to Horners Mill.”
Kahlan came closer. “But that’s where her grandmother is.”
Richard shook his head. “She doesn’t have a grandmother. When she said her grandmother was in Horners Mill, and I told her she couldn’t go there, she didn’t even falter. She simply said she would go somewhere else. She never gave it a thought, never asked about her grandmother, or even raised an objection. She’s running from something.”
“Running? Maybe from whoever put those bruises on her arms.”
“And on her back. Whenever my hand touched one, she flinched, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to be hugged that badly.” Kahlan’s brow wrinkled with sorrow. “I’d say she was running from whoever cut her hair like that.”
“Her hair?”
He nodded again. “It was meant to mark her, maybe as property. No one would cut someone’s hair like that, except to give a message. Especially in the Midlands, where everyone pays so much attention to hair. It was deliberate, a message of power over her. That’s why I cut it for her, to remove the mark.”
Kahlan stared at nothing in particular. “That was why she was so happy to have it cut even,” she whispered.
“There is more to it, though, than simply running away. She lies easier than a gambler. She lies with the ease of someone who has a powerful need.”
Her eyes came to his again. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “But it has something to do with that loaf of bread.”
“The bread? Do you really think so?”
“She had no shoes, no cloak, nothing but her doll. It’s her most precious possession, she’s devoted to it, yet she let us touch it. But she wouldn’t let us get within an arm’s length of that loaf of bread. I don’t know much about the magic in the Midlands, but where I come from, a little girl will not value a loaf of bread more than her doll, and I don’t think it’s any different here. Did you see the look in her eyes when you reached for the bread, and she snatched it away? If she had had a knife, and you hadn’t backed off, she would have used it on you.”
“Richard,” she admonished, “you can’t really believe that about a little girl. A loaf of bread couldn’t be that important to her.”
“No? You said yourself she ate as much as both of us put together. I was beginning to think she was related to Zedd. Explain why if she was half starved, she hadn’t even nibbled on that loaf of bread.” He shook his head. “There is something going on, and that loaf of bread is at the center of it.”
Kahlan took a step toward him. “So, we’re going after her?”
Richard felt the weight of the tooth against his chest. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “No. As Zedd is fond of saying, nothing is ever easy. How can we justify going after one little girl, to solve the riddle of her loaf of bread, while Rahl goes after the box?”
She took his hand in one of hers, looked down at it. “I hate what Darken Rahl