Noisy. There was always so much noise now. Question after question, all the same: "what should we do?" Some of them asked because they didn't know. Some asked because they thought they did. This bunch did. Why ask? They were the authority, and nobody had ever asked before, in these circumstances. Through the noise, a memory struck him. There had been no question. Of course she was guilty. Guilt lived in the shadows, they all knew. It thought itself unseen, but they had all seen her go the man's house with a basket of bread, then leave with it empty. She was married, but not him. They had shared a meal, obviously, so what else? There was no question; they all knew. She pleaded with them now. Pleaded as they dragged her from her home, pleaded as they tore away her robes, pleaded as they forced her to her knees here in the street, pleaded as they surrounded her. Could they not hear her? The crowd was so loud, but there was no mistaking her cries above the clamour of the rest. The boy wondered at all of this: at the crowd's anger; at the woman's cries; and at the small, smooth stone a man had just pushed into his hand. The man was a neighbour, and a friend of his father. He told the boy what to do and pointed at the woman. The woman was a neighbour, too, a friend of his mother's. But the law was above them all. He stood there a while, thinking about the law and his duty to it. He thought about the holy days he had spent working in the city, rebuilding after the riots; he thought about words he had said to his father in anger; he thought about the many times he had disobeyed his mother; and he thought about the law and his duty. At some point in the boy's contemplation, the stone had left his hand. His chest was hot, his mouth was dry, his cheeks were wet, and the woman's screams had stopped. She lay quiet now, surrounded by small, smooth stones. One by one, the crowd drifted away, and returned to the lives they would go on living. When they had all gone except the boy and his mother, he asked her, "What was her name?" The questions continued, as the man had squatted down. He wrote a name in the dirt, and silently asked it his own question: "what should I do?" But, there was no life left in that name now to answer. Through all the noise of questions and crying, and through the pain of guilt and obligation, an answer came. One by one, the crowd drifted away, and the noise stopped. The man stood up, and found he was not alone. "Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" "No one, sir." "Then neither do I."