Pathspace
Page 50
Chapter 50
Kristana: “Where the word is unspoken”
She told him to try to sleep and made herself leave the infirmary. Yes, she thought, we all have our own knowledge of loneliness. Xander has to stand near me, when he can, not touching, and I have to hold my place, wanting to be touched. Never to show affection in public, never to know the reassurance of human contact. A ruler must be separate. Must be seen as always confident, always having a plan. Always sufficient unto herself.
Especially when she's not.
It had been a hard decision. She remembered as if it were this morning, Roberto lying there on the bed. He had just closed his eyes, never to open them again. “That's my girl,” he had smiled, after she had shouted at that fraying soldier, putting backbone back into the frightened man. Her first real command as Governor, holding the line. “That's my girl” Roberto had said, and smiled and closed his eyes, and that was all. End of a legend.
No one knew yet. She would have a little time to weep alone, to still be soft.
Her tears fell on the sheet as her shoulders shook. She sobbed quietly, but so wholeheartedly that she did not hear the door open and Xander slip into the room. He took in the scene in an instant, and, after giving her a minute to weep alone, had taken her unresisting form into his arms and wept with her just as quietly. There are some moments where the word is unspoken. Where it is unnecessary. Neither of them said it: he is gone.
After a couple of minutes she was still. He stroked her hair on the back of her neck and whispered to her. “Now comes the hard part.”
Gently, she let go of him and separated herself. “I know. Now I have to wear his hat.”
Xander smiled at her brave joke. “No. You can't be him. They know you're not the Lion. But you can be the Lioness. It's what he would have wanted. What he trained you for.”
“But how can I? How can I be Commander-in-Chief, when I've never been in the Army? I'm a fraud, a pretender, and they'll know it. You should take over. Take this cup away from me.”
Xander put his hands on her shoulders. “That's not what he would have wanted. I can't be the Governor. I'll help you all I can, but the Governor has to be one of the People, one of them, and I've lost that, by being what I am. I'm too strange for them to love. They may respect me, and will definitely fear me a little, but love? No. The shaman is never the leader of the tribe. He does weird things, and gives advice. But he is never the leader.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “I think you're as strong as he was, but in a different way.”
“Because the leader is a role model,” he said, looking down at Roberto's peaceful smile. “The leader has to be someone they can imagine themselves being. They don't look up to me. They look across to me, across a vast canyon of strangeness. But they will look up to you.”
She drew a ragged breath. “Why should they look up to me?”
“Because they know he approved of you. That he respected you enough to marry you. And you have to use that now. You have to be the tough-as-nails widow of the General. Since the two of you were man and wife, they'll assume you must be like him in some ways.”
“But I'm not,” she said. “Opposites attract. He was the controller. I'm more the supporter, the nurturer. I'll never be him.”
“Well then, it's time to nurture Colorado,” he said. “Nurturing can mean giving what someone needs, or helping them to get it. Right now your country needs hope, needs confidence. You can give that to them, by helping them to believe you can hold it all together. By giving orders and expecting to be obeyed.”
“Then I order you to take my place,” she said smiling.
“With respect, madame Governor, you know that I cannot. But I'll do whatever else you need. You know my priority is establishing the school for wizards, but that can't happen without a stable environment around it, so I'm your most loyal citizen. I'll fight for you, lie for you, steal for you, die for you as long as I can get the school going and keep the Dream alive. We can't let it end like this.”
“No, we can't, can we?” She gazed down at Roberto. “Don't worry, my love, we'll follow the Dream.” After a moment she looked up again. “What's the first thing we need to do?”
“The first thing you need to do,” he corrected, “is to address the troops. By now the commanders and senior staff are assembling as you asked in the Council chamber. It's time to let them see their new Governor.”
It was a month before they began sleeping together. In public Xander acted as if nothing had changed. As he told her, “Once the staff find out who the boss lady is sleeping with, she loses a lot of her authority. We can't let that happen.”
Nine months later Aria was born. Everyone assumed she was the General's last gift. It must have killed Xander a little to go along with that. But he did.