The Ask and the Answer

And he grins at me.

I start walking to the bog.

The days passed and they kept passing, till there was two full weeks of ’em gone and more.

I stayed alive and got thru.

(did she?)

Davy and I ride to the monastery every morning and he “oversees” the Spackle tearing down fences and pulling up brambles and I spend the day shovelling out not enough fodder and trying and failing to fix the last two water pumps and taking every turn to do the bog.

The Spackle’ve stayed silent, still not doing nothing that could save themselves, fifteen hundred of ’em when we finally got ’em counted, crammed into an area where I wouldn’t herd two hundred sheep. More guards came, standing along the top of the stone wall, rifles pointed twixt rows of barbed wire, but the Spackle don’t do nothing that even comes close to threatening.

They’ve stayed alive. They’ve got thru it.

And so has New Prentisstown.

Every day, Mayor Ledger tells me what he sees out on his rubbish rounds. Men and women are still separated and there are more taxes, more rules about dress, a list of books to be surrendered and burned, and compulsory church attendance, tho not in the cathedral, of course.

But it’s also started to act like a real town again. The stores are back open, carts and fissionbikes and even a fissioncar or two are back on the roads. Men’ve gone back to work. Repairmen returned to repairing, bakers returned to baking, farmers returned to farming, loggers returned to logging, some of ’em even signing up to join the army itself, tho you can tell who the new soldiers are cuz they ain’t been given the cure yet.

“You know,” Mayor Ledger said one night and I could see it in his Noise before he said it, see the thought forming, the thought I hadn’t thought myself, the thought I hadn’t let myself think. “It’s not nearly as bad as I thought,” he said. “I expected slaughter. I expected my own death, certainly, and perhaps the burning of the entire town. The surrender was a fool’s chance at best, but maybe he’s not lying.”

He got up and looked out over New Prentisstown. “Maybe,” he said, “the war really is over.”

“Oi!” I hear Davy call as I’m halfway to the bog. I turn round. A Spackle has come up to him.

It’s holding its long white arms up and out in what may be a peaceful way and then it starts clicking, pointing to where a group of Spackle have finished tearing down a fence. It’s clicking and clicking, pointing to one of the empty water troughs, but there ain’t no way of understanding it, not if you can’t hear its Noise.

Davy steps closer to it, his eyes wide, his head nodding in sympathy, his smile dangerous. “Yeah, yeah, yer thirsty from the hard work,” he says. “Course you are, course you are, thank you for bringing that to my attenshun, thank you very much. And in reply, let me just say this.”

He smashes the butt of his pistol into the Spackle’s face. You can hear the crack of bone and the Spackle falls to the ground clutching at his jaw, long legs twisting in the air.

There’s a wave of clicking around us and Davy lifts his pistol again, bullet end facing the crowd. Rifles c**k on the fence-top, too, soldiers pointing their weapons. The Spackle slink back, the broken-jawed one still writhing and writhing in the grass.

“Know what, pigpiss?” Davy says.

“What?” I say, my eyes still on the Spackle on the ground, my Noise shaky as a leaf about to fall.

He turns to me, pistol still out. “It’s good to be in charge.”

Every minute I’ve expected life to blow apart.

But every minute, it don’t.

And every day I’ve looked for her.

I’ve looked for her from the openings outta the top of the bell tower but all I ever see is the army marching and men working. Never a face I reckernize, never a silence I can feel as hers.

I’ve looked for her when Davy and I ride back and forth to the monastery, seeking her out in the windows of the Women’s Quarter, but I never see her looking back.

I‘ve even half-looked for her in the crowds of Spackle, wondering if she’s hiding behind one, ready to pop out and yell at Davy for beating on ’em and then saying to me, like everything’s okay, “Hey, I’m here, it’s me.”

But she ain’t there.

She ain’t there.

I’ve asked Mayor Prentiss bout her every time I’ve seen him and he’s said I need to trust him, said he’s not my enemy, said if I put my faith in him that everything will be all right.

But I’ve looked.

And she ain’t there.

“Hey, girl,” I whisper to Angharrad as I saddle her up at the end of our day. I’ve got way better at riding her, better at talking to her, better at reading her moods. I’m less nervous about being on her back and she’s less nervous about being underneath me. This morning after I gave her an apple to eat, she clipped her teeth thru my hair once, like I was just another horse.

Boy colt, she says, as I climb on her back and me and Davy set off back into town.

“Angharrad,” I say, leaning forward twixt her ears, cuz this is what horses like, it seems, constant reminders that everyone’s there, constant reminders that they’re still in the herd.

Above anything else, a horse hates to be alone.

Boy colt, Angharrad says again.

“Angharrad,” I say.

“Jesus, pigpiss,” Davy moans, “why don’t you marry the effing–” He stops. “Well, goddam,” he says, his voice suddenly a whisper, “would you look at this?”

I look up.

There are women coming out of a store.

Four of ’em, together in a group. We knew they were being let out but it’s always daylight hours, always while me and Davy are at the monastery, so we always return to a city of men, like the women are just phantoms and rumour.

It’s been ages since I even seen one more than just thru a window or from up top of the tower.

They’re wearing longer sleeves and longer skirts than I saw before and they each got their hair tied behind their heads the same way. They look nervously at the soldiers that line the streets, at me and Davy, too, all of us watching ’em come down the store’s front steps.

And there’s still the silence, still the pull at my chest and I have to wipe my eyes when I’m sure Davy ain’t looking.

Cuz none of ’em is her.

“They’re late,” Davy says, his voice so quiet I guess he ain’t seen a woman for weeks neither. “They’re all sposed to be in way before sundown.”