“He killed her,” I say, hardly any sound to my voice. Sergeant Hammar dragged me back to the house of healing, pounding on the door with the butt of his rifle, waking everyone up, sending them out after Maddy’s body.
I couldn’t speak, I could barely even cry.
They wouldn’t look at me, the mistresses, the other apprentices. Even Mistress Coyle refused to meet my eye.
What did you think you were doing? Where did you think you were taking her?
And then Mayor Prentiss summoned me here this morning to his cathedral, to his home, to God’s house.
And then they really wouldn’t look at me.
“I’m sorry, Viola,” he says. “Some of the men of Prentisstown, old Prentisstown, still bear grudges against women over what happened all those years ago.”
He sees my look of horror. “The story you think you know,” he says, “is not the story that’s true.”
I’m still gaping at him. He sighs. “The Spackle War was in Prentisstown, too, Viola, and it was a terrible thing, but women and men fought side by side to save ourselves.” He puts his fingertips together in a triangle, his voice still calm, still gentle. “But there was division in our little outpost even as we were victorious. Division between men and women.”
“I’ll say there was.”
“They made their own army, Viola. They splintered off, not trusting men whose thoughts they could read. We tried to reason with them, but eventually, they wanted war. And I’m afraid they got it.”
He sits up, looking at me sadly. “An army of women is still an army with guns, still an army that can defeat you.”
I can hear myself breathing. “You killed every single one.”
“I did not,” he says. “Many of them died in battle, but when they saw the war was lost, they spread the word that we were their murderers and then they killed themselves so that the remaining men would be doomed either way.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, remembering that Ben told us a different version. “That’s not how it happened.”
“I was there, Viola. I remember it all far more clearly than I want to.” He catches my eye. “I am also the one most keen that history doesn’t repeat itself. Do you understand me?”
I think I do understand him and my stomach sinks and I can’t help it– I start to cry, thinking of how they brought Maddy’s body back, how Mistress Coyle insisted I be the one to help her prepare the body for burial, how she wanted me to see up close the cost of trying to find the tower.
“Mistress Coyle,” I say, fighting to control myself. “Mistress Coyle wanted me to ask if we can bury her this afternoon.”
“I’ve already sent word that she can,” the Mayor says. “Everything Mistress Coyle requires is being delivered to her as we speak.”
I set the coffee down on a little table next to my chair. We’re in a huge room, bigger than any place indoors I’ve ever seen except for the launch hangars of my ship. Too large for just a pair of comfortable chairs and a wooden table. The only light shines down through a round window of coloured glass showing this world and its two moons.
Everything else is in shadow.
“How are you finding her?” the Mayor asks. “Mistress Coyle.”
The weight on my shoulders, the weight of Maddy being gone, the weight of Todd still out there, sits so heavily I’d forgotten for a minute he was even there. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs a little. “How is she to work with? How is she as a teacher?”
I swallow. “She’s the best healer in Haven.”
“And now the best healer in New Prentisstown,” he corrects. “People tell me she used to be quite powerful around here. A force to be reckoned with.”
I bite my lip and look back at the carpet. “She couldn’t save Maddy.”
“Well, let’s forgive her for that, shall we?” His voice is low, soft, almost kind. “Nobody’s perfect.”
He sets down his cup. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he says again. “And I’m sorry it has taken this long for us to speak again. There has been much work to do. I look to stop the suffering on this planet, which is why your friend’s death grieves me so. That’s been my whole mission. The war is over, Viola, it truly is. Now is the time for healing.”
I don’t say anything to that.
“But your mistress doesn’t see it that way, does she?” he asks. “She sees me as the enemy.”
In the early hours of this morning, as we dressed Maddy in her white burial cloths, she said, If he wants a war, he’s got a war. We haven’t even started fighting.
But then when I was summoned here, she said to tell him no such thing, to ask only about the funeral.
And to find out what I could.
“You see me as the enemy, too,” he says, “and I truly wish that weren’t the case. I am so disappointed that this terrible incident has made you even more suspicious of me.”
I feel Maddy rising again in my chest. I feel Todd rising, too. I have to breathe through my mouth for a minute.
“I know how appealing it seems that there should be sides, that you should be on her side,” he says. “I don’t blame you. I haven’t even asked you about your ships because I know you would lie to me. I know she would have asked you to. If I were in Mistress Coyle’s position, I would do exactly the same thing. Push you to help me. Use an asset that’s fallen into my lap.”
“She’s not using me,” I say quietly.
You can be so valuable to us, I remember, if you choose.
He leans forward. “Can I tell you something, Viola?”
“What?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “I really do wish you would call me David.”
I look back down to the carpet. “What is it, David?”
“Thank you, Viola,” he says. “It really does mean something to me.” He waits until I look up again. “I’ve met the Council that ran Haven as was. I’ve met the former Mayor of Haven. I’ve met the former police chief and the chief medical officer and the head of education. I’ve met everyone of any importance in this town. Some of them now work for me. Some of them don’t fit into the new administration and that’s fine, there’s plenty of work to be done rebuilding this city, making it ready for your people, Viola, making it the proper paradise that they need and want and expect.”