Pathspace

by Matthew Kennedy

Chapter 75

  Aria: “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”

  Soft feet in supple leather boots pounded the stairs as she descended and ascended, searching. She did not know where the thought had come from, but now that it had, she could not relinquish it. No, that was a lie, a lie she was telling herself. She knew perfectly well where the thought had come from, the thought that had roused her from an unaccustomed nap in her gardens, where she had set her little rake and watering can down and just lay down in the scent of the blooming roses.

  She had opened her eyes with the thought stirring inside her, clear but unacceptable. She almost laughed at her dismay. What would it change? Nothing. Everything! It could not change the past, and yet somehow, it did. She had not yet decided how it should change the future.

  Undeterred by guards, Aria burst into her mother's chambers, full of the outrage and moral arrogance of youth. “Is it true, Mother?”

  Kristana looked up at her, surprised by the seldom-used title as much as by the interruption. Aria could see the Governor was at it again, stroking the General's sword with a whetstone, an old oiled rag by her side on the mattress. A meaningless activity, sharpening the sword of a man who had been dead for years.

  It had been owned by the General. By my father. But was he?

  “Tell me it isn't true!”

  Kristana wiped the sword one final time with the rag and hung it back on its peg on the wall behind her. She regarded Aria. “It might be easier to do that,” she said, “if I knew what you were talking about.”

  Aria's chin jutted. “I'm talking about my father.”

  Kristana patted the mattress beside her. “Sit down for a minute. We need to talk.”

  Aria stamped her foot. “No, you need to talk,” she said. “I went to see Daniels yesterday to talk about preparations for the invasion. I was going to suggest we start stockpiling blood in coldboxes, so that we'll be able to help when our soldiers get wounded.”

  Kristana just folded her hands and waited.

  “He'd already thought of it. There were soldiers all over the place, reading and chatting with the nurses while they donated blood for storage. And do you know what the good doctor said, when I offered to join them?”

  “I can guess. But go ahead, tell me anyway.'

  “He said he was glad to see me, because only Xander and me have this certain blood type, and he couldn't ask Xander to donate, since he was still recovering from his close call. In fact, he said he was hesitant about asking me, because he'd already taken some of mine recently, to help Xander when he was so close to dying.”

  Kristana's gaze was calm and steady. “So?”

  “Mother, what was the General's blood type?”

  Kristana didn't bat an eye. “A positive. But that's not really what you came here to ask me, is it? Go ahead, ask.”

  Aria stared at her calm, then rallied. “I'm not the General's daughter, am I?”

  Kristana shook her head. “No, you're not the Governor's daughter. And to answer your real question, yes, Xander is your father.”

  Aria felt her eyes welling up with tears. “But why? Why did you lie to everyone about it? And how could you? How could you betray the General like that?”

  “Sit down,” Kristana repeated. And this time, she did, collapsing on the mattress beside her mother, but not touching her. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  “First,” said the Governor, “it wasn't a betrayal. The General was dead. How you came to be, well, that's not hard to figure out. Xander helped me through a rough time. I needed someone to lean on, and he was there. We'd known each other for years; he's a good man.”

  Aria was quiet for a moment. “All right,” she said, slowly. “You were sad and lonely. I can see that. You needed emotional support, I can see that too. But the timing! I was born barely nine months after the General died.” She glared at her mother. “it sure didn't take long for you to move on.”

  Kristana jerked. Aria had the feeling her mother was resisting the urge to slap her.

  “Xander and I liked each other for a long time,” Kristana said. “But we were both smart enough not to do anything about it, while the General was alive. I loved my husband, and neither of us would do anything to undermine his image as the ruler of Colorado. Once he...once he had passed, however, that consideration was moot.”

  “Then why did you keep it a secret? Why didn't the two of you marry?”

  Kristana sighed. “We talked about it. I wanted to. He's a good man. But Xander talked me out of it.”

  Aria stared at her. “He didn't want to marry you?”

  “Actually, he did. But try to understand. The General had just died, and everyone was looking for someone to hold it together. Looking to me. If I'd married Xander, then instead of a Governor or a General, people would think that some weird magician was running the country. It wouldn't have worked, dear. We'd have had civil war. The officer's wouldn't have taken orders from Xander, and probably not from me, either, since they'd have thought he was pulling my strings like a puppet.”

  Aria was shaking her head, her fists clenched, but she didn't interrupt, so Kristana went on. “Your fa-- the General, he had been grooming me to take his place, believing that I could keep the Dream alive. So I did.” She paused. “Xander settled for being my loyal advisor, and you became a symbol of hope, a remnant of their beloved General. That's what we decided to give the people. Hope. It wasn't easy. If you'd been a late birth, it might not have worked. But you weren't. You came early, just early enough that we could let everyone think that the Old Man had been strong enough, even near the end, to father a child.”

  “But it isn't true! It's all a lie!”

  “Yes. But try for one moment to think about Rado, instead of your family and your conscience. What was better for the people who depend on us? The truth would have helped no one. The lie helped the country go on without a civil war.”

  Aria scowled. “It's still a lie. Don't you care about the truth? How do you sleep at night? Doesn't it bother you, lying to your own people?”

  Kristana sighed. “More than you know. But I made my peace with it. It's just another of the sacrifices I've had to make over the years. Maybe I don't always feel good about it, but what we avoided would have made me feel even worse. All of the General's plans, all of his preparations for me to take his place...it was all for Rado. Try to put yourself in my place. What would you have done? Told the truth and felt all warm and cozy, proud of your honesty, watching everything the General built fall apart in a bloody power struggle?”

  She opened her mouth to shout YES! But then her mind heard the end of her mother's sentence and she closed her mouth again. What would I have done, really? “But now you're trapped,” she complained. “After all this time, you still can't tell them, can you?”

  The Governor of Rado frowned. “No,” she said. “I still can't. Even though we made it through the crisis of succession, all those years ago, and it makes no difference now, I still can't tell them. There's always another crisis, like the Honcho's upcoming invasion, and I can't let everyone be distracted by feelings of betrayal and outrage.”

  “So that's it? You're never going to tell the truth about it?”

  “I just did, to you.” Kristana looked off to one side, remembering. “Oh, yes maybe I can make a deathbed confession, something like that, for the history books. After you've taken my place, that is. I can't possibly say anything until then. We'd have the same problem as before – a civil war. They're not ready to accept the daughter of a wizard as the next Governor. But the daughter of a legend, the daughter of the General, well, that's another thing entirely. His success attached itself to me, and you'll inherit that mystique. You can keep the Dream alive.”

  “How do you know I won't tell them?” A thought struck her. “What about the doctor? Have you sworn Daniels to secrecy, too? Does anyone else know?”

  “No one else knows, except Daniels and Xander himself, and we're going to keep it that way. Daniels
won't say anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality is something he believes in, and he'll keep the secret for us. I had a conversation with him, a little like this one, years ago. He's accepted the situation.”

  Aria put her face in her hands. A legacy based on a lie? Was that what she had been raised to take on? How could she do it?

  But the real question, she realized, was: how could she not?