I’ve had the strangest dream, he shows.
And though he shows it to us in the language of the Clearing.
He shows it in the perfect, unmistakable voice of the Land.
{VIOLA}
“Listen to them,” Bradley says, as even from this distance, the ROAR from the town is loud enough to make him raise his voice. “Finally cheering something good.”
“Do you think it’ll snow?” I say, looking up from Acorn’s saddle into the clouds that have rolled in, a rare sight in what’s been a clear and cold winter. “I’ve never seen snow.”
Bradley smiles. “Me neither.” And his Noise is smiling, too, at the randomness of my comment.
“Sorry,” I say. “This fever.”
“We’re nearly there,” he says. “We’ll get you warm and snug.”
We’re heading back from the zigzag hill, heading down the road that leads to the square.
Heading back the morning after last night’s artillery attack.
The morning after we secured peace. For real, this time.
We did it. Even if it was the Mayor’s action that clinched it – something Mistress Coyle won’t be at all happy about – we actually did it. In two days’ time, we’ll have the first meeting of a human–Spackle council to set out all the details. So far, the council’s made of me, Bradley, Simone, Todd, and the Mayor and Mistress Coyle, and the six of us are going to have to somehow work together to make this a new world with the Spackle.
Something that might actually make us work together.
I wish I felt better, though. Peace is here, real peace, all that I wanted, but my head throbs so much and my cough is so bad–
“Viola?” Bradley asks, concern in his voice.
And then, down the road, I see Todd running to meet us and my fever is so bad it feels like he’s surfing here on a wave of cheering and the world goes really bright for a second and I have to close my eyes and Todd is next to me, his hands reaching up–
“I can’t hear you,” I say.
And I fall right out of Acorn’s saddle and into his arms–
[TODD]
“This glorious new day,” the Mayor’s voice booms. “This day where we have beaten our enemy and begun a new era!”
And the crowd below us cheers.
“I’ve had just about enough of this,” I mutter to Bradley, holding Viola next to me on the bench where we’re sitting. We’re up on a cart, in front of a square filled with people, the Mayor’s face not just in the hovering projeckshun behind us but on the sides of two buildings as well. Another thing he figured out how to do on his own. Bradley’s frowning as the Mayor rabbits on. Mistress Coyle and Simone are on the other side of us, frowning even harder.
I feel Viola turn her head. “Yer awake,” I say.
“Was I sleeping?” she says. “Why didn’t anybody put me to bed?”
“Exactly,” I say. “The Mayor said you had to be here first, but he’s got about two more seconds before I–”
“Our peacemaker has recovered!” the Mayor says, looking back at us. He’s got a microphone in front of him, but I’m pretty sure he don’t even need it. “Let’s give her the thanks she’s owed for saving our lives and ending this war!”
And it suddenly feels like we’re drowning in the rising ROAR of the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Viola says. “Why’s he talking about me like that?”
“Because he needs a hero that isn’t me,” Mistress Coyle hisses.
“Not forgetting of course the very formidable Mistress Coyle,” the Mayor says. “Who was so helpful in my campaign against the Spackle insurgency.”
Mistress Coyle’s face goes so red it looks like you could fry eggs on it. “Helpful?” she practically spits.
But you can hardly hear her over the Mayor.
“Before I hand you over to the mistress for her own address to you,” the Mayor says, “I have an announcement to make. One that I especially wanted Viola to hear.”
“What announcement?” Viola says to me.
“No idea,” I say.
And I really don’t know.
“We’ve made a breakthrough,” the Mayor says. “This very day we have made a breakthrough on the terrible, unanticipated problem of the identification bands.”
I grip Viola harder without meaning to. The crowd’s fallen silent, as silent as it can get. The probes are sending this back to the hilltop, too. The Mayor has every human on this planet listening to him.
And he says, “We’ve found a cure.”
“WHAT?” I shout, but I’m already being drowned out by the uproar.
“How appropriate that this should come on our day of peace,” the Mayor’s saying. “How wonderful and blessed that on the threshold of a new era, I can also announce to you that the sickness of the bands is over!”
He’s talking up into the probes now, straight back to where most of the women are sick, to where the mistresses haven’t been able to heal ’em.
“There’s no time to waste,” he says. “We’ll begin distributing the cure without delay.”
Then he turns back to me and Viola again. “And we’ll start with our very own peacemaker.”
{VIOLA}
“He’s taken all the credit!” Mistress Coyle shouts, stomping around the healing room of the scout ship as we fly back. “He had them eating out of his hands!”
“You’re not even going to try the cure?” Bradley says.
Mistress Coyle looks at him like he’s just asked her to take off all her clothes. “You honestly think he just discovered it? He’s had it all along! If it’s even a cure at all and not another little time bomb.”
“But why would he do that,” Bradley says, “if curing all the women makes him even more popular?”
“He’s a genius,” Mistress Coyle says, still ranting. “Even I have to admit that. He’s a bloody, terrible, savage, brutal genius.”
“What do you think, Viola?” Lee asks from the next bed.
I can only cough by way of answer. Mistress Coyle stepped in front of me when the Mayor tried to give me the new bandages and refused to let him touch me with them until she and the other mistresses tested them thoroughly first.
And the crowds booed her, actually booed.
Especially when the Mayor brought up three women with bands. Three women with no signs of infection at all. “We haven’t figured out a way to remove the bands safely yet,” the Mayor said, “but the early results are obvious.”
Things kind of disintegrated from there and Mistress Coyle didn’t even get to give her speech, though they probably would have kept booing her anyway. After we got off the cart, Todd said he didn’t know any more than we did. “Mistress Coyle can do her tests,” he said to me, “and I’ll see what I can find out.”
But he was gripping my arms tight, whether in hope or fear, I don’t know.
Because I couldn’t hear him.
The rest of us finally went back to the scout ship, Mistress Lawson coming with us to help test the Mayor’s cure.
“I don’t know what to believe,” I say now, “only that it would be in his interests to save us.”
“So we have to base our decision on what suits him best?” Mistress Coyle says. “Brilliant, just brilliant.”
“We’re coming in for a landing,” Simone says over the comm system.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mistress Coyle says. “When we’re on that council together, he’ll learn that his days of out-manoeuvring me are over.” There’s a judder as we touch down. “And now,” she says, her voice burning with heat, “I’ve got my own speech to give.”
Before the engines are even properly off, she’s marched out of the room, down the bay door and into the crowds that wait for us, crowds I can see on the monitors.
She’s greeted by a few cheers.
But only a few.
And nothing at all like what the Mayor got back in town.
And then this crowd, led by Ivan and other voices, be
gins to boo her, too.
[TODD]
“Why would I harm the women?” the Mayor says to me across the campfire, as night begins to fall on his day of glory. “Even if you still somehow believe I’m bent on killing every one of them, why would I do it now at my moment of biggest triumph?”
“Why didn’t you tell me, tho?” I say. “That you were so close to a cure?”
“Because I didn’t want to risk your disappointment if I failed.”
He looks at me for a long time, trying to read me, but I’m so good at it now I don’t think even he can hear me.
“Can I make a guess at what you believe?” he finally says. “I think you want to get that cure to Viola as soon as possible. I think you’re worried Mistress Coyle won’t move fast enough on her tests because she won’t want me to be right.”
And I do think this. I do.
I want the cure to be true so bad I could almost choke.
But it’s the Mayor.
But it could save Viola.
But it’s the Mayor–
“I also think you want to believe me,” he says. “That I’d really do this for real. If not for her, then for you.”
“Me?” I say.
“I think I’ve figured out your special talent, Todd Hewitt. Something that should have been obvious from the behaviour of my son.”
My stomach tenses, with anger, with grief, like it always does when Davy’s mentioned.
“You made him better,” the Mayor continues, his voice soft. “You made him smarter and kinder and more aware of the world and his place in it.” He sets down his coffee cup. “And whether I like it or not, you’ve done the same for me.”
And there’s that faint hum–
Connecting us–
(but I know it’s there and it ain’t affecting me–)
(it ain’t–)
“I regret what happened with David,” he says.
“You shot him,” I say. “It weren’t nothing that just happened.”
He nods. “I regret it more with every passing day. With every day that I’m with you, Todd. Every day, you make me better. Knowing that I’ve got you to watch what I do.” He lets out a sigh. “Even today, in what is arguably the greatest victory I’ve ever had, my first thought was, What will Todd think?”
He gestures to the darkening sky above us. “This world, Todd,” he says. “This world and how it talks, how loud its voice is.” He drifts a little, his eyes unfocused. “Sometimes it’s all you can hear, as it tries to make you disappear into it, to make you nothing.” He’s almost whispering now. “But then I hear your voice, Todd, and it brings me back.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, so I just ask, “Have you had the cure for the bands all this time? Have you just been holding it back?”
“No,” he says. “I’ve been having my men work round the clock so I could save Viola for you, Todd. To show you how much you’ve come to mean to me.” His voice is forceful now, almost emoshunal. “You’ve redeemed me, Todd Hewitt. Redeemed me when no one else would have thought it possible.” He smiles again. “Or even desirable.”
I still don’t say nothing. Cuz he ain’t redeemable. Viola even said so.
But–
“They’ll test it,” he says. “They’ll find it’s a cure, and then you’ll see that I tell you the truth. It’s so important, I won’t even ask you to trust me.”
He waits again for me to say something. I still don’t.
“And now,” he says, slapping his hands on his thighs, “it’s time to start preparing for our first council meeting.”
He gives me a final look, then heads back into his tent. I get up after a minute and go over to Angharrad, tethered with Juliet’s Joy by my own tent, eating her heart’s delight of hay and apples.
She saved Viola’s life up on that hill. I ain’t never forgetting that.
And now the Mayor’s offering to do it down here.
And I wish I could believe him. I want to.
(redeemed–)
(but how far–?)
Boy colt, Angharrad says, nuzzling my chest.
Submit! Juliet’s Joy snaps, her eyes wide.
And before I can say anything, Angharrad snaps back SUBMIT! even louder.
And Juliet’s Joy lowers her head.
“Girl!” I say, with amazement. “That’s my girl.”
Boy colt, she says, and I hold onto her, feeling her warmth, her fuggy horse smell tickling my nose.
I hold onto her and I think about redempshun.
{VIOLA}
“You are not going to be on the council with the Spackle, Ivan,” Mistress Coyle says, Ivan clomping in behind her into the scout ship. “And you are not allowed in here.”
It’s the day after we came back from town, and I’m still on my bed, feeling worse than ever, the fever not responding at all to Mistress Lawson’s newest combination of antibiotics.
Ivan stands there a moment, looking defiantly at Mistress Coyle, at me, at Lee on the other bed, at Mistress Lawson where she’s removing Lee’s final bandages. “You’re still acting like you’re in charge here, Mistress,” Ivan says.
“I am in charge here, Mr Farrow,” Mistress Coyle seethes back at him. “As far as I know, no one’s appointed you their new Mistress.”
“Is that why people are returning to the town in droves?” he says. “Is that why half the women are already a-taking the Mayor’s new cure?”
Mistress Coyle spins round to Mistress Lawson. “What?”
“I only gave it to the dying, Nicola,” Mistress Lawson says, slightly sheepish. “If you have to choose between certain death and possible death, it’s no choice at all.”
“It’s not just the dying now,” Ivan says. “Not when the rest saw how well it works.”
Mistress Coyle ignores him. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Mistress Lawson looks down. “I knew how upset you’d be. I’ve tried to talk the others out of it–”
“Your own mistresses are doubting your authority,” Ivan says.
“You shut your mouth, Ivan Farrow,” Mistress Lawson barks.
Ivan licks his lips, sizing us all up again, and then he leaves, heading back to the crowd outside.
Mistress Lawson immediately starts apologizing. “Nicola, I’m so sorry–”
“No,” Mistress Coyle stops her. “You were right, of course. Those worst off, those who had nothing to lose . . .” She rubs her forehead. “Are people really going back to town?”
“Not as many as he said,” Mistress Lawson says. “But some.”
Mistress Coyle shakes her head. “He’s winning.”
And we all know she means the Mayor.
“You’ve still got the council,” I say. “You’ll be better at that than he is.”
She shakes her head again. “He’s probably planning something right now.” She sighs out through her nose, and then she leaves, too, without another word.
“He won’t be the only one planning something,” Lee says.
“And we’ve seen how well her plans have worked in the past,” I say.
“You two hush up,” Mistress Lawson snaps. “A lot of people are alive today because of her.”
She tears the last bandage off Lee’s face with more vigour than is strictly necessary. Then she bites her bottom lip and glances up at me. Over the bridge of Lee’s nose, there’s just bright pink scar tissue where his eyes used to be, the sockets covered now with livid skin, the blue eyes that used to look back gone for ever.
Lee can hear our silences. “Is it that bad?”
“Lee–” I start to say, but his Noise says he isn’t ready and he changes the subject.
“Are you going to take the cure?” he asks.
And I see all the feelings he has for me right at the front of his Noise. Pictures of me, too. Way more beautiful than I ever could be.
But the way he’ll see me for ever now.
“I don’t know,” I say.
And I really don’t
know. I’m not getting better, not at all, and the convoy is still weeks away, if they’ll even be able to help when they get here. Fatal, I keep thinking, and now it doesn’t just feel like Mistress Coyle trying to scare me. I wonder if I’m one of those women Mistress Lawson mentioned who have to choose between certain death and possible death.
“I don’t know,” I say again.
“Viola?” Wilf says, appearing in the doorway.
“Ah,” Lee says, his Noise reaching out to Wilf’s, almost unwillingly seeing what Wilf’s seeing–
Seeing his own scarred eyes.
“Phew,” he whistles, but you can hear the nervousness, the fake bravery. “That’s not so bad. You two made it seem like I was practically Spackle.”
“Ah brought Acorn back from town,” Wilf says to me. “Stabled him wi’ my oxes.”
“Thank you, Wilf,” I say.
He nods. “And young Lee there,” he says. “If ya ever need me to see for ya, ya just gotta say.”
There’s a flood of surprised and touched feeling in Lee’s Noise, bright enough for Wilf to see his answer.
“Hey, Wilf?” I say, getting an idea, one that feels better by the second.
“Yeh?” he says.
“How would like you be on the new council?”
[TODD]
“It’s a ruddy great idea,” I say, watching Viola’s face in my comm. “Every time they wanna do something stupid, Wilf won’t even say no, he’ll just say what we should obviously do instead.”
“That’s what I thought,” she says and doubles up coughing again.
“How are them tests coming along?” I say.
“The women who’ve taken it haven’t shown any problems so far, but Mistress Coyle wants to do more checks.”
“She ain’t never gonna approve it, is she?”
Viola don’t disagree. “What do you think about it?”
I take a long deep breath. “I don’t trust him,” I say, “no matter how much he says he’s redeemed.”