Crossing the square, she dismissed Werber and let her mind focus on Marlo. She decided to call the healer if he was no better. What if he died? She quickened her pace. She would give him a drink, then set about queuing for dinner. If she could make him eat he would grow stronger. With that thought, she went around to the back of the shop, hope once more flickering in her heart. The light had already begun to dip as she opened the back door. She put her hand out to switch on the light.
It was then she heard the noise of someone breathing, slowly, heavily. She held her own breath, barely daring to turn around. Then, she saw him, leaning nonchalantly on the counter, a sneer fixed on his face. The gavver, Carver.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Wordsmith.’
‘How you get in here?’
She tried, in vain, to keep her voice steady.
‘You think me fool?’ he said.
The voice grated on her ear, even more ugly than she had remembered it.
‘What … what you want?’ Letta faltered, her eyes riveted on the face of the gavver, her hand clenched on the water bottle. He leant on the counter, staring at her, and Letta could see the provocation in his eyes, daring her to give him an excuse to hurt her.
‘I know … boy … was here,’ he said, stumbling over the words.
Letta shook her head. ‘Told you. Boy ran away.’
Was here. At least he hadn’t found him yet.
The gavver grunted and pushed past her through the door to the living quarters. He went straight to the master’s study. Letta stood helplessly at the door, as the gavver pulled open drawers and swept clean the old desk cluttered with the research of years. He didn’t seem to notice the door to the library, but she knew it was only a matter of time. She tried not to let her eyes wander to the stairs. Maybe he wouldn’t go up there. She had no way to alert Marlo. The gavver would find him in the bed, helpless as a lamb.
The man grunted and turned towards her.
‘What upstairs?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she said and knew at once that she had said it too quickly. ‘I make tea for you?’ she said in desperation.
He didn’t answer, just walked past her and headed for the stairs. Letta’s mind was racing. She had to warn Marlo. At least give him a chance to escape.
‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘No go up there! No go!’
The gavver glanced back at her and laughed, a cold mirthless affair, then continued on up the stairs. Letta followed him. Down the corridor, all the way to her own room. Then he disappeared through the door. She squeezed her eyes closed waiting for the rumpus, but nothing happened. She opened them again and ran to her room. The gavver was standing over an empty bed. Marlo was gone. She almost cried out. Then her eyes went to the cupboard.
The gavver ignored her, pulling the mattress from the bed, knocking over the chair. Then he walked across the room and leant on the old press.
‘You do what with him?’ he said. ‘Tell me.’
‘I know nothing,’ Letta insisted, keeping her voice steady.
‘Ha!’ the man said and went to the window.
‘He out there?’ he said. ‘He out there make trouble?’
Letta said nothing.
‘Desecrator he is. You know that? Master know that?’
Letta knew how Desecrator was defined: Rebel. Creator of art. Enemy of New World.
The gavver turned and, in one swift movement, crossed the room, grabbed the latch on the cupboard and let the door fall open. Letta stifled a scream. Her eyes widened. It was empty. Empty! She could scarcely believe it. Empty except for her old box and Benjamin’s coat.
Carver picked up the box. Letta breathed a sigh of relief. She had locked it after the last time she’d opened it. She watched as he picked it up. Watched as his hands caressed the smooth wood, then, holding it high over his head, he let it fall to the ground. The lid flew open, the hinges sundered. Letta gasped involuntarily. She didn’t want him to know it mattered to her. He picked up the box and began to paw through the contents, those things Letta owned that were private to her, these things no other hand had ever touched. She saw him take the little lock of her mother’s hair, blond hair tied with a faded crimson ribbon that Benjamin had given her on her twelfth birthday. On the ribbon, the letter F. F for Freya, her mother’s name. She knew he was watching her for a reaction and Letta tried not to show how much she cared. He took the little wisps of hair and sniffed them like a bloodhound might, then threw them away from him.
Letta could no longer deal with the rage that was building in her. She turned and walked away. At least she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her distress.
As she stood in the corridor outside her room, she listened to him searching, grunting as he worked and felt sick to her stomach.
Where was Marlo? She could hear the gavver growling as he threw stuff around her room. He would move off soon, checking the other rooms. She rushed down to the other doors and flung them open. Nothing. Then, down the stairs again. She searched the master’s study, the living area, though she knew he wasn’t there. She even looked under the counter. He couldn’t have gone far. Was he on the street? She stood at the door and looked out but there was no sign of him. She turned to see the gavver watching her. She jumped.
‘I be back,’ he said, his small eyes pinched and mean. ‘I be back.’
And then he was gone. Letta banged the door behind him and threw the bolts. Then she leaned her back on the warm wood and tried to slow her racing heart. She went up the stairs again, down the corridor and then she heard it, the smallest sound of something shifting. She raced back and ran her hands along the panelling till she found the door to the hidden Monk’s Room. She pressed and it sprang open.
Marlo sat slumped against the wall. He turned towards her and gave the smallest smile, but it was enough to bring life to his blue-grey eyes.
John Noa moved slowly towards the window. Old age had not been kind to him and, though he could still sit a horse, his rigid joints grew more painful by the day.
Looking down from his lofty vantage point, he could see the town below, on the cusp of waking. A lone wolf stood in the square, his head tilted to one side. The old man smiled. He had always loved animals and none more than the grey wolf. Before the Melting they had been almost eradicated, hunted to extinction. ‘Extinction’: the saddest word of all. Using science, and with great care and attention, they had bred five pairs of wolves in captivity, producing fifteen new cubs, and then released them into the wild. Since then, the wolves had thrived. Amidst all the destruction, it had seemed like a miracle to him.
He loved the view from the high window at this time of day. The workers not yet awake and only the comforting sound of the water bubbling in the great tank. He sighed. Sadly, he couldn’t stay. He had work to do. Work! Always work. Problems to be solved, plans to be made. He had never expected it to be this difficult. On his bad days he wondered if it had been worth it at all. Another glance at the wolf brought a smile to his lips. Yes. It was all worth it. He firmly believed that it was his passion for Ark that had kept him alive when so many had been lost.
The images of death and destruction were always with him. Floods, earthquakes, famine, as livid in daylight as they were in his nightmares.
Images of the past.
But there were nightmares in the present too. Bandits. Desecrators. Tintown.
People intent on destroying what he had built. People intent on going their own way regardless of the price. He felt the old rage stir in his heart.
They would be dealt with. They would find that they were no different to the beetle or the rat in the end. Their arrogance would not survive his determination.
He noticed that his hands were shaking. He took a deep breath. He would focus on the positive. He was alive. Amelia was alive. The planet was crippled but not dead.
And, most importantly, he had a plan. A plan that would change the course of history. A plan that would save Earth. He could live with the casualties, he told him
self.
He shivered and withdrew to the safety of the tower.
CHAPTER 4
#66
Betray
(1) Tell about friend
(2) Work against Ark
MARLO had been asleep for hours. Letta felt his forehead and knew his temperature still raged. Through the window, she could see a sliver of yellow moon, lying on its back in a cloudless sky. On her knee, she held her box, where she had carefully re-instated all that she could find of her mother’s hair. Carefully, she placed the broken lid on top. They had been gone for such a long time. She could still smell her mother’s scent when she closed her eyes. Still feel her own small hand in her father’s strong one.
‘Be brave, little one,’ he had said. ‘We’ll come for you soon.’
Her parents had been so sure that there was more to the planet than Ark. John Noa had given up all explorations by then, but her parents were stubborn. They had disobeyed Noa and gone on one last trip.
She stroked the warm wood of the box and looked at the boy asleep in the bed. He was a Desecrator. She had checked the red ledger. There was no tally stick registered to a Marlo. Nothing.
Was Marlo even his name? Names were closely controlled in Ark. Babies were presented one week after birth and the wordsmith proffered the approved list of names to parents. She couldn’t remember seeing Marlo on that list. People born before the foundation of Ark retained their given names, but Marlo was young. A Desecrator.
Even the word terrified her. Would his people come looking for him? People said that the Desecrators lived in the forest or outside the walls, in Tintown. She had often stood at the gates of Ark and wondered what it would be like to live out there. No proper houses, no electricity. The people of Tintown were those who hadn’t made it into Ark, Benjamin said. They had set up home as near as they could get to John Noa’s safe harbour and lived off the scraps of Ark. They were scavengers in the main, though some of them got work in Ark during harvest time, or doing the jobs no-one else wanted to do. In return they got a limited supply of clean water. Tintown was also where the Wordless lived, strange troubled souls who wandered aimlessly, silent and half-mad. She looked at Marlo again. Maybe they had forced him to join them. Maybe he’d had no choice. Her mind flew back to that first evening in the shop.
She was so stupid. He had already been shot when he came in, she now realised. He hadn’t been looking for words: he’d been looking for somewhere to hide. She gritted her teeth. She would go to the gavvers in the morning. Turn him in. Explain that she didn’t know.
Didn’t know what? She had known the gavvers wanted him. She had known they shot him. She nodded grimly in the darkening room. She would have to turn him in, and she would have to tell the truth.
He stirred. She had managed to get some ginger root and onion and had made it into a tea. She took a spoon, and with it, poured some of the liquid between his lips. His breath was warm on her fingers.
‘Letta?’ he said, his voice hoarse and high-pitched.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m here. Rest now.’
The night seemed to go on for ever. She picked up a card and wrote carefully, but her mind refused to focus. She had to have Mrs Truckle’s work finished. School started on Thursday. The day after tomorrow. They had never been this late before. If the words weren’t ready it would draw even more attention to her. She gripped the pen firmly:
Word 473 Water: Clear, colourless, odourl–
The nib snapped. Red ink splattered the card. Letta threw the offending pen at the far wall. She got up and ran downstairs to the shop and went straight to the old fireplace. She reached up and took a pen from the shelf above, then felt around in the dust for a nib. She was just shoving it onto the pen handle when she heard a ruckus outside.
She went to the door and opened it as quietly as she could. Through the narrow slit, she saw the cause of the commotion. Gavvers. Four of them dragging a struggling boy between them. With a sickening feeling, she realised that she knew him. It was Daniel, the healer’s son. Across the street she could see the healer himself trying to restrain the boy’s mother. He had wrapped his arms about her in a bear-like embrace but Letta could see her struggling and hear her screams. At first, she couldn’t make out the words, but gradually her ear attuned, and she understood what the distraught woman was saying.
‘My boy! Give me back my boy!’
Daniel was also struggling, kicking, shouting at the gavvers, as they loaded him onto the horse-drawn cart. One of the gavvers was carrying a stout wooden bat and, as Letta watched, he hit the boy with it, striking his lower back and causing the lad to double up in pain. This time, the mother managed to escape from her husband. She ran towards the boy; he turned and saw her and screamed in a voice Letta would never forget.
‘Maaama!’
And then the horse moved. The cart jolted. The healer caught his wife and pulled her back, the horse’s feet tapped out a staccato rhythm on the old stones, punctuated by the sobs of the mother, and then the street was quiet again, as though nothing had happened. Letta waited a moment then slipped outside.
‘Help?’ she said to the couple. ‘Help you?’
The mother was still weeping, her voice high and shrill, her face pressed to her mate’s chest. The healer was a tall man but to Letta he seemed to have grown smaller in the last minutes. He looked at her with pink-veined watery eyes.
‘Boy steal potatoes,’ he said. ‘Gavvers search. Find.’
‘What they do with him?’ Letta asked, her voice shaking.
‘Banish,’ the man said. ‘Banish.’
Letta shook her head. She knew that banishment meant death. ‘No!’ she said. ‘Only boy.’
The healer turned away from her and, half-carrying his wife, went back towards his house.
Letta felt anger building in her. They couldn’t do that. He was only a boy. She walked faster and faster in the direction the cart had gone till she was no longer walking but running. Down through the town, past the sleeping houses and on to the West Gate. The gavvers on duty looked up lazily as she passed among them. She stopped and stood like a young colt, unsure what to do next. This was the place known as Limbo. An in-between place. Nothing but scrub and dusty pine trees, dark skeletons, stripped of their leaves, black and ominous, in the washed-out light of the morning. Nothing grew here and it was always quiet, as though even the birds didn’t want to be around this kind of gloom.
To John Noa and the Green Warriors, the trees were sacred things, responsible for the air they breathed, habitat to animals and birds, and as a result they were guarded and protected in Ark, but Letta had always found them menacing and mysterious. She took a few steps forward, kicking loose clinker and flinty shale as she went. The wind gusted, blowing her hair into her eyes. She pushed it away and squinted at the forest. There was no sign of the cart. No sign of the boy. Her heart sank. She couldn’t dispel the image of his mother’s face. She kicked a lump of clinker angrily. This wasn’t what Ark was supposed to be about. This wasn’t what she had been taught. She turned quickly and went back through the gates. The gavvers stopped talking as she approached, staring at her silently. She ignored them and walked on.
She didn’t go straight home. She took the road north, where there were fewer houses. She needed to walk. She needed to think. If she told the gavvers about Marlo they would expel him or execute him. She was sure of that. He was a Desecrator. A rebel. If they expelled Daniel over a few stolen potatoes, what would they do to Marlo? Ahead of her the road climbed steeply. She pushed on, welcoming the pain in her legs, the tightness in her chest. At the top of the hill, the Goddess loomed.
She stopped in front of her. The Goddess was cut from a single block of white marble, her complexion the pure white of hoar frost, her face radiant with fine features. Her almond shaped eyes were open, staring at the sky. Her dress fell in generous ripples about her shapely body. Her hands held a bunch of drooping bluebells. On her feet were brocade sandals etched with exotic birds. Letta
reached out and touched the white hands.
The Goddess had been here for ever. Since before the Melting. They said she was the last prophetess, a messenger from God, who came to warn the people that the end was nigh. Some people said that she was the first human clone before it all went wrong, when people thought cloning was something to celebrate. They grew her in a laboratory, and her first words were that she had come from God. Benjamin said they made the first one divine so that people would accept the whole idea of cloning. Mrs Truckle said all religion was evil and that the new world should believe in John Noa. The clones were long gone, along with the rest of the new technology. But the Goddess remained.
Poor Goddess! She had come to warn them but they hadn’t listened, of course.
And then came the Melting. The ice that turned to water and flooded the planet, the sea devouring everything in its path. Towns and villages swallowed whole. The old technology destroyed. Animals extinct. And all of the written word gone. Letta stood back and looked at the Goddess.
‘Why do we call you that?’ she said aloud. ‘You were a prophet not a god.’
The Goddess said nothing.
Walking back down the hill, Letta made her decision. She would have to tell Marlo this morning, but first she had to get food for both of them.
Mary Pepper looked at her and narrowed her eyes. ‘Benjamin not home,’ she said.
Letta blushed. She’d forgotten all about their conversation the previous day.
‘No,’ she stammered. ‘Not come home.’
The older woman nodded grimly. ‘Breakfast only,’ she said, handing Letta an egg. ‘Still have yesterday lunch. Take bread.’
Letta took the piece of bread she was entitled to and hurried out. They would have to live on one egg between them until the evening meal. She daren’t use Benjamin’s tokens to feed Marlo. Her stomach was already protesting. Marlo drank the tea she gave him but refused to eat. Letta felt guilty but she ate the food gratefully.
The Wordsmith Page 4
