“For what, might I ask?”
“Look, lady, I got a room, but I got to keep it for people at the top of the list.”
“How do you know we’re not at the top of the list?”
“Because if you were you would have said so first off and showed me the approval you got with
a seal on it. People at the head of the list have been waiting a long time for a place. You’re no better than a thief, trying to take the place of a good citizen who’s followed the law. Now, go away, or I will take down your names for the lodging inspector.”
The door slammed shut again. The threat of having their names taken down appeared to take some of the fight out of Nicci. She huffed a sigh as they walked away, the bowed floor creaking and groaning underfoot. At least they had been able to get in out of the rain for a brief time.
“We will have to keep looking,” she told him. “If you had a job, first, it would probably help. Maybe tomorrow you can look for a job while I keep looking for a room.”
Out in the cold rain once more, they crossed the muddy street to the cobbled walkway on the other side. There were yet more places to check, though Richard didn’t hold out any hope of getting a room. They’d had doors shut in their faces more times than he could count. Nicci wanted a room, though, so they kept looking.
The weather was unusually cold for this far south in the Old World, Nicci had told him. People said the cold spell and rain would soon pass. A few days before it had been muggy and warm, so Richard had no reason to doubt their judgment. It was disorienting for him to see woods and fields of lush green vegetation in the dead of winter. There were some trees with limbs bare for the season, but most were in full leaf.
As far south as they were in the Old World, it never got cold enough for water to freeze. People only blinked dumbly when he spoke of snow. When Richard explained snow as flakes of frozen white water that fell from the sky and covered the ground with a cottony blanket, some people turned huffy, thinking he was making a joke at their expense.
He knew that back home winter would be raging. Despite the turmoil around him, Richard felt an inner tranquillity knowing that Kahlan was most likely to be warm and snug in the house he had built; in that light, nothing in his new life was of enough importance to distress him. She had food to eat, firewood to keep her warm, and Cara for company. For now, she was safe. Winter was wearing on and in spring she would be able to leave, but, for now, Richard was confident that she was safe. That, and his thoughts and memories of her, were his only solace.
People without rooms huddled in the alleyways, using whatever scrap of solid material they could find to prop up over themselves for a roof. Walls were fashioned from sodden blankets. He supposed that he and Nicci could continue to do the same, but he feared Nicci falling ill in the cold and wet—feared that then Kahlan, too, would fall ill.
Nicci checked the paper she carried. “These places on this register they gave us are all supposed to be available for people newly arrived—not just for people on a list. They need workers; they should be more diligent in seeing to it that places are available. Do you see, Richard? Do you see how hard it is for ordinary people to get along in life?”
Richard, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind and rain, asked, “So, how do we get on a list?”
“We will have to go to a lodging office and request a room. They can put us on a housing list.”
It sounded simple, but matters were proving far more complex than they sounded.
“If there aren’t enough rooms, how will being on a list get us a place to stay?”
“People die all the time.”
“There’s work here, that’s why we came—that’s why everyone else has come. I’ll work hard and then we can afford to pay more. We still have a little money. We just need to find a place that wants to rent a room for the right price—without all this list foolishness.”
“Really, Richard, are you that inhumane? How would those less fortunate ever get rooms, then? The Order sets the prices to stop profiteers. They make sure there is no favoritism. That makes it fair for all. We just need to get on a list for a room, and then everything will be fine.”
Watching the glistening cobbles before him as he walked, Richard wondered how long they would be without a place until their name worked its way to the top of a list. It looked to him as if a lot of people would need to die before his and Nicci’s names came up for a room—with more yet waiting in turn for them to die.
He stepped first to one side and then the other to avoid bumping into the river of people swirling past, making their way in the opposite direction while trying to stay out of the mud of the street. He considered again staying outside the city—a lot of people did that. But there were outlaws and desperate people aplenty who preyed on those who were forced to stay out in the open where there were no city guards. Were Nicci not opposed to the idea, Richard would have found a place farther out and built a shelter, perhaps with some other people so that they could together discourage trouble.
Nicci wasn’t interested in the idea. Nicci wanted to be in the city. Multitudes came to the city looking for a better life. There were lists to get on, and lines to wait in to see official people. You had a better chance of doing those things if you had a room in the city, she said.
It was getting late in the day. The line at the bakery was out the door and partway down the block.
“Why are all these people in line?” Richard whispered to Nicci. It was the same every day when they went to buy bread.
She shrugged. “I guess there aren’t enough bakeries.”
“Seems like with all the customers, more people would want to open bakeries.”
Nicci leaned close, a scolding scowl darkening her brow. “The world isn’t as simple as you would like it to be, Richard. It used to be that way in the Old World. Man’s evil nature was allowed to flourish. People set their own prices for goods—with greed being their only interest, not the good of their fellow man. Only the well-to-do could afford to buy bread. Now, the Order sees to it that everyone gets needed goods for a fair price. The Order cares about everyone, not just those with unfair advantages.”
She always seemed so impassioned when she spoke about the evil nature of people. Richard wondered why a Sister of the Dark would care about evil, but he didn’t bother to ask.
The line wasn’t moving very fast. The woman in front of him, suspicious of their whispering, scowled back over her shoulder.
Richard met her glare with a broad smile.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.” Her somber scowl faltered in the light of his beaming grin. “We’re new in town”—he gestured behind—“my wife and I. I’m looking for work. We need a room, though. Would you know how a young couple, strangers to the city, could go about getting a room?”
She half turned, holding her canvas bag in both hands, letting it pull her arms straight as she leaned her shoulders against the wall. Her bag held only a yellow wedge of cheese. Richard’s smile and his friendly conversational tone—artificial though they were—were apparently so out of the ordinary that she seemed unable to maintain her gruff demeanor.
“You have to have a job if you hope to get a room. There aren’t enough rooms in the city, what with all the new workers come for the abundance provided by the wisdom of the Order. If you’re able-bodied, you need to have work, then they’ll put your name on the list.”
Richard scratched his head and kept smiling as the line slowly shuffled along. “I’m eager to work.”
“Easier to get a room if you can’t work,” the woman confided.
“But, I thought you just said you had to have a job if you were to have any hope of getting a room.”
“That’s true, if you’re able, like you look to be. Those folks with a greater need, because they can’t do for themselves, are rightly entitled to benevolence and to be put higher on the list—like my husband, the poor man. He’s afflicted terrible like with consumption.”
“I’m so sorry,” Richard said.
She nodded with the weight of her burden. “It’s mankind’s wretched lot to suffer. Nothing can be done about it, so there’s no use trying. Only in the next life will we get our reward. In this life, it’s the duty of every person with ability to help those unfortunate souls with needs. In that
way the able earn their reward in the next life.”
Richard didn’t argue. She shook a finger at him.
“Those who can work owe it to those who can’t to do their best for the good of all.”
“I can work,” Richard assured her. “We’re from…a little place. We’re simple folks—from farming stock. We don’t know much about how to go about things like getting work in the city.”
“The Order has brought the people a great abundance of work,” a man behind Nicci said, drawing Richard’s attention. The man’s oiled canvas coat was buttoned tight at his throat. His big brown eyes blinked slowly, like a cow as it chewed its cud. The way his jaw wobbled sideways as he spoke only added to the impression. “The Order welcomes all workers to our struggle, but you must be mindful of the needs of others—as the Creator Himself wishes—and go about getting work in the proper fashion.”
Richard, his stomach grumbling with hunger, listened as the man explained. “You first need to belong to a citizen workers’ group; they protect the rights of citizens of the Order. You’ll have to go before a review assembly for approval to join the workers’ group, and a fitness panel to hear from a spokesman from the workers’ citizen group who can vouch for you. You must do this before you can go for a job.”
“Why can’t I just go to a place and show myself? Why can’t they hire me, if I fit their needs?”
“Just because you’re from the country, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be mindful of contributing toward the greater good of the Order.”
“Of course not,” Richard said. “I’ve always worked for myself, though—farming to bring food to my fellow man, as is our duty. I don’t know how businesses do things.”
The big brown eyes paused their blinking. The man peered suspiciously for a moment, then his eyes finally went moony again. His jaw resumed its wobbling as he chewed his words.
“It’s the primary responsibility of business to be sensitive to the needs of the people, to contribute to the public welfare, to be equitable. The review board helps see to this. There is much more involved than the narrow goals of businesses.”