“Mr. Cascella, I’m finished. I kept the bars well off to the side, away from the marble.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
“Mind if I ask what you will have to pay for that fifty bars of iron?”
The glare was back. “What’s it to you?”
“From what I heard at the foundry, the man there had been hoping to fill the whole order so he could get three point five gold marks, so, since you got half your order, I believe you will be paying one point seven five gold marks for the fifty bars of iron. Am I correct?”
The glare darkened. “Like I said, what’s it to you?”
Richard put his hands in his back pockets. “Well, I was wondering if you would be willing to buy another fifty bars for one point five gold marks.”
“So, you’re a thief, too.”
“No, Mr. Cascella, I’m not a thief.”
“Then how are you going to sell me iron for a quarter mark less than the foundry is selling it for? You smelting a little iron ore in your room at night, Mr. Richard Cypher?”
“Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not?”
His mouth twisted in annoyance. “Talk.”
“The foundry man was furious because he wasn’t allowed to transport your whole order. He has more iron than he can sell because he isn’t allowed to transport it, and the transport companies are all jammed up so they aren’t showing up. He said he would be willing to sell it to me for less.”
“Why?”
“He needs the money. He showed me his cold blast furnaces. He owes wages and needs charcoal and ore and quicksilver, among other things, but hasn’t enough money to buy it all. The only thing he has plenty of is smelted metal. His business is strangling because he can’t move his product. I asked what price he would be willing to sell me iron for, if he didn’t have to transport it—if I picked it up myself. He told me that if I came after dark, he would sell me fifty bars for one point two five gold marks. If you’re willing to buy it from me for one point five, I’ll have you another fifty bars by morning, when you said you need it.”
The man gaped as if Richard was a bar of iron that had just come to life before his eyes and started talking.
“You know I’m willing to pay one and three-quarters, why would you offer to sell it to me for one and a half?”
“Because,” Richard explained, “I want to sell it for less than you’d have to pay through a transport company so that you’ll buy it from me, instead, and, because I need you to loan me the one and a quarter gold marks, first, so I can buy the bars in the first place and bring them to you. The foundry will only sell them to me if I pay when I come to take them.”
“What’s to keep you from disappearing with my one and a quarter gold marks?”
“My word.”
The man barked a laugh. “Your word? I don’t know you.”
“I told you, my name is Richard Cypher. Ishaq is scared to death of you, and he trusted me to get you the iron so you won’t come wring his neck.”
Mr. Cascella smiled again. “I’d not wring Ishaq’s neck. I like the fellow. He’s stuck in a tight spot.—But don’t you tell him I said that. I’d like to keep him on his toes.”
Richard shrugged. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t tell him you know how to smile. I know, though, that you’re in a tighter spot than Ishaq. You have to deliver goods for the Order, but you’re at the mercy of their methods.”
He smiled again. “So, Richard Cypher, what time will you be here with your wagon?”
“I don’t have a wagon. But, if you agree, I’ll have your fifty iron bars right there”—Richard pointed at a spot out the double doors beside where Jori had parked the wagon—“in a pile, by dawn.”
Mr. Cascella frowned. “If you don’t have a wagon, how you going to get the bars here? Walk?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“I don’t have a wagon, and I want to earn the money. It’s not all that far. I figure I can carry five at a time. That only makes ten trips. I can do that by dawn. I’m used to walking.”
“Tell me the rest of it—why you want to do this. The truth, now.”
“My wife isn’t getting enough to eat. The workers’ group assesses most of my wages, since I’m able to produce, and gives it to those who don’t work. Because I can work, I’ve become a slave to those who can’t, or who don’t wish to. Their methods encourage people to find an excuse to let others take care of them. I intensely dislike being a slave. I figure I can entice you to go along with the deal by offering you a better price. We each gain a benefit. Value for value.”
“If I were to go along, what do you plan to do with all that money—go live off it for a while? Drink it away?”
“I need the money to buy a wagon and a team of horses.”
The frown knotted tighter. “What do you need with a wagon?”
“I need the wagon to deliver you all the iron you’re going to buy from me because I can get it for you cheaper, and because I can deliver it when you need it.”
“You looking to get buried in the sky?”
Richard smiled. “No. I just happen to think that the emperor wants his palace built. From what I’ve heard, they have a lot of slave labor down there—people they’ve captured. But they don’t have enough slave labor to do it all for them. They need people like you, and the foundries.
“If the officials of the Order want to have the work progress—and not have to explain to Emperor Jagang why it isn’t—they will be inclined to look the other way. In that narrow crack of need, there is opportunity. I expect I’ll have to bribe a few officials to get them to be busy elsewhere when I come to pick up loads, but I’ve already figured that cost into it. I’ll be acting on behalf of myself, not an established transport company, so they will be more inclined to see this as a way of accomplishing what they need without suspending their morass of restrictions.
“You will be getting iron for less than you pay now, and I can deliver. You can’t even get what you need at the higher price. You will make more, too. We both benefit.”
The blacksmith stared for a moment as he tried to find a flaw in Richard’s plan.
“You’re either the stupidest crook I ever saw, or the… I don’t even know what. But I have Brother Narev breathing down my neck, and that isn’t pleasant. Not pleasant at all. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you know how Ishaq sweats over me? I sweat ten times that much when Brother Narev comes to ask why the tools aren’t ready. The brothers don’t want to hear my troubles, they just want what they want.”
“I understand, Mr. Cascella.”
He let out a sigh. “All right, Richard Cypher, one and a half gold marks for fifty bars delivered by dawn tomorrow—but I’ll only give you the one and a quarter now. You get the other quarter mark in the morning, when my iron is here.”
“Agreed. Who is this Brother Narev, anyway?”
“Brother Narev? He’s the high priest—”
“Did I hear someone mention my name?” The voice was deep enough to nearly rattle the tools off the walls.
Richard and the blacksmith turned to see a man approaching from around the corner of the shop. Here and there, his heavy robes betrayed his large bony frame. His face seemed to pull the gathering darkness into the deep creases of his face. Dark eyes gleamed out from under a hooded brow overspread with a tangle of graying hairs. Wiry hair above his ears curled up from under the edges of a dark, creased cap. The cap sat halfway down his forehead. He looked like a shadow come to life to stalk the world.
Mr. Cascella bowed. Richard followed his lead.
“We were just discussing the problem of getting enough iron, Brother Narev.”
“Where are all my new chisels, blacksmith?”
“I have yet to—”
“I have stone sitting down there with no chisels to cut it. I have stonecutters who need more tools. You are holding up my palace.”
The blacksmith lifted a hand
toward Richard. “This is Richard Cypher, Brother Narev. He was just telling me how he thought he might be able get me the iron I need and—”
The high priest held up his hand for silence.
“You can get the blacksmith what he needs?” Brother Narev snapped at Richard.
“It can be done.”
“Then do it.”
Richard bowed his head. “By your command, Brother Narev.”
The shadowed figure turned to the shop. “Show me, blacksmith.”
The blacksmith seemed to know what the high priest wanted and followed behind him, gesturing for Richard to come along. Richard understood; he couldn’t get the money to buy the iron until the blacksmith first took care of the important man who had just vanished into the shadows of the shop.
When the blacksmith snapped his fingers and pointed at a lamp on his way by, Richard snatched it up. He lit a long splinter in the glowing coals of the forge and then lit the lamp. He held it up behind the two men as they stood just inside the doorway to the room with the complex contraption of metal bars sitting on the floor beyond.
Mr. Cascella held the chalkboard up in the light. Brother Narev looked at the drawing on the chalkboard, then to the maze of iron lines on the floor, comparing them.
Richard felt an icy tingle at the base of his scalp when he suddenly realized what the thing on the floor was.
Brother Narev pointed to the drawing, to the line Richard had said was wrong.
“This line is wrong,” Brother Narev growled.
The blacksmith wagged his finger over the chalk drawing. “But I have to stabilize this mass over here.”
“I told you to add braces, I didn’t invite you to ruin the main scheme. You can leave the top of the support where you have it, but the bottom should be attached…here.”
Brother Narev pointed to where Richard had said it should go.
Mr. Cascella scratched his head of short hair as he stole a glance over his shoulder just long enough to scowl at Richard.
“That would work,” the blacksmith conceded. “It won’t be as easy, but it will work.”
“I’m not concerned with how easy it is,” Brother Narev said with menace. “I don’t want anything attached to this area, here.”
“No, sir.”
“It must be seamless, so none of the joining work shows through when it is covered in gold. Get me those tools made, first.”
“Yes, Brother Narev.”
The high priest turned an uncomfortable scrutiny on Richard. “There’s something about you…. Do I know you?”
“No, Brother Narev. I’ve never before met you. I would remember. Meeting a great man such as yourself, I mean. I would remember such a thing.”
He glared askance at Richard. “Yes, I suppose you would. You get the blacksmith his iron.”
“I said I would.”
The Brother grunted irritably. “So you did.”
As the tall shadow of a man stared into Richard’s eyes, Richard absently reached to lift his sword a little to make sure it was clear in its scabbard. The sword wasn’t there.
Brother Narev opened his mouth to say something, but his attention was caught by two young men entering the shop. They wore robes like the high priest, but without caps. They had simple hoods pulled up over their heads, instead.
“Brother Narev,” one called.
“What is it, Neal?”
“The book you sent for has arrived. You asked that we come for you at once.”
Brother Narev nodded to the young disciple, then directed a sour look at Mr. Cascella and Richard.
“Get it done,” he said to both.
Both Richard and the blacksmith bowed their heads as the high priest swept out of the shop.
It felt as if a thundercloud had just departed over the horizon.
“Come on,” Mr. Cascella said. “I’ll get you the gold.”
Richard followed him into a little room where the master blacksmith pulled out a strongbox attached with massive chain to a huge pin in the floor under the plank serving as his desk. He unlocked the strongbox and handed Richard a gold mark.
“Victor.”
Richard looked up from the gold mark and frowned. “What?”
“Victor. You asked what more there was to my name.” He set silver to make up the quarter mark on top of the gold mark resting in Richard’s palm. “Victor.”
Chapter 49
After leaving Ishaq’s place and before going to get the iron for Victor, Richard rushed back to his room. It wasn’t dinner he wanted, but to let Nicci know that he had to go back to work. She had in the past made it clear that they were husband and wife, and that she would take a dim view of him vanishing. He was to remain in Altur’Rang and work, just like any other normal man.
Kamil and one of his friends were waiting for him. Both were wearing shirts.
Richard stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the two. “I’m sorry, Kamil, but I have to go back to work—”
“Then you’re a bigger dupe than I thought—taking work at night, too. You should just stop trying. It’s no use trying in life. You just have to take what life gives you. I knew you would have an excuse not to do what you said you would do. You almost had me thinking that you might be different than—”
“I was going to say that I have to go back to work, so we have to do this right away.”
Kamil twisted his mouth, as was his habit to express his displeasure with those older and stupider than he.
“This is Nabbi. He wants to watch your foolish labor, too.”
Richard nodded, not showing any irritation at Kamil’s arrogant attitude. “Glad to meet you, Nabbi.” The third young man glared from the shadows back by the stairs in the hall. He was the biggest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
To pry the steps apart, Richard used his knife and a rusty metal bar Kamil found for him. It wasn’t difficult—they were ready to fall apart on their own. As the two youths watched, Richard cleaned the grooves in the stringers. Since they were chewed up from being loose, he deepened their bottoms, showing the two what he was doing and explaining how he would bevel the ends of the treads to lock into the deepened channel. Richard watched Kamil and Nabbi as they whittled wedges to match the one he made as a pattern for them. They were only too delighted to show him their knife work; Richard was delighted that it helped get the job done sooner.
Once they had them back together, Kamil and Nabbi both ran up and down the repaired steps, apparently surprised that they really were now sturdy underfoot, and pleased that they were partly responsible for the repair.
“You both did a good job,” Richard told them, because they had. They didn’t make any smart remarks. They actually smiled.
Richard’s dinner was watery millet eaten by the light of a burning wick floating in linseed oil. The smell from the simple light went poorly with dinner, which was more water than millet. Nicci said she’d already eaten, and didn’t want any more. She encouraged him to finish it.
He didn’t give Nicci the details of his second job. She was insistent only that he work; the work itself was irrelevant to her. She tended to her household chores and expected him to earn them a living.
She seemed satisfied that he was learning how ordinary people had to work themselves sick just to make enough to get along in life. The promise of money to buy them more food seemed to spark a longing in her eyes that her lips did not express. He noticed that the black material covering her once full bosom was now slack and half empty. Her elbows and hands had become bony.
As he took another spoonful of millet, Nicci casually mentioned that the landlord, Kamil’s father, had come by.
Richard looked up from his soup. “What did he say?”
“He said that since you have a job, the area citizens’ building committee had assessed us extra rent in order to help pay the rent of those in the local buildings who can’t work. You see, Richard, how life under the ways of the Order cultivates caring in people, so that we all work to
gether for the benefit of all?”
Nearly all of what was not taken by the workers’ group was taken by the area building committee, or some other committee, and all for the same purpose: for the betterment of the people of the Order. Richard and Nicci had next to nothing left for food. Richard’s clothes were getting looser all the time, but not as loose as Nicci’s dresses were getting.
She seemed smug about the fact that their rent was past due. Foodstuffs, at least, were relatively inexpensive—when they were available. People said that it was only by the grace of the Creator and the wisdom of the Order that they could afford any food at all. Richard had heard talk at Ishaq’s place that more plentiful and varied food could be had, for a price. Richard didn’t have the price.
On his wagon ride with Jori to the foundry and the blacksmith, Richard had spotted distant houses that looked to be quite grand. Well-dressed people walked those streets. Occasionally, he saw them in carriages. They were people who neither dirtied their hands or soiled their morals with business. They were men of principle. They were officials of the Order who saw to it that those with the ability sacrificed for the cause of the Order.
“Self-sacrifice is the moral duty of all people,” she said in challenge to his clenched teeth.
Richard could not hold his tongue. “Self-sacrifice is the obscene and senseless suicide of slaves.”
Nicci gaped at him. It was as if he had just said that a mother’s milk was poison to her newborn.
“Richard, I do believe that that’s the cruelest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“It’s cruel to say that I would not happily sacrifice myself for that thug, Gadi? Or for some other thug I don’t know? It’s cruel not to willingly sacrifice what’s mine to any greedy wretch who lusts to possess plundered goods, the unearned, even at the cost of their victim’s blood?
“Self-sacrifice for a value held dear, for a life held dear, for freedom and the freedom of those you respect—self-sacrifice such as mine for Kahlan’s life—is the only rationally valid sacrifice. To be selfless means you are a slave who must surrender your most priceless possession—your life—to any smirking thief who demands it.