The Wordsmith

CHAPTER 6

AS LETTA opened her front door, the music of the saxophone was still in her ears. She could barely wait to tell Marlo all about it. Even remembering it stirred powerful emotions and memories. Was it always like that with music?

She sprinted up the stairs, not stopping to take off her coat. She stopped at the Monk’s Room. The door was open.

‘Marlo?’

There was no-one there. No sign that anyone had ever been there. Had he recovered enough to go down to the bedroom? She couldn’t imagine that. He had been so weak earlier. She hurried down there regardless, an uneasy feeling gnawing the pit of her stomach. She threw open the bedroom door. Everything was exactly as she left it. Where could he be? She hurried back downstairs, her mind racing. Could the gavvers have found him? If they had, wouldn’t they be here waiting for her? A sudden draught of cold air hit her. She walked towards the back door. It was ajar. Had he left? She ran to the door and out into the lane. He was lying there, not moving.

‘Marlo!’

He groaned but didn’t open his eyes. She looked up in alarm. She could see the street but mercifully no people. She had to get him inside before someone noticed. Grabbing him under the arms she dragged him, stride by stride, to the door and then over the threshold. As soon as he was inside she slammed the door and leant against it trying to get her breath, her arms aching. He moaned again. Had she hurt him? She knelt down and took his cold hand in hers. He opened his eyes.

‘Letta!’ He squeezed her hand.

‘What were you doing?’ Letta said. ‘Why didn’t you stay in the Monk’s Room?’

‘I thought I could get to the field. I felt better and …’

‘And?’

‘I shouldn’t stay here. I’m putting you in danger.’

‘Can you stand?’ Letta looked at him anxiously.

‘I think so,’ he said.

It took a long time for Letta to get him to his feet and even longer to make the long journey up the stairs, Marlo’s arm around her shoulder, their feet keeping time with one another. Finally, he was back in bed. As soon as he lay down, his eyes closed again.

Letta sank into the chair in the corner of the room and breathed a long sigh of relief. She could hear him breathing, moaning slightly. After an hour or so she got up and walked over to the bed. A stray wisp of hair covered his eye. Gently, she swept it away and then left her hand for a moment on his forehead. A shiver ran through her.

He sighed and opened his eyes. She pulled away from him, pretending to straighten the covers. He turned to her, his eyes full of questions.

‘I gave Finn the message,’ Letta said. ‘Now we have to wait.’

‘You saw the show?’ he asked.

Letta nodded. ‘A beautiful woman played music, a saxophone.’

Marlo smiled. ‘Leyla,’ he said.

‘It was amazing,’ Letta said. ‘The music. It is so long since I heard it.’

Marlo nodded again. ‘She plays beautifully,’ he said. ‘She used to work with Noa, until he banned music.’

She found it hard to believe that the woman would have left John Noa to go and live with Desecrators because of something like music. Did people never understand that they had to make sacrifices for Ark?

Silence filled the space between them but Letta felt that it was a comfortable silence with each one lost in their own thoughts. Outside, the rain was pelting down, hopping off the tin roof and interspersed with low grumbles of thunder.

She wondered where Benjamin was. Was he out in that weather? It was hard to believe that he had only been gone a few days. She lay back in her chair and gave herself over to the melody of the rain. She jumped when Marlo spoke.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You are very brave.’

‘Am I?’ she said softly.

‘What do you want to do with your life, Letta?’ Marlo asked.

Letta shrugged. ‘I want to be a wordsmith. I want to be part of the new world. I don’t think about it much.’

Marlo nodded. ‘You think we can build a new world, here, in Ark?’

‘Of course,’ Letta said. ‘Don’t you?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Not like this. Not without freedom.’

Letta frowned. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said. ‘John Noa wants what’s best for all of us. For humans and animals and the planet itself. You know what happened before. How could you risk everything again?’

Marlo shrugged. ‘Everything is a risk. Life is a risk. We have to be what we are. Our souls are not like the soul of a fox. Our hearts are not like the heart of a sparrow.’

She could see he was getting more passionate, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed. She leaned in towards him, concentrating on his every word.

‘We are full of … full of … feelings. And yet …’

‘And yet?’ Letta prompted him.

‘Feeling isn’t even a List word.’

‘But … but …’ Letta struggled to put words on her thoughts. ‘If we give ourselves up to our feelings aren’t we destined to make the same mistakes all over again? There are so few of us left, Marlo. If we are to survive we have to compromise. Change. Not be like we were before. Not waste our time on abstract things, things that only lead us off the path.’

‘Things like music?’ Marlo cut across her.

She nodded, though her heart felt heavy.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Even music.’

Marlo sighed. ‘I envy you, Letta. I envy your ability to believe in Noa without question. I just know I can’t do it.’

He sank back on his pillow again and closed his eyes, leaving Letta alone with only the sound of the rain for company. His words stayed in the atmosphere, bright fireflies like she remembered from her childhood. Words darting all over the room.

Freedom. Music. Feelings.

Were they things they could live without? Images of Daniel taunted her. His mother’s face as they took him away.

It wasn’t sadness that assailed her now but anger, her old nemesis, her temper. She got up and started to pace the room. Didn’t Daniel have a right to live here too? She had always been taught that it was John Noa who had built Ark, that it was to Noa that they owed their very survival. And yet, hadn’t they a right to live on the planet? She shook her head. There was no sense to her thoughts. She should go downstairs and get back to her work. Marlo and his rebellious thoughts had no place here in the wordsmith’s shop. She turned and looked at him sleeping quietly, a thin line of sweat on his upper lip. He looked so peaceful, she thought. So innocent.

In the shop, Letta settled down to her work. She looked in the drop box and found a little notebook with fifty words carefully written down with a slight explanation with each one. Her eye scanned them thoughtfully, delight flooding her heart as she went through them. This is what it was all about. New words. Words they didn’t know. Words that could be saved.

Smith: A person who works metal

Anvil: A block of iron on which metals are shaped

She had heard rumours that old Manus Burkked the blacksmith was unwell. He was an old man, maybe eighty or even more. He had lived through the age of technology, fought in the last war, and now he was going to die in a world very far removed from all of that.

A lot of old people left them their words before they died. She closed the little book carefully and took it to her desk. She pulled a card towards her, dipped her nib in the familiar red ink and started to write. Soon, she was lost in the world of the blacksmith. She barely noticed the noise from outside, the creaking of a cart as it passed the door, the barking of a dog, the pitter-patter of the rain.

As she wrote, her left calf began to cramp, sending spasms of pain through her leg. She stood up to try to ease it and walked across the floor. The door was open and outside she could see the cat collector’s cart and two of his men walking alongside it. She smiled. When she was a little girl she had believed they were literally cat collectors. One evening, when she saw them passing the shop she had taken Benjamin’s old cat, Fidget, and hidden him in a cupboard under the stairs.

She looked at the men again. They weren’t really collecting cats, of course. They were collecting any kind of rubbish they found on the streets, including dead animals. That was how they’d got their name. She was about to go back to her desk, when one of the men turned to her. For a second she couldn’t place him, but then she realised who he was.

‘Finn,’ she whispered.

He nodded. He had shaved his face, and was wearing a hat with a broad brim, pulled down over his eyes. His partner beside him had a similar hat and an old pair of dungarees. As Letta watched, he picked up a dead pigeon and threw it in the cart.

‘Back door?’ Finn asked quietly.

Letta nodded. ‘Lane alongside,’ she said, just as she saw the healer crossing the street to the cart.

He frowned in Letta’s direction then addressed Finn. ‘Dead dog near water station,’ he said gruffly.

Finn nodded but said nothing. The healer seemed satisfied, and crossed back to his own shop.

Letta went inside, pulling the heavy door behind her. Once out of public view, she flung the bolts across and stood leaning against the wall, waiting. She knew the back door was open and, sure enough, she soon heard their steps in the hall.

Finn seemed even bigger indoors than he had in the wheat field. Behind him, his companion was small and lean, with a sharp face that reminded her of a stoat.

Finn smiled. ‘We don’t even know your name,’ he said, speaking the old tongue fluently but with a slight accent.

‘Letta,’ she said, noticing how brown his eyes were.

‘Letta,’ he repeated. ‘And where is Marlo?’

She nodded towards the stairs.

‘The room at the end,’ she managed to say. ‘But he won’t be able to walk far.’

‘We’ll put him in the cart,’ Finn said and nodded at the other man. Together, they thundered up the stairs, while Letta waited in the shop, tension making her bones ache. She strained to hear something from upstairs, and in a few minutes was rewarded with the sound of their feet on the steps.

They came through the door supporting Marlo between them. His face looked white and thin beside the ruddy complexion of his friends and Letta’s heart ached for him.

‘So,’ Marlo said with a smile. ‘This is goodbye.’

She nodded.

‘Thank you, more than I can say.’

She nodded again. She didn’t seem to have words for any of this.

‘We have to go,’ Finn’s companion said, his voice deep and gruff.

‘Don’t forget Daniel,’ Letta said to Marlo.

‘I won’t, but don’t get your hopes up,’ he said, his hand warm on her arm. ‘I don’t want you to be disappointed.’

Finn caught Letta’s eye and smiled. ‘Thank you again,’ he said. ‘You’re a brave girl.’

The banging on the front door caught them all unawares. No-one moved. Letta felt as though they were all in a picture, caught forever, exactly as they were.

‘Gavvers! Open!’ The voice outside was firm, full of authority.

Letta felt weak. What was she to do? They would break the door down. She had to say something but what?

‘Gavvers! Open!’

Finn nodded to her, willing her on with his gaze. This time, she found her voice.

‘Minute!’ she called. ‘Find key!’

Her eyes sought Finn again. He took his arm away from Marlo, and signalled to the other man to take the boy through to the back door.

As they moved away to obey him, he pulled a knife from his pocket, and with the elegance of a deer, vaulted the counter and hid beneath it.

Letta stared at the place where his head had been but there was now no sign of him. The banging started on the door again. She took a deep breath, turned, and pulled back the great bolts.

Please don’t let them notice that there is no key, she thought as she did so.

Slowly, the door opened.

Two gavvers. She recognised one of them as Carver.

‘Come,’ he said.

‘Where?’ Letta answered, trying to imbue her voice with confidence.

‘John Noa,’ the gavver replied.

John Noa? Why would John Noa want her? Could he know about Marlo? The gavver was trying to look past her into the shop. She had to stop him coming in, somehow.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why John Noa want me?’

‘Not for you to ask,’ Carver snarled. ‘Come.’

Letta moved forward but the second gavver put up his hand, stopping her.

‘Coat!’ he said.

Letta looked at him blankly. What had he said? Why couldn’t she understand him?

‘Coat!’ he said again.

He wanted her to get her coat.

‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘Coat.’

She turned, her mind gripped with panic. Where was her coat? By the back door. What if they followed her? She went to close the front door but Carver got his hand to it, preventing her. Were they going to come in? She walked across the floor, her knees weak. She looked over her shoulder. The gavvers hadn’t moved.

‘Hurry!’ Carver said, his eyes boring into her. She continued on. Don’t look at the counter, she warned herself. Don’t look. Through the door into the hall. She could see her coat on the peg beside Benjamin’s old winter scarf. She reached up her hand to take it down and almost screamed. The Desecrator and Marlo were standing under the garments, completely hidden from view. Marlo’s blue-grey eyes stared out at her.

‘Go,’ Marlo whispered.

Letta took her coat and moved quickly back to the shop.

Carver was standing inside the door looking out at the rain. She glanced at the counter. Nothing. Not a sign that a man was there holding a knife.

‘Ready,’ she said.

Carver moved onto the street. Without a backward glance, Letta pulled the door behind her and followed him.

The room was large and airy. Shelves lined the walls on three sides, shelves that stretched way above his head, bending under the weight of the hundreds of books stored there. The fourth wall was covered in old newspaper, yellowed and faded, but still readable. The room had become a shrine of sorts, he supposed. The books he had saved before the last days. He ran his finger along the spines: Shakespeare, Dickens, Keats, the ancients, all there alongside books from the last century. Nothing wasted, nothing lost. His private collection. He would find it difficult to let them go when the time came, but he would let them go. He couldn’t risk them being found at a later date.

There were few incidents where people managed to decode words after Nicene, very few. None the less, he wouldn’t take that chance. They would be destroyed along with everything the wordsmith had managed to salvage.

For a second, images of the wordsmith filled his head, but he pushed them away. He turned his back on the books and walked across to the wall of newsprint.

Here was a potted history of the past hundred years.

The warnings.

The signs.

Global warming.

Water levels rising.

It was incomprehensible even now that man had just ignored it all. Young people talked about the Melting as if it were a single event, but it hadn’t been like that. The Earth had been heating up for years. His finger touched one of the news sheets. Scientists were warning of an alarming acceleration in the melting of the Polar ice caps. They predicted a dramatic rise in sea levels. That was back in the twenty-first century! He shook his head.

He chose another article, from around the same time. The writer was warning about the disappearing ice caps.

‘Until recently, the Arctic ice cap covered two per cent of the Earth’s surface. Enormous amounts of solar energy are bounced back into space from those luminous white ice fields. Replacing that mass of ice with dark open ocean will induce a catastrophic tipping point in the balance of planetary energy.’

Torrents of words had followed. Words from politicians assuring people that there was no such thing as global warming. Words from industrialists who justified their emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere. Words to hide behind. Words to deceive. Useless, dangerous, destructive words…

He drew back his hand and punched the wall, hurting his knuckles and leaving a trail of blood on the yellowing paper.