149 - I need no formal commendation

I couldn’t move for a while, lying at Skorsas’s feet like the vanquished and mortally-wounded warrior at the feet of the victor, his life-blood draining out of him.

“My little pro—Great Noble God!” he hissed. “You Yeolis are so dramatic.”

I tried to tell myself, It’s not so bad. Somehow, it is not so bad. There was better relief, though still scanty, once I’d dashed the tears out of my eyes enough to read the next words, which were as merciful as they could be.

†

Mi: Having no further questions, I cede the rest of my time.

La: Do any other Committee members have further questions for the witness? I see seven charcoals, so you are done here, Skorsas, and we thank you for your perspective. You need but touch the Committee crystal.

Sko: Thank you all, honoured members of the Committee, for hearing me.

Sc: The witness is released.

†

“Thank All-Spirit, it’s over,” I said, seizing mastery over my breaths, and making them deep. “Now all I have to do is prepare myself.” I kept reading.

“There’s more? But I left then.”

“Yes, their discussion of what to do about what you said.”

“That’s there?”

“Of course it’s there; all their deliberations are on the public record.”

They’d debated it, with Etana arguing that they should haul me in and grill me, and Darosera arguing that I’d never answer these questions, as it would be improper, until Chanae, bless her, said that I should not be compelled to answer, but I should also not be prevented if I wished to. What they settled on was to call Surya and me both in, but allow me to decline to answer questions if I wished.

“Maybe I’ll survive this, somehow, after all,” I said, as we climbed the stairs back to Esenai’s office. “Keep my position, I mean. I keep wanting to ask you why? Why did you do this? But I know.”

“I love you and value you, both.”

“And you truly think the way my people treat me has hurt me, I know.” Tears came again, from too deep in me to swallow, though I kept my silence passing Aleka’s office again. Once I’d straightened out the notes carefully and laid them where I’d found them, Skorsas took the candle from me gently and put it back in the sconce from where I’d got it, came back in and shut Esenai’s door, closing us in darkness. He wrapped his arms around me.

“They are afraid of you, for no good reason,” he said.

“I’ve done nothing of my free will to hurt them, ever.” I sat in Esenai’s chair, the sobs coming harder, and Skorsas gathered my head into his chest and held hard. “I should read it over again… but it’s too horrible imagining what they must have been thinking, and what other Yeolis will. Linasika’s going to make such hay with this, even if he doesn’t get to do it under the auspices of the Committee. I can’t tell you how scared I am.”

“You’ll survive it. You’ve survived so much worse. Maybe I should ask you: that fear—what’s in it?”

“You’re turning into Surya now?”

“Maybe a bit of him is rubbing off.”

“Everything is going as it should,” I mimicked, making him chuckle. “Knowing him, he’ll say it’s a necessary part of the healing. Judging by how shitty I feel right now, he’s probably right.” I got up, latched the shutters and then the window closed.

“You need to be permitted to value yourself, Virani-e,” he said. “It’s as I said, it’s the soul’s nourishment, without which it will starve.”

“Else I’ll jump off a cliff… I know. I know, Skorsas.” We pulled Esenai’s door closed behind us, and went back up to our house, his arm firm around my shoulders all the way.

†

Next day, Surya and I were called in before the Committee. After we were sworn in—Lanai, bless her, asked me by what name I preferred to swear by, and swore me in as First Virani-e Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e—it went as follows.

La: I imagine, Chevenga, you have, from Skorsas perhaps, a rough paraphrase of the points he made?

4Che: Yes, and as well I’ve read the transcript.

La: You have? But it wasn’t refined until today and you just came in—scribe?

Sc: I did the classic-script version just before coming here.

4Che: Skorsas mentioned it over dinner, after the offices were closed, and I wanted to know exactly what he said, so I went to Esenai’s office last night, as it would all be on the public record very soon anyway, and read the Athali.

Sc: But I locked…

La: Sib scribe, you’re hardly going to keep the man who assassinated Inkrajen and opened the gate of Kantila out of your office if he really wants to be in it (laughter). As semanakraseye, even ceremonial, he has clearance for everything, you’ve reported nothing missing, so he stole nothing, and we have absolute faith that the session as it went, the Athali notes and the classic-script transcript for the public record are all identical, so, no harm done.

E: What did you do, scale the wall?

4Che: I decline to answer that question.

La: As we have ruled to permit. Surya, I assume you’ve had Skorsas’ testimony paraphrased to you by Chevenga.

Su: Yes, at least in part.

La: We will just cite as necessary, then, rather than doing a full read. By random the first questioner with a half-bead time is the Servant of Tassumai.

I: Thank you, president, and thank you for coming again, Surya and Chevenga. Let me start with you, semanakraseye. Now Skorsas first in a sense called us out to chiravesa, asking us to imagine whether we would not want to die in your place, being convicted of and flogged for a breach of the statute semanakraseyeni after having done for Yeola-e what you have. I am not going to question you at any length about this because I think Skorsas’ logic is a little backwards here. We were struck on verekina 41 to investigate your mental state as a result of your revelation of that day regarding a strong death-obligation in you, which, we’ve found, dates back to childhood—long before the trial and flogging a half-moon ago, so it can hardly be attributed to that. The worst that can have happened was an exacerbation. Would you say—if you will answer—it did?

4Che: No, not really.

I: Surya, would you concur?

Su: No.

I: No? You think there was an exacerbation?

Su: What I observed was a slight exacerbation, which was only slight because Chevenga is now framing such experiences in his mind differently than he did before he began this process, and because I worked with his aura afterwards in regard to it. Part of him was utterly devastated, but it is a much smaller part of him than it used to be, so he was able to better maintain equanimity.

I: All right, the two of you have told me diff—

4Che: Surya is correct. I was not clear.

I: But it was not severe or major, on that you agree, so we’ll go on; Skorsas continued: “You are his own people... and you break his heart. Over and over and over… You don’t deserve him.” Chevenga, that opinion of Skorsas’s, that Yeola-e does not deserve you, do you concur with?

4Che: No.

I: All right, to continue: “You don’t appreciate him. You don’t value him… he loves you more than any human should be capable of, and you answer it with one whack from the backs of your hands after another. That’s what he was raised with. I know that... he exudes it with every word. Every time he suffers another whack, he says, ‘semana kra. That’s the nature of my position. That’s what I have to bear.’ He’s lived with that his whole life. And you wonder what is killing him from the inside?”

4Che: I decline to answer.

I: I haven’t yet asked a question, I was quoting Skorsas.

4Che: I decline to answer any question about this.

I: Why?

4Che: Why I decline to answer any question about this is a question about this.

I: Chevenga, if he is right, if what he’s talking about really did have an effect on your mental state, it’s necessary for our investigation, and it’s in your interest, to be open about it. Do you think those whacks of the hand, as he describes them, have affected your mental state?

4Che: I decline to answer.

I: Chevenga, I’m not Linasika, I ask without judgment, it’s only our mandate I have in mind here.

La: Ikrena, I’d like to remind you that allowing a witness the option of declining to answer imposes an inherent restriction on ourselves from pressuring him to.

I: True and fair enough. Now Skorsas goes on: “He thinks he ought to die because you demand it of him.” I think this is a reference to the Kiss of the Lake, and more generally the ethic it symbolizes, that it is the semanakraseye’s sacred duty to lay down his life for the sake of the people if required. This we already covered earlier in our investigation. Skorsas again: “He thinks he ought to die because you think your semanakraseye should be a slave, and he doesn’t have a slave’s spirit, but a king’s.” Your thoughts on that, Chevenga?

4Che: I decline to answer.

E: Pardon me for interceding, but by declining to answer you are also declining to disavow Skorsas’s contention, and that is perhaps the most shocking thing I’ve heard in my time on this Committee. A king’s spirit, Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, semanakraseye of Yeola-e? A king’s spirit?

4Che: Etana, Skorsas is an Arkan. He cannot help but express things in an Arkan way. I… I don’t differentiate between the spirits of slaves and the spirits of kings, so… while I think I know what he means, I… it is hard for me to understand this sort of thing, as a rule. If he means that I have sometimes felt constrained in my actions by the semanakraseyeni laws, then yes, that’s true, but I don’t think that’s news to anyone.

E: No one who’s had his eyes open, certainly.

I: Have you felt constrained enough, do you think, that it has affected your mental state?

4Che: I… no. No, I don’t think so.

I: You don’t think so?

4Che: If I may, I’d like to decline and refer the question to Surya.

La: You may.

I: Then let’s go on; Skorsas says, “I don’t think most Yeolis understand, tell the truth, how willing he is to sacrifice himself for them.” Do you concur with that?

4Che: I can’t see into the minds of all Yeolis, or even most. But I also think… it doesn’t matter to me, whether they understand it or not. My duty is my duty.

Ku: Pardon my interceding, but, Chevenga, do you think Yeolis take you for granted?

4Che: Yes, but that’s as it should be.

I: Now Skorsas went on to say that we don’t give a flying Arkan swear word about you, but I think he was exaggerating for effect, so we’ll go on to where he says it in a more substantial way—

4Che: I decline to answer.

I: Semanakraseye, may I ask you to do me the honour of letting me ask a question before you decline to answer it?

4Che: I’m sorry, go ahead, Ikrena.

O: If I may intercede: you find this whole thing very embarrassing, don’t you, Chevenga?

4Che: Yes. Extremely.

I: Well, we’re more than halfway through. Skorsas again: “You demand, and he gives, endlessly. You take it for granted”—that part you’ve just confirmed you concur with—“and every time he gives, and doesn’t get any love back, a part of him dies. All his life he’s been dying a slow death, of being starved for what he should have been rewarded with. That’s his mental state.” Would—

4Che: I absolutely, categorically decline to answer.

I: Well, I was going to ask only, from all we’ve heard, this seems at best an oversimplification, and would you concur that it is.

4Che: Yes, with that I would concur.

I: But you don’t disagree with the gist?

4Che: I decline to answer!

La: I uphold Chevenga’s declining as per our witness request resolution, sib Servant; next question, please.

I: All right, fair enough. Now… he goes on here about the breaking of crystals, which isn’t really relevant, then that we’d be showing sufficient appreciation of you by reinstating you, then… all right, now this is something that a number of our members found striking, and recognized that we as a nation might indeed be very much remiss. He asked us whether we had ever formally commended you—

4Che: I need no formal commendation for the war, I didn’t do it for commendation, I did it for the will of—

Su: Virani-e, accept. Let it happen.

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