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 together 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.

"The suicide of self-sacrifice is but a requirement imposed by masters on slaves. Since there is a knife to my throat, it is not to my good that I am stripped of what I earn by my own hand and mind. It is only to the good of the one with the knife, and those who by weight of numbers but not reason dictate what is the good of allthose cheering him on so they might lap up any drop of blood their masters miss.

"Life is precious. That's why sacrifice for freedom is rational: it is for life itself and your ability to live it that you act, since life without freedom is the slow, sure death of self-sacrifice to the `good' of mankind-who is always someone else. Mankind is just a collection of individuals. Why should everyone's life be more important, more precious, more valuable than yours? Mindless mandatory self-sacrifice is insane."

She stared, not at him, but at the flame dancing on the pool of linseed oil. "You don't really mean that, Richard. You're just tired and angry that you have to work at night, too, just to get by. You should realize that all those others you help are there to help society, including you, should you be the one in desperate need."

Richard didn't bother to argue with her, and said only, "I feel sorry for you, Nicci. You don't evert know the value of your own life. Sacrifice could mean nothing to you."

"That's not true, Richard," she whispered, "I sacrifice for you…. I saved what millet we had for you, that you might have strength."

"The strength to stand upright when I throw my life away? Why did you sacrifice your dinner, Nicci?"

"Because it was the right thing to do-it was for the good of others."

He nodded as he peered at her in the dim light. "You would endanger your life to starvation for others-for any others." He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. "How about that thug, Gadi? Would you starve to death so he might eat? It might mean something, Nicci, if it was a sacrifice for someone you value, but it isn't; it's a sacrifice to some mindless gray ideal of the Order."