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.
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 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 like.” Davy’s smirk vanishes. “He will learn what it’s like to act with honour, 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 moustache. 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 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.”