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"Then I'll go, too," I say.
"She won't let you." He turns to me. "But I promise you, I'll look for Todd. With the same eyes I look for Siobhan and my mother, I'll look for him."
A bell chimes out over the camp, signaling all raiding teams are off into town and all remaining people in camp are to go to bed. Lee and I sit in the dark for a while longer, his shoulder brushed up against mine, and mine brushed up against his.
24 PRISON WALLS
***
[TODD]
"Not bad ," says the Mayor from atop Morpeth, "for an unskilled workforce."
"There'd be more," Davy says, "but it rained and then everything was just mud."
"No, no," the Mayor says, casting his eyes around the field. "You've done admirably, both of you, managing so much in just a month."
We all take a minute to look at what we've managed admirably. We've got all the concrete foundayshuns poured for a single long building. Every guide wall is up, some have even started to be filled in by the stones we took from the monastery's internal walls, and the tarpaulin makes a kind of roof. It already looks like a building.
He's right, we have done admirably.
Us and 1,150 Spackle.
"Yes," says the Mayor. "Very pleasing." Davy's Noise is taking on a pinkish glow that's uncomfortable to look at.
"So what is it?" I ask.
The Mayor looks my way. "What's what?
"This." I gesture at the building. "What's it sposed to be?"
"You finish building it, Todd, and I promise to invite you to the grand opening."
"It's not for the Spackle, tho, is it?"
The Mayor frowns slightly. "No, Todd, it's not."
I rub the back of my neck with my hand and I can hear some clanking in Davy's Noise, clanks that are go
The Mayor turns Morpeth to face me. Boy colt, he thinks. Boy colt steps back.
I step back without even thinking.
The Mayor's eyebrows raise. "Are you wanting heaters for your workforce?"
"Well," I look at the ground and at the building and at the Spackle who are doing their best to stay at the far end, as much away from the three of us as is possible to do when there are so many crowded into such a limited space. "Snow might come," I say. "I don't know that they'll survive."
"Oh, they're tougher than you think, Todd." The Mayor's voice is low and full of something I can't put my finger on. "A lot tougher."
I look down again. "Yeah," I say. "Okay."
"I'll have Private Farrow bring in some small fission heaters if that will make you feel better." I blink. "Really?"
"Really?" Davy says.
"They've done good work," the Mayor says, "under your direction, and you've shown real dedication these past weeks, Todd. Real leadership."
He smiles, almost warmly.
"I know you're the kind of soul who hates to see others suffer." He keeps hold of my eye, almost daring me to break it. "Your tenderness does you credit.''
"Tenderness," Davy snickers.
"I'm proud of you." The Mayor gathers up his reins. "Both of you. And you will be rewarded for your efforts."
Davy's Noise beams again as the Mayor rides outta the monastery gates. "Didja hear that?" he says, waggling his eyebrows. "Rewards, my tender pigpiss."
"Shut up, Davy." I'm already walking down the guide wall and toward the back of the building where there's the last of the clear ground and so that's where all the Spackle are having to crowd themselves. They get outta my way as I move thru them. "Heaters're coming," I say, putting it in my Noise, too. "Things'll be better."
But they just keep doing all they can not to touch me.
"I said things'll be better!"
Stupid ungrateful--
I stop. I take in a breath. I keep walking.
I get to the back of the building where we've leaned a few unused guide walls against the building frame, forming a nook. "You can come out now," I say. There's no sound for a minute, then a bit of rustling and 1017 emerges, his arm in a sling made up from one of my few shirts. He's ski
He snatches 'em from my hand with a slap, scratching my palm.
"Watch it," I say thru clenched teeth. "You wa
There's a burst of Noise from him, one I've grown to expect, and it's the usual thing, him standing over me with a rifle, him hitting me and hitting me, me pleading for him to stop, him breaking my arm.
"Yeah," I say. "Whatever."
"Playing with yer pet?" Davy's come round, too, leaning against the building with his arms crossed. "You know, when horses break their legs, they shoot 'em."
"He ain't a horse."
"Nah," Davy says. "He's a sheep."
I puff out my lips. "Thanks for not telling yer pa."
Davy shrugs. "Whatever, pigpiss, as long as it don't screw up our reward."
1017 makes his rude clicking at both of us, but mostly at me.
"He don't seem too grateful, tho," Davy says.
"Yeah, well, I saved him twice now." I look at 1017, look right into eyes that never leave mine. "I ain't doing it again."
"You say that," Davy says, "but everyone knows you will." He nods at 1017. "Even him." Davy's eyes widen in a mock.
"It's cuz yer tender."
"Shut up."
But he's already laughing and leaving and 1017 just stares at me and stares at me. And I stare back. I saved him. (I saved him for her)
(if she was here, she could see, see how I saved him) (if she was here) (but she ain't)
I clench my fists and then force myself to unclench them.
New Prentisstown has changed in the past month. I see it every day as we ride home.
Part of it's winter coming. The leaves on the trees have turned purple and red and dropped to the ground, leaving the tall winter skeletons behind them. The evergreens have kept their needles but dropped their cones and the reachers have pulled their branches tight into their trunks, leaving naked poles to sit out the cold. All of it plus the constant darker skies makes it look like the town's going hungry.
Which it is. The army invaded at the end of harvest, so there were food stocks, but there's no one left in the outer settlements to bring in food to trade and the Answer are keeping up their bombs and food raids. One night a whole storehouse of wheat was taken, so completely and successfully it's obvious now there's people in the town and the army who've been helping 'em. Which is bad news for the town and the army.
The curfew got lowered two weeks ago and again last week till no one's allowed out after dark at all except for a few patrols. The square in front of the cathedral has become a place for bonfires, of books, of the wordly belongings of people found to have helped the Answer, of a bunch of healer uniforms from when the Mayor closed the last house of healing. And practically no one takes the cure no more, except some of the Mayor's closest men, Mr. Morgan, Mr. O'Hare, Mr. Tate, Mr. Hammar, men from old Prentisstown who've been with him for years. Loyalty, I guess.