‘I was so appalled at seeing my daughter in this pitiful condition that I was stunned, unable to act. It was as if the sight had ratified all the hopelessness of my life, and I think for awhile I believed that this was proper, that I deserved such a fate. I watched as Mirielle was stretched out on the altar, her head tossing about, incapable – it appeared – of knowing what was happening to her. The chanting grew louder, and Zemaille, lifting his arms higher, cried, “Father! Soon you will be free!” Then he lapsed into a tongue with which I was unfamiliar.
‘It was at this point that I sensed Griaule’s presence. There was no great physical symptom or striking effect . . . except perhaps an intensification of the distance I felt from what I was seeing. I was absolutely unemotional, and that seems to me most peculiar, because I have never been unemotional where Mirielle is concerned. But I was nonetheless certain of his presence, and as I stood there overlooking the altar, I knew exactly what was going on and why it had to be stopped. This knowledge was nothing so simple as an awareness of my daughter’s peril, it was the knowledge of something old and violent and mystic. I can still feel the shape it made in my brain, though the particulars have fled me.
‘I stepped forward and called to Zemaille. He turned his head. It was strange . . . never before had he displayed any reaction to me other than disdain, but there was tremendous fear in his face then, as if he knew that Griaule and not me was his adversary. I swear before God it was not in my mind to kill him before that moment, but as I moved toward him I knew not only that I must kill him, but that I must act that very second. I’d forgotten the stone in my hand, but then, without thinking, without even making a conscious decision to act, I hurled it at him. It was an uncanny throw. I could not have been less than fifty feet away, and the stone struck with a terrible crack dead center of his forehead. He dropped without a cry.’
Lemos lowered his head for a second, his grip tightening on the rail of the witness box. ‘I had expected that the nine gathered around the altar would attack me, but instead they ran out into the night. Perhaps they, too, sensed Griaule’s hand in all this. I was horrified by what I’d done. As I’ve stated, the knowledge of what was intended by the act had fled, had flown from my brain, evaporated like a mist. I knew only that I had killed a man . . . a despicable man, but a man nonetheless. I went over to Zemaille, hoping that he might still be alive. The Father of Stones was lying beside him. Something about it had changed, I realized, and on picking it up I saw that the center was no longer hollow. At the heart of the stone was the flaw that you can see there now, a flaw in the shape of a man with uplifted arms.’ He leaned back and sighed. ‘The rest you know.’
Mervale’s cross-examination was thorough, incisive, yet if it had not been for the will, Korrogly thought after the day’s proceedings had been concluded, he would have had an excellent chance to win an acquittal; the weight of the material evidence would not have impressed the jury any more than his witnesses and Lemos’ account. But as things stood, the fact that Lemos could not put forward any reason why Griaule had wanted Zemaille dead, that seemed to Korrogly to tip the balance in favor of the prosecution. He stayed late at the courthouse, running over the details of the case in his mind, and finally, just after eleven o’clock, more frustrated than he had yet been, he packed up his papers and set out for the Almintra quarter, hoping that he could mend his fences with Mirielle; perhaps he could convince her of his good intentions, help her to understand that his responsibilities had demanded he treat her roughly.
