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Nicci collected her washing in the woven basket Richard had shown the women of the building how to make from thin strips of wood. Nicci had to admit that the basket was easy enough to make, and a better way to lug clothes.
She climbed the sturdy stairs-stairs that she'd once thought would be the end of her. The hallway inside was spotless. The floors had been washed.
Somewhere; Richard had come up with ingredients for paint, and the men had a grand time of mixing it up and painting over the stains on the walls. One of the men in the building knew about roofs, so he fixed the roof so it wouldn't leak and stain the walls again.
As Nicci walked down the hall, she saw Gadi, without his shirt, sitting up the stairway, in the shadows. He was using his big knife to whittle at a piece of wood and in so doing make clear his dangerous nature. Later, the women living i31 the building would tsk and clean it up. Gadi, not happy about people nagging at him of late, leered down at her. She now had something for him to leer at, now that she had gained her weight back.
Richard's second job at night enabled him to be able to afford more food. He brought home things she had missed for months-chicken, oil, spices, bacon, cheese, and eggs. She could never find such things in the city stores, Nicci had thought they sold the same food everywhere in the city shops, but Richard's travels while delivering things, he said, took him to places where they sold a wider variety of food.
Kamil and Nabbi, sitting on the front steps, saw her through the open door. They stood and bowed politely as she came down the hall.
"Good evening, Mrs. Cypher," Kamil said.
"Could we help you carry that?" Nabbi asked.
She found it all the more irritating because she knew for a fact that they were sincere; they liked her because she was Richard's wife.
"Thank you, no. I'm there, now."
They held the door for her and closed it behind her when she had passed into her room.
She thought of them as Richard's soldiers. He seemed to have a private army of people who broke into grins when they saw him coming. Most people seemed only too pleased to do whatever they thought Richard might like done.
Kamil and Nabbi would have washed diapers, if he asked it, for the chance to ride with him at night in the wagon as he picked up and delivered things around Altur'Rang. He only rarely took them with him, saying that he could get in trouble with the workers' group. The youths didn't want Richard to get in trouble and lose his job, so they patiently waited for the rare times when he tilted his head for them to come along.
Their room had been transformed. The ceiling had been cleaned and whitewashed. The flyblown walls had been scrubbed and painted a salmon color-a color she had picked, thinking that Richard would not possibly be able to come up with the rare ingredients needed for the color. The walls were now mockingly salmon.
One day a man had shown up with an armload of tools. Kamil said that Richard had sent him over to fix their room. The man spoke a language Nicci didn't understand. He waved his arms a lot and chattered and laughed good-naturedly, as if she must understand at least a little of what he told her. He pointed around at walls and asked questions. She hadn't the foggiest notion of what he was there to do.
She suspected he had come to fix the wobbly table. She rapped the top with the flat of her hand and then showed him how it wobbled. He nodded and gri
When Nicci finally returned home, the man was gone. The old window, broken and not only long painted over but also painted shut, had new glass, and it was raised. And, they had a new window in the other wall. Both windows were open. A cool cross-breeze let fresh air into the stuffy room.
Nicci stood in the center of the room, stu
Sha'Rim, from next door, had smiled and waved as she'd walked past.
Nicci set down the wash basket and opened the window at the side, to get some air into the stifling room. She pushed the curtains back. With windows you could see though, she had decided that curtains were in order.
Richard somehow got her fabric. When she was finished, he told her she had done a wonderful job. Nicci found herself gri
She had brought Richard to the worst place in the Old World, to the worst build ing she could find, and he somehow ended up making everything better just as she had insisted was his duty.
But she had never meant it to be like this.
She didn't know what she'd meant.
She only knew that she lived for the times Richard was with her. Even though she knew he hated her, and wanted nothing more than to be away from her and back with his Kahlan, Nicci could not help feeling her heart rise into her throat when he came home. Through the link to Kahlan, she thought that at times she could feel the woman's longing for him. Every inch of her ached with understanding of Kahlan's longing.
The room grew darker as she waited. Life didn't start until Richard came home. As the daylight faded, the lamplight took its place. They had a real lamp, now, not just a wick through a wooden button floating in linseed oil.
The door opened. Richard put one foot inside. He was speaking to Kamil as the young man was going off to his family's place upstairs. It was getting late. Finally, still smiling, Richard came in and shut the door. The smile faded, as it always did.
He held out a burlap sack. "I came across some onions, carrots, and some pork. I thought you might like to make a stew."
Nicci lifted a hand weekly toward the millet she had spent the afternoon in line to buy. It had bugs in it. It was moldy.
"I bought millet. I thought I would make you a soup."
Richard shrugged. "If you prefer. Your millet soup saw us through some pretty lean times."
Nicci felt that flash of pride that he had acknowledged what she had done as valuable.
She shut the windows. It was dark out. With her back to the windows as she watched him, she closed the curtains tight.
Richard stood in the center of the room, watching her, a puzzled frown creasing his brow between his eyes. Nicci closed the distance to him. She was aware of the exposed flesh of her bosom rising and falling above the top of her black dress. Gadi had just been staring at her bosom. She wanted Richard to stare at her like that. Richard watched only her eyes.
Her fingers tightened around his muscled arms.
"Make love to me," she whispered.
His brow drew down. "What?"
"Richard, I want you to make love to me. Now."
He appraised her eyes for an eternity. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Every fiber of her being screamed out for him to take her. She teetered on the edge, waiting, her life suspended in the exquisite anguish of expectation.
His voice came, not at all harsh. If anything, it was tender, but it was also resolute. "No."
Nicci felt as if a thousand needles of ice were dancing up her arms.
His refusal stu
It hurt to her core-worse than anything Jagang or any other man had ever done. She had thought. .
Blood rushed to her face, melting the ice in a flash of heat. Nicci flung open the door. "Come out into the hall and wait," she commanded in a shaky voice.
He was standing in the center of their room, looking into her eyes. The lamp on the table cast harsh shadows across his face. His shoulders looked so broad, tapering down to his waist, a waist she ached to encircle with her arms. She wanted to scream. Instead she spoke softly, but with authority he could not mistake.