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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."