54 - I had no answer for it

I went back up to the Independent for breakfast, but found I had no appetite. I was suddenly nervous as if I were facing the execution block. Neither hot water nor icy water nor calming essence eased it. Surya wasn’t up yet and I didn’t want to disturb him. Of course I knew what to do: what is in it?

Flashes of the dream came back to me, and I understood. The Yeoli who had killed me in it, who would have killed me in reality if she could, I would have to see in the flesh, look in the face, answer questions from. At some level, it seemed, I had denied to myself that she existed, or planned what she had, so that her presence, proving both, was horrifying.

I took a deep breath, tried to seize myself, reminded myself of the thousand far-worse dangers I had faced and prevailed against in my life. I thought of the mamokal, of Sakrent, of Riji, of the Mahid, of the oubliette, of the enormous armies of Kurkas, of Kallijas. Since I started with Surya, I’ve had attacks of nerves like none in my life, I thought. Why do I think that’s not a coincidence?

None of those memories touched it, any more than they’d enabled me to walk up his flag-stoned path for my second visit to his office. I couldn’t escape what undid me: my would-be killer was Yeoli. I had no answer for it. I knew what Surya would say—there was something I did not understand—but I couldn’t begin to know what it was. I walked down to the court on legs that felt like glass and a heart like water, even with Surya beside me.

It’s just Sharaina, I told myself, when I saw her. Just a woman, an ex-Servant, a person I knew. I am a warrior, a champion, a conqueror. Her red-brown hair was longer than it had been last time I’d seen her in life, about two years ago, and she had more grey at the temples. She looked precisely the same as she had in the dream.

I don’t want to meet her eyes. She was sitting at the desk of the advocate of defense, dressed neatly, utterly respectable, very much like a Servant still, except that the kerchief was dark red rather than the official black and white. The room was crammed, and of course there was a buzz when I came in, causing her to look. Her eyes did not change from their impassiveness, when they met mine. I showed nothing as well, I hoped, but looked away before she did. She absently straightened a stack of papers before her, with hands that I had last seen trying to tear loose from my own so as to stab me, as I lay already dead in effect from three arrows. I looked away again, trying not to feel sick.

The crystal was tapped to the bell to begin. She would be tried first.

Akana kept it very simple to start, calling up Krero to recount the arrest, having the truth-drug confession read into the court record, and having Bartelao testify that she had indeed asked him to aid her in assassinating me, and accepted his agreement.

The first witness Sharaina called up to make her defense was my worst detractor in Assembly, the Servant of Michalere, Linasika Aramichiya. I cite the record.

†

Sha: Servant Linasika, I’d like to ask you first your opinion of Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e as semanakraseye.

Li: In my opinion, Yeola-e would be better off if someone other than Chevenga held the position, but not if he were dead; I do not see him as deserving of death, nothing I have ever said or done, or ever will say or do, is to be interpreted that way, and I absolutely deplore the act you are charged with plotting.

Sha: And yet I recall several conversations between you and me, Linasika, which would belie what you say now, and of which I would like to remind you.

Li: Remind me all you like, I still deplore—

PJ: The witness has not yet been asked a question.

Li: My apologies, Presiding Judge.

Sha: Thank you, Presiding Judge. I direct your mind, Servant Linasika, to a conversation you and I had, which I recall was in my office in Assembly Palace at the time, shortly after Chevenga seized the imperial throne of Arko. You said words to this effect, as I recall, and under oath you must confirm it, “It would have been best if there had been no tree under that window,” a reference to Chevenga’s well-known attempt to commit suicide by leaping out of a window of the Marble Palace, which was foiled only by the tree, which broke his fall, on the night of the sack. Do you deny you said this?

Li: I do not deny it, but I would inform the court that it was meant only as a quip, and should absolutely not be interpreted as my condoning an assassination attempt.

Sha: A quip perhaps, but did you not truly feel that it would have been best had Chevenga died then?

Li: I request of the court that I decline to answer as my answer cannot be part of a substantive argument for justification. The defendant never consulted with me on this assassination plot nor asked me if I was in agreement with it, and if she had, I would have said no in the strongest terms.

PJ: Denied, as the defendant wishes to demonstrate that others agreed with her end, and such opinions are entirely relevant to whether her action was justified.

Li: In answer, then, subsequent events reassured me that my concern was unfounded.

Sha: I get the impression that was a chalk, that you did feel it would have been best if Chevenga had died then, but I ask a more clear answer.

Li: Yes, but I still deplore the act with which you are charged with plotting.

Sha: And yet was it not a clear expression of a wish on your part that Chevenga was dead?

Li: No, I… I said nothing with regard to any wish of mine at all. To quote you quoting me, “It would have been best,” I spoke not my own wish but my opinion as to what would have been best for Yeola-e.

Sha: So then you concur that it would be best for Yeola-e if Chevenga were dead.

Li: No, it’s as I just said, subsequent events reassured me. I don’t think it would be best for Yeola-e if Chevenga were dead.

Sha: Well then let me remind you, Servant Linasika, of another conversation, this time shortly before the vote to impeach him. If I recall rightly it was in your Assembly Palace office, and you predicted—accurately, as it turned out—that Arkans would vote overwhelmingly to impeach him, and Yeolis to keep him. And you said, “What Arkans would truly like to vote for, I know, would be his death; that would be semana kra true.” Do you deny you said words to this effect?

Li: Sharaina, it seems as if you would have me side with the Arkans in the war they fought to enslave us, and that I will not do.

Sha: I don’t hear an answer to my question.

Li: You mean to suggest that I agreed with Arkan voters who would want Chevenga dead in revenge for leading the conquest of them; that’s suggesting I side with them. Considering how I’ve been called down a number of times for excessive Yeoli nationalism, I can’t imagine how you would think this.

Sha: I still don’t hear an answer to my question, which I’m sure will raise the court’s suspicion that you are evading it. Did you say those words, or other that meant the same?

Li: I recall saying I knew Arkans would vote him dead if they could; I don’t recall agreeing with the desire.

Sha: You said “That would be semana kra true,” and semana kra is a principle you have always adhered to as sacred.

Li: As I recall I was making a comment on the irony of it, that if Chevenga were to truly and entirely allow semana kra in Arko he’d be signing his own death-order.

Sha: You may deny it, but I recall the wistfulness in your expression.

Li: I deny it categorically.

Sha: Let’s discuss, then, this letter I have before me, from your hand dated hyeresora 11, 1555, from which I will quote, though before I get to that I will direct the court’s attention to a series of letters you wrote me in our correspondence subsequent to my being impeached from Assembly in 1554, the main gist of which was that you regretted that this had happened as you felt I was undeserving of it, a quote or two: “You are accused of extremism but, as you know, I feel this is unfounded and your fervent devotion to Yeola-e is something to be admired, not abhorred,” another, “Your incisive mind and reliable insight into the deeper truth of matters is missed very much in Assembly, at least by the right-minded.” You recall writing these lines?

Li: I do and I meant them at the time, before I learned you were taken up with sufficient madness to plot to assassinate a semanakraseye.

Sha: Now I quote from the hyeresora 11 letter: “We were rid of him,” meaning Chevenga, “but now he is back, like the weed in the garden you pull every year but will never stop sprouting again the next spring. The man’s charisma is beyond reason and beyond control; if impeachment does not suffice to stop him, what remains?” You recall writing this, Servant Linasika?

Li: I don’t recall the precise words, but if you have them there penned by my hand, I cannot deny it. However—

Sha: In your mind, what means did remain?

Li: If I may request of the Presiding Judge that I be allowed to finish my answer?

PJ: You did finish, sib witness, as it was a chalk or charcoal question and your answer was clearly chalk.

Sha: Thank you, Presiding Judge. I reiterate, in your mind, what means did remain to stop Chevenga?

Li: None. The question was rhetorical.

Sha: You did not see there was only one means remaining?

Li: No, because—I should say, if by this you refer to the act which you plotted, doubly no, because to my mind assassinating a semanakraseye was and is and always will be utterly out of the question, an act for which there is no valid justification.

Sha: Servant Linasika, do you think that the killing of Notyere was justifiable?

Li: Yes, but the moment he attempted to seize powers beyond that of semanakraseye, he ceased to be a semanakraseye in good standing.

Sha: So it is only a semanakraseye in good standing—for the record I emphasize those words—whom it is unjustified to assassinate. Now you said earlier that you felt Yeola-e would be better off with someone other than Chevenga in the position; does that not mean in your mind he is not a semanakraseye in good standing?

Li: No, it means only that he is a semanakraseye with whose policies I disagree. Notyere ceased to be a semanakraseye in good standing by committing illegal acts, in attempting to seize power; Chevenga has not done that.

Sha: Yet many times in Assembly—I think the court is well enough aware that I need not cite from the record—you stood to object to his taking power in Arko, saying that it was wrong, it was the mark of a despot, and it was dangerous. In fact you repeatedly referred to Chevenga as a second Notyere, do you deny that?

Li: I cannot deny it, since it is on the record, and my purpose was to express my sense of the danger in his actions; but his seizing power in Arko was not at all contrary to Yeoli law, and in fact had been essentially approved by Assembly prior to our invasion.

Sha: I note with great amusement the approving tone you now put on, to something you so vociferously objected to back then.

Li: The point I am making is in regard to a semanakraseye in good standing, by which I mean one who has not acted contrary to Yeoli law. By taking the role of Imperator in Arko, Chevenga did not do that.

Sha: So you can define a semanakraseye in good standing as one who has acted to the detriment of Yeola-e, in your opinion, so long as the acts are not technically illegal?

Li: In reference to whether assassinating one is justifiable, absolutely. You started with a comparison between Notyere and Chevenga, and I don’t agree with you that both deserved death. Look, Sharaina Anina, I know you have called me onto the chair to imply to the court that I support your defense of justification, so let me say clearly and unequivocally that it is my opinion that there is absolutely no valid justification whatsoever for the assassination of a semanakraseye, I have always thought so and I will always think so.

Sha: I cede.

Akana Tenasinga: Servant Linasika, you have made your position on whether the defendant’s defense of justification is valid quite clear, so I have little to ask you, but I wonder if I might have you explain why, in your opinion, assassinating a semanakraseye was and is and always will be utterly out of the question, as you say, and why there can be no valid justification whatsoever for it.

Li: Well, to answer that question most cogently for the court’s purposes, it is first of all abhorrent and thus against the law of Yeola-e for a Yeoli to murder another Yeoli, and it is second of all abhorrent—beyond abhorrent—for a Yeoli to act so enormously contrary to the express will of the people and cause severe detriment to the people as to assassinate a semanakraseye, which is why we have a law against treason.

A: Thank you, I cede and release the witness if the defense agrees.

Sha: The defense agrees.

[Note on the abbreviations: where a Yeoli name is abbreviated the first syllable is used as formal Yeoli script is a syllabic script, e.g. Sha for Sharaina; where a title is rendered in English, the initial English letters are used, e.g. PJ for Presiding Judge.]




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