140 - Half a leap across an abyss

17^th of the Terera Pages – e92 56

Chevenga ~ eagle’s claws ~ open eyes, Shae-Shaila, continued

We would not fault anyone, given such an augury, for curling up or keeling over in the middle of it, for becoming too overwhelmed with emotion to ask further questions, for running panicked for help to anyone and everyone afterwards, for throwing the whole thing to Assembly for a decision. We would particularly not fault a nineteen-year-old man less than a month away from taking on the most responsible position in the land.

But Chevenga did none of these things. In the face of the most awful prognostications imaginable both for himself personally and everyone he holds dear, he conducted the augury all through with care and skill, then followed its prescription for the best result with steely nerve, not letting slip what he’d learned, and heading to Arko despite knowing full well that terrible suffering awaited him there.

Yes, it seemed the only alternative to a death even more premature than the one he was already expecting; but we would not entirely fault anyone in his position, either, for losing his nerve on the way there and fleeing home in the unreasoning hope of finding some mythical fourth fork that escaped the bitterest of choices—or even elsewhere, so as to keep his own skin intact. Even accepting one of the first two forks might have been easier, allowing him death—the ultimate evasion of responsibility—of a kind that would have left him remembered as a hero. A person of lesser spirit would have welcomed that.

During the rest-breaks at the trial after Chevenga revealed the reading, and again after it was over, he was enveloped by Servants and watchers from the gallery, gathering to embrace him and otherwise express gratitude and admiration. It was a while before he could speak to the assembled writers, and a while again before I could draw him out alone.

†

“Semana kra. It would be best for Yeola-e and so it was what I had to do, whatever it led to.” Chevenga says this, or similar, in answer to any and every suggestion that he acted extraordinarily.

Did he ever consider fleeing entirely, to seek out a new life as a mercenary in Brahvniki or the like, or wish he had once he was in Arko? “No,” he answers. “I could never do that. The thought never came into my head. I will tell you this much, though: what Jinai meant by ‘pain huge beyond imagining,’ I didn’t really understand. It was indeed beyond what I could have imagined, then. And I’m glad I didn’t understand, because if I had, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have chickened out in one way or another. Life is merciful that way; it spares us foreknowledge.” Catching his own error, he adds with a rueful grin, “At least most of the time.”

Once he was on the road, was he afraid? “A little. But not for long, things happened so fast. We didn’t even get out of Roskat. Then… well, for the next two years, I kept thinking, ‘So this is how it plays out,’ at least in the times I was capable of thinking.”

Being betrayed by his Arkan escort, captured, raped, forced to fight in the Mezem, forced to kill his own people, drugged to betray Yeola-e’s military secrets, afflicted with the grium sefalian, bereaved of siblings and close friends both on the road and in Arko, and finally tortured so severely his mind was destroyed, albeit temporarily, all fell under that fleeting section of the reading, expressed by an augur’s few desperate words.

Chevenga did detail the reading to one person: his mother, whose own questionings by the Committee have revealed that she knew his personal secret from when he was eight. “She alone knew, so I always went to her when I was troubled with it, and I can’t say how much it helped, and how grateful I will always be. I really should not have gone to her with this. Call it a moment of weakness.

“She did not counsel me one way or another. She said that the one who knew best was me, and that I should trust myself, as she trusted me, entirely.”

Karani Aicheresa’s awareness of her son’s secret made her, in effect, an accessory to his violation of the Statute semanakraseyeni. He was worried she would be charged, but so far she has not. While many Yeolis argue vociferously that it was a travesty that he was charged, she is not likely to be.

The personal sacrifice he made included the possibility of being charged, which he also took on open-eyed, being well-versed in law. But did he think he would be?

“In truth, no,” he says. “Those who I told were very good about keeping it secret, and so it hadn’t come out. At twenty-eight-and-a-half, I didn’t think it would. So often life has plans for us that are different from our own. Once it was out, of course, I knew it might well happen.” Generous as ever, he once again has undertaken a personal sacrifice, with the intention of ending the trial at peace with even those who fear him most.

Chevenga’s decision to take things so much into his own hands that he didn’t even tell Assembly how imminent the Arkan invasion was is perhaps a precursor to the ruthless hard-mindedness he would show, when it was needed, while leading the army. “It’s as I said in the trial,” he says. “I—do you know what half-action is, what it means?

“It’s the course you take based on unclear thinking, based perhaps on a hope or a fear or perhaps a desperate wish. You think, ‘This must lead to things coming out right’ because you want it to, and you choose that way without playing out fully in your mind how things actually will come out if you do it. Because you aren’t sure, you don’t act with full conviction. And, like making half a leap across an abyss, it tends to lead to defeats.

“Revealing the reading to Assembly would have been half-action on my part. There were already good indications that the Arkans were coming, and we were already preparing, so warning would have made no difference in that way; nor did the reading give me the fact that they were planning the great diversion they did, else I’d have given warning for sure, stayed home, and set a trap of some kind so as to defeat them.

“If I’d have told Assembly, they’d have resolved to forbid me to go, because they would have considered it unconscionable to allow me to. Neither I nor you nor anyone could fault them for that. They would never have had the nerve, or, one might say, the cruelty, to send me into the eagle’s claws, or away from Yeola-e at all, when there was such a threat. It would have been understandable, but it would still have been half-action. And then the first or second forks would have played out. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Not even yet at his majority, Chevenga took all our fates into his own hands, without us knowing. To the Yeoli sensibility, it seems almost hubristic in a semanakraseye. In his questioning, Linasika pointed out that his judgment on one other major matter has been enormously in error. But one cannot argue with the ultimate results, the proof that our fates were in good hands. Jinai Oru’s augury played out mercilessly true, and Yeola-e is still free.

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139 - The duel I lost to Kallijas

Chevenga walked into the eagle’s claws with open eyes

Ipicha Shae-Shaila called The Opinionated ; Terera Pages, etesora 92 1556

Fourth Chevenga, it seems, will be spared absolutely no personal revelations as the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee does its work. And while the revelation that prompted the convening of the Committee was striking, it’s arguable that the more recent revelation, which came out during his short but dramatic trial for not revealing his secret to Assembly, is much more historically significant.

For one thing, unlike the notion he had of an early death, the augury performed by Jinai Oru a little less than a moon before Chevenga ascended played out agonizingly true.

The relevant part of the transcript:

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4Che: It was what is called a forked reading; my aunt taught me how to work with augurs, or at least Jinai. It means you have two possible choices and want to know which one will play out better; so you declare and set in your mind that you are going to take one of them, and have him read, and then do the same with the other.

So I declared, “I will tell Assembly that which I am hiding.” Next line is “Getting nothing,” as he was—he was seeing nothing—and he was chattering in frustration about that when I asked him, “What does that mean when you see nothing?” His answer: “That you can’t bear to see it.”

I told him, “I have to see it; what l feel doesn’t matter,” and then he began. “Red armour, horseback, with a sun on their chests”—I interpreted that to mean the Sunborn Elite Cavalry of Arko—“you are on a black horse,”—that’s my Lakan destrier—“plains somewhere, just one horse to their many and they are all after you with long spears; war yells,” he is being me fighting, then it was “Aigh, mila, no, you cannot let this happen, I am seeing you die here, on spears and under hooves, the despair far worse than the pain for Yeola-e,” he is weeping here; “it’s a battle for all Yeola-e and we’ve lost it, Chevenga, you can’t let this happen.”

Now his addressing me as “mila,” short for “milakraseye,” meant I was not chakrachaseye and therefore must not be semanakraseye, since my intention was to appoint myself chakrachaseye. So I knew if I told I would not be approved. The rest I think explains itself.

So I then took the second fork: “I will not tell Assembly what I am hiding. Getting nothing again, doesn’t matter whether I can’t bear to see it, see it anyway,” I told him. He said, “It’s not that. It’s unclear—another fork—there’s something else you have to decide.”

So here a double-fork became a triple-fork, or perhaps you could call it a double-fork with one of its tines doubling. “No state visit to Arko, I’m not going,” I declared. So what I had in my mind was both that I would not tell, and that I wouldn’t go to Arko. And he began seeing.

“Too many, too many, already so many of us, dead, they had a trick, you have the shape of what they did in your mind but words can’t shape it, I can’t say it, words are not my gift. You are cursing that I couldn’t, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sem’kras.” So here I’d been approved. Now I think what he was referring to was Triadas’s strategy, to muster an army on the border and so to draw us north, then attack from the sea to the south. So I would indeed be cursing Jinai for not being able to articulate that, and did a few times anyway, but he should never be faulted. He is not capable of trying any less than his best, and augury simply is not perfect. That is how it goes.

“Red armour with the sun on white horses,” the Sunborn Elite again, “so many of them, you are pulled away, semanakraseye, you can’t die here, they’re saying. Now on your feet fighting alone against a man in red armour, taller than you, blue eyes,” here he is me fighting, “aigh! On the head,” here he strikes me, “you are down, in the throat,” he points, “you can’t let this happen! So angry at yourself knowing you have lost and are dying, knowing we are going to be conquered, part of you wants death, you are thinking so many thoughts that pierce you worse than his sword, Chevenga, you can’t let this happen, you mustn’t let this happen, choose different!”

Now I didn’t know at the time, but I came to suspect later, that the man in red armour was Kallijas Itrean. That was confirmed for me when Jinai first saw Kallijas, years later, and recoiled in horror, saying to me, “I saw him kill you!” He remembered that, but forgot that it was in a fork I didn’t choose. Next line, I asked him, “How far ahead is this?” and he answered, “One year, two, something like that, choose something different!”

I’ve taken that to mean that, had I not gone to Arko, I’d have challenged Kallijas to a duel, or he’d have challenged me, or perhaps we’d have met on the field, and he would have beaten me. The difference was my experience in the Mezem, which is the best training imaginable for duels. Had I chosen that way, I’d never had got that. Not something I could know; but auguries play out without you understanding all of the reasons why, and so you can go by them without understanding all of the reasons why.

So, third fork: “I will go to Arko on a state visit.” And this is where you’ll see the things that played out true, because that was what I chose. He starts seeing and he says: “Arko. Arko. You are there, I can tell, because there are blondies everywhere and your thoughts are thinking of it as Arko-ness. Terrible things like dreams, that don’t make sense, you don’t want to know.” Of course you can’t say to Jinai, “Do you not remember I told you, a bare moment ago, to tell me everything?” Because he might not.

I said, “Yes I do. Don’t think for me, don’t clog up the stream of your seeing, just let it all flow out to me and let me do the thinking.” He says, “But you don’t like foreknowledge. A blob of jam of some kind of berry I don’t know but they’re turning into worm’s heads swimming in blood and crawling off the plate.” That was a hallucination I had, from the grium sefalian. I remember thinking, when I saw it, “That’s what Jinai saw!” He goes on, “There’s the black lightning bolt with the fork above you that never goes away,” meaning a crack in the ceiling of the oubliette that I saw far too much of. “Pain, so much pain, more pain than I can see, so much more than you can bear, so huge beyond imagining.” Any number of things during my first stay in Arko, that could be referring to, but it was most likely being tortured. “You’ll do the thinking, understand what it all means, fighting, Shakora, All-Spirit, Shakora! I hear someone saying the whole city is dead.” That he got, exact. “A man with blue eyes in red and gold armour, you’re fighting him though you love him,” that is Kallijas again, this time in the duel that happened.

Then he said, “Sem’kras, something you don’t want to know, but touches everything, should I tell you?” I set my teeth and just said, “Yes.”

“You are, there never is anything, in all your life, past a certain point, like you’re going to… I should warn you.”

Everyone knows now, what that meant. I just said, “I know. Just tell me what you see from me going to Arko.”

“Sorry, sem’kras, sorry, I see a, I don’t know, a huge thing with metal and wood pieces that’s alive, it’s moving all over in rhythm and making huge thumping clanging noises and I’m thinking, I mean, you’re thinking it’s a blessing to all the world.” That’s the Great Press of Arko. “And the wing thing, that too, same.” Did you all catch that? He foresaw the single-wing. In fact that was the second time; the first reading I did with him he saw me flying, the ground far below, and we both put it down to me dreaming.

I had no idea what these things were, of course; I just paid heed to the words “blessing to all the world.” He went on, “A crowd of blondies, Arkans, yelling your name, acclaiming you, you are speaking to them.” So I asked him, “How old am I?” and he instantly answered, “Twenty-seven. Arko-ness is twined with the whole rest of your life.” Next line, “That is all, he is done.” When Jinai is finished, he is finished; he exhausts himself, and he’ll sit or lie down right there, and he will not see another speck of augury no matter how desperately you want him to.

I shut myself in my room and screamed into the sheepskins for a while, and I spoke to my mother for comfort for a while more, and I thought about it all, and slept on it, and decided.

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[continued 17th page]

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138 - Answer him in one word

Once we were back in, the adakri asked if there were any further questions from the prosecutor or defender or judges. There were not, so she opened it to Assembly. As was traditional, each Servant was limited to three questions apiece. “First to request time was Linasika Aramichiya, Servant of Michalere, whom I recognize,” the adakri said. He stood up ponderously.

“Chevenga, you might be surprised by this, but I am going to thank you; bear with me as I get to it. It is no secret to anyone here that as long as I have been a Servant, seventeen years now, I have not trusted you. I know what you are thinking, that yes, that goes back to when you were a boy, and that’s true, it goes back that far. I always felt there was something false about you, something hidden, and something sinister… a darkness about you. An extreme thing to say about a child, I know, but children become the adults that they become because the seeds are already there. I hoped, for the sake of Yeola-e, the impression would fade as you grew up, but if anything, it increased.

“As a member of the Committee that was struck to assess your mental state, I was abjured to examine my own feelings, and to admit to myself and the rest of the Committee the exact nature of my feeling about you—that it was fear. I commend Kuraila Shae-Linao for her wisdom in extracting that from me. And I am going to be more open about what is in my heart than I ever have been, as—and I give you credit for this—you yourself have been.

“You scare me, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e. You scared me when you became semanakraseye, you scared me when you instigated and led us in the invasion of a foreign nation, you scared me when you claimed absolute power over Arko by naming yourself Imperator, you scared me when you embraced so many Arkan customs and modes, you scared me when you let them worship you as if you were one of their gods. You scare me still in how much influence you have, and did even when you held no official position; and now you scare me by being semanakraseye again.”

My cheeks began burning, so I knew they’d gone red enough for everyone to see. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Now over and over I have been asked, and indeed asked myself, why? What has Chevenga ever done to deserve such fear and such distrust? And I had no answers other than this impression, this premonition, this intuition, that there was something hidden in you, something crucial you knew but were not saying, and was therefore a lie, as a lie by omission is no less a lie. Without the truth, I could do nothing but express concerns about things that were known; without the truth of the reasons for it I could not be upfront about everything I felt. One who guards a secret leaves everyone else unarmed with truth and thus defenseless. Without truth, you doubt your own senses; without truth, you wonder if it is all in your imagination. I was sure it wasn’t, but without truth, how could I convince anyone else?

“And so, as everyone knows, I gained the name of a Chevenga detractor, and I received, and continue to receive, all the opprobrium that comes with that, which is not a little.

“As you know, but not as well as you should, I am not alone and never was, in my misgivings. You’ve scared many people, incurred the distrust of many people, have been suspected by many people. It’s more than you know, Chevenga. In the fire of your popularity, it is hard to speak of it openly, but we speak among ourselves, and we know, we are very many. And we have all been defenseless, unarmed with truth, and feeling our questions would never be answered.”

You’re holding your breath. It was as if I’d heard Surya’s voice. I let it out slowly, putting my attention on it as if I were meditating; then I decided to keep it perfectly even by counting each one. In, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Out, one, two, three…

“But then, not more than five moons ago, as if by a miracle, it finally came out. By accident, and thank the dice of chance that some Arkan slave overheard it, because you’ve told us right here and now that you never meant to admit it while you were alive, that you would have left the rest of Yeola-e unarmed with truth right unto death—you’ve told us, that you meant to reveal it in writing posthumously, and so get away entirely, without ever suffering the justice of being called to account for what you did.

“Chevenga—and this is where I am going to thank you, because from then on you gave up trying to deny or conceal it—I can’t say how huge a burden I felt lifted off my shoulders. Just at the moment I had started to truly doubt myself, to think maybe I really was what people called me—over-fearful, cowardly, vindictive, fanatic, grudge-holding, malicious… hateful and envious, you yourself called me, under truth-drug—after seventeen years, I finally learned: I was right. I had been right all along, and so had all those who agreed with me. There was indeed something wrong with you, and you could no longer pretend there wasn’t; you had indeed lied to us all, and you could no longer claim you had not. It wasn’t the worst of the possibilities we had theorized, and feared. But without truth, what were we left to think? We’d had nothing to apply but theories and fears.”

In, one, two, three… I saw a motion from the corner of my eye. Chosaiya, who was sitting perhaps two man-heights from me at the oaken guest-speaker table set up for such trials, was signaling me with her finger. With the smallest motions, she gestured to me: Answer him in one word. With every pair of eyes that wasn’t on Linasika locked on me, to see how I was taking it, I couldn’t sign back, or stare at her disbelieving.

“Now with my work on the Committee, I have come to learn that perhaps you are not to blame, that you are perhaps due more sympathy than anger, as it is with people afflicted with fits, or imbecility, or born with the trait of distorted thoughts; it’s not something they have chosen, or can help. You’ve lived with Shininao sitting on your shoulder in your mind, as real to you as if he were really there, and you didn’t choose that.

“But, as you’ve made clear in what you’ve told us, that did not make you unable to distinguish truth from falsehood, or ignorant of the law, and therefore free of responsibility. You thought about whether to do what you are charged with, over a time of some seven years. You decided based on careful consideration; just as you admitted here, it was a crime that was deliberate and calculated, for which you have not even a trace of regret. You say now that you welcome the judgment of the people, but that is easy to say for someone who no longer has a choice in the matter anyway; I notice that, despite your admirable welcome of the judgment of the people, you have never invited it by a public confession that was not induced by truth-drug.

“And you did all this due to a delusion, a failure of reason sufficiently severe that we struck a committee to study it, you are undergoing intense treatment from a healer, and you’ve even had to be ruled incompetent and kept in restraints for a time, less than a moon ago. In short, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, you lied, as a result of madness. So my question to you is, in all honesty, under an oath sworn on the most sacred crystals in all Yeola-e, can the people of Yeola-e, or anyone, ever trust you again?”

Five, six, seven… So much to tear apart in his speech, so many little brush-strokes of ingenuousness; where to start? I glanced again at Chosaiya. She slowly rubbed her cheek with one finger, her grey eyes steady on me. One word.

“Yes,” I said.

There was a long silence. I sat, lips closed, planning to start counting my breaths again if it went on long enough. Linasika stared at me. “How can you say that?” he finally spat. “After everything I just laid out, how can you just sit there, in front of all of us, in front of the entire Yeoli people, in effect, sworn as you are sworn, and say that?”

That I couldn’t answer in one word; as if to confirm my thought, Chosaiya put her hand down on the table, curled. “By the fact that it’s the truth, which I’ve sworn to say. It’s as I say; I broke the letter, but never the spirit, so my conscience is clear on the spirit, and it will be on the letter as well, as soon as I’ve suffered what punishment the court sees fit. So, yes, Yeola-e can trust me.”

Linasika stood speechless, fists clenched. Finally he blurted out, “If the court, or Assembly, sees fit to compel you to testify before us under truth-drug, will you say the same?”

I couldn’t answer right away, for a din of objection to the idea. I knew what to say, once it settled, even without seeing my advocate’s finger. “Yes.”

“But how can you… you’re sworn—”

“I remind the Servant of Michalere of the three-question limit,” said the adakri. While his eyes popped with the realization that he had indeed asked three, she said, “I recognize Darosera Kinisil, Servant of Thara-e-Kalanera.” Chosaiya, I thought, you’re a genius.

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137 - The spirit of the law

It was odd also to sit in the chair of testimony, not in the semanakraseye’s. I did, to a deep silence, and was sworn in.

Tresaha started by asking me to reiterate the truth-drug confession, then ceded to Chosaiya, and we did just as we had rehearsed: she asked me when I had taken that decision, I answered that I had wrestled with it for six years, she asked “Then it was not a decision you took lightly?” and I answered no. Then she asked me to explain my reasons.

As we had planned, I laid out the background first—the Enchian wars, the Lakan wars and then the threat of Arko—and then read, in full, my transcript of Jinai’s reading, with my interpretations. This isn’t any worse, I thought as I did, then telling them my secret. And yet in a way it was; no lives but my own had hung in the balance, with that. A silence with an ocean’s worth of depth in it fell as I read, and hung, surreal, in the moment I left between finishing reading and continuing with my answer.

Chosaiya asked me the two trickiest questions next—why let Tresaha have the pleasure?—which were, why I had taken the decision into my own hands and not let Assembly do so, and why I’d kept the reading to myself. Many pens scratched notes, as I gave my answers. She then ceded to Tresaha.

“Fourth Chevenga, you’ve just explained to us, and we’ve all heard with our own ears, that you broke the law—the Statute semanakraseyeni, no less—in a completely deliberate and calculated way. Is that not true?” He put on the usual formal and thus weightily-recriminating manner of a prosecutor, and again, I couldn’t tell whether there was any true feeling in it.

I said yes, and he belaboured me about having no regrets, and I said, as we’d planned, “I have no argument in my heart with being charged, judged and punished as the court and Assembly see fit. Ultimately I will be judged by the people of Yeola-e, and that’s as it should be.” It was true; I had dreaded being here, but now I found myself relishing it, at a great depth in myself. I had known Surya would say this would be part of my healing; I started to gain an inkling why.

Then—from here I turn to the transcript:

†

Tre: Do you in your mind reserve the right to break the law any time you see fit in the future?

4Che: Sib prosecutor, the law that rules the life of a semanakraseye, at its very essence, is, the people wills. That is the spirit of the law. What I did was break the letter of the law so as to adhere more closely to the spirit. From the spirit, I have never wavered, in anything I have ever done in my life. So if you ask me, if the spirit and the letter are at odds again, will I pick the spirit over the letter again, then yes, I will. I will not waver from the spirit of the law, from “the people wills,” as long as I live.

Tre: So your true answer is yes, you do reserve the right to break the law any time you see fit in the future.

4Che: My answer, clear and complete as I’m sworn to give, is what I just told you.

Tre: Do you think that for the future, it would be best for Yeola-e for Ascendants, as yet underage, to feel free to make judgments such as you did?

4Che: Generally, no.

Tre: And you would be the lone exception, why?

4Che: I said generally; I’d make an exception in the case of a time of equal danger for Yeola-e, and an ascendant of equal capability to mine.

Tre: But, as you say yourself, that cannot be known by anyone else until after the fact.

4Che: Then let that semanakraseye be charged, as I have been, and judged on his record, as I am being. It’s as I say, I have no argument with that.

Tre: Fourth Chevenga, more recently you yourself have come to know, and you have shared with us, that something you thought at that time as certainty was, as you’ve admitted yourself, delusion. Why then should we credit you for having had better judgment about anything else?

4Che: I admit I was wrong about that, and I know why I was, but I’ll defer to the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee to explain it all, when they do. But… (here the witness tapped the arm of the witness chair) I don’t think anyone in this chamber is imagining this, that we won back our land and our freedom, when I was fighting as chakrachaseye. I would never deny the part of anyone else in our victory over the Arkans, but I don’t think, and I’ve never heard anyone say, it could have been done without me in the position I was in. Besides, I had not only my judgment, but Jinai’s reading.

Tre: So you turned out to be right; but what if you had been wrong?

4Che: I don’t know how to relevantly answer that. A trial must be based on what happened, not on what did not happen, as I understand it.

Tre: In the end it turned out well for you, and Yeola-e, yes; what I am saying is that it might not have, in which case there would be no explanation for your decision but the most supreme arrogance, an arrogance that violates that which is sacred. Your interpretation of the reading might be taken as a desire to preserve your own life. In that light, what do you say for yourself?

4Che: Well, the premise of your question, at least the first part of it, is that our victory came, if not entirely, than significantly, by luck. Now I will say that there is always an element of luck in war. The best stroke of it we had was that my wife Niku, called Wahunai, happened to have been brought to the Mezem in Arko the same time I was, so that we met and fell in love and ultimately that meant that as a general I had the advantage of the single-wing, which was invaluable. But luck can only carry you so far. The more rolls of the dice you make, the more even the number of good and bad results become. You might recall I had some very bad luck dueling Kallijas Itrean. Because of that, consistent victory over the long term is not possible through luck. But we won every engagement that I led all the way from Ossotyeya to Arko the City, over two fighting-seasons. That doesn’t happen by luck.

Tre: You had very bad luck in the duel in that you slipped on a stone, but very good luck that Kallijas let you get back up rather than killing you—true?

4Che: That’s not entirely luck. Whether a man is honourable enough not to take a victory by luck is something you take into consideration when choosing whether to duel him.

Tre: I cede to the defender.

Cho: Fourth Chevenga, you say you have no argument in your heart with being judged by your people for what you have done. Would it not be actually more fair to say that in truth, in your heart of hearts, you welcome it?

†

I wanted to stare at her stunned, but kept my face expressionless almost out of habit. This line of questioning, we hadn’t planned. Had she just thought of it? Or had she been planning to spring it on me? If so, why?

†

4Che: Yes, it would. I do.

Cho: And that you have for a long time in fact yearned for it?

4Che: Yes. Living in secrecy is not… a life I’d wish on anyone.

Cho: Why then didn’t you reveal your secret sooner?

4Che: For the same reasons I decided to keep it in the first place. My plan was to reveal it in an autobiography that I was writing for publication after my death.

Cho: When you took the decision to keep your secret, did you have any thoughts of compensating, in some way, in your actions, for breaking the law—of making up for that somehow?

4Che: Yes. I swore in my mind I would make my semanakraseyesin worth what I had done… it was following on… an oath I’d made as a child.

Cho: An oath you made as a child? What and when was that?

4Che: It was… after I first had the death-vision. I swore… to do everything two times—I mean, twice as fast and love everyone twice as much. I apologize, I have a habit of thinking of it in the childish wording.

Cho: Well, then, considering that it’s well-known that your victories were very much due to how hard you worked and how fast you moved, it seems to me that keeping the secret actually ultimately enhanced your effectiveness as semanakraseye and chakrachaseye—would you concur?

4Che: Yes. Yes, actually, yes, in truth… it did.

†

I took the longest and slowest of breaths, trying to master the stinging of tears in my eyes, trying to keep them from reddening, without making it obvious I was trying to master them. An excellent advocate can, like an excellent healer, point out to you the truth you didn’t know; it takes a truly great one to do it while you are in the chair of testimony. I wasn’t seeing this yet, though; I wanted to tear her head off.

She ceded and requested a short recess, which the adakri granted. As if it weren’t clear enough to everyone that I was in tears, Chosaiya handed me a handkerchief as I stood up from the chair. “Come walk with me in the courtyard,” she said into my ear.

“Here is why I did that,” she whispered, once we were there; other people had come for a breath of air too. “I knew if I surprised you, you’d answer as truthfully as with anything we rehearsed, but with more sincerity, for being caught off-guard. You were so polished up to then, like iron in hiding what you feel; I wanted to make them all see it.”

I couldn’t say more than, “Why?”

“Because what you feel is ‘the people wills,’ down to your bones—the spirit of the law, just as you said. Don’t worry, Chevenga. You’ve been so good in the chair, I’m cursing all my other clients for not being you.” A smile quirked around her lips. “Any other skeletons in your closet? Maybe you can arrange to get charged for something else?”

I just shut out the world by slapping the kerchief over my eyes, drank a long draught from my water-flask, and said, “Sorry.”

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136 - Absolutely nothing to worry about

Where my case was weakest, of course, was that I had essentially decided I was wiser than Assembly and the laws of Yeola-e, before I’d even reached age of majority. Even if I’d been right, it was a precedent, that could open the door for a future stripling of a semanakraseye who might be just as wrong as I had been right.

We decided at this point not to argue for acquittal by justification, but for lenience only. “In fact,” Chosaiya said, “you could even state willingness to accept a harsh punishment so as to atone. It’s insane how utterly wrong it would be, but… if you did, it would leave you cleaner for Assembly’s approval vote. Given the choice, would you submit to, say, a flogging to keep the semanakraseyesin? Have you ever been flogged?”

I unclasped my shirt and showed her my back. “The Yeoli whip would be a relief after the Arkan,” I said. “You see how each line has a series of little gashes, evenly spaced?” She just signed chalk, tight-lipped; I could almost feel her fight down bile and think this will look good at the same time. “It’s by number of strokes in Arko, but I got flogged to falling Yeoli-style twice during the Lakan war, too. Yes, I’d submit to that.”

“Then we have that option; I will remember. It could be a little like the Kiss of the Lake, an expression of humility and submission to the will of the people, and thus a way to reassure Yeolis who fear you… you know they exist and are many, don’t you? I ask because it’s just the sort of thing people like you are blind to, because you know they have nothing to fear and you don’t want them to.”

“The point was brought home to me rather forcefully by Sharaina Anina,” I said. Chosaiya was right, though; it had never been truly real to me until then, and in a sense still was not, since Sharaina was now gone.

“True. We can let them negotiate us back to flogging, if necessary.” My other court cases had been too simple and fast to teach me what I was learning now: a trial is like a cross between a battle and a market-place haggle.

Finally she told me what I should do if the prosecution did make the argument that Linasika was already giving the writers by the shovel-full: that my decision betrayed a breathtaking arrogance, especially given my age.

“The reading by Jinai we will spring on them in the trial,” she said. “In the meanwhile… this will be hard for you, because you’re appropriately mortified by the thought, just as you’ve been so strictly trained to be. And, as with everyone of good conscience who is falsely accused, part of you wonders if it’s true, and can’t imagine you’d be accused of it if it weren’t, because, at heart, you see the world as a truthful place. There is nothing that makes my work harder than that tendency…

“But I know you can do what I ask, because I’ve seen it in you as we’ve spoken. Every now and then you say something that in anyone else would be the height of arrogance, but the way you say it is matter-of-fact, straightforward and free of even a trace of conceit. You have to say, ‘I judged right, and not by chance,’ without sounding arrogant… or shy. I think you know: arrogance comes from shyness. And they are both indulgences. Answer about deciding in the same spirit in which you decided, tell it as you told me. In other words, just be yourself.”

I swallowed a quip about the irony of using just being myself as a courtroom tactic. (“Should I just be myself in a carefully calculated way, or just be myself just being myself?”) It occurred to me that I’d possibly have done better without even thinking of this at all, same as a sword-stroke. Could I keep from thinking on the chair of testimony, same as on the field? “Maybe I didn’t even need to tell you this,” she said, as if reading my mind. “You’re not going to be able to help being yourself. But what I don’t want you to do, when you’re explaining why you did it, is hold back out of humility.

“Let me put it another way: the witness’s oath is not only to tell the truth, but to tell it clear and complete. That means you can’t leave anything out, even that which you cringe to say publicly out of long habit. Chevenga… the time has come to open your heart completely to your people, and throw your fate into their hands.”

She looked long into my eyes while I sat frozen. “Deep inside, you’ve wanted to do that all along, haven’t you?” I had not known that excellent advocates can sometimes be like excellent healers, bringing out into the light a truth of yours you’ve never known. I signed chalk, speechless for tears. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Then there is nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.”

†

The first appearance in a trial like this is very brief, and all formalities; I told family and friends they shouldn’t bother coming.

The prosecution enters and signs its statement, which was but two sentences this time:

“By his own admission while under the effects of Arkan truth-drug, sworn in its efficacy by Krero Saranyera, kengakraseye darya semanakraseyeni, as recorded by the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee of the Assembly of Yeola-e, proceedings of etesora 83 1556, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e of Vae Arahi, hereinafter referred to as the Accused, breached the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 as of his first taking office on atakina 19 1547, by, respectively, not revealing to Assembly his certainty that his life would end after ten years in office at the most, and by accepting approval despite this certainty, though he should have known the existence of this certainty could well cast doubt on his suitability for the position.

“The prosecution will provide proof in the form of the aforementioned transcript as well as the testimony of the Accused and others as deemed necessary but not without due notice, and hereby argues for the most severe penalty and measures as is appropriate.” (The last sentence was standard wording; as Chosaiya had said, everyone knew I’d broken the law even before I’d confessed; all that had done for the prosecutors was save them a little work.)

Chosaiya had been fairly right, about which prosecutor it would be; Tresaha Shae-Kila was one of the middling-experienced ones. He was so perfectly, officiously impassive as he spoke, there was no telling his true feeling.

The defense enters and signs its statement also. Mine, which Chosaiya and I had worked over carefully, read thus:

“I freely admit breach of the Statute semanakraseyeni sections 21-1 and 21-5-7 as of first becoming semanakraseye on atakina 19 1547. I do not contend that I deserve acquittal, but I will argue for lenience by reason of my having made the decision I did in accurate anticipation that Yeola-e would benefit by having a semanakraseye of my ability, even if only for a short time.”

Then the procedures were done by which a trial is taken before Assembly, and court adjourned until the next day, when we’d get into the meat.

I went with her back down to her office in Terera, and we spent much of the rest of the day rehearsing, like actors preparing to go on stage. She played herself, and so we planned out her questions and my answers, almost to the word; then she played Tresaha and the Servants of Assembly, throwing the questions at me she anticipated they would. Finally she told me how to dress, and saw me off with a confident smack on the back and her usual, “Don’t worry, and sleep well.”

†

The next morning, there was a line of people at the Assembly Palace door stretching most of the way through the village.

The writers had reserved their places the moment I’d been charged, of course, but my family and friends hadn’t done the same, nor I for them, though I should have thought of it.

We went to one of the back doors, and I managed to talk one of the stiff-chinned old courtroom guards, who’d known me since I’d been a bothersome tyke, into letting everyone into the gallery who was either my kin or a dear friend.

In Assembly Hall, the Servants were milling, gradually getting to their seats, their feet shuffling on the wooden floors and papers in their hands. Though they greeted me with their eyes, a raised hand here and there and a hello from those who were closest, they showed nothing other than a certain grimness. When I saw Linasika, I turned my eyes away before he could turn his to me, afraid of what I might let him see.

The Arch-Arbitrate came in together, greeting no one, as is traditional, though I wanted to greet them, since their faces were so much more familiar. How many times have I been in court since I started with Surya? I counted them on my fingers. Sharaina’s trial, being deemed incompetent, being deemed competent again, and now this. I hoped it was the last, at least in Yeola-e.

The election-stealing case against the hawks was dragging on interminably as they do in Arko, but I suspected the prosecutor would ask me to come to Arko to testify, or at the very least ask me to enter a statement. If it made a stronger case, of course, I’d go in a heartbeat.

The warning bell was rung, then the start bell, and everyone went silent for the starting ceremonial. How it grated, to hear “Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e of Vae Arahi, hereinafter referred to as the Accused” intoned, in this place. What a strange place my world had become. How many more times would that happen, in the indeterminate length of my life?

Tresaha laid out the prosecuting case first, citing the relevant law, reading the text of my announcement to Assembly about having believed I’d had foreknowledge, and then reading my truth-drug confession.

But that was all; he ceded to Chosaiya without making any strong arguments about the possible precedent or abrogation of Assembly’s rightful choice or that I’d been arrogant; it did indeed look as if he wasn’t going to try as hard as he could.

Chosaiya kept it short, sticking to the middle line we’d planned, that I should neither be absolved nor harshly punished. She did not mention re-approval; in her confident way, she’d felt it best to let it go without saying.

Then it was Tresaha’s turn again, this time to call witnesses. “Get comfortable in that chair,” Chosaiya had told me. “You’re going to be there all day.” In this phase, only the two advocates and the seven judges can question, though the judges generally only listen unless they are curious about a point that hasn’t been raised, or want something clarified. It goes until the advocates and judges are finished their questions; then it is thrown open to Assembly, and any Servant may ask questions of any witness. (Artira, of course, had recused herself, and the angaseye dagra krisa would preside.)

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135 - Walking right into the eagle's claws

Done with strategy, we went on to tactics. “Now I know it’s the law of your trade and so you know it,” Chosaiya said, “but just to remind you: in the absolute worst case you could be exiled without safe conduct. But no one would ever do that. The plausible worst case is you could be impeached and barred for life from reinstatement or any other public office, and have some humiliation added such as a flogging and an order to apologize to the people. The absolute best case is acquittal for reason of justification; the plausible best case, in my opinion, is an order to apologize to the people, but no judicial impeachment.”

“I’m already half-impeached,” I said. “At the end of my half-year leave Assembly will take a re-approval vote; that was the compromise. I’m only semanakraseye ceremonially now.”

“You are? I didn’t follow it exactly… I’ll tell you what is likely to happen then. The Arch-Arbitrate trial will be over in a few days; but Assembly will move to defer its vote until they were going to do it anyway. Not good; it gives Linasika and his ilk more time to drag your name through the mud. But it was a half-year starting back in summer, so there’s what, two moons left?”

“A half-year less seven days,” I said. “When they half-unimpeached me, we renewed it.”

A look as if she’d found the milk was sour by taking a sip flashed across her face. “That’s not necessarily etched in stone, though; you could request it be ended any time, could you not?”

“If I could argue I no longer needed it. But I couldn’t credibly do that before the Committee presents its report.”

“How long do you think that might be?”

“I have no idea. They’ve asked for one extension already.” It would help, I thought, if I’d quit giving them new things to investigate.

“All right. Nothing we can do about that, let’s just concern ourselves with what we can. The central argument: as a youth, you essentially knew what you were capable of, and that it would be needed. How do we prove that? I think we should remind them that Yeola-e was beset with enemies as you were growing up. Your father was assassinated by an Enchian in revenge for something that he did in a war against them which happened when you were hardly more than a baby; then you were fighting Lakans yourself as a youth. No reason to think that wouldn’t continue, and the gifts unique to you wouldn’t be needed.”

“That’s true enough. I grew up steeped in war.”

She asked me to remember this for her. “You know,” she said after I’d done so for a while, and she’d taken a thick sheaf of notes, “it was a different time then. We hardly even get sheep-raids now. If that’s not to your credit more than anyone else’s, I’d like to know whose.”

“But if we were to argue that, they could turn it on me because I’m going asa kraiya. I’ve heard it enough from people trying to talk me out of it.” All-Spirit help me, she was teaching me to think like an advocate.

“Yeola-e has still benefited, and no one can deny it,” she said. “You might say, you yourself set the stage for you to go asa kraiya, though that would be a bit much to say in court. All right… steeped in war, good…” Her Arkan pen, made of polished ebony, flashed over the paper. “Now, let’s get your mother’s part out of the way.”

“I’d rather, and I’m sure she’d rather, she didn’t even have to testify.”

“I know, but if someone calls her to the chair, she’s testifying, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But I need not call her, and I doubt the prosecutor will, since he wants to show you as entirely responsible.”

“Her part was mostly to tell me to wait; that I didn’t need to decide yet.”

“Until when?”

I cast my mind back. “Until I was nineteen. But even then, all she did was tell me I knew best myself, and agree with me when I decided.”

“On the night before you became semanakraseye, you mean.” Advocates always like to have these things absolutely straight, like generals, or good press-writers.

“Well… what I meant under truth-drug was that the night before I became semanakraseye was the last time I revisited the question. I had already in truth decided, about a moon earlier.”

Chosaiya steepled her hands, the pen held in one curled finger. “Chevenga, I want you to recount to me the whole course of it… all your thoughts, all your wrestlings of conscience, all through. With emphasis on whatever the reason was you decided, earlier in the year you were nineteen.”

It stood me in good stead, of course, that I’d wrestled. It had been so long ago, and so much had happened since, it was hard to remember my thoughts, and it occurred to both of us that the court might have me testify under truth-drug. Right there in her office, to bring it back better, I put myself in a trance deep enough that I had no idea how I answered her questions until she read it all back to me from her notes, and I was indeed reminded of things I’d long forgotten. It was interesting to see again the different thoughts I’d had at different degrees of maturity, from when I’d first learned the laws at thirteen or so, to the night before my twentieth birthday, when I’d thought, ‘Last chance to change my mind.’

But she had not asked me in detail my thoughts after Jinai’s reading, which was what had made me decide. She wanted to see my transcript.

When I had gone to Arko on the peace mission, I’d left it with my other papers, in my office. Everything there had been carefully boxed up and spirited out of Vae Arahi well before the Arkans took it, then returned to me in Ossotyeya when I got back. I’d picked out only the most important papers, which included that, carried it with me all the way to Arko during the war, kept it in the Marble Palace, then the Independent, then the Marble Palace again. Now I knew exactly where it was: in the back sword-side corner of the central draw of my desk, folded into a leathern folio. “No, sit down, I have a runner,” she said. I wrote the note that would get him past Krero and Skorsas.

I felt outside of myself, as if I’d taken a drug, as I drew out the transcript from the other papers that were there, the most precious and private, and handed it to her. I had never let any other pair of living eyes read this. She pushed my tea-cup towards me and patted my hand, sensing my unease without even looking up. Ridiculous, I told myself. I made the choice that determined the fate of Yeola-e based on this, and I’m embarrassed to show it to an advocate?

I watched her eyes as she read, the grey irises aiming like arrows at each word for an instant, as if that determined my fate. They stayed impassive as she asked me, here and there, to clarify. Then when she reached the end, she stared at me. All-Spirit… is that a ‘you’re doomed’ stare? What’s this going to mean, how’s it going to be read? Then she got up, confidently, and flung her arms around me.

Somehow I could not imagine her, with those clothes that no wrinkle dare mar and that strict bun of hair, as a mother, though for all I knew she had children. But the hug was a mother’s, full of the feeling of solace. Then she took my face between her hands, still staring at me, and shook her head, her face amazed.

“You were walking right into the eagle’s claws, and you knew it,” she said.

I signed chalk. “Because it was best… it had the best reading. I’m just worried…” I’d been pacing as she read, but now sat down again, as if I were suddenly tired, while she stayed standing. “I’m worried that people will take it as selfish… that I chose what would allow me to… live… longest.”

“No, Chevenga.” She looked shocked that I’d even think it. “What this reading showed you was that your fate was Yeola-e’s. If you were done, we were. History went on to prove the veracity of this. Your fate was Yeola-e’s; no one but Jinai could know it back then, but everyone does now.”

“But… but I can’t say that!” I wanted to slink out her door, or dive out her window, or hide under her desk; anything, but stand in the fire of this.

“What? Why not? What do you say in the chair of testimony, semanakraseye Chevenga, other than the truth, clear and complete? You’re going to; do you understand that? The argument is right here.” She smacked the papers with the back of her hand. “This takes away their arrogance argument; the prosecution has been planning, I’m sure, to contend that it was the height of arrogance to think you would be so crucial when you were so young. But you weren’t just speculating; you had evidence, in the form of an augur’s foreknowledge. All-Spirit… you being charged is even more of a travesty than I thought.”

I sat stupid, my mind too much of a whirl to make sense of any of it. The only thread that came out of it enough to form into words was the other possibility I dreaded. “Chosaiya… you don’t think I’m going to catch it for not revealing the reading, to give a more definite warning about the war?”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t think they’d let me go. They’d think, ‘Oh, somehow we’ll get around it,’ and it would be some kind of half-action, and the first or second fork would play out. As well, the warning would have made no difference; remember the part where he said that he foresaw me cursing him for not having words to describe the trick? Poor Jinai, he has no idea how many times I’ve cursed him. Because I am sure he meant Triadas’ strategy of using the border troops as a diversion and attacking from the sea. Had he been able to word that, I’d have revealed that part of it, at least. And everything would have been very different.”

How the momentary abilities or inabilities, the fleeting mind-blocks that prevent words, of an augur making a reading that flashes past in a tenth, can set the course of history in stone, to be remembered a thousand years. How many lives had turned, on that stumble of tongue? Jinai was better off not knowing. I wondered if he was able to keep his gift only because he could not know such things.

“So if you are asked, why did you keep it yourself and not give warning, you know what to tell the court: what you just told me. Chevenga, not only is honesty required there; it stands you in the best stead. It does, which is not the case for everyone I defend. The more I find out about you, the more stark the truth of this is for me.”

All-Spirit, I thought; after Sharaina’s trial, I thought I was done justifying my very worth in a Yeoli court of law. This time it’s before the whole kyashin people, as embodied in Assembly.

Everything is going as it should. I could just see it. Surya would say this was part of my healing. After Niku and I had both gone to see him and I had learned I didn’t count myself worth of love if I lived long, I’d asked him, “You saw this coming a long time ago, didn’t you? And now are going to say it was a necessary part of my healing.” He just smiled and said, “From the start, and, yes.” All-Spirit only knew what he was seeing now.

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