It seemed to Richard that Chandalen was trying very hard to keep from looking at Kahlan's puzzled expression. Although Richard couldn't fathom the reason, he thought he understood the figure of speech-odd as it was. He thought maybe it was a bad translation.

The approaching peopleweren't far off.Chandalen, having had one of his trusted hunters killed by the Lurk, would want Richard and Kahlan to do what they could to stop the enemy; he would not insist they delay their journey unless he had a good reason. "If it's important for them to see us, then let's go." Chandalen caught Richard's arm. "They only asked to see you. Perhaps you wish to go alone? Then you could be on your way."

"Why would Richard want to go alone," Kahlan asked, suspicion bubbling up in her voice. She then added something in the Mud People's language which Richard didn't understand.

Chandalen lifted his hands, showing her his empty palms, as if to say he held no weapon arid wished no fight. For some reason, he seemed to want no part of whatever was going on.

"Maybe I should-" Richard closed his mouth when Kahlan's suspicious glower shifted to him. He cleared his throat.

"I was going to say we have no secrets." Richard hefted his gear. "Kahlan is always welcome at my side. We have no time to waste. Let's go."

Chandalen nodded and turned to lead them to their fate. Richard thought he saw the man roll his eyes in a don't-say-I-didn't-warn-you fashion. Richard could see ten of Chandalen's hunters following behind the seven oncoming travelers, with another three hunters winged out distantly to each side, hemming in the strangers without being overtly threatening. The Mud People hunters seemed merely to accompany and guide the strangers, but Richard knew they were ready to strike at any sign of hostility. Armed outsiders on Mud People land were like tinder before a lightning storm.

Richard hoped this storm, too, would move away and leave sunny skies to follow. Kahlan, Cara, and Richard hurried behind Chandalen through the wet new grass.

Chandalen's men were the first line of defense for the Mud People. That the Mud People's land was given a wide berth by almost everyone spoke to their fighting ferocity.

Yet Chandalen's skilled and deadly hunters, now turned escorts, elicited no more than detached indifference from the six men in loose flaxen clothes. Something about that indifference at being surrounded tickled at Richard's memory. As the approaching group got close enough for Richard to suddenly recognize them, he missed a step.

It took a few moments of scrutiny before he could believe what he was seeing. He at last understood the strangers' fearless indifference to Chandalen's men. He couldn't imagine what these people were doing away from their own homeland.

Each man was dressed the same and carried the same weapons. Richard knew only one by name, but knew them all. These people were dedicated to a purpose laid down by their lawgivers thousands of years before-those wizards in the great war who had taken their homeland and created the Valley of the Lost to separate the New World from the Old. Their black-handled swords, with their distinctive curved blades that widened toward clipped points, remained in their scabbards. One end of a cord was tied to a ring on the pommel of each man's sword; the other end of the cord, looped around the swordsman's neck as a precaution against losing the weapon in battle. Additionally, each of the six carried spears and a small, round, unadorned shield. Richard had seen women clothed and armed the same, and committed to the same purpose, but this time they were all men.

For these men, practice with their swords was an art form. They practiced that art by moonlight, after the day did not provide them all the time they wished. Using their swords was near to a religious devotion, and they went about their bladework with pious commitment. These men were blade masters.

The seventh, the woman, was dressed differently, and not armed-at least not in the conventional sense.

Richard wasn't good at judging such things by sight, but a quick calculation told him she had to be at least six months pregnant.

A thick mass of long black hair framed a lovely face, her presence giving her features, especially her dark eyes, a certain edginess. Unlike the men's loose outfits of simple cloth, she wore a knee-length dress of finely woven flax dyed a rich earth color and gathered at the waist with a buckskin belt. The ends of the belt were decorated with roughly cut gemstones.

Up the outside of each arm and across the shoulders of the dress was a row of little strips of different-colored cloth. Each was knotted on through a small hole beneath a corded band and each, Richard knew, would have been tied on by a supplicant.

It was a prayer dress. Each of the little colored strips, when they fluttered in the breeze, meant-to send a prayer to the good spirits. The dress was worn only by their spirit woman.

Richard's mind raced with possibilities as to why these people would have traveled so far from their homeland. He could come up with nothing good, and a lot that was unpleasant.

Richard had halted. Kahlan waited to his left, Cara to his right, and Chandalen to the right of her.

Ignoring everyone else, the men in the loose clothes all laid their spears on the ground beside themselves as they went to their knees before Richard. They bowed forward, touching their foreheads to the ground, and stayed there.

The woman stood silently regarding Mm. Her dark eyes bore the timeless look Richard had often seen in others; Sister Verna, Shota the witch woman, Ann, and Kahlan, among others. That timeless look was the mark of the gift.

As she gazed into Richard's eyes with a look that seemed to hint at wisdom he would never grasp, a ghost of a smile touched her lips. Without a word, she went to her knees at the head of the six men accompanying her. She touched her forehead to the ground and then kissed the toe of his boot.

"Caharin," she whispered reverently.

Richard reached down and tugged on the shoulder of her dress, urging her up.

"Du Chaillu, it pleases my heart to see you are well, but what are you doing here?"

She rose up before him, a heartening handsome smile widening across her face. She bent forward and kissed his cheek.

"I have come to see you, of course, Richard, Seeker, Caharin, husband."

"Husband?" Richard heard Kahlan say in a rising tone of concern.

With a jolt of astonished shock that nearly took him from his feet, and did take his breath, Richard abruptly recalled Du Chaillu's account of her people's old law. The dire implications staggered him.

At the time, he had dismissed her adamant assertions as either irrational conviction or perhaps misconceptions about their history. Now, this old ghost had unexpectedly returned to haunt him.

"Husband?" Kahlan repeated, a little louder, a little more insistently.

Her dark eyes turned to Kahlan, as if annoyed she had to take them from Richard. "Yes. Husband. I am Du Chaillu, wife of the Caharin, Richard, the Seeker." Du Chaillu rubbed her hand over her pronounced belly. Her look of annoyance passed and she beamed with pride. "I bear his child."

"Leave it to me, Mother Confessor," Cara said. There was no mistaking the resolute menace in her voice. "This time, I will take care of it."

Cara yanked the knife from Chandalen's belt and lunged for the woman.

Richard was quicker. He spun to Cara and shoved the tips of his stiffened fingers against her upper chest. It not only halted her forward progress, but drove her back three paces. He had enough problems without her causing more. He shoved her again and drove her back another three, and then another three, away from the group of people.