“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.
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 non-vulgar 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 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, re-opening who knows when, with houses stretching back from side streets both towards 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 bits.
“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 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 gees 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 look out 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.
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 moustache 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–
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.