Halls of Ivory

Chapter 14 - The Trial

At long last, the day of the trial was at hand.

The town criers had made their rounds through the city on this day and the previous one, announcing to the people the intent to push for this trial. While the Commander, Logan and Aldryn made their own preparations, Zalambur had spent most of his time on the previous day at the ministry, practically besieging them with his requests for a trial on the treaty.

Starting this early on was a deliberate decision on this part, to lay the groundwork browbeating the ministry into conceding his request to try the treaty, and to orchestrate his success going forward. Predictably, at first one of Jennah's loyalists tried to dismiss his concerns, citing that the treaty had already been litigated.

Of course when Zalambur kept pestering them and the same minister repeated this talking point, he soon found dissent from a minister leaning the other way, who brought up that judge Efram, not the ministry had ruled on it and between the ministry and the courts, the latter was not supposed to be the higher authority. This argument soon found agreement from other ministers leading his way and the loyalists found themselves unable to dispute that ratification of the treaty had never been decided on by the ministry, they had simply accepted that the court did it for them. Soon thereafter, the ministry proposed to re-litigate the validity of the treaty and the side loyal to the late queen begrudgingly agreed to it.

All of this didn't happen within the span of a single conversation, but spread in bits and pieces among many conversations. Most of which were interrupted or died down one way or another before they had gotten to the desired conclusion. It took Zalambur instigating one conversation on the matter after the other by relentlessly pestering the ministry about his discontent with the treaty and his armed bodyguards dissuading any attempts at arresting him or taking him away.

And it likely wouldn't have worked, if it weren't for a growing crowd of commoners gathering around the ministry and agreeing with Zalambur's stance on the matter. The same ministers that shut down the conversation on previous attempts, would soon later find themselves too intimidated by an army of disgruntled citizens shooting stinging glares at them. When faced with struggles to feed oneself and the loss of loved ones, the loyalists' platitudes about lofty terms like 'cooperation', 'change' and 'progress' fell on deaf ears and did little to handwave public concerns. The term 'ivory tower' was invoked several times by different people. And they were not so quick to scoff at the 'unwashed masses' as one of the loyalists put it, when said masses started standing right in front of them.

When on the next morning, the Commander and the others arrived, the Elonian merchant's mercenaries had sectioned off an area to the right of the ministry's stage and figured to join them with whomever they had gathered to bring along.

By the time of their arrival, the countess had long taken to attending Zalambur's siege and when one of the neutral members of the ministry called for order to set the stage for the trial, she threw a tantrum, stomping impotently against the ground. "I can't believe you think it's appropriate to even dignify any of this!" she shrieked at him. "The treaty happened by her majesty's decree, and dissent from it comes only from a place that is backwards and immoral!"

To most people's relief, the minister she picked a fight with this time kept his head high. "The people have concerns grave enough to take time out of their days to observe our proceedings. We would be remiss not to address them."

Unlike most of the ministers, the Countess Anise had zero concerns about what the people present thought of her. "They're only commoners! Yet worse, human commoners! These people are obsolete! They are a relic of a time best left behind us. We should move on as a society and not concern ourselves with their petty worries!" Her disregard for the citizens' wellbeing was merely the logical conclusion of sentiments she had already voiced in front of Logan and the Commander. The only noticeable change was that she was more public about it. A good sign was that her outburst drew the ire of several hecklers from within the crowd.

The minister at the center of the tribune struck the table with his gavel. "I request that the citizenry attending lower their voices so that we can proceed unhindered." While Aldryn took his seat on one of the upper rows of the ministry, the man in the center directed his attention to Zalambur. "Zalambur Amann, you have made your grievances clear enough over the last day. And I see your associates have arrived. Do you consider yourself ready to address the matter of the treaty's applicability?"

The Elonian nodded. "That I do."

"Then thus begins the ministry's first official litigation on the treaty of Gendarran Fields. Countess, I believe you wish to oppose his position on this matter?"

"Vehemently so!"

"Then you are awarded the same permissions to bring forth evidence and testimony to support your opposition to it."

The witness Anise brought in was a self-professed diplomatic relations expert, a Sylvari appointed to this mouthful of an office by no other than the new head of Lion's Arch, Scarlet Briar herself. The 'expert' attested to the improvement of diplomatic relations to other nations that Kryta's self-sacrifice had. She emphasized the importance of securing trade relations between Divinity's Reach and the capitals of other races' homelands in Central Tyria and by the time she was done, the merchant appeared rather unprepared to face her testimony.

As Zalambur stood there stuttering and struggling to come up with a case to make against the 'expert's statements, Aldryn interrupted him before he could be put on the spot any longer than necessary. "If I may…" He interjected with a wide grin. The minister coordinating the hearing gestured for him to proceed. As Lord Aldryn slowly made his way down the stairs, he loudly began his statement: "Trade and business is in many ways a zero-sum game. If a competitor of mine dies or otherwise vanishes, that means that there will be more fortunes for the taking on my part. So of course we should not be surprised when the other nations of Central Tyria see the prospects of Kryta's collective suicide and welcome it with open arms."

Once he made it to the stage at the bottom, he raised his index finger to the ceiling. "The question I have though is: Does this not put the cart before the yak? Trade and business are - and should be - a means to an end, a vehicle upon which to further the well-being of the people. If the ease of trade with other countries demands that we sacrifice the well-being of the people, then what was the point of pursuing the ease of trade to begin with?"

Moreso intimidated by Anise's urging glares than anything else, the 'expert' replied to the minister. "Even if - the maintenance of good trade relations is vital for the merchant class' revenue streams. Participants in the economy only stand to benefit…"

"Lies!", Zalambur shouted. "My coffers have been bleeding dry ever since this entire travesty started! Kryta's infrastructure crumbled within days, I had to relocate and downsize many of my enterprises and close others entirely! The same goes for him and for any other merchant of our standing! We don't stand to benefit from this whatsoever! Don't make the people suffer like this on our account!"

Now Anise shrieked once more, pointing directly at Zalambur. "Objection! Loaded language! The ministry shouldn't entertain these blatant lies and unfounded implications! The treaty of Gendarran Fields has brought nothing but improvement to our lives! You have no proof that a single Krytan's life is diminished by it in any way whatsoever!"

The minister acting as judge maintained her objection, but when minister Aldryn shrugged his way, he gave him permission to address it. "Countess, 'no Krytan's life is diminished by the treaty', are you willing to commit to this statement?"

"You can't prove me otherwise!"

The minister's grin was back with a vengeance. "Can't I? I heavily disagree. I would argue the opposite. I can think of many people whose life was turned upside-down, who lost career prospects, who lost their homes, who even lost friends and family to the treaty's consequences. The first one that occurred to me - a man named Havlan - a Blacksmith of Ascalonian descent - was among the first to criticise the treaty and thus faced a prompt accusation of Separatist sympathies. As it is with people who do, he can unfortunately not attend this hearing on account of having a sword inserted in his throat. If you dispute this claim, I happen to be able to procure his corpse - and the weapon bearing the insignia of the Shining Blade - to prove it."

Aldryn wandered a little off the stage and gestured to the crowd. "But even here - from a crowd of random people not hand-picked by me, I can immediately recognize a few faces who faced similarly devastating fates." He pointed at a trembling blond woman dressed in torn rags. "Akna over here, the widowed wife of a baker from a village from maybe a day's march east of the monastery - used to dress much more elegantly." He walked to the crowd to lead the wrought-looking woman onto the stage. "Would you care to elaborate on what motivated your change of attire?"

The woman's eyes were already reddened from incessant weeping prior to her attendance, but she only broke out crying all over again when prompted to think about it. "My husband…they took my husband!" It took her a moment to gather herself before she cried out: "The Charr took my husband! They left me with nothing. My home, Carvas, I lost everything."

"Ever since, she's been living from hand to mouth - sleeping in the streets. And there's no sign of that changing any time soon. It's only a matter of time before she freezes to death - or worse yet, starves."

The woman turned to Anise. "You! You let this happen! Why didn't you stop it! Why didn't any of you stop it?"

The pleas for the Countess' empathy fell on deaf ears. But the minister forced her to answer for this. "So, Anise, why didn't you stop it? What do you have to say for yourself?"

Not only did she not show remorse, she took offense to this criticism - even if it was only implied. "I will not be admonished by someone like you. On the authority of experts like my witness I know for myself that I am more informed on matters relevant to policy than either of you."

Her indifference prompted a hysterical outburst from the widow. "You monster!" she screamed, trying to run at the countess. The minister held her in place and beckoned a few of his staff to help restrain her before she got herself killed by the Shining Blade.

The self-appointed mediator at the center of the tribune asked Aldryn: "Are you done making your point?"

Aldryn paused. "No…I don't think I am." He proceeded to call forth several random citizens from the crowd who had lost their places of employment, who had lost their homes and family members, some of which even had lost entire limbs. Each citizen called forth like this, fed into the countess' growing rage. She tried objecting to the veracity of the citizens' stories several times, claiming that their stories were made up and their identities fake, but that promptly backfired when other citizens and even sitting ministers on both sides attested to having known those people personally for years.

Eventually, minister Aldryn concluded: "That makes number six, of a number too large to count. Each making my point for me. If you still insist that no-one's life was impacted by the treaty, I can keep going like this for hours and hours. Days and weeks. There is an inexhaustible supply of people just like this - each with a story more gut-wrenching than the other of how the treaty of Gendarran Fields completely and utterly destroyed their lives. Are you willing to concede that the treaty has worsened people's lives or need I continue?"

Anise refused to answer, and so in response to it, the minister called upon more people to repeat this arduous process. And he concluded each such questioning by asking Anise yet again whether she was willing to concede the point. Fists clenched, teeth gritted, Anise was fuming, but she knew that conceding the point didn't play out in her favor. The best outcome on this point would have been if the minister simply dropped it, but he showed no sign of intending to do so.

The tells of her exacerbating rage lost in subtlety with every witness. Everyone could see that she was unhinged and only managed to keep herself contained through tremendous restraint.

Then, after repeating this process fifteen times and putting Anise on the spot every single time, she finally cracked. "BY THE GODS STOP, THEY DON'T MATTER!" She screamed. "None of these people are of import! If they can't fare for themselves in what we've built, then my vision for the future has no room for them! They are a relic of the past and the past is WHERE. THEY. BELONG!"

Aldryn simply shrugged. "So you know their lives were devastated, but to you they simply don't matter. I infer that this is as good a concession as I can get." Without the faintest sense of having done anything wrong, he returned to his seat on an upper row of the ministry's tribune.

By the time the Countess had caught herself, a sense of dread overcame her. She knew this was a mistake. This point wasn't directly relevant to the case and dragged out the duration of this hearing to no end. And yet Zalambur had not only impeached her 'expert's testimony, but the minister had completely foiled her attempt at turning the impeachment on him. Instead, she discredited herself in the process.

From here, the merchant had a much easier time moving forward. Zalambur called in several people specifically to validate pieces of evidence he then presented to the ministry. He first brought in a notary that was well known to the archives and most public offices in Divinity's Reach to validate his copy of the treaty as being genuine, so he could quote its contents for the purpose of examining the treaty itself. Then Aldryn chimed in to call upon Herron Marval - an esteemed graphologist - and a notary of his own that could verify that their copy of Queen Jennah's diary was indeed made by an official notary and that its contents could be taken as true to the original.

With the first of the three, Anise already grasped at straws, interrogating the notary to try to poke holes in his testimony. Her interrogation was riddled with an underlying implication that the notary was merely an actor playing a part, but when she made the claim outright, they could disprove her with full and well-prepared documentation showing that he was who he claimed to be, that his standing had been established over several years and that his expertise on the matter was well-founded.

But the second one, especially the mention of the queen's diary torpedoed her into another fit of rage. "OBJECTION! STOP! SILENCE! IT'S NOT TRUE! LIES! IT'S ALL MADE UP!"

She screamed incoherently for a minute straight until the mediator's calming gestures finally got her to regain her composure. As usual, he seemed to be the non-partisan voice of reason on the matter. "No matter what the contents of this diary may be, if they can prove them on legally accepted standards of evidence - which as far as I can tell, they have, we can't just cry foul and deny them outright."

Zalambur's mercenaries and Aldryn's 'staff members' got in position between Anise and the center stage of the ministry and so with a row of armed men ready to intercept any physical assaults, the minister proceeded to read out loud - in front of the minister and the attentive crowd - an entry from Jennah's diary detailing a salacious encounter between her and two traveling Charr she had hired off the street.

Predictably, Anise was unable to contain her anger and tried to charge at Aldryn. The Shining Blade drew their weapons to back her up, when they saw the ministry guard do the same, the potential skirmish was swiftly averted. Two of Zalambur's men grabbed hold of Anise, dragged her back to the Shining Blade and handed her over to them.

The minister concluded his dramatic reading with an elaboration on its relevance. "Lyssa's grace, that was rather scandalous, wasn't it? For those of you wondering why we included this diary, it serves to explain the motive. An observer loyal to the late queen, may feel compelled by his faith in her guidance to ask himself: 'Why? Why would she do this? If all we know about the treaty's outcomes is true and it was as much of a catastrophe as it seems, why would she decide to go through with it? Surely there is some higher reasoning that eludes me, right?'"

He continued holding up once more his copy of the book. "And the diary answers with proof: 'No, not necessarily.' This decision was not rooted in earnest and well-intentioned decision making, but rather in nothing more than sexual perversion. She enjoyed the company of Charr and so in her disturbed mind, the best policy is one that helps her pursue her excesses. Which would be one that brings as many Charr as possible into the country. Consequences be damned. All the more if it 'only' affects her subjects. Need I refer to Countess Anise's earlier statement for reference on how little she cared for the citizenry?"

He returned to his seat, but not without adding: "For inquiring minds, I intend to have copies of the diary published in every bookstore I can reach and even have free copies donated to local libraries, all within the foreseeable future."

With another touchy part wrapped up, they could trust Zalambur to pick up the pace again. In fact the next part was where he got to shine. Zalambur's case-in-chief was that by conditions set within the treaty itself, its applicability hinged on the Charr not encroaching past the city walls, or at least not attacking the city itself. And he brought in witness after witness, all lifelong inhabitants of the city and established and known in fields of business in some capacity. All testifying to the same thing: That Charr had attacked the city from the inside. Two of them had themselves been shot and had the scars and bullets to prove it.

Anise did try to cross-examine and discredit them, but all she could argue was that they weren't actual citizens - which they could prove wasn't true - or that they hadn't really been attacked - which didn't explain the wounds. And after a certain amount of people willing to testify to the same thing under oath, claims that it was all made up appeared like grasping at straws to any neutral observer.

And to finally hit the nail in the coffin of Anise's naysaying, the minister stood up to introduce another piece of evidence Zalambur hadn't accounted for: Lengthy video footage, projected onto a large white canvas, showing Rytlock Brimstone and Grell Nightblade breaking furniture in the queen's palace, rummaging through her private belongings, even gleefully dancing on the corpses of the Shining Blade. The part that sparked the biggest outrage besides when Grell found the diary, was when Rytlock sat on Jennah's throne, sipping from her wine glass and subsequently smashed and burned the throne.

Anise tried to argue that it was all fabricated and the footage was all conjured by some machine, but anyone who was the least bit worldly, knew that even the most cutting-edge consoles of the Asura could only render very rough, monochrome holograms. This was lifelike footage with Charr that looked exactly like their real selves down to the smallest detail. So to everyone somewhat educated - and soon even to the people of the street - her attempts at reasoning how this was all false made her appear like a raving lunatic more than anything.

That last part of the trial was key to what it all came down to. It was a very simple and comprehensive case to make: The treaty clearly listed the Charr's abstaining from attacking Divinity's Reach as a condition to its validity and they very clearly proved both before a presumed reasonable member of the ministry and the court of public opinion, that Charr had indeed attacked the city.

At long last, the time had come for the ministry to rule on the matter once and for all. The people had sat through all of it and Zalambur's staff rewarded them by supplying them with hot beverages.

Most ministry trials were political theater. A short summary of each side of a case was given, but almost all ministers voted according to their political sympathies and had made up their minds prior to hearing the case.

But this trial was nothing like any usual trial. The future of all of Kryta hung in the balance, the upper city was completely crowded with people from the citizenry watching closely and through their presence alone, the ministers' decisions were under a much greater degree of scrutiny.

When the mediator called for the vote, it looked at first like your usual political theater, with the loyalists on the left-hand side of the ministry nigh-unanimously voting against the treaty's negation and those more opposed to Jennah's policies on the other side voting for it. The mediator had asked the ministers to raise their hand if they favored the negation of the treaty. Those on the right had their hands raised, but on the left side, all hands but two or three were down.

Then, as the mediator asked a second and third time, the stares of the public began to work their magic. As the public called out the names of the ministers who STILL voted against negation despite the overwhelming evidence supporting it, the loyalists gradually gave in. One by one, completely and utterly defeated, the ministers on the left begrudgingly raised their hands, until for once in a longer time that anyone could remember, the ministry made a unanimous decision: The treaty was to be negated.

"Then by decision of the ministry of Kryta, the treaty is officially null and void."

Just like that, with a strike of the mediator's gavel, the treaty of Gendarran Fields - the gods-forsaken paper rag that caused the travesties of the last eight months - was no more.