SOMEONE EVEN WORSE
I believe the question, then,” says Vasily Yaroslav, “is one of intent. I am aware that the court might disagree with me—this court has always ruled on the side of effect rather than intent—but you cannot seriously fine an honest, modest businessman such a hefty fee for an unintentional damage, can you? Especially when the damage is, well, one of abstraction?”
A cough echoes in the courtroom, dashing the pregnant pause. Through the window the shadows of drifting clouds race across the walls of Bulikov.
Governor Turyin Mulaghesh suppresses a sigh and checks her watch. If he goes on for six more minutes, she thinks, we’ll have a new record.
“And you have heard testimony from my friends,” says Yaroslav, “my neighbors, my employees, my family, my … my bankers. People who know me well, people who have no reason to lie! They have told you again and again that this is all just an unfortunate coincidence!”
Mulaghesh glances to her right along the high court bench. Prosecutor Jindash, his face the very picture of concern, is doodling a picture of his own hand on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs letterhead. To her left, Chief Diplomat Troonyi is staring with unabashed interest at the well-endowed girl in the first row of the courtroom seats. Next to Troonyi, at the end of the high court bench, is an empty chair normally occupied by the visiting professor Dr. Efrem Pangyui, who has been more and more absent from these proceedings lately. But frankly, Mulaghesh is only too happy for his absence: his presence in the courtroom, let alone in this whole damn country, has caused enough headaches for her.
“The court”—Yaroslav pounds on the table twice—“must see reason!”
I must find someone else, thinks Mulaghesh, to come to these things in my place. But this is wishful thinking: as the polis governor of Bulikov, the capital city of the Continent, it is her duty to preside over all such trials, no matter how frivolous.
“So you all have heard, and you must understand, that I never intended the sign that stood outside of my business to be … to be of the nature that it was!”
The crowd in the courtroom mutters as Yaroslav skirts this sensitive subject. Troonyi strokes his beard and leans forward as the girl in the front row crosses her legs. Jindash is coloring in the fingernails on his sketch. Mulaghesh casts an eye over the crowd, cataloging the various ailments and diseases: the boy with the crutches, rickets; the woman with the scabbed face, pox; and she can’t tell what’s wrong with the man in the corner, though she dearly hopes what he’s covered in is mud. Yaroslav and a few others, as mildly successful Continentals, can afford running water, and thus in their examples one can observe the Continental specimen free of filth: pale, heavy-featured, dark-eyed, and in the case of the men, sporting untamed mountains of beards. Mulaghesh and the other Saypuris, by stark contrast, are short, slender, and dark-skinned, with somewhat long noses and narrow chins, and as Troonyi’s ridiculous bearskin coat attests, they are much more accustomed to warm Saypuri climates, far across the South Seas.
To a distant extent—very distant—Mulaghesh can understand Troonyi and Jindash’s disinterest: the Continent is steadfastly, defiantly, stubbornly backward, to the degree that one sometimes forgets the many unsettling reasons why Saypur bothers occupying such a miserable nation. (Though can we really call ourselves occupiers, thinks Mulaghesh, if we’ve been here for nearly seventy-five years? When do we graduate to residents?) If Mulaghesh were to offer everyone in the courtroom money right now and say, “Here, here is something to get you the medicine you need, to buy you fresh water,” it’s all too likely the Continentals would spit in her hand before accepting a single red cent.
Mulaghesh understands why they resent them so. For though they may look like no more than paupers and beggars, these people were once the most powerful and dangerous human beings alive. Which they remember, of course, Mulaghesh thinks as she watches one man stare at her with naked rage. Hence why they hate us so …
Yaroslav summons up his nerve.
Here it comes, thinks Mulaghesh.
“I never intended,” he says clearly, “for my sign to reference any Divinity, any trace of the celestial, nor any god!”
A quiet hum as the courtroom fills with whispers. Mulaghesh and the rest of the Saypuris on the bench remain unimpressed by the dramatic nature of this claim. “How do they not know,” mutters Jindash, “that this happens at every single Worldly Regulations trial?”
“Quiet,” whispers Mulaghesh.
This public breach of the law emboldens Yaroslav. “Yes, I … I never intended to show fealty to any Divinity! I know nothing of the Divinities, of what they were or who they were.…”
Mulaghesh barely stops herself from rolling her eyes. Every Continental knows something about the Divinities: to claim otherwise would be akin to claiming ignorance that rain is wet.
“… and thus I could not have known that the sign I posted outside of my millinery unfortunately, coincidentally, mimicked a Divinity’s sigil!”
A pause. Mulaghesh glances up, realizing Yaroslav has stopped speaking. “Are you finished, Mr. Yaroslav?” she asks.
Yaroslav hesitates. “Yes? Yes. Yes, I believe so, yes.”
“Thank you. You may take your seat.”
Prosecutor Jindash stands, takes the floor, and produces a large photograph of a painted sign that reads: YAROSLAV HATS. Below the letters on the sign is a largish symbol—a straight line ending in a curlicue pointing down that has been altered slightly to suggest the outline of the brim of a hat.
Jindash swivels on his heels to face the crowd. “Would this be your sign, Mr. Yaroslav?” Jindash mispronounces the man’s name. Mulaghesh can’t quite tell if this is intentional: Continental names are so teeming with -slavs and -ilyas and -ulyas and whatnot that navigating introductions is nigh impossible for anyone who hasn’t lived here for more than a decade, as Mulaghesh has.
“Y-yes,” says Yaroslav.
“Thank you.” Jindash flourishes the photograph before the bench, the crowd, everyone. “Let the court please see that Mr. Yaroslav has confirmed this sign—yes, this sign—as his own.”
CD Troonyi nods as if having gained deeply perceptive insight. The crowd of Continentals mutters anxiously. Jindash walks to his briefcase with the air of a magician before a trick—How I hate, Mulaghesh thinks, that this theatrical little shit got assigned to Bulikov—and produces a large engraving of a similar symbol: a straight line ending in a curlicue. But in this instance, the symbol has been rendered to look like it is made of dense, twisting vines, even sporting tiny leaves at the curlicue.
The crowd gasps at the reveal of this sign. Some move to make holy gestures, but stop themselves when they realize where they are. Yaroslav himself flinches.
Troonyi snorts. “Know nothing of the Divinities indeed.…”
“Were the estimable Dr. Efrem Pangyui here”—Jindash gestures to the empty chair beside Troonyi—“I have no doubt that he would quickly identify this as the holy sigil of the Divinity … I apologize, the deceased Divinity.…”
The crowd mutters in outrage; Mulaghesh makes a note to reward Jindash’s arrogance with a transfer to someplace cold and inhospitable, with plenty of rats.