I hadn’t noticed till then I was nodding along with most of the people in my row. We all grew up with the history. The gentle version as children, then more of the awful truth as we aged through school. Every Bedlamite holds one thing to be true: Evil exists.
“Months of this, years of it,” she continued, “Crystal Canyon entered its darkest period with the emergence of a serial killer. No one knows if the Men of Honor knew the killer and approved, but we do know they did nothing to stop him. Why would they care about the murder of poor young women?”
“The history gets a bit murky there,” Valdez took over. “Some say the citizens accepted they’d have to protect themselves. They noticed the serial killer’s pattern of how they chose their victims and laid a trap for him. Mayam Westchester volunteered to risk her life drawing him out. The night he attacked on her deserted walk home, the forest lit up.
“Dozens upon dozens of lamps and torches emerged from the trees, bringing Ambrose Otis into the light. The mob got their hands on him, and years of pain and oppression broke free. They half tore him apart and displayed his body in the town square. It was the first death in the massacre that followed.
“But I said that was one version,” Valdez went on, all of us hooked though we knew the stories as well as him. “The other is Mayam Westchester did not plan to be bait that night, but was attacked all the same. In the struggle with Otis, she turned the knife on him and got away. Ran all the way home and warned her family. Ambrose Otis was the son of the magistrate and one of the Men of Honor. The entire town would pay for his death. As predicted, the Men rounded people up. Dragged them from their homes, and beat and tortured for a confession.
“Mayam’s family wasn’t spared. They circled her home, and her husband went out, confessing to killing Otis. The Men shot him on the spot. Something snapped inside Mayam. She took her husband’s gun and fired from the window, killing two Men and scattering their horses. Witnesses saw and... picked up their guns too,” he said. “Which of these events sparked the revolt, we don’t know for sure. All we know is Mayam and Ambrose lit the match, and the resulting inferno saw the death of every Men of Honor, their spouses, their children, and their children’s children. Their homes were burned. Their businesses reduced to ash. If the Battle of Bedlam could be classed as a war, it’s one of the most devastating in history. Absolutely nothing and no one survived of the enemy.”
Valdez nodded at Faith. His teaching assistant scurried behind the desk, clicking on the slides.
“This brings us to the discussion of the day, ladies and gentlemen. As we’ve said, what is legal is not always ethical. Therefore, what is ethical, may not always be legal. Can we class the massacre and revolt of Bedlam as either?”
Thick, pressing silence filled the room. Not even the eager to impress raised their hands.
Valdez grinned. “Alright, alright. Those waters are too deep for the first week. Hold that question in your head, folks, because it’s the topic of your midterm paper. Comparing then and now, if you were representing members of the revolt, what would be your argument? Legal or ethical? Could you stand on either?”
He turned his back to the class, motioning to Faith. She clicked to the next slide.
“This is our actual discussion topic this morning: euthanasia. What—?”
“It’s neither.”
Valdez turned back. “Excuse me?”
Jacques set down his water bottle.
“We don’t have to wait for a term paper. It’s amusing you think you’ve stumped us, but of course, you would think so, having moved here only three years ago. A born and bred Bedlamite is told of the story of Mayam Westchester and the revolt as bedtime stories, and we’ve all thought of what we’d do if we were in their place.”
Valdez bobbed his head. “Fair point. I—”
“Quiet,” Jacques snapped. “I’m speaking.”
My mouth fell open. Did this guy seriously say that to a professor?
“I beg your pardon! How dare—?”
“Your puffed chest and raised voice give an excellent impression of a howler monkey. Unfortunately, I’ve never found primates particularly threatening.”
Bugged eyes swung from Jacques to Valdez—not just mine.
“Out! Out of this classroom.”
Jacques’s features didn’t so much as twitch, let alone the rest of him. “It’s too late for you to cite classroom decorum and respect. Two things I might’ve given you if you proved to not be an idiot, or if you didn’t pretend you were something more than a never-published, failed academic who took the first school that’d hire him after those rumors came out about you and a former graduate assistant. Have you started fucking this one yet?”