Terry Goodkind - Faith of the Fallen

They had spent a good deal of time in Anderith with the captain and his elite forces. Kahlan knew him to be a superb officer. She thought he must be approaching his mid-twenties—probably a soldier for a decade already and the veteran of a number of campaigns, from minor rebellions to open warfare. The sharp wholesome lines of his face were just beginning to take on a mature set.

Over millennia, through war, migration, and occupation, other cultures had mixed in with the D’Haran, leaving a blend of peoples. Tall and broad-shouldered, Captain Meiffert was marked as full-blooded D’Haran by blond hair and blue eyes, as was Cara. The bond was strongest in full-blooded D’Harans.

After he had finished about half his rice, he glanced over his shoulder, into the darkness where Richard had gone. His earnest blue eyes took in both Cara and Kahlan.

“I don’t mean it to sound judgmental or personal, and I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, but may I ask you both a . . . a sensitive question?”

“You may, Captain,” Kahlan said. “But I can’t promise we will answer it.”

The last part gave him pause for a moment, but then he went on.

“General Reibisch and some of the other officers . . . well, there have been worried discussions about Lord Rahl. We trust in him, of course,” he was quick to add. “We really do. It’s just that . . .”

“So what are your concerns, then, Captain?” Cara put in, her brow drawing tight. “If you trust him so much.”

He stirred his wooden spoon around the bowl. “I was there in Anderith through the whole thing. I know how hard he worked—and you, too, Mother Confessor. No Lord Rahl before him ever worried about what the people wanted. In the past, the only thing that mattered was what the Lord Rahl wanted. Then, after all that, the people rejected his offer—rejected him. He sent us back to the main force, and just left us”—he gestured around himself—“to come here. Out in the middle of nowhere. To be a recluse, or something.” He paused while searching for the right words. “We don’t . . . understand it, exactly.”

He looked up from the fire, back into their eyes, as he went on. “We’re worried that Lord Rahl has lost his will to fight—that he simply no longer cares. Or perhaps . . . he is afraid to fight?”

The look on his face told Kahlan that he feared reprisal for saying the things he said, and for asking such a question, but he needed the answer enough to risk it. This was probably why he had come to give a report, rather than send a simple messenger.

“About six hours before he cooked that nice dinner pot of rice and beans,” Cara said in a casual manner, “he killed a couple dozen men. All by himself. Hacked them apart like I’ve never seen before. The violence of it shocked even me. He left only one man for me to dispatch. Quite unfair of him, I think.”

Captain Meiffert looked positively relieved as he let out a long breath. He looked away from Cara’s steady gaze and back into his bowl to stir his dinner.

“That news will be well received. Thank you for telling me, Mistress Cara.”

“He can’t issue orders,” Kahlan said, “because he unequivocally believes that, for now, if he takes part in leading our forces against the Imperial Order, it would bring about our defeat. He believes that if he enters the battle too soon, we will then have no chance of ever winning. He believes he must wait for the right time, that’s all. There’s nothing more to it.”

Kahlan felt a bit conflicted, helping to justify Richard’s actions, when she wasn’t entirely in favor of them. She felt it was necessary to check the advance of the Imperial Order’s army now, and not give them a chance to freely pillage and murder the people of the New World.

The captain mulled this over as he ate some bannock. He frowned as he gestured with the piece he had left. “There is sound battle theory for such a strategy. If you have any choice in it, you only attack when it’s on your terms, not the enemy’s.”

He became more spirited as he thought about it a moment. “It is better to hold an attack for the right moment, despite the damage an enemy can cause in the interim, than to go into a battle before the right time. Such would be an act of poor command.”

“That’s right.” Kahlan laid her arm back and rested her right wrist on her brow. “Perhaps you could explain it to the other officers in those words—that it’s premature to issue orders, and he’s waiting for the proper time. I don’t think that’s really any different from the way Richard has explained it to us, but perhaps it would be better understood if put in such terms.”

The captain ate the last bite of his bannock, seeming to think it over.

“I trust Lord Rahl with my life. I know the others do, too, but I think they will be reassured by such an explanation as to why he is withholding his orders. I can see now why he had to leave us—it was to resist the temptation to throw himself into the fray before the time was right.”

Kahlan wished she was as confident of the reasoning as the captain. She recalled Cara’s question, wondering how the people could prove themselves to Richard. She knew he would not be inclined to try it through a vote again, but she didn’t see how else the people could prove themselves to him.

“I’d not mention it to Richard,” she said. “It’s difficult for him—not being able to issue orders. He’s trying to do what he believes is right, but it’s a difficult course to hold to.”

“I understand, Mother Confessor. ‘In his wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are his.’ ”

Kahlan studied the smooth lines and simple angles of his young face lit by the dancing firelight. In that face, she saw some of what Richard had been trying to say to her before. “Richard doesn’t believe your lives are his, Captain, but that they are your own, and priceless. That is what he is fighting for.”

He chose his words carefully; if he wasn’t worried about her being the Mother Confessor, since he hadn’t grown up fearing the power and the rule of such a woman, she was still the Lord Rahl’s wife.

“Most of us see how different he is from the last Lord Rahl. I’m not claiming that any of us understands everything about him, but we know he fights to defend, rather than to conquer. As a soldier, I know the difference it makes to believe in what I’m fighting for, because . . .”

The captain looked away from her gaze. He lifted a short branch of firewood, tapping the end on the ground for a time. His voice took on a painful inflection, “Because it takes something precious out of you to kill people who never meant you any harm.”

The fire crackled and hissed as he slowly stirred the glowing coals.

Sparks swirled up to spill out from around the underside of the rock overhang.

Cara watched her Agiel as she rolled it in her fingers. “You . . . feel that way too?”

Captain Meiffert met Cara’s gaze. “I never realized, before, what it was doing to me, inside. I didn’t know. Lord Rahl makes me proud to be D’Haran. He makes it stand for something right. . . . It never did before. I thought that the way things were, was just the way things were, and they could never change.”

Cara’s gaze fell away as she privately nodded her agreement. Kahlan could only imagine what life was like living under that kind of rule, what it did to people.

“I’m glad you understand, Captain,” Kahlan whispered. “That’s one reason he worries so much about all of you. He wants you to live lives you can be proud of. Lives that are your own.”

He dropped the stick into the fire. “And he wanted all the people of Anderith to care about themselves the way he wants us to value our lives. The vote wasn’t really for him, but for themselves. That was why the vote meant so much to him?”