“We want justice,” said the head of Queen Anacaona. “You allowed the hunter who rides at the behest of the foreign courts to cross the Great Smoke and raid into our country, resulting in my death. Answer, maku.”
I recollected Keer’s questions, coming at the debate sideways instead of head-on. “You shouldn’t have invaded Expedition Territory.”
“Do you scold me, child? The Council of Expedition broke the First Treaty, which their ancestors and ours swore to uphold. That gave the Taino the right and the obligation to invade, to protect our people from diseases like the salt plague.”
Here was an opening I could exploit! “It’s true that Expedition’s Council violated the terms of the First Treaty. But the Council no longer rules Expedition. The people of Expedition replaced the corrupt Council with a new Assembly. It is not justice to punish the Assembly for actions they did not commit.” I surveyed the gathered ancestors. They were patient, as the dead can be, but I had an idea they were not going to be patient for long. I had to strike quickly. “Furthermore, you had no right to quarantine me on Salt Island, because I was clean. I was never infested with the salt plague. Isn’t that true? Wasn’t I clean?”
Queen Anacaona’s brown cheeks suffused with natural color, as if blood pumped through them even though she had no heart. “You were clean. And Expedition does indeed have a new government. But both those things are beside the point, as I believe you know. Is it true, or is it not true, that a pack of maku spirit hunters crossed the Great Smoke and raided into our country?”
“What is the Great Smoke?”
“Do they teach the young nothing in your country? The Great Smoke is the ocean of all existence. It embraces all things, just as the ocean of water in the mortal world embraces all lands. It is not easy to cross the Great Smoke, for Leviathan guards it. But it can be done. Long ago, behiques wove a spirit fence around Taino country precisely to keep out the spirit lords from other territories in the spirit world because we did not want them to walk into our lands and disturb us. So let me ask you again. Did the maku spirit hunters cross from your land to ours on a road made of your bone and blood because in your nature and living body you partake both of the spirit world and the mortal world? Was it your presence, your body, that cut a gate in the spirit fence with which we protect ourselves? Did the Hunt enter the land because of you? Speak the truth, maku. Be warned. In this country, lies are knives you wield against your own flesh.”
The ancestors’ gazes pressed against me as if they were invisible blades waiting to cut my flesh to ribbons. I had to tell the truth, but not because of the knives. I had to tell the truth because this was a court of law. One did not lie in such a place.