"It wasn't about justice," said Luet. "It was about teaching. The Pabulogi only knew the moral world their father had created for them. Before they could understand what they were doing, they had to be taught to see things as the Keeper sees them. When they did understand, then they begged forgiveness and changed their ways."
"But Father already loved them," whispered Akma. "When they were still beating you, when they were still torturing me, mocking us both, smearing us with digger feces, tripping me and kicking me, stripping me naked and holding me upside down in front of all the people while they ridiculed me-while they were still doing those things, Father already loved them."
"He saw what they could become."
"He had no right to love them more than me."
"His love for them saved all our lives," said Luet. "Yes, Luet, and look what his love has done for them. They prosper. They're happy. In his eyes, they are his sons. Better sons than I am." This was uncomfortably close to Luet's own judgment of things. "There's nothing they've achieved, nothing in their relationship with Father that wasn't available to you."
"As long as I admitted first that there was no difference in value between the tortured and the torturer."
"That's stupid, Akma," said Luet. "They had to change before Father accepted them. They had to become someone else."
"Well, I haven't changed," said Akma. "I haven't changed." It was the most personal conversation Luet had had with Akma in years, and she longed for it to continue, but at that moment a roar went up from the crowd because they were bringing in the accused, protected by eight guards. This was another old tradition, introduced after several cases in which the accused was murdered in court before the trial was even completed, or snatched away to have another sort of trial in another place. These guards still served that practical purpose-an in-court murder of an accused person had happened not ten years before, admittedly in the rather wild provincial capital of Trubi, at the high end of the valley of the Tsidorek. Not that anyone expected Shedemei to be in danger. This was a test case, a struggle for power; she herself was not regarded with particular passion by those accusing her.
"Look at the pride in her," said Akma, shouting right in her ear so he could be heard.
Pride? Yes, but not the cocky sort of defiance that some affected to when haled before the court. She carried herself with simple dignity, looking around her calmly with mild interest, without fear, without shame. Luet had thought that no one could be charged and brought to trial without feeling at least a degree of embarrassment at being made a public spectacle, but Shedemei seemed to be no more emotionally involved than a mildly interested spectator.
And yet this trial did matter to her; hadn't she deliberately provoked it? She wanted this to happen. Did she know what the outcome would be, the way she knew in advance the charges against her?
"Has Father told you what the puppet is supposed to decide?" Akma shouted in her ear.
She ignored him. The guards were moving slowly through the crowded gallery, forcing people to sit down. It would take a while for them to silence the crowd-these people wanted to make noise.
She wanted to personally slap each one of them, because their noise had stopped Akma from baring his soul to her. That was what he was doing. For some reason, he had chosen this moment to ... to what? To make a last plea for her understanding. That's what it was. He was on the verge of some action, some public action. He wanted to justify himself to her. To remind her that Father was the one who had first been guilty of monstrous disloyalty. And why? Because Akma himself was preparing his own monstrous disloyalty. A public betrayal.
Akma was going to testify. He was going to be called as a scholar, an expert on religious teachings among the Nafari. He was certainly qualified, as Bego's star pupil. And even though within the family and the royal house it was well known that Akma no longer believed in the existence of the Keeper, it wouldn't stop him from testifying about what the ancient beliefs and customs had always been.
She laid her hand on Akma's arm, dug into his wrist with her fingers.
"Ow!" he cried, pulling away from her.
She leaned in close to him and shouted in his ear. "Don't do it!"
"Don't do what?" She could make out his words only by reading his lips.
"You can't hurt the Keeper!" she shouted. "You'll only hurt the people who love you!"
He shook his head. He couldn't hear her. He couldn't understand her words.
The crowd at last was quieter. Quieter. Till the last murmur finally died. Luet might have spoken to Akma again, but his attention was entirely on the trial. The moment had passed.
"Who speaks for the accusers?" asked Pabul. kRo stepped forward. "kRo," he said.
"And who are the accusers?"
Each stepped forward in turn, naming himself. Three humans and two angels, all prominent men-one retired from the army, the others men of business or learning. All well known in the city, though none of them held an office that could be stripped from them in retaliation by an angry king.
"Who speaks for the accused?" asked Pabul.
Shedemei answered in a clear, steady voice, "I speak for myself."
"Who is the accused?" asked Pabul.
"Shedemei."
"Your family is not known here," said Pabul.
"I come from a far city that was destroyed many years ago. My parents and my husband and my children are all dead."
Luet heard this in astonishment. There were no rumors about this in the city; Shedemei must never have spoken of her family before. She had once had a husband and children, and they were dead! Perhaps that explained the quietness that Shedemei seemed to have in the deepest place in her heart. Her real life was already over; she did not fear death, because in a way she was already dead. Her children, gone before her! That was not the way the world should be.
"I wandered for a long time," Shedemei went on, "until finally I found a land of peace, where I could teach whatever children were willing to learn, whose parents were willing to send them."
"Digger-lover!" someone cried out from the gallery.
The time of noise had passed; two guards immediately homed in on the heckler and had him out of the gallery in moments. Outside, someone else would be let in to take his place.
"The court is ready to hear the accusations," said Pabul. kRo launched at once into a listing of Shedemei's supposed crimes, but not the simple unadorned statements that had been in the book of charges. No, each charge became a story, an essay, a sermon. He built up quite a colorful picture, Luet thought-Shedemei defiling the young human and angel girls of the city by forcing them to associate with the filthy ignorant children of diggers from Rat Creek. Shedemei striking at the ancient teachings of all the priests: "And I will call witnesses who will explain how all her teachings are an offense against the tradition of the Nafari-" that would be Akma, thought Luet.
"She insults the memory of Mother Rasa, wife of the Hero Volemak, the great Wetchik, father of Nafai and Issib... ."
Volemak was also the father of Elemak and Mebbekew, Luet wanted to retort-and Rasa had nothing to do with their conception. But of course she held her tongue. That would be a scandal, if the daughter of the high priest were to be hustled out of the court for heckling.
"... by pretending that she needs more honor than her marriage to Volemak already brought her! And to give her this redundant honor, she takes a male honorific, ro, which means ‘great teacher,' and appends it to a woman's name! Rasaro's House, she calls her school! As if Rasa had been a man! What do her students learn just by walking in her door! That there is no difference between men and women!" To Luet's-and everyone else's-shock, Shedemei spoke up, interrupting kRo's peroration. "I'm new in your country," she said. "Tell me the female honorific that means ‘great teacher' and I'll gladly use that one." kRo waited for Pabul to rebuke her.
"It is not the custom for the accused to interrupt the accuser," said Pabul mildly.
"Not the custom," said Shedemei. "But
not a law, either. And as recently as fifty years ago, in the reign of Motiab, the king's late grandfather, it was frequently the case that the accused could ask for a clarification of a confusing statement by the accuser."
"All my speeches are perfectly clear!" kRo answered testily.
"Shedemei calls upon ancient custom," said Pabul, clearly delighted with her answer. "She asked you a question, kRo, and custom requires you to clarify."
"There is no female honorific meaning ‘great teacher,' " said kRo.
"So by what title should I honor a woman who was a great teacher?" asked Shedemei. "In order to avoid causing ignorant children to be confused about the differences between men and women."
She said this with an ever-so-slightly ironic tone, making it clear that no honorific could possibly cause confusion on such an obvious point. Some in the gallery laughed a little. This was annoying to kRo; it was outrageous of her to have interrupted his carefully memorized speech, forcing him to make up answers on the spot.
With a great show of patient condescension, kRo explained to Shed-emei, "Women of greatness can be called ya, which means ‘great compassionate one.' And since she was the wife of the father of the first king, it is not inappropriate to call her dwa, the mother of the heir."
Shedemei listened respectfully, then answered, "So a woman may only be honored for her compassion; all the other honorifics have to do with her husband?"
"That is correct," said kRo.
"Are you saying, then, that a woman cannot be a great teacher? Or that a woman may not be called a great teacher?"
"I am saying that because the only honorific for a great teacher is a male honorific, the title ‘great teacher' cannot be added to a woman's name without causing an offense against nature," said kRo.
"But the honorific ro comes from the word uro which can be equally a male or a female," said Shedemei.
"But uro is not an honorific," said kRo.
"In all the ancient records, when the custom of honorifics first began, it was the word uro that was added to the name. It was only about three hundred years ago that the u was dropped and the ro began to be added to the end of the name the way it's done now. I'm sure you looked all this up."
"Our scholarly witnesses did," said kRo.
"I'm simply trying to understand why a word that is demonstrably a neutral one, implying either sex, should now be regarded as a word applying to males only," said Shedemei.
"Let us simplify things for the sake of the accused," said kRo. "Let us Hrop the charge of confusion of the sexes. That will spare us the agony of endless argument over the applicability of ancient usages to modern law."
"So you are saying that you consent to my continuing to call my school ‘Rasaro's House'?" asked Shedemei. She turned to Pabul. "Is that a binding decision, so I won't have to fear being brought to trial on this point again?"
"I declare it to be so," said Pabul.
"Now the situation is clear," said Shedemei.
The gallery laughed uproariously. Her clarification, of course, had turned into kRo's humiliating retreat. She had succeeded in deflating him. From now on all his speechifying would be tinged with just the faintest hue of the ridiculous. He was no longer the terrifying object he had once been.
Akma leaned to Luet and whispered in her ear, "Someone's been teaching her a lot of ancient history."
"Maybe she learned it on her own," Luet whispered back.
"Impossible. All the records are in Bego's library, and she has never been there." Akma was clearly annoyed.
"Maybe Bego helped her."
Akma rolled his eyes. Of course it couldn't have been Bego, he seemed to be saying.
Bego must be of Akma's party, thought Luet. Or is it the other way around? Could it be that Bego instigated this whole nonsensical business about there being no Keeper at all? kRo went on, climaxing his arguments by pointing out, just as Akma had anticipated, that all of Shedemei's violations were clearly premeditated and deliberate, since she had been able to name all the charges against her when Husu brought the book of charges to her door.
At last kRo finished-with much applause and cheering from the gallery, of course. But nothing like the kind of adoration he usually received. Shedemei had really done a job on him, and it was obvious kRo was angry and disappointed.
Pabul smiled, lifted a bark from his table, and began to read. "The court has reached a decision and-" kRo leapt to his feet. "Perhaps the court has forgotten that it is the custom to hear the accused!" Graciously he bowed toward Shedemei. "Clearly she has studied a great deal and even though her guilt is obvious, we should do her the courtesy of hearing her speech."
Icily Pabul answered, "I thank the lawyer for the complainants for his courtesy toward the accused, but I also remind him that other lawyers, at least, are not able to read the minds of judges, and therefore it is customary to listen to the judge before contradicting him."
"But you were declaring your decision... ." said kRo, his voice trailing off into embarrassment.
"This court has reached a decision and because it is based solely upon the statements of the lawyer for the accusers, the court must ask each of the complainants individually if the speech just given by their lawyer represents their words and intentions as surely as if they had spoken for themselves."
So he was polling the accusers. This was highly unusual, and it invariably meant that the lawyer had made some gross mistake that would destroy the case he was speaking for. kRo folded himself inside his wings and listened in stoic fury as Pabul queried each accuser individually. Though they obviously had misgivings, kRo had in fact given the speech he had rehearsed for them the day before, and they affirmed that it was as if they had spoken the words themselves.
"Very well," said Pabul. "At eight different points in this speech, the lawyer for the complainants violated the law forbidding the teaching of doctrines contrary to the doctrines taught by the high priest now in office."
A loud hum arose from the crowd, and kRo unfolded himself from his wings and fairly launched himself toward the judge's shadow, stopping just short of the line of darkness in the sand of the courtyard. The judge's guards immediately stepped forward, weapons ready. But kRo now threw himself backward into the sand, his wings open, his belly exposed, in the ancient angel posture of submission. "I have said nothing but to uphold the law!" he cried, not sounding submissive at all.
"There is not a person in this court who doesn't know exactly what you and the other accusers are doing, kRo," said Pabul. "This entire charade was designed as an attack on all the teachings of the man that Motiak has appointed high priest. You are trying to use the teachings of former high priests, and customs of long standing but no merit, to destroy Akmaro's effort to unify all the people of the Keeper as brothers and sisters. This court was not deceived. Your speech exposed your malice."
"The law and long precedent are on our side!" cried kRo, abandoning his submissive posture and rising again to his feet.
"The law affirming the authority of the high priest over all teachings of doctrine concerning the Keeper was established by the voice of the Hero Nafai, the first king of the Nafari, when he established his brother the Hero Oykib as the first high priest. This law has precedence over all other laws dealing with correct teaching. And when Sherem defied this law and opposed Oykib, and then the Keeper struck Sherem dead as he spoke, the king declared that the penalty for defying the teachings of the high priest would from then on be the same death that the Keeper chose for Sherem."
Akma leaned to Luct and whispered furiously, "How dare Father use those ancient myths to silence his opponents!"
"Father knows nothing about this," Luet answered. But she did not get her voice low enough, and several around them heard her. Of course they all knew who Akma and Luet were, and they could read the scornful disbelief on Akma's face as clearly as they heard Luet's denial that Akmaro had any part in Pabul's decision. Akmaro would definitely be part of the rumors that would fly after the tr
ial.
"Because this is an ancient offense," said Pabul, "I declare it to take precedence over the charges against Shedemei, since if her accusers are guilty of the greater crime, they are forbidden to bring accusation against her for a lesser one. I declare that the charges against Shedemei are nullified and may not be brought again by anyone until and unless her accusers are cleared of the charge against them. And I declare that you, kRo, and all the accusers who affirmed that you spoke their words and intentions are guilty, and I sentence you to death as the law demands."
"No one has used that law in four hundred years!" cried one of the accusers.
"I don't want anyone to die," said Shedemei, clearly dismayed by this turn of events.
"The compassion of the woman Shedemei is commendable but irrelevant," said Pabul. "I am the accuser of these men, and all these people in the gallery are witnesses. I decree that everyone in the gallery must give his or her name to the guards as you leave, so you can be called as witnesses if, as I expect, there is an appeal to the king. I declare this trial to be over."
Because they had been sitting at the front, Akma and Luet were among the last to leave. It took nearly an hour, but during that time they studiously did not say a word to each other or to anyone else. They both knew, however, that if Akma had been allowed to testify, the things he said would also have constituted the same offense that now had kRo and his clients under sentence of death.
"What has Pabul done to me!" Motiak roared.
Around him in the small room were gathered Akmaro, Chebeya, and Didul, representing the House of the Kept; and Aronha and Ed-hadeya, because Aronha was heir and could not be refused access while Edhadeya was, well, Edhadeya, and couldn't be refused either. They all understood Motiak's consternation; none of them had an easy answer.
Aronha thought he did, though, and offered it. "Dismiss the charges against Shedemei's accusers, Father."
"And allow them to reinstate their charges against Shedemei?" asked Edhadeya.
"Dismiss all the charges," said Aronha with a shrug.
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