The Ask and the Answer Page 4

  He's not looking at the women. Neither are the men in the crowd. Women got no use for the reward of a cure, do they?

  "It will be difficult," he continues. "I don't pretend otherwise. But it will be rewarding." He gestures toward the army. "My deputies have already begun to organize you. You will continue to follow their instructions but I assure you they will never be too onerous and you will soon see that I am not your conqueror. I am not your doom. I am not," he pauses again, "your enemy."

  He turns his head across the crowd of men one last time.

  "I am your savior," he says.

  And even without hearing their Noise, I watch the crowd wonder if there's a chance he's telling the truth, if maybe things'll be okay after all, if maybe, despite what they feared, they've been let off the hook.

  You ain't, I think. Not by a long shot.

  Even before the crowds have started to properly leave after the Mayor's finished, there's a ker-thunk at my door.

  "Good evening, Todd," the Mayor says, stepping into the

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  bell-ringing jail and looking around him, wrinkling his nose a little at the smell. "Did you like my speech?"

  "How do you know there are settlers coming?" I say. "Have you been talking to her? Is she all right?"

  He don Home, home, home, t answer this but he don't hit me for it neither. He just smiles and says, "All in good time, Todd."

  We hear Noise coming up the stairs outside the door. Alive I'm alive it says alive, alive alive alive and into the room comes Mayor Ledger, pushed by Mr. Collins.

  He pulls up his step when he sees Mayor Prentiss standing there.

  "New bedding will arrive tomorrow," Mayor Prentiss says, still looking at me. "As will toilet privileges."

  Mayor Ledger's moving his jaw but it takes a few tries before any words come out. "Mr. President--"

  Mayor Prentiss ignores him. "Your first job will also begin tomorrow, Todd."

  "Job?" I say.

  "Everyone has to work, Todd," he says. "Work is the path to freedom. I will be working. So will Mr. Ledger."

  "I will?" Mayor Ledger says. "But we're in jail," I say.

  He smiles again and there's more amusement in it and I wonder how I'm about to be stung.

  "Get some sleep," he says, stepping to the door and looking me in the eye. "My son will pick you up first thing in the morning."

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  3 THE NEW LIFE [TODD]

  BUT IT TURNS OUT IT ain't Davy that worries me when I get dragged into the cold of the next morning in front of the cathedral. It ain't even Davy I look at.

  It's the horse.

  Boy colt, it says, shifting from hoof to hoof, looking down at me, eyes wide in that horse craziness, like I need a good stomping.

  "I don't know nothing bout horses," I say.

  "She's from my private herd," Mayor Prentiss says atop his own horse, Morpeth. "Her name is Angharrad and she will treat you well, Todd."

  Morpeth is looking at my horse and all he's thinking is submit, submit, submit , making my horse even more nervous and that's a ton of nervous animal I'm sposed to ride.

  "Whatsa matter?" Davy Prentiss sneers from the saddle of a third horse. "You scared?"

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  "Whatsa matter?" I say. "Daddy not give you the cure yet?"

  His Noise immediately rises. "You little piece of-"

  "My, my," says the Mayor. "Not ten words in and the fight's already begun."

  "He started it," Davy says.

  "And he would finish it, too, I wager," says the Mayor, looking at me, reading the red, jittery state of my Noise, filled with urgent red askings about Viola, with more askings I wanna take outta Davy Prentiss's hide. "Come, Todd," the Mayor says, reining his horse. "Ready to be a leader of men?"

  "It's a simple division," he says as we trot thru the early morning, way faster than I'd like. "The men will move to the west end of the valley in front of the cathedral and the women to the east behind it."

  We're riding east down the main street of New Prentisstown, the one that starts at the zigzag road by the falls, carries thru to the town square and around the cathedral and now out the back into the farther valley. Small squads of soldiers march up and down side roads and the men of New Prentisstown come past us the other way on foot, carrying rucksacks and other luggage.

  "I don't see no women," Davy says.

  "Any women," corrects the Mayor. "And no, Captain Morgan and Captain Tate supervised the transfer of the rest of the women last night."

  "What are you gonna do with em?" I say, my knuckles gripping so hard on the saddle horn they're turning white.

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  He looks back at me. "Nothing, Todd. They will be treated with the care and dignity that befits their importance to the future of New World." He turns away. "But for now, separate is best."

  "You put the bitches in their place," Davy sneers.

  "You will not speak that way in front of me, David," the Mayor says, calmly but in a voice that ain't joking. "Women will be respected at all times and given every comfort. Though in a nonvulgar sense you are correct. We all have places. New World made men forget theirs, and that means men must be away from women until we all remember who we are, who we were meant to be."

  His voice brightens a little. "The people will welcome this. I offer clarity where before there was only chaos."

  "Is Viola with the women?" I ask. "Is she okay?"

  He looks back at me again. "You made a promise, Todd Hewitt," he says. "Need I remind you once more? Just save her and I'll do anything you want, I believe were your exact words."

  I lick my lips nervously. "How do I know yer keeping yer end of the bargain?"

  "You don't," he says, his eyes on mine, like he's peering right past every lie I could tell him. "I want your faith in me, Todd, and faith with proof is no faith at all."

  He turns back down the road and I'm left with Davy snickering to my side so I just whisper "Whoa, girl," to my horse. Her coat is dark brown with a white stripe down her nose and a mane brushed so nice I'm trying not to grab onto it less it make her mad. Boy colt, she thinks.

  She, I think. She. Then I think an asking I ain't never

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  had a chance to ask before. Cuz the ewes I had back on the farm had Noise, too, and if women ain't got Noise--

  "Because women are not animals," the Mayor says, reading me. "No matter what anyone claims I believe. They are merely naturally Noiseless."

  He lowers his voice. "Which makes them different."

  It's mostly shops that line this part of the road, dotted twixt all the trees, closed, reopening who knows when, with houses stretching back from side streets both toward the river on the left and the hill of the valley on the right. Most of the buildings, if not all, are built a fair distance from one another, which I spose is how you'd plan a big town before you found a cure for the Noise.

  We pass more soldiers marching in groups of five or ten, more men heading west with their belongings, still no women. I look at the faces of the men going by, most of them pointed to the road at their feet, none of them looking ready to fight.

  "Whoa, girl," I whisper again cuz riding a horse is turning out to be powerfully uncomfortable on yer private parts.

  "And there's Todd," Davy says, pulling up next to me. "Moaning already."

  "Shut it, Davy," I say.

  "You will address each other as Mr. Prentiss Jr. and Mr. Hewitt," the Mayor calls back to us.

  "What?" Davy says, his Noise rising. "He ain't a man yet! He's just-"

  The Mayor silences him with a look. "A body was discovered in the river in the early hours of this morning," he

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  says. "A body with many terrible wounds to its flesh and a large knife sticking out of its neck, a body dead not more than two days."

  He stares at me, looking into my Noise again. I put up the pictures he wants to see, making my imaginings seem like the real thing, cuz that's what Noise is, it's everything you think, not
just the truth, and if you think hard enough that you did something, well, then, maybe you actually did.

  Davy scoffs. "You killed Preacher Aaron? I don't believe

  it."

  The Mayor don't say nothing, just moves Morpeth along a little faster. Davy sneers at me, then kicks his own horse to follow.

  "Follow," Morpeth nickers.

  "Follow," Davy's horse whinnies back.

  Follow, thinks my own horse, taking off after them, bouncing me even worse.

  As we go, I'm on the constant lookout for her, even tho there's no chance of seeing her. Even if she's still alive, she'd still be too sick to walk, and if she weren't too sick to walk, she'd be locked up with the rest of the women.

  But I keep looking-

  (cuz maybe she escaped--)

  (maybe she's looking for me--)

  (maybe she's-)

  And then I hear it.

  I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

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  Clear as a bell, right inside my head, the voice of the Mayor, twining around my own voice, like it's speaking direktly into my Noise, so sudden and real I sit up and nearly fall off my horse. Davy looks surprised, his Noise wondering what I'm reacting to.

  But the Mayor just rides on down the road, like nothing happened at all.

  The town gets less shiny the farther east we get from the cathedral and soon we're riding on gravel. The buildings get plainer, too, long wooden houses set at distances from each other like bricks dropped into clearings of trees.

  Houses that radiate the silence of women.

  "Quite correct," the Mayor says. "We're entering the new Women's Quarter."

  My heart starts to clench as we go past, the silence rising up like a grasping hand.

  I try to sit up higher on my horse.

  Cuz this is where she'd be, this is where she'd be healing.

  Davy rides up next to me again, his pathetic, half-there mustache bending into an ugly smile. I'll tell you where yer whore is, his Noise says.

  Mayor Prentiss spins round in his saddle.

  And there's the weirdest flash of sound from him, like a shout but quiet and away from me, not in the world at all, like a million words all said together, so fast I swear I feel my hair brush back like in a wind.

  But it's Davy who reacts--

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  His head jerks back like he's been hit, and he has to catch his horse's reins so he don't fall off, spinning the horse round, his eyes wide and dazed, his mouth open, some drool dripping out.

  What the hell-?

  "He doesn't know, Todd," the Mayor says. "Anything his Noise tells you about her is a lie."

  I look at Davy, still dazed and blinking with pain, then back to the Mayor. "Does that mean she's safe?"

  "It means he doesn't know. Do you, David?"

  No, Pa, says Davy's Noise, still shaky.

  Mayor Prentiss raises his eyebrows.

  I see Davy clench his teeth. "No, Pa," he says out loud.

  "I know my son is a liar," the Mayor says. "I know he is a bully and a brute and ignorant of the things I hold dear. But he is my son." He turns back down the road. "And I believe in redemption."

  Davy's Noise is quiet as we follow on but there's a dark red seething in it.

  New Prentisstown fades in the distance and the road becomes almost free of buildings. Farm fields start showing up red and green thru the trees and up the hills, with crops I reckernize and others I don't. The silence of the women starts to ease a little and the valley becomes a wilder place, flowers growing in the ditches and waxy squirrels chattering insults to each other and the sun shining clear and cool like nothing else was going on.

  At a bend in the river, we curve round a hill and I see a

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  large metal tower poking out the top of it, stretching up into the sky.

  "What's that?" I say.

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" Davy says, tho it's obvious he don't know neither. The Mayor don't answer.

  Just past the tower, the road bends again and follows a long stone wall emerging outta the trees. Down a little farther, the wall connects to a big arched gate with a huge set of wooden doors. It's the only opening in the long, long wall I see. The road beyond is dirt, like we've come to the end.

  "New World's first and last monastery," the Mayor says, stopping at the gate. "Built as a refuge of quiet contemplation for our holiest of men. Built when there was still faith we could beat the Noise germ through self-denial and discipline." His voice goes hard. "Abandoned before it was even properly finished."

  He turns to face us. I hear a strange spark of happiness rising in Davy's Noise. Mayor Prentiss gives him a warning look.

  "You are wondering," he says to me, "why I appointed my son as your overseer."

  I cast a look over to Davy, still smiling away.

  "You need a firm hand, Todd," the Mayor says. "Your thoughts even now are of how you might escape at the first opportunity and try to find your precious Viola."

  "Where is she?" I say, knowing I won't get no answer.

  "And I have no doubt," the Mayor continues, "that David here will be quite a firm hand for you indeed."

  Davy's face and Noise both smirk.

  "And in return, David will learn what real courage looks

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  like." Davy's smirk vanishes. "He will learn what it's like to act with honor, what it's like to act like a real man. What it's like, in short, to act like you, Todd Hewitt." He gives his son a last glance and then turns Morpeth in the road. "I shall be exceedingly eager to hear how your first day together went."

  Without another word, he sets off back to New Prentisstown. I wonder now why he came in the first place. Surely he's got more important things to do.

  "Surely I do," the Mayor calls, not turning back. "But don't underestimate yourself, Todd."

  He rides off. Davy and I wait till he's well outta hearing distance.

  I'm the one who speaks first.

  "Tell me what happened to Ben or I'll rip yer effing throat out."

  "I'm yer boss, boyo," Davy says, smirking again, jumping off his horse and throwing his rucksack to the ground. "Best treat me with respect or Pa ain't gonna-"

  But I'm already off Angharrad and hitting him as hard as I can in the face, aiming right for that sad excuse for a mustache. He takes the punch but comes back fast with his own. I ignore the pain, he does, too, and we fall to the ground in a heap of fists and kicks and elbows and knees. He's still bigger than me but only just, only in a way that don't feel like much of a difference no more, but still enough so that after a bit he's got me on my back with his forearm pressed into my throat.

  His lip's bleeding, so's his nose, the same as my own poor

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  face but that ain't concerning me now. Davy reaches behind him and pulls a pistol from a holster strapped to his back.

  "Ain't no way yer pa's gonna let you shoot me," I say.

  "Yeah," he says, "but I still got a gun and you don't."

  "Ben beat you," I grunt, underneath his arm. "He stopped you on the road. We got away from you."

  "He didn't stop me," Davy sneers. "I took him prisoner, didn't I? And I took him back to Pa and Pa let me torture him. Let me torture him right to death."

  And Davy's Noise-

  I-

  I can't say what's in Davy's Noise (he's a liar, he's a liar) but it makes me strong enough to push him away. We fight more, Davy fending me off with the butt of the gun till finally, with an elbow to his throat, I knock him down.

  "You remember that, boy," Davy says, coughing, gun still gripped. "When my pa says all those nice things about you. He's the one who had me torture yer Ben."

  "Yer a liar," I say. "Ben beat you."

  "Oh, yeah?" Davy says. "Where is he now then? Coming to rescue you?"

  I step forward, my fists up, cuz of course he's right, ain't he? My Noise surges with the loss of Ben, like it's happening all over again right here.

  Davy's laug
hing, scrambling back away from me till he's against the huge wooden door. "My pa can read you," he says, then his eyes widen into a taunt. "Read you like a hook."

  My Noise gets even louder. "You give me that book! Or I swear, I'll kill you!"

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  "You ain't gonna do nothing to me, Mr. Hewitt," Davy says, rising, his back still against the door. "You wouldn't wanna put yer beloved bitch at risk now, would you?"

  And there it is.

  They know they got me.

  Cuz I won't put her in no more danger.

  My hands are ready to do more damage to Davy Prentiss, like they did before when he hurt her, when he shot her-

  But they won't now-Even tho they could-

  Cuz he's weak.

  And we both know it.

  Davy's smile drops. "Think yer special, do you?" he spits. "Think Pa's got a treat for you?"

  I clench my fists, unclench them. But i keep my place.

  "Pa knows you," Davy says. "Pa's read you."

  "He don't know," I say. "You don't neither."

  Davy sneers again. "That so?" His hand reaches for the cast-iron handle of the door. "Come and meet yer new flock then, Todd Hewitt."

  His weight opens the door behind him and he steps into the paddock and outta the way, giving me a clear view.

  Of a hundred or more Spackle staring right back at me.

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  4 THE MAKING OF A NEW WORLD

  ***

  [TODD]

  MY FIRST THOUGHT is to turn and run. Run and run and run and never stop.

  "I'd like to see that," Davy says, standing inside the gate, smiling like he just won a prize.

  There's so many of 'em, so many long white faces looking back at me, their eyes too big, their mouths too small and toothy and high on their faces, their ears looking nothing like a man's.