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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