Work Text:
The Glories of This Happy Day
According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order’d honourably.
—William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 5, scene 5
Ses’erakh, 2393
The geleta house stood at a three-way crossroads where, once upon a time, a grove of ithian trees had marked the edge of Paldar. It was conveniently situated directly opposite a tram stop served by two lines, one that cut east-west through Paldar and one that came down from Coranum. It did very good food that – with its emphasis on soups and broths – bore an unmistakeably Mathenite influence for which there was a market in this part of the city. That was the main reason they’d chosen the place; its relative proximity to their various homes and places of work was another.
Here, once a month, a group of old friends met to have supper and set the world to rights. They’d met like this, on and off, for well over forty years. Back in the early days, the location shifted randomly from one home to another; each gathering marked by the ritual sweep for surveillance and then the fast and furtive sharing of ideas, opinions, news, and books which could get them shot. In retrospect, knowing what they knew now, their courage was breathtaking, their naivety heartbreaking. They could see, now, how it was only a matter of time before each one of them came under scrutiny. How the machinery of oppression was always going to chew them up and spit them out. In the event, most of them were lucky. Most of them got out. Some of them stayed where they were. Some of those were imprisoned; most of these died.
Those who escaped continued their tradition. In their new home – a balmy world that was damper than most of them preferred, but was warm – there was a little lakeside café owned by another émigré, who made them welcome and served gelat. They pored over news from home, such as it was, grieving the losses and – sometimes – toasting the occasional good news. The collapse of the Order; the death of tyrants; the violent birth of a revolution. One dreadful time, they huddled there together, watching helplessly as their home burned and everyone was murdered.
Returning in the aftermath seemed to each one of them to be a responsibility. Denied the chance, before, to push their project forwards, they could now, perhaps, be part of building something new. So back they came, one by one, to the rubble and the ashes of their liberated home, and a world in which nothing – even the old dividing lines – was certain any longer. A world where enemies claimed to be friends. For a while they met in the home of one of those who’d stayed behind throughout everything. And then, as circumstances changed, they found this place. And this was where they came now.
Ghrell was the first to arrive, as usual. He counted the chairs round the table, and quietly asked the proprietor to add another. He took a seat which gave him a good view of the tram stop. He drank two shots of isik in quick succession, then ordered a small gelat tempered with another shot and a bottle of kanar. He had a feeling that whichever way things went, this was going to be a difficult evening.
He drank the gelat. A tram arrived, bringing two of his oldest friends. They greeted each other warmly. Arani sat down beside him; Relet on her other side. They opened the bottle of kanar. Relet engaged in a few pleasantries, and then picked up the padd he’d brought with him. He’d taken to going through the broadsheets when they met, and reading out choice items that he found there to the rest of them.
Another tram arrived, and then another. This one brought Elyet and Tret. More greetings, embraces; seats taken; kanar poured. Another bottle ordered. Conversation sprang up quickly, inevitably about politics. Relet supplied a few starting points. The consensus going into this evening was that the resettlement programme was not ambitious enough, that the building projects were to be admired, and that the Federation needed to be doing more. This consensus, at least, would be reached again, Ghrell predicted, across the course of the next couple of hours.
“I’m starving,” said Elyet, after a while. “Are we getting food?”
“We’re not all here yet,” said Ghrell.
“Is Kelas coming tonight?” said Elyet. “Oh, good…”
“I don’t know,” said Arani. “You know that… You know that he came home at the start of the week.”
Everyone went quiet. They had known, of course. Hard to miss the news, really.
“That’s sooner than expected,” said Tret.
“It’s been three years,” said Arani.
“That’s what I meant,” said Tret.
“Kelas is still coming, though, isn’t he?” said Elyet. “He’s not going to stop coming?”
“I hope not,” said Arani, with a sigh.
Baskets of warm brown bread arrived. Seasonings from several different worlds. Fish paste from home. Mathenite dips. Olive oil. Their tastes had altered across the years. Each one of them dug in, hungrily. Another tram stopped, and moved on.
“Why is there another chair?” said Tret, suddenly. “There are seven chairs. Are we expecting someone new?”
“Bit late to join the revolution now,” said Relet, from behind his padd.
“He’s not coming, is he?” said Tret. They looked round at each other. “Did someone say he could come?”
“That was me,” said Ghrell. “I spoke to Kelas yesterday. Said he should come. Said they should both come.”
“Did you think of running that past the rest of us?” said Tret.
Relet put down his padd. “Partners have always been welcome before.”
“I don’t mind sitting down to supper with partners,” said Tret. “It’s convicted war criminals where I draw the line.”
Ghrell finished his glass of kanar and poured himself another.
“Are we really doing this tonight?” said Arani, quietly. “They might turn up any second. Imagine how Kelas would feel, hearing you talk like this—”
“If he turns up, I go,” said Tret. “I’m sorry, but Kelas made his choices. They weren’t my choices, and I shouldn’t be asked to live with them—”
“Seems harsh,” said Relet. “Given everything—”
“Or exactly harsh enough,” said Tret.
“Look,” said Elyet, “neither of them are here right now. Why don’t we not quarrel about something that hasn’t happened, and order instead?”
A tram arrived. They watched as people got out. It pulled away. There was nobody there they knew.
“I mean,” said Elyet, “I’m not sure I’d turn up, in his position.”
“What do you mean by that?” said Tret.
“Oh, love, I’m just trying to put myself in his shoes,” she said. “Of course I’d rather he wasn’t here. I’d rather we didn’t fight. Not this late in the day.”
“I’m not fighting,” said Tret. “I’m just making my position clear.”
The conversation continued. Ghrell looked out across the street and sipped his drink. What a nice evening it was. Warm, and the sky so clear you could see the stars. And here they sat, arguing about the world as they had done for decades, only now they were sitting in the street and nobody was going to drag them off to prison or send them flying into exile, and somewhere along the line a revolution happened and a free press was set up and a whole world rebuilt and past crimes held to account and, in the eyes of some people, even expiated… A tram pulled up, then pulled away. Nobody got off. Ghrell signalled to the waiter that he, at least, was ready to order.
10th May 2026