Love In The Time Of Pandemic

Chapter 13

I looked around at the people left in the room, Cellie had followed her father as happily as Nathan had, and I had to contend with Genevieve glaring at me.

Irfan was still in the room, as was Yash. I felt a little bit better with their support behind me. I knew that Yash had been quick on the uptake, not taking my support of Genevieve as an affront upon his honour and a betrayal of his loyalty.

They both stood there, awaiting any orders. Truly soldiers of the exemplary kind. I sometimes wondered what I did to be so lucky as to get supporters like them.

Red walked back into the room as well, her flaming red hair a contrast to everything else in the room. She stood with Yash and Irfan, staring stonily at Genevieve and me.

I sighed. I didn't want to have to do this right now. But there was no time to rest. What I really wanted to do was to take Cellie and go into a room, where no one could disturb us for a few hours, or even a few days. I wanted to spend a few days frolicking about, mucking about, sexing about with Cellie. But that was an impossibility right now.

I took a deep breath and girded my loins. It was time to set everything straight. Genevieve had the wrong impression about me. Although it wasn't entirely her fault. I did try to mislead her a bit. But now that Arthur was in the picture, I had to rethink this whole thing.

That was the mysterious and fascinating thing about life as a leader in this world. There was always something new happening. There was never any time to sit and rest on our laurels. The world changed at a rapid pace and asked us to do the same. If we didn't keep up, we would be thrown out, or worse killed, while other people who were able to keep up, would stay the course.

"Let's sit down, shall we?" I gestured towards a seat and Genevieve, after a moment's hesitation, sat down. I glanced briefly at the three soldiers, as if to tell them to stay and observe. They stood even more at attention, even more alert than before, if possible.

"Before you start using your skills of diplomacy against me, I absolutely refuse to believe any reason you might have for bringing Arthur into your camp. It has to be a blatant show of your intentions against me. You don't want to go through with our agreement, I presume, as you haven't sent your foot soldiers away?" She said, with a wry grin on her face. She was pretending to be calm about it, but I could see that the veins on her hands were standing out like strings. She was tense as hell, and trying not to show it. But her body betrayed her.

I had wondered how a person like her who was under a barrage of stress daily, could stand up straight anymore. It must be really difficult to be in her body. She must take a lot of medication to keep on going.

"You are quite mistaken, Genevieve. I am a man of my word. But I also have my word to keep to my people. Otherwise, all of those soldiers you are lusting after, they will disappear into the wind, like so much saw dust. You won't see neither hide nor skin of them. They are only here, because they believe in me and my word. I have to keep that in mind as well." As soon as I said this, something in her relaxed slightly. Her hands, which had been pressed against each other, relented, and let go. The veins on her hands relaxed as well.

Good, I thought to myself. She has calmed down a bit. I thought she was going to bolt directly to the authorities and blab about Arthur and his friends. I didn't want them to be killed or captures their very first day on the land of the supposed free.

I went on, in as calm a voice as I could. I felt like I was in front of a flighty deer, who would rush off into the barbed wire and hurt herself, if I didn't keep my tone peaceful and my actions light. "Genevieve, I was wondering if we could be honest with each other. I know this is something that as a politician you are not used to. But I would really appreciate it if we could just lay our cards out in front of each other. This way we don't have to dally about, and we can actually know exactly where we stand with each other. I think we both know when the other one is bullshitting us. Right?"