There were also guards standing around the edge of the room, including Iriyat’s two and one Thiyo recognized from Mar’s house, a big man with a crooked nose.
Ev pulled Thiyo down into the seat next to her. For all Iriyat’s talk about Alizhan wanting to see them again, she hadn’t looked at them once. Her gaze was fixed on something beyond the walls of the room. In the worried, contemplative atmosphere of the courtroom, her strange meditation seemed appropriate.
Iriyat was the only person smiling.
The head priest remained in his seat, but everyone straightened when he spoke. “Alizhan Matrishal, you may speak.”
Alizhan made her way to the center of the room. She wavered on her feet. “As I said when we were gathered at Solor House, Iriyat ha-Varensi has sinned against the Balance and I have proof. In the garden at Varenx House, she grows plants that she herself bred! She plays God, creating new life that shouldn’t exist. Here is an example.”
Iriyat stiffened. Thiyo almost didn’t catch it, since she forced herself to relax so soon afterward. Her smile didn’t return so easily.
A murmur vibrated off the walls. Everyone strained forward. The flower in Alizhan’s hand was so small that Thiyo couldn’t see it without squinting. He wouldn’t have recognized it if he hadn’t been methodically picking apart the potted plants in his bedroom only an hour ago.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his own. Iriyat was wearing the same shade of lavender, and the match in color felt somehow damning—if you subscribed to this Laalvuri nonsense about plants. Thiyo couldn’t remember much of his own religion but he felt sure he didn’t give a depths-drowned drop of saltwater for whatever Iriyat had in her garden. Still, the colors were a stroke of luck. How had Alizhan known?
“This is not what I expected this trial to be about,” a portly, bearded Council member said. “I was led to believe—”
“Wait,” another Council member interjected. She was about the same age as Iriyat, and just as beautiful, but with the bronze skin and black hair common to Laalvuri. Even sitting down, it was clear she was long-legged. Thiyo hadn’t spoken with her at the party, but she’d been the one to request that everyone hear out Alizhan’s accusations. She pointed at Alizhan. “What’s this Matrishal business? Is she not Iriyat’s daughter?”
“That is hardly the point,” Mar said. “Can we please—”
“Iriyat came to me last triad acting very strangely,” the woman continued. Someone had mentioned her name at the party. Sideran? He thought that was it. “She squeezed my hand—not even wearing gloves!—and said all sorts of bizarre things about how that young woman was a fraud and I shouldn’t believe anything she said. My head ached miserably the whole time she was touching me, and I should know, since I get terrible headaches all the time and you know I’ve been ill lately—”
The high priest cleared his throat.
“Well, the most unusual thing about Iriyat’s visit—and her visit was unusual to begin with, you know, she never comes to see me, I think she doesn’t like me, probably because I’m so beautiful—” Sideran ha-Katavi was impervious to the glares and sighs she was accumulating from the rest of the Council. Thiyo might have admired her for it if she weren’t exasperating him, too. “Anyway, the most unusual thing is that I feel as though we talked about whether Iriyat had ever had a child, and whether that child was this woman, but neither of us uttered a single word on the subject. That feeling came on with my headache. I’m beginning to suspect she drugged me somehow!”
Iriyat’s Lacemaking had failed when she’d touched Sideran. Why hadn’t it failed when she’d touched Ev? What did Sideran have that Ev didn’t? Thiyo had a feeling this was something he’d once known. He glanced at Alizhan, still standing in the middle of the room. She no longer held her palm out to show the flower.
“This is irrelevant,” Mar said.
“Actually,” said the bearded man next to Sideran. “I had a similar experience, and it’s left me quite unsettled. Iriyat came to me to talk about the nonsense that’s been in the pamphlets—waves, secret orphanages, magic, of all things—and to assure me that none of it was true. She also insisted that she didn’t have a daughter and that this woman couldn’t be trusted, and she made a point of taking me by the hand. I felt disoriented after our meeting and had to lie down, but it all came back to me upon waking. If those pamphlets contain even a grain of truth, it is urgent that we discuss them. I certainly wasn’t expecting to discuss gardening when I came here.”
“You must excuse me, Lord ha-Garatsina, but there are pamphlets about all of us,” said a woman in yellow with her curly black hair pinned above her head. “Why, there are pamphlets about Lady ha-Katavi and myself that say we—well, they’re not true.”
“The gardening accusations are serious,” the high priest said at the same time, rebuking Lord ha-Garatsina.
“With all due respect, Your Reverence, I think perhaps you have not read the pamphlets in question,” Ha-Garatsina said.
The high priest sniffed. “Of course not. They’re pamphlets. Bring me that flower.”
Alizhan opened her palm and showed it to him, and as he was examining it in silence, the woman in yellow spoke again. “I did want to make the point that many pamphlets are scurrilous inventions, but I should also say that Lady ha-Varensi did pay me a visit last triad, one very similar to what Lady ha-Katavi and Lord ha-Garatsina have described.”
“Me as well,” said a man in black, and slowly all of the Council members began to nod. Iriyat had been to see all of them except Mar. She’d knocked him out on the terrace of Solor House in front of Thiyo and Ev, so a second visit hadn’t been necessary.
Had Alizhan known Iriyat would visit each of the Council members before the trial? She must have. At the party, she’d claimed to want an immediate trial, but she’d acquiesced quickly to a delay of two triads. Iriyat had thought the delay was to her advantage and had used it accordingly. It was a brilliant sleight-of-hand. If only this plan hadn’t required someone to scoop out half his brain and deliver him into the hands of a terrifying fanatic, it would be perfect.
If it worked, that is. No one in the room knew what to expect, and Thiyo wasn’t ready to predict victory for Alizhan yet.
“I have never seen shadebloom in this color or size,” the head priest was saying. “Or with five petals instead of four. But I cannot sentence such a respected member of our community on my knowledge alone. I must consult my colleagues and The Book of Scales.”
The two other priests in the room, the woman in grey and the man in black, went to examine the flower. They spoke so quietly over it that Thiyo couldn’t hear them, even though the rest of the room had fallen silent, straining to make out their conversation.
“Of course you’ve never seen it,” said the older woman in shapeless clothing. She hadn’t spoken until this moment. Thiyo had forgotten she was there. Everyone turned to her. “I was the gardener at Varenx House for twenty years, and before that, a Doubter like this one.” She pointed a thumb at the priest in black. “I had to give that up, as I gave up my position at Varenx House when the city became too much for me. I don’t come here often anymore, and this little theatrical production reminds me why. But I know plants, and you’ll not find that one anywhere but the garden of Varenx House. I know because it’s not Iriyat’s work. It’s mine.”
“Parneet,” Iriyat said, so softly that Thiyo almost missed it.
A flicker of surprise went through the room at this confession, and at hearing this poorly dressed commoner and Iriyat ha-Varensi exchange given names in such a formal setting. And what did this mean for the trial? Was Alizhan as surprised as everyone else, or was this part of her plan?
“Who are you? This trial is closed to the public! By whose authority are you in this courtroom?” the high priest said. “State your name.”
“Parneet Zheba. I came to provide testimony, at their request.” Parneet inclined her head toward Alizhan and then toward the scarred young man and t
he woman in grey priest’s robes. She smirked. “They didn’t know what I would say.”
“Are you confessing, Parneet Zheba? Did you desecrate God’s Balance with your unholy creations?” the high priest demanded.
Parneet shrugged one shoulder. “Draw your lines wherever you want. From a certain angle, all cultivation is a sin against the Balance. If it’s a sin to garden, God must want us to starve. I fail to see how new varieties of plants constitute a sin in this filthy world we live in, but if it is a sin, it is mine and not hers.” Her gaze landed on Iriyat. “Do what you will with me, but leave Iriyat ha-Varensi alone. She is innocent of this.”
The high priest was not touched by this display of self-sacrificing loyalty. His features hardened with rage. “Heretic! Shackle her!”
“That is not how this Council works,” Lord ha-Garatsina protested, more from irritation at having been excluded from the decision than concern for Parneet.
“This woman is not a Council member. The Temple does not require your opinion,” the high priest said, every syllable dripping with venom. “Do not interfere.”
Iriyat said nothing. Her eyes were on Parneet, her gaze a promise. Perhaps she thought she could free Parneet from wherever Laalvur imprisoned its heretics. Parneet, for her part, had calmly offered her wrists to a guard and was submitting to her cuffs.
“Do we find Lady ha-Varensi innocent, in that case?” Mar ha-Solora asked, long past patience. “If this woman confessed to the crime, then we’re done, yes?”
Alizhan spoke. “Varenx House is not the only place you will find this variety of five-petaled lavender shadebloom.”
She had a good sense for dramatic pauses, Alizhan. Thiyo appreciated that.
“Well?” the high priest snapped.
“You will also find it growing in the burned ruins of a certain house on Gold Street,” Alizhan said, and the room erupted into chaos.
34
Letters from Another World, No. 61
Dear readers, I can hardly believe I am writing you a letter from our own world, where at last some justice has been served. Perhaps you have already heard whispers that on the sixth triad of Rimersha, Iriyat ha-Varensi was sentenced to life in prison. (I will not recount to you the events preceding her trial, which are detailed in Letter No. 60.) Guards escorted her from the Temple of the Balance to Izhimem Prison on Breakneck Hill. The procession was kept secret, but I do not intend to let the proceedings of the trial remain so. For too long, Iriyat ha-Varensi shrouded her secrets in priestly robes so this city could not see them, but in that room she was stripped down to the truth. I bring you an account from my own eyes and ears.
Those of you who have read Letter No. 1 know that I brought forth terrible, truthful accusations against her. Her property on Gold Street was put to the foulest of uses of which I myself was a victim. Ha-Varensi set that fire herself rather than see her sins come to light. But when the smoke dissipated, the ashes mixed with the dirt, and the remains of the garden overran the house, the truth sprouted. This is more than a metaphor: a variety of shadebloom—five-petaled, lavender—was found growing in the lot.
What is the connection? This variety of shadebloom was bred by a Varenx House gardener years ago, a woman named Parneet Zheba who had long since retired from her position. Iriyat ha-Varensi stood accused of breeding this flower herself, a sin against the Balance, but her former gardener came to her trial and confessed. For a moment, it seemed as though Ha-Varensi would walk free, since she had been accused only of this sin and no others.
But Alizhan Matrishal, Ha-Varensi’s daughter and accuser, pointed out that this variety grows in the garden at Gold Street. Ha-Varensi acquired this property after her gardener’s departure, so the presence of the lavender shadebloom indicates her complicity in this sin.
Perhaps you are thinking, “Is that it? This murdering villain will be locked up for a weed?” but the story does not end there. This little seed of guilt blossomed into so much more. During the trial, several Council members spoke of strange visits from Ha-Varensi, visits in which she touched their bare skin with her own and tried to convince them not to believe the accusations against her. All reported aches and dizziness following these visits. Once Ha-Varensi’s reputation was darkened, the other Council members became more willing to question everything she’d said and done, and these claims were re-examined.
“My mother has tried to alter your memories,” Alizhan Matrishal said. “She has failed this time because I protected you with the essence of a plant called nightvine, which you took at Solor House without knowing it. I apologize for tricking you, but it was necessary to make you understand what my mother can do. She makes people forget. She has been doing it to all of you as long as you have known her.”
The events of the next few minutes are impossible to recount, as filled with shouting as they were. Readers, if you have been following my pamphlets for a long time, you will recall the numerous occasions on which I have written about magic, a phenomenon Laalvur can no longer ignore. The Council of Nine had not read my pamphlets. Or they had dismissed my words as those of a heretic and a seditionist. Had they listened, I could have saved them a great deal of time.
Instead the trial was drawn out for a great many hours while Matrishal explained Ha-Varensi’s treacherous ability, called Lacemaking, and offered demonstrations to any Council member who required them. (Ha-Varensi did not participate in these demonstrations. Matrishal had brought her own Lacemaker, a Nalitzvan who gave his name only as Ket, and another Nalitzvan, a woman named Henny whose touch confers a pleasant sensation of pain relief.) Matrishal herself possesses the inverse ability to Lacemaking and offered to restore the memories of anyone willing to undergo her touch.
More fantastical than any of these dozens of demonstrations of powers the Council had previously disregarded was the revelation of the horrifying scale of Iriyat ha-Varensi’s project, in which she sought not only to control and exploit those children imprisoned in Gold Street, but to control and exploit the whole world. Ha-Varensi spent years seeking a child who could touch the earth and predict quakes, or a child who could touch the sea and predict waves, and when such children proved rare—notice I do not say impossible—she determined to monitor and control the world in her own way. She conceived a monstrous plan to weaken the underground city of Adappyr until it was consumed by quakes. She named this violence an experiment.
When we allow the rich to become untouchably powerful, their status and influence cease to satisfy them. They have everything, but ambition still consumes them. This contradiction twists them up inside and leads them astray. It was not enough for Iriyat ha-Varensi to own Laalvur if she could not own the ground and the sea beneath it. She wreaked havoc on us and our brothers and sisters in Adappyr, and there may be more to come: Matrishal warned that these continuing quakes in Adappyr could cause a wave to come to our coast.
In Letter No. 22, I wrote that our city should cease hanging criminals, as the Temple of Doubt preaches. Determining guilt with certainty is beyond us, and we cannot risk executing the innocent. I still believe this, even though imprisoning Iriyat ha-Varensi for the rest of her life will not be enough. No punishment is enough.
Some of the Council members did not accept this story, but all agreed that Ha-Varensi was dangerous and could not be allowed to roam free. Nothing in Laalvuri law acknowledges the possibility of Lacemaking, so it is not technically a crime, but as we know, our Council members are not so bound by law as the rest of us, and in this singular case, that has served us well. Iriyat ha-Varensi is in Izhimem Prison where she belongs.
* * *
Yours,
Vesper
35
Loves
Ev slept so heavily she didn’t hear the shift change bells ring. She woke alone in a darkened room in Solor House. For the first time in a long time, she knew exactly who she was. She rose and went to the room next door, where she’d carried Alizhan to bed after her collapse the previous shift. The trial and subse
quent hours of memory restoration had drained her.
The darkened room, as with all the other unused guest rooms at Solor House—unused rooms, what an extravagance—was decorated in blue, with a carpet in shades of sapphire lying over the red floor tiles, and azure bedsheets. The only contrast came from red uzet and yellow yezhem blooming in a planter in the corner. Alizhan lay curled small in the middle of a giant bed. One hand was tucked under her pillow and the other was clenched into a fist close to her heart. Her hair, uncharacteristically loose since Thiyo had removed all the pins after she’d passed out, flowed onto the sheets like a puddle of ink.
Alizhan didn’t wake from Ev standing in the doorway and staring at her, which was unusual. In their previous experiences of sharing a room, Ev hadn’t been able to think without disturbing her sleep. No surprise that she was tired after the triad she’d had.
Ev crawled into the bed so she and Alizhan were facing each other, and Alizhan opened her eyes at last. Ev caught her sleepy grey gaze for an instant before she looked away. “Are you angry?”
“Does this seem like angry behavior to you?” Ev asked, baffled.
“I have to ask. I can’t tell anymore.”
This was not the conversation Ev had planned to have after getting in bed with Alizhan, but she took it in stride. “I didn’t enjoy Iriyat’s hospitality, and I don’t want to do it again, but no, I’m not angry. Or if I’m angry, it’s not directed at you.”
“You should be angry with me,” Alizhan said.
“Well, tough.”
“How am I supposed to react to that?” Alizhan asked with genuine curiosity. “I miss when I could feel you. God, Ev, I miss you so much.”
“I’m right here,” Ev said. “And I came to ask how you were feeling.”
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