The foot.
The foot upon the neck.
They march into the square and turn down its side, cutting twixt the men and the women like an unstoppable force. Mr. Hammar’s close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.
And as he gets closer, I grow more sure.
It’s a smile without Noise.
Someone, one of those men on horseback maybe, has gone out to meet the army on the road. Someone carrying the cure with him. The army ain’t making a sound except with its feet and with its chant.
The foot, the foot, the foot upon the neck.
They march round the side of the square to the platform. Mr. Hammar stops at a corner, letting the men start to make up formayshuns behind the platform, lining up with their backs to me, facing the crowd now turned to watch them.
I start to reckernize the soldiers as they line up. Mr. Wallace. Mr. Smith the younger. Mr. Phelps the storekeeper. Men from Prentisstown and many, many more men besides.
The army that grew as it came.
I see Ivan, the man from the barn at Farbranch, the man who secretly told me there were men in sympathy. He stands at the head of one of the formayshuns and everything that proves him right is standing behind him, arms at attenshun, rifles at the ready.
The last soldier marches into place with a final chant.
The foot upon the NECK!
And then there ain’t nothing but silence, blowing over New Prentisstown like a wind.
Till I hear the doors of the cathedral open down below me.
And Mayor Prentiss steps out to address his new city.
“Right now,” he says into the microphone, having saluted Mr. Hammar and climbed his way up the platform steps, “you are afraid.”
The men of the town look back up at him, saying nothing, making no sound of Noise nor buzzing.
The women stay in the side streets, also silent.
The army stands at attenshun, ready for anything.
I realize I’m holding my breath.
“Right now,” he continues, “you think you are conquered. You think there is no hope. You think I come up here to read out your doom.”
His back is to me but from speakers hidden in the four corners, his voice booms clear over the square, over the city, probably over the whole valley and beyond. Cuz who else is there to hear him talk? Who else is there on all of New World that ain’t either gathered here or under the ground?
Mayor Prentiss is talking to the whole planet.
“And you’re right,” he says and I tell you I’m certain I hear the smile. “You are conquered. You are defeated. And I read to you your doom.”
He lets this sink in for a moment. My Noise rumbles and I see a few of the men look up to the top of the tower. I try to keep it quiet but who are these people? Who are these clean and comfortable and not-at-all-hungry people who just handed theirselves over?
“But it is not I who conquered you,” the Mayor says. “It is not I who has beaten you or defeated you or enslaved you.”
He pauses, looking out over the crowd. He’s dressed all in white, white hat, white boots, and with the white cloths covering the platform and the afternoon sun shining on down, he’s practically blinding.
“You are enslaved by your idleness,” says the Mayor. “You are defeated by your complacency. You are doomed”– and here his voice rises suddenly, hitting doomed so hard half the crowd jumps– “by your good intentions!”
He’s working himself up now, heavy breaths into the microphone.
“You have allowed yourselves to become so weak, so feeble in the face of the challenges of this world that in a single generation you have become a people who would surrender to RUMOUR!”
He starts to pace the stage, microphone in hand. Every frightened face in the crowd, every face in the army, turns to watch him move back and forth, back and forth.
I’m watching, too.
“You let an army walk into your town and instead of making them take it, you offer it willingly!”
He’s still pacing, his voice still rising.
“And so you know what I did. I took. I took you. I took your freedom. I took your town. I took your future.”
He laughs, like he can’t believe his luck.
“I expected a war,” he says.
Some of the crowd look at their feet, away from each other’s eyes.
I wonder if they’re ashamed.
I hope so.
“But instead of a war,” the Mayor says, “I got a conversation. A conversation that began, Please don’t hurt us and ended with Please take anything you want.”
He stops in the middle of the platform.
“I expected a WAR!” he shouts again, thrusting his fist at them.
And they flinch.
If a crowd can flinch, they flinch.
More than a thousand men flinch under the fist of just one.
I don’t see what the women do.
“And because you did not give me a war,” the Mayor says, his voice light, “you will face the consequences.”
I hear the doors to the cathedral open again and Mr. Collins comes out pushing Mayor Ledger forward thru the ranks of the army, hands tied behind his back.
Mayor Prentiss watches him come, arms crossed. Murmurs finally start in the crowd of men, louder in the crowds of women, and the men on horseback do some waving of their rifles to stop it. The Mayor don’t even look back at the sound, like it’s beneath his notice. He just watches Mr. Collins push Mayor Ledger up the stairs at the back of the platform.
Mayor Ledger stops at the top of the steps, looking out over the crowd. They stare back at him, some of them squinting at the shrillness of his Noise buzz, a buzz I realize is now starting to shout some real words, words of fear, pictures of fear, pictures of Mr. Collins giving him the bruised eye and the split lip, pictures of him agreeing to surrender and being locked in the tower.
“Kneel,” Mayor Prentiss says and tho he says it quietly, tho he says it away from the microphone, somehow I hear it clear as a bell chime in the middle of my head, and from the intake of breath in the crowd, I wonder if that’s how they heard it, too.
And before it looks like he even knows what he’s doing, Mayor Ledger is kneeling on the platform, looking surprised that he’s down there.
The whole town watches him do it.
Mayor Prentiss waits a moment.
And then he steps over to him.
And takes out a knife.
It’s a big, no-kidding, death of a thing, shining in the sun.
The Mayor holds it up high over his head.
He turns slowly, so everyone can see what’s about to happen.
So that everyone can see the knife.
My gut falls and for a second I think–
But it ain’t mine–
It ain’t–
And then someone calls, “Murderer!” from across the square.
A single voice, carrying above the silence.
It came from the women.
My heart jumps for a second–
But of course it can’t be her–
But at least there’s someone. At least there’s someone.
Mayor Prentiss walks calmly to the microphone. “Your victorious enemy addresses you,” he says, almost politely, as if the person who shouted was simply not understanding. “Your leaders are to be executed as the inevitable result of your defeat.”