my brother to death. His wife and children live with us, still. We can hardly. . ." Faval giggled as he bit down on his knuckle. Richard put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I understand, Faval. There was nothing you could have done." Faval wiped at his eyes. "Now I am guilty of thinking hateful thoughts. That is a crime, you know. I am guilty of it. I think about life without the Order. I dream of having a cart of my own just a cart-and my sons and nephew could deliver the charcoal we make. Wouldn't that be wonderful, Richard Cypher? I could buy. . ." His voice trailed off. He looked up in confusion. "But the Order says such thoughts are a crime because I am putting my wants before the needs of others. Why are their needs more important than mine? Why? "I went to ask for a permit to buy a cart. They say I cannot have one because it would put the cart drivers out of work. They said I was greedy for wanting to put people out of work. They called me selfish for having such thoughts." "That's wrong," Richard said in quiet assurance. "Your thoughts are not a crime, nor are they evil. It's your life, Faval-you should be able to live it as you see fit. You should be able to buy your cart and work hard and make the best of your life for you and your family." Faval chortled. "You sound like a revolutionary, Richard Cypher." Richard sighed, thinking about how useless the whole thing was. "No, Faval." Faval appraised him in the moonlight for a time. "It has already started, Richard Cypher. The revolt. It has begun." "I have charcoal to deliver." Richard went around the back of the wagon and hoisted a basket up onto the wagon bed. Faval helped with the next basket. "You should join them, Richard Cypher. You are a smart man. They could use your help." "Why?" Richard wondered if he dared get his hopes up. "What do they have planned? What are they going to do with this revolt?" Faval giggled. "Why, they are marching in the streets, tomorrow. They are going to demand changes." "What changes?" "Well, I think they want to be able to work. They are going to demand they be allowed to do what they want." He giggled. "Maybe, I can get a cart? Do you think, Richard Cypher? Do you think that when they have this revolt I can get a cart and deliver my charcoal? I could make more charcoal, then." "But what do they plan to do? How are they going to change anything if the Order says no?-Which they will." "Do? Why, I think they will be very angry if the Order tells them no. They may not go back to their jobs. Some say they will break into the stores and take the bread." Richard's hopes faded back into the shadows. The man clutched at Richard's sleeve. "What should I do, Richard Cypher? Should I join the revolt? Tell me." "Faval, you should not ask anyone else what you should do about something like this. How can you endanger your life, the lives of your family, on what a man with a wagon says?" "But you are a smart man, Richard Cypher. I am not so smart as you." Richard tapped his finger against the man's forehead. "Faval, in here, in your head, you are smart enough to know what you must do. You have already told me why the Order can never help people have better lives by telling them how they must live. You figured that out all on your own. You, Faval the charcoal maker, are smarter than the Order." Faval beamed. "You think so, Richard Cypher? No one ever told me before that I was smart." "You're smart enough to decide for yourself how much it means to you and what you want to do about it." "I fear for my wife, and my brother's wife, and all our children. I don't want the Order, but I'm afraid for them if I am arrested. How would they live?" Richard heaved another basket into the wagon. "Faval, listen to me. Revolt is the kind of thing you must be sure of. It's dangerous business. If you are going to join a revolt, you have to be sure enough of what you want to do to be ready to lay down your life for your freedom." "Really? You think so, Richard Cypher?" The spark of hope was gone. "Faval, you stay here and make charcoal. Priska needs charcoal. The Order will arrest those people, and then that will be the end of it. You're a good man. I don't want to see you arrested." Faval grinned. "All right, Richard Cypher. If you say so, I will stay here and make charcoal." "Good. I'll be back tomorrow night. But Faval, if there is still trouble, I may not make it tomorrow night. If there is still marching going on and the streets and roads are blocked, I may not be able to make it out here." "I understand. You will be back as soon as you can. I trust you, Richard Cypher. You never let me down." Richard smiled. "Look, if they are having a revolt tomorrow, and I can't make it out here right away, here's the money for the next load." He handed the man another silver mark. "I don't want those loggers to stop getting wood for you. The foundries need charcoal." Faval giggled in genuine delight. He kissed the silver mark and slipped it down his boot. "The charcoal will be ready. Now, let me help you load your wagon." Faval was only one of the charcoal makers with whom Richard dealt. He had a whole string of them he kept going so the foundries could have charcoal. They were all humble people just trying to get along in life. They did the best they could under the yoke of the Order. Richard made a little profit selling the charcoal to the foundries, but he made more selling iron and steel he bought from them. Charcoal was just a small sideline to help fill his nights, as long as he was out with his wagon. What he made from the charcoal covered the bribes, mostly. He made a good bit more hauling the odd load of ore, clay, lead, quicksilver, antimony, salt, molding powders, and a variety of other things the foundries needed but couldn't get permits for or get transported when they needed them. There was as much of that business as Richard could want. It paid for the care of his team with some profit left over. The iron and steel was pure profit. By the time he made it to the foundry with the load of charcoal, Priska, the hulking foundry master, was pacing. His powerful hands grabbed the side of the wagon. He peered in. "About time." "I had to wait for an hour after I came from Faval's while the city guards inspected the load." Priska waved his beefy arms. "Those bastards!" "It's all right-calm down. They didn't take any. I have it all." The man sighed. "I tell you, Richard, it's a wonder I've kept my furnaces going." Richard ventured a dangerous question. "You're not involved with the . . . trouble, in the city, are you?" In the light coming from his office window-really no more than a hut-Priska appraised Richard for a time. "Richard, change is coming. Change for the better." "What change?" "A revolt has begun." Richard felt the spark of hope grow anew, but stronger this time-not so much for himself, his chains held him too tenaciously, but for the people who yearned to be free. Faval was a kind man, a hardworking man, but he was not the clever man, the resourceful man, that Priska was. Priska was a man who knew more than it would seem possible for him to know. Priska had given Richard the names of all the officials who could be bribed for papers, and advised him how much to offer. "A revolt?" Richard asked "A revolt for what?" "For us-for the people who want to be able to live our lives as we wish. The new beginning is starting. Tonight. In fact, it has already begun." He turned to his building and pulled open the doors. "When you get to Victor's, you must wait for him, Richard. He must speak with you." "About what?" Priska waved dismissively. "Come, give me my charcoal and then load your steel. Victor will bite my head off if I keep you." Richard pulled the first basket out of the wagon and carried it to the side, where Priska added another. "What have these people who starting the revolt done? What are their plans?" Priska leaned close as Richard dragged another basket to the rear of the wagon. "They have captured a number of officials of the Order. High officials." "Have they killed them, yet?" "Killed them! Are you crazy? They aren't going to harm them. They will be held until they agree to loosen the rules, satisfy the demands of the people." 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 tuning 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 tun 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 stayed 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 crushed, 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 Richard 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. Nicci stepped to the middle of the room. "Who is it?" "Nicci, it's me, Kamil." The urgency in his voice made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. "I'm decent. Come in." The young man burst in, panting. His face was white, as were his knuckles around the doorknob. Tears stained his cheeks. "They've arrested Richard. Last night. They have him." Nicci was only dimly aware of the eggs hitting the floor. CHAPTER 55 With Kamil at her side, Nicci ascended the dozen stone steps up into the city guard barracks. It was a huge fortress, its high walls stretching off down the entire block. Nicci hadn't asked Kamil to go with her. She doubted that anything short of death would have stopped him. She couldn't really decipher precisely how Richard managed to inspire such reactions in people. As they had left, Nicci was in a state of frantic shock, but she had noticed that the entire building of people seemed tense and alert. Faces peered from windows as she and Kamil had rushed out the building and down the road. People had come out of other buildings to watch her go. They all wore grim expressions. What was it that made people care so much about this one man? What was it that made her care? The inside of the filthy barracks was crowded with people. Hollow-cheeked, unshaven, old men stood as if in a daze, staring off at nothing. Plump-cheeked women with scarves covering their heads wept as wailing children clung to their skirts. Other women stood around without expression, as if they were expecting to buy bread or millet. One small child, with only a shirt and nothing from the waist down, stood forlorn, his tiny fists at his mouth as he bawled. The room felt like a death watch. City guards, mostly large young men with indifferent expressions, pushed through the throng as they passed on into dark halls guarded by their fellows. A short, roughly constructed wooden wall held back all the people, confining the pandemonium to half the room. Beyond the short wall, more of the guards casually talked among themselves. Others brought reports to men at a simple table, joked, or picked up orders on their way through. Nicci cut right through the crowd, forcing her way to the short wall where cowering women pressed close, hoping to be called, hoping for word, hoping for the miracle of intercession by the Creator Himself. Pressing up against the rough boards, they received splinters, instead. Nicci seized the sleeve of a passing guard. He halted in midstride. His glare rose from her hand to her eyes. She reminded herself that she was without her power and released his sleeve. "May I ask, please, who is in charge?" He looked her up and down, a woman he appeared to judge was about to be without a husband and available. His face slid into an affected smile. He gestured. "There. At the table. People's Protector Muksin." The older man sat ensconced behind his sovereign stacks of papers. Beneath a chin that sank down toward his chest, his spreading body looked as if it were melting in the summer heat. His loose white shirt bore big dark rings of sweat, adding its bit of stink to the stench of the sultry room. Guards leaned down to speak into his ear while his dull gaze roamed, never settling. Others behind the table to either side of him were busily engaged in work at stacks of their own papers, or speaking among themselves, or dealing with the other stream of officials and guards that was ebbing and flowing through the room. Protector Muksin, the shiny top of his head concealed about as well as an aged turtle napping beneath a few blades of grass, watched the room. His dark eyes never stopped moving, gliding past the guards, the officials, the milling crowd. When they glided over Nicci's face, they registered no more interest than in any of the other people. All were citizens of the Order, equal pieces, each unimportant in and of itself. "Could I see him?" Nicci asked. "It's important." The guard's smile turned to mockery. "I'm sure it is." He waved a finger at the clump of people to the side. "End of the line. Wait your turn." Nicci and Kamil had no choice but to wait. Nicci knew enough about such petty officials to know better than to make a scene. They lived for the times when someone made a scene. She leaned her shoulder against the plastered wall dark with oily stains of countless other shoulders. Kamil took up station behind her. The line wasn't moving because the officials weren't seeing anyone. Nicci didn't know if they only saw citizens at certain times. There was no choice but to keep their place in the line. The morning dragged on without the line in front of her changing. It grew more crowded in back. "Kamil," she said in a low voice after several hours, "you don't need to wait with me. You can go home." His eyes were red and swollen. "I wish to wait." He sounded surprisingly distrustful. "I care about Richard," he added in a tone that sounded like an accusation. "I care about him, too. Why do you think I'm here?" "I only came to get you because I was so afraid for Richard, and I didn't know what else to do. Everyone else was off to work, or to buy bread." Kamil turned and leaned his back against the wall. "I don't believe that you care for him, but I didn't know what else to do." Nicci swiped a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead. "You don't like me, do you?" Still he didn't look at her. "No." "Might I ask why?" Kamil's gaze snuck a glance around to see if anyone was listening. They were all concerned with their own problems. "You are Richard's wife, yet you betrayed him. You took Gadi to your room. You are a whore." Nicci blinked in surprise at his words. Kamil glanced around again before he went on. "We don't know why a man like Richard would be with you. Every woman without a husband in the house, and the other houses nearby, told me she would be his wife and never lie with another man as long as she lived. They all say they don't understand why you would do that to Richard. Everyone was sad for him, but he would not listen to us tell him." Nicci turned away. Suddenly, she couldn't bear the shame of looking at a young man who had just called her a vile name, and had been right. "You don't understand the situation," she whispered. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kamil shrug. "You are right. I don't understand. I don't understand how anyone could do such a hurtful thing to a husband like Richard, who works hard and takes such good care of you. To do such a thing, you must be a bad person who does not care about your husband." She felt tears join the sweat on her face. "I care about Richard more than you could ever know." He didn't answer. She turned to look at him. He was bouncing his shoulders gently against the wall. He was too ashamed of her, or angry at her, to look her in the eye. "Kamil, do you remember when we first came to live in the room in your building?" He nodded, still not looking at her. "Do you remember how cruel you and Nabbi treated Richard, all the mean things you said to him? All the hurtful names you called him? How you threatened him with your knives?" "I made a mistake," he said, and sounded as if he meant it. "Kamil, I made a mistake, too." She didn't bother trying to hide her tears-half the women in the room were weeping. "I can't explain it to you, but Richard and I were having an argument. I was angry with him. I wanted to hurt him. I was wrong. It was a foolish thing for me to do. I made a terrible mistake." She sniffled and dabbed her nose on a small handkerchief. Kamil watched her from the corner of his eye. "I admit it's not the same kind of mistake that you and Nabbi made when you were acting tough when you first met Richard, but it was a mistake. I was acting tough, too." "You don't desire Gadi?" "Gadi turns my stomach. I only used him because I was angry with Richard." "And you are sorry?" Nicci's chin trembled. "Of course I'm sorry." "You are not going to get angry and do it again? With some other man?" "No. I told Richard I made a mistake, I was sorry, and I would never do such a thing to him again. I meant what I said." Kamil thought it over as he watched a woman shake a child by the arm. The child wouldn't stop crying, because it wanted to be picked up. She said something under her breath and the child leaned against her leg and pouted, but didn't cry anymore. "If Richard can forgive you, then I should not be angry at you. He is your husband. It is for the two of you to settle, not for me." He touched her arm. "You made a foolish mistake. It is over. Don't cry for that anymore? There are more important things, now." Nicci smiled through her tears and nodded. He smiled a little bit. "Nabbi and I told Gadi we were going to cut off-we told him we would cut him for what he had done to Richard. Gadi showed us his knife, so we would let him pass. Gadi loves his knife. He has cut men with it, before. Cut them bad. He told us to let him pass to go to join the army, that he was going to use his knife to slice the guts out of the enemy, to be a war hero, and to have many women better than Richard's wife." "I'm sure I will not be the only woman to be sorry they ever met Gadi." In the late afternoon, People's Protector Muksin began seeing people. Nicci's back ached, but it was nothing to compare to her fear for Richard. The people were taken one at a time by a pair of guards to stand before Protector Muksin. The line moved fairly rapidly because the Protector tolerated no long conversations. At most, he would riffle through some of his papers before telling the supplicant something. What with all the wailing and weeping in the room, Nicci couldn't hear any of it. When it was her turn, one of the guards shoved Kamil back. "Only one citizen may speak with the Protector." Nicci tilted her head to signal Kamil to stand back and not make a scene. The guards each grabbed an arm and fairly carried her to the spot in front of the Protector. Nicci was indignant at being treated so roughly-like some common . . . citizen. She had always enjoyed a kind of authority, sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken, and had never really given it much thought. She wanted to have Richard see what it was like to live as the common working people. Richard seemed to flourish: The two guards stood close at her shoulders, in case she caused any trouble. They must have seen it enough. She felt her face flushing at her treatment. "Protector Muksin, my husband was-" "Name." His dark-eyed gaze was skipping over the people remaining in line, no doubt measuring how far off dinner was. "Richard." He looked up sharply. "Full name." "His name is Richard Cypher. He was taken in last evening." Nicci didn't want to say the word "arrested," fearing to lend weight to a serious charge. He shuffled through papers, not at all seeming to be interested in looking at her. Nicci found it slightly confounding when the man didn't look at her in that calculating way men had of measuring her dimensions in their mind, imagining what they couldn't see, as if she didn't know what they were doing. The two guards, though, were looking down the front of her dress. "Ah." Protector Muksin waved a paper. "You are lucky." "He has been released, then?" He looked up as if she were daft. "We have him. His name is on this paper. There are many places people are taken. The Protectors of the people can't be expected to know where they all are." "Thank you," Nicci said without knowing what she was thanking him for. "Why is he being held? What are the charges?" The man frowned. "How would we know the charges. He has not yet confessed." Nicci felt dizzy. A number of the other women fainted when they spoke to the Protector. The guard's hands on her arms tightened. The Protector's hand started to lift to signal them to remove her. Before he could, Nicci spoke in as calm a voice as she could muster. "Please, Protector Muksin, my husband is no troublemaker. He never does anything but work. He never speaks ill of anyone. He is a good man. He always does as he is told." For one fraction of a second, as she watched sweat roll down the man's cheeks, he seemed to be considering something. "Has he a skill?" "He is a good laborer for the Order. He loads wagons."