Kahlan lifted an eyebrow. "You trickster, you. You may fool others, but not me. It is you who has given me heart."
Kahlan held Zedd close, resting her head against his shoulder, as they both danced on with their memories.
Kahlan danced once more with Captain Ryan, and once more with Zedd, but then busied herself speaking to officers and soldiers alike so she wouldn't have to dance with anyone, should anyone feel awkward about asking her, yet work up the nerve. She was more able to enjoy the festivities without having to dance.
"Mother Confessor, I would be honored were you to have a dance with me."
333
"Mother Confessor, I just wanted to thank you for making this the best day I've ever had."
"Oh, but it is. That's just it. People used to call me the mole."
"Because I used to stay down in the vaults all the time studying the prophecies. It wasn't just that I liked to study the books-I was afraid to come out."
He turned her in time with the sweep of music. "Richard brought me out."
"In a way, you've helped add to what he started." Warren smiled distantly. "I just wanted to thank you. I know how much I miss him, and how much Verna misses him. I know the men miss their Lord Rahl."
"And I know how much you miss your husband. That's why I wanted to thank you-for giving us this, and the gift of your grace, despite your heartache. Everyone here feels it with you. Please know that while you miss him, you are not alone, and are among those who love him too."
As they danced across the open area, laughing at the merry tune and the awkward steps of some of the soldiers, the music abruptly trailed off.
Alarm swept through the assembled soldiers, as men ran for their weapons, until one of the sentries sprinted in, waving his arm, calling out for everyone to stand down, that it was friendly forces.
The crowd parted as horses trotted through the throng. Kahlan's eyebrows went up, and her jaw dropped. The distinguished General Baldwin, commander of all Keltish forces, was at the fore, riding a handsome chestnut gelding. He brought the horse to a smart halt. He ran his first finger along the length of his white-flecked dark mustache as he took in the crowd gathered in around him. His graying black hair grew down over his ears, and his pate shone through on top. He was a striking figure in his serge cape fastened on one shoulder with two buttons, allowing it to show the rich green silk lining. His tan surcoat was decorated with a heraldic emblem slashed through with a diagonal black line dividing a yellow and blue shield. The man's high boots were rolled down below his knees. Long black gauntlets, their flared cuffs lying over the front, were tucked behind a wide belt set with an ornate buckle.
He lifted a hand in his noble manner, a smile spreading wide. "Mother Confessor, how good to see you."
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The woman's bold glare swept over the gathered people. She finally settled her gaze, taking in Cara. Cara moved out of General Meiffert's arms.
Cara stepped closer. "Hania? She's not here."
Kahlan stepped forward, a little miffed that the woman saw fit to step in front of General Baldwin. "Rikka, is it?"
"I'm glad to have you here, and your sisters of the Agiel."
"We can certainly use your help. That was wise of Berdine-I know how eager she was to come herself, but she knows the city and the Keep. I'm glad she followed my instructions." Kahlan settled her most unsettling Mother-Confessor-gaze on Rikka. "Now, if you don't mind, you interrupted General Baldwin."
Rikka lifted and eyebrow in surprise. "Really? How could-"
General Baldwin, now off his horse, stepped forward at last and went to a knee in a bow. "My queen, Mother Confessor."
The general rose to his feet. "I came as soon as I received your letter, Mother Confessor."
He looked surprised by the question. "Why . . . all of them. One hundred seventy thousand men. When my queen asks for an army, I bring her one."
Kahlan was stunned. She no longer even felt the cold. "That's wonderful, General. They are sorely needed. We have a real fight on our hands, as I explained in my letter. The Imperial Order is getting reinforcements all the time. We need to cut those lines."
"And we can still bring more in from D'Hara," General Meiffert said.
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"Who? Oh, you must mean Sergeant Leiden. He only has a scout patrol, now. When a man deserts his queen, he's lucky to keep his head, but he acted to protect her people, so I sent him to guard some remote pass. I hope the man dresses warmly."
"Well, they're up country a little ways, half a day back. Couldn't fit them all in here with your army."
Rikka bowed. "Love to." She came up and smiled. "Berdine warned me about her," she said under her breath to Cara.
"No," Kahlan said, stopping them in their tracks. "This is a party. The general, Rikka, and her sisters are invited. In fact, I insist."
Kahlan took Rikka's arm and pulled her close. "Rikka, we have a lot of men here, and few women. This is a dance. Get out there and dance."
Kahlan shoved her out into the dance area. She snapped her fingers at the musicians. "Shall we resume?" She turned to General Baldwin. "General, you have come at a wonderful time, a time of celebration. Please, would you dance with me?"
"I am your queen, also. Generals dance with queens, do they not?"
Long after it was dark, the wedding procession made its way through the makeshift streets, greeting all the men. Thousands of soldiers congratulated Warren and Verna on their marriage, offered jesting advice, a gentle slap on the back, or just a merry wave.
When finally they reached the end of the long winding walk through the sprawling camp, they came at last to the tent Verna and Warren thought was to be theirs. Those following along bid the couple a good night and wandered back to the party, leaving the three of them alone.
336
Finally, Kahlan spotted the lodge off through the trees. She stopped a little distance away to let them see the candlelight coming from behind the lace-like curtain. The juxtaposition against life in an army camp made it looked all the more romantic.
"We will one day have to move on, as surely the Order will move again when spring comes, if not before. But for now, I want this place to be yours. I can give you at least this much, this little piece of a normal life together."
"Not a good idea, Verna, to let your new husband see you cry just as he's about to take you to his bed."
"I don't know what to say."
Warren hugged her, whispering his thanks in her ear. Kahlan watched as he led Verna the remaining distance to the lodge. At the door, both turned and waved. At the last moment, Warren swept Verna off her feet. Her lilting laugh drifted among the trees as he carried her through the doorway.
337
The door opened a crack. One bloodshot eye peered out into the dingy hall.
"What of it?"
"Why bring your problems to me?"
Richard spoke without expectation into the narrow slit. "We need a room."
"Lots of people need a room. I only have one. I can't give it to you."
"We have the money for the first week." She shoved her hand against the door when he started to shut it. "It's a public room. Your duty is to help the public get rooms."
Richard turned away as Nicci began knocking. "Forget it," he said. "Let's go get a loaf of bread."
"It's your duty," Nicci called to the closed door. "You've no right to turn us away." No answer came. "We're going to report you."
"Has he a job?"
"You go away. The both of your I'll report you!"
"Look, lady, I got a room, but I got to keep it for people at the top of the list."
"Because if you were you would have said so first off and showed me the approval you got with a seal on it. People at the head of the list have been waiting a long time for a place. You're no better than a thief, trying to take the place of a good
citizen who's followed the law. Now, go away, or I will take down your names for the lodging inspector."
"We will have to keep looking," she told him. "If you had a job, first, it would probably help. Maybe tomorrow you can look for a job while I keep looking for a room."
The weather was unusually cold for this far south in the Old World, Nicci had told him. People said the cold spell and rain would soon pass. A few days before it had been muggy and warm, so Richard had no reason to doubt their judgment. It was disorienting for him to see woods and fields of lush green vegetation in the dead of winter. There were some trees with limbs bare for the season, but most were in full leaf.
He knew that back home winter would be raging. Despite the turmoil around him, Richard felt an inner tranquillity knowing that Kahlan was most likely to be warm and snug in the house he had built; in that light, nothing in his new life was of enough importance to distress him. She had food to eat, firewood to keep her warm, and Cara for company. For now, she was safe. Winter was wearing on and in spring she would be able to leave, but, for now, Richard was confident that she was safe. That, and his thoughts and memories of her, were his only solace.
Nicci checked the paper she carried. "These places on this register they gave us are all supposed to be available for people newly arrived-not just for people on a list. They need workers; they should be more diligent in seeing to it that places are available. Do you see, Richard? Do you see how hard it is for ordinary people to get along in life?"
"We will have to go to a lodging office and request a room. They can put us on a housing list."
"If there aren't enough rooms, how will being on a list get us a place to stay?"
"There's work here, that's why we came-that's why everyone else has come.
I'll work hard and then we can afford to pay more. We still have a little money. We just need to find a place that wants to rent a room for the right price-without all this list foolishness."
Watching the glistening cobbles before him as he walked, Richard wondered how long they would be without a place until their name worked its way to the top of a list. It looked to him as if a lot of people would need to die before his and Nicci's names came up for a room-with more yet waiting in turn for them to die.
Nicci wasn't interested in the idea. Nicci wanted to be in the city. Multitudes came to the city looking for a better life. There were lists to get on, and lines to wait in to see official people. You had a better chance of doing those things if you had a room in the city, she said.
"Why are all these people in line?" Richard whispered to Nicci. It was the same every day when they went to buy bread.
"Seems like with all the customers, more people would want to open bakeries."
She always seemed so impassioned when she spoke about the evil nature of people. Richard wondered why a Sister of the Dark would care about evil, but he didn't bother to ask.
Richard met her glare with a broad smile.
She half turned, holding her canvas bag in both hands, letting it pull her arms straight as she leaned her shoulders against the wall. Her bag held only a yellow wedge of cheese. Richard's smile and his friendly conversational tone-artificial
though they were-were apparently so out of the ordinary that she seemed unable to maintain her gruff demeanor.
Richard scratched his head and kept smiling as the line slowly shuffled along. "I'm eager to work."
"But, I thought you just said you had to have a job if you were to have any hope of getting a room."
"I'm so sorry," Richard said.
Richard didn't argue. She shook a finger at him.
"I can work," Richard assured her. "We're from . . . a little place. We're simple folks-from farming stock. We don't know much about how to go about things like getting work in the city."
Richard, his stomach grumbling with hunger, listened as the man explained. "You first need to belong to a citizen workers' group; they protect the rights of citizens of the Order. You'll have to go before a review assembly for approval to join the workers' group, and a fitness panel to hear from a spokesman from the workers' citizen group who can vouch for you. You must do this before you can go for a job."
"Just because you're from the country, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be mindful of contributing toward the greater good of the Order."
The big brown eyes paused their blinking. The man peered suspiciously for a moment, then his eyes finally went moony again. His jaw resumed its wobbling as he chewed his words.
"It's the primary responsibility of business to be sensitive to the needs of the people, to contribute to the public welfare, to be equitable. The review board helps see to this. There is much more involved than the narrow goals of businesses."
By the man's pride in the explanation, and the way his big eyes blinked faster as he laid it all out, Richard expected that the man was somehow involved in the labyrinthine process. Richard didn't ask how you got a spokesman from the citizen workers' group to vouch for you. The line inched forward as the man explained the finer details of different sorts of work, what each required, and how it was all for the benefit of those living within the Order and under the grace of the Creator.
It turned out that the man, named Mr. Gudgeons, seemed to know the most about the quarry workers. Since Richard knew little about quarries, he passed the time as they stood in line by asking a few questions that pleased Mr. Gudgeons to answer-at great length.
Richard paused at a cross street while Nicci studied her paper with the list of rooms. All around, the blocky shapes of buildings rose out of the gloom. Red paint on the side of one brick building was so faded that it left the figure painted there looking like a blushing ghost. The faded whitewash of words beneath the vanishing man were no longer legible.
Mangy horses slogged through the mud, some of the wagons they pulled squeaking and groaning under the weight of a load. Only the main thoroughfares, like the one they were on, were wide enough to allow teams of horses and full-size wagons to easily pass in both directions. Some streets were only wide enough for wagons to go in one direction. Some of those, with no room to pull aside, were choked off by broken-down wagons. Richard saw a dead horse in one narrow street, the rotting animal, attended by a cloud of flies, still hitched to its wagon as it awaited someone to come haul it away. The blocked streets only added to the congestion of the others. Some streets, were wide enough only for handcarts. In many of the narrower passageways only foot traffic could fit.
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All the cities Richard had seen after they'd entered the Old World and traveled south from Tanimura were similar to this one, all suffering under grinding poverty and inhuman conditions. Everything seemed caught in a timeless trap, a morass of rot, as if the cities had once been vibrant with life and people striving to fulfill dreams, had once been places of hope and ambition, but somewhere the dreams had disintegrated into a gray pall of stagnation and decay. No one seemed to much care. Everyone seemed in a daze, biding their time, waiting for their lot in life to improve without even having a concept of the shape of that better life or how it might come to be. They existed on disembodied faith, confident only that the afterlife would be perfect.
This place, though, was the single largest city Richard had ever seen. He would never have believed the size of it had he not seen it himself. Dilapidated buildings entangled by streets teeming with people sprawled over a sweep of low hills, across a broad bottomland, for miles along the convergence of two rivers. Squat ramshackle huts built haphazardly of wattle and daub, scraps of wood, or salvaged mud and straw bricks beset the city's core to a great distance out into the surrounding land, like fetid scum surrounding a rotting log in a stagnant pond.
When they had first entered the Old World on their way south toward Altur'Rang, Richard and Nicci had stopped at the northernmost large city in the Old World, 'Ianimura, where the Palace of the Prophets had once stood. Tanimura, one of the last places in the Old World to fall under the rule of the Imperial Order, was a grand place, with wide boulevards lined with trees and ornate buildings soaring several stories high, faced with columns and arches and windows that let in the light. Tanimura, as large as it was, turned out to be but an outpost of the Old World, far enough away that the rot was only now reaching it.
He found holding a chisel and mallet in his hands, cutting stone-shaping it to his will-a revelation. In some ways, it was like carving wood . . . but somehow much more.
Other stonecutters arrived to do more demanding work-the adornments. When
they had first shown up, Richard had been eager to see their work. They cut into the face of blocks, meant to surround the entrance, a large flame representing the Light of the Creator. Below that, they carved a crowd of cowering people.
When the stonework to the Order's headquarters building was finished, the job ended. The carpenters didn't need any more help. The artisans said they could use some assistance carving the anguish of mankind and offered Richard the work. He declined, telling them that he had no ability for carving.
Along the way southeast to Altur'Rang, in the cities they passed through, Richard saw many carvings on buildings, and many more freestanding in public squares, or in front of entrances. They depicted horrors: people being whipped by a grinning Keeper of the underworld; people stabbing out their own eyes; suffering people twisted, deformed, and crippled; people like packs of dogs, running on all fours, attacking women and children; people reduced to walking skeletons or covered in sores; woeful people throwing themselves into graves. In most such scenes the pitiful people were watched over by the Light of the all-perfect Creator represented by the flame.
Along the way south, they had stopped in a number of cities when Richard could find menial work temporary enough not to require waiting on lists. He and Nicci went for stretches eating cabbage soup that was mostly water. Sometimes they had rice or lentils or buckwheat mush, and, on occasion, the luxury of salt pork. Sometimes, Richard was able to catch fish, birds, or the odd hare. Living off the land in the Old World, though, was difficult. A lot of other people had the same idea. They both had gotten thinner on their long march. Richard began to understand the carvings of the skeletal people.
Farmers sold the travelers goat cheese and milk. Ever since the gift had awakened in him, Richard was able to eat meat only when not doing any fighting. He thought it might be part of the requirement to balance his need to sometimes take life. Since he wasn't doing any fighting, he could eat meat without it making him sick. Unfortunately, they could rarely afford meat. Cheese, which he had once loved, he could hardly stomach since his gift had come to life in him. Unfortunately, it was often eat cheese, or starve.
But it was the size of the Old World, and in particular its population, that most unsettled him. Richard had naively thought that the New and the Old Worlds must be somewhat alike. They were not. The New World was but a flea on the back of the Old.
By spring, when she could finally get out of the mountain home, and all those Imperial Order troops could truly begin their siege of the New World, whatever resistance the D'Haran Empire put up would be crushed. Richard hoped General Reibisch chose not to go up against the Order. He hated to think of all those brave men being slaughtered under the weight of the coming onslaught.
Fortunately, Nicci was on the other side of the city doing their washing. Unfortunately, a squad of men passing through the city, and doing some drinking, decided to accept volunteers. Richard kept his head down as he carried water to the horses, but the sergeant saw him. At the wrong place at the wrong time, Richard was "volunteered" into the Imperial Order. The new volunteers were quartered in the center of the immense encampment.
In general, though, it wasn't a serious concern. Hordes of youths, lusting after the promise of plunder, were only too eager to join the army. They often had to wait weeks or months to be accepted into training, so many were the numbers joining. Richard had seen crowds of them in the cities, playing games, gambling, drinking, fighting-young men dreaming of the glory of killing the evil foes of the great empire of the Order. They enjoyed the adoration of the populace when they joined the army to go off and fight the frightful wickedness and sin that was said to infect the New World.
It didn't take a wizard, or a prophet, to know that the armies the New World
could raise, even given wildly optimistic conditions, had no hope whatsoever of prevailing against the millions upon millions of soldiers Richard had seen pouring north, to say nothing of the ones he hadn't seen who would be taking other routes. The Midlands was doomed.
The course of events seemed irrevocable, the world lost to the Order. The future for him and Kahlan seemed no less hopeless.
Most of the businesses had been abandoned. The wind, at will, carried dust through the broken windows of warehouses. Many of the homes had fallen to ruin, their roofs caved in, weeds and vines doing their best to bring down crooked walls. Only the homes on the outskirts were still occupied, mostly by people raising animals and farming the surrounding land.
At the southern edge, they arrived at the remains of what had once been a large brick building. Without a word, Nicci turned off the road and marched deliberately into the forlorn site. The wood beams and roof had been consumed by fire. A thick mat of weeds and brush were devouring the wood floor. The brick walls were all that was left, really, and they were mostly fallen to rubble, with only a portion of the east wall still tall enough to contain a lone window frame.
For nearly an hour, she was lost among the ghosts.
"Do you know this place?" he finally asked her.
"I grew up in this town," she answered in a distant voice.
"They made armor here," she whispered.
"The best armor in all the land. Double-proofed standard. Kings and noblemen came here to buy armor."
346
Her blue eyes seeing ghosts again, she shook her head.
A tear ran down her cheek to drip off her smooth jaw. She seemed very much a child at that moment, alone in the world, and frightened.
347
Ncci was tired, cold, and impatient. She wanted a room.
She wanted Richard to learn how difficult it was for ordinary people to live, to get along in the world. She was curious as to how he would fare in the same circumstances-she wanted to throw him into the fire and see how he reacted to the heat, as it were. She had expected him to be agitated and frustrated by now. He remained cool and unruffled.
At the Palace of the Prophets when she had been his teacher, every time she thought she knew how he would react, he did something she would never have anticipated. He did that now, too, but in a subtly different way. What before had been, in a manner of speaking, unorganized youthful rebellion had turned to the dangerous scrutiny of a predator. Only the chains around his heart kept him from turning his claws on her.
Knowing that Richard had carved it, Nicci expected that he would have been interested in the carving job offered him back in Tanimura. He turned it down. He became moody and hardly spoke for several days afterward.
One time, she had taken the two of them out of their way for no reason but to
show him a famous city square and the heroic work of art proudly displayed there. It was her thought to bring him a bit of cheer at seeing such a widely heralded work. He was not cheered. Surprised, she had asked him why he appeared to so dislike the sculpture, called Tormented Vision.
It was a grand scene of a group of men, some gouging out their eyes after having seen the perfect Light of the Creator. Other of the men at the base of the statue, who'd not blinded themselves, were being mauled by underworld beasts. The Keeper's minions shrank from the blinded men wailing at what they had seen before taking their own sight.
"It's a portrayal of the unworthy nature of mankind. It shows men who have just witnessed His perfect Light, and in so doing have thus been able to see the hopeless nature of man's depravity. That they would cut out their own eyes shows how perfect the Creator is that they could no longer bear to look upon themselves.
"Do you see, now? It honors mankind as the flawed creature he is, in order that we may see that each of us must devote ourselves to the betterment of our fellow man because that is our only means of doing good and honoring the Creator's creation-us. So, you see, it's not about death at all, but about the true nature of life."
In the whole of her life, no one had ever given her a look that made her feel smaller than the look Richard gave her.
She couldn't fathom how, but he made her feel unworthy to live. In some bewildering way, that look made her feel as blind as the men in the statue. He hadn't said one word, but it was days before she could bring herself to look him in the eye again.
Once, she had even given in to despair of there really being anything in him worth discovering. Watching him sleep, dejected that she had dared hope to uncover some meaning to life beyond what her mother had taught her, she had sadly resolved that the next day, after visiting the place she had grown up, she would end the whole senseless undertaking and return to Jagang.
After they went to her father's business, though, she had seen again that quality in his gray eyes, and knew beyond doubt that she had not been mistaken.
As they marched down the dim hallway of a rooming house, she gestured for Richard to stand aside. Nicci wanted this room. She wanted to lie down where it was dry and go to sleep. She resolutely rapped her knuckles on a door that looked as if it might come apart if she wasn't careful.
In her mind, she imagined that this would be the place. She stared at the stain on the sickly green plaster. She imagined seeing the tea-colored stain, in the shape of a horse's rump with its tail flicked up, every day as she went about her life. She imagined Richard walking past the stain every day when he went to a job, and every night when he came home. Just like everyone else had to do.
A voice inside told them to go away.
"It's a mistake," came the muffled voice from inside. "No room."
Three youths she hadn't seen sitting on the stairs swaggered around the newel post. The three were without shirts, showing off their muscles as young men were wont to do. All three had knives.
"I like the fancy tail on the little blond rat," a second chortled.
As they descended the rickety front stoop, Richard lifted an eyebrow at her while tipping his head close. "You have no power, remember? We don't want this kind of trouble. I'd not like to get knifed over a room. This fight isn't worth it. Knowing when not to fight is just as important as knowing how."
Richard hurried her along the street. He cut through some of the narrow passageways, taking several turns at random just to be sure they wouldn't be followed.
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When they emerged on a wider street, they found shelter under a small overhanging roof along with a small group of others trying to stay out of the rain. Nicci hugged herself against the cold. Richard, along with the others huddled under the roof, watched the occasional wagon making its way past on the muddy street. She didn't know how Richard could keep warm in such weather. She appreciated his warmth, though, when the small crowd pressed her up against him. Richard glanced down at her, seeing her shiver, but he couldn't bring himself to put an arm around her to help keep her warns. She didn't ask.
When she had been at the crumbled remains of her father's business, just before they left, Richard had looked as if he almost wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her. As much as he hated her, as much as he wanted to get away from her, he had been moved to sympathy.
Richard's eyes were fixed on something. She followed his gaze and saw that a wagon not far down the street was moving with an odd wiggle. Almost as soon as she noticed it, the wheel broke with a loud crack.
The two men climbed down to assess the damage. The rawboned driver cursed and kicked at the broken wheel lying at a lopsided angle. The other man, shorter and stoutly built, calmly checked the rest of the wagon and its load.
"We have to," the husky man said with calm resolve. "It's only a short distance."
Then Ishaq threw up his hands in a helpless gesture as his headstrong partner went to the front of the wagon and urged the team on, managing to drag the wagon to the side of the road and out of the way of the other wagons that were beginning to back up down the street. Once he had the wagon to the side, he started unhitching the team.
"I need some help," Ishaq called to the sparse crowd.
"I've got to get this load of iron to the warehouse." He stretched his thick neck and pointed. "Just there-in the brick building with the faded red paint on the side."
351
The people watching laughed with knowing disgust and went on their way. The man stood in the downpour, ankle deep in mud, alone. He sighed and turned to his wagon, pulling back the tarp to reveal iron bar stock.
"Ishaq, is it?" Richard asked.
"If I help you, Ishaq," Richard asked, "will I really get paid tomorrow? The truth, now."
"Well," Richard said, "if I help you get this load into your warehouse, then would you allow me and my wife to sleep in there where we could get out of the rain for the night?"
"Just until tomorrow. I only want to get her out of the rain before she comes down sick. I have no use for iron. Besides, I don't rob people."
"Sleeping in the warehouse for one night is not a fair price for lugging all this in there. It will take hours."
The man stared at Richard as if he might be crazy. He pulled off his red hat and scratched his head of dark hair. He swept his wet hair back and replaced the hat.
"I'll not let you get in trouble over me. If I should get caught, I'll say I broke in."
Ishaq hoisted a long bar of steel and put his shoulder under it. Richard lifted two and extended his arm forward to steady it, resting the heavy steel on the bunched muscles of his shoulder.
She tried to lift a steel bar to help, but it was beyond her strength. There were times when Nicci missed her power. She could at least feel it through the link to the Mother Confessor. It took more effort, but even at this great of a distance she was still able to maintain the link. She walked beside Richard as they followed the man to the dry room Richard had just won for her.
--]--- The next day dawned clear. Rainwater still dripped from the eaves, though. The night before, as Richard helped Ishaq lug the load into the warehouse, Nicci had used a light rope Richard had in his pack, stringing it between racks so she could hang up their wet things. By morning, most of their clothes were reasonably dry.
Much of the night, Nicci hadn't slept, but, by the light of that lantern warning her hands, had watched Richard sleep as she thought about his gray eyes. It had been a shock to see those eyes in her father's business. It brought back a flood of memories.
When Ishaq finally came up the street with the fresh wagon, Richard and Nicci were sitting on a short wall on the entrance road to the warehouse doors. When the wagon rolled past them into the yard outside the building and came to a halt before the double doors, Nicci saw that the driver who had abandoned Ishaq the night before was at the reins.
"What's this?" he asked Richard.
Ishaq glanced at Nicci, seeing that she was dried out. He eyed the locked door and realized Richard had kept his word, and kept him from the possibility of getting in trouble for letting someone sleep in the warehouse.
Richard sighed. "I see. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I'll give it a try. A good day to you both."
Ishaq cleared his throat. "Hold on there." He climbed down from the wagon to unlock the door, but paused before Richard. "I'm the load master. We need another man. You look to have a strong back." Using the toe of his boot, he drew a little map in the mud. "You go to the office"-he lifted his thumb over his shoulder"down this street, here, to the third turn, then right, past six more streets." He made an X in the mud. "There's the office. You get your name on the list."
Nicci knew that Richard remembered Ishaq's name, but he was playing like he
"You go enlist first in the load workers' group," Ishaq told Richard. "Pay your dues. They have an office in the same building. Then you go put your name on the list for the job. I'm in the citizen workers' group that goes before the review assembly to consider new applicants. You just sit tight and wait outside. When we meet, later on, I'll vouch for you."
Ishaq scowled up at the driver. "Did you see anyone at the hall who was as big as this fellow? We need another loader for the warehouse. We just lost a man and need a replacement. You want me to get stuck with some skinny old man so as I'll have to do all the work?"
Ishaq gestured toward Nicci. "Besides, look at his young wife. She needs some meat on her bones, don't you think? Looks like a nice young couple."
Ishaq casually flicked a hand at Richard on his way to unlock the door to the warehouse. "You be there."
Ishaq paused and turned back. "Almost forgot-what's your name?"
Ishaq gave him a nod and turned back to the door. "I'm Ishaq. See you tonight, Richard Cypher. Don't you let me down-you hear? You turn out to be lazy and let me down, and I'll throw your sorry hide in the river with an iron bar tied around your neck."
As they trudged though the muddy streets on their way to find some food before they went to the offices to get on the list for work, Richard asked, "What's wrong?"
"If it was luck," Richard asked, "then how come my back hurts from lugging that load of iron bars into the warehouse?"
When Richard had finished unloading the last wagon of iron, he leaned forward and placed his hands on the pile, hanging his head as he panted. The muscles in his arms and shoulders throbbed. It was always easier having two men to handle the bars, one in the wagon, and one on the ground, but the man who was supposed to help with the load had quit several days back, saying he hadn't been treated properly. Richard didn't really miss him all that much; even when the man got up off his backside, his assistance was more trouble than it was worth.
Ishaq came down the aisle with the lantern. "You work too hard, Richard."
Ishaq peered at Richard for a moment, one eye catching the harsh yellow light of the lantern he was holding. "'fake my advice. You work too hard, it's only going to get you into trouble."
"But I'm still worried about trying to swim with an iron bar wrapped around my neck."
Jori was the driver who had refused to help unload the wagon when it broke down. Richard yawned. "I know, Ishaq."
Richard caught the thread of caution in Ishaq's voice, and the meaning of the gentle warning.
Ishaq gestured with his lantern toward the door. "Workers' group meeting tonight. Best be on your way."
"You don't want your name to start going around. You don't want people to start talking that you're not civic-minded."
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Outside, in the gathering darkness, Richard could just make out Nicci's curvaceous form sitting on the wall at the warehouse entrance. Her curves often put him in mind of nothing so much as a snake. They had no room, yet, so she often came by the warehouse after she'd spent much of the day waiting in lines to buy bread and other necessities. They would walk together back to their shelter in a quiet alley about a mile away. Richard had paid a small price to some of the boys there to guard their place and make sure no one else took it. The boys were young enough to be thankful for the small price and old enough to be diligent about their job.
Nicci hopped down off the wall. "No bread today-they were out. But I got us some cabbage. I'll make us a soup."
"Where's your pack? And if you bought cabbage, where is it?"
"A room? We got a place?"
Richard rubbed his sore shoulders. He felt a wave of revulsion at the sham she was putting him through . . . putting Kahlan through. There were times when he felt a hint of something profoundly important about her and what she was doing, but most of the time he was merely overwhelmed by the lunacy of it all.
"It's one we were at before-not too far from here. The one with the stain on the wall just inside the door."
"The stain that looked like a horse's rear end with its tail flicked up. You'll see it soon."
"Oh," Nicci said. "Workers' group meetings are important. They help keep a person's mind on what's proper and on everyone's duty to his fellow man."
Those who didn't show up for the meetings were used as examples of people who weren't properly committed to the cause of the Order. If the absent person didn't mend his ways, it was possible he could end up being suspected of subversion. The lack of truth to the suspicion was irrelevant. Stating the charge made some people feel more important in a land where equality was held as the highest ideal.
cuser. The people who spoke at length at the meetings had, by this logic, accurately pointed a finger at a number of insurrectionists, as evidenced by their confessions.
In many a public square, as a constant reminder of what would happen should you fall into the wrong company, the bodies of subversives were left to hang from high poles until the birds picked their bones clean. The running joke, if an incautious person said anything that sounded at all out of line, was "You looking to be buried in the sky?"
Rocks crunched beneath their boots as they walked down the side of the dark street. Off ahead of them, in the distance, he could see Ishaq's lantern swinging as the man hurried to the meeting.
"Three what?"
Richard remembered then. He stopped.
He could just barely see her nod in the dim light. "That's the place."
"New people in the city are fortunate to get rooms. Rooms are assigned as your name comes up. If you turn it down, you go back to the bottom of the list."
She shrugged. "Just what I had."
"I can stretch the soup."
He began to worry about the three. He remembered quite clearly how Cara's Agiel had caused Kahlan to suffer the same pain as Nicci. If those three abused Nicci, Kahlan would suffer it, too. That thought made him go cold and sweaty with worry.
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After the speeches were given, some of the workers' wives stood up and explained that they had extra need of late because they had just had new children, or their husbands were laid up, or the relatives they cared for were ill. After each spoke, there was a show of hands. If you agreed to do the right thing and have the group help them, then you raised your hand.
Richard raised it every time. He didn't really care what happened. He had no interest in taking part, no interest in trying to make things better, and no interest in how well or poorly people's lives went. Most seemed to want the comfort of the Order running their lives, relieving them of the burden of thinking on their own. Just like Anderith. Nicci seemed surprised, and occasionally even disappointed, to see his hand go up every time, but didn't object or question.
Another man spoke, complaining about the conditions, how unfair they were, and how he had been forced to quit rather than subject himself to such abuse by the transport company. He was the man who had quit and left Richard to handle the loads by himself. Richard raised his hand along with all the others to grant the man full wages for six months in recompense.
When men's names were called, they stood to hear the share to be taken from their wages the next week. Because he was new, Richard's name was called last. He stood, staring off across the dimly lit room at the people in moth-eaten coats sitting behind the long table made of two old doors. Ishaq sat at one end, going along with the others in everything. Several of the women still had their heads together. When they finished, they whispered to the chairman and he nodded.
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Richard stood dumbly for a moment. "How am I to eat to pay my rent?"
"You should thank the Creator to be blessed with good health so as you can work, young man. Right now, there are those who are not as fortunate in life as you, those with greater need than you. Suffering and need comes before selfish personal enrichment."
"Yes, sir. I see what you mean. I'm happy to volunteer my share toward those with needs."
"Well," he said to Nicci as they shuffled out into the night, "I guess we can ask the landlord for the rent money back. We can stay on where we were staying before, until I can work some more and save up some money."
Richard was exhausted. He felt like he were having some kind of silly dream.
"That's a selfish way of looking at it, Richard. The job is at the grace of the workers' group, the company, and the Order."
--]--- When they opened the door, one of the three youths was pawing through Nicci's pack. Holding some of her underthings in one hand, he aimed a smirk back over his shoulder at them.
Nicci snatched the pack away first, then her things from his other hand. She stuffed her personal clothes back in the pack while he watched, grinning the whole time. Richard feared she might abandon the link to Kahlan in order to use her power, but she only glared at the youth.
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"How did you get in here?" Nicci snapped.
"You can read?" Nicci sniped. "I would have to see that to believe it."
Richard stepped aside to let the young man by as he headed for the door, but then caught his arm as the youth picked up the candle.
"Yeah? What makes you think so?"
"Our initials are scratched in the bottom, there."
"Oh my, I am sorry," Richard said. He stooped and picked up the candle. "You're all right, I hope. You didn't get any of that burning wax in your eyes, did you? Hot wax in your eyes hurts something fierce."
"Back where I came from, I saw it happen to some poor fellow."
The youth didn't bother to look. "Uh-huh."
"How did that fellow manage to be stupid enough to get hot wax in his eyes? Was he a big dumb ox like you?"
"Yeah? Well why didn't the dumb jackass just shut his eyes?"
"Because his eyelids had been cut off, first, so he couldn't close them. You see, where I come from, anyone touching a woman against her wishes isn't treated indulgently."
"Yeah. The young man's eyelids weren't the only thing that got cut off."
"No. There would be nothing I could do to you that would harm you more than what you're already doing to harm yourself."
"You are never going to amount to anything. You will always be the worthless muck people scrape from their shoes. You only get one life and you are wasting
yours. That's a terrible shame. I doubt you will ever know what it is to be truly happy, to achieve anything of worth, to have genuine pride in yourself. You bring it all on yourself, and I could do no worse to you."
"Yes, you can. You create your own life."
Richard gestured around himself. "Look at the pigsty you live in. Your father is the landlord. Why don't you show some pride and fix up the place?"
"Money?" Richard pointed. "It takes money to pick up that garbage left there in the hall?"
"And these walls-it doesn't take money to wash the walls. Look at the ceiling in this room. It hasn't been washed in a decade, at least."
"And the front stoop? Someone is going to break their neck on it. Could be you, or your father. Why don't you do something worthwhile for a change and fix it?"
"It doesn't take money. You just need to take it apart, clean the joints, and put in some new wedges. You can cut them from any little scrap of wood lying around."
"Good idea. I will."
"Tomorrow, after I get home from work, I will fix the stairs. If you show up, I'll teach you how it's done."
"It isn't for nothing. It's because I use the front steps, too, and for the pleasure in the place where I live. I care if my wife falls and breaks her leg. But if you want to come and learn how to fix the steps, you will wear a shirt out of respect for the women in your building."
"Then I wouldn't have enough respect for you to bother teaching you how to fix the stairs. You will learn nothing, then."
"Then you will have taught me something, about you, instead."
"You shouldn't necessarily care about fixing some stairs, but if you care about yourself, you should care about learning-even learning simple things. You come to have pride in yourself only by accomplishing things, even from fixing some old stairs."
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He folded his arms. "Who you calling-"
"Anyone who wants more out of life, who wants their life to mean something, would care about learning things. Tomorrow I'm going to fix those stairs. Tomorrow we'll see what sort you are."
Richard shrugged. "That's why your lot in life isn't fate. I don't have any say in much of my life, but I make whatever choices I can make in my own rational best interest. It's my choice to fix those stairs and make the place I live a little betterinstead of whining and waiting and hoping for someone else to do something for me. I have pride that I know how to do that for myself.
"We might come to laugh at you working, Ox."
"Like I said, you might be good for a laugh." He made a face. "Richard."
He chose to ignore the threat with more bravado. "What am I ever going to be? Some dupe, like you, working your tail off for that greedy Ishaq and his transport company?"
"Kamil."
"Ishaq? He's the one who owns the transport company."
"Ishaq used to live here, back before the Order took over the building. My father knew him. Matter of fact, you'll be sleeping in his parlor. Back then, it was his transport company. He chose the path of enlightenment over greed, though, when it
was offered him. He let the citizen workers' group help him to learn to be a better citizen of the Order, learn his place under the Creator. Now he knows he's no better than any of the rest of us-even me."
"I'll see you tomorrow evening, whether you come to laugh or to learn. It's your life, Kamil, and your choice."
CHAPTER 47
Richard hadn't seen the load master for a week. "Ishaq. Are you all right? Where have you been?"
"I'm sorry-hello. I was worried. Where have you been?"
"Ishaq, is it true that this transport company used to be yours?"
"What about it? Did the transport company used to be yours?"
"What happened?"
"What did they threaten you with?"
Richard smiled. "You didn't answer my question, Ishaq."
Richard's inquisitive frown suddenly felt cruel on his face. He let it go. "I understand, Ishaq. I really do. I'm sorry."
"Praise be to the Order." Ishaq smiled at Richard's gibe. Richard held out his hand. "Let's have the list."
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"We need a loader to go with a wagon to pick up some iron and see it delivered."
Ishaq took off his red hat and scratched his head of dark, thinning hair. "We had some . . . complaints."
"Too hard." Ishaq readjusted his hat on his head. "Men in the warehouse say you are petty and spiteful. Their words, not mine. They say you make them feel bad by flaunting how young and strong you are. They say you are laughing behind their backs."
"Ishaq, I never-"
Richard let out a frustrated sigh. "But I was told by the workers' group that I have the ability to work whereas others don't, and that I was supposed to contribute my full effort in order to help relieve the strain on those less able-those who don't have my ability. They said that I would lose the job if I didn't do my full effort."
"And I stepped over the line."
Richard sighed. "So, I'm through, here?"
Richard nodded. "Thanks, Ishaq."
"The pay is less."
Ishaq chuckled and clapped Richard on the shoulder. "You are the only one around here I can count on, Richard. You are different than the others-I feel I can talk to you and it won't drift to other ears."
"I know. That's why I tell you what I don't tell the others. I am expected to be equal, and to work like anyone else, but I am also expected to provide jobs. They took my business, but they still expect me to run it for them. Crazy world."
"The blacksmith out at the site is dealing me a fit."
"He has orders for tools, but he has no iron. Lots of people are waiting on things." He swept a hand out at the rack of iron. "Most of this is what was ordered
last autumn. Last autumn! It's nearly spring and it's only now come in. It's all been promised to those who ordered it before."
Ishaq slapped his forehead. "Maybe you are an ignorant farmboy, after all. Where you been? Under rocks? You can't just get things because you want them. You got to wait your turn. Your order must pass before the review board."
"Why, why, why. Is that all you know?"
"Because you've got to think of others, that's why. You got to take other people's needs into consideration. You have to consider the good of everyone. If I get all the runs picking up and delivering the iron, then what chance have others who want to do the same? If I have all the business, that's unfair. It would put people out of work. What's available has to be divided up. The board of supervision must make sure everything is equal to all. Some people can't handle the orders so fast as I can, or they have trouble, or they can't get workers, or their workers have troubles, so I got to wait until they can catch up."