by Trish Mercer
Shem sat at the large forward command desk checking the list left for him by Grandpy Neeks. With a piece of charcoal he put a mark next to the last name at the bottom of the list and smiled.
“You got them all, Sergeant,” he declared. “Everyone’s reserves, along with the fort’s, are safely gathered in at the second schoolhouse. Good work.”
The staff sergeant standing in front of the desk nodded and smiled. “Thank you, sir. It was a bit of a race toward the end there, but before dark fell we got the last of it in. And we have a dozen soldiers guarding it, just as Karna ordered. Edge’s food supply is secure.”
Master Sergeant Zenos sat back and sighed. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. Major Karna and I have been worried—”
“Everyone’s been worried, sir,” the sergeant confided. “I thought the villagers would be reluctant, but with those pesky teenagers sneaking around—”
Shem nodded. “At least now we have one of them on our side.”
The sergeant grinned. “Private Hili has been most helpful, sir. Major Karna never would have rounded up that last group without Hili leading us to their hiding spots in the marshes.”
“Glad to see the soldiers are recognizing the value of Private Hili now,” Zenos said.
“Indeed. I never doubted him,” the sergeant proclaimed, and Zenos grinned. The staff sergeant was one of the few who believed Poe was sincere in his desire to help the fort, while dozens of other soldiers who had the pleasure of chasing him down and throwing him into incarceration a couple of years ago watched him dubiously. But not anymore.
Now everyone in the fort trusted him too, especially since he informed them that he spied fifteen men he knew from Moorland sneaking over to Edge. They were intent on finding Edge’s food reserves, Hili learned from an old acquaintance who didn’t realize Poe had recently switched sides. Shem had sent out his newest recruit in his old clothes to find out what was happening in the marshes. Poe came back with the news that apparently no one wanted gold and silver anymore, but the price of a bag of sugar or a jug of mead in Quake and Mountseen was now equal to that of a small house.
“Never realized food would become so valuable,” the sergeant said, reading Shem’s mind. “But now that it’s all under guard everyone will sleep better tonight. Well, at least those that aren’t on the night shift like us.”
Shem chuckled with the sergeant, feeling for the first time in weeks a little bit of weight lifted from his shoulders. He opened his mouth to respond, but a voice coming up the stairs and exclaiming loudly stopped him.
“So to add insult on top of injury—or maybe it’s just another injury on top of injury,” Major Karna complained as he reached the top of the stairs, “it’s now snowing!” He took off his cap covered with a white layer, and dropped it on the desk in disgust. Bits of snow fell off and melted in wet clumps on the wood. “As if Nature hasn’t handed us enough troubles, it decides to see what else it can throw at us!”
“I don’t believe it,” Shem breathed as he balled up the snow from the top of the cap.
“All the years I’ve been in Edge, I never remember a snowfall this late.” Karna put his hands on his waist and looked around the office for who might responsible for the storm. A corporal in the corner copying reports to be sent to Idumea cowered in innocence.
“And certainly nothing so wet and heavy,” Shem mused as he looked at the ball of snow rapidly melting in his hand.
“You finished the Shins’ roof, right?” Karna asked.
Shem, still examining the snow, nodded. “Poe and I moved their mattress back in yesterday, and not a moment too soon. This snow—it’s very heavy.”
“Oh, that’s not good,” the sergeant murmured.
“Why?” Karna asked urgently. “What does it mean?”
Shem swallowed. “Snow isn’t necessarily bad,” he started. “As long as it doesn’t freeze tonight.”
Karna rubbed his stubbly chin. “Freeze? Would that kill the pea plants?” He came from a family of wagon makers, not farmers.
“Maybe not,” Shem said, “but the bigger concern is, it could destroy all the blossoms that are just starting to bloom on the fruit trees.”
“No blossoms, no fruit later,” clarified the sergeant, whose family owned orchards.
Karna sat down hard on a chair. “Is there anything we can do?”
Shem shook his head as he wiped his wet hand on his trousers. He stood up, walked to the large windows that gave them unobstructed views of the forest and Edge, and pressed his face close to the window to see out into the dark night. It had the faint glow that usually accompanied a snowstorm. “We pray.”
“I leave the praying to you and Perrin,” Karna sighed. “You know that, Shem.”
“Now’s as good as time as any to begin, Brillen.”
---
“Perrin, I’ve been thinking . . .” Mahrree started.
“Why?” he mumbled into his pillow.
“Because the mansion is finally quiet again—”
“I meant, why do you start thinking when I’m ready to go to sleep? It’s so late it’s well on its way to tomorrow. In the morning we have to finish cleaning up, then—”
“This will take only a minute.”
“Nothing with you ever takes only a minute,” he murmured.
“What did you say?”
“Just . . . talk already.”
“All right, I told you a couple of hours ago that I didn’t appreciate my mother trying to set me up with men. But I think I would have disliked it even more if she tried to discourage a potential relationship.”
“Your minute’s about up.”
“She danced with him five times.”
“Who?” Perrin mumbled.
“Jaytsy. With Lemuel Thorne.”
Perrin groaned.
“Had my mother actively campaigned against someone, that might have driven me straight to his arms.” She paused.
“I’m listening,” he encouraged.
In triumph, Mahrree smiled to their dark bedroom. “Before we leave for Edge, I think we should invite the Cushes and Thornes over for dinner one night. Your families have been friends for so many years, after all. Let’s see if there’s anything between Jaytsy and that lieutenant. And Versula Thorne seems a nice enough woman,” she added, almost nastily.
His moan was long and low and loud.
She expected that. There was something about Versula—it was obvious—something more than just a crush gone wrong at age eleven. Perrin had always been very quiet about his teenage years, and Mahrree suspected that was because he hadn’t exactly spent them alone.
Not that Mahrree felt any threat from Mrs. Thorne, or worried that Perrin had any lingering feelings for her—the way he gripped her shoulder and pulled her close suggested he was desperate to keep her by his side.
But when a woman purposely—sensuously, almost—drags her finger across a scar she left long ago, and says things like, “I often think about that, and wonder,” a phrase that sounds like something meant to be known by only two people, it’s a pretty good indication she’s hoping he thinks and wonders, too.
And now Mahrree was wondering as well.
When he finally stopped moaning, Perrin said, “Mahrree, Mahrree, Mahrree . . . why now? Do we really have to do this now?”
“Why?” She tried hard to quiet her giggle, but she enjoyed his uneasy squirming. “Was there ever something more between you and Versula Thorne? Something you haven’t told me about yet, that maybe I should know before she comes over for dinner and watches you again? And wonders?”
He moaned longer than any other man in the world ever had.
They weren’t about to get to sleep anytime soon.
---
In the middle of the night, the fort at Edge was in a panic.
“I can’t think of anything else to do, Shem!” Karna said, nearly frantic, as they stood in the falling snow and stared at the disaster.
Shem shook his head slowly, trying to k
eep his own alarm in check. “Neither can I, Brillen. He has to be told, by someone who can relay the message best. But not by one of them. He hates the Administrative messengers.”
“But time and speed are critical right now!” Grandpy Neeks insisted, uncharacteristically wringing his hands. “Using them—as much as I distrust them—is the only option.”
Lieutenant Rigoff nodded and looked at the older men for direction.
“Not necessarily. What we need—” Shem sighed as a plan unfolded in his mind. It was the very best option . . .
. . . and the very worst thing he could think of doing. “What we need is someone who has a special talent.”
“What kind of talent?” Karna demanded.
“Someone good at stealing things.”
“Stealing things?!”
“Like perhaps horses,” Shem intoned wretchedly. “From the messenger service . . .”
---
Fifteen minutes later Shem Zenos and Brillen Karna faced a worried Qualipoe Hili in the stables. When he saw the bleak looks on the men’s faces, he dismounted from his horse and saluted as smartly as he could.
“Sirs? You needed to see me?”
Major Karna looked sidelong at Master Sergeant Zenos, who studied the new private.
“Sit down, Poe,” Shem gestured to a bale of hay.
Poe’s eyes flitted anxiously to Karna.
The major nodded for him to take a seat, so he did, nervously rubbing his palms on his trousers.
“Poe, what I’m about to ask, I ask—not order,” Shem said carefully. “If you turn me down, I understand completely, and there will be no repercussions whatsoever.”
“But if you choose to volunteer,” Karna told him, “we will take all the responsibility—”
“No, Karna—just me,” Shem interrupted. “You’re an officer. If you’re involved, and things go wrong, it’ll be much worse for you than for me.”
“No, Zenos,” Karna turned to him, “that’s not how—”
“What about Miss Robbing?” Zenos cut him off.
Karna swallowed.
“Would she really consider marriage to a man who just lost his commission?”
“Sirs, please,” Poe fidgeted. “What’s all of this about?”
The two men looked back at Poe, and he thought their expressions were surprisingly sympathetic.
“This will seal it,” Zenos said, suddenly unbuttoning his jacket. “Proves it was my idea. Don’t even bother, Brillen,” he said to the major who started to unbutton his own jacket. “No one would ever believe he’s an officer.”
“But they’d believe he’s a master sergeant?”
Poe grew impatient. “Sirs! What’s going on?”
Shem wrenched off his jacket in victory and held it out to Poe Hili. “A temporary promotion, so to speak. And,” he continued in a low tone, “a request of immense importance and of utmost secrecy.”
Poe looked at Major Karna for verification, and he nodded soberly.
“What is it, sirs?”
“Poe,” Shem began hesitantly, as if afraid to bring it up. “I know you’ve successfully stolen horses in the past. What we need to know is, just how successful were you?”
---
The next morning Mahrree woke up sore, exhausted, and surprisingly cold. She and Perrin had been up very late last night; first cleaning up what had to be put away before bed, then Perrin confessing that yes, there had been a relationship off and on with a certain general’s daughter when he was younger, but it was over a long time ago and he doubted there was anything left of it.
Now the morning had come far too early.
She shuddered to think that it was the cleanup day. Granted servant-soldiers would do most of the work, but she’d be expected to take notes on everything to remember “For next year,” as she had repeatedly heard from her mother-in-law.
She shivered under the blankets, wondered why for a moment, and snuggled closer to her husband. The room seemed lighter than it should be for this hour, and she peered open her eyes to see a strange brightness out the window.
She opened her eyes fully, sat up for a better look, and gasped.
It hit her then that not once since they’d come to Idumea had she ever looked to check the color of the sky.
She always did in Edge. Sometimes it was to remind herself of the reality of its color, and to prove to herself, once again, that despite the fact that everyone in the world had been conditioned to believe the sky was blue no matter what, it really wasn’t. She wouldn’t ignore the fantastic colors of the sunrise and sunset or the intensity of the star-filled sky with the two moons that slowly traversed it. But she also checked the sky each day to see when a storm might be approaching, analyzing the shapes of the clouds that drifted in from the north and east.
This storm had caught her completely unawares, and that realization tightened her chest.
Were there signs? Yes, yesterday had been unseasonably warm, with a northeasterly breeze—
She closed her eyes and groaned. Had she looked to the sky, just once, she would’ve noticed the signs. But she was like everyone else in Idumea, rushing around here and there, constantly inspecting this and that, but never looking up.
It was as if there was a drum in the heart of the city, pounding the same rhythm over and over again in a quietly hypnotic way: diSTRACTion, diSTRACTion, diSTRACTion. And she had fallen under its effect in record time.
“My darling wife, what have you done with the blankets?” Perrin mumbled. “It’s cold in here.”
“It’s cold because . . . because it’s snowing!” Mahrree said, not believing the words that came out of her mouth.
“What?”
“Get up and look for yourself!” She wanted confirmation that all of this wasn’t a just a weird dream.
“It doesn’t snow this late in the year around here,” Perrin murmured into his pillow. “Besides, last night was so warm and breezy—”
“Like before a snowstorm?” Mahrree gestured to the window.
With an exhausted groan, Perrin pushed himself up to prove her wrong. Instead, his mouth fell open. “If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it! Good thing The Dinner wasn’t today, instead of yesterday,” he said with a relieved smile.
Then it vanished.
“Oh no. Mahrree, whatever kind of weather we have in Idumea tends to be much worse in the north.”
Edge had been the furthest thing from her mind, she realized with a new pang of guilt. Now it was right in front of her.
“The plantings!” she breathed. “Edge’s crops! The fruit blossoms! Oh, Perrin, if everything freezes now—”
He didn’t feel the need to put it mildly. “Disaster.”
They scrambled out of bed and rushed to the window for a clearer view. At least three inches of heavy wet snow had fallen, and more was coming down. The trees, with their new leaves, caught and held the snow expertly, weighing down the branches. Many smaller ones had already snapped and the garden was littered with broken limbs.
Stunned, Perrin and Mahrree sat on the bed and stared.
“It might not freeze,” said Perrin, trying the new approach of optimism. “It might just stay warm enough, and the snow will be a good source of water.”
Mahrree closed her eyes. “How much do you think Edge will get, if we have so much already here?”
Perrin shook his head. “All we can do is wait and see. And pray.”
“The fort will tell us, right? How bad it gets?”
“They better. In the meantime, I’m going to the garrison to see about those reserves. Dr. Brisack’s little experiment is just going to have to wait for another calamity. We’re not going to be needing gold—we need food! ”
“What are you going to do?” she asked as he started to put on his regular uniform, placed precisely on a chair next to the bed where it was always waiting.
“Go through the approved channels, as much as possible. I’ll work up some s
olid numbers first. We’re going to need several Administrators’ approval to release the reserves, but I can’t imagine how anyone would say no considering the mess that we may be facing.”
“How much?” Mahrree asked, pulling her knees up to her chest and shivering.
“I think we’ll need 12 wagonfuls. Less than 10% of their reserves,” he said as he finished buttoning his jacket. “And I’m going to get it.”
“Any excuse to get out of the mansion this morning.”
“Yep!”
---
Later that morning Mahrree stood at the window in the vast eating room dully sorting forks. Some belonged to the mansion, some to Mrs. Cush, and some to the garrison. She saw only half of what she was doing, because most of the time she watched out the thin clear glass for the snow to stop. She couldn’t help but remember Perrin’s assessment: Edge usually got twice as much as Idumea.
Maybe, for once, that wouldn’t be the case—
“That Peto—for someone so scrawny, he’s actually a good worker,” Joriana commented as she bustled into the room with a small crate of clean knives, next to be sorted. “He loaded nearly as many chairs as the soldiers. I told him he could ride to the garrison and help unload them. Thought he might like seeing the place. Someone will bring him back by midday meal. I can always trust the soldiers.”
“That’s fine,” Mahrree said absently. She stared down at a fork to identify its markings, but really didn’t see it.
Joriana put a motherly arm around her. “I’m worried too,” she confided. “This is a very odd storm. But Mahrree, there’s nothing you could’ve done about it even if you were in Edge. And when you go back at the end of next week, we can pack the carriage full of all kinds of supplies.”
“Thank you, Mother Shin,” Mahrree said dimly. “I guess I feel guilty. Here I am, enjoying myself, while at home—”
But Joriana spun her around so fast that Mahrree lost the fork somewhere under the table. “You’re enjoying yourself?” Joriana squealed.
“Well yes, of course I am—” But again Mahrree couldn’t complete her sentence because she found her face muffled into her mother-in-law’s shoulder. Joriana squeezed her so hard she nearly burst the seams on Mahrree’s dress—the fourth one Joriana had bought her.
“Oh, I so wanted you to have a good time! Perrin was quite the crowd pleaser last night, wasn’t he? Oh, but you—you were so quiet, and I was worried, but I was watching you and saw that you were smiling occasionally, and I just wanted everything to be perfect,” she said in a rush. She finally released Mahrree who tried not to gasp for breath too obviously.
“It was . . . it was perfect, Mother Shin. I don’t know how you brought everything together, or how it could have been more . . . perfect.”
Joriana clasped her hands and beamed. “Idumea’s not so bad, now is it? You must come back next year, and I’ll give you more say in what goes on. We could try something else besides dancing, you know. And then, in two years—”
Mahrree held up her hand to stop the gush that she feared would overwhelm her. “Let’s not talk about in two years, please, all right?”
Joriana sighed and nodded. “I know. You’re right. One year at a time.” Then, in a conspiring giggle, she said, “You will be back next year, won’t you?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking that of your son?”
Joriana winked at her. “I know where the real influence is. My son’s been so completely smitten with you from the beginning. From that first letter he sent home where he wrote, ‘I’ve met an interesting woman,’ I knew you had him firmly under your control.”
From the hall leading to the kitchen they heard Kindiri’s voice say softly, “Ahh . . . that is so sweet!”
Joriana raised an admonishing eyebrow at her eavesdropping cook, who scampered quickly away.
But Mahrree’s mouth hung open in surprise. “Really? I wished I’d known I had him firmly under control.”
The women chuckled.
“Please, Mahrree,” Joriana gripped her arm and spoke so quietly that the maids in the other hall couldn’t listen in either. “Perrin could do such great things here; things that could influence the entire world.”
“I know,” Mahrree had to admit. “I didn’t realize until last night just how much influence he actually has.”
“Please help him realize his duty lies here, in Idumea. It’s not about mansions, or dinners, or looking handsome in brass buttons—which he did, didn’t he? I may have to have a word with Mrs. Cush about her daughter eyeing my son again—”
Mahrree rolled her hand at Joriana encouragingly.
“Oh, right, right—as I was saying, it’s not about any of that showy stuff. It’s about someone as smart and thoughtful and devoted as him doing the best work he can where the whole world can benefit. Surely you can see that Edge is just too small a stage for a man of his stature.”
That was the exact sentiment she felt last night, but didn’t dare put into words. Because once you put it into words, you’ve defined it, and then you have to do something with it.
Reluctantly, she nodded to Joriana.
“Thank you!” she squealed and hugged her again. “We both have time to work on him—together. Now, the spoons,” she plowed cheerily along, since the world was going her way again. “Where are the spoons? I was sure I had . . . left them in the kitchen!” She bustled away.
Mahrree retrieved the fork from under the table, wiped it on a clean cloth, and dropped it unceremoniously on the Cush pile in front of her. Then she moved it to the garrison pile and shoved away a nagging thought that was far too selfish for her to indulge right now, especially since greater worries might be coming to her from the north. But still the little thought niggled at her.
Edge wasn’t the only thing too small for such man as him.
---
Perrin was debating with himself again. His usually quick gait had slowed considerably, giving him time to think during the soggy two mile walk from the garrison back to the mansion.
“There’s a difference between breaking the law and doing something wrong,” he mused as he kicked the slush on the ground. “Not all laws are good, logical, or even correct. Right?”
No one countered him, so he continued to mumble to himself.
“The law that we couldn’t teach our children at home—that was made so that the Administrators could keep their control over the next generation. It was in the best interest of themselves.”
Saying the words out loud helped soften the pounding of his heart.
“No debating. Again, for control. If no one knows how to question the Administrators, then they continue doing whatever they want.”
His chest burned with confirmation.
“Limiting women to birthing only two children. Not only is that a damaging law, it’s contrary to the Creator’s will.”
He nodded, feeling braver for saying the words, even though they were only muttered.
“Likewise, there are acts which are contrary to the will of the Creator which are not against the law. There’s no law against unmarried persons engaging in behavior that the Creator says should be expressed only in marriage. The laws of the world know nothing of the Creator. They’re arbitrary, indulgent, and frequently conflict with His will.”
He continued to trudge. “The Creator’s laws are different—higher.”
A minute later he whispered, “So to who do I owe my allegiance? To the Administrators or to the Creator?”
Perrin sighed heavily and stopped under a tree that creaked ominously above his head as the weight of the snow bent its boughs.
“The answer’s clear,” he announced quietly. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
He continued to saunter, lost in thought and not noticing those who passed him, or saluted, or rode by in coaches or horses, or even paused to watch the colonel so fully absorbed in his own private musings that he didn’t notice when he stepped right in front of a wagonload of timbers that had
to stop suddenly to avoid running him over.
“I always liked building,” he said to himself, not hearing the angry shouts behind him from the wagon driver. “And there’s plenty to rebuild in Edge right now. I also like the idea of a herd of cattle nearby. Maybe I just like the idea that there’s always a steak waiting outside. Have to find a way to keep them from running from me, though. Shem could teach me a few things. Maybe cattle would like Peto . . . or Father.”
His pace picked up again once he reached the mansion district. He knew what he had to do, and nothing was going to stop him. Not Administrators’ provisions, not unnecessary delays—nothing.
“We’ll just live with the consequences,” he decided. “It’s the Creator’s opinion of me that’s important; nothing else. I’ll do His will, and in turn He will—” Perrin hesitated. “I guess He’ll find me something else to do. Mahrree will agree. It was a good run. Father’s getting on in years, too, and . . .”
He looked up at the sky—the first time he’d done so since they came to Idumea—and evaluated its colors. The snow had stopped and the light gray clouds were beginning to dissipate, revealing gaps of blue. Soon the sun would be blazing through, filling the world with blinding brightness. Already the air was warming, but Perrin’s chest burned hot with understanding.
He had a duty to do.
---
Mahrree could hardly concentrate as she took notes and supervised the soldiers bringing the carpets back into the Great Hall. She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the windows where she watched the massive snowflakes lazily falling until she heard, “Mrs. Shin?”
The timid whisper turned her around from her useless vigil. “Kindiri?”
The young woman squirmed before she said, “It’s just that . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overhear your conversation with Mrs. Shin . . . Well, that’s not entirely true. I was kind of listening . . . makes the job more interesting, you know?”
At least she blushed at that, Mahrree thought.
“It’s just that . . . he really does look at you that way,” Kindiri said, her brown eyes taking on a dreamy quality. “The way I wished Tace would look at me.”
“Uh,” Mahrree knew she’d regret getting into this conversation, but— “who’s Tace?”
Kindiri blinked back into reality. “Lieutenant Riplak!” she giggled as if that was the silliest question she’d ever heard.
“Oh, of course,” Mahrree tried to drift away, but found herself entangled in Kindiri’s chatter.
“It’s just that . . . I don’t know how to get him to look at me like that.”
Mahrree sighed. If she could get the it’s-just-that girl to her point more quickly, she’d get out of this faster. “And ‘look like that’ means . . .?”
“Oh, he looks at me hungrily,” she sniggered, and Mahrree regretted that she ever let Jaytsy go anywhere with her alone, “but I want him to . . . to . . . love me. Like the colonel loves you.” Genuine pain filled her eyes.
Mahrree pressed her lips together in empathy. “Kindiri, you can’t force love. He has to decide all by himself to love you.”
Kindiri looked down at the pressed tablecloths she was carrying. “So how do I make him decide?”
“You can’t.”
“It’s just that . . .” Kindiri looked up again, hopeful. “Last night he said that he was making plans. Big plans. He wants to do something more than just be the general’s watchdog, no offense meant—”
“Oh, none taken. The boy must be bored out of his mind by now, plodding around the mansion after a weary old man.”
Kindiri nodded. “And I asked him, ‘Do I get to be part of those plans?’ And you know how he responded?”
“I honestly don’t know, Kindiri.”
“Well, he just rolled over and ignored me!”
Mahrree blinked.
Then blinked again.
She had a horrible feeling this conversation didn’t happen at The Dinner. Or the dance.
“Uh, Kindiri? Exactly where did your discussion take place?”
She blushed again. “My room.”
“Uh-huh. And how often has he been to your room?”
Kindiri now looked more proud than ashamed. “Come on, Mrs. Shin—you’re married to a handsome officer. You know how these things go.”
Up until that moment Mahrree had thought of Kindiri as just another nice albeit dim-witted young woman, someone who could have been her student years ago. Until she said how these things go. There was something grubby about her tone, and now about her.
Mahrree wanted to scrub her ears out. “Actually, I don’t know how these things go.”
Kindiri rolled her eyes, and there was something ugly about that, too. “Surely that young officer who fell under your influence made his way to your bedroom a few times?”
“He did,” Mahrree said simply.
Kindiri waggled her eyebrows.
“—with his second in command right behind him, to make us a new bed, which we did not share until after our wedding.”
Another eye-roll. “Mrs. Shin, the army, the city, it’s all changing. Everything’s progressing—”
Now Mahrree felt like rolling her eyes. Mal’s progress speech had been manipulated for a couple of decades now, usually to explain why something sweet and good was about to be thrown out for something controlling or depraved. Slap a happy label on it, such as progress, and everyone buys into the nonsense.
“That’s all different now—”
“Hmm,” Mahrree mulled it over. “As far as I know, that’s still done the same way it’s always been done. But perhaps I should ask the Administrator of Science if something new has popped up.”
She’d meant to lighten the mood that was growing dark, but Kindiri just looked at her blankly. “Nooo,” she said slowly. “I’m pretty sure that when a man—”
“Anyway,” said Mahrree loudly, trying to throw Kindiri off of whatever thought was sticking in her doughy head. “I think I know what you meant. But Kindiri, men have always been that way. You’re not the first girl to ever sneak a man to her bedroom. Or to sneak into his.” Perrin had affirmed her suspicion of that kind of behavior in last night’s late discussion. She learned a wide variety of definitions for what it means to be a young officer in Idumea.
She also appreciated that he fled Idumea for a posting in Vines the day after he graduated.
Kindiri turned red under Mahrree’s studied glare.
“It’s not progressive, Kindiri, and it’s certainly not new. What the two of you have isn’t special. It’s just what dogs do in the alley.”
Kindiri swallowed. “It’s not like that, Mrs. Shin.”
“It is if he won’t marry you.”
Her chin began to tremble, and Mahrree felt badly for putting it so bluntly. But Kindiri wasn’t going to hear or believe anything less than the ugly truth.
“Kindiri, no man treats a woman he truly loves as a common sow.”
Yes, Mahrree knew what that phrase meant. It certainly wasn’t uttered in polite conversations in Edge, where there were no “common sows” that she knew of. But Idumea—through its more explicit performances that it sent to Edge’s amphitheater—had introduced that idea to the innocence of Edge, and to the tittering of her teenage boys who frequently ruminated about the impossibilities they saw, hoping against irrational hope they’d run into such a senseless and willing female.
And Mahrree, who always eavesdropped hoping for juicy details about thefts, instead heard titillating details about things she never wanted to know. But maybe all of those repugnant discussions were helpful at times like this. After all, she’d already concluded that when one was in Idumea, one should shock like Idumeans.
Mahrree ignored the young cook’s stunned expression at her new label and continued, “Surely you must know the Shins don’t approve of any of that.”
Kindiri recovered from her shock and firmed her stance. “Well, it’s none of their business!” she proclaimed, as if some
one had once told her that excuse and she just now remembered it.
“Oh, yes it is. This is their house. They give you a generous wage and put you up in a bedroom that’s even larger than what I have in Edge. They deserve some respect back, Kindiri. And they deserve to know what’s going on upstairs when they think a certain lieutenant is elsewhere.”
“He’s never up there until he’s secured the house, Mrs. Shin,” Kindiri insisted.
Mahrree’s eyes widened. “He’s up there when he’s on duty?”
Kindiri looked around. “Shh! Please! He’d get so angry if he knew I told anyone.”
But Mahrree didn’t care. “Oh, if he thinks he can get paid for being upstairs—”
Kindiri grabbed her arm and dragged an enraged Mahrree to the privacy of a closet around the corner. “Please, Mrs. Shin! I didn’t mean to say anything—”
“If you have any respect for the High General and his wife, you WILL put an end to this!” Mahrree insisted.
Kindiri nodded, panicked. “He never came upstairs when the general was missing or ailing—I promise. We were both worried about him and Mrs. Shin. The best we could hope for was five minutes alone in the second pantry.”
Mahrree rubbed the sides of her head. If ever she became the mistress of this mansion, all the servants would be old and ugly. “Kindiri, if you have any respect for yourself, lock your bedroom door!” Then, realizing who she was talking to, she added, “With him on the outside of it.”
“All right! All right, just . . . don’t tell the Shins. Please? He’ll never be upstairs again.”
Mahrree knew the look on her face. It was the same trapped look her students had when they were backed up against a wall and there was only one way out, only one solution to the situation: lie.
Kindiri was lying right now, but hoped that Mahrree would believe she’d really give poor old Tace and his fondness for sweet rolls and cucumbers a swift goodbye.
But she wasn’t mistress of this mansion, fortunately. Someone else far more threatening was. She’d have a little chat later with her mother-in-law . . . and then maybe her father-in-law.
She had to keep her lips from twitching into a wicked grin at the thought of the High General gesturing with just one intimidating index finger that a certain young lieutenant and a certain old general were going out to the stables for a talk.
Instead, Mahrree pointed at Kindiri. “I’m putting a lot of trust you in, Kindiri. Don’t disappoint me. And don’t disappoint yourself.”
Kindiri’s shoulders sagged in relief, although she didn’t seem to really understand what Mahrree was saying. She nodded quickly and hurried away to the back stairs. Mahrree chose to believe she was putting away the tablecloths in the linen closet up there.
She walked back to the Great Hall to supervise the unrolling of the carpets again, and stopped abruptly.
It had finally ceased snowing, and the sun broke out, dazzling everything in eye-squinting light.
That meant it must have stopped snowing in Edge, too, a few hours ago.
---
Perrin returned for midday meal about fifteen minutes later, blinking hard as he came in the back door that opened to the eating room.
“A total of six inches of heavy wetness. I’m guessing twice as much in Edge. But the food reserves are plentiful at the garrison.” He sat wearily on a chair at the table where the family had gathered.
His father, already eating last night’s leftovers for midday meal, didn’t even look up. “Don’t worry, son. I’m sure Edge’ll be all right.”
Perrin shook his head and looked at Mahrree. “I think we need to be going home soon. I can’t get Edge out of my mind.”
Mahrree sighed and nodded back. That was all she could think as soon as the snow stopped: we can go home now.
“No!” Joriana cried. “You promised to stay another week. Please, there’s still so much more to see and do.”
“Duty first, Mother, remember?” Perrin said sharply. “My duty is to Edge first, my family second. I’m sorry. Father’s well, and we’ve had our fun, as it were.”
“Perrin,” Relf said gently, “wait for the news, then make your decision.”
“I’ve already decided. Father, I want twelve large wagons of the reserves. I already have tentative approval from Giyak, and I spoke to the major over the stables. He agreed that they could supply me with enough horses, and the wagons would be available during the next few weeks. I did a full survey of the reserves and worked out just how much we need.” He handed his father a piece of paper with columns of numbers. “We’ll take the grain, there’s a huge amount of that. We can live on bread for a few weeks. Some of the dried venison would be helpful, too. Doesn’t seem to be many here who appreciate that, but people in Edge would.”
“And something like dried apples and carrots, Perrin, for variety,” Mahrree suggested. “Those weigh less than the grain, so it might be easier to transport.”
Perrin nodded. “Already included. That will get us by.”
“It’s not that easy, son,” Relf said heavily. “I spoke with the Administrator of Taxation yesterday at The Dinner. He stayed only long enough to tell me taking any of the reserves is unthinkable.”
“Why?” Perrin demanded. “Edge pays part of its taxes in goods. Some of that is theirs. I just want it returned. I’m asking for only a fraction of the reserves. No one will miss it. There’s no need here, only in Edge.”
The general rubbed his forehead. “I understand that, and I agree. But the law is set. That reserve is for no one else but the Administrators, the army, and their families. And the laws take time to change.”
“So I’m in the army, and I take it for my family. And,” he started to smile, “We’re all family. The Writings say so.” He held out his hands in triumph.
Relf wasn’t buying that. “Do you want to guess how many of the Administrators read The Writings? Or how many in the army? Besides you, me, and Zenos, I think no one else. Perrin, we may have a battle on our hands.”
“Surely not!” Mahrree said. “Dr. Brisack’s a reasonable man. Let’s start with him. I’ll hold our parenting information hostage until he agrees to help. And the Administrator of Security has agreed? Once we have those two, the other three might come along more easily.”
“We have to try,” Perrin agreed. “After I eat I’ll go see Dr. Brisack.”
Chapter 18 ~ “But the people of Edge are beginning to panic, sir.”