"He knows I'm not," said Luet.
Akmaro shook his head. "Chebeya, there's no need. Akma will grow out of this."
Tears started slipping down Chebeya's cheeks. "No he won't," she said. "Not now. This whole business with Shedemei-"
"Akma doesn't have anything to do with that, does he?" asked Didul.
"The people who brought charges against her," said Chebeya, "they won't give up. It can't be a secret from them how the son of the high priest feels about things. They'll find a way to use him. If nothing else, they'll flatter him, agree with him. Akma is hungry to be loved and respected-"
"We all are," said Edhadeya softly.
"Akma more than most, in part because he feels that perhaps he has never had the love and respect he wanted at home." Chebeya reached out a hand toward her husband, as if to soothe him. "Not your fault. It's just the way things looked to him, from the beginning, from those awful days back in Chelem."
Didul looked at the ruins of his meal in front of him, his face burning as he remembered how he had treated Akma. The picture came so easily to his mind, more vivid perhaps now than it had been at the time. Little Akma crying and sputtering in fury as Didul and his brothers laughed and laughed. Then Akma crying in pain, a very different sound, a terrible sound... and still they laughed. Still I laughed, Didul thought. Does Akma hear that sound even now? If it's even half as clear in his mind as it is in mine... .
He felt a hand close over his. For a moment he thought it might be Luet who touched him, and he wanted to tear his own hand away in shame at his unworthiness. But it was Chebeya. "Please, Didul. You're so much a part of this family that we forget sometimes that you hear some things with different ears. No one blames you here." Didul nodded, not bothering to argue. Chebeya turned the conversation to other things, and the rest of the meal passed in peace.
When it was time for Edhadeya to go home, she asked Didul to walk with her. Didul laughed; he meant to seem amused but knew that he only sounded nervous. "Is it that you have something you want to say to me, or that everyone else has things they want to say without me?"
"He's so sweet, isn't he?" Edhadeya said. "He couldn't conceive of the idea that I might enjoy his company."
Once they were on the dark street, walking home by the light of the torch Didul carried, Edhadeya said, "All right, yes, there's something I wanted to say to you."
"Well, then," said Didul. "Here I am. Or is it so devastating you want to wait till we're nearer your father's house, in case I burst into tears, throw down the torch, and run away into the night?"
"You know what I want to talk about."
"I shouldn't come to Akmaro's house anymore, is that it?"
Edhadeya laughed, startled. "What! Why would I say that? They love you-are you so shy you can't see it?"
"For Akma's sake. So they can win him back."
"It's not you, Didul. No, I wanted to say the opposite. Or really, I wanted to ask you something first, and then say something-Didul, I wish I understood you better."
"Better than you do right now? Better than other people do? Or better than you understand other people?"
She giggled, very girlishly. Suddenly an image flashed into Didul's mind, of Edhadeya and Luet sitting on a bench together, laughing just that way. Schoolgirls.
"I'm listening now," he said. "I'll be serious."
"Didul, your life has been very strange," said Edhadeya. "You were unlucky in your father, but very lucky in your brothers."
"Pabul's done well. The rest of us struggle."
"You improved with age-which is better than most of us do. Most of us start out innocent and deteriorate."
"As low as my beginning was, Edhadeya, I had nowhere to go but up."
"I think not," said Edhadeya. "But please listen. I'm not harping on your past, I'm saying that you are much admired. Many people say it-Father hears reports from Bodika, you know. You are much admired. And not just among the Kept."
"That's kind of you to say."
"Yes, well, I'm repeating what others say. That you're a man of compassion."
"Whatever people tell me, I can always say I've done worse, the Keeper can still accept you if you change now."
"Please listen, Didul. I have to know something from your own lips. It seems that you love everybody, that you show compassion to everybody, and wit and a kind of easiness-everyone is comfortable with you."
"Except you."
"Because when you're with me-when you're with Akmaro- you're shy, you're not at ease. You feel-"
"Above myself."
"Out of place."
"Yes."
"So someone might wonder: How do you really feel about Akmaro's family? Do you love them? Or merely hunger for their constant forgiveness?"
Didul thought about this for a moment. "I love them. Their forgiveness I've had for years. The parents. Luet, when she was old enough to understand. She was very young, and children are very forgiving."
"So again, someone might wonder-if you are confident of their forgiveness, why are you so shy, so guarded when you're with them?"
"Who is doing all this wondering, Edhadeya?"
"I am, and be quiet. Someone might wonder, Didul, whether some of your shyness might be because you have some kind of special feeling for one of the family and yet you dare not speak of it... ."
"Are you asking me if I love Luet?"
"Thank you," said Edhadeya. "Yes, that's what I'm asking."
"Of course I love her. Anyone who knows her has to love her."
Edhadeya growled in frustration. "Don't play games with me, Didul!"
Didul held the torch farther up and away, so it wouldn't light his face as he spoke. "Can you imagine anything worse than the day Akma finds out that I'm marrying Luet?"
"Yes, I can," said Edhadeya. "The worst thing would be if Luet were to spend day after day, year after year waiting for you, and you never come to her,"
"She's not waiting for me."
"You've asked her?"
"We haven't spoken of it."
"And she never will, because she fears that you don't have any feelings for her. But she has them for you. I betray a confidence to tell you this. But you must make your choice based on all the information. Yes, it would gall Akma to have you for a brother-in-law. But this same Akma is already the enemy of everything his father stands for. And to spare his feelings, will you break the heart of Luet, who waits for you? Which is the greater wrong? To hurt the unforgiving one, or to hurt the one who has forgiven all?"
Didul walked beside her in silence. They reached the door of the king's house.
"That was all I had to say," she said.
"Can I believe you?" he whispered. "That she cares for me? After all I did?"
"Women can be insane sometimes in the men they choose to love."
"Are you? Insane?"
"Do you want to know how insane I am, Didul? When Luet and I were younger, we fell in love with each other's brothers. She finally settled on Mon, because he's always been the one I was closest to. And I of course loved Akma from afar." Edhadeya smiled mysteriously. "Then Luet grew out of that childish love and found something much finer in her love for you." Edhadeya laughed lightly. "Good night, Didul."
"Aren't you going to finish your story?"
"I did." She walked to the door; the guard opened it for her. Didul stood in the sputtering torchlight as the door closed. The guard finally spoke to him. "Are you from out of the city, sir? Do you need directions somewhere?"
"No, no ... I know the way."
"Then you'd better set out-your torch won't burn forever, unless you plan to let the flame run right down your arm."
Didul thanked him with a smile and set off for the public house where he was staying. Akmaro and Chebeya invited him for dinner, but never to stay the night. It would not do for him to be there, even sleeping, should Akma choose to come home.
Luet stopped loving Mon, but Edhadeya never grew out of that childish love for Akma. That must b
e a difficult situation for her. At least the man that Luet loved was loyal to the cause of the Keeper. Edhadeya, a dreamer of true dreams, the daughter of the king, loved a man who disbelieved in the Keeper and despised the Kept.
Maybe I'm not the worst possible husband. Maybe I do have something to offer Luet, besides poverty and the fury of her brother and a memory of my cruelty to her when she was little. Maybe she should be given the choice, at least. Didn't he owe it to her, to give her the chance to hear him talk of his love for her and ask for her to be his wife, so she could refuse him and cause him a small fraction of the humiliation and pain he had once caused her?
He despised himself at once even for thinking this. Didn't he know Luet at all, to think she would want to hurt him or anyone else? Edhadeya said she loved him. And he knew that he loved her. Akmaro had made it plain that he would give his approval. So had Chebeya, in a thousand small ways, talking about how much a part of the family he was.
I will speak to her, he decided. I will speak to her tomorrow.
He doused his dying torch in the pail at the door of the public house and went inside to spend a few hours wishing he could sleep instead of rehearsing over and over in his mind the words he would say to Luet, imagining over and over the way she might smile and embrace him, or weep and run from him, or stare at him in horror and whisper, How could you? How could you?
At last he did sleep. And in his dream, he saw himself and Luet standing beneath a tree. It was heavy with a white fruit, but it was just out of reach-neither of them was tall enough to reach it. "Lift me up," she said. "Lift me up, and I can pick enough for both of us."
So he lifted her, and she filled her hands, and when he lowered her back to the ground she took a bite and wept at the sharp sweetness of it. "Didul," she whispered. "I can't bear it if you don't have a bite-here, from this place right beside where I bit, so you can taste exactly what I tasted."
But in his dream he didn't bite from the fruit at all. Instead he kissed her, and from her own lips tasted exactly what she had tasted, and yes, it was sweet.
The trial was so well-known that even before Didul was asleep, people were gathering in the large open court. At dawn, when the guards arrived, they had to herd the early arrivals to the front rows overlooking the court. The judge's seat was, of course, in shadow, and would be throughout the day. Some thought this was for the judge's comfort protecting him from the summer heat, but in winter it could be bitterly cold in the shade, with no scrap of sun to warm him. No, the shade was to help keep the judge more or less anonymous. People could see most clearly where the light was; the complainants and the accused were in light continuously, and if either of them had brought a lawyer in to speak for them, he would strut the length and breadth of the sunlit area. No lawyer, however, would step within the judge's shadow. Some thought this was out of respect for the king's honor as embodied in his deputy, the judge. But the lawyers all knew that to step out of the light made them appear clumsy, weak, unaware, and would dispose the people against them. Not that the people had any voice in the decision, officially-though there had been notorious trials in the past where it seemed the judge had made his decision based solely on which outcome would be most likely to allow him to leave the court alive. But the lawyers knew that their reputation, their likelihood of being hired for other cases, depended on how the onlookers perceived them.
The sun was halfway to noon when the accusers arrived, along with their lawyer, a loquacious angel named kRo. It was forbidden for an angel to fly in the court, but kRo had a way of opening his wings and sort of gliding as he walked back and forth, building up passion in himself and in the audience. It made him seem at once larger and more graceful than his opponent, and many human lawyers refused to take on cases that might put them head to head with kRo.
With the accusers in place and the gallery completely full, with hundreds more clamoring outside, pleading for imaginary spaces-"I'm not large! There's room for me!"-Pabul entered, with a guard on either side. In the event of a mob action against the judge, these guards would hardly be much protection, though perhaps they might buy just enough time for the judge to flee into his chamber. Rather they were there to defend against the lone assassin. It had been a hundred years since a judge was murdered in open court, and longer than that since one was mobbed, but the protections remained in place. No one expected that this case would turn to violence, but it was more heated than most, and the controversy made the onlookers view the guards in a different light. Not just a formality, no. They were armed; they were large, strong humans.
No one from the king's family was present. It had long been a tradition that if a royal person were present, he or she would sit beside the judge and, presumably, tell the judge the will of the king in the case. Thus from a trial attended by a royal person there could be no appeal. To preserve the rights of the accused, therefore, Ba-Jamim, Motiak's father, had begun the tradition of having no family member present at any lower trials, so that the right of all parties to appeal a decision could be preserved. It also had the happy effect of increasing the independence and therefore the prestige of the judges.
Akma, however, came to watch, and his sister Luet came with him. They had arrived late enough that they secured seats only in the back, behind the accused where they could see no faces. But two close supporters of the accusers, who had seats on the front row where they could see everyone's face, recognized Akma and insisted that he and his sister come down and take their places. Akma pretended to be surprised and honored, but Luet remembered how he had remained standing at the back until he was noticed, he knew that seats were being held for him. And by supporters of the accusers. Akma had definitely taken sides.
Well, why not? So had Luet.
"Have you met her?" she asked.
"Met whom?" asked Akma.
"Shedemei. The accused."
"Oh. No. Should I have?"
"A brilliant, remarkable woman," said Luet.
"Well, I don't suppose anyone would have noticed her if she was a fool," he answered mildly.
"You know I was at her school with Mother and Edhadeya when the book of charges was delivered," said Luet.
"Yes, I'd heard."
"She already knew the charges. Isn't that funny? She recited them to Husu before he could read them off."
"I heard that, too," said Akma. "I imagine kRo will make something of that. Proof that she was aware of her lawbreaking, that sort of thing."
"I daresay he will," said Luet. "Imagine charging her with treason for running a school."
"Oh, I'm sure that charge was just to make the whole thing more notorious. I don't think Father's little puppet judge will even allow that charge to be heard, do you?"
Luet cringed at the malice in Akma's voice. "Pabul is no one's puppet, Akma."
"Oh, really? So what he did to our people back in Chelem, that was of his own free will?"
"He was his father's puppet then. He was a child. Younger than we are now."
"But we've both passed through that age, haven't we? He was seventeen. When I was seventeen, I was no man's puppet." Akma grinned. "So don't tell me Pabul wasn't responsible for his own actions."
"Very well, then," said Luet. "He was. But he changed."
"He sensed the way the wind was blowing, you mean. But let's not argue."
"No, let's do argue," said Luet. "Which way was the wind blowing back in Chelem? Who had the soldiers there?"
"As I recall, our young judge had the command of a gang of digger thugs that were always ready to whip and claw women and children."
"Pabul and the others risked their lives to stop the cruelty. And gave up their future in positions of power under their father in order to escape into the wilderness."
"And come to Darakemba where, to everyone's surprise, they once again have positions of power."
"Which they earned."
"Yes, but by doing what?" Akma grinned. "Don't try to argue with me, Luet. I was your teacher for too long. I know
what you're going to say before you say it."
Luet wanted to jab him with something very hard. When they were younger and quarreled, she would pinch together her thumb and first two fingers to form a weapon hard and sharp enough for Akma to notice it when she jabbed him. But there had been playfulness in it, even when she was most furious; today she didn't touch him, because she was no longer sure she loved him enough to strike at him without wanting to cause real injury.
A sad look came across Akma's face.
"Why aren't you happy?" she said tauntingly. "Didn't I say what you expected me to say?"
"I expected you to jab me the way you used to when you were a brat."
"So I've passed out of brathood."
"Now you judge me," said Akma. "Not because I'm wrong, but because I'm not loyal to Father."
"Aren't you loyal to him?"
"Was he ever loyal to me?" asked Akma.
"And will you ever grow out of the hurts of your childhood?"
Akma got a distant look on his face. "I've grown out of all the hurts that ended."
"No one's hurting you now," said Luet. "You're the one who hurts Mother and Father."
"I'm sorry to hurt Mother," said Akma. "But she made her choice."
"Didul and Pabul and Udad and Muwu all begged for our forgiveness. I forgave them then, and I still forgive them now. They've become decent men, all of them."
"Yes, you all forgave them."
"Yes," said Luet. "You say that as if there were something wrong with it."
"You had the right to forgive them for what they did to you, Luet. But you didn't have the right to forgive them for what they did to me."
Luet remembered seeing Akma alone on a hillside, watching as Father taught the people, with the Pabulogi seated in the front row. "Is that what this is all about? That Father forgave them without waiting for your consent?"
"Father forgave them before they asked him to," whispered Akma. She could barely hear him above the roaring of the crowd, and then she could only make out his words by watching his lips. "Father loved the ones who tormented me. He loved them more than me. There has never been such a vile, perverted, filthy, unnatural injustice as that."
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