“BEHOLD!” Mayor Prentiss shouts. “YOUR FUTURE!”
He turns the knife to a stabbing angle, as if to say again, behold–
The murmuring of the crowd rises–
Mayor Prentiss raises his arm–
A voice, a female one, maybe the same one, cries out, “No!”
And then suddenly I realize I know exactly what’s gonna happen.
In the chair, in the room with the circle of coloured glass, he brought me to defeat, he brought me to the edge of death, he made me know that it would come–
And then he put a bandage on me.
And that’s when I did what he wanted.
The knife swishes thru the air and slices thru the binds on Mayor Ledger’s hands.
There’s a town-sized gasp, a planet-sized one.
Mayor Prentiss waits for a moment, then says once more, “Behold your future,” quietly, not even into the microphone.
But there it is again, right inside yer mind.
He puts the knife away in a belt behind his back and returns to the microphone.
And starts to put bandages on the crowd.
“I am not the man you think I am,” he says. “I am not a tyrant come to slaughter his enemies. I am not a madman come to destroy even that which would save himself. I am not–” he looks over at Mayor Ledger “– your executioner.”
The crowds, men and women, are so quiet now the square might as well be empty.
“The war is over,” the Mayor continues. “And a new peace will take its place.”
He points to the sky. People look up, like he might be conjuring something up there to fall on them.
“You may have heard a rumour,” he says. “That there are new settlers coming.”
My stomach twists again.
“I tell you as your President,” he says. “The rumour is true.”
How does he know? How does he ruddy know?
The crowd starts to murmur at this news, men and women. The Mayor lets them, happily talking over them.
“We will be ready to greet them!” he says. “We will be a proud society ready to welcome them into a new Eden!” His voice is rising again. “We will show them that they have left Old World and entered PARADISE!”
Lots more murmuring now, talking everywhere.
“I am going to take your cure away from you,” the Mayor says.
And boy, does the murmuring stop.
The Mayor lets it, lets the silence build up, and then he says, “For now.”
The men look at one another and back to the Mayor.
“We are entering a new era,” Mayor Prentiss says. “You will earn my trust by joining me in creating a new society. As that new society is built and as we meet our first challenges and celebrate our first successes, you will earn the right to be called men again. You will earn the right to have your cure returned to you and that will be the moment all men truly will be brothers.”
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 towards 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 saviour,” 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 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’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 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 collect you first thing in the morning.”
[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?”
“Whatsa matter?” I say. “Daddy not give you the cure yet?”
His Noise immediately rises. “You little piece of–”