The Ask and the Answer (15 page)

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under me, and I'm trying not to throw up from the pain.

I look up now and then to see women, quiet and distant, watch me ride past from their windows. I see men watch the horse run by, looking at my face all bloody and injured.

And I wonder who they think they're seeing.

Are they seeing one of them?

Or are they seeing their enemy?

Who do they think I am?

I close my eyes but I nearly lose my balance so I open them again.

Angharrad takes me down the road on the side of the cathedral, her shoes striking sparks on the cobbles as she turns the corner to go round to the entrance. The army's in the square doing marching exercises. Most of them still ain't got Noise but the pounding of their feet is loud enough to bend the air.

I wince at it all and look up to where we're going, to the front door of the cathedral--

And my Noise gives such a shock, Angharrad stops up short, scrabbling on the cobbles, flanks foaming from getting me here so fast.

I barely notice-

My heart has stopped beating-

I've stopped breathing--

Cuz there she is.

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In front of my eyes, walking up the steps of the cathedral-There she
is.

And my heart jump-starts again and my Noise is ready to scream her name and my pain is disappearing-

Cuz she's alive-

She's
alive--

But then I'm seeing more--

I'm seeing her walking up the steps--

Toward Mayor Prentiss--

Into his open arms--

And he's
embracing
her--

And she's
letting
him--

And all I can think--

All I can say--

Is--

"Viola?"

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151

PART III WAR IS OVER

152

153

12 BETRAYAL

***

(Viola)

Mayor Prentiss stands there.

The leader of this town, this world.

Arms wide.

As if this is the price.

Do i pay it?

It's just one hug, i think, (isn't it?)

One hug to see Todd. i step forward-(just one hug)

- and he puts his arms around me. i try not to go rigid at his touch.

"I never told you," he says into my ear. "We found your ship in the swamp as we marched here. We found your parents."

i let out a little gasp of tears and try to swallow them back.

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"We gave them a decent burial. I'm so sorry, Viola. I know how lonely you must be, and nothing would please me more than if, one day, maybe, you could consider me as your-"

There's a sudden sound above the
ROAR
-

One bit of Noise flying higher than the rest, clear as an arrow-

An arrow fired directly at me-

Viola!
it screams, knocking the words right out of the Mayor's mouth-

I step back from his embrace, his arms falling away-I turn-

And there, in the afternoon sunshine, in the square, on the back of a horse not ten yards away-

There he is.

It's
him.

"TODD!" I yell and I'm already running.

He's standing where he slid off the horse, holding his arm at a bad angle, and I hear
Viola!
roaring through his Noise but I can also hear the pain in his arm and confusion lacing through everything but my own mind is racing too fast and my heart is pounding too loud for me to hear any of it clearly.

"TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm

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grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back, it's grabbing me back, it's grabbing me back-

"I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead."

"Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name.
"Todd."

He gasps sharply again and the pain flashes so loud in his Noise I'm almost blinded by it. "Your arm," I say, pulling back.

"Broken," he pants, "broken by-"

"Todd?" the Mayor says, right behind us, staring hard into him. "You're back early."

"My arm," Todd says. "The Spackle-"

"The
Spackle?"
I say.

"That looks bad, Todd," the Mayor says, talking over us. "We need to get you healed right away."

"He can come to Mistress Coyle!"

"Viola," the Mayor says and I hear Todd think "
Viola"?
, wondering all over how the Mayor speaks to me like this. "Your house of healing is too far for Todd to walk with an injury this bad."

"I'll come with you!" I say. "I'm training as an apprentice!"

"Yer what?" Todd says. His pain is wailing like a siren but he's still looking back and forth between me and the Mayor. "What's going on? How do you know-"

"I'll explain everything," the Mayor says, taking Todd's free arm, "after we get you healed." He turns to me. "The invitation is still on for tomorrow. You have a funeral to get to just now."

"Funeral?" Todd says. "What funeral?"

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"Tomorrow," the Mayor says to me again firmly, pulling Todd away. "Wait-" I say.

"Viola!" Todd shouts, jerking away from the Mayor's grasp but the movement shakes his broken arm and he falls to one knee with the pain of it, pain so sharp, so loud and clear in his Noise that soldiers from the army stop to hear it. I jump forward to help but the Mayor holds out a hand to stop me.

"Go," he says and it's not a voice that's asking for discussion. "I'll help Todd. You go to your funeral and mourn your friend. You'll see Todd tomorrow night, good as new."

Viola?
Todd's Noise says again, choking back a weep from pain so heavy now I don't think he can speak.

"Tomorrow, Todd," I say loudly, trying to get through his Noise. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Viola!
he calls again but the Mayor is already leading

him away.

"You promised!" I call after them. "Remember that you promised!"

The Mayor gives me a smile. "Remember you promised, too."

Did 1?
I think.

And then I'm watching them go, so fast it's like it didn't even happen. But Todd-Todd is alive.

I have to bend down close to the ground for a minute and just let it be true.

***

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"And with burdened hearts, we commit you to the earth."

"Here." Mistress Coyle takes my hand after the priestess finishes speaking and puts some loose dirt into it. "We sprinkle it over the coffin."

I stare at the dirt in my hand. "Why?"

"So that she's been buried by the efforts of all of us." She directs me to a place with her in the line of healers gathering by the graveside. We pass by the hole one by one, each of us throwing our handful of dry soil onto the wooden box where Maddy now rests. Everyone stands as far away from me as they can.

No one but Mistress Coyle will even speak to me. They blame me. I blame me, too.

There are more than fifty women here, healers, apprentices, patients. Soldiers are spread out in a circle around us, more than you'd think necessary for a funeral. Men, including Maddy's father, are kept separate on the other side of the grave. Maddy's father's weeping Noise is the saddest thing i think I've ever heard.

And in the middle of everything, I can only feel even more guilty because what I'm mostly thinking about is Todd.

Now that I'm away from it, I can see the confusion in his Noise more clearly, see how it must have looked to find me in the arms of the Mayor, how friendly we must have seemed together.

Even though I can explain it all, I still feel ashamed. And then he was gone.

I throw my dirt on Maddy's coffin, then Mistress Coyle takes me by the arm. "We need to talk."

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***

"He wants to
work
with me?" Mistress Coyle says, over a cup of tea in my small bedroom.

"He says he admires you."

Her eyebrows raise. "Does he now?"

"I know," I say. "I know how it sounds, but maybe if you
heard
him-"

"Oh, I think I've heard enough from our President to last me a good while."

I lean back on my bed. "But he could have, I don't know,
forced
me to tell him about the ships. And he's not forcing me to do anything." I look away. "He's even letting me see my friend tomorrow."

"Your Todd?"

I nod. Her expression is solid as stone.

"And I suppose that makes you grateful to him, does it?"

"No," I say, rubbing my face with my hands. "I saw what his army did as they marched. I saw it with my own two eyes."

There's a long silence.

"But?" Mistress Coyle finally says.

I don't look at her. "But he's hanging the man who shot Maddy. He's executing him tomorrow."

She makes a dismissive sound with her lips. "What's one more killing to a man like him? What's one more life to take? Typical that he should think that solves the problem."

"He seemed genuinely sorry."

She looks at me sideways. "I'm sure he did. I'm sure that's exactly how he
seemed."
She lowers her voice. "He's the

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President of Lies, my girl. He will lie so well you'll believe it's the truth. The Devil tells the best stories. Didn't your mama teach you that?"

"He doesn't think he's the Devil," I say. "He thinks he's just a soldier who won a war."

She looks at me carefully. "Appeasement," she says. "That's what it's called. Appeasement. It's a slippery slope."

"What does it mean?"

"It means you want to work with the enemy. It means you'd rather join him than beat him, and it's a surefire way to stay beaten."

"I don't want
that!"
I yell. "I just want this all to stop! I want this to be a home for all the people on their way, the home that we were all looking forward to. I want there to be peace and happiness." My voice starts to thicken. "I don't want anyone else to die."

She sets down her teacup, puts her hands on her knees and looks hard at me. "Are you sure that's what you want?" she says. "Or is it your boy you'll do anything for?"

And I wonder for a minute if she can read my mind.

(because, yes, I want to see Todd-)

(I want to
explain
to him-)

"Clearly your loyalty doesn't lie with
us,"
Mistress Coyle says. "After your little stunt with Maddy, there are those of us who aren't so sure you're not more of a danger than an asset."

Asset, I think.

She sighs, long and hard. "For the record," she says, "I don't blame you for Maddy's death. She was old enough to make her own decisions and if she chose to help you, well,

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then." She runs her fingers across her forehead. "I see so much of myself in you, Viola. Even when I'd rather not." She stands to leave. "So please know, I don't blame you. Whatever happens."

"What do you mean,
whatever happens?"

But she doesn't say anything more.

That night, they have something called a wake, where everyone at the house of healing drinks lots of weak beer and sings songs that Maddy liked and tells stories about her. There are tears, including my own, and they're not happy tears but they're not as sad as they could be.

And I'm going to see Todd again tomorrow.

And that's as close as I can feel to all right about anything just now.

I wander around the house of healing, around the other healers and apprentices and patients talking to one another. None of them will talk to me. I see Corinne sitting by herself in a chair by the window, looking especially stormy. She's refused to speak to anyone since Maddy's death, even declining to say something over the grave. You'd have to have been sitting right next to her to see how many tear tracks were on her cheeks.

It must be the beer working in me, but she looks so upset I go over and sit down next to her.

"I'm sorry-" I start to say but she stands up before I can even finish and walks away, leaving me there.

Mistress Coyle comes over, two glasses of beer in her hands. She hands one to me. We both watch Corinne as she