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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