The Ask and the Answer (12 page)

118

Maddy takes in a sharp breath behind me. There's a soldier leaning against a tree, his legs crossed like he couldn't be more relaxed.

Even in the moonlight I can see the rifle hanging lazily from his hand.

"Little late to be out, innit?"

"We got lost," I sputter. "We were separated from-"

"Yeah," he interrupts. "I'll bet."

He strikes a match against the zip of his uniform jacket. In the flare of light, I see sergeant hammar written across his pocket. He uses the match to light a cigarette in his mouth.

Cigarettes were banned by the Mayor.

But I guess if you're an officer.

An officer without Noise who can hide in the dark.

He takes a step forward and we see his face. He's got a smile on over the cigarette, an ugly one, the ugliest I've ever seen.

"You?" he says, recognition in his voice as he gets nearer.

As he raises his rifle.

"Yer the girl," he says, looking at me.

"Viola?" Maddy whispers, a step behind me and to my right.

"Mayor Prentiss knows me," I say. "You won't harm me." He inhales on the cigarette, flashing the ember, making a streak against my vision.
"President
Prentiss knows you." Then he looks at Maddy, pointing at her with the rifle. "I don't reckon he knows you, tho." And before I can say anything-Without giving any kind of warning-As if it was as natural to him as taking his next breath-Sergeant Hammar pulls the trigger.

119

9 WAR IS OVER

***

[TODD]

YOUR TURN TO DO THE BOG," Davy says, throwing me the canister of lime.

We never see the Spackle use the corner where they've dug a bog to do their business but every morning it's a little bit bigger and stinks a little bit more and it needs lime powdered over it to cut down on the smell and the danger of infeckshun.

I hope it works better on infeckshun than it does on smell. "Why ain't it never
yer
turn?" I say.

"Cuz Pa may think yer the
better man,
pigpiss," Davy says, "but he still put me in charge." And he grins at me. I start walking to the bog.

The days passed and they kept passing, till there was two full weeks of 'em gone and more.

120

I stayed alive and got thru, (did she?)
(did
she?)

Davy and I ride to the monastery every morning and he "oversees" the Spackle tearing down fences and pulling up brambles and I spend the day shoveling out not enough fodder and trying and failing to fix the last two water pumps and taking every turn to do the bog.

The Spackle've stayed silent, still not doing nothing that could save themselves, fifteen hundred of 'em when we finally got 'em counted, crammed into an area where I wouldn't herd two hundred sheep. More guards came, standing along the top of the stone wall, rifles pointed twixt rows of barbed wire, but the Spackle don't do nothing that even comes close to threatening.

They've stayed alive. They've got thru it.

And so has New Prentisstown.

Every day, Mayor Ledger tells me what he sees out on his rubbish rounds. Men and women are still separated and there are more taxes, more rules about dress, a list of books to be surrendered and burned, and compulsory church attendance, tho not in the cathedral, of course.

But it's also started to act like a real town again. The stores are back open, carts and fissionbikes and even a fissioncar or two are back on the roads. Men've gone back to work. Repairmen returned to repairing, bakers returned to baking, farmers returned to farming, loggers returned to logging, some of 'em even signing up to join the army itself, tho you can tell who the new soldiers are cuz they ain't been given the cure yet.

121

"You know," Mayor Ledger said one night and I could see it in his Noise before he said it, see the thought forming, the thought I hadn't thought myself, the thought I hadn't
let
myself think. "It's not nearly as bad as I thought," he said. "I expected slaughter. I expected my own death, certainly, and perhaps the burning of the entire town. The surrender was a fool's chance at best, but maybe he's not lying."

He got up and looked out over New Prentisstown. "Maybe," he said, "the war really is over."

"Oi!" I hear Davy call as I'm halfway to the bog. I turn round. A Spackle has come up to him.

It's holding its long white arms up and out in what may be a peaceful way and then it starts clicking, pointing to where a group of Spackle have finished tearing down a fence. It's clicking and clicking, pointing to one of the empty water troughs, but there ain't no way of understanding it, not if you can't hear its Noise.

Davy steps closer to it, his eyes wide, his head nodding in sympathy, his smile dangerous. "Yeah, yeah, yer thirsty from the hard work," he says. "Course you are, course you are, thank you for bringing that to my attenshun, thank you very much. And in reply, let me just say this."

He smashes the butt of his pistol into the Spackle's face. You can hear the crack of bone and the Spackle falls to the ground clutching at its jaw, long legs twisting in the air.

There's a wave of clicking around us and Davy lifts his pistol again, bullet end facing the crowd. Rifles cock on the fence top, too, soldiers pointing their weapons. The Spackle

122

slink back, the broken-jawed one still writhing and writhing in the grass.

"Know what, pigpiss?" Davy says.

"What?" I say, my eyes still on the Spackle on the ground, my Noise shaky as a leaf about to fall.

He turns to me, pistol still out. "It's
good
to be in charge."

Every minute I've expected life to blow apart. But every minute, it don't. And every day I've looked for her.

I've looked for her from the openings outta the top of the bell tower but all I ever see is the army marching and men working. Never a face I reckernize, never a silence I can feel as hers.

I've looked for her when Davy and I ride back and forth to the monastery, seeking her out in the windows of the Women's Quarter, but I never see her looking back.

I've even half looked for her in the crowds of Spackle, wondering if she's hiding behind one, ready to pop out and yell at Davy for beating on 'em and then saying to me, like everything's okay, "Hey, I'm here, it's me."

But she ain't there.

She ain't there.

I've asked Mayor Prentiss bout her every time I've seen him and he's said I need to trust him, said he's not my enemy, said if I put my faith in him that everything will be all right.

But I've looked.

And she ain't there.

123

"Hey, girl," I whisper to Angharrad as I saddle her up at the end of our day. I've gotten way better at riding her, better at talking to her, better at reading her moods. I'm less nervous about being on her back and she's less nervous about being underneath me. This morning after I gave her an apple to eat, she clipped her teeth thru my hair once, like I was just another horse.

Boy colt,
she says, as I climb on her back and me and Davy set off back into town.

"Angharrad," I say, leaning forward twixt her ears, cuz this is what horses like, it seems, constant reminders that everyone's there, constant reminders that they're still in the herd.

Above anything else, a horse hates to be alone.

Boy colt,
Angharrad says again.

"Angharrad," I say.

"Jesus, pigpiss," Davy moans, "why don't you marry the effing-" He stops. "Well, goddam," he says, his voice suddenly a whisper, "would you look at this?"

I look up.

There are women coming out of a store.

Four of 'em, together in a group. We knew they were being let out but it's always daylight hours, always while me and Davy are at the monastery, so we always return to a city of men, like the women are just phantoms and rumor.

It's been ages since I even seen one more than just thru a window or from up top of the tower.

124

They're wearing longer sleeves and longer skirts than i saw before and they each got their hair tied behind their heads the same way. They look nervously at the soldiers that line the streets, at me and Davy, too, all of us watching 'em come down the store's front steps.

And there's still the silence, still the pull at my chest and I have to wipe my eyes when I'm sure Davy ain't looking.

Cuz none of 'em is her.

"They're late," Davy says, his voice so quiet I guess he ain't seen a woman for weeks neither. "They're all sposed to be in way before sundown."

Our heads turn as we watch 'em pass by, parcels held close, and they carry on down the road back to the Women's Quarter and my chest tightens and my throat clenches.

Cuz
none
of 'em is
her.

And I realize--

I realize all over again how much--

And my Noise goes all muddy.

Mayor Prentiss has used her to control me.

Duh.

Any effing idiot would know it. If I don't do what they say, they kill her. If I try to escape, they kill her. If I do anything to Davy, they kill her.

If she ain't dead already.

My Noise gets blacker.

No.

No,
I think.

Cuz she might not be.

She mighta been out here, on this very street, in another group of four.

125

Stay alive,
I think.
Please please please stay alive, (please be alive)

I stand at an opening as me and Mayor Ledger eat our dinners, looking for her again, trying to close my ears against the
ROAR.

Cuz Mayor Ledger was right. There's so many men that once the cure left their systems, you stopped being able to hear individual Noise. ltd be like trying to hear one drop of water in the middle of a river. Their Noise became a single loud wall, all mushed together so much it don't say nothing but

[Image: Roar noise.]

But it's actually something you can sorta get used to. In a way, Mayor Ledger's words and thoughts and feelings bubbling round his own personal gray Noise are more distracting.

126

"Quite correct," he says, patting his stomach. "A man is capable of thought. A crowd is not."

"An army is," I say.

"Only if it has a general for a brain."

He looks out the opening next to mine as he says it. Mayor Prentiss is riding across the square, Mr. Hammar, Mr. Tate, Mr. Morgan, and Mr. O'Hare riding behind him, listening to the orders he's giving.

"The inner circle," Mayor Ledger says.

And for a second, I wonder if his Noise sounds jealous.

We watch the Mayor dismount, hand his reins to Mr. Tate, and disappear into the cathedral.

Not two minutes later,
ker-thunk,
Mr. Collins opens our door.

"The President wants you," he says to me.

"One moment, Todd," the Mayor says, opening up one of the crates and looking inside.

We're in the cellar of the cathedral, Mr. Collins having pushed me down the stairs at the back of the main lobby. I stand there waiting, wondering how much of my dinner Mayor Ledger will eat before I can get back.

I watch Mayor Prentiss look thru another crate.

"President
Prentiss," he says, without looking up. "Do try to remember that." He stands up straight. "Used to be wine stored down here. Far more than was ever needed for communion."

I don't say nothing. He looks at me, curious. "You aren't going to ask, are you?"

127

"Bout what?" I say.

"The cure, Todd," he says, thumping one of the crates with his fist. "My men have retrieved every last trace of it from every home in New Prentisstown and here it all is."

He reaches in and takes out a phial of the cure pills. He pops the lid off and takes out a small white pill twixt his finger and thumb. "Do you never wonder why I haven't given the cure to you or David?"

I shift from foot to foot. "Punishment?"

He shakes his head. "Does Mr. Ledger still fidget?"

I shrug. "Sometimes. A little."

"They made the cure," the Mayor says. "And then they made themselves
need
it." He indicates row after row of crates and boxes. "And if I have
all
of what they need ..."

He puts the pill back in the phial and turns more fully to me, smiling wider.

"You wanted something?" I mumble.

"You really don't know, do you?" he asks.

"Know what?"

He pauses again, and then he says, "Happy birthday, Todd."

I open my mouth. Then I open it wider.

"It was four days ago," he says. "I'm surprised you didn't mention it."

I don't believe it. I completely forgot.

"No celebrations," the Mayor says, "because of course we both know you are
already
a man, now, aren't you?"

And again I raise the pictures of Aaron.

"You have been very impressive these past two weeks," he says, ignoring them. "I know it's been a great struggle for