The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series)

by Trish Mercer

A part of Mahrree wanted to laugh as she stood up. “What did you do to your father?”

  “Something Shem taught him. It’s called a throw or something. The idea is to flip someone over your back. First you disable them in a vulnerable area—” She gave a sideways groin-high kick in the air.

  “Jaytsy, you didn’t—not my husband!” Mahrree exclaimed as they jogged around the house to the back garden.

  “No, of course not. I just did the other part: when they double over in pain you flip them. Honestly, I hope I never encounter any men as heavy as Father. I nearly hurt my back. And that’s his problem right now.” She held her hands out in display as they rounded the back of the house.

  Perrin lay sprawled on the rocky ground, flat on his back. “A little help, please?”

  “What did you do to yourself?” Mahrree and Jaytsy each took an arm and slowly raised him to a sitting position.

  “Ow, ow, ow, ow. Just what Shem suggested. Honestly, he’s been holding out on us,” Perrin said, now sitting on his own. “He showed me a few moves, all kinds of hits and kicks. Said his sister was very good at them. As you can see, it was effective.”

  “On men with back problems,” Mahrree chuckled and used all her weight to help pull him to his feet.

  He stretched cautiously and grunted. “That’s better. He said it was a style of defensive fighting women did in the south, when they had Guarder problems years ago, but it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  “Well,” Jaytsy said striking a pose with one arm in the air and a foot slightly raised, “send me any man—I’m ready for him.”

  Peto came running around the house. “It’s here—the wagon, the crate, and the two new soldiers.”

  “Just what you ordered, Jayts,” Mahrree chuckled. “Go get them!”

  When they reached the front of the house, Jaytsy realized only one of them could ever pose a real problem. The two soldiers had already left the wagon and were placing a large crate on the ground. One soldier was older and more gnarled than Neeks, while the other was a young lieutenant. He took one look at Jaytsy and a smile—or what Mahrree worried was more of a leer—spread across his face.

  Until his new colonel loudly cleared his throat. “At attention, Lieutenant!”

  “Yes sir!” the young man said, startled by the shout, and stood at attention while the old sergeant major, already in position, sent him a dour glare.

  The older soldier cleared his throat and announced loudly, “Sergeant Major Beneff and Lieutenant Radan, reporting for duty, sir. And I will work on the impertinence of the young men, ho-ho, while I am here, Colonel! Forgive the absence of Lieutenant Kel, sir. He came down with an outbreak of fever and spots, hi-hum. I volunteered to come in his stead, sir.”

  Mahrree blinked at the odd dithering of the sergeant major, and glanced at her husband. His mouth was pressed firmly together to avoid smiling, but his lips quivered.

  “I was disappointed to lose Neeks,” Perrin said, “but Beneff, you’ll take over quite nicely. It’s good to see you again.”

  That’s why Perrin wasn’t startled by the man’s bizarre delivery, Mahrree realized: he already knew him. Of course. He knew everyone, everywhere.

  “We seem to have quite the crop of budding new officers to train,” Perrin continued. “I’m sorry you had to leave Orchards, though. My father said you were very happy there.”

  “Not at all, sir, not at all, hum-hum. I was in Idumea awaiting a new transfer anyway. I’ve always wanted to serve under a Shin,” his voice cracked with emotion. “Your father was a great man, oh-HO. And besides, I’ve always found the north appealing, with diced apples on top.”

  “Glad to hear it, Beneff,” Perrin nodded, ignoring the snickering and questioning look his children exchanged.

  Perrin nodded to the men. “If you two will bring the crate to the house, you may then take the wagon to the fort. Captain Thorne is expecting you and will see you to your quarters.”

  It’s not as if Perrin was really worried that if he bent down to pick up the crate he wouldn’t be able to get back up again, Mahrree concluded, but if he stiffened up that wasn’t exactly the way to make a good first impression on his new soldiers. Besides, he needed to evaluate their strength. Beneff must have been over sixty, but he readily picked up the crate with the strapping Lieutenant Radan like a twenty-year-old.

  Once inside, Beneff glanced around the house as if expecting a thief to be hiding, then nodded to the lieutenant. Both of the men reached into their inner jacket pockets.

  “Was given these by Mrs. Cush herself, he-ho,” he said uneasily, and produced a cloth bag filled with something that clinked.

  Lieutenant Radan did the same thing.

  “Said she’d have our patches and anything else, ho-hem, she could rip off if these didn’t reach you safely,” Beneff added.

  “What is it?” Peto asked, but Mahrree knew by its heaviness as soon as she took the tied cloth from Beneff. Perrin intercepted Radan’s bag before Jaytsy could get close to touching him.

  Mahrree undid the string and sighed. “Mother Shin’s jewelry.”

  Jaytsy snatched the other bag from her father and hurriedly fumbled with the knot. A moment later she gasped and pulled out a thick, gold chain. “I never saw her wear this. It’s amazing!”

  Perrin shook his head. “She never wore her best when traveling. Too worried about thieves.”

  “I promise, sir—the lieutenant and I won’t tell anyone you possess such finery now, ho-no,” Beneff assured him. “Besides, the wheat grows when it’s dark, too.”

  Lieutenant Radan started to nod in agreement, until he considered that last nugget dropped by Beneff. Mahrree fully understood his confusion, and her children looked at each other wondering that wheat had to do with . . . anything.

  But Perrin’s eyes glowed with amusement, and he winked subtly at Mahrree as if to suggest, Just get used to it.

  Lieutenant Radan shrugged off his bemusement. “It’s a relief to be rid of them. Sagged down my jacket. I’ve been feeling jittery the whole ride here. That jewelry’s worth more than twenty wagons of food, I suspect. That’s why Mrs. High General didn’t want anyone to know we had them.”

  Perrin took the chain out of Jaytsy’s hand. “I thank you. Well done. But these won’t be here long,” he said quietly. “We have no use for such things, but others do.” He looked at Mahrree meaningfully.

  She burst into a grin. Selling the gold chains, the colored stones, and the fancy silver work would certainly be enough, once it was coupled with their hidden savings, to pay for the rebuilding of Edge.

  After Beneff announced that hats don’t weave themselves, and the new soldiers headed back to the wagon, Perrin retrieved the iron bar by Mahrree’s side of the bed and began to pry off the top of the large crate that now sat in the middle of the gathering room.

  Mahrree surveyed their house. “We may need to put up another bookshelf. I’m sure I heard the thudding of books in there.”

  “Where, Mother?” Jaytsy asked. “There’s hardly any room left!”

  “We’ll make room,” Peto decided. “For everything in there.”

  Mahrree put an arm around him. “Of course we will.”

  Perrin wrenched off the top and they were greeted by gray silk.

  “My dress!” Mahrree pulled out the shimmering gown and looked at it with weepy eyes. A note dropped from it.

  Jaytsy picked it up. “It’s from Mrs. Versula Thorne. She wants you to come back next year wearing it again. It’s your official invitation to next year’s Dinner. We’re all invited,” she grimaced.

  “Hmm,” Mahrree said, not interested in going to a dinner where Relf and Joriana weren’t leading the evening. Not interested in going back to Idumea at all, but glad that she could at least give her mother quite a bit of gray silk to play with. “We’ll have to consider next year’s dinner at another time, right Perrin?”

  But he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the contents underneath the dress.
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  Slowly he crouched to be nearer the crate. With one hand he picked up the gleaming sword of General Relf Shin. With his other he picked up a large spray of lilacs, wilted and drying. Without a word he stood again, turned and plodded up the stairs.

  Mahrree had the sensation that something had died, again.

  A moment later they all heard the bedroom door shut.

  ---

  Shem heard the knock on his bedroom door.

  Knock-knock.

  Pause.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  It was a distinctive rhythm that said, “I’m here and I’m important and this is how I will announce myself every single time, so you better get used to it, master sergeant.”

  “Come in,” Shem sighed and got up from his bed.

  The door opened and Captain Lemuel Thorne stepped in with a smile that seemed to be made of molded sugar.

  Shem didn’t return it. Perrin had been right: Thorne was mushroom pudding.

  Perrin first said that when they were leaving the Administrative Headquarters. “Captain Thorne?” he had bristled when the two of them were finally alone. “He’s barely twenty-two, never been tested outside of Command School, and they have the nerve to promote him to captain?”

  “That’s really young,” Shem agreed.

  “Younger than I was,” Perrin grumbled. “And everyone thought twenty-five was too young. I’m warning you right now, Shem: he’s mushroom pudding.”

  Shem’s upper lip curled. “Yuck! And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly the right response, Shem. It means he’s the wrong combination of everything, and he’s being placed before us, and we’re supposed to like him.”

  “Ugh,” Shem groaned. “Like beets. Oh no,” he had moaned with new understanding. “With Karna gone, and Thorne as captain—”

  “Yep,” Perrin said dully. “Guess who’ll be second in command at the fort.”

  “They can’t do that!”

  “They just did, Master Sergeant. The new High General and his Advising General just put their best little apple tree in my garden. Wished I had a goat to nibble away at him.”

  “This is bad,” Shem mumbled.

  “Pray for conflict, Shem,” Perrin suggested.

  “Why?”

  “Doesn’t matter what rank Thorne is,” Perrin reminded him, “in a battle situation, you still have far more experience. You outrank him in the field. In fact, now you’ll be second only to me. At least, in situations where it counts.”

  Shem had shaken his head at that. “That’s right. I don’t believe it. Now I’m actually hoping for Guarder attacks just so I can order him around!”

  Perrin patted him on the back. “Idumea has a way of confusing everything, doesn’t it? I really hate this place.”

  All during the long, wearying ride back to Edge, Captain Thorne had done his best to initiate, monopolize, and control every conversation. It wasn’t hard; Perrin and Shem weren’t about to answer him with anything more than a one or two-word response.

  Poor Lieutenant Offra, however, had been quite confused about the forwardness of the captain, but began to realize just how overbearing the mushroom pudding was.

  He talked about rules. Books. Rules in books. His grandfather General Cush. His father the new general. Rules his grandfather and father—the generals—put into books.

  By the time they passed Pools, Thorne was talking only to himself. That’s when Perrin decided they would frequently stop for fresh horses, and race all the way back to Edge.

  That’s also when Thorne started to talk about the exceptional horses his paternal grandfather raised, how Edge likely had nothing to compare to those studs, and that his Grandfather Thorne would be sending him a most excellent specimen in another season.

  Shem had never seen Perrin roll his eyes so much. He must have grown dizzy.

  And now, the mushroom pudding stood in his doorway, with a squidgy smile on his face. “Did I wake you, Sergeant?”

  “Just preparing for my evening shift, Captain. What can I do for you?”

  Without waiting for an invitation, Thorne shut the door behind him. “Master Sergeant, you’re a very difficult man to find alone.”

  “You’ve been here only two days, Captain. I frequently work the night shift, and you work during the days, therefore . . .” He held up his hands.

  “Of course, Zenos,” he simpered. “I was wondering if I could have a few words with you, just the two of us.”

  “Make it quick, Captain,” Shem said, “I have new recruits to take out. Regular training resumes this evening.”

  “Yes, that’s right!” he said brightly. “Read your record: highest recruiting and retention rates of any fort in the world. You’re to be commended.”

  “But that’s not why you’re here.” Shem folded his arms.

  “No, no.” Thorne scratched his angular chin and took a step closer.

  He seemed to be sizing Shem up. While Thorne was taller than the average man, he didn’t reach the height—or the bulk—of Shem, which Shem noted with some satisfaction.

  “It’s just that I understand that you have a special relationship, shall we say, with the Colonel and his family.”

  Shem shrugged. “So?”

  Thorne took another step closer. “Master Sergeant Zenos, I’m here to help.”

  Shem’s throat went dry and his shoulders tensed. He’d heard those words before, a few times, and by lesser men. It had been simple to lure them out into the forest where they ‘deserted.’ But the son of General Thorne? It’s not as if he could vanish without any question.

  “And here I thought it was just because you found the north appealing,” Shem tested.

  Thorne squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Shem’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. Maybe wasn’t one of them. Yet. “Nothing.”

  Thorne reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sealed parchment. “This is for you,” and he held it out.

  Shem kept his arms folded as he eyed the parchment. “Who’s it from?”

  Thorne shrugged slightly. “My father handed it to me, but it’s not written in his hand. I don’t know.” He looked at the script Master Sergeant Zenos longingly.

  Shem still didn’t take it. “What’s it about?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Thorne impatiently shook the message at him. “All I know is, I’m supposed to give it to you in private and that—”

  Whatever he was about to say next was apparently painful. Shem studied his eyes and enjoyed every moment.

  “—and that I’m supposed to be learning things from you,” the captain admitted. “I’m not ready for . . . everything yet. Not even sure what any of that means,” he mumbled in frustration. “But apparently you do.”

  Shem stared at the captain, completely perplexed.

  The younger Thorne wasn’t one of them yet, not a Guarder like his father, but soldiers younger than him had been in the past. Shem was adept in reading men’s faces and eyes, and it was obvious that Lemuel Thorne was deliberately being left out. Maybe this was some kind of new procedure, some kind of test.

  But for who?

  And the thought of learning from a master sergeant? Well, Shem wasn’t sure which of them was more irritated about that.

  Shem finally took the message from Thorne’s hand and shoved it into his jacket. The captain was clearly disappointed it wasn’t about to be opened and read in front of him.

  “I thank you, Captain,” Shem said formally, “but I’m sure there’s nothing I can teach you, nor is there any way you can provide assistance with the colonel.”

  Thorne took yet another step closer. One more, and he’d be on Shem’s toes. “Oh, but there is. There are a great many—”

  “I’m late for duty, Captain Thorne,” Shem snapped to attention. “I’m sure you don’t mean to hold me up from doing my duty, correct sir?”

  Thorne blinked in surprise and stepped back. “Why, of course not. We’
ll talk later—”

  But Shem was already out the door, clenching his fist as he marched out of the private quarters, through the barracks for the rest of the soldiers, and into the growing twilight with the parchment nearly burning a hole in his jacket.

  He knew what he needed to do, and hoped he could pull it off, even if it wasn’t dark yet. Some things just couldn’t wait. He was still early to lead out his new recruits for a training ride—not that he’d admit that to Thorne—and he had a few minutes.

  He retrieved his saddled horse from the stables and rode out to the forest. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, he directed his horse to a small break in the trees, then prodded his mount to hurdle the low cattle fence. He dismounted, tied up the horse behind some large boulders and out of sight, then slipped up through the trees in a fast jog.

  “Whoa! What in the world are you doing here? And now?”

  Shem nodded at the two men in green and brown mottled clothing he startled near a fresh spring. “Been given something that I was, honestly, afraid to open on my own.” He chuckled nervously as he pulled out the parchment.

  The two men came over to see. “Who’s it from?” one of them asked.

  Shem shook his head. “Delivered by Captain Thorne, handed to him by General Thorne, but originally?” He shrugged and broke open the white waxy seal. With a deep breath, he unfolded the parchment and read out loud, his two companions on either side.

  “‘Master Sergeant Shem Zenos: For years we wondered about you, our Quiet Man—’”

  Shem groaned.

  He’d nearly forgotten about that title he gave himself long ago. In the beginning, the Guarders were putting someone in to get close to Perrin. Shem took that position, and then he let the Guarders know, through a dropped message, that he’d always remain the Quiet Man and not interact with them, but would keep Perrin Shin in the game. A few times over the next few years they’d sent in others to “help” Shem, but Shem always helped them out instead: out to the forest to never be heard from again.

  He thought they’d forgotten about him. Obviously not.

  One of the men in green and brown clothing patted him comfortingly on the back as Shem continued to read.