Francesca Haig - The Map of Bones

‘Why would we help you manoeuvre against them?’ Piper said. ‘You’ve only come to us because you’re being edged out of power, and you’re desperate.’

‘Edged out of power?’ The Ringmaster met Piper’s gaze. ‘You’d know how that feels.’

I interrupted him. ‘You chose to work with them, before the machines drove you apart. Why would we work with somebody who hates Omegas?’

‘Because I can offer your people a better life than the tanks. The refuge system has worked well for decades, as a humane way of dealing with the Omega problem. Maintained by tithes, it’s a workable solution. Without your brother and The General, things could continue the way they used to.’

‘That’s why I could never work with you,’ I said. ‘There isn’t an Omega problem . Only those problems that the Council’s created for us: the tithes. Pushing us further and further out, to land where nothing will grow. The branding, and all the other restrictions that make it nearly impossible to live.’

‘That’s all immaterial now. We both know the only thing that matters is stopping the tanks.’

‘Then why didn’t you just come with more soldiers,’ I said, ‘and take me back to Wyndham? With me as your prisoner, you know you could force Zach to do whatever you like.’

‘I would have, if I’d thought it would do me any good. Thought about killing you, too, to take him out altogether.’ He was as unapologetic as his blade itself, whose indentation I could still feel on my throat. ‘A few months ago, it might have worked. But it’s bigger than your brother, now. He allied himself too closely to The Confessor. Now she’s gone, it’s weakened his standing. The General’s been around for longer than him; she’s better established on the Council. When the two of them killed The Judge, she grabbed power, and she’s not going to let it go. If I threaten The Reformer, or even kill him, it’s not going to put a stop to this. And if The General even suspected that we were using you as a hostage to control your twin, she’d kill him herself.’

Before I escaped from Wyndham, Zach had said to me: I’ve started something, and I need to finish it . But he was caught up now, as if trapped in the workings of one of his own machines.

‘Anyway,’ The Ringmaster went on, ‘you’re more use to me out here, as a contact with the resistance.’

‘I won’t be used.’

I was thinking of Piper, and what he’d said to me, just a few days ago: It’s your job to endure the visions. And it’s mine to decide how we can use them. I was tired of men who saw me as a tool to be wielded.

‘We could benefit each other,’ said The Ringmaster. ‘We want the same thing.’

‘No we don’t.’ This accusation cut me more than his blade had done. ‘You want to be rid of us, just like Zach does – you just disapprove of his methods.’

‘Perhaps our goals diverge eventually, but right now, we both want to stop what’s happening with the tanks. So the question is, how important is that to you?’

‘I won’t help you.’

Piper talked over me. ‘If we were to help you, what could you offer us in exchange?’

‘Information. The kind of insider details that could help the resistance to stop the tankings. The General and The Reformer might be freezing me out, but I still have access that you could only dream of.’

‘Information alone’s no good to us, if we can’t even act on it,’ I said. ‘There might have been a time when secret information-gathering and hiding away was enough. But our people have bled and died on the island. If you want to stop the tankings, you need to rally those soldiers loyal to you, and help us.’

‘You ask too much,’ he said. ‘If I take arms against your brother and The General, it’s open war. People will die – yours as well as mine.’

‘People have already died,’ I said. ‘And more are going to be tanked – all Omegas, eventually. It’s worse than death.’

‘I’m willing to help you stop it. Why won’t you do the same?’ His voice was persuasive – I could imagine him holding forth in the Council Hall. ‘These machines are powerful in ways we can’t even understand. Who knows what the tanking could do to us?’

He was looking me in the eyes and I knew his concern was real. But I also knew that he only feared for the Alphas. His ‘us’ didn’t include the Omegas in the tanks. We were nothing more than the background noise. And I reminded myself, too, that he controlled much of the army. I thought of the soldiers I’d seen in New Hobart, whipping an Omega prisoner until the flesh of his back split like overripe fruit. I thought of the soldiers who had attacked the island. Had they reported to him, followed his orders?

‘You should be against the tanks because it’s wrong to torture people by keeping them underwater and half-dead,’ I said. ‘Because it’s an unspeakable crime. Not because of your fear of what the machines could do. Not because of the taboo.’

‘I’m not without compassion,’ he said. ‘Stopping the machines benefits Omegas too. Your people, more than anyone else, are victims of what the machines wrought.’ He looked pointedly at Piper’s left shoulder. ‘I’m not one of the idiots who swallows the Council line about Omegas as evil deviants. I understand that you’re more to be pitied than hated.’

‘We don’t want your pity, or need it,’ said Piper. ‘We need your help. Your swords, and your soldiers.’

‘We both know that can’t happen.’

‘Then we have nothing further to talk about,’ I said.

He scanned my face. I didn’t look away.

‘You’ll change your mind,’ he said. ‘When you do, come to me.’

He made to turn away, but I called after him.

‘You want us to trust you,’ I said, ‘but you haven’t even told us your real name.’

‘You know my name,’ he said.

‘Not your Council name. Your real name.’

‘I already told you.’ His voice was granite – it yielded nothing. ‘What would it change, if I told you the name my parents gave to me? Why would that be any truer than the name I chose for myself?’

I refused to be dismissed by him. ‘Why choose The Ringmaster then?’ I said.

He raised his chin slightly, appraising me.

‘When I was a child,’ he said, ‘a minstrel show came through our town. They put on a hell of a show: not just bards, but jugglers and acrobats too. A horse that danced on its hind legs to the music, and a man who’d trained snakes to crawl all over his body. It felt like half the town turned out to watch. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. But when everyone else was oohing and aahing at the dancing horse, and the man who walked on stilts, I was watching the man who introduced them. I saw how he got us hyped up for each act, and how he jumped in to cut an act short if it wasn’t grabbing us. He orchestrated the whole thing. The performers were impressive enough, in their own way, but the Ringmaster was the one running the show. He had the audience performing like that dancing horse, by the end, and they filled his hat with coins without thinking twice.

He bent closer, as if he were telling me a secret. ‘I never wanted to be the man on stilts, or the snake-charmer. I wanted to be the Ringmaster: the one who makes things happen. That’s what I am now. You’d do well to remember it.’

He stepped back, and began to walk away to where his soldiers waited, barely visible in the darkness.

‘Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,’ Zoe shouted at his back.

‘That’s what your twin would do,’ he said, turning to me. ‘The Reformer would have a knife in my back before I got three paces away.’ He gave a grin – the quick twist of the mouth, a flash of teeth like the glint of a blade. ‘I suppose it’s a question of how alike you are.’