There was a short silence. Rue could hear the director shifting in his chair. Then Farrow said, “The Manhu might allow you to make replicas for the museum to keep, if you don’t contest returning the originals.”
Tate looked at Rue. She had to force her voice to sound calm. “That might work for the ethnographic material. But in the case of the Aldry portrait, a replica would not have the same aesthetic qualities.”
Farrow was studying her, frowning. “Why is that?”
“We have tried to replicate it in past,” Rue said. “There is something about the three-dimensional microstructure of the materials that can’t be reproduced. We’re not sure why. The whole effect is flatter, less animate. And the wings don’t appear.”
Traversed Bridge was watching her fixedly. She realized she had just said the same thing as he: the replica was soulless.
“Would it be possible,” Tate said, “to work out some sort of shared custody for the painting? I can imagine an arrangement where the original would be on loan to the Manhu for a period of time, say twenty or fifty years, and then travel back to Sarona for the same amount of time.”
Stony faces greeted this proposal. Rue had told Tate what the Manhu intended to do with the portrait; he was trying to make them admit it.
“Accept that the portrait is the property of the Manhu,” Farrow said, “and we can discuss its future. Until then, there is no point.”
She is a wily one, Rue thought. She saw the trap.
Tate said, “We are prepared to offer you the originals of the other artifacts if you will accept shared custody of the portrait. It’s a reasonable compromise.”
Traversed was already shaking his head.
With a steely gentleness, Tate said, “Please consider the time and expense of defending this claim if it goes to court. You will be trying it in a Saronan court, before a Saronan jury. Aldry is deeply beloved here.”
Traversed Bridge’s face was a wall of resolution. “Would you leave one person suffering in prison for the sake of redeeming a few others? This is not a balance sheet. You can’t weigh souls on a scale and say four make one not matter.”He turned to Rue. “You want us to ask for something that means nothing to you, something easy to give. I’m sorry, we can’t.”
“Ask for anything but Aldry,” Rue said.
“Your people made her up,” he said. “You can remake her.”
No one had anything to answer then, so the meeting was over. They would meet again in court.
Rue Savenga was, at heart, an uneventful person. She had always tried to do the right thing within her safe, unremarkable life. She had never considered herself the kind of person to take a courageous stand. That was the realm of ideologues and fanatics.
Now, she found herself thrust into an event that forced her to ask where her basic boundaries were. What line couldn’t she cross? How far would she go to defend her core beliefs?
What were her core beliefs?
The wanton destruction of art, she found, was where she drew her line. It was an act so heinous she could not stand by and let it happen. So when the museum’s attorney asked if she would testify in court, she agreed. She was willing to fight to save Aldry from the flames, even if her own reputation burned instead.
The trial was held in downtown Orofino, in a tall, imposing courthouse where monumental sculpture, marble, and mural dwarfed all who entered, in order to strike them with respect for law. When Rue arrived, there were two groups assembled in the park facing the courthouse, shouting at each other. Public interest was so high that the trial was to be broadcast, and opinion was split. Half of Sarona saw Rue as the defender of their heritage, and would execrate her if she lost. The other half saw her as the defender of long-ago injustice.They would execrate her if she won.
The courtroom’s air was busy with hushed conversations when she entered. It was a tall and cylindrical space with a skylight above and stylized, treelike pilasters of polished stone lining the walls. A large circular table stood in the sunken center, surrounded by tiers of seats crowded with press and other witnesses. Rue took her place on the side of the table reserved for the museum’s representatives and their witnesses; on the other side sat those testifying for the Manhu. The judge and clerk sat in the neutral spaces between, facing each other. Rue knew two of the expert witnesses she was facing—magisters from the university who could establish the Manhu-Atoka connection. She nodded to them without smiling.
The aim of Saronan law was to reach a resolution, not necessarily a victory for one side. Each side argued its case, the judge proposed solutions, and if no agreement could be reached, the jury imposed a compromise. But this trial was to be conducted with only a judge, not a jury. Rue had no idea what the calculations had been on either side; perhaps it had something to do with the impossibility of finding a jury whose mind was not already made up.
The judge called on Caraway Farrow to begin the proceedings by stating the case of the Manhu. She did it succinctly: the artworks had been illegally seized by Saronans in the act of suppressing an Atoka religious observance. The Atoka had suffered grievous harm as a result. Now, the return of the items was a vital step toward righting injustice and reviving Manhu cultural practices.
The case that Farrow presented was logical and unflinching. An ethnologist told how the art had been looted, and a historian gave the story of the Atoka genocide and exile to Radovani. A geneticist and a linguist established the Atoka-Manhu connection.
“And do they still speak the Atoka language and practice Atoka culture?” Farrow asked the linguist.
“No,” the magister replied. “But there are old people who remember enough of what they were told as children to reconstruct some of it. Now they are very interested in reviving the language and culture. Our records will be valuable in the effort.”
Last, Farrow produced a power of attorney from the Whispering Kindom, designating Traversed Bridge as their representative on Sarona.
Tate challenged none of it, except to establish that there was nothing in the evidence that precluded a different remnant of the Atoka turning up in future, with contrary demands. He also extracted an admission that the Whispering Kindom was not the only kin group among the Manhu, and that the others had not expressed their desires. Farrow asked Traversed Bridge to address this last objection, as court procedure allowed.
“If there is any difference, we can work it out among ourselves,” he said softly, staring at the table. “We should have that right.”
It occurred to Rue that he had not looked at her once during the whole presentation.
The court recessed for lunch, and reporters scrambled out to record their summaries in the hallway. Rue and Tate left by a back door to avoid them. She had a feeling of dread.
When the trial resumed, it was the museum’s turn. Ellery Tate spoke in an avuncular, easygoing manner. Rue knew it to be an act, but it was an effective one. He gave the argument they had crafted together. “We maintain that this is not a simple case of stolen goods,” he said as if it ought to be obvious to all. “The portrait of Aldry, and its tragic story, is the patrimony of two separate cultures—that of Sarona and of the Manhu. In fact, it has played a more vital role in Saronan history than on Eleuthera, and it has an ongoing role as part of our process of remembrance and acknowledgment of the painful past. Sarona needs this artwork. We seek only to share it with the Manhu.”