Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 56

Nicci paced as Ishaq bent over the trapdoor in the corner of the room.

He had been at it a long time. He had pushed the wardrobe aside to get at the secret place in the floor. Occasionally he muttered under his breath, cursing himself for having made it so difficult to get into.

“At last!” Ishaq scrambled to his feet.

Nicci hoped that the meager money Richard could have managed to save would be enough to satisfy Protector Muksin. In her head, she was going through a list of people who had offered money to help Richard.

Ishaq scurried close. “Here it is.”

He hurriedly placed the leather purse in her hand. The weight shocked her. The purse filled her palm. It didn’t make sense. She realized Richard must have put some metal items in with his savings—that would account for the weight. She pulled open the top and dumped the contents in her palm.

Nicci gasped. There were close to two dozen gold marks. There wasn’t any silver. It was all gold.

“Dear Creator . . .” she whispered, her eyes wide. “Where would Richard get all this money?”

It was more money than most wealthy men saw in their lifetime. She looked up into Ishaq’s eyes.

“Where would Richard get all this money?”

He swept his red hat off his head. He waved impatiently at all the gold lying in her palm. “Richard earned it.”

She felt her frown darkening. “Earned it? How? No one man could earn this much money—not honestly, anyway.” She felt her anger building. “Richard stole this gold, didn’t he?”

“Don’t be silly.” Ishaq gestured irritably. “Richard earned it. He bought and sold goods.”

She gritted her teeth. “How did he get this money?”

The man flung up his hands. “I’m telling you. He earned it himself—all by himself. He bought things and sold them to people who needed them.”

“Things? What kind of things? Contraband?”

“No! Things like iron and steel—”

“Nonsense. How would he move it? Carry it on his back?”

“At first. But then he bought a wagon to—”

“A wagon!”

“Yes. And horses. He bought charcoal and ore and sold them to the foundries. Mostly, he bought metal from the foundry, and sold it to the blacksmith. The blacksmith uses a great deal of metal. He bought it from Richard. That was how he earned the money.”

Nicci seized the man’s collar at his throat. “Take me to this blacksmith.”

Nicci was furious. All this time, she had thought Richard an honest hardworking man, and now she had discovered that he was imprisoned properly.

He was guilty of swindling honest working people out of their money. He was profiteering.

At that moment, she was not sorry at all for what they were doing to him in the prison. He deserved it all, and more. He was a criminal, cheating honest hardworking people out of gold. She burned with humiliation, knowing she had been deceived by him.

Nicci had seen the site of the palace before, but at a distance as she went about her business in the city. She had never been this close. It was going to be everything Jagang said it would be. It filled her with awe. All the inspiring words of Brother Narev from her youth were like a sacred choir singing from the depths of her memories as she looked upon the sweep of scenes being erected.

The walls were already up over the openings for the windows on the first floor. In some sections, beams were being laid, spanning the interior walls, to support the next story.

But it was the outside which took her breath. The stone walls were banded with carvings on a scale she had never imagined. Just as Brother Narev would have directed, the carvings were inspirational, and convincing.

Nicci saw people gazing upon the scenes, weeping at the events recounted in stone, weeping at the depiction of the miserable creature that was man, and the unattainable glory that was the perfection of the Creator. With such moving visions, there could be no doubt that the Order was mankind’s only hope of salvation. Just as Jagang had said, this would be a palace to stir the people with overpowering emotion.

“Why are those poles there?” she asked Ishaq as they marched along the wide cobbled path where people stood and watched the construction, while others knelt and prayed at various horrific scenes depicted on the walls.

“Carvers.” Ishaq removed his red hat as he looked at the sight. “It was said they took part in the revolt.”

Nicci’s gaze passed among the rotting corpses hanging at the tops of the poles. “Why would the carvers take part in the revolt? They have work.”

More than that, they were working on the scenes of the glory of the Order.

They, of all people, should have known how their only hope of reward in the next world required suffering in this.

“I did not say they took part. I said that it was said that they took part.”

Nicci didn’t correct the man. All men were corrupt. There wasn’t a man who could not be put to death without it being justified. That included Richard.

Many of the stones under protective roofs where men had worked now sat idle. Ramps were constructed, along with scaffolding, for the masons to work on the palace walls. As they placed their stone, other men, slave labor, worked at hauling huge blocks up the ramps to them, carried baskets of mortar or dirt and rock, or worked in trenches building the underground cells where the Order would purge the world of the worst sinners and where criminals would confess their crimes.

It was a terrible business, but you couldn’t have a garden unless you got your hands dirty first.

The blacksmith’s shop, up on the side of a hill overlooking the colossal undertaking, was the largest she had ever seen. With a project of this scale, it was understandable. She stood outside while Ishaq hurried in to fetch the blacksmith for her.

The sounds of hammers ringing on steel, the smells of the forge, the smoke, the oils, the acid, the brine, all brought back a flood of memories of her father’s shop. For a brief moment, Nicci’s heart beat faster—she was a girl again. She almost expected to see her father come out and smile at her with that wondrous energy of his showing in his blue eyes.

Instead, a brawny man stepped out of the shadows into the daylight. He wore no smile, but a menacing glare. At first, she thought he was bald. Then she saw that his full head of hair was simply cropped close to his scalp.

Some of her father’s men who worked with hot iron did the same. His scowl would have set any other woman back three paces.

He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked through the milky sunlight toward her, appraising her eyes more carefully than most men—other than Richard. His thick leather apron was speckled with hundreds of tiny burn marks.

“Mrs. Cypher?”

Ishaq backed away, contenting himself to be a shadow.

“That’s right. I’m Richard’s wife.”

“Funny, Richard never really spoke of you. I guess I just assumed he had a wife, but he never said—”

“Richard has been taken into custody.”

The scowl changed in an instant to wide-eyed concern. “Richard’s been arrested? For what?”

“Apparently, for the most base of crimes: cheating people.”

“Cheating people? Richard? They’re out of their minds.”

“I’m afraid not. He is guilty. I have the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

Ishaq swooped in close, unable to contain himself any longer.

“Richard’s money. The money he made.”

“Made!” Nicci’s shout drove Ishaq back a step. “You mean the money he stole.”

The blacksmith’s scowl had returned. “Stole? Who do you think he stole this money from? Who are his accusers? Where are his victims?”

“Well, you are one.”

“Me? . . .”

“Yes, I’m afraid you were one of his victims. I’m here to return your money. I can’t use stolen money to rescue a criminal from his just punishment. Richard will have to pay the price for his crime. The Order will see that he does.”

The blacksmith tossed his towel aside and planted his fists on his hips. “Richard never stole one silver penny from anyone—least of all, me! He earned his money.”

“He cheated you.”

“He sold me iron and steel. I need iron and steel to make things for the Retreat. Brother Narev comes in here and growls at me to get things made, but he doesn’t deliver me the iron from which I must make them. Richard does. Until Richard came along, I nearly got buried in the sky myself, because Ishaq, here, couldn’t get me enough iron and steel.”

“I couldn’t! The committee only gives me permission to bring what I bring. I would be buried in the sky myself if I bring more than I have permission to bring. Everybody at the transport company watches me. They report me to the workers’ group if I spit wrong.”

“So,” Nicci said, folding her arms, “Richard has you over your own brine barrel. He brings you iron at night and you have no choice but to pay him his price, and he knows it. He makes all this gold by gouging you. That’s how he got rich—by overcharging you. That’s the worst kind of thievery.”

The blacksmith frowned at her as if she were daft.

“Richard sells me iron and steel for a lot less than I can buy it through the regular transport companies—like from Ishaq.”

“I charge what the committee on fair pricing tells me! I have no say!”

“That’s just crazy,” Nicci said to the blacksmith, ignoring Ishaq.

“No, it’s smart. You see, the foundries produce more than they can sell, because they can’t get it moved. Their furnaces have to be heated whether they make one ton or ten. They need to make enough iron to make the heat worth it, to pay their workers, and to keep their furnaces going. If they don’t buy enough ore, the mines close and then the foundry can’t get any ore at all. They can’t exist if they can’t get raw materials. But the Order won’t let Ishaq, and those like him, move as much as the foundries need moved. The Order takes weeks to decide on the simplest request. They consider every imaginable person who they fancy might conceivably be hurt if Ishaq were to move the load. The foundries were desperate. They offered to sell their extra to Richard at less money—”

“So they are cheated in Richard’s scheme, too!”

“No, because Richard takes it, they sell more, so it costs them less to make. They make more money than they would have otherwise. Richard sells it to me for less than I have to pay from the regular transport companies, because he buys it for less.”

Nicci threw her hands up in disgust. “And to top it off, he is putting working men out of jobs. He’s the worst sort of criminal—making his profit off the backs of the poor, the needy, and the workers!”

“What?” Ishaq protested. “I can’t get enough people to work, and I can’t get enough permits to haul the goods people need. Richard puts no one out of work—he helps create more business for everybody. The foundries he hauls for have each hired more men since they are able to sell through Richard.”

“That’s right,” the blacksmith said.

“But, you just don’t see it,” Nicci insisted as she raked back her hair. “He’s pulled the wool over your eyes. He’s cheating you—milking you dry. You’re getting poor because Richard—”

“Don’t you get it, Mrs. Cypher? Richard has made half a dozen foundries money. They are working now only because of Richard. He moves their goods when they need them moved, not when they can finally get some asinine permit with seals all over it. Richard has, by himself, enabled a whole string of charcoal makers to earn a living supplying those foundries, along with a number of miners and any number of other people. And me? Richard has made me more money than I ever thought I’d make.

“Richard has made us all rich by doing something that is desperately needed, and doing it better than others can do it. He has kept us all working. Not the Order and their committees, boards, and groups—Richard.

“I’ve been able to keep men on because of Richard. He never says it can’t be done; he figures a way to do it. In the process, he has earned the trust of every man he deals with. His word is as good as that gold.

“Why, even Brother Narev told Richard to do what needed doing to get me the iron I needed. Richard told him he would. The palace wouldn’t be this far along if not for Richard keeping everyone going with what he gets for us, when we need it.

“The Order owes Richard a debt of gratitude, not torture and punishment. He has helped the Order by doing what they need done. Those piers standing out there would not be built yet, if Richard hadn’t found me the iron to make the bracing ties. Those carvings on the palace walls down there would not be done if he hadn’t gotten me the steel I needed to make the tools to carve them. The goods down there are only moved in by wheels turning on iron bands I make to repair them because Richard got me the steel. Richard has done more to raise that palace up out of the ground than any other single man. Besides that, he’s made friends doing it.”

Nicci couldn’t make it work in her head. It had to be true; she remembered that Richard had met Brother Narev. How could someone make so much money, help the Order, and have the people he deals with still trust him?

“But he has made all this profit . . .”

The blacksmith shook his head as if she were a snake among them.

“ ‘Profit’ is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen as evil, so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn.”

The frown returned as the blacksmith leaned toward her. His voice became as hot as the iron he worked.

“What I want to know, Mrs. Cypher, is why Richard is in some stinking prison being tortured to give a confession, while his wife is standing here acting a fool over him earning money and making us all happy and rich in the process?”

Nicci felt a lump rising in her throat. “I can’t pay the fine until tomorrow night.”

“Until I met you, I never thought Richard ever made a mistake.” The man pulled his leather apron off over his head and heaved it at the wall of his shop. “With that kind of money, we can bargain him out sooner. I hope it’s soon enough. Ishaq, are you with me?”

“Of course. They know me. I’m trusted. I go, too.”

“Give me the money,” the blacksmith commanded.

Nicci dropped it into his upturned palm without even thinking about it.

Richard wasn’t really a thief. It was a wonder. She didn’t know how, but these people were all happy with him. He made them all rich. It didn’t make any sense to her.

“Please, if you can help, I’d be indebted to you.”

“I’m not doing it for you, Mrs. Cypher; I’m helping a friend I value who is worth helping.”

“Nicci. My name is Nicci.”

“I’m Mr. Cascella,” he growled as he started away.

Mr. Cascella tossed four gold coins on the table in front of People’s Protector Muksin. He had told Nicci and Ishaq that he wanted to hold something in reserve so they could “pump the bellows” if they “needed more heat.”

The blacksmith towered over the man behind the table. Several officers put their noses to their work. The guards around the room all watched.

“Richard Cypher. You have him. We’re here to pay the fine.”

Protector Muksin blinked at the coins like a fat carp that was too full to eat a worm.

“We don’t assess fines until tomorrow night. Come back then, and if this man, Cypher, has not confessed to involvement in anything more serious, you can pay then.”

“I work out at the new palace,” Mr. Cascella said. “Brother Narev keeps me busy. I’m here now, so couldn’t we just take care of this matter while we’re all here? It would make Brother Narev happy if his head blacksmith didn’t have to come all the way over here again tomorrow, when I’m here now.”

Protector Muksin’s dark eyes turned from side to side, traversing the crowded room of wailing people. His chair chattered as he scooted it closer to the table. He folded his stubby fingers atop a pile of tattered papers.

“I would not wish to inconvenience Brother Narev.”

The blacksmith smiled. “I thought not.”

“However, Brother Narev would not want me to overlook my duty to the people.”

“Of course not!” Ishaq put it. He swiped his red hat off his head when the dark eyes turned his way. “Such was not implied, of course. We are trusting in you to do your duty.”

“Who are you?” the Protector asked Nicci.

“I am the wife of Richard Cypher, Protector Muksin. I was here before. I paid a fee to see him. You explained the fine to me.”

He nodded. “I see so many.”

“Look,” Mr. Cascella said, “we have a lot of money for the fine. If we could pay it now and get Richard Cypher out today, that is. Some of it is money other people might not be willing to contribute tomorrow.”

The blacksmith slid four more gold marks across the table. The Protector’s dark eyes looked unimpressed.

“The money all belongs to the people. There is great need.”

Nicci suspected that the great need was in his pocket, and that he was holding out for more. As if to answer the charge, Protector Muksin slid the eight gold coins—a fortune by any standard of measure—back across the table.

“The money would not be paid here. We have no use for it. We are humble servants of the Order. The amount of the fine would be noted in the ledger, but you would have to deliver it to a citizen committee for distribution to those in need.”

Nicci was surprised that she had been wrong about the man. He was indeed an honest official. This changed the nature of the whole business.

Her hopes brightened. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult to get Richard released, after all.

Behind her, on the other side of the short wall, women were wailing, children were crying, and people were praying. Nicci could hardly breathe in the stinking sweltering room. She hoped that the official would be moved to hurry the case so he could get to attending the matter of the small crowd of guards who waited off in the side halls for papers and orders.

“But you make a mistake,” the Protector added, “if you think money can buy this man’s release. The Order is not concerned with the life of one man, for no man’s life is of any real importance. I’m inclined to tell you to keep your money—until we can look into why anyone would have such a large sum. I think this man must be disruptive to civil order if he stirs up this much support. No one man is any better than another. That he can bring so much money to bribe him out of his just punishment proves my suspicion that he has something to confess.”

His chair creaked as he leaned back to peer up at them. “It appears you three would think otherwise—think that he is better than any other man.”

“No,” the blacksmith said in an offhanded manner, “it’s just that he is our friend.”

“The Order is your friend. Those in need are your concern. You have no business caring for one man over another. Such unseemly behaviour is blasphemy.”

The three of them before the desk stood mute. Behind them, the weeping, the wailing, the panicked praying for those in the darkness far below, went on without pause. Everything they said only seemed to turn the man more against them.

“If he had a skill, then it might be different. There is great need for contributions to the Order by those with ability. There are many who hold back when they should be doing their best to contribute. It is the duty of those with ability to—”

It all came clear to Nicci in one blinding instant.

“But he does have a skill,” she blurted out.

“What skill?” the Protector asked, not pleased at being interrupted.

Nicci stepped closer. “He is the greatest—”

“Greatness is a delusion of the wicked. All men are the same. All men are evil by nature. All men must struggle to overcome their baser nature by devoting their lives selflessly to the cause of helping their fellow man. Only selfless acts will enable a man to gain his reward in the afterlife.”

Mr. Cascella’s fists tightened. He started to lean in. If he argued, now, it would render the matter irredeemable. Nicci gave him a stealthy kick with the side of her foot, hoping to convince him to be quiet and let her do the talking before it was too late. Nicci bowed her head as she retreated a step, forcing the blacksmith aside without making it look obvious.

“You are wise, Protector Muksin. We could all learn valuable lessons from you. Please forgive the inept words of a poor wife. I am a simple woman, humbled and discomposed in the presence of such a wise representative of the Fellowship of Order.”

Startled, the Protector said nothing. Nicci had traded in such words for over a hundred years, and knew their value. She had given the man, but a petty official, a standing in the core of the Order—in the fellowship itself—that he could never attain. This sort of man would aspire to wear the mantle of social merit. To a man like this, to be thought to hold such intellectual status was as good as earning it; perception was reality to such men. The perception was what counted, not the actual accomplishment.

“What is this man’s skill?”

Nicci bowed her head again. “Richard Cypher is an undistinguished stone carver, Protector Muksin.”

The men to either side of her stared in disbelief.

“A stone carver?” the Protector asked, lingering in thought over the words.

“A faceless artisan, his only hope in life that he could one day work in stone to show man’s wickedness, so that he might help others see the need to sacrifice to their fellow man and the Order and in this way hope to earn his reward in the afterlife.”

The blacksmith quickly recovered and added to her words. “As you may know, many of the carvers at the Retreat were traitors—thank the Creator they were discovered—and so there is much carving to be done for the glory of the Order. Brother Narev can confirm this for you, Protector Muksin.”

The Protector’s dark eyes shifted among the three. “How much money do you have?”

“Twenty-two gold marks,” Nicci said.

He scowled his condemnation as he pulled a ledger book close and dipped his pen in a chipped ink bottle. The Protector bent forward and wrote the fine in his book. He next wrote an order on a piece of paper and handed it up to the blacksmith.

“Take this to the workers’ hall at the docks”—he gestured with his pen off behind them—“down that street. I will release the prisoner after you bring me a workers’ group seal to prove that the fine was paid to the men who deserve it most—those in need. Richard Cypher must be stripped of his ill-gotten gains.”

Richard deserved it most, Nicci thought bitterly. He had earned it, not those other men. Nicci thought about all the nights he’d worked without sleep, without food. She remembered him wincing as he lay down to sleep, his bask aching from his labor. Richard had earned that money—she knew that, now. Those men who would get it had done nothing for it but to desire it, thus proclaiming their right to it.

“Yes, Protector Muksin,” Nicci said as she bowed. “Thank you for your wise justice.”

Mr. Cascella let out a quiet sigh. Nicci leaned confidentially toward the Protector.

“We will carry out your equitable instructions immediately.” She smiled deferentially. “Since you have treated us so fairly in this matter, might I ask one further consideration?” It was a lot of gold that would be credited to his effort on behalf of the Order; she knew he would likely be in a generous mood at that moment. “It’s more a matter of curiosity, really.”

He wheezed an annoyed sigh. “What is it you want?”

Nicci leaned closer, close enough to smell the man’s stale sweat. “The name of the person who reported my husband. The one who rightly brought Richard Cypher to justice.”

Nicci knew that he was thinking that men were more likely to be welcomed into the fellowship when they helped collect great sums for those in need. The matter of the name would only be a gnat bothering his pleasant thoughts. He pulled some papers close and scanned through them, flipping them aside as he searched.

“Here it is,” Protector Muksin said at last. “Richard Cypher’s name was reported by a young soldier volunteering in the Imperial Order army. His name is Gadi. The report is months old. It took some time to see justice done, but the Order always sees justice done in the end. That is why they call our great emperor ‘Jagang the Just.’ ”

Nicci straightened. “Thank you, Protector Muksin.”

Her calm face concealed her inner fury that the little thug was out of her reach. Gadi deserved to suffer.

The Protector wrote out his sentence for a civil crime as he spoke.

“Take the order of fine I gave you to the workers’ group at the docks and return here when you have seals to prove that his fine of twenty-two gold marks was paid in full.

“Richard Cypher is further ordered to report to the carver’s committee for work assignment.” He handed her the paper with the orders. “Richard Cypher is now a stone carver for the Order.”

The sun was setting by the time they returned with all the papers and seals. The blacksmith was impressed with the way she had handled the official when the offer of gold failed to work. Ishaq thanked her a hundred times. It only mattered to her that Richard would be freed.

She was relieved to know that she had been wrong, that Richard wasn’t a cheat and a thief after all. It had been such an ugly feeling, thinking ill of Richard. It had for a time tainted her whole world. She had never been so happy to be wrong.

Better yet, they had done it; she was to have him back.

At the side door to the stronghold, Mr. Cascella, Ishaq, and Nicci waited. The shadows grew darker. Finally, the door opened. Two guards held Richard between them as they came out onto the landing. When they saw Richard, his condition, Mr. Cascella cursed under his breath. Ishaq whispered a prayer.

The guards released Richard with a shove. He stumbled forward. The blacksmith and Ishaq raced to the steps to help him.

Richard caught himself and straightened, a dark form upright in the last of the light, defiant of the long shadows around him. He held a hand out, commanding the two men to stay where they were. Both stopped with a foot on the bottom step, ready to run up to him should he need them. Nicci couldn’t imagine what pain it had to cost Richard to walk so steadily, proudly, smoothly down the stairs without help, as if he were a free man.

He did not yet know what she had done to him.

Nicci knew there could be no worse plight for Richard. The torture down in the depths of the stronghold was not as bad as what she had just condemned him to.

Nicci was sure that this was the one thing, at last, that would force out the answer she sought, if there really was an answer to be found.