37 - The Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee

As we circled down towards the Hearthstone Independent, I saw on the landing-place on the roof not only Shaina, Etana and the usual herd of children who’d come up to greet me whenever I came home, but my sister; waiting around the main door in folding chairs was a crowd of writers. The Pages had arrived first.

“You want to hear what people are saying right now, or wait at least until you’ve had tea?” my sister asked, as they unharnessed and unbundled me, and I started hugs and kisses. Her arms around me felt as if she was trying to keep me from breaking. “Assembly’s still in session,” she said. “They voted to stay late knowing you were likely to come in before dark; I’m only up here because I handed off the crystal to the adakri so as not to be in conflict. You have time for a quick tea at best.”

“I’ll fly you down, omores,” said Niku. With a good hard dash across the roof-tiles, it’s not hard to glide to Assembly Palace, but of course I was forbidden to do it myself.

“I want to hear what people are saying right now,” I said, hoping my children couldn’t feel my arms around them trembling.

“They’re mostly shocked,” said Ardi. “And horrified. Of course Linasika and the others in Assembly who don’t like you are saying the usual, your mind is unstable, you’re not suitable for the position, blah blah blah. But most people… you know how when you find out that someone believes some awful thing, you just want to pull him in and ask him, ‘How can you think that?’ With nine out of ten, it’s that.”

I wanted to disappear into a chasm in the earth. “They’re not angry that Arko learned about it before they did?”

“I don’t think anyone’s even thought of that… no one’s said anything. Everyone knows it wasn’t planned, so it couldn’t be smooth.”

“Or that I kept it to myself?”

“Chevenga…” She looked at me quizzically. “Have you forgotten that everyone loves you?”

Everyone loves you and no one loves me. It came back clear as yesterday. I took a deep breath. We were running down the stairs at this point, though when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember Kaninjer having cleared me for exertion. He’d ordered me to keep the mask on in Vae Arahi because it is so high, and now I was thankful for it. “No. But once they’ve got over the first surge of sympathy, and start tracing the implications…”

“I can tell you what they’re saying, love, as you asked me to; not what they will. Haven’t you always told me, don’t worry about what hasn’t happened unless it does?”

I threw myself through a shower a few breaths long, tore a comb through my hair, whipped on my Assembly clothes, and went back up onto the roof. I shouted over the eaves to the writers my apology and promise to speak to them after Assembly, and harnessed up again. We took off, with them following us at a run, spreading out into a ragged line across the mountainside like folding-chair-and-notebook-carrying foot-racers. By the time Assembly had gone through the formalities of swearing me in as semanakraseye, voting to put aside the regular business for the emergency item and my stepping out of the semanakraseyeni chair in favour of the adakri so as not to be in conflict, the writers were all settled in their seats in the gallery.

I’d been trying to rehearse it all the way from Arko, at least while I’d been sober, and to my own mind at least, I’d failed. Telling it in Arko was one thing; here, my heart shrank from it so hard that no words seemed sufficient. But I couldn’t flee from the visitor’s chair, which is in effect the chair of testimony in Assembly, or stop the adakri from saying “I recognize the semanakraseye,” or prevent the yawning pit of silence afterwards, that everyone was leaving to allow me to speak.

Now every pair of eyes, of all who knew me, who’d worked with me, who’d grown up with me, who’d always loved me, fixed on me in deathly silence, burning with the knowledge of my secret, full of concern or bafflement or both. I just wanted to lay my head on the table, hide my eyes in my arms and pretend in the darkness it was all gone, like a child. It was procedural habit more than anything else that pulled me through. I took the speaker’s crystal, and made the formal thank-you for it and greeting to Assembly that is proper after a hiatus, and that got me started with words. What kept me going without losing it was, of all things, practice. I’d told it to one crowd, and to the scratching of pens, before.

I told them what I’d always thought, and what I was learning to think now, with Surya’s help, in little detail. I also told them I would go asa kraiya, the first public revelation of that; there were several gasps, and then a stunned silence. Then the floor was opened for questions from Assembly.

Before I was asked anything, Darosera Kinisil, the Servant of Thara-e-Kalanera, who’d always been warm toward me—she was one Servant I counted as a friend, though we’d never done more together than work—proposed a resolution. I’ll just copy it from the record, looking out the window as my hands pens it.

Da: I’d like to move on the record that it is the heart-felt wish of the Assembly of Servants of Yeola-e that Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, semanakraseye, live a long and healthy and happy life (assent), and also that it is the opinion of the Assembly of Yeola-e that Fourth Chevenga bears no obligation of any sort to die any time before the natural end of a lifespan that a person may reasonably expect, and deserves such a long and healthy life, full of all that makes a person happy. (Sustained applause.)

It went chalk unanimously and the applause went on for a long time, while I sat—the only person in the hall who was sitting—with one hand over my eyes trying to hide my tears, then did what I’d wanted to before, lay my head down on my arms. For vanity, I guess, I’d taken off the mask before I’d come into the Hall; now it suddenly became hard enough to breathe I wanted it back on. There is a yawning emptiness in you, twenty-one years old, that’s being filled for the first time ever. Don’t resist the filling. Fine, Surya, I thought; just don’t expect me to bear it with any dignity.

They also resolved, again unanimously, to abjure me to do whatever was necessary to succeed in the healing—“spare no expense, spare no effort, spare no time, spare no favour that can be asked and spare no healer’s work”—so I had to say “The people wills” to that. Then it was questions.

Many were simply disbelieving, asking me to reiterate or clarify. They asked me how Assembly might help, which caught me off-guard and put me in tears again. And of course they asked me about going asa kraiya; if Yeola-e were to be attacked again as the Arkans had done, would I just stand aside, would I command from the hill-top, would I take up the sword again? I had to answer that I was not sure, because I was not asa kraiya yet, an answer that displeased many, particularly Linasika, who took me to task about my sanity, and about my having kept my expectation secret, and suggested, as usual, that I resign. When it was proposed that I take a half-year leave of absence on returning from Arko, both because I’d been under so much strain and to concentrate on personal matters, as they put it, I agreed to consider it. It sounded like Arkan Celestialis, in truth, but that might be my long days finishing up in Arko talking; I didn’t know how I’d feel once it was done.

They called Surya to the visitor’s chair, which I should have expected. I cite from the record again:

Ka[nai Soriha, Servant of Porokaralinga]: Question for Surya Chaelaecha: our semanakraseye is undergoing a process to undo a sense of obligation to die, that is otherwise going to kill him in some way, we’re given to understand… yes?
Su: Yes.
Ka: My question is, is this process certain to work? Might he undergo it and somehow find death in a short time anyway?
Su: Servants of Assembly, by the ethics which rule my profession, I cannot answer that without—
Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e: Go ahead, Surya.
Su: It is not certain.
Ka: What would you say are his odds?
Su: They are good, in my opinion. Not certain, but good.
Ka: How good… as a percentage… in your mind?
Su: I don’t know so well as to put a percentage on it. This all depends on Chevenga’s choices, not mine, so I cannot know the odds that well.
Ka: Question for the semanakraseye, what do you think your odds are?
4Che: I have no idea.
Ka: Surya has said they are good, are you less confident than that?
4Che: It’s not that I am less confident; I am less certain. By my oath of office, I have no idea. I just do the work, take the steps, and don’t worry about my odds.
Su: If I may, sib Servants, I can explain why the semanakraseye answers in that way. If I may, Che—
4Che: You may.
Su: His odds are a hundred in a hundred if he so chooses, and zero if he so chooses. But it’s a choice that he’s taking a long time to make, which is natural and inevitable. This is why he doesn’t worry about the odds. For him there are no odds; he has full power. He just hasn’t finished making the choice.
Ka: Question for the semanakraseye, can you not just finish it here? Can you not just declare, I’m laying down the sword, I choose to live, and be done with it? That would be immensely reassuring to all of us and all the people of Yeola-e.
4Che: I know it would and I wish I could, but no. It’s not that simple. It’s hard to explain, maybe you’re better to ask Surya… I could declare it, but I cannot know that something in me will refuse it and make it into a lie, I have learned that. It’s not that I can’t choose… it’s that I don’t know how to do it completely, not yet. Apologies for the confusion.

Then Kusiya Aranin, who was local, representing Terera-South, and had known me from birth—he was in his early sixties—took the crystal. He was baffled, he said; but then he tread where no one else had dared. “In my heart I feel the question: what have we done to Chevenga to make him feel this?”

Despite everything, the words tore out of me, “No! Nothing!” even though I was speaking out of turn. Kusiya went on. “Is the position of semanakraseye so harsh, do we ask so much of our semanakraseyel, that they should get these feelings? It may have nothing to do with that, of course, but Yeolis will ask these things, and if they are true, we should know it. My feeling is that we need to understand this all much better.” He moved that a committee of Assembly be struck, “to fully assess the state of mind of the semanakraseye and the causes for anything that might deleteriously affect his state of mind,” commencing its work once I returned from Arko. It went chalk by a fair majority.

I glanced at Surya, whose face showed nothing. Everything is going as it should, I tried to tell myself. I’ve known from a child what the striking of such a committee means. First, whatever it is investigating is enshrined as a matter of concern; whatever the findings turned out to be, it would be on the public record forever that my mental state had been considered needful of examining in depth by Assembly. Second, the committee will make a report, on which everyone else will rely. My political fate in Yeola-e, in other words, was suddenly in the hands of eight soon-to-be-named people.

When the adakri called for Servants to serve on the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee, as it was named, Linasika leapt to his feet; Darosera did too, instantly, thinking to balance him. Soon there were eight, including Kusiya, naturally, and Kuraila Shae-Linao, Servant of Ossotyeya, volunteering no doubt because she was a psyche-healer, which I was happy to see. No one else stood, so there need not be an election. All good people, some with a lot of wisdom, and only one with particularly ill will towards me, when at least one was to be expected; I could take comfort in that. We were done then, and I went out to face the faster and less formal questions of the writers. By then dark was falling. Niku was napping, so we could start the flight back tonight. Surya wanted to speak with me first, though, and I suggested we repair to my hot tub. He’d never seen the Hearthstone Independent before, so I wanted to show him the best of it.

“It’s impressive, the political process,” he said, once we were soaking. “I’ve never seen it so close before. I see now how it’s woven into your life.”

“They were mostly kind today, naturally, since they’ve learned so recently and so it’s still a stab through the heart. But they could still impeach me. It will all come down to that committee. I should have known they’d do that; my mind’s been too palsied with fear.”

“I suggest not worrying about what hasn’t happened unless it does. If the Committee finds true, they won’t impeach you.”

That’s how he would testify when they came asking him, then; that was good to know. When I thought about it, I wasn’t sure what exactly they’d use as evidence, other than his testimony, and my own. It seemed to me that everything else they’d find was out of date.

“You think I’ll be finished, asa kraiya and ready to... live longer… within eight moons?” Two moons to finish in Arko and then the half-year leave, I was thinking. He’d never estimated a time for me; I’d never before asked him to.

“Best not to try to be too exact with these things,” he said. “It can interfere with the work.”

“I’m used to working within a set time.”

“That’s exactly why not to. We’re trying to get you away from that, remember?” Surya was even better at pointing these things out than Alchaen. “Do yourself the mercy and the honour of giving yourself however much time it takes. If it looks like it’s going to take longer than the half-year, you can always ask for an extension.”

It was time to go; if we left now, we could be at the Marble Palace three evenings hence. I changed again, and kissed awake a sleepily-growling Niku. Then Etana came to me and said, almost shyly, “Chevenga… I think before you go, you should look out the front door.”

Kyash, I thought, what is the plot, and who hatched it, this time? My whole family who were in Yeola-e were gathered in the foyer, the smaller ones giggling. My hands were shaking on the handles as I pulled the doors open.

About twenty-nine thousand people live in Terera and Vae Arahi combined. I couldn’t imagine every one of them had gathered on the mountainside in front of my house, so people had to have come from Chegra and Ossotyeya and the villages around, too. The sky was such a deep indigo that it was almost black, except for the day’s last trace of paleness in the west and a faint yellowing in the east that presaged the rising of a near-full moon. The spring stars on the apex glinted like diamonds strewn on black velvet. The land, which reaches for the sky all around here, was pure black, except for the stretch before my front door, which moved and teemed and twinkled with a sea of people holding candles. The Pages had come out the same day I’d revealed it in Arko, too soon to include what had happened that night. Apparently someone, or perhaps more than one someone, had sent something about it by pigeon.

I whirled around to flee, and ran into Shaina and Etana’s locked arms, sparking a high gale of laughter from the children. “Oh no, you don’t,” Shaina laughed. “You have to accept this.” (Was Surya sending her his thoughts?) As soon as those in the front edge of the crowd saw me they began yelling, and it spread back throughout until the mountain rang with a thunder of shouting, and the flames grew from a smattering to a shining mass as they were raised high. A host of Arkans will stand stiffly, delivering their message in somber and eloquent silence; Yeolis, not a chance. I heard my name a thousand times, with a thousand different arm and candle-waving exhortations, until they fell into a chant that I am too ashamed to record, except that it was an affirmation of the beauty of life that struck me to the bones. I love my people. They had been through Arkan Hayel: enslaved, raped, beaten, tortured a thousand ways, bereaved over and over and over until they should have been marked and cowed for life by grief—and yet they could shout to me that life was worth living with utterly wild and unrestrained joy. This was nothing they’d ever been given, and thus could never be taken away either. It came entirely from the spirit.

At least this time I didn’t have to hesitate for not knowing what to do. I took a candle of my own and lit it, to their roar, just as in Arko; but I couldn’t keep from crying my eyes out or sinking to my knees or clutching my hair, or any number of other shame-mannerisms that must have looked like the contortions of a torture-sufferer, before their joy began to infect me, as they intended, and I went out among them to touch and be touched by thousands of hands. Surya’s words kept echoing in my ears. There is a yawning emptiness in you, twenty-one years old, that’s being filled for the first time ever. Don’t resist. So full I felt drunk, I put the mask back on, climbed Haranin and let myself be bundled again, then took off with Niku and Surya and his winger. The crowd lingered, a faint pool of yellow twinkles on the black mountainside, its massed voices still rising on the same night ridge-wind that lifted us.





--