72 - Reconnaissance on the Committee

Surya was right: after checking me on the morning of the fourth day, Kaninjer prescribed eight aer of sleep a night until further notice. He was barely out the door when I was throwing on my clothes to run down to Assembly Palace. It was just after dawn and well before the offices opened, of course, but, medical leave or not, I still had a key. The proceedings of Committees of the Assembly are public records, free for any citizen to see, even the one they’re about.

“Chevenga, you’re not supposed to go anywhere alone, had you forgotten that?” Niku growled from half under the covers. I had, completely. An Imperator in Arko has so many guards and staff around him all the time that he doesn’t notice that he’s never alone, but things are much looser in Yeola-e.

“So get up and fly me down,” I said, and told her why I was going. She growled and pulled the quilts over her head again, and I heard indistinct words that might have referred whiningly to morning sickness and perhaps also contained an invitation for me to copulate with a festering wound, but she got up anyway. She wanted to see what the Committee was up to as well.

“I’m getting this right?” Skorsas said hazily from his place in the bed, as Niku and I got dressed. “It’s a group of people… politicians… Yeoli politicians… arm-waving Yeoli politicians… who got together to decide whether you’re crazy or not, and it’s official, so what they say is going to be believed and become a law or something?”

“Like most Arkans, you got an unfair impression of Yeoli politicians, other than me, from the hawks,” I said. “They weren’t Servants of the people; they were the dregs of the most ambitious of the army, the worst that fall lowest and so, in typical upside-down Arkan tzen-kellin-ripalin way, end up at the top and in the Pages.”

“But they’re still politicians, not psyche-healers,” he sniffed. “Why isn’t Surya one of them?”

“Because he’s my healer already, and…” I quailed from trying to explain, yet again, the concept of ‘conflict of interest’ to an Arkan. They seem inclined by their very blood to consider it a lucky advantage. I’d taken special care to make sure Kallijas and Minis both understood it, and could only hope they truly did.

“And it’s not true that none of them is a psyche-healer,” I added. Kuraila Shae-Linao, Servant of Ossotyeya, served in Assembly and ran a practice in Terera at once, and was very well-regarded in both. “There’s another who used to be before she became a Servant.” That was Chanae Salhanil of Kaholil, who was a touch conservative for my taste, but still a conscientious and intelligent Servant. I had pored over the records of the eight Committee members, trying to tell myself it was not at all like doing war reconnaissance.

“Hrmph,” Skorsas said. “And I suppose you’re hungrier for knowledge of what they’ve been doing than for actual food, which would actually nourish you.” Needless to say, he had once again imposed steely authority over the Hearthstone Independent kitchen, hiring a chef and two sous-chefs away from a very good restaurant in Terera for I-hoped-Assembly-never-found-out-how-much money.

“Much hungrier. We’ll be back soon, love, and you can have it waiting.”

“Nothing for me,” moaned Niku, earning herself a short tandem lecture from Skorsas and me on how she should have eaten more the night before. “A-fahkad shkavi,” she spat at us and stalked out, with me following lamely. I knew better than to say anything while we glided down.

Through the empty and silent corridors of Assembly Palace, we crept like thieves to the archive, with its mixed smells of book-leather, paper and the polished wood of the cabinets and shelves. “Committees, here…” I read aloud, picking through the drawers. “Antiquity Preservation, Archival, Bridge-Building, Bursaries, Charities, ah, here—Chevengani.” The file was respectably thick for three days of work. “You’re not going to read the whole thing, are you?” Niku groaned. “I’m hungry.”

“Hungry...? Never mind. No—love, if I didn’t know how to find and read just the important bits, we’d be in Arko for another twenty years. If I had them. Em… well, maybe I do… never mind. Permissions, consents, apologia for confidential files missing, proceedings etesora 23, here we go.”

They’d started work right on the day I’d returned to, just to take leave of, Assembly. Once they’d chosen their president, secured a scribe and so on, they’d discussed at length how to interpret their mandate, which by the resolution was “to fully assess the state of mind of the semanakraseye and the causes for anything that might deleteriously affect his state of mind.”

Blessing of blessings, they had decided that they should read it broadly, exploring everything imaginable that was relevant, including my upbringing and even, on Kusiya’s urging, the customs and traditions surrounding the semanakraseyesin. I thought of how I’d taken off the seals and signet in anger, and then how Surya and I had decided to defer that until I got here; now the Committee was going to dig into it as well. I fought off dizziness with deep breaths. They had decided not to explicitly state their opinion on whether I was fit to be semanakraseye, though, so as not to embarrass me if it proved unfavourable. Small mercies.

Next, they’d discussed where they’d glean their information. They’d already had Kaninjer in once, to requisition files he had: Persahis’s record of healing me while I’d been in the Mezem, Alchaen’s record of healing me from Kurkas’s torture, First Amitzas Mahid’s record of the torture itself, and Perahin’s record of healing me after I’d been impeached. Kan had agreed to lend them all of it so long as he got my permission (as if I had any choice), and they’d requisitioned funds to hire Haian and Arkan translators.

Surya, incidentally, had never read or even glanced at them. To him such files were the groping efforts of the blind to describe what he could see at a glance. Nor was he inclined to keep lengthy notes or files himself; to him a person is an ever-changing and fluid entity, which he sees anew, entire, every time he looks. He’d never bargained for becoming so involved in politics, which can’t do without records and files, of course.

On the Committee’s list of people to question were me and Surya, of course, then four Haians, whose traveling expenses they’d pay: Alchaen, Persahis, Perahin and Tamenat of Haiuroru, who was a professor at the University of Haiuroru, studying suicide and self-harming tendencies. They’d felt they should have at least one witness who did not know me.

Everyone else on the list was family or close to it: my parents, Komona (which I didn’t understand until I remembered I’d revealed that I’d told her), Skorsas and Niku. “You’ll assert or at least imply to them I’m sane, I hope,” I said to her slumped form; she had sat and then lain her head and arms down on one of the tables, trying to catch a touch more sleep.

Her eyes popped open. “What?”

“You’re on their questioning list. I thought you’d consider knowing that worth waking up for… besides, if you’re asleep, I’m effectively alone, and I’m not supposed to be, had you forgotten?”

“Oh yes, sane, very sane, absolutely sane, no one saner,” she slurringly hissed, closing her eyes again.

The Committee had gone on to discuss methods, and Linasika had proposed that they truth-drug me. Less important to him than winning my trust and so earning my willingness to speak openly (as if I had any choice) was being assured that I spoke the truth, which he saw as only possible with the drug. Kusiya in particular condemned this as wrong and Arkan, but none of the others liked it either, and it was soundly charcoaled.

Immediately after, Darosera put forward that they treat me throughout with empathy and without judgment, since that was likely the way the Yeoli people would prefer, and I’d likely be more forthcoming. That was fairly soundly chalked. Go on, Linasika, I thought. Keep on shitting on me and inducing the rest to favour me more in reaction.

Then the Committee had done something quite striking, which made me start to see just how crucial Kuraila would be to their work. Saying that this investigation would be difficult and perhaps emotionally-fraught, and would challenge them in their own fears and prejudices and so forth, she had talked them into each revealing openly to each other what feelings they brought to it, about me and about the task, so that these things would be known and open to all of them and therefore be less likely to pollute the investigation.

I should not tease you, my reader, with mentions of proceedings and not a single quote:

Kuraila: So to do a good job of understanding and reporting, we need to be prepared for this, and the best way to prepare for it—again, from my professional knowledge—is to be utterly open to ourselves and to each other, as we are working in concert, as to what we bring to this work with him, in our own hearts—what we each feel about Chevenga already. I am sure I will have occasion to point out, as we work, ourselves doing what people do—confusing our own emotions with those of others—but it’s paramount that we disentangle such confusions. And that is best done when we are clear on what we bring in the first place.

So as an example, and I hope you will forgive me, Linasika, but you come to this with a dislike of Chevenga as we all know… but more exactly, a fear of him—

Linasika: I’m not afraid of him!

Kuraila: Again, I hope you will forgive me; but you said earlier, you always sensed something false about him, something wrong, something dark. These are words that fear uses; likewise you kept it to yourself, which is another thing that fear does. I do not, and no one should, condemn you for it, or think less of you for it, or demand that you not feel it, or anything of the kind. You have reason for it, even if not everyone else understands, that is valid. It is absolutely crucial that none of us judge or question any of the others for what we bring to this emotionally; that way we can all be entirely honest and open with each other, in the spirit of co-operation. The point is not to cure Linasika of his fear, or Darosera of her admiration—

Darosera: I make no bones about it. The man saved all of us.

It was going to be an interesting investigation.

They had actually done this, opened their hearts to each other, in confidence. A Committee can take parts of its meetings private, with no scribe recording, if all agree, which they did, appropriately enough. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.

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