83 - Released from the Kiss of the Lake

I was there until after dark. They kept suggesting that we adjourn for the next day, I kept saying I wanted to get it over with today, and they kept honouring that. When we broke for dinner I ate in the Hearthstone with my parents to save time. They asked me what I was before the Committee about, and when I told them, did not say another word about it, for which I was thankful.

I won’t recount being questioned at length about each incident, since I’ve already written my own account of them all. It was like being tied down and having my innards from neck to manhood cut open for an operation while still conscious, except worse, since anyone’s innards opened up look the same as anyone else’s, whereas what was being brought into the light here was strictly mine and would be tied to my name. And, oh yes, all Yeola-e was audience.

When we were done I wanted to be carried up to the Hearthstone, but had no pretext for that and so had to walk. They’d been planning to send the runner with me to adhere to my strictures, but, seeing how I was affected, they voted to send him up to the Hearthstone before we were finished to fetch someone closer to me to walk me. It was Skorsas. I just leaned on him all the way, lay limp in the hot tub for a while and then went to bed and instant sleep, almost without saying a word.

I slept in, until the sun was well up from the peaks, something I never do unless I’m wounded or sick. My spouses even forbade the little children from coming in for the usual morning cuddling. Even when I woke, I didn’t want to get up, feeling as if I’d been beaten thoroughly with sticks. “You have no reason to, no one to meet, nothing to sign,” said Skorsas. “No one to look after but yourself.” The hardest person. He brought me breakfast in bed, and I think would have spoon-fed me if I’d let him. It was healer’s orders, as it turned out; Kaninjer had said they should always let me sleep as long as I did naturally.

As is usually done, the Committee scribe did up the final classic-script version from his Athali notes in the morning. It took him until close to noon. “Dad, there is a herd of writers around the door,” Tawaen came in to say, shortly thereafter. “I want to tell them to go eat kyash, but that would make you look bad, wouldn’t it?”

After my first questioning, I’d called the writers who were chasing me together into the dining-room of the Hearthstone, the only place they’d all fit. “I will start by apologizing for what I’ve invited you all in to say,” I told them. “I will not answer any questions about the investigation of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee, my part in it or anyone else’s, until after it has handed its final report to Assembly. I know, I know, wait…” Of course they clamoured in protest, or more exactly, urgent requests, made with impeccable politeness, of course, to know why.

“Anything I say about it away from them,” I said, once I’d got silence, “could influence their deliberations, or be seen as an attempt to influence their deliberations. That would be improper for anyone who is the subject of such an investigation; it is much more so for a semanakraseye. So I can give no opinions, nor open my heart about any of it; I could recount what happened, but you can get that better from the transcripts, which anyone is permitted to read. So there is no point in my saying anything, and thus you might as well not seek me out, unless it’s about something else.”

Of course they gave me what-for, in their polite way, reminding me in ten or twenty different wordings that this wasn’t like me. I stood my ground. I think at least those among them who were sensible knew I would, and did it mostly so they’d be able to tell or write harrying editors that they’d tried their best.

So they shouldn’t be beleaguering me now, and I was forgiving of my son’s anger. I lay with my eyes closed in despair for a bit, while he waited. “Sorry, love, yes, it would make me look bad. We’ll send a grown-up.” Since I had a feeling it would require this, I wrote a note saying, in civil but firm words, that my policy was set for reasons of propriety, as I’d told them, would not change, and they were free to ask me all they liked about the investigation when it was over. Krero, who can make his face an immovable stone wall if he wants to, offered to read it to them. I told him to bring it back afterward, having a feeling I’d need it again.

The reason they gave was, of course, that what I’d revealed was so extraordinary. When Krero did not relent, they went to other people in my family, who all told them more or less the same thing, though we hadn’t met to plan it; I am blessed with sensible kin. Surya, of course, pleaded healer’s confidentiality, as they should have expected. It was not improper for members of the Committee to speak their opinions, but they did not, saying they should keep that within the Committee, with the exception of one. The reader of this book who cannot guess who should scrape up the gold for reading lessons.

“Of course it would be improper for any Committee member to draw, or even imply, a conclusion on Chevenga’s sanity before we concur on final ones,” Linasika said, ever mindful of propriety. “But I would be lying if I told you I was anything but shocked, and horrified, and utterly baffled, by what came out, which you know from the transcript. I… I’d like to say more, but I must not.” I didn’t witness this, just read it, but I could imagine the pose of heroic restraint he’d struck. Still, who could disagree with him?

Kusiya spoke no opinions, but when he was asked if he really would propose a resolution forbidding me to do the Kiss of the Lake again, he said, “Absolutely, I will. Why would you doubt I meant what I said? He’s already done it twice more than he should!”

I am jumping ahead again, for he did not act immediately, since I was on leave and so wouldn’t do it for almost six moons anyway; then other matters intervened. But his actions had more caution, in truth, as he was concerned about those who might not credit what I’d done unless he found witnesses to confirm it, which he did privately. Krero had been there the first unofficial time, of course, all four of my parents the second, my mother, Esora-e and Krero the third.

I’ve jumped ahead with both quotes. The afternoon of that day, Surya came. The urge to get up, which I hadn’t had all day, came strongly the moment I saw his face.

“My healing room, then?” he said. I took a deep breath. I’d invited him to move into the Hearthstone Independent, incidentally, and so he had, setting up a healing room with the same sponges lining the wall as on Bright Street, in Arko. He’d move back to Tinga-e with his family, they’d planned, once he was done with me.

At least he was merciful enough not to make me get on the table, but just had me sit with him in the chairs. “Tell me what’s in your heart,” he said.

“As if you don’t know,” I gritted. “I know, I know, I need to know for myself and I will better if I say it, you needn’t tell me, I know.” He just chuckled.

“You feel as if you’ve been cut open and beaten all over, but that’s easing up,” he said. “Afraid of what will come of it, and that isn’t easing up so much.” He had it precisely. “Let me word more exactly what I mean, then—what stands out for you?”

I thought for a time, making sure to breathe deeply as I did. “Well,” I said finally, “in my own mind I still owe the people of Yeola-e one more Kiss of the Lake. And—”

The emotion seized me so fast and hard it cut me off mid-sentence, with a gasp. This sort of thing was happening so much these days; sometimes I wondered if I was still someone I knew. It came roaring up and out of me as tears and trembling, though I wasn’t even sure I could name it, and certainly knew I had no idea why it was coming. Of course I didn’t need to tell him either of these things. He’d tell me.

Fear? Horror? Sadness? Rage? It seemed a roiling mix of all of them, full of a sense of death, and was so strong I could not speak, but only sit moaning and gasping. The lung-scar turned into a line of pain. He sat in his way that showed, in every line of his body, that all I did was entirely acceptable, and I should do nothing but let it out.

So I did, for about a half-bead, before it began ebbing, and it was another tenth before it had eased enough to let me look at him and ask what it was. Of course what he said I knew down to my bones, or perhaps more exactly in my lungs, was pure and huge truth, the moment he said it.

“You’ve been released from the Kiss of the Lake,” he said. “So that which you feel about it that you have kept inside out of duty, you are also releasing.”

All I could think before it seized me again was, Don’t let the Committee find out.

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