by Kate Elliott
“For the eleventh time, my lord, you have not been given leave to speak,” says the High Priest in the tone of a man who knows his words will be ignored yet again.
“Since I reject your authority, I do not require your permission. As I said, there is no evidence that can be proven to be authentic.”
“If I may, Your Holiness,” says Maraya to the High Priest, and he nods with relief at seeing she has returned to take over the prosecution. She beckons to a group of men waiting off to one side. “We also bring witnesses. I will start with seventeen servants of Clan Tonor who worked as stevedores and clerks in the Tonor warehouses in the Grain Market.”
“These men are criminals!” cries Gargaron the moment Selukon steps forward, a criminal’s brand cut starkly onto his face. “Their testimony is thereby tainted, as it is recorded in the twelfth Precept of—”
“Silence!” Mother breaks in. Her body is rigid, her jaw clenched. “Let the testimony of these witnesses continue without interruption.”
“According to the law,” Gargaron continues as if she hasn’t spoken, “the testimony of a criminal is worth only half that of an unblemished man.”
Maraya has an answer to everything. “Unless the criminal in question brings to the court a case that he has been unjustly accused of a crime by a person who intends to profit from the accusation. Garon Palace profited from the death and disgrace of Lord Ottonor and Clan Tonor. Please, Domon Selukon, tell us the story of how you and these other men were illegally arrested and forced into slavery in the mines.”
“This is outrageous! For a woman who is also a mule to pretend to conduct herself in the place of an honorable priest—”
“Enough!” Mother braces herself to rise. But I tighten my grip on her and whisper, “Let Maraya handle it.”
No spear can pierce Maraya’s calm. She already knows she has him. If it were me up there, I would flash him the kiss-off gesture, but that’s not Maraya’s style.
“Lord Gargaron’s protests are his last desperate attempts to obstruct justice, Your Holiness. If we may proceed with the testimony—”
“I protest!” cries Gargaron. “As the head of Garon Palace, my voice must be heard—”
“Cut out his tongue, for he is an ill-wisher in truth,” says Mother.
Her words fall like naphtha, seemingly innocent as they first splash over us. Even Gargaron falters and blinks in surprise at the cold ferocity of her tone.
This time when she rises, I sit back. Days ago I chose not to kill him because I knew vengeance was not mine to dole out. I will not get in Mother’s way.
“Since he refuses to respect the sanctity of his own laws, cut out his tongue. Then he cannot interrupt but can still communicate if you have questions for him, Your Holiness, because he can write.”
Inarsis signals, and six Efean soldiers swarm forward and throw Gargaron down. Kal doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak, although many of the Garon Palace women shriek. The Saroese lords in attendance burst out in vociferously indignant cries although they dare not try to scuffle. Their voices die when a knife glints in the hand of Inarsis himself.
“Do you want to do it, Kiya?” he asks in Efean.
“My hand is not steady enough today,” she murmurs. Her fingers open and close convulsively, and I jump up to put an arm around her as Inarsis himself kneels by the lord pinned to the floor.
Gargaron spits. “This is—! You can’t—!”
Soldiers grab his lips and hold his mouth open, and for all he struggles he cannot escape them. Mother’s gaze on him does not waver but I have to look away. The agony of others gives me no satisfaction, not even his. Yet his helpless, gargled cries make me wonder if the women fated to become ill-wishers struggled as their tongues were cut out or if they had already accepted the inevitable. If they knew no one would save them. Does Taberta still live, and can we find her and bring her back to a peaceful home where she is respected? And where has Talon gone, for she does not bide among the nobles of Garon Palace? I pray she has escaped to a better life.
When Inarsis sits back with a bloody mass of flesh in his hand, Mother says, “Burn it.”
She walks over to stand above Gargaron as he whimpers in pain. I have never seen her expression so pitiless as this.
“So will your lies burn, Lord Gargaron. Had you left my family alone, none of this would have happened. I promise you will have the leisure to consider this irony for a long time.”
She steps back to allow the soldiers to haul him up.
“Let the trial proceed.”
The Clan Tonor laborers testify, speaking of how they were kidnapped and abused. Gargaron slumps on his knees against the railing, blood dribbling out of his mouth. The highborn stand in terrified silence, even the slightest fearful sob stifled at once by the whispers and nudges of others. They fear us now, as they never did before.
Finally it is time for the testimony of Lord Ottonor himself, a record of how his prosperous clan was cheated and disgraced so Garon Palace could take their holdings for itself. A few nervous giggles erupt as Polodos carries Wenru forward, but every whisper of puzzled amusement vanishes when the baby starts to talk. As a stream of comprehensive knowledge pours from an infant’s lips, even the disgraced priests and the heads of noble clans look chastened. The dishonest theft of another clan’s wealth is bad enough, but it pales compared to the fact that the former High Priest allowed a pregnant Efean woman to be blasphemously entombed with an oracle. I am not sure whether the Saroese listening are more appalled that Mother was pregnant or that a Commoner was allowed to defile that most holy of Patron sanctuaries, its tombs.
Their consternation makes no difference to me. We have walked Lord Gargaron into the Temple of Justice and implicated him under his own laws. No matter what else happens, he is condemned as a criminal in the court of Seon, the Sun of Justice, and his crimes written into the official record.
When Wenru finishes, the young High Priest rises.
“The punishment for Gargaron’s crimes is death, exile, or the mines. So also must the heads of households be judged and sentenced. According to our agreement and in respect of custom, the choice of penalty will be left to the palace.”
He looks at Inarsis, thinking this is men’s business, but it is Mother who speaks, because that is the Efean way.
“Gargaron will be given the punishment he has earned. As for the others, this is my judgment. For the highborn clans, exile. From each highborn clan the head of household will be given to the Shipwrights. If your clans wish to ransom you, they may apply to the Shipwrights. Additionally from each highborn clan one child of the house will be held as hostage in Efea and raised among our people.”
She surveys the men who stand before her, all too cowed to speak.
“For the ordinary Saroese who refuse to live where we now rule, exile. Those who do not fear us are welcome to remain and call themselves Efean. That is my judgment. There now only remains the question of the royal palace and what will become of the surviving members of the royal family.”
Ro brings forward a cup of juice and she drinks. All clan heads and Garon women and officials are pushed back, leaving Gargaron and the last three descendants of the first Kliatemnos and Serenissima: Berenise, Menoë, and Kalliarkos alone before the god.
Both women have been given stools to sit on but Kal has remained standing throughout the trial. He’s fixed his hands behind his back as at parade rest but there is nothing relaxed or withdrawn about his aspect. He watches everything; he hears every word; he sees all reactions.
Mother turns first to Princess Berenise. “To you, Honored Dame, I offer the respect due to the elderly. To you, I offer exile.”
Princess Berenise has the inhospitable eyes of a woman who has survived all the reversals and hairbreadth escapes of the ugliest Fives trial there is. She does not deign to reply but a flicker of cunning animates her haughty face.
“To you, Lady Menoë—”
“I am queen and you may address me as Your G
racious Majesty, although in truth no Commoner ought to be speaking to me at all.”
Her words are like flies to be swatted away.
“To you, Lady Menoë, I offer the respect due to a pregnant woman, even though I did not receive such respect myself. To you, I offer exile.”
“Does it bother you that I carry his son? The son you could not give him?”
Wenru catches my eye and gives a sour frown.
Mother says nothing.
Her dignified silence goads Menoë on. “My son will return to take back the throne that is rightfully his!”
“Given Esladas’s history, I think it more likely you will give birth to a daughter. A precious gift she will be to you, for I cannot find it in me to begrudge any person a safe delivery and a healthy child. I hope you will cherish her as she deserves, because daughters are the life of the land.”
“Menoë,” says Princess Berenise like the lash of a whip. “Remember who you are.”
Menoë releases a long and shuddering breath, trembling as she retreats to her grandmother. Berenise clasps her hand in comfort, and when Kal’s gaze flashes to them I see that these two women—the grandmother and the granddaughter—have always shared a connection that he was adjunct to. They love him but not enough to protect him.
“But all this comes upon one condition.” Mother faces the only person left who has not received the hammer of judgment. She too has her part to play in my plan. “I have this to say to Lord Kalliarkos. You placed yourself on the throne of Kliatemnos the First. You accepted the mantle of your ancestors’ legacy.”
“I did.” He stares not at me, not at his family, and not even at Mother but rather at the massive statue of the god. His cheeks are pale, and his eyes bear the strain of the choices he has made, but he does not waver as Mother goes on.
“I have been told that, according to the custom of old Saro, in times of trouble and wickedness when the gods are angry and the people wish to repent of their misdeeds, two goats are brought before Seon, the Sun of Justice. They are examined, and the blemished goat is sent into exile, into the wilderness, but the unblemished goat, the good goat, is accepted by the gods as a worthy sacrifice.” She gestures to the statue of Seon, which illustrates her story.
The Honored Custodian inclines her head, so stern and somber that I scarcely recognize her as my loving mother at all. When she looks at me, to make sure I mean her to proceed, I nod. There is only one way out of these Rings that will give me the victory I desire most.
“To you, Lord Kalliarkos, I offer the chance to stand in the place of your people and accept on their behalf the punishment for their crimes. To you I offer death, this one death, to set the seal on the end of your family’s rule.”
Before Kal can reply, a commotion stirs within the huddle of palace women. Lady Adia stumbles forward and throws herself at Mother’s feet.
“I pray you, spare him. Please do not condemn my only son. He is just a boy. Just a puppet in the hands of his grandmother and uncle. Let the mercy of the blessed Hayiyin stay your hand and commute death to exile. Let him come with us. I promise you he will never set foot in Efea again.”
Kal gently raises his mother to her feet. He sets his jaw against the despair of knowing he is the cause of an anguish that will never heal.
He too could get down on his knees and beg for mercy. But he won’t. For one thing Kal is no coward. For another he is too proud. For the last, he knows what Ro has passed on to him. The final spin in my intricate plan is that death is the only way for Kal to become free.
So he hands his mother back to attendants, who bundle her away, and he turns to face the judgment of the Efeans. His gaze flicks to mine and away. We can’t afford to give anything away, but there is a darkness in his eyes that troubles me. There is a grim resonance to his speech that makes me fear I have read these Rings wrong, that the obstacle I’ve so carefully negotiated is about to spin out of my control.
“I accept this burden, my death in exchange for the safe passage of my people into exile.”
33
Every official procession in the city of Saryenia begins at the King’s Hill and descends along the Avenue of Triumphs to the Square of the Moon and the Sun. Our path is no different although everything has changed.
First clank our squad of spiders, their thudding steps and huge metal bodies a barrier to any unexpected attacks. After them marches a cohort of the Lion Guard, tawny ribbons tied to their leather armor and beads adorning their braided and knotted hair. They sing, for our voices announce our arrival, not Saroese trumpets and drums.
We will fight for Efea, and win!
The Efeans who line the avenue join in the song. Here and there Saroese faces peep anxiously over the walls of barricaded compounds but other Saroese stand amid the Efeans as if they have already accepted the change of rulership. For many, of course, the king and queen are merely words that have little to do with the daily round of their lives.
The song fades to silence as the royal carriage rolls into view. Both the king’s and the queen’s seats are empty. The carriage itself is festooned in the manner of a funeral wagon although the corpse of the royal family who walks behind the carriage is not dead.
It is a measure of the respect Kalliarkos earned in the siege that no one cheers or hisses as he walks. Silence is both the curse and the honor offered to the last of the Saroese kings of Efea. Behind him, hands and feet shackled by silken rope, trudges a single shrouded funeral attendant, who must be prodded forward at intervals by soldiers with spears.
Only after these two have passed do voices rise again into a roar of singing and acclamation as the Honored Protector and Custodian pass, wearing their masks and accompanied by the honored poet. After them walk the officials in their animal masks, the High Priest with a modest retinue, and carriages bearing the dames and elders of the new council.
I walk beside the litter in which lies my father, carried by firebird soldiers, and another litter bearing Maraya, who by now is too exhausted to walk. Tucked at her side, Wenru wears an almost comical frown as he studies the triumphant Efean faces and, with a pursing of his baby lips, examines his own brown arm and considers his change of fortune.
We are followed by the rumbling tramp of many footsteps and the lamentations of the Saroese prisoners, for they too are part of the procession. Escorted by the Firebird Guard, the highborn clans are departing to the West Harbor. But we’re not going that way, not yet.
In the center of the Square of the Moon and the Sun stands a great scaffold. Onto this pyre the litter and Father’s body are placed, and oil is poured over them. Inarsis lights a torch and Mother places it beside Father’s body. We retreat as the flames catch and leap. To my surprise a number of people hurry forward with shroud-wrapped bodies and place them on the pyre before the fire mounts so high that no one can come close. And they begin singing:
You are the breath that sparks life in us, the earth that fashions us, the sun whose rays illuminate us, the water that nourishes us. You are the heart to which we return.
I am beyond tears. I tug on Mother’s arm. “What is this? I’ve heard it before.”
“It is the Efean way to release departing souls back into the land to be reshaped and reborn. The Saroese priests banned our custom because they considered it savage and blasphemous, as if entombing women against their will is a badge of civilization.”
Her gaze moves inexorably to the forbidding wall of Eternity Temple.
“Are you sure of this, Kiya?” Inarsis asks softly. “Death might be a mercy.”
“I find I am not merciful enough to grant death to the man who willfully and maliciously destroyed my family and the lives of so many others.”
Our company is fewer in number now. The spiders stand guard over the pyre while the Lion Guard escorts our group through the now-empty Eternity Temple and into the City of the Dead. How silent the tombs lie, no worshippers bringing offerings of food and flowers, no priests sweeping the walkways. Embers and fragmen
ts of burning cloth rain down upon the tombs, blown by the wind. Kal does not look at me or at anyone, only at the royal tomb rising atop the central hill. Even among the dead the Saroese insist that rank be respected.
The royal tomb has been broken open. The oracle and her attendants who were placed inside with Kliatemnos and his innocent son months ago have been released, but a narrow gap remains, enough space to admit a single attendant shrouded with cloth over his head.
The shroud is pulled off and Lord Gargaron finally realizes what his fate is to be.
He twists and turns but cannot escape their grip as guards shove him into the tomb and hold him back with spears. He bawls out sounds like the braying of an animal, but there is no recourse against mortar and brick as the masons close up the gap.
Mother does not once look away. She holds his gaze with hers as she speaks.
“You mistook quiet joy and a calm smile for weakness. This is my answer to you.”
I twitch, wanting to gesture the kiss-off sign because I know he is looking and I know he is helpless to look away, but Mother grasps my hand and I let her have her victory. I would have just killed him and been done with it, and I see now that all along I have not understood Mother quite as well as I thought I did.
When the tomb is bricked up, and the last King Kliatemnos given his final attendant, Mother looks at Kal. He nods, face a mask of determination.
I break away, meaning to run to him, but he extends a hand, palm out, to halt me. He holds his head in the posture of the king who, sitting in procession, must be seen as beyond ordinary concerns because he is himself the repository of power, the gods-anointed sovereign who wields life and death.
“Come no closer,” he says to me in a cold voice. “This is my journey. Mine alone.”
“But Kal—”
“Jessamy. Return to me at once.” No one disobeys Mother when she uses that tone, not even me.
She gestures for me to get in the wagon. “This is his journey. None of us, not even you, can walk this path beside him.”