150 - A sense of evil in me

I: If I may, whether we had ever formally commended you for your military service in the Arkan war, which as everyone knows came as close as can be imagined to having freed the nation from Arko single-handedly.

4Che: I was hardly single-handed.

I: Now we had to answer, no; you’ve been informally rewarded, but not formally commended, for what reason I am not sure. So I ask you—

4Che: I decline to answer.

I: Fourth Chevenga, please.

4Che: I cannot imagine any question about this that I would be willing, or that would be proper, to answer.

I: Not even whether a formal commendation would please you?

4Che: That’s one I’d decline to answer for sheer vacuousness. Of course it would please me; who in the same position would it not please?

I: Do you think a formal commendation would have a beneficial effect on your mental state?

4Che: All right, I won’t decline to answer that, I’ll say the truth: I don’t know. I suggest asking my healer.

I: All right. Now one more thing he said that struck me: Etana had said, in effect, that if you committed crimes you’d be charged, and Skorsas said this: “You make it sound as if it’s a habit. I guess you’re holding Linasika’s line, Chevenga the criminal. And you wonder why”—here he used another Arkan obscenity—“he wants to die?”

4Che: I decline to answer.

I: Do you think of yourself as a criminal?

4Che: By the judgment of the Arch-Arbitrate, I am one.

I: Was that a chalk?

4Che: Well… I guess it wasn’t a charcoal.

O: If I may intercede—this is very relevant, a very important point. Recall, when we did the suicide history, a clear pattern emerged, of self-punishment for crimes, as well as the intention to prevent future ones. If Chevenga has an ongoing sense of himself as a wrongdoer, or one capable of doing wrong, it is most definitely a factor. If I may: Chevenga, do you have a sense that there is evil in you?

4Che: Yes. It’s… not so much now, since I’ve worked with Surya. It was worse before.

O: How far back in your life does it go?

4Che: I don’t remember not feeling it.

O: Do you have any sense of what taught you it was there?

4Che: Well… Surya and I have talked about it… about how strictly I was raised, how people looked at me.

O: Do you have a sense of having been singled out?

4Che: Yes, very much so. Because I was Ascendant… everyone’s eyes were on me.

O: Watching for what?

4Che: Flaws, faults, signs that I might become a second Notyere… that if I attained anything it might go to my head… this came out with Surya, that I always thought of myself as having been cocky to excess as a child, even conceited, and yet when we went back and actually examined, we didn’t really find that. I’d step where others hesitated, and tended to know what to do in a fix, so I ended up leading, and I was terrible for pranks; but I wasn’t boastful or arrogant or given to overestimating myself. I ended up with a reputation for cockiness anyway, from adults calling me that.

O: Which adults?

4Che: I’m not sure. I know my blood-father never did, nor my blood-mother. My shadow-father probably, but he wasn’t alone in it. It seemed to just be in the Hearthstone Dependent air, “There’s Chevenga, our little rooster.”

O: Did you feel that, aside from pranks, if you erred or stepped out of line or fell short of what was expected of you, somehow, that proved there was evil in you?

4Che: Yes. Yes.

O: And did you feel that it would be better to be dead than evil?

4Che: Yes.

O: And was that… related to your position?

4Che: Yes, very much so. Any evil in me was a thousand times more dangerous, because I’d be semanakraseye. That was made very clear to me. Better I die, and die fast with no questions asked, than pose any danger to my people; I felt that very strongly and I was very willing. I still maintain that, I haven’t wavered from it, that a corrupt semanakraseye should be removed even if that means death.

O: Which puts your life very much in the hands of those whose judgment of your good or evil you accept… that brings back very strongly, to me, what Skorsas said, bear with me… “He’s so much at your mercy, and it’s killing him.” Here too: “He thinks he ought to die because you cut him absolutely no slack, allow him absolutely no mercy, ever.” I think he’s more right than is easy for us Yeolis to hear. Thank you, Ikrena, for allowing me such a long intercession.

I: You are very welcome, Omonae; your intercessions are always good. That’s all of Skorsas Trinisas’s testimony I shall go through with you, line by line, Chevenga. But the greater theme in it that I read is that he attributes the death-obligation in you entirely to a general attitude of callousness on the part of the people of Yeola-e. Now before you decline to answer (laughter) I just want to note that I think we’ve already established that it can’t be attributed entirely to this, or indeed to any single factor. We’ve looked at your stream-test, your shadow-father’s strictness with you, your father’s assassination, the Kiss of the Lake, and a number of other things. But it could still be a factor of note, and I’m curious as to what you think.

4Che: Sorry, Ikrena, but I decline to answer.

I: Well, it was worth a try (laughter). I turn then to Surya, who, All-Spirit be praised, does not have the option of declining. I wonder if I may just welcome you to share your thoughts. I’ve got the feeling, throughout my questioning so far, that you have wanted to say many things. Perhaps we can start with the general; is Skorsas right at least in part, that the attitude of Yeolis towards Chevenga in part caused his trouble?

Su: Before I answer that I’d like to note that my answer will need a full and thorough explanation before it can be properly understood… in other words, if I were to simply say “yes,” or “no” for that matter, it would be simplified almost to the point of misleading, so I don’t want to answer that way, and hope that the Committee will not see this as being evasive on my part.

I: Understood, though I think I hear more “yes” in it already than I want to.

Su: Well, you asked, and I am under oath. First of all, you refer to “the attitude of Yeolis towards Chevenga,” and I think that’s a misnomer for what Skorsas is really referring to. Chevenga is very, very well-loved, as everyone knows. I think what Skorsas speaks of is better described as the stance of Yeoli political culture in general, towards semanakraseyel in general. He’s not familiar with any other semanakraseyel, and so can go only on what he sees with the one.

Miniya: He actually made that qualification when he spoke to us.

Su: Yes, he did. Now what Skorsas has done… well, sib Servant, you listed factors we’ve already identified as causes, four of them: the stream-test, Esora-e’s strictness, Tennunga’s assassination, and the Kiss of the Lake. Now of these four, three are directly related to the semanakraseyesin. Tennunga was not assassinated because he was semanakraseye, but for reasons personal to the assassin, so that’s the one that is not. The Kiss of the Lake obviously touches semanakraseyel only; the other two are more subtle, but the tie is there. I’ll start with the stream-test; yes, many Yeoli families do it, but most do not do it the old, severe way, which kills a quarter of the children. It is very rare. But the Shae-Arano-el do it, and, as the semanakraseyeni family, they are expected to, and so that is both what Chevenga suffered and what he imposed on his own children. In regard to Esora-e’s strictness, he was strictly raised himself, but he made it very clear, in all the testimony that I saw, that he felt he had to be even harder on Chevenga because of his position. The theme that we all saw, in many variants, in his testimony, was this: an anaraseye who is allowed to get away with too much will become a bad semanakraseye, and pose a severe danger to the nation.

So now hold that up next to what Chevenga just told us now: any evil in him was a thousand times more dangerous because he would be semanakraseye. The worst sin for a semanakraseye is, of course, arrogance, as that is the start of another Notyere. For a child we sweeten it a little by calling it cockiness, but it means the same thing, and he was falsely accused of it all through childhood. It is part of Yeoli political culture to be inherently suspicious of a semanakraseye, no matter what sort of person he is. The more capable he is, the greater the suspicion, and Chevenga’s extraordinary capability was obvious at a very early age. What a child is taught he grows up to believe, and so he has an underlying sense of evil, of commiting crime inherently, which by his own very strict moral code, translates into deserving death.

What Skorsas did was draw a line around a number of things we’ve looked at as discrete factors, and pointed out that they have a common theme. He cited the charges and the flogging not because they are causative, as obviously they aren’t, as Ikrena pointed out, but, though he didn’t manage to articulate this, because they represent in his mind the way Yeola-e treats Chevenga, and probably crystallized his own sympathy and anger. I ask the Committee to excuse me for a moment.

La: Is he all right?

Su: Yes, he’s just overcome. By saying what I’m saying, I’m stirring his emotional entrails with a big stick.

La: I call a rest-break, fifth-bead.




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