A Succession of Bad Days (51 page)

People will wonder what happened to you,
Chloris says, and gets a brief narrow look from Dove.

Dinner’s strange, an unfamiliar refectory’s always like that, you’re not camping, you’re not travelling, as such, not in a hostel dining room, and a lot of habits aren’t right, they don’t keep
the spoons in the same place, the plates and dishes are different, you don’t have a regular spot. Chloris goes in ahead, looking for five places together. Maybe the other half of the surveyor’s table, they’ve been here for a couple months, marking the northern branch of the planned canal.

Someone walks up, angry, very angry, toward, in front of Chloris, I don’t catch most of the words, more angry
than loud, I’m caught between setting plates down somewhere flat, everything I’ve ever been taught about being neat in a refectory, and wanting to move forward. Dove’s caught behind me, Blossom’s facing away. I see an arm go back, back as the large lad keeps striding forward, getting ready to swing at Chloris with a water-pitcher.

Chloris does something, I can feel it, it’s fast and it’s quiet
and there’s nothing at all to see. Whoever it is with the water pitcher topples, arm flung further out, and the water pitcher smashes across five metres of floor before all the pieces stop.

“Doesn’t get to hit me,” Chloris says in the perfect still voice of Death, looking down at where the fallen body stretches out, looking like it’s reaching for the shattered pitcher and the splash.

There’s a
lot of surprise when they, whoever they are, try to sit up.

“Quiet,” Blossom says, just before there would be a lot of raised voices, right on the peak of the inhale for everybody with something to say. It’s not loud, the dishes don’t rattle, there isn’t anything you could describe, to explain, but I can suddenly understand Dove’s caution about Blossom smiling-happy at the crater where an army
used to be.

“Are we without the Peace?” More quiet. It’s not gentle, I don’t know what that tone is, besides quiet. Suicidal wouldn’t do it, to answer
yes
to that question. I have no idea what would, it’s hard to think. I’m to Dove’s left, Dove’s to Blossom’s left. Zora’s checking that whoever who tried to hit Chloris is breathing properly, Chloris moving to stand on Blossom’s right.

Nobody’s
moving very quickly.

Someone stands up. Reminds me of Halt, shortest adult Creek I’ve seen, taller than me, but still. That’s not the reminder thing. “We are yet among the Peace.”

Whatever Blossom is doing, I can’t tell
what
, but the Power is coming from Blossom, damps. Blossom nods, calmly, at the standing person.

Someone runs out, comes back with an assistant clerk, then there’s the Clerk and
what turns out to be another two judges, they’ve brought Reminds-me-of-Halt’s judge’s hat, five minutes after that.

We get to explain who we are, why we’re there, carefully attested. Since all four of us are there on grounds of ‘Blossom said there was work to do’, Blossom gets asked by what authority.

Blossom’s got the vote from the Thines Meeting. Blossom’s got, which I didn’t know, written authorization
from the Galdor-gesith, on the bottom of the brief request from the Lug-gesith, “We need a canal,” a numbered reference to a survey, and “Connected to a Creek or the Eastern West-East Canal by the end of Thermidor.” All the Galdor-gesith wrote is “Get this done,” nothing else, with a signature and the vote tally, ninety-five to nothing, five absent.

Arch has the survey. It’s the one the Morning
Vale Township Meeting has twice voted to accept, it’s the, call it local, part of the canal, the part that lets people move past Morning Vale up further north. If there are thirty thousand coming, they’ll absolutely have to, there’s maybe five thousand in the township.

Someone, very serious, stands and asks who Blossom is, to ask if the people, all the people, in a refectory are yet within the
Peace.

Which is, well, a fair question. Blossom did mean everybody, and everybody was for the most part sitting down and chewing or asking for the salt or the pickle caddy, it was just that one person with the water pitcher. Still sitting on the floor, can about manage to sit upright, but it’s surely enough
manage
.

Blossom stands up, says “In this time I am called Blossom,” sets down in front
of the Clerk tokens which say Blossom’s an engineer without qualification, which is engineer for ‘can do anything’, clock springs through large public structures, holds warrants of authority and commission in the Line with an appointment as a captain, is an Independent of the Commonweal, and a Keeper of the Shape of Peace. Blossom sets that one down active; all the swoopy lines are white, many shades
of white, but white. The shadows are something, an intricacy of slow movement across everyone, and everything.

The serious person nods and sits down. If the question needed asking, and, well, better to ask it when you don’t need to than not ask it when you do, it was plainly Blossom’s job to ask it.

Someone asks what Keeper of the Shape of Peace means. The Township Clerk offers to read the legal
meaning. Blossom offers “The Shape of Peace is a fatally important part of my existence.” That gets Blossom looks, half of them horrified. “I can manifest it, temporarily, well enough for someone to undertake an office; I can get a hypothetical response from it.”

If we must, we can move it,
Blossom says, nearly too quiet to notice in the undertone. Might well not have heard that, were it not
for Dove.

There are, not counting me or I suppose Chloris, sitting completely still right by Blossom, eight or nine, one’s a youth, witnesses to the person with the water pitcher saying something, striding forward, and swinging the water pitcher, nearly all at once.

All eight adults, extremely somber, agree that it looked like an attack, that there was an intent to harm.

The judges nod at each
other, the court clerk notes down their judgement that a trial is required, nine people get chosen by lot to be the jury, a little bit of space gets cleared, gives the court clerk a place to sit down.

Their name is Heron. Not presently especially coherent, still can’t stand up. The Shape of Peace finds no evidence of sorcerous compulsion affecting, or having affected, Heron. Known to have been
upset, very upset, about the canal plans, argued against them, as an individual, Heron’s family, several families in Heron’s gean, they’ve held the forest in the valley, old bay, just outside of, north and west of, Morning Vale the town for a very long time, it’s plausibly pre-Commonweal as land tenure.

Lots of that in the Creeks,
Dove says, while I’m trying to keep the shock off my face.
Why
no one jokes about paying a thane’s taxes here,
Dove adds.
Been known to happen.

Dove’s tone is grim.

The quiet judge turns, looks at Chloris, asks, it was inevitable someone would ask, why Chloris chose to apply the Power to Heron.

Self-defence, the least sufficient thing available to you, you can do that, whatever it is. If the court agrees that’s what it was.

Chloris makes an effort to sound
human. It works, a little, for the first few words. Then everything Chloris says comes out in the perfect still voice of Death. There’s a set of small, couple decimetre, illusory figures hovering over Chloris’ right shoulder, following along in motion as Chloris talks, recognizably Chloris and Heron.

“If you have grasped them, they have grasped you.” Chloris is quoting Block, Blossom’s nodding,
Dove’s nodding, I don’t think Dove could help it were it noticed. Heron’s a regular-sized man for a Creek, much larger than Chloris. “Shrieking and running would not help. Stepping close enough to strike Heron would permit them a chance to strike me, my head would not benefit from five litres of water in the pitcher.”

The quiet judge nods.

“Just standing there, I’d be hit, maybe die. Doesn’t get
to hit me.” Chloris’ voice doesn’t, not obviously, change, it’s the still voice of Death, you can see everybody shudder, just a little, because the way Chloris said that you’d expect the Moon to fall out of the sky or all the seas to rise up dancing first.

Reminds-me-of-Halt nods, agreeing. “Heron does not get to hit you.” Judges, when judging, don’t smile, so this isn’t, however sharp and brief.
“That is a settled point of law.”

The third judge says, asks, “What did you do to Heron?”

Chloris’ hands turn up. “I gave over to death the narrow, present, single will to strike me.”

Reminds-me-of-Halt looks at Blossom, and visibly reconsiders the question.

“I care more about the Peace and the Law than I do about my own existence,” Blossom says, in soft tones. Couldn’t call it gentle. “I would
not put a student before either.”

Arch stands up. All three judges nod. “I watched Chloris give seventeen kilometres of the Weed Stream’s valley over to death, except for the clean small birds and the pangolins and the small deer and the pounce-cats. Can’t speak for the inside of someone’s head, but — ” Arch’s hands spread for punctuation — “precise. Lots of precise. All the pangolins set gently
on the ground.”

No one says anything, no questions, and Arch sits back down.

One of the jurors stands. Looks uncomfortable, determined, something. “Altering someone’s mind doesn’t seem like the least thing.” Sits.

Reminds-me-of-Halt looks at Chloris. Altering minds, involuntary mind-alteration, is a hanging offence itself, as much as murder.

“All I know of fighting I have learnt in study with
the Independent Block, who considers punching dragons a laudable ambition.” The voice of Death is solemn, always, but so solemn saying this Death sounds amused.

“I am not skilled, but had I struck Heron, Heron could readily have died.” Chloris is looking straight at the quiet judge. Not by mischance, Chloris means, Heron likely would have died. I’ve got Block’s words about punching on a line
through the spine in my head.

“Had I willed it, Heron would have died.” There’s a small, troubled, almost a wave, hand motion in Heron’s direction.

“It seemed better to avoid so much harm,” Chloris says, “and it is not, was not meant as, alteration of capacity. Heron can be angry, could be angry with me in the same cause, only that one specific anger departed from Heron.”

“If you are correct
about the effect of something you have not done before,” the third judge says, it’s not a question.

“If I am correct about the effect of something I have not done before,” Chloris says.

Chloris’ voice is entirely gentle, entirely calm. Still, perfect, it’s getting to people, you can see it starting to trouble the Township Clerk. It’s
worrying
Blossom, doesn’t bother Blossom, not the same things.
Doesn’t bother Dove at all.

Comes the day,
Dove says to me, tone almost sorrowful.
Comes the day.

“Is there a means to assess the risk of striking?” The third judge, talking mostly to Blossom.

“They normally practise on illusions.” Blossom’s nearly smiling. “However accurate,” and Blossom shrugs. Judges, Clerk, most of the witnesses, all nod, just a little. It doesn’t really matter what Blossom
attests about an illusion, it’s more magic, it could do anything.

Someone walks out of the witnesses, hands Chloris a horseshoe. Has to be a decoration, it’s painted. I’m not sure there are any horses up here, don’t know how you’d get a horse to Morning Vale.

Chloris stands up, looks at the horseshoe, acquires a sort of set in the shoulders, and pulls. It’s still a horseshoe shape, it’s a horseshoe
shape the other way, you can see the toe clip crumpled on the inside of the curve. The iron bent so fast it shrieked, lots of wincing and hands moving toward ears, people’s heads go back. There are wide eyes, and then some smiles and a lot of nods. If Chloris can do that, hitting Heron would have been much less than a kindness.

Ed?
Chloris says, and tosses it at me.

I grab it, gently, and the
horseshoe hangs there in the air, paint smoking off the curve of it and slowly filling the clear closed space around it. Got so
sphere
doesn’t need to mean a tight grab.

I’m trying to figure out if Creeks think this Chloris is frail when Dove, it’s the
idea
of a giggle, and points out, bits of my vision brighten, Chloris’s shoulders and hips are the same width and there’s no visible tendon or
muscle definition in wrist or neck.

Really does look delicate,
Dove adds.

Something like a sigh from Chloris wafts through my awareness.

You didn’t even hurt your hands,
Zora says, Zora can’t do prim at all, not for lack of trying.

No one has any more questions. The jury looks a bit better settled.

Reminds-me-of-Halt nods, and Chloris says “I do so attest by the Peace and my name within it.”

The Shape of Peace accepts the attestation entirely calmly, and there’s a short scratching sound of pens.

Reminds-me-of-Halt gathers gravitas and says “Heron, what did you think you were doing?”

It comes out slowly, rambling, and repeated. Heron can’t focus well. The canal will destroy, Heron speaks as though it’s the whole of the forest, the only place to put the canal means flooding a valley,
possibly the original Morning Vale, where Heron’s, Heron’s family’s, forest holdings, are. It’s clean forest, thousands of hectares. The value coming out per hectare’s very low, not much call for timber, there just aren’t many people here. Taxes go by value, it’s the only reason they have been able to hold that much land, the tenure limits are by revenue, not area.

The judges are very patient,
I’m not sure how, Heron’s obsessive, deeply obsessive, about the control of land, getting an explanation of why, why try to brain Chloris with a water pitcher, takes several loops through fear of loss.

Overset by grief,
Dove says. Not sympathetic.
No surviving rage.

It eventually emerges that Heron thought Chloris was the senior Independent, thought that if Chloris were dead, or damaged, or just
convinced to leave, then the canal could not be built. Four-fifths of the witness find the ‘senior Independent’ part of this plausible, from the faces.