Khana’Ani, upon hearing that his life might actually be forfeit, fell to the dirt, pale and trembling. His father stepped forward, as if to shield the young man from the eyes of the others.
“As father of the Accused, I claim the right to speak as his Advocate,” Khumi said.
“Very well.”
“Having received Khana’Ani’s story from his own lips, I submit to you his claim that…” Khumi paused, and shrugged apologetically over to U’Sumi and T’Qinna. “It is my son’s claim that the attack was carried out by another. He also insists that Ae’Vria enticed him, and offered herself to him freely in the vines, but that he refused…”
“That’s a lie!” U’Sumi roared. His wife and several of his older sons restrained him from leaping at Khana’Ani.
A’Nu-Ahki felt his world unravel at the realization of how futile it all was. Nothing had really changed. Either this was not any kind of New-world, or New-world was just a hollow delusion. Either way, this new Earth would shortly grow just as perverse and violent as the old one. Nothing he could do or say would change things at all—no teaching, no laws, no shining examples, and no inspiration for coming generations—nothing. We’re no different than before. We’ve learned nothing!
Nu shouted, raising his staff toward U’Sumi, “Show restraint! I know this is hard. If that’s the story the Accused wishes to present, then that is his story—ridiculous, true, or false.”
U’Sumi shook free of his rage, and apologized to his father.
A’Nu-Ahki nodded his sympathy, and went on. “It is my awkward position now to act as both judge and witness, since it was I who found Ae’Vria at the place of defilement. Were there another to whom I could recuse this case, I would. There is no other, as you all well know.”
Iyapeti stepped forward, recognizing his cue to act temporarily as judge. He stood before his father’s chair, and kissed his ring before asking any questions of the witness.
“Did you hear Ae’Vria cry for help?”
A’Nu-Ahki did not hesitate. “I heard her scream for help repeatedly and also heard a struggle amid the upper vines.”
Iyapeti asked, “Did you see Khana’Ani?”
“The trellises were too tall. I saw a young man rush away from where I found Ae’Vria. But his head was ducked, and he was always at least partially concealed by the leaves. While I cannot swear that it was Khana’Ani, he did have Khana’Ani’s skin tone, build, and straight, black hair.”
“In what state was Ae’Vria when you first saw her in the vines?”
“Her clothes had been torn off, so I covered her with my mantle.”
“Did she say what had happened?”
“Yes. She told me that she had been forced sexually by Khana’Ani.”
“Thank you, my Father. I give the fire now to my brother.”
Khumi again stepped forward. His thin beard creased by a frown, his words came slow and awkward. “Um, how many of the youngsters in our community have a build like Khana’Ani’s, and also have his skin pigment, and straight black hair?”
A’Nu-Ahki knew his youngest son just did the duty of Advocate, but he resented how it blurred the obvious. “Let’s see—wiry, fast, reddish-brown complexion—I’d say several of your other sons, as well as Aram, Elammi, and Assur from U’Sumi’s house, and A’Madai from Iyapeti’s.”
“Then is this not Ae’Vria’s word against my son’s?”
“On one level, yes,” Nu conceded.
“On one level? What does that even mean?”
Nu fixed his youngest son in a steely gaze. “It’s about character. Ae’Vria has a solid reputation for telling the truth, even when she gets hurt as a result. I remember several occasions—a few of which are known to all—when Ae’Vria admitted her own shortcomings when she could have easily stood silent, and none of us would have been the wiser. Last year’s fire in the wheat field, for example, which could have been caused by lightning, so far as we knew. Yet Ae’Vria admitted she had been careless with a torch—that she had wandered out at night to visit one of Iyapeti’s girls, after she was supposed to be asleep.”
Khumi rolled his eyes. “What has that to do with anything?”
“It’s an example of her worst infraction—and she was honest about it. I can think of other instances less severe. Can we say the same sort of thing of Khana’Ani? Without going into a list, I think everyone agrees that we can’t. In considering whether this is simply one person’s word against another’s, we must factor in the historic character of the people in question. Aside from the integrity issue, Khana’Ani has also been caught making improper advances on many other girls in the past.”
Heads in the crowd nodded.
“Yes, I agree, My Father; unwise, improper, and for the most part, harmless advances. But my son might be on trial for his life here—you said so yourself! I have heard that even the ancient courts of Salaam-Surupag forbade the death penalty on the testimony of only one witness—even if the accused had a bad reputation. To do otherwise would only encourage false accusations from people that wanted to kill for personal vengeance without getting their own hands bloody. Even if some of the accused were guilty, the allowance of only one person’s word to condemn them is dangerous!”
A’Nu-Ahki sat down to resume his position as judge. “You are quite right to point this out. Nevertheless, the crime is real and Khana’Ani fled before anybody attempted to apprehend him. A real victim cannot have restored what was taken from her. We must cut such evil off. I must weigh the evidence and the implications—and make no mistake, I will carefully consider what you have said. Nevertheless, I make no guarantee at this time that the full force of the Divine M’Ae will not be used.”
Khumi’s dark eyes glowered at his father. “Then you’re saying that you already deem Khana’Ani guilty?”
A’Nu-Ahki met his son’s glare with one of his own. “I make no apology. I am fully convinced of his guilt. This is not a big city where a man can hide his true character, and not have it be noticed for what it is.”
“Then why continue this tribunal? Why not be done with it now?”
Khana’Ani let out a whimper.
Nu answered. “No man should be found guilty, and sentenced on the same day. Our fathers also made it a practice to issue punishment on the following day—that no hastiness be part of the judgment, and issues to promote mercy might have time to surface.”
Khumi paused for a moment, and then said, “Issues to promote mercy? Perhaps Khana’Ani’s mother should testify there! Or better yet, I wish to question Ae’Vria in the presence of her father.”
Nu looked to U’Sumi, then to his granddaughter, and nodded.
Ae’Vria stepped toward the fire. A gust of wind ruffled her dark hair from her face. She looked like her mother had when Nu and U’Sumi had first met her at Temple City Epymetu, only without T’Qinna’s natural skin markings. The young woman’s green eyes seemed wise beyond her years.
Khumi tried, but did not quite succeed at looking her in the eye when he spoke. “Did Khana’Ani force you sexually?”
A tear broke from the girl’s eye. “Yes.”
“Did you invite his attentions in any way?”
“No. Except that I was kind to him once, after his brothers had beaten him up, and humiliated him in front of me and my sisters.”
“Describe that kindness.”
“My sisters and I were out gathering wild flowers. We came upon your sons with your herds. Kush was holding Khana’Ani down, while Ra rubbed goat’s dung on his face and made him eat some. I told Kush and Ra to grow up, and helped Khana’Ani to clean himself off after the older boys left him. At that time, Khana’Ani thanked me, and I thought no more of it.”
“Do you wish Khana’Ani to die, should he be found guilty?”
Ae’Vria fixed her gaze on the Accused. “No. I don’t know why he did this to me. I want him punished, and I want nothing more to do with him forever. But I don’t want him dead. That would only hurt you and Auntie.”
Khumi hung his head. “I have no more questions.”
A’Nu-Ahki sighed. “I think the truth is plain here. I find Khana’Ani guilty of this crime. We will meet again tomorrow at noon to pass sentence, or to grant continuance of tribunal should new evidence be found.”
A gentle rain pattered against the tent. Nu hated what he had to do.
“The pain is not so much in your back and legs, as in your heart,” ‘Miha said, as she gently removed the vial of pain powders from her husband’s hand. “Here, take some wine instead. Drink it generously with me tonight, and forget for a little while.”
A’Nu-Ahki slumped back into their cushions. “I pray, but the energy to keep focused escapes me. What’s the point of all this? Khana’Ani is no surprise to me, but Iyapeti’s girl that ran off with him? Zhahara was your best student, and led girl’s worship. I’ve sensed for a while that many of the children are just repeating back to us what they think we want to hear, but I didn’t want to pre-judge them the way my grandfather often did to me.”
“I’m disappointed too.”
“Disappointed? Devastated is more like it! Don’t you see the implications? Don’t you see the inevitable end? It’s all starting again!”
‘Miha pressed the wine into his hands. “You think too much.”
A’Nu-Ahki drank the bowl down in one gulp.
The evening scent of rain-soaked grape blossoms drifted into their tent; perfumes from lost Aeden. ‘Miha poured him another bowl, and settled onto the divan with him. She kissed him in her own form of consolation.
“Is this really a good time?” he asked, when they came up for air.
‘Miha said, “It’s been too long. Who do we have if not each other?” She poured herself some wine, and they drank together before going on.
The chained creature screeched amid the tents.
Pounding on the main-house door finally awoke the Chieftain.
Khumi opened, still wiping the distilled grain fuel’s forgetful oblivion from his eyes. The hazy forms of Ra and Kush stood; black clouds against the backdrop of the distant campfire.
Khumi said, “What is it?”
Ra spoke. “Pahp, we know this is hard. We don’t want to pile dung on things, but we both have little children in our tents. Sludge-Weasel down there is scaring them with his noise. Can we chain him up elsewhere?”
Khumi kicked the door. “This is madness! Yeah, take him out to the field and chain him up to some hitching post for all I care! I’m going to the Ancient right now! I’ve had enough!”
Ra and Kush smiled sharky smiles, and turned back to their tents.
Khumi stumbled out the door, in the direction of the vineyard.
Tiva called after him, but he ignored her.
N
u’s languid memory understood its gross error only after Na’Amiha sat up next to him in the divan.
“What did you call me?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry, must’ave gotten confused—the wine, you know.” It sounded lame even as he said it.
“You didn’t have that much wine! You called me by her name!”
“I’m sorry! It was a mistake. I didn’t mean it!”
‘Miha’s upper lip trembled, as her own world must have crashed into the day’s horrible cascade. “All these years—all these centuries—it’s still her you make love to in your mind, isn’t it?”
“Emza—‘Miha! Please, I didn’t mean it! I was half asleep!” But Nu still saw the youthful duskiness of his long-dead first wife in his mind’s eye.
“Don’t hand me that! I’ve given you everything! Everything! I knew I could never replace her, and I never tried to! But I should think that by now, after three grown sons, you could at least love me for who I am!”
“I do love you, honestly, I do! Please! It was simply the wine!”
“The wine I gave you to help you relax!” she bawled.
Nu reached out for her, but she yanked herself away.
“I’m sorry! I can’t change the past! Please!”
She rolled off their couch, and wrapped herself in a fur. “I’ll be at Sutara’s for the rest of the night. I’ll see you at tribunal!”
A’Nu-Ahki watched his only earthly constant stalk out of the tent into the rain-soaked night. A sudden vacuum opened at her departure—a terrible black void that sucked his inner world into its howling vortex. Naked, in pain, and alone, he reached for the wine skin. He did not even bother to drink from a bowl, but put the spout directly to his lips.
Khumi whispered at the flap of his parent’s tent, “Pahp?”
The rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking. The vines rustled to what seemed like the movement of an army of specters—shadows flitting here and there beneath the moon’s pallid, pock marked orb. A small cresset lamp flickered near the end of its oil inside the tent.
Khumi had already been to check their house, and found it empty. He hesitated to push through the hanging, but could not return home without talking to his father. Fortunately, half his drunkenness and rage had dissipated on the dark hike up the valley—half, but not all.
Shrugging his shoulders, he drew aside the tent flap, and stepped in.
Nu’s eyes lolled open at the noise of someone entering his tent. His drunken stupor made him unable to move or respond, when he became vaguely aware of his youngest son shouting at him.
Khumi hopped back and forth, face contorted in the flickering cresset light into mocking laughter, and then distorted rage. The words came out as distant gibberish, but even in his torpid state, a sense of remorse echoed past Nu’s heart. It was not hard to guess what Khumi was saying.
It should have mattered, but it didn’t. Nothing did. New-world would crumble before it could even finish its own foundation.
A’Nu-Ahki welcomed oblivion with a drooling groan.
Sutara knew something was wrong when she greeted Na’Amiha at the door. Her mother-in-law looked pale and confused when she pushed into the house. Iyapeti and U’Sumi, who had been sitting in the portico outside, left their late night tea by the fire pit, and tried to follow their mother in.
Suta blocked them at the door. “Please, let me talk to her first.”
U’Sumi almost pushed past her, but stopped himself. “Let us know if we can do anything,” he said instead.
Suta nodded, and retreated inside. She found ‘Miha warming her hands by the hearth.
“What’s wrong, Mahm?”
Na’Amiha hummed quietly to herself, as if she did not hear Sutara’s question. She roughly poked at the coals with a small stick.
“Mahm, please talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
The old woman looked up. “Then this is a night of terror for us all.”
“What happened?”
Suta shed her first tears in the re-made world when ‘Miha told her.
U’Sumi gazed into Iyapeti’s puzzled eyes.
“Could Pahp and she have had a fight?” ‘Peti asked, as he threw another small log into the porch fire pit.
“I haven’t heard them fight since we were kids, when Uggu and the Oath Breaker”—nobody ever uttered a name from Kunyari’s line per Muhet’Usalaq’s last wish—“showed up at the fortress, before the war.”
“She looked shaky. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was a little drunk.”
“You noticed it too?”
They all drank their father’s wines with meals, and sometimes a bowl in the evening. Nobody except Khumi ever drank to excess, and even he usually stopped before his steps began to sway.
“Maybe she’s ill, and doesn’t want to risk giving it to Pahp.”
“Maybe,” U’Sumi said. “But why then would she come here and risk giving it to Sutara and the children? She could have simply left Pahp in the tent and retired to the house.”
The men sat in silence after that. Oppressive night crowded hostile shadows against their fire’s meager orange defense perimeter. Neither of them knew how much time passed before one of those s
hadows coalesced into the form of a shriveled man.
Khumi drew near to their light, also stumbling slightly.
“Go on up!” he barked. “Both of you, go on up and see how the great judge deliberates the fate of future nations in his tent!”
U’Sumi narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Khumi laughed. “The Old Man’s stark naked on his couch, and filled with so much wine that if you cut him he’d bleed fermented grape! He looks like he just had himself a pleasure woman! Hope it was Mahm!”
Iyapeti moved to strike him, but U’Sumi held him back.
“Go on! See for yourselves! It’s all a farce! E’Yahavah’s all well and good, but this man—this man isn’t fit to judge my son or anyone else!”
U’Sumi said, “Khumi, you’d better leave now.”
“I’ll leave.” Khumi turned. “I just wanted you both to know!”
Their brother dissolved again into the shadows, leaving U’Sumi and Iyapeti weak and hollow.
The door to Iyapeti’s small stone house opened.
Sutara stepped out onto the portico carrying a large fur cloak.
“You hear?” her husband asked, golden hair drooping into his eyes.
“Everything.”
U’Sumi kicked a stone into the fireplace. “We should do something, but I don’t know what.”
“I do,” Sutara said. Her plain face was serene; doe-like eyes calm against the shadows that seemed to flit all around them.
Suta laid the cloak over Iyapeti’s arm. “A’Nu-Ahki restored my dignity when I let my grief be twisted into something far more dangerous than when human weakness overcomes a tired old man who just feels beaten down. Take this cloak, and lay it across both your shoulders, one of you on each side. Walk backwards into your father’s tent, so you don’t see his nakedness, and cover him. Don’t speak of this to him ever, and don’t tell him whose idea it was—just do it, and give him back his dignity.”
The Tides of Nemesis (The Windows of Heaven Book 4) Page 38