Whoever wants, meet me on the
Temple stair at dawn. The rest of you, go and build this city again. That is
needed. I just can’t help you. But whatever you do, the time of being broken is
over. It’s time for our occupation to begin.”
There.
I’d met them with the best steel I had. Then I slipped inside my tent and silently
wept. I was the hope the universe had handed them. Thank the gods, you mostly
do it with your tone.
The
next morning, I stepped outside. A few hundred sat on the Temple stairs.
Everyone else had gone. Of who had stayed, it was mostly who you’d expect: a
majority of young men, (including the very first I’d met), some fiery women, a
surprising number of pubescent youths I’d have to find good use for.
My
morning speech to them was shorter. “Let’s begin,” I said.
I
concentrated on names.
Chapter
Seven
Elmy,
We
built boats. We could have scavenged the Temple to do so, of course. Buildings
like that never fully burn. But I had said that the time of living off the dead
was over. So we climbed down from Ariel and went out into the hinterlands to
cut trees. The whole valley was a patchwork of farms, all with easy access to
the river or a major road. Each was separated by a woodlot or a fencerow. It
was very picturesque. You got the feeling that someone had planned all this
from his vantage atop the plateau. I had the men cut selectively.
They
acted funny about constructing the frames. When I suggested shallow rather than
deep draft, they grew momentarily hesitant. When it became clear we were building
for far more than our few hundred, they looked deeply puzzled. Then, of course,
they simply continued work. They were young. They were feeling their power come
back to them. They had a cause worth working for. And I encouraged no dissent. We
worked from earliest dawn till the last of the sun faded from the sky. And we
did so gladly.
I
will never understand the phenomenon of leadership. People do things for no
other reason than I tell them to. Yet nothing marks me as distinct. My physical
presence does not overwhelm. I am no beauty, and my genius has never staggered
anyone. My rhetorical skills pale in comparison to the best of the Academy. And
my field experience is brief and erratic in the extreme – I am no old and
seasoned hand. Anyone, most likely, could have my ideas and speak my concerns.
But I’m the one who says them. I’m the one who decides to go. Others follow. So
I try to be reasonable, if not brilliant. I try to be fair, if not
spectacularly insightful. I do not seek command, but I love it when all the
work is humming.
Just
because I don’t understand my power, Elmy, doesn’t mean I won’t try to take
advantage.
No comments:
Post a Comment