Richard gaped at the man. “Loosen the rules? What are they demanding?”
“Things must change. People want to be allowed more say in their businesses, their lives, their work.” He lifted a basket of charcoal. “Less meetings. They are demanding to have their needs taken more into consideration.”
This time, the spark of Richard’s hopes didn’t dim, rather, it plunged into icy waters.
He didn’t much pay attention to Priska as they unloaded the wagon and then loaded the steel. He didn’t really want to listen to the plans for the revolt. He couldn’t help getting the gist of it, anyway.
The revolutionaries had it all figured out. They wanted public trials for those people the Order arrested. They wanted to be allowed to see prisoners. They wanted to have the Order give them a list of what had happened to a number of people who had been arrested, but never heard from. There were other details and demands but Richard’s mind wandered to other things.
As Richard was climbing up into his wagon to leave, Priska seized his arm in a iron grip. “The time has come, Richard, for men who care to join the revolt.”
The two of them shared a long look. “Victor is waiting.”
Priska released Richard’s arm and grinned. “So he is. I’ll see you later, Richard. Perhaps the next trip you make here will be after the Order meets the demands, and you will be able to come in the day, without papers.”
“That would be grand, Priska.”
By the time he arrived at Victor’s, Richard had a headache. He felt sick over what he’d heard, and what he feared yet to hear.
Victor was there, waiting for him. It was a little early, yet, for the man to be there; usually, he didn’t arrive until closer to dawn. The blacksmith threw open the doors to his outer stockroom. He set a lantern on a shelf so Richard could see to back his wagon close.
Victor was wearing a wolfish grin as Richard climbed down.
“Come, Richard, unload your wagon, then we will have some lardo, and talk.”
Richard went methodically about his task, not really wanting to talk. He had a good idea what Victor wanted to talk about. Victor, as was his way, left Richard to unload. He was the man buying the steel, and enjoyed the service of having it delivered where he wanted it. It was a service he could rarely get from a transport company, despite the higher price.
Richard didn’t mind being left alone. Summer this far south in the Old World was miserable. The humidity was oppressive, with the nights rarely better than the days.
As he worked, he thought about the sparkling bright days spent with Kahlan beside the brook at their mountain home. It seemed a lifetime ago. His hopes of ever seeing her again were difficult to keep alive, but his worry for her, now that summer was here, never ceased. Sometimes, it hurt so much to think about her, to miss her, to worry, that he had to put her from his mind. At other times, thoughts of her were all that kept him going.
By the time he had finished, the sky was turning lighter. He found Victor in the far room, the doors open wide so that dawn’s light lit Victor’s marble monolith. The blacksmith was gazing at the beauty in his stone, at the statue still inside that only he saw.
It was a long moment before he noticed Richard standing not far away.
“Richard, come have lardo with me.”
They sat on the threshold looking out over the site of the Retreat, watching the miles of stone walls turn pink in the hazy dawn. Even from the distance, Richard could see along the top of one wall the vile figures representing the evil of mankind.
Victor handed Richard a pure white slice of lardo. “Richard, the revolt I told you about has started. But you probably already know that.”
“No it hasn’t,” Richard said.
Victor stared, dumbfounded. “But it has.”
“A lot of trouble has started. It is not the revolt you and I spoke of.”
“It will be. You will see. Many men will be marching today.” Victor gestured expansively. “Richard, we want you to lead us.”
Richard had been expecting the question. “No.”
“I know, I know, you think the men don’t know you, and they won’t follow you, but you are wrong, Richard. Many do know you. More than you think. I have told many of them about you. Priska and others have spoken of you. You can do it, Richard.”
Richard stared out at the walls, at the carvings of cowering men.
“No.”
Victor was taken aback, this time. “But why not?”
“Because a lot of men are going to die.”
Victor chuckled. “No, Richard, no. You misunderstand. This will not be that kind of revolt. This will be a revolt of men of goodwill. This is a revolt for the betterment of mankind. That is what the Order always preaches. We are the people. They say they are for the people, and now, when we put the demands of the people to them, they will have to listen and give in.”
Richard shook his head sadly to himself.
“You want me to lead you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want you to do something for me, Victor.”
“Of course, Richard. Name it.”
“You stay far away from anything to do with this uprising. Those are my orders to you as your leader. You stay here and work today. You stay out of it.”
Victor looked as if he thought Richard might be making a joke. After a moment, he saw that Richard was not joking.
“But why? Don’t you want things to get better? Do you wish to live like this all your life? Don’t you want things to improve?”
“Are you willing to kill those men of the Order that have been captured?”
“Kill them? Richard, why do you want to talk about killing? This is about life. About things being better.”
“Victor, listen to me. These men you go up against are not going to play by your rules.”
“But they will want—”
“You stay here and work, or you will die along with a lot of other men. The Order will crush this uprising within a day or two, and then they will go after everyone they even suspect had a hand in it. A lot of people are going to die.”
“But if you were to lead us, you could present our demands. That is why we want you to lead us—to prevent that kind of trouble. You know how to convince people. You know how to get things done—just look at how you help all the people in Altur’Rang: Faval, Priska, me, and all the others. We need you, Richard. We need you to give people a reason to follow the revolt.”
“If they don’t know what they stand for and what they want, then no one can give them a reason. They will only succeed when they burn for freedom, and are not only willing to kill for it, but to die for it.” Richard stood and brushed the dirt from his pants. “Stay out of it, Victor, or you will die with them.”
Victor followed him to his wagon. In the distance, men were arriving to work on the emperor’s palace. The blacksmith picked at the wood on the wagon’s side, apparently wanting to say more.
“Richard, I know how you feel. I really do. I, too, think these men are not burning with the kind of hunger for freedom that I have, but they are not from Cavatura, as I am, so perhaps they do not know what true freedom is, but for now, this is all we can do. Won’t you give it a try, Richard?
“Richard Rahl, of the D’Haran Empire to the north, understands our passion for freedom, and would try.”
Richard climbed up into his wagon seat. He wondered where people heard such things, and marveled at how the spark of such ideas could travel so far. After he took up the reins and whip, Richard shared a long look with the sober blacksmith, a man intoxicated with the whiff of freedom in the air.
“Victor, would you try to hammer cold steel into a tool?”
“Of course not. The steel must be white-hot before it can become something.”
“So must men, Victor. These men are cold steel. Spare your hammer. I’m sure this Richard Rahl would tell you the same thing.”
Chapter 54
The uprising lasted a day. Richard stay
ed home. He asked Nicci to stay home, too. He told her that he’d heard rumors of possible trouble and said he didn’t want her to get hurt.
The purge of the insurrectionists by the Order, on the other hand, lasted a week. Men who had participated in the marching had been slaughtered in the streets, or captured by the city guard. Those who were captured were questioned until they eventually confessed the names of others. People questioned by the Order always confessed.
The ripples of arrest, confession, and further arrest spread through the city and went on for days. Hundreds of men were buried in the sky. Eventually, the fires of unrest were snuffed out. The ash of regret covered every tongue as people wanted to forget the whole thing. The marches were rarely even mentioned, as if it had never happened.
Richard finally went back to work at the transport company, rather than risk having his wagon out at night. Jori had nothing to say as they rolled through the city, past the poles holding up rotting corpses buried in the sky.
Jori and Richard made trips out to the mines to pick up ore for the foundries. They made one trip to a sandstone quarry a little ways to the east of the city. That took the whole day there and back. The next day they delivered the stone to the west side of Retreat, where it was needed for a buttress. There were a number of poles, maybe fifty or sixty, on the other side of the walls, over near the carving area. Apparently, some of the workers had been purged, too.
On the way out, they went up the road past the blacksmith’s shop. Richard jumped down off the wagon and told Jori that he would go up the hill and join him after the wagon made its way around the twists in the road. He said he had to report to the blacksmith about their next delivery.
Inside the dark workshop, Victor was hammering a long piece of steel, bending the red-hot metal over the horn of an anvil. He looked up and, when he saw it was Richard, thrust the hot metal in the liquid beside this anvil, where it bubbled and hissed.
“Richard! I’m glad to see you.”
Richard noticed several of Victor’s men were missing. “Sick?”
Victor grimly shook his head.
Richard acknowledged the news with a single nod. “I’m glad to see you well, Victor. I just wanted to stop and make sure you were all right.”
“Richard, I’m fine.” He hung his head. “Thanks to your advice. I could be buried in the sky, now.” He gestured toward the Retreat. “Did you see? Many of the carvers…all hanging from the poles down there.”
Richard had seen the bodies, but hadn’t realized it was many of the stone carvers. He knew how some had felt about the things they carved—how they hated to create scenes of death.
“Priska?”
Victor gave a desolate shake of his head, too choked up to say it.
“Faval?”
“Saw him yesterday.” Victor took a purging breath. “He said you told him to stay home and make charcoal. I think he is going to rename one of his children after you.”
“If Priska… What about your special steel?”
Victor gestured with the bar he held in tongs. “His head man is going to carry on. Can you make a run for iron? I haven’t had a supply since before the trouble. Brother Narev is in a foul mood; he wants some iron supports for the piers. He suggested that a blacksmith loyal to the Order and the Creator would get them made.”
Richard nodded. “I think it’s calmed down enough. When?”
“I could really use it now, but I can make do until the day after tomorrow. I have some of these fussy chisels to make, for the detail work, and I’m short men, so it can wait that long.”
“Day after tomorrow, then. It should be safe enough by then.”
The sun had set as Richard was walking up the street to his room with Nicci, but the twilight let him see his way well enough. He was thinking about Victor when half a dozen men stepped out from behind a building.
“Richard Cypher?”
They weren’t dressed like regular city guards, but that didn’t mean a whole lot, lately. There were a number of special men, not in uniform, who, it was said, hunted down troublemakers.
“That’s right. What is it you wish?”
He saw the men each had swords under their light capes. They each had a hand on a long knife at their belts.
“As sworn officers of the Imperial Order, it is our duty to place you under arrest for suspicion of insurrection.”
When Nicci woke, Richard still wasn’t home. She growled unhappily. She rolled onto her back and saw that light was coming in through the curtains. By the angle of the sunlight, it looked like it must be shortly past dawn.
She yawned and stretched in her bed, letting her arms drop back as she stared at the ceiling, the clean, whitewashed ceiling. She felt her anger building. It was upsetting when he wasn’t there at night, but it made her feel a fraud if she berated him for working so hard. Her intent had been to make him see how hard ordinary people had to work to get along in life, to make him see how the Order was the only hope of improving the lives of the common people.
She had warned him not to become involved in the recent uprising. She was pleased he didn’t try to argue with her about it. If anything, he seemed opposed to them. It surprised her that he had even stayed home from work while the marches took place. He warned Kamil and Nabbi, in the strongest terms, to keep away from the insurrection.
Now that the rebellion had been crashed, and the authorities had arrested many of the troublemakers, it was safe again, so Richard had finally been able to return to work. The rebellion had been a shock. The Order needed to do more to make people understand their duty to help make the lives of those less fortunate more tolerable. Then there wouldn’t be any trouble in the streets. To that end, many of the officials had been purged for not doing enough to further the cause of the Order. At least there was that much good out of it.
Nicci splashed water on her face from the basin Richard had brought home one day. The flowers around the edges matched the salmon-colored walls, and the rug he had been able to purchase from savings. He was certainly industrious, managing to save from his meager wage.
She pulled off her sweaty nightshirt and bathed herself as best she could with a wet washcloth. It felt refreshing. She hated to look sweaty and dirty in front of Richard.
She saw that the bowl of stew she’d made for his dinner the night before was still sitting on the table. He hadn’t told her that he had to work at night, but sometimes he didn’t have time to come home for dinner first. When he worked at night, he usually came home shortly after dawn, so she expected to see him at any moment.
He would likely be hungry. Maybe she would make him eggs. Richard liked eggs. She realized she was smiling. She had been angry when she first woke, and now, thinking about what Richard liked, she was smiling. She combed her fingers through her hair, already eagerly looking forward to seeing him walk in, to asking if he would like her to make him eggs. He would say yes, and she would have the pleasure of doing something she knew he wanted.
She loathed doing things she knew he didn’t like.
It had been several months since that awful night with Gadi. That had been a mistake. She knew that afterward. At first, she had enjoyed it, not because she wanted to have sex with that repulsive thug, but because she had been so humiliated by Richard refusing to make love to her that she wanted to get back at him. She had in the beginning of it reveled in what Gadi did to her, reveled in how he hurt her, because it was hurting Kahlan, too. Nicci enjoyed it only in the sense that it was punishment for what he had done to her. Nothing hurt Richard like hurting Kahlan.
Gadi hated Richard. Having Nicci, he thought, got back at Richard and made Gadi a king again. As much as he wanted her, he wanted to get back at Richard more. Richard had taken Gadi’s kingdom and made it his own. Nicci was only too happy to let the little bully be king again. Every sincere cry, she knew, Richard heard, and would know that Kahlan felt the same pain.
But as Gadi went at her with wild abandon, doing his best to degrade Richar
d by what he did to her, Richard’s words—“Nicci, please don’t do this. You’re only hurting yourself”—began to haunt her.
As Gadi took her, she tried to make believe it was Richard, tried to have Richard if even by proxy. But she couldn’t make herself believe it, not even for the pleasure of such a fantasy. Richard, she knew, would never humiliate and hurt a woman in that way. She couldn’t even pretend for a second that it was Richard.
More, though, Nicci began to comprehend that Richard’s words were not a plea to spare Kahlan pain, but to spare Nicci the pain. As much as he must hate her, Richard had expressed concern for her. As much as he must hate her, he didn’t want to see her hurt.
Nothing else Richard could have said would have cut deeper into her heart. That kindness was the cruelest thing he could have done to her.
The pain afterward was her punishment. Nicci was so ashamed of what she had done that she pretended to Richard that she hadn’t suffered in the incident. She wanted to spare him the distress of knowing what Kahlan was suffering along with her. The next morning, she told Richard that she had made a mistake. She didn’t expect his forgiveness; she wanted him to know she knew she had been wrong, and that she was sorry.
Richard said nothing; he only watched her with those gray eyes of his as he listened before leaving for work.
She bled for three days.
Gadi had bragged to his friends about having her. To her further humiliation, he revealed all the details. To Gadi’s surprise, Kamil and Nabbi had been furious at him. They were intent on dripping hot wax in his eyes and doing some other things—what, Nicci wasn’t sure, but could imagine. The threat was so deadly serious that Gadi had gone off and joined the Imperial Order army that very same day. He had joined just in time to leave with a new troop on their way north to the war. Gadi had sneered to Kamil and Nabbi that day, telling them that he was going off to be a hero.
Nicci heard footsteps coming down the hall. She smiled and pulled three eggs out of the cupboard. Instead of Richard opening the door, as she was expecting, someone knocked.
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