Free Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind Page A

don’t hear nothin’ again? Or speak it?”
    “That won’t be necessary. I have his oath, and have ordered him reassigned.”
    “Oath.” The man made a sour face at the word. “An oath is nothin’ more than babbled words. A blade’s oath is truer.”
    “Really? Am I to assume that your oath of silence is nothing more than ‘babbled words,’ too? Should we see to your silence, then, in a ‘truer’ way?” Sister Margaret held his dark gaze until it at last broke with a glance to the ground.
    “No, Sister. My oath is true enough.”
    She nodded. “Has anyone else been about to hear him yelling?”
    “No, Sister. As soon as he started in calling for the Prelate, we checked the area, to be sure there were none of the staff, or anyone else, about. When we found everything was clear, I posted guards at all the far entrances and sent for a Sister. He’s never called for the Prelate before, only a Sister. I thought it should be up to a Sister, not me, to decide if the Prelate was to be awakened in the middle of the night.”
    “Good thinking.”
    “Now that you’re here, Sister, we should be off to check the others.” His expression darkened again. “To make sure no one heard anything.”
    She nodded. “And you had better hope swordsman Andellmere is careful and doesn’t fall off a wall and break his neck, or I will come looking for you.” He gave an annoyed grunt. “But if you hear him repeat so much as a single word of what he heard tonight, you find a Sister before you stop to take another breath.”
    Through the door and halfway down the inner hall, she stopped and felt the shields. She held the book to her breast in both arms as she concentrated, searching for the breach. She smiled when she found it: a tiny twist in the weave. He had probably been picking at it for years. She closed her eyes and wove the breach together, binding it with a barb of power that would thwart him if he tried the same thing again. She was ruefully impressed by his ingenuity, and his persistence. Well, she sighed to herself, what else had he to do?
    Inside his spacious apartments the lamps were lit. Tapestries hung on one of the walls, and the floors were generously covered with the local colorful, blue and yellow carpets. The bookshelves were half empty. Books that belonged on them were laid open everywhere; some on the chairs and couches, some face down on pillows on the floor, and some stacked in disheveled piles next to his favorite chair beside the cold hearth.
    Sister Margaret went to the elegant, polished, rosewood writing table to the side of the room. She sat at the padded chair and laying the book open on the desktop, flipped through it until she came to a clean page at the end of the writing. She didn’t see the Prophet anywhere. He was probably in the garden. The double doors to the small garden were opened, letting in a gentle breath of warm air. From a drawer in the desk she took an ink bottle, pen, and a small sprinkle box of fine sand, setting them beside the open book of prophecies.
    When she looked up, he was standing in the half light in the doorway to the garden, watching her. He was in black robes with the hood drawn up. He stood motionless, his hands in the sleeves of the opposite arms. He filled the doorway not just with his size, but with his presence.
    She wiggled the stopper from the ink bottle. “Good evening, Nathan.”
    He took three strong, slow strides out of the shadows and into the lamplight, pushing back the black hood to uncover his full head of long, straight, white hair that touched his broad shoulders. The top of the metal collar just barely showed at the neck of his robes. The muscles in his strong, clean-shaven jaw tightened. White eyebrows hooded his deep, dark, azure eyes. He was a ruggedly handsome man, despite being possibly the oldest man she had ever known.
    And, he was quite mad. Or he was quite clever, and wanted everyone to think he was mad. She wasn’t sure which was true.