Chapter Four

The Afterlife of Civilisation (or The Purpose of Dancing)

Agloff stared at Ariea from across the room. She was twirling her hair into plaits in front of an antique mirror. She found it an old shop down the hill to obscure an upturned nail poking out the wooden slats that bordered their home from the next.

He watched her watch herself, calmed.

They sank into their dressing gowns, legs splayed across the floor like kids. Then Agloff stood to the window. Cool air gusted in from the late Autumn eve. Crests of oranged cloud rose over the bay. The main road below was laced in bunting, strung between lanterns bathing the hills of Wishbone in gold. He watched the people dance lazily under them.

Tonight, the Fort gave its thanks for the harvest from beyond the walls. More so this year, out of Winter’s shadow, even as the fields were blighted by bandits.

He circled the room then, saw the pieces of a life slowly assembled. His eye was caught by an instant photo of the pair of them, pegged over their bed. It was a selfie from a hike in midsummer, through the Flatlands.

‘You alright?’ Ariea said, not looking from the mirror. She was shading her eyes in a brilliant blue. Cyan and aqua. Her eyelids glowed.

‘Just thinking.’

‘About me?’ She smiled.

‘There’re a thousand million ways this year could have gone. But you ever just panic because things are so good, you’ll wake up one day and it’ll be different?’

‘I know what you mean.’

He walked over, pulled from the mirror by her hands. ‘Because things are so good.’

Her eyes rolled playfully. ‘You’re sweet.’ She kissed him. ‘But get dressed.’ Ariea swept behind a curtain and hummed some tune. Agloff slipped into a neat jumper and trousers, swept his mop of hair from his eyes, and waited.

He had seen it in her eyes these last two days. She pretended happiness, but the children at Tansk Station had unsettled her, or the pilgrim had. The implications of a pilgrim north of the partition were significant, if not wholly understood. But for them it meant more: all that misery, all that loss at Jask’s hands failed.

Ariea swept the curtain away. She stood cutely in flared trousers and a black vest, then gathered a coat from a rack by the door and held her arm for Agloff.

Merry Cutter and Memphis Teller were already waiting at the foot of the stairs. She was in a neat dress but tugged at the straps across her shoulders four or five times as Agloff slipped down the stairs. He saw that she was still out of place in that world. Dresses and heels, the so-called beauty of high society, did not come easy to her. Memphis smiled from in a slick black suit.

Agloff nodded at both of them, embraced them. Merry half-smiled back and held the door ajar. ‘Lady’s napping,’ she whispered. ‘Best to leave quietly.’

They fed out on to the plateau overlooking the downward slope of Fort Wishbone. Every house was adorned in a golden lantern. It seemed a part of this celebration, light in defiance of the coming winter.

A hoard of townsfolk gravitated down the hill, toward the main square. Bodies ebbing around cobbles and lampposts. Agloff could spot the regulars in their coats and shawls from the more distinguished in their suits and extravagant headwear.

‘Addiom Bashkar,’ a thick-bearded man said as he passed them.

‘Aikom,’ Ariea replied.

The word meant ‘thank you’. Winter had long imposed the Old Inglish tongue on Colony Two. But it didn’t reach every corner. Vagrants and squatters had a curious vernacular. It was a patchwork of all words and sounds.

Kira had taught them a little, enough to be polite anyway. Mountain rats and outlanders called summer’s end Baskhar, the time of plentiful. They would burrow food into the rock for the coming Askar, the time of fallow.

Since Winter fell in the North, the likes that spoke it appeared in these places more and more.

The man stared at Ariea for a time, then rummaged in his pocket and shoved a glazed bun into her hands. He would not accept her refusals. She smiled awkwardly and the man nodded at her, continued in his offerings to others.

‘It’s so pretty,’ Merry said, her eyes running along the zig zag of bunting. Those not headed to the square were offering breads and pastries, home-baked, from their doorsteps. Every few would stop to greet them in idle chatter.

The crowd carried them onto the opening of the square. Agloff saw the boxy, narrow terraces that surrounded them. The people gathered under sparse gazebos, lit by the same golden candlelight. Servers passed between them, and a curtained stage was set at the far end.

Ellen Riddis was due to give one of her drab and empty diatribes there later. Best avoided, thought Agloff.

‘You want a drink?’ Ariea was prodding his arm.

Agloff realised he was caught in a trance. ‘I’m good.’

She nodded, let go of his hand and vanished into the melee with Merry.

‘I can’t see why anyone would enjoy these sorts of things,’ Memphis mused then.

Agloff looked at him. ‘You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘She wanted to come, and I’m still in the habit of us doing everything together.’

‘Two shots and you’ll be fine.’

‘Ha. You know I’m not the most… amicable drunk.’

‘Find some guy to take home. Wouldn’t judge.’

Memphis laughed loudly. ‘Something tells me Lady wouldn’t appreciate that.’

‘Excuse me,’ a voice squeaked.

Agloff looked down. A boy was gawking up at him. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Are you lost?’

‘No, I’m here with friends. I just… I remember you from the hospital.’

Agloff saw that one of the boy’s hands was gloved. He reached around his wrist and lightly peeled back the cuff of his sleeve and saw the purpled marks of Jask’s experiments.

‘It was nothing,’ Agloff said pre-emptively.

‘Nah, I wasn’t gonna say thanks. I just wanted to meet you, properly.’

‘Oh.’

‘Where’s the others? You know, the big one and the…’ He gestured his face, ‘the long-haired one.’

‘They’re not here.’ Agloff’s tone soured. He saw the boy was egged on by a group of half a dozen watching them a few metres away.

Memphis leaned over the boy. ‘Well, you’ve met him now, so toddle on.’ He pulled that sneering tone he used on Agloff when they first met, and the kid ran off.

‘It’s alright,’ Memphis added. ‘Ariea told me it bothers you.’

‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate they’re grateful, but every time one of them comes up to me they make me feel responsible for them. I don’t want to be responsible for them.’

Memphis looked at the giggling kids. ‘If it means anything, you’re definitely not.’

‘They always mention Thawn. Thought I’d got over it. Obviously not.’

Merry and Ariea appeared through the hubbub, glasses aloft in their hands. Ariea shoved one into Agloff’s. ‘You look a right misery. Drink,’ she said. ‘I’ve already had two.’

Before he could reply, she dragged him by his wrist through the crowd and to the side of the square, under the awnings of one of its many establishments. She grinned.

‘What’s the matter, you a grump?’

‘One of those kids—’

‘Shh,’ she said. ‘It was rhetorical.’ She raised his hand holding the drink. ‘Drink it.’ He sensed her tipsiness was feigned but did as she said.

‘Alcohol is foul. I didn’t drink at Oxford’s wedding.’

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‘Less we say about that, the better.’

She shepherded him on, up the edge of the square, and towards the stage where an area had been cordoned off. Couples were swaying under strings of bulging fairy lights. Ariea looked at him.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t dance.’

‘Dancing isn’t the point of dancing,’ she mused. And she nudged him through into the opening. Immediately, she drew his hand to her waist and guided him in sweeping motions through the sea of couples. Her red hair glinted in the candlelight.

‘You’re not bad,’ she said.

Agloff looked past her shoulder. Ellen Riddis, President of the Fort, watched from the edge of the pen. She wore a sweeping white gown and peered her crowd through the lens of a champagne glass.

‘Riddis is over there.’ He nodded her way.

Ariea didn’t look. ‘Would you rather dance with her?’ she said.

‘You know she’s going to ask us about Tansk.’

The feigned drunkenness vanished. ‘We’ll deal with that if she does. We passed on what we knew. There’s nothing else to say.’

‘Even so.’

Riddis had taken a pervasive interest in Agloff and Ariea’s dealings since Winter’s fall. As if she knew something they didn’t.

Then, lights flashed above the stage and shafts of glow lit a spot for a vacant speaker. Two men hurried a podium to the stage and Agloff saw Riddis rifling through sheets of paper at the side as people instructed her.

Ariea called him back.

‘Do you think it will last?’ she said. She was staring aimlessly.

‘What?’

‘All this, people being happy,’ she mused.

Agloff’s eyes searched. Buffet tables filled one edge of the square; a bar, another. Faces laughed and smiled. His world looked carefree. Wishbone’s tax to Winter was now unspent; wallets and bodies were fatter for the coming cold.

‘The North is free, I guess. Why wouldn’t it? Riddis understands people. She doesn’t have an ego like Fall did.’

‘One supposes,’ Ariea slurred, ‘eventually something, someone, else would come around. Free people are just people waiting to be conquered.’

‘That’s a rosy thought.’

‘True though. You think things could stay this way unchecked?’

‘The North is as strong as it’s ever been. Wishbone, Spear, Arwa; they’re unified against Ardul.’

‘Until one of them gets ideas of ruling the rest, and so the wheel turns. You know as anyone history never stays still. Drake’s dream of a free Colony was always a lie. It only takes one to snap, then the rest fall like dominoes.’ Ariea pulled her glass from behind Agloff’s back and downed the rest. ‘The Bloody Spring wasn’t the last of it.’

‘You saying the Colony’s going to end up at war?’

‘I’m saying the skirmishes after Jask died were the start, not the end. Call me a pessimist.’

‘You’re deep tonight.’

‘Just existential.’ She dragged him a little closer. ‘All these happy, smiley people, they’re dreaming.’

Agloff leaned against her, pressed his lips to her ear. ‘Then let’s dream a little longer.’ He took the glass from her hand and they parted. ‘Enjoy tonight. I’ll regret it, but… you want another drink?’ He kissed her.

‘Please.’

Agloff dodged through gormless chatter to the bar in front of a string of multi-coloured houses and lifted two glasses of champagne. The chatter seemed to subdue, and he saw squat, piggy heads turn to the stage. He raised the glasses and twirled around absent-minded bodies, back to Ariea. She snatched it and downed the thing in one.

Riddis now hunched at the podium. The crowd stopped and the crackle of a microphone gripped them.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘A prosperous equinox to you all. Addiom Bashkar.’

At once, Agloff discerned her tone. It was tempered. Neither celebratory, nor chastened. It was political.

‘It is my pleasure to see everyone here.’ She looked down. ‘It is an unusual occasion, one of unrest, upheaval and togetherness. We live in profound times, unprecedented in their weight. The future hangs heavy at our necks, as we give thanks for another summer.

‘Winter’s absence casts a long shadow in all directions. Friends have been forced to leave us. For others, families are reunited. We must repair and accommodate, move on and grow in these uncertain times.’

Agloff wondered how well these words were scripted. How much they had been changed and unchanged. Every syllable, every intonation was precise. Riddis walked a fine line. Wishbone had no shortage of apologists and opponents of Winter. She offended, but appeased, neither in that way politicians did, really by saying nothing at all.

‘Most of all, we should remember those we lost. I would pay respects to former Ambassador Stone, an honourable man, late Apostle of Anna, lost in the skirmishes on Spear’s borders. And his nephew who sadly succumbed to illness.’

The crowd responded in half-murmurs of contempt or support.

Good riddance, thought Agloff.

‘I mourn the loss of Taret Stone’s wisdom and counsel. But in kind, we should continue to welcome the many children who have found a home at Wishbone this year. They have become friends, neighbours, sons and daughters to so many wonderful parents, taken into our homes and hearts. As many too, have come home.’

Her rambling eulogies and metaphors continued. Agloff’s eyes glazed at her words, as Ariea leaned against his shoulder. He then felt Riddis’ speech rise to its conclusion. Her voice carried in waves.

‘We live in a new world,’ she said, a new Colony, one in which we fend for ourselves, but we stand shoulder to shoulder with brothers, sisters. We fend for ourselves. But we fend, and we thrive!’

Her foot clapped the stage and she raised two arms to the crowd.

‘Fend and thrive!’ they replied in chorus. ‘Fend and thrive! Fend and thrive!’ Applause broke out around them as Riddis stepped down, arms aloft, surrounded by guards and important people.

‘Ahh-ughh-ohh.’ A man blustered through the crowd to Agloff and Ariea. They turned their back to him.

‘Oh-err, sorry,’ he slurred. He walked, hunched, with a glass in one hand, and swept a mop of blonde hair by the other. He jabbed the air at them. ‘You’re Ashborne, and Finland,’ he said. ‘Ad-Addiom Bashkar. Addiom Bashkar. Celebrities. Secretary Bose.’ He offered a hand.

‘Yes?’ Agloff said, not taking it. ‘What of it?’

‘Just a pleasure to meet you. You did s’all a favour, sorted out these good folks, honest, free folks, from the Winter arse-lickers.’

Ariea leaned behind Agloff’s ear, whispered, ‘Gross.’

‘The good lady Riddis speaks highly of you.’

‘President of the Fort,’ Ariea corrected.

‘Yes, quite. I heard of your… vivacity.’ Bose jabbed a finger at Ariea, then, seemingly distracted, raised it to the lights above. ‘They have a name for you, up there at the offices.’

‘A name for- me?’ said Ariea.

‘They call you the Slayer.’ He smiled madly.

Agloff recoiled. The past, and all its misery, hauled him back. It reached at them like a lumbering giant. Insurmountable.

‘They do?’ Ariea’s lip shook.

‘I say it’s a kickass name.’

‘It’s not a name at all,’ Agloff said, restraining himself.

Bose ducked, and seemed to catch sight of a haze in Ariea’s eyes. ‘I meant no offence.’

‘You think Ariea hasn’t had enough of people talking to her about that?’ Agloff said. ‘Move along, Bose.’

The man skulked away, taking sheepish glances back.

‘You alright?’

‘I will not just be the girl who killed Malvo Jask. I am more than that, aren’t I?’

‘If people bothered to know you, they’d realise that’s the least interesting thing about you. People will stop asking eventually if we give it time.’

Ariea scoffed. ‘How long you got?’

‘I’m very sorry if my colleague disturbed you,’ a voice called at them. They turned. Riddis strolled toward them. ‘Bose is a… He’s quite harmless.’

‘He said you call Ariea the Slayer,’ Agloff said.

‘Agloff, don’t, it doesn’t matter,’ Ariea replied. She tugged at his arm.

Riddis looked at them. ‘It’s quite alright. I’ve made a point of them not doing, but some didn’t get the message. They’ll be disciplined.’ She was a tall woman, Riddis, and younger than her authority expected. Her blonde hair was slickly pinned into a bun.

‘I’m going to go home.’ Ariea turned to Agloff. ‘You hang out with Merry and Memph for a bit. I’ll be fine,’ she lied. She reached up and pecked him.

Agloff nodded, watched her weave through the sea of gormless bodies. She would be grateful for the time alone to unwind. His eyes watched until the last blink of her hair vanished from view.

‘Agloff.’ Riddis summoned his attention. ‘How are you?’

He shrugged.

‘I appreciate if it means very little coming from me, but I am truly sorry for what’s been said of Ariea. A great deal of idle gossip and rumour on the side. It’s none of their business to discuss.’

Agloff didn’t look at her. ‘It was never your business to demand to know what happened at Eden in the first place.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘What do you want to talk about? There’s a reason you’re talking to me, presumably?’

‘Presumably. Let’s dance. It’s a good excuse to talk business,’ Riddis said. Before Agloff could resist, she scooped his hands into hers and pulled him into swaying motions.

‘Is this about the railway station? We did everything—'

‘No. You did good at Tansk, troubling though your findings were. We will discuss that another time.’

‘Then why are we dancing?’ Agloff’s eyes rolled.

‘I need you on my side, Agloff. You and Ariea.’

‘On your side?’

‘The North is at a crossroads. Until now, we have been quite united in dispatching Winter’s remains. With the partition at Troder Hills, Ardul is firmly ousted to the South, or so we hope. Winter has found a measure of stability. More can than be said for ourselves.’

Agloff raised an eyebrow, failing to see what this had to do with him.

‘How the land that was vacated is divvied among the powers that be is a pressing matter. Those with greatest influence stand with the most to gain and to lose, ourselves included.’

Agloff laughed in his head. How prescient Ariea was.

‘And?’

‘And it’ll be a petty, long, vindictive affair of bartering and jibes so each may ensure they come out on top. Wishbone must present a strong front. It’s self-preservation.’

‘I see.’

He wondered if she felt the pressure, at her age, likely but ten years older than he.

‘Doubt me if you will. I want to conserve the independence and diversity of a North that blossomed in Winter’s shadow.’

‘Others disagree?’ Agloff kept his responses abrupt. He thought it might hasten an end to his awkwardness. But it just prompted Riddis to keep talking.

‘Yara Poll.’ Riddis’ face soured. ‘That woman is a blight on this land. A wretch with imperial dreams.’

‘Your dislike of her is well known.’ Agloff thought Poll sounded like Governor Fall of the Underground.

‘A Colony presided by Yara Poll is as low a fate as one under Jask. And that is her intention.’

Agloff was not sure he could agree.

‘The woman is a fascist,’ Riddis said to his doubtful look.

‘Winter was worse. Are.’ Agloff shrugged.

‘Don’t let your personal feelings on the matter sully things. Yara Poll has commanded Spear for four decades, expunged every political opponent in that time. She believes in its right to command the Colony in Winter’s fall. I daresay the vixen would rule as long as Jask if she could. In any case, Winter are communists, not fascists,’ she added compulsively, as if everything needed completing and clarifying. There could be no ambiguity in her words.

Agloff couldn’t stop himself from sighing. ‘What does this have to do with me?’ he asked at last.

‘Everything. But these words are too private for a city dance.’

Agloff thought he was past the point of being the centre of attention when Ariea pulled the trigger on Jask. Alas, Riddis had always kept a close watch on him.

‘Then where?’

‘Dinner,’ Riddis said. ‘My office, tomorrow evening.’

‘What if I don’t feel like it?’

‘Then I am ordering you to dinner. It is essential Ariea comes too, whether she feels like it or not.’

‘That would depend on if your staff call her Slayer.’

Agloff wondered if he had a right to talk to Riddis in such a tone. But it didn’t seem to bother her, as though he could carry himself in a way others did not, and get away with it.

‘Tomorrow at Seven. Ariea must come.’ Her features tightened, her grip on Agloff’s hands slackened. ‘This is an order from the highest authority.’

‘Yours? Poll’s?’ Agloff sneered.

‘No. The will of Malvo Jask’s.’