142 - Justice was done

Two steps away from her, I turned back. “As if I don’t know what I will decide,” I said. “Yes.”

†

The next morning, we were all actors on a stage. Tresaha argued sternly to the judges that they should impeach and bar me from reinstatement for the rest of my life, and Chosaiya argued passionately that I deserved censure only. Then the judges stepped in, asking the advocates both to moderate their positions, patiently talking them into grudging concessions. “We will consider sparing you from impeachment only if you are willing to undertake the most severe atonement,” the Arch-Arbiter said to me, very gravely.

For my part, when they asked me if I’d accept flogging to falling, I brought the last time to mind, giving myself another taste of bile and sickness, to make sure I had the right look on my face. I guess I was being myself in a carefully calculated way. The ironies lived by people of the law are exceeded only by those of politicians.

They found a whip-wielder in the palace staff, a man in his early twenties who’d moved to Terera only three moons or so before, and trained at one of the schools there, and so had never met me. We set it for the next afternoon, to give people time to hear. “I do need your help with the apology,” I said to Chosaiya. “How do I say I am sorry when I’ve said I don’t regret?” As always, she was unhesitating with insight.

I remember the fall wind blowing crisp off the lake, which I’d kiss again if I were re-approved. The flogging-post and chairs for the Arch-Arbitrate and several other officials were set up on a dais. The mood of the crowd had a solemnity not unlike what it is for the Kiss of the Lake, but with more sympathy for me. I heard more than one person yell things like, “This is not being done in my name!” and “Chevenga, you’re being punished for saving us!” Of course it’s always easiest to win the trial of the street and the dinner-table in your hometown. Though Chosaiya need not be here, she was anyway. Maybe she wanted to see the end of a story she had done so much to author. Krero made sure Kaninjer and Surya were right at the edge of the dais.

I raised my arms for quiet. “My people, whom I love,” I said, and heard relayed back through them, “I know that many of you feel that it’s injustice more than justice being done here, that I am being punished where I should be rewarded. From my heart, I thank you for your mercy and your kindness. I know many of you are also thinking, what is the point of court-ordered apologies, for how can an expression of regret that a person is forced to make be sincere and worth anything? So say it and get it over with, Chevenga, you’re thinking, since we know to ignore it anyway.” They laughed all the harder for not having expected any laughs.

“But the fact is that I did break the law. Even if it was to better serve the spirit of the law, I broke the letter, and the letter is the law no less than the spirit, and has its place just as the spirit does. I have never denied to myself that I broke it, and having been charged, I won’t deny it to anyone else. But by denying it entirely before that, I was doing harm. I’m not well-known for agreeing with Linasika Aramichiya”—that got another laugh—“but one thing he said stuck in my mind. ‘When one person guards a secret, everyone else is unarmed with truth, and thus defenseless.’ He said that he had always had a feeling about me that I was hiding something, and that he was not alone in this, and in truth I can’t imagine he could have been alone in it—since he, and everyone else who felt it too, was right. I was indeed keeping a secret, and those who sensed it could not know what to do, unarmed with truth as they were.

“That is the nature of the harm I did, and it is indeed harm to the entire people of Yeola-e. And while I can never regret making use of my position as I did in the Arkan war, I do regret the price that Yeola-e paid for it, in absence of truth, and a violation, unknown to them, of what is sacred. For that I am, from my heart, truly and deeply sorry. To the punishment decreed by the Arch-Arbitrate, I submit myself.”

I undid the first clasp of my shirt, and the whip-wielder came up next to me. “Semanakraseye,” he said shyly, “I thought I should not do this to you without at least introducing myself.” His name was Kasai Tenora, he was from Porokaralinga, he’d squired in the Arkan war and now worked in Assembly Palace as a runner. “It will come from my arm,” he said. “Never from my heart.” I clasped his hand, and said, “Go warm up that arm then; even if it doesn’t seem so, the harder you hit, the easier it is for me. And don’t worry; I won’t take it personally for an instant.” As he warmed his arm, I finished stripping.

He had rope ready to bind my wrists to the post, but I signed charcoal, braced myself against it with one hand and set my teeth. There was a buzz of acclaim from the crowd, and then they began shouting their strength-blessings and encouragements.

The last time had been when I was fifteen; fourteen years, and a thousand more severe agonies, ago. I was just thinking this will be nothing when I heard the whistling hiss, and the first one landed. Kyash, I thought, I’d swear it didn’t hurt so much before. The second one confirmed it. He was doing it hard as I’d advised, but no harder than Hurai’s whip-wielder or Elera Shae-Tyeba had. Have I got out of practice? I took in a deep breath, and couldn’t help but think breathe in acceptance again, as the third stroke came. Or is it… age? I’d turn twenty-nine in a half-moon or so. I realized, even as I heard the whistling of the fourth stroke coming, that this was the first time in my life I’d ever thought I might be feeling the effects of age.

At least Kasai’s strokes were dead even, both in the time between them and their force, which is easier, because you learn what to expect, and so you’re not so afraid of the next. I remembered how Elera had made no two the same, a flogging from the deepest pits of Arkan Hayel.

After the fifth, I gave myself entirely to the internal struggle that is the essence of being flogged: to feel the pain without either fleeing from it physically or expressing it. Later I’d take up the struggle that is the essence of being flogged to falling: first, against the temptation to fake it and fall before you are truly unconscious so as to make it stop, and second, against unconsciousness itself—the hardest one, since the body knows unconsciousness is relief, and so it’s relief itself you are fighting. Whether I was feeling it more or not, I was feeling it differently; it seemed to me that the Arkan torture had left me stronger in some ways and weaker in others.

But some things are always the same, so I knew how it would go. If your mind is a house in a city that is being sacked, each whip-stroke is another torch thrown into it. From their small flames uniting, the conflagration grows slowly, its tendrils creeping upwards and throughout, until there is only flame in the shape of a house, or pain in the shape of a mind. When the posts and beams are eaten away enough, it all comes crashing down and apart; then, of course, is when you open your eyes bewildered, find yourself looking at concerned faces with sky between them, and realize it’s over.

So I set off down this path, making myself steel all over so I would not step off it until the pain dissolved my will. I suddenly understood what was harder; as a youth I’d been more ruled by habit and training, more lock-step. In my old age, my mind had become more free. It was the ninth or tenth stroke and I was just thinking I’m not going to last as long, when I realized an astonishing thing.

Several times in Arko, being tortured, I’d been split asunder, my soul driven out of my body, so I’d find myself looking at myself from a distance, from above or a little behind. Now, even though this pain was not nearly as bad as that, being much less laced with terror, I suddenly knew, with complete certainty, that I could do it again right now, but by will, perfectly freely. I need only close my eyes.

I stood stunned, as the next stroke came—late, as Kasai had for some reason faltered—and wondered what had made this possible. My healing? Becoming senahera? The thing that had happened in the woods? All of it? I decided to try it, but fear made me hesitate; the next whip-stroke searing across my back fueled my courage. I closed my eyes, and I was looking down at myself, naked with one hand on the pole, my hair in the overgrown warrior-cut stringy with sweat, and the whip-welts scarlet across my back.

It’s hard to put into words. I still fully felt the pain, or at least was fully aware of it; it just didn’t matter. I found I could control where my soul flew, like a bird, though I didn’t want to fly too far. Now I saw why Kasai was having trouble; he was blinded by tears welling up too fast to blink away. The yells of the crowd I had lost while I’d been incarnate, pain boiling them away; now I heard them clearly again, each one sharp and distinct, mostly “Strength!” and “We love you!” and my name. Someone handed him a hand-towel, and he managed to get back into his rhythm by keeping it pressed against his eyes between strokes.

It was the same as always, feeling my mind weaken from solid to a little mad to struggling for control to reeling to going out like a candle; except that I watched from afar, undisturbed, attaching no meaning to it. I saw and felt myself stagger forward; I distantly directed myself to grab the post with both hands, and ask myself where the insides of my cheeks, my lips and my tongue were in relation to my teeth; you can bite yourself without knowing it. Krero and Kyirya stepped close now, ready to catch me. The next stroke put me on my knees, and Kasai stopped. Something told me to fly to where I could look at my own face. Though it was pouring sweat, there was no grimace on it at all, not even strain around the closed eyes; it was impassive like a monk’s in meditation. I realized why: I’m not inside. I’m out here. I couldn’t wait to tell Surya this—no. He can see it. I flew up a man-height or so and looked; sure enough, he was gazing not at my body, but right at me, seeing me as clearly as if we’d locked eyes. A smile pulled at his lips. I called to him. I’m in your world! Clear as if he’d spoken aloud, I heard him answer, Welcome.

There was something else I had to do, though; I gave the order, and watched myself struggle to haul myself, half-conscious and quivering all over, back up to standing. I wrapped my arms hard around the post; I was almost done, but if I put enough will into them, I knew, it would take two or three more strokes. The crowd’s applause faded fast to silence. The next one made me know nothing but my arms; then Kasai, not wanting to do more than one more, took the whip-handle in both hands, let out a war-cry full of anguish and gave it everything he had. I thrashed once, all the way out to my fingers and toes, and went boneless; Krero and Kyirya caught me under the arms and head, laid me gently face-down on the dais, then gave the crowd a clear view to let them be witness, and it was over.

I took my time. There was no sense at all that it was anything but entirely my choice; as soon as I opened my eyes, I’d be back in. I had no way of knowing whether I had bitten myself because I could feel nothing; why, I thought, when we use the bite-strap for other painful things, don’t we use it for this? I’d suggest it to the court, I decided, and the generals; if they agreed it would become the custom. I remember aligning my soul behind my eyes and at the right angle. I can’t say how strange it was. Then I was looking at the wood-grain of the dais and my own wrist, and feeling instant nausea and my skin go icy except on my back, where it was on fire. The pain mattered again.

The medicines that Kaninjer dropped on my tongue helped. “I have to get up,” I whispered. “By myself. No matter how long it takes. Don’t help me.” Another barbaric Yeoli thing, I could hear him think. I did it slowly, breathing deeply and asking myself many questions, while the crowd shouted their exhortations; if you don’t pay careful attention to the state of your head at each step of the way, you can easily keel over again, and then the friends and the healer won’t give you another chance. Finally I straightened up, kissed Kasai’s hand as tradition requires, and faced the crowd with my hands crossed on my heart, to their roar, which was anger as much as admiration. With Krero following close beside me, I went to the judges and we signed off all the papers. Justice was done.

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