AN: There is an asterisk (*) in this chapter where I would recommend pausing to read my short story 'The Miracle', the prequel to this tale, which tells the story which Davy recounts to Lana in this chapter. It's not essential reading, but definitely adds a lot to the experience! Happy reading!

Chapter Six:

What Makes a Man

The comfortable bed had been such a change from the hard floor that Lana had grown accustomed to sleeping on that she had been unable to resist resting in it for a little while. She was roused from her dreaming by the sound of the bedroom door opening, and in walked Davy Prentiss, looking very surprised that he was not alone.

1595, Lana saw in his Noise. His thoughts became a sudden jumble of confusion. He had not been expecting to find her here as she thought he would. He was thinking about the house, and how he had thought that it was a gift from his father. He saw now that he was wrong. Lana knew that it had been foolish of her to have let her guard down, but she had been waiting hours for the boy to arrive. Now that he was here, she felt hesitant. She sat up, rearranging the covers to hide the fact that she was wearing very little underneath. Ivan Farrow had been the one to insist upon the bedazzled red babydoll dress. He had given her long satin gloves to hide the band and spare the President's son from what he had done to her. She had refused to wear them.

He did not know her name; in his Noise, he knew her only as 1595, the number repeated over and over in the air around them.

"My name's Lana," she said.

"Oh. I'm Davy."

"I know. Happy Birthday."

"Thanks." Davy reached up to his collar and began to unbutton the jacket he wore. He saw the spark of panic in Lana's eyes as he shrugged the jacket from his shoulders. He held it out to her.

"Here. I'm not gonna hurt you or nothing." Lana slipped the jacket on, feeling a little more at ease. "They shouldn't have made you come here… it was nothing to do with me. I didn't know anything about it."

"I wanted to come," Lana admitted. "I wanted a chance to talk to you. This seemed like the only way to do it. I wanted to thank you... the Mistresses said I might have died if you hadn't taken me to them when you did."

Lana saw pictures of herself in his Noise again, and was taken aback by how truly awful she had looked, wet and bluish like a corpse washed up on the waves.

"You were so cold," he said, not meeting her eye. The more he looked at her, the prettier she was becoming to him; not in the sharp, sensual way the woman at the party had been, but in a softer way, with her large light eyes and clouds of pale hair. He wondered if she might kiss him; surely she owed him more than just thanks for saving her life. He saw the band on her arm, and the idea that she could possibly owe him anything died in his mind. The flames from the fireplace crackled loudly between them.

"Come on," Davy said, "I'll take you back to your dormitory."

"No!" Lana said, a little too eagerly. She had promised Helena that she would return with information. To go back now would be to let down all the women of New Prentisstown. "I want to get to know the man who saved my life. You should have took me to the President instead of to the Mistresses, but you didn't. Why not?"

Davy stared into the fire. I didn't want him to hurt you.

Perhaps it would be better if they did wait. It would be pretty embarrassing for him if the other soldiers saw her leaving so quickly. Besides which, this was his first time alone with a girl since the night that Cinda had left Old Prentisstown; he wanted to savour the experience.

Lana sat up very straight. "What was that in your Noise? You said 'Cinda.'"

A vision of Cinda appeared in Davy's Noise. She had been the first woman he had ever known, a runaway from Farbranch who had found herself lost in Prentisstown with her fiance. Though her fiance had been killed, Davy had helped Cinda to escape. He still remembered her clearly in his Noise as he had last seen her, standing in the twilight with a white coat pulled over her shoulders, waving at him from a distance.

Lana let out a small gasp, and suddenly looked as though she were about to cry.

"Do you know her?" Davy asked. "Is that where yer from, Farbranch?!"

Lana nodded; she was so confounded that this boy might somehow know what had happened to her family that she would have told him anything in that moment. She forgot all about her mission for the Answer; her own askings were so numerous, so necessary, that everything else fell to the wayside.

"Lucinda Patel was my brother's fiancé."

"What do you mean 'was?' They broke up?"

"She disappeared years ago. My brother, too. No one knew what happened to them, but... I think maybe you do."

Davy looked back into the fire, scowling. His Noise was turning grey with misery and confusion.

"I was only a kid," he said after a long while. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey," Lana said, putting a gentle hand on his arm. "Hey, it's okay."

She poured each of them a glass of water from a pitcher on the bedside table and handed one to Davy to aid him in sobering up. He swilled the water around his mouth as though it were poison.

"It was my fault," Davy said. His Noise flashed with horrible, confused pictures. He brought his fist up against his forehead, as though trying to pull the memories out of his mind. Feeling bold, Lana took both of his hands in her own and guided him down to the bed, where they sat facing one another.

"I can't talk about it," Davy said, wiping his eyes in frustration. "I just can't."

"Then show me," Lana pleaded. A long moment passed between them before Davy opened his Noise that she might learn the truth at last.

(*)

Sometime later, when Davy finished his story, both of his hands were still in Lana's. The flames were dying down now, and they lit the room with a reddish glow. He had shown her the truth of it all. She had seen everything that had happened to her family in Prentisstown, and why they had never come home. Lana had seen her brother's body in Davy's Noise, along with the visceral nature of his death; murdered by Captain Hammar, just as Maddy Poole had been. He had shown her what had happened to Lucinda, how he had tried to keep her safe by helping her to escape the town. Together they finally understood the truth of how he had failed.

Davy's voice was thick. He had known, deep down, that Cinda had never made it back. His father's jacket, the one he had given to Lucinda on the night he'd freed her from his father's clutches, had reappeared on the coat stand in their home. He had said nothing about this to his father, and his father had said nothing in turn. But he had known in his heart of hearts what it had meant.

"She never came home," Lana said. She was surprised to find that her own tears had already dried; she had done her mourning three years ago. She had always known that, if they had been alive, her brother and Cinda would have returned to them. "They would always spend weekends camping together, but I don't understand why they would have crossed the bridge into Prentisstown territory."

Davy wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Did they never tell you? Yer from Prentisstown. At least that's what Cinda said; that your brother grew up in Prentisstown, and when things got crazy your Ma and some of the other women started sneaking kids away to Farbranch."

Lana shook her head. She had always believed that her parents had been from Farbranch, and had died of flu when Avery had been only a baby. Cinda's parents had adopted the three children until they too had eventually passed away.

"Well that ain't what Cinda told me," Davy said as Lana relayed her truth. "Your brother knew; Cinda said he wanted to go to Prentisstown to try and find your father."

Once she had had time to process this revelation, Lana asked Davy if he had ever found out who her father was. He shook his head. No one in New Prentisstown had heard of a Byron, apparently; the children who had fled the town had been given new names to protect them from the legacy of their home town. The thought that her name was not her own disturbed Lana. How strange it was, she thought, to have been one person this morning, and to now be another.

"Turns out we were both lied to a lot growing up, huh?" Davy lamented. "We might have been neighbours growing up, if things hadn't turned out like they did."

"We might have been friends."

"I'm sorry about what happened to your family," Davy said. "Cinda was kind to me. No one had ever treated me like that before. I thought that I'd done enough to get her home. Jesus, I… I was excited to get to Farbranch. I thought I might finally get to see her again."

"What happened wasn't your fault."

Liar, said Davy's Noise, and he turned his head away from her to hide the wetness of his eyes. Lana wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head against her shoulder. He had neither the will nor the energy to pull away.

~oOo~

Davy was the first to wake when the morning came. He had slept on the couch and woken freezing and hung over. It was a Sunday, which meant that everyone was at church but for the prisoners and the President, who was never in attendance. Davy took himself to the kitchen and raided the cupboards, finding good fatty bacon which he set to sizzling in the pan.

The smell drew Lana to the kitchen. Davy fought with the stove, swearing as fat from the frying pan spat at him. Lana giggled. How wrong it seemed, that she should be smiling with the President's son. She thought of what she had been willing to do for the chance to get close to him, and how last night sitting with his head against her shoulder had felt somehow more intimate, more traitorous than if she had done what was expected of her. The night had come and gone, yet she had nothing to offer the Answer. She was determined to glean something.

As the two sat together at the dining table, eating hot bacon sandwiches and making small talk, Davy couldn't keep the pink fuzz out of his Noise. Lana didn't seem embarrassed by it the way Todd or his Pa tended to be. He wondered if, had she any Noise, hers might be pink, too.

"Sorry if my Noise drove you mad all night," Davy said, sucking bacon grease off his fingers. "Do you want me to take you back to the dormitories?"

"I'd rather stay here with you," she said.

The pinkness in Davy's Noise grew even pinker. He told her that he wanted to show her something, and while the rest of the town sang hymns the two snuck over to the stables. Davy ushered Lana inside, where Starlight was waiting.

"She's missed you," Davy said, as the girl wrapped her arms around the filly's neck.

Girl colt, the horse said fondly, clipping Lana's hair with her teeth. Beside her, Deadfall began to take notice.

"Hey, buddy," Lana said, stroking the white stripe which ran down the length of his nose. "I remember you. They seem to be getting along nicely."

"Tell me about it," Davy chuckled. "That horse has more luck with women than I do."

"I bet you get all the girls, being the President's son."

"Oh, yeah, loads," Davy said, but his Noise betrayed the fact that he had never so much as kissed a girl. "So, no boyfriends back in Farbranch?"

"No girlfriends either," Lana said, and Davy's eyes widened. It wasn't the sort of thing you'd hear about in Prentisstown. "As for the boys in Farbranch, none of them were really my type."

"What about the boys here?" Davy asked. He saw the way Lana smiled and felt a new pang of embarrassment. "Not me. I didn't mean me. Just, you know, in general."

He excused himself and headed upstairs. Deadfall sniffed at Lana's fingers, still strong with the smell of bacon grease. Davy reappeared wearing the Ask uniform which she had made for him.

"Sorry for cutting your trousers too short," Lana said. Davy smiled. Under his arm was a book of some kind, and in his hand he held a dark denim jacket. It was her brothers, the one she had been wearing the night she arrived in New Prentisstown. Davy handed it to her.

"I tried to get the blood out," he said. Lana buried her face in the denim. It still smelt like Byron, but like smoke and horses, too. She found that she didn't mind.

"Thank you," Lana said. "What have you got there?"

Davy sat down on a haystack in the corner of the barn and opened the book. Lana sat beside him as he leafed through the hand-written pages, pulling out something wrapped in floral fabric.

"I kept this from Old Prentisstown," he said, choking on nerves. "I don't really know why. Your brother had it on him when he died."

Davy unfolded the fabric and handed Lana a photograph, curled up at the corners. Lana's breath caught in her throat. She recognised it immediately; they had kept a print of it above their fireplace in their home back in Farbranch. The picture was of her family. She and Avery were crouching on the floor, Avery so young that she had not yet begun her transition. Byron and Cinda were there, too, smiling and beautiful.

"I think he must have been planning to show it to your Pa," Davy said. "You should have it."

Lana felt her throat tighten. She could hardly look at the photograph; it hurt too much. Each new kindness made it more and more difficult to despise the boy who had saved her.

"Would you keep it safe for me, like you have all these years?"

Davy nodded and tucked the photograph into the book again.

"So why is the son of the President living above the town stables?"

Davy burned red with embarrassment. "My Pa says my Noise is too loud to put up with. He can't sleep if I'm around; it was the same back home. He kicked me out of our house the day I became a man."

"How old were you when you became a man?"

"Thirteen."

"Jesus, Davy. You were a kid. You were too young to be living on your own."

"Was not. Thirteen's the law, or at least it was in our town. You're all too soft in these other settlements. Why, back in Old Prentisstown…"

His sentence trailed off. She could see from his Noise that he was debating wether to tell her something.

"You can tell me," she said.

"Pa had this law… a law every man had to follow, one you didn't get told about until you became a man yerself. It was the law that made you into a man. One man dies, a new man is born."

Lana didn't understand. Again he opened his Noise to her, showing her Mr Gault, who had tended to sheep back in Prentisstown and who had one day made the mistake of trying to flee through the swamp. He had been caught and in accordance with the agreement Prentisstown had made with the rest of New World had been imprisoned, awaiting execution. Davy had been taken to the police station on his thirteenth birthday, expecting a party and instead finding Mr. Gault tied to a chair; his father had handed him a knife, the same knife he had been expected to kill Cinda with three months before, and he had been told to kill the man.

Davy had pleaded, and tried to reason, and eventually even cried, but his father had been insistent. Mr. Gault had cried, too. Afterwards Mr. Collins had taken him to clean up, then had presented him with a cake and candles.

"He did that to you?" Lana asked, barely a whisper. "His own son?"

Davy wiped snot on his sleeve. "In fairness, he did it to everyone."

Lana reached out a hand to him. "Davy, I…"

"There's the man I'm after!" said a voice, and suddenly Ivan Farrow was stood in the doorway of the stables. Lana recoiled. "Proper man now, as I understand it. I saw the house was empty and figured you'd decided to run off with her."

Lana would not even look at him. Ivan chuckled, resting a hand on Starlight's mane. Deadfall stomped, his Noise flaring in agitation. Farrow seemed not to notice.

"Oh look at that, she's gone all shy. I hope she wasn't shy last night." His Noise was full of poorly-concealed schemes, of how he's failed to get on the President's good side so figured his son was the next best thing. "You can tell me all about it next time we're on watch together. Don't forget, you're an Officer now. Just knock on the door of her dormitory and they'll send her right out, or any other girl who takes your fancy. If I were you I'd-"

"If I were you I'd shut yer mouth, before I black your eye," Davy said, his Noise spiking with red darts. "She ain't deaf. Don't talk about her like that."

Ivan looked at Lana as though she had worked some spell on the President's son.

"If you say so. I'll take her back now, anyhow."

"No," Davy said in a sharp tone which mirrored his father's. "I'll take her back in my own time. You're dismissed, Private."

Ivan's Noise rattled as he saluted his superior.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled, and left the two alone again. Davy let out a sigh, leaning back against the straw. His Noise buzzed around his head like bees on a hive. Lana could see how he was worrying over what the other soldiers might think if they found out what had happened last night, or more fittingly, what hadn't.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed by the truth, Davy. It doesn't make you less of a man because you wouldn't take advantage of someone. It makes you more of one. Much more."

"You put up with that shit often?" Davy asked, "people just saying what they want about you, talking about you like you ain't even there?"

"You get used to it as a woman. Especially one living in your father's town."

"Well you shouldn't have to," Davy said. "That ain't right."

"You don't have to tell me that."

The two left for the Houses of Healing around noon, riding Deadfall over the hills. Davy didn't want to part with Lana, but he had work to do once Church ended. He wanted to stay where he was, up on the hills with his horse and this girl who he was learning was just as special and interesting as Lucinda had been.

"I'm not special," Lana said. "You shouldn't think like that."

"It ain't polite to listen to a man's thoughts."

But perhaps she was right. Cinda was the only woman he had ever had a real conversation with; he had always thought her to be special, something of an angel… but here was Lana to prove him wrong, just as complex as Cinda had been, which of course meant that the women he had been banding were as complex too. How could he start banding women again, when he'd only just learned that they were human?

"Can we see each other again?" Lana asked as the boy helped her down from Deadfall's saddle. She still had very little useful information to hand over to Helena. Ivan Farrow had been right, of course; no one would stop the President's son from doing as he pleased, unless it directly went against his father's orders. They could come and go together as they pleased.

"Yeah," Davy said, trying his best not to break out in a smile. "If you want."

"You'll come and get me?"

"Sure."

"Tomorrow night?"

"Sure!"

To ensure he'd keep his promise, Lana kissed him on the cheek, feeling exceptionally cruel as she did so. Davy stood speechless as she headed back inside the House of Healing. She still smelt of the perfume that Ivan Farrow had made her wear.

The kiss was still on his mind as he returned to the stables with Deadfall. He was flung from his fantasizing by the sound of someone banging on the door which lead to his quarters. The bell signalling the end of church had not yet chimed, so no one ought be around; he wondered if it might be Ivan again, having decided he couldn't take the sleight to his ego after all.

When he opened the doors to the stable, he saw that it was neither. Instead, Lana's sister stood there, red raw Noise buzzing around her head. Avery lunged without warning and punched him across the face. Davy stumbled back through the stable doors and into a stack of hay.

Avery advanced after him. All morning she'd been hearing stories from the stupid party the night before, the one she had avoided, using the opportunity instead to try to sneak away and see her sister while most of the guards were preoccupied. Lana had not been there, and that morning Avery had discovered why; Ivan Farrow had been very vocal in telling as many of the soldiers as possible just how special of a night he had planned for Davy Prentiss.

"If you've laid one finger on my sister I'll gut you like a fish!"

Davy scrambled backwards, holding out one hand in surrender. He quickly understood what was happening, and a flash of last night appeared in his Noise; Lana in bed, wearing very little. Avery lunged at him.

"Whoa whoa, it ain't like that!" Davy rambled. "You're Avery, right?"

The girl stopped, eyeing him suspiciously. His Noise was still swirling with images of Lana in sparkly red get-up.

"You're sister and I are friends," Davy said.

"Friends? And I suppose you get into bed with all your friends, do you?"

"Nothing happened. I wouldn't hurt her. I saved her life!"

Avery remembered what Lana had told him. It was true that he had helped her when she had arrived in the town, sick and half dead. It was also true that he's been the one to band her. The bell tolled signalling the end of church. Avery steeled her jaw.

"Where is she now?"

"I took her back to the House of Healing. She's fine."

Avery looked towards the church. The streets were filling up again now with men and women returning to their separate domains to start the day's work. Avery pointed a finger at the boy, backing up out of the stables.

"Like a fish, Prentiss," she warned him. "Like a fish."

Davy watched agog as the young soldier disappeared in amongst the crowd. He pulled himself to his feet and saddled Deadfall, not wanting to be late for work. He rode towards the Cathedral, his mind turning over the morning's events. Captain Collins was stood on the steps, smoking.

"I've got a bone to pick with you, Prentiss," he called through a cloud of smoke. "You and your lady friend have eaten all of my good bacon."

Davy had not even realised that the house he and Lana had spent the night in had belonged to the Captain.

"I'll stop by the butchers and grab you some more."

"Not to worry, son. You were bound to be hungry, after the night you had." He pointed at Davy's eye, where a bright purple bruise was forming. "Did she give you that shiner?"

Davy laughed it off, but Collins could see fragments of the truth in his Noise.

"What's the matter? She didn't put out?"

Davy shrugged. "We just sat and talked. It was still the best birthday I ever had. Thanks for organising the party."

"If you say so," Cliff murmured.

Todd stepped out of the Cathedral, rubbing his bleary eyes. It seemed he had avoided Church, too.

"You're late," he said to Davy, as he began to stroke Deadfall.

"And you're ugly. We've all got our problems. Now stop flirting with my horse and let's get some work done."

"Where's my horse?"

Davy mentally slapped himself. He'd been so distracted that he'd forgotten to bring along Angharad.

"We'll pick her up on the way. Blame it on this bloody hangover."

"You missed out last night," Captain Collins said. Todd rolled his eyes, following Davy as he led Deadfall back towards the stables. Todd collected Angharad, and the two boys began riding towards the Office of the Ask.

"You gonna tell me about what happened last night?" Todd asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Davy smirked. His instinct was to brag, to lie, even; but he remembered what Lana had said about truth, and how it made her think of him as more of a man.

"You know what, Pigpiss," he said, "I think it's nice to keep some things just for yourself."

~oOo~

"Nothing happened," Lana explained to Helena, as the two sat in the dusty little work room which she had set aside for working on the President's orders. "We just talked. The President's son was different to what I was expecting. The way I understand it, his relationship with his father is… complicated. The President doesn't trust him to keep a secret. I'm pretty sure his horse knows more about his battle plans than his son does."

"Complicated is good," Helena said. "Complicated we can use. If we could play off that rift between him and his father, who knows… with a little bit of tinkering he could make a valuable man on the inside."

"You want to turn him against his own dad? That seems cruel."

"We're planning a revolution, sweetheart. You don't defeat a man like David Prentiss with cupcakes and roses. Though you might get us some of the way if you let that boy think he has a chance with you."

Lana felt suddenly ashamed. She remembered the kiss on the cheek. She didn't want to play with anyone's emotions. She had seen last night that had Davy been raised by a different father, he might have been a very different man. But if he really was the key to saving the city, then she might be the lockpick.

There was a sudden commotion outside.

"1595!" someone was shouting. "I'm looking for 1595!"

Helena raised an eyebrow. "You're becoming very popular around here."

Lana recognised the voice immediately. She hurried into the corridor to find her sister patrolling the halls, looking frantic. Avery closed the distance between them.

"I wanted to see if you were okay after last night."

Lana took her sister by the arm and pulling her into her work room. Against a disused filing cabinet, the first of the President's near-completed uniforms was hung, its gold sleeves glinting in the drips of sunlight which poured through the room's small window. She thought of the man she was working so hard for, and was possessed of a momentary impulse to tear her work apart by the stitches.

"How do you know about last night?" Lana hissed.

"Everyone knows. Ivan Farrow has told half the soldiers, and the other half have heard it through the Noise. No doubt the President knows by now, too."

Lana swore. Helena folded her arms against the doorway, staring at the pair with suspicion.

"Who's this?" she asked.

Lana let out a deep sigh. "My sister."

The furrow between Helena's brows deepened. "And you didn't think it might be useful to let us know that you have family in the President's army?"

"Who's 'us?'" Avery asked. Helena scowled. Seeing she'd get no reply, Avery moved on to more pressing questions. "Lana, what the hell happened last night?"

"Nothing happened. I went there to get information."

"I think we should save this conversation for another time," Helena interrupted.

"Avery's on our side," Lana said. "She wants out of here as much as the rest of us."

Helena narrowed her eyes, looking the young soldier up and down.

"Is that true, Avery?"

Avery nodded, beginning to understand. "I've done bad things to survive, but I want to make it right. I'll do whatever it takes to get my sister out of here."

Helena gave a small smirk.

"We're all you're sisters here, sweetheart."