239 - You think love can never be bad

Lying awake as the first paleness of day showed through the canvas, I learned now what kings have long known: if you do not trust your advisors on a matter, you have no one to consult with when deciding it.

I trusted my mother, but she was not really politically-minded, and it was that kind of mind I needed. Niku didn’t know enough about Yeola-e, my sibs were too young, Artira and Tyeraha were not here, Chinisa would have no opinion.

But I kept thinking, am I out of my mind? Of course I can trust my advisors, all of them; this is Yeola-e! What evidence did I have that I could not? One unsigned note, and a question left open by a death. Esora-e’s hitting me, and the beratings of others, proved only that they objected, not that they were plotting anything.

He was not speaking to me now, incidentally. I’d been too busy to notice until we’d been marching a day or two before and I’d decided to march with my parents, and he had not said a word or looked at me. My two mothers were as loving as ever, but none of us could pretend it was anything but painfully awkward. I left them soon.

Now, as reveille was sung, I dragged myself out of bed. There was Krero, right at my door, as predictable as the roosters crowing. “So I was saying, we play the choices out one at a time—”

“Let them know they’re being court-martialed, the charges…” The decision was instant, but I still knew peacetime law better than wartime, so had to hit the martial statutes book. “Abandoning an assigned guard post; murder of a paroled captive; attempted murder of a paroled captive. All three of them, all three charges.”

He drew in a hissing breath. “Fourth Chevenga… you’re not thinking, it’s not like you… every Yeoli is going to believe their story over Kalicha’s, and think you’re unjustly punishing your own people, and then if it comes out about you and Kalicha they’ll say you couldn’t possibly have judged unbiased… You can’t possibly judge unbiased here, Cheng, don’t you see that… shit, what am I even saying, you are prosecuting, you can’t judge!”

“No, I am not prosecuting, of course not, for exactly that reason.”

“Well, who in the garden orbicular are you going to get to do that? No advocate in their right mind would touch it! And you can’t go naming the kyashin charges, either.”

“They are the appropriate ones. You tell me: did these three guards not commit abandonment of their posts, murder of a paroled prisoner and attempted murder of another paroled prisoner?”

He heaved out the words with a big breath, as if trying to blow away a bad smell. “Yes. They did.”

“Right. So they’re the appropriate charges. And under martial law, if a commanding officer is aware that relinquished underlings have violated it, he is obliged to prosecute, is he not? Which also answers your question who’ll do it, yes?”

“Aiiiggh!” His eyes and fists and teeth all clenched, as if he was having an arrow extracted. He’d forgotten that point. “Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e… eat kyash… suck sheep… you wool-knot… you anal wart… I will do a crappy job, you understand that? I will do the absolute opposite of my utmost! The job I do will be terrible, mark my words!”

“Then perhaps they will get the lenience you feel they deserve.”

“Give me that kevyalin book!” He flipped pages so fast he almost tore them, until he found what he wanted. “As prosecutor I’m going to request that you recuse yourself as judge and whether they do their own defense or get someone, I’m sure they’ll agree, meaning both sides, which puts you out of it for sure.”

“Then it goes to the three highest-ranked of the command council.” That was Emao-e, Hurai and Kamecha. A slap on the wrist they might get, then, but still a punishment, since conviction was inevitable. That also means demotion, so they’d be out of the darya semanakraseyeni, something more bitter than a flogging. That would happen regardless, since I could order it. “So be it.”

“But Chevenga… shit, Chevenga, we cannot do this. Because what if they come out with… you know what!? If they’re pleading justification… Iri said he would.”

“You are right, that is worrisome and so should be forestalled,” I said. “The sort of thing a wise prosecutor goes to a defender—whether it’s the accused themselves or someone they find—to raise delicately, and cut a deal about.”

“Aaaaiiiiigggh!” His hands, curled into claws, trembled in front of him. “If it weren’t treason and murder and removal of a duly-ascended semanakraseye, I’d strangle you!”

My chief signaler was standing near us, pretending not to hear anything. “Break camp and eat breakfast on the march again, semanakraseye?” he said. I signed chalk and he banged his gong and let out the call with his trumpet-like voice. At least my army had gotten resigned enough to this to have quit groaning in answer.

“I suggest we set the trial for this evening, if you think you can put the case together in time,” I said. “To get it over with and put it behind us. I have a place lined up for Kallijas.”

“You do? A cave with a giant rock that we can pull over the entrance, permanently, I hope.”

“You’ve got it partly right. But that’s as much as I’m going to tell you.” Best he not know. Agreeing, he signed chalk. I could afford to drop a bit of a clue because I knew the truth would never occur to him in a thousand years.

My mother had set it up, asking Kall if he was willing to work for his keep, which of course he was, and sending a letter. Who would expect Sukala to agree, other than those of us who have sufficient eccentricity of our own to somewhat understand her mind, such as me? Kall was going to have a very interesting time. But he would be out of sight, and if it was revealed he was there, people would refrain from hurting him out of their respect for her.

So he could go, now, anytime. I set my teeth and suggested that it be tonight, after the trial. Best he slip out of the camp under cover of darkness, and travel by night.

So we marched, and it rained, and it was hard to keep the warriors singing, and with the sky being so grey it was hard to see to do semanakraseyeni paperwork in one of the spare wounded-carts which I appropriated for the purpose, and each person who came in for a meeting I had to hand a towel to, and their boots made puddles on the planking. I’d heard it said that rain can make a travelling army more miserable than the enemy can, but had never learned it for myself since near the Lakan border it’s so sunny, but I was learning it now.

At least there were the flowers and the streams of wine, the hugs and kisses, the dancing even in downpours, each time we went through a town or village. It made the weight of muck on each boot and hoof and wheel a little lighter. In all the kyash, I told myself, don’t forget that. What I live for, I am succeeding at.

The rain went on heavy as grey curtains into the afternoon, so for mercy, though we could have gone another bead, I called a halt in Michere. Let my warriors spend the evening in liberation celebration, then the night in the nice dry barracks of the Arkan garrison, which had fled, or billeted in the town, instead of a sodden camp. I still set a curfew, though, since we’d go early morning. Stopping here also meant we could do the trial in an actual courthouse.

Iri and Jiniya did what was wise, and probably easy, given who they’d been charged with attacking: found an advocate, who’d been nine years in law before she’d left it to sling on the sword against Arko. Krero came to me just as I was moving into the garrison-commander’s room. I was laying my rain-cape over a chair to dry when he kicked the door shut behind him, almost in Sishana’s face. “Well, Fourth Chevenga… I have your deal. May it be to Yeola-e’s good. You piece of shit.”

“So… you had to make one.”

“Yes. That became apparent to me when she said that she’d had some Arkan words the accused had overheard from inside your tent translated to mean, ‘I give myself to you,’ and I said, ‘Fine, that just means Kalicha was submitting Arkan-style’ and she said ‘Sure, except it was the semanakraseye’s voice.’”

I sat down in another chair, and buried my face in my hands. I wanted to die, and rot till I was liquid as the rain, and run out through the cracks in the floor. “It’s going to be all over the camp. Krero… I’m sorry.”

“Well… I made your deal, so it won’t be all over the country. If she can keep them from blurting it out. Tell the truth, I think in the camp it’s already pretty much an open secret. If no one’s saying anything to you, it’s because they don’t know what to say.”

“Krero… Kallijas is going to be gone tonight. You may tell anyone who… might like to know, that he will be gone.” I felt as if the whole world had fallen on my shoulders, and was crushing me into the ground. Maybe, as Niku was saying, somehow, after the war…

“Chevenga.” He put one hand on my shoulder, and ran one finger of the other under my eyelashes, finding the tears. His touch reminded me of when he and I had been lovers. “You are the most brilliant person I know. But there’s one way in which you are a child-raping naïve fool. You think love can never be bad and can never hurt. When it can.” I didn’t have the strength to argue with him.

The courthouse was jammed well before we got there, including several Workfast Disseminatory people. Kallijas didn’t go; part of the deal was that neither Krero, nor Larisa Shae-Irana-e, who was acting for the three accused, would call him up as a witness, and we felt they’d have an easier time not letting anything slip if he was not there to tempt their anger.

I wished I could likewise not be there, for similar reason, but that would draw too much notice.

Another part of the deal was that they’d throw me off the judge’s chair, as I’d expected, so I saved them the trouble right after I called it to order, recusing myself on the grounds that I could not be sufficiently detached when the incident had taken place in my tent. My three generals took over.

It all went pretty much as planned. The guard who’d been brained but not killed requested to be excused from testifying since he was not entirely recovered, and was granted leave. Larisa entered that the three did not deny guilt in that they had left their posts, killed one prisoner and tried to kill the other, but made her request for lenience due to the death of one of their number, and their hatred of Kallijas being justifiable due to his actions against Yeola-e. Iri and Jiniya were both careful to answer only what they were asked.

Krero did a terrible job, the opposite of his utmost. In the end he sighed heavily as if he saw the right in lenience, and didn’t press for severity. Emao-e, Hurai and Kamecha were happy, of course, to punish lightly: expulsion from the darya semanakraseye, and ten strokes of the whip for Iri-tai, the others commuted to nothing due to their injuries. I had the victory I’d sought, their guilt established and recorded without my secret being revealed. I went back to the barracks, to tell Kallijas that the people who’d murdered his heart’s brother had got a slap on the wrist.