Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man

Miss Flitworth opened it, wiping her hands on her apron. She grimaced short-sightedly at the visitor, and then took a step back.

"Bill Door? You gave me quite a start -"

I HAVE BROUGHT YOU SOME FLOWERS.

She stared at the dry, dead stems.

ALSO SOME CHOCOLATE ASSORTMENT, THE SORT LADIES LIKE.

She stared at the black box.

ALSO HERE IS A DIAMOND TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU.

It caught the last rays of the setting sun.

Miss Flitworth finally found her voice.

"Bill Door, what are you thinking of?"

I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ALL THIS.

"You have? Where to?"

Death hadn't thought this far.

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE?

"I ain't proposing to go anywhere tonight except to the dance," said Miss Flitworth firmly.

Death hadn't planned for this, either.

WHAT IS THIS DANCE?

"Harvest dance. You know? It's tradition. When the harvest is in. It's a sort of celebration, and like a thanksgiving."

THANKSGIVING TO WHO?

"Dunno. No-one in particular, I reckon. Just general thankfulness, I suppose."

I HAD PLANNED TO SHOW YOU MARVELS. FINE CITIES. ANYTHING YOU WANTED.

"Anything?"

YES.

"Then we're going to the dance, Bill Door. I always go every year. They rely on me. You know how it is."

YES. MISS FLITWORTH.

He reached out and took her hand.

"What, you mean now?" she said, "I'm not ready -"

LOOK.

She looked down at what she was suddenly wearing.

"That's not my dress. It's got all glitter on it."

Death sighed. The great lovers of history had never encountered Miss Flitworth. Casanunder would have handed in his stepladder.

THEY'RE DIAMONDS. A KING'S RANSOM IN DIAMONDS.

"Which king?"

ANY KING.

"Coo."

Binky walked easily along the road to the town. After the length of infinity, a mere dusty road was a bit of a relief.

Sitting side-saddle behind Death, Miss Flitworth explored the rustling contents of the box of Dark Enchantments.

"Here," she said, "someone's had all the rum truffles."

There was another crackle of paper. ‘And from the bottom layer, too. I hate that, people starting the bottom layer before the top one's been properly finished. And I can tell you've been doing it because there's a little map in the lid and by rights there should be rum truffles. Bill Door?"

I'M SORRY, MISS FLITWORTH.

"This big diamond's a bit heavy. Nice, though," she added, grudgingly. "Where'd you get it?"

FROM PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT IT WAS THE TEAR OF A GOD.

"And is it?"

NO. GODS NEVER WEEP. IT IS COMMON CARBON THAT HAS BEEN SUBJECT TO GREAT HEAT AND PRESSURE. THAT IS ALL.

"Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out, right?"

YES, MISS FLITWORTH.

There was no sound for a while, except the clipclop of Binky's hoofs. Then Miss Flitworth said, archly:

"I do know what's going on, you know. I saw how much sand there was. And so you thought "She's not a bad old stick, I'll show her a good time for a few hours, and then when she's not expecting it, it'll be time for the old cut-de-grass, am I right?"

Death said nothing.

"I am right, aren't I?"

I CAN'T HIDE ANYTHING FROM YOU, MISS FLITWORTH.

"Huh. I suppose I should be flattered. Yes? I expect you've got a lot of calls on your time."

MORE THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE, MISS FLITWORTH.

"In the circumstances, then, you might as well go back to calling me Renata again."

There was a bonfire in the meadow beyond the archery field. Death could see figures moving in front of it. An occasional tortured squeak suggested that someone was tuning up a fiddle.

"I always come along to the harvest dance," said Miss Flitworth, conversationally. "Not to dance, of course. I generally look after the food and so on."

WHY?

"Well, someone's got to look after the food."

I MEANT WHY DON'T YOU DANCE?

" ‘Cos I'm old, that's why."

YOU ARE AS OLD AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

"Huh! Yeah? Really? That's the kind of stupid thing people always say. They always say, My word, you're looking well. They say, There's life in the old dog yet. Many a good tune played on an old fiddle. That kind of stuff. It's all stupid. As if being old was some kind of thing you should be glad about! As if being philosophical about it will earn you marks! My head knows how to think young, but my knees aren't that good at it. Or my back. Or my teeth. Try telling my knees they're as old as they think they are and see what good it does you. Or them."

IT MAY BE WORTH A TRY.

More figures moved in front of the firelight. Death could see striped poles strung with bunting.

"The lads usually bring a couple of barn doors down here and nail ‘em together for a proper floor," observed Miss Flitworth. "Then everyone can join in."

FOLK DANCING? said Death, wearily.

"No. We have some pride, you know."

SORRY.

"Hey, it's Bill Door, isn't it?" said a figure looming out of the dusk.

"It's good old Bill!"

"Hey, Bill!"

Death looked at a circle of guileless faces.

HALLO. MY FRIENDS.

"We heard you'd gone away," said Duke Bottomley. He glanced at Miss Flitworth, as Death helped her down from the horse. His voice faltered a bit as he tried to analyse the situation.

"You're looking very... sparkly... tonight, Miss Flitworth," he finished, gallantly.

The air smelled of warm, damp grass. An amateur orchestra was still setting up under an awning.

There were trestle tables covered with the kind of food that's normally associated with the word "repast" - pork pies like varnished military fortifications, vats of demonical pickled onions, jacket potatoes wallowing in a cholesterol ocean of melted butter. Some of the local elders had already established themselves on the benches provided, and were chewing stoically if toothlessly through the food with the air of people determined to sit there all night, if necessary.

"Nice to see the old people enjoying themselves," said Miss Flitworth. Death looked at the eaters. Most of them were younger than Miss Flitworth.

There was a giggle from somewhere in the scented darkness beyond the firelight.

"And the young people," Miss Flitworth added, evenly. "We used to have a saying about this time of year. Let's see... something like "Corn be ripe, nuts be brown, petticoats up... " something." She sighed. "Don't time fly, eh?"

YES.

"You know, Bill Door, maybe you were right about the power of positive thinking. I feel a lot better tonight."

YES?

Miss Flitworth looked speculatively at the dance floor. "I used to be a great dancer when I was a gel. I could dance anyone off their feet. I could dance down the moon. I could dance the sun up."

She reached up and removed the bands that held her hair in its tight bun, and shook it out in a waterfall of white.

"I take it you do dance, Mr. Bill Door?"

FAMED FOR IT, MISS FLITWORTH.

Under the band's awning, the lead fiddler nodded to his fellow musicians, stuck his fiddle under his chin, and pounded on the boards with his foot -

"Hwun! Htwo! Hwun htwo three four..."

Picture a landscape. with the orange light of a crescent moon drifting across it. And, down below, a circle of fire-light in the night.

There were the old favourites - the square dances, the reels, the whirling, intricate measures which, if the dancers had carried lights, would have traced out topological complexities beyond the reach of ordinary physics, and the sort of dances that lead perfectly sane people to shout out things like ‘Do-si-do!" and ‘Och-aye!" without feeling massively ashamed for quite a long time.

When the casualties were cleared away the survivors went on to polka, mazurka, fox-trot, turkey-trot and trot a variety of other plants and beasts, and then to those dances where people form an arch and other people dance down it, which are incidentally generally based on folk memories of executions, and other dances where people form a circle, which are generally based on folk memories of plagues.