by Trish Mercer
Mahrree stepped out of the large doors of the university and looked up and down the road for her ride. Some grandson or another would be by with the wagon to take her home. They’d sit together in uneasy silence because Mahrree wouldn’t give more than a four-word response to anything her grandchildren said to her. It was just safer that way. She kept to her wing of the house every afternoon after her university courses, and every evening when she wasn’t tending the littlest ones. At dinner, she let everyone else carry on conversations, and she merely smiled or nodded in agreement, rarely saying anything more than, “Please pass the carrots.”
Grandchildren came frequently to her, but she gently nudged them all away. Eventually, they stopped coming to her door, and Mahrree sighed each night in relief that she hadn’t said the wrong thing to anyone that day, that in the morning every mother and father would still have all their children with them. She kept them all safely at an arm’s distance, as if she were infectious and they were far too vulnerable.
Mahrree wrapped her thick cloak around her tighter. While the sun was out, the day was cold, but not unbearable. If she started walking along the wet cobblestone road, she’d warm up quite nicely.
But for some reason, none of her family thought she was capable of walking the three-and-a-half miles home anymore. They all tried annoyingly to keep her company, despite her turning them away. She said barely enough that no one thought she was depressed or withdrawn, and she also made sure that nothing she ever said could be misconstrued as critical.
Besides, being alone wasn’t that bad. She spent quiet hours in her wing of the house grading papers, then reading the many, many books written by Salemites that she’d never touched before. When she first came to Salem, she’d picked up a novel or two, but found these sweet, tender people wrote disappointingly safe stories, coated with just a bit too much syrup for Mahrree’s tastes.
But now it was time that she better understood these Salemites, of whom she was supposedly one. It was time to shelve her too frequently acerbic ways and find softer, more honeyed ones. But she had to admit to herself that she’d never be as sweet and soft as Calla or Lilla.
Restless, but not impatient, Mahrree peered down the lane, looking for familiar Clarks among the many wagons and sleighs that trotted by. She’d just finished a day of lectures, but she didn’t know why she bothered. She was losing her edge there, too, she could feel it. The students would be better off just reading her book each class. It wasn’t as if she added anything new. The university kept her as director out of misguided pity. Who would dare dismiss General Shin’s widow?
General Shin’s widow.
What a horrible title—
A wagon rolled up in front of her and stopped, disrupting her private musings. She looked up at the driver, blinked in surprise, and grinned. “Honri? Finally back from the world?”
The spry seventy-five-year-old hopped down easily and jogged over to her.
“I am, and I’m tardy, I know. Mahrree, may I have the pleasure of bringing you home? One of your grandsons was hitching up, but I was out running errands anyway and told him I could retrieve you.” Honri held out his hand and helped her up onto the wagon bench.
“Why, I haven’t seen you for over a year! As long as I’m not putting you out of your way,” Mahrree said as he climbed up next to her.
“Not at all,” he grinned as he slapped the horses into a walk. “I was looking for you anyway.”
“Thank you, but all of this is unnecessary,” she sighed. “No one thinks I’m capable of doing anything on my own anymore. I can certainly walk.”
“They’re just worried about you, Mahrree. And I don’t blame them. You mean a great deal to this community, and we all just want to make sure you’re provided for.”
Mahrree scoffed. “If I were any more ‘provided for’ I could start my own kingdom.”
Honri laughed. “Well, Queen Mahrree, I have a gift for you I thought you might enjoy. Behind you there, in the sack.”
She twisted and pulled up a canvas sack.
“I brought it back with me when I returned from Edge a few weeks ago. I’ve just been neglectful in delivering it.”
Mahrree pulled out a large book. “History of the World?”
“The latest one to hit the schools in the world. I thought you might get a kick out of it.”
She removed her gloves and thumbed through the pages. “Oh, this will be most entertaining. Anything about us?”
“An entire chapter,” Honri said. “I’m warning you now—Perrin comes off as the greatest hero in the world, but you and my brother-in-law? Well, let’s just say I don’t believe a word of it. Never have.”
“And I thank you, Honri,” Mahrree said formally, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Maybe I’ll just skim that part.”
“There were a lot of names from Edge in the later chapters. Thought you might recognize a few, be interested in what’s been happening with them.”
Mahrree held the book to her chest. “Yes, I would,” she whispered. “I haven’t thanked you yet for the list of names you copied off at the burial grounds in Edge. Shem brought me a copy. I recognized many of them.”
“You’re welcome,” Honri said quietly. “There was sweet calmness in the area of your parents and the Densals, as if they were bidding me welcome. One of the few peaceful places left in the world.”
Mahrree could only nod.
He cleared his throat gruffly. “And I want to apologize for . . .” He hesitated. “I wanted to come by earlier to see you, tell you how sorry I am about Perrin, but I just didn’t feel like I could face you yet.”
Mahrree turned to him. “Face me? Why?”
“I failed,” he breathed out, still not directly addressing her. “I failed to find Young Pere, and our time was running out before the snows came. I tried for two-and-a-half-moons but didn’t see anyone who resembled him in Edge or Mountseen. If I were younger, not so worried about the depth of the snow in the mountains . . . Or maybe if we had a scout in the fort again, but joining the army now isn’t what it was a generation ago . . . Shem’s the one who forced me home until Planting Season, otherwise—”
Mahrree patted his arm. “Please don’t take any of this on yourself. What Young Pere did, he did by himself. I’m just glad you got out safely, and I appreciate your efforts. Woodson told me you took his scouts to every corner you could think of. You should feel no blame or regret.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “And neither, Mahrree, should you.”
She exhaled. “It’s different for me. He came to me, and I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t reach him . . . I’ve lost my touch.”
Honri elbowed her as if they were fifteen. “Not at all, Mahrree. Not one bit.”
“So you put off seeing me because you thought I’d be angry with you about Young Pere?”
Honri shrugged with some embarrassment.
She elbowed him back. “Silly man. Nan would say the same thing, I’m sure.”
He smiled. “I’m sure she would.”
Mahrree sighed. “How did you bear it, Honri? Losing her?”
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know,” he said softly. “It’s been over four years, but sometimes it feels like only four minutes. The emptiness never goes away. But if it did, I think I would feel even worse. At least the hole in my heart reminds me of how well she filled it. How well she’ll fill it again someday when I’m in Paradise with her.”
“Finally,” Mahrree breathed, “someone who understands.”
“I do, Mahrree,” Honri assured her. “You don’t like the Widows’ Club?”
She rolled her eyes. “Why do I want to hang around a bunch of old women without husbands?”
Honri chuckled. “You could hang around with me,” he hinted.
“Yes, please! You’re not nearly as dull and pink,” Mahrree declared. “I declare, every widow suddenly thinks she should be wearing pink. What’s that about?”
“I don’t know,” Honri laughed.
“Did you know she was the one who gave me permission to run away to the world?” Honri said, sidestepping the question. Mahrree noticed that his time in the world had taught him to become cagey, in a polite way. “She’d been ill for so long, and near the end she said, ‘When I’m gone, I want you to have fun. Have an adventure.’ I asked her what she meant by that, and she told me to be like Rector Yung.”
Mahrree smiled at that. “He ran away after his wife died and came to Edge.”
“Nan said he told her once that was the most fun he’d ever had, serving in Edge. My children and grandchildren were shocked when, less than a year after we buried Nan, I finished Woodson’s training and headed down to the world as an old rector.”
“So was it fun?”
Honri pondered that. “In only the twisted ways being in the world can be fun. I wouldn’t call it fun, but it was fulfilling,” he told her. “Gave me something to do , besides missing her.”
“I wish they’d let me run away,” Mahrree mumbled. “But I’ve got nowhere to run to.”
“I’m realizing it’s a matter of filling in holes,” Honri said. “The holes Nan left, and that Perrin left—nothing will perfectly fit those, but pack enough stuff in, and they’re less gaping, less noticeable.”
Mahrree nodded. “I’ve been trying to do that. Good, old friends help,” she elbowed him again.
“Yes. Yes, they do.”
They pulled up to her house, and Mahrree realized she did want someone to talk to, for once. Someone not as kind and gentle and deferring, but a bit worldlier and maybe even a touch caustic.
She held up the book. “How about you come in and show me which chapters I should skim?”
“With pleasure!”
After Honri secured his team in the barn, she led him into the house and over to her wing, where she sat down on the sofa, and he took Perrin’s chair.
Her heart leaped and flopped to see a mature and distinguished man sitting there again, with short gray hair and hazel eyes and shoulders nearly as broad as Perrin’s, but, feeling strange about all of that, she opened the history book.
“So, what ridiculousness do we have now?”
Honri got up and joined her on the sofa. Again her heart went through some strange motions as he made himself comfortable next to her on the furniture which was barely wide enough for two.
“Start with this chapter, right here. ‘The Era of Thorne’.”
“Oh, save me now,” Mahrree said dramatically, and Honri chuckled.
After a moment of skimming, she slammed the book shut. “I just can’t bear this today,” she chuckled sadly. “My head’s too . . .”
“I understand,” Honri said.
“Really? Can you explain it to me?”
He collected his thoughts and came up with, “It’s unfair that the likes of Thorne still get to live, while Nan and Perrin don’t.”
“Hmm,” she said, nodding slowly. “Exactly. Sometimes, Honri, sometimes I miss him so much,” she whispered.
“I miss him too, Mahrree. He was another brother-in-law to me.”
When she was silent, he gently nudged her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“Oh, no. Not at all. You bring up good ones. Sometimes I get lost wandering through them.”
“Tell me some.”
She glanced at him. “Surely you don’t want to sit here listening to me going on about him.”
He surprised her by smiling. “Of course I do. Don’t you remember when you came over with Perrin after Nan died, and sat reminiscing with me about her?”
Mahrree looked down at her hands, still clutching the book. For some reason she felt both uncomfortable and at ease with Honri. “I do. It was . . . good.”
“It was,” he said, prodding her again. “Tell me what you miss most of all—Wait. Don’t. Because I know what I miss most of all about Nan, and that’s not really something to share with others.”
Mahrree’s laugh startled her, but not Honri, who blushed.
“We’d argue,” she said to him, raising her eyebrows suggestively, then blushed herself.
Honri chuckled. “Understood. We’d go discuss something. Took our children years to figure that out.”
They laughed together, and Mahrree felt, for the first time in moons, something light in her heart.
“Something I can share,” she told him, when they stopped chuckling, “is something that I think you could understand, having been in the world. In Snowing Season, when we have all the different activities each night at the rectories, Perrin and I would go and be . . . critics.”
“Critics?”
“Not very Salem-like, I know, and it was mostly on art nights.”
Honri eyed her. “I remember a few years ago you and Perrin came to our rectory’s art night, but neither of you participated. Why?”
“Because neither of us has an artful bone in our bodies! Well, Perrin could draw little trees on maps, but that was about it. So, instead of trying to draw with the artists, or making clay pots, or chiseling stone, we’d observe. In a worldly way, I guess you could say.”
Honri put on a thoughtful face. “With comments that only the two of you would share, right?”
“Right.”
“Comments that would stun your average Salemite?”
“Right again,” she admitted with a guilty giggle.
He smiled. “Have you tried going without him?”
“Once,” she admitted. “It didn’t go well. I was with my granddaughter Banu—she forced me to go—and I made the mistake of whispering to her about the art display one man called ‘My Impressions.’ I was more impressed that he dipped his dog’s tail in paint and let him wag it at the canvas.”
Honri chuckled. “Yes, those impressionists don’t make much sense to me, either. So what was the problem?”
“Banu said to me, ‘Muggah! How rude. Don’t say such things.’ My granddaughter, chastising me!”
Again Honri laughed. “Well I can see how not going with someone who has the same sensibilities can take away from the evening. I, for one, have never gone back to the new recipe tasting evenings. Nan used to make the best dishes, and no one could compare. I went to one after she died, and tasting other people’s creations, without her by my side to whisper, ‘That could benefit with more red pepper,’ was just too much to endure.”
“So you get it,” Mahrree sighed in relief to hear that she wasn’t the only person in Salem to occasionally share a snide remark, or miss the company of someone who understood it.
“I do,” Honri assured her. “You should go to more of those. I’d go with you, and I won’t chastise you for a stray comment here or there. I’ve got a bit of worldliness I still need to shed.”
Mahrree paused before saying, “I don’t know how to go without him.” But what she really meant was, I’m don’t know how to go out with another man. Wouldn’t that be a betrayal—
“You know,” Honri said, filling the awkward silence that was growing, “Perrin was the one to get me heading south after Nan died.”
She twisted to see him better. “He was?”
“He came to visit me about six weeks after she passed.” He paused to clear his throat. “Another way in which I feel like a terrible friend to you. I’ve waited far longer than that to come visit you.”
She patted him on the leg. “Don’t. Don’t feel bad. Now’s when I need a friend. Your timing is perfect.”
He smiled, his tanned skin crinkling around his blue-green eyes making them almost seem happy. “Thank you.”
“Tell me about Perrin’s visit. I need a new story about him.”
“You don’t know that he visited me? Well, now—I do get to give you a gift, far better than that history book. I get to give you a new memory!”
It was tradition in Salem that after someone died, everyone who had any interaction with that person wrote up all th
eir memories. The rector’s wife would compile them and present them to the grieving family: pages and pages of new stories, of new memories. And for the time, it was if they were there again, doing new things.
Mahrree had the Memory Book of Perrin, compiled by one of Peto’s counselor’s wives, to take the burden off of Lilla. It was one of the largest books they’d ever compiled, she was told. Mahrree had every story memorized.
But here was one more. Another new moment of Perrin.
“Although I’d started the training to be a rector scout,” Honri related, “I started having second thoughts, worried that I wasn’t up to the challenge. I guess Shem had been talking to Perrin, telling him about my doubts. Perrin came over, sat with me, let me ramble on and on about how much I missed Nan, then he said to me, ‘So why aren’t you honoring her last wish? Why aren’t you going on that adventure to the world?’ We married on the younger side, you know,” he said to Mahrree. “She was barely eighteen, and I was just nineteen. I had been planning on joining one of those expeditions to the north, which was gone for nearly two years exploring glaciers, when I first met Nan. Oh, I was smitten. I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving her for so long, so we married instead of me going on the expedition.
“Not that I ever regretted it, mind you,” he added earnestly, “but maybe I went to trade Salem’s goods with the dissenter colonies so often because a part of me still longed to go out.
“Perrin assured me I was up to the task of going into the world, and said that of all the men he knew in Salem, I was the most like him in ability and in temperament, next to Shem. Well, with such a glowing recommendation, how could I not accept the call to be a rector in the world? He gave me the push I needed, and the last three years have been absolutely wonderful in harrowing, frustrating, difficult, and amazing ways. And I told him that, on a visit home last year. He said then that he almost envied me, and that if you passed away, and if Shem would have let him, he would have gone on as well.”
Mahrree soaked in Honri’s words, imaging Perrin and him chatting, and feeling the tiniest bit jealous.
“Thank you,” she said eventually. “Today, he lives again.”
“He does, still, just elsewhere.”
Then Mahrree said, “He really would have left after I died?”
“Well, not that he could have,” Honri said. “He was Salem’s general and had a duty here. Nor would Shem have ever let him go south again, but it was the idea, Mahrree. And I was hoping you’d pick up on that.”
“What idea?”
“That Perrin would have gone forward. That I went forward, because he pushed me to. That you, Mahrree, can go forward.”
She could only sigh.
“Mahrree, when you left Edge, how long did you hold on to the doorknob?”
“What?” she said, startled by the turn in conversation.
“When you closed the door on your house for the last time, how long did you hold on to that knob?”
“Perrin closed the door, and maybe for a few seconds.”
“Why did he finally let go?”
Mahrree knew where Honri was going with this. “Because there was nothing left for us there anymore. Our lives were here.”
“That’s right. Do you still remember that house?”
“Every last stone and plank.”
“Leaving it doesn’t mean forgetting it. It’s still yours, and always will be. I have something else to tell you: whenever I was in Edge, I’d visit the remains of your house.”
“Oh dear. How miserable. Why?”
“Because it’s not miserable,” he smiled, and Mahrree could see why Nan had fallen so deeply for him. Not only was he insightful, generous of heart, and thoughtful, those dimples were rather charming. “Because your house, or what’s left of it, is a special place. Just the stone foundation and about three feet high of rock walls remain, but the garden—oh, Mahrree! The garden you planted!”
She chanced a smile. “Still wildflowers?”
“And how! It still baffles me that no one else realizes those flowers don’t grow anywhere else but in the vicinity of your old home. Where did Deck’s mother get those seeds, anyway?”
Mahrree chuckled. “Still a great family mystery! Apparently she’d had them for years, and Jaytsy found them in a trunk after she married Deck. She gave them to me to plant.”
“Those flowers are found only in the valley of the glacier fort, and in other mountain valleys further north. Mahrree, when I stand there, in the middle of what was your house, I feel Salem again. I feel grounded and rooted. I feel Nan, there, too,” he whispered. “Just like I feel her in the temple here. When I sit and ponder, there she is—next to me again . . .” His voice faded away, and Mahrree wiped away a tear.
She had felt Perrin at the temple, too, until he left to be with Young Pere. She’d neglected going back for some time, now.
“Your old home is a sacred place, Mahrree. And so is this home. It harbors all those wonderful memories, but that doesn’t mean you have to be trapped by them. You can go forward, too, and always have these places still to visit.”
After a thoughtful moment, Mahrree said, “I see why Shem called you to be a rector.”
“I’m here less as a rector, and more of a friend,” he admitted. “An equally lonely friend.”
“The best kind, then,” Mahrree whispered.
Quietly, Honri said, “You’ve been pulling away from them. All of them. Instead of going in the evenings to the rectories, you tend your great-grandchildren instead.”
Mahrree grumbled quietly. “Been talking to your nephew Boskos, have you?”
“Well, I have to confess I’ve been checking up about you. Boskos told me that you rarely go anywhere in the evenings, and took care of their little ones last week so that he and Noria could have an evening out. You do that with all of them, every night.”
“And what’s wrong with that? Muggah, being helpful?”
“You’re not talking to anyone anymore,” he said, knowingly.
She had the nosiest family.
“I can’t risk it,” she confided. “It’s that horrible critic in me. I can’t risk ruining another grandchild, Honri. Of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and sending another child out in the world—”
“You haven’t ruined anyone, Mahrree. Your grandchildren need you. I’ve spoken to a few, and they miss you—desperately. You’re still here for a reason.”
She shook her head, still not fathoming what that reason could possibly be. “I can’t bear to speak to them, Honri. I get so tied up inside, anxious about being too judgmental, that I don’t even know how to honestly love them anymore. I feel so useless. I never thought I’d be in my seventies and feel like a complete failure with children, after a lifetime of teaching them. It’s just better that I stay over here in my wing, stay quiet at dinner time, stay out of the way so that no one else suffers from my . . . Mahrree-ness.”
“Oh, Mahrree, Mahrree,” Honri said, his grip around her shoulders strengthening as he tucked her in for another hug. “Nothing you would’ve said to Young Pere would’ve changed his mind. Don’t let him rob you of the relationships you can still have. Everyone needs you, Mahrree. Don’t underestimate how much they need you, but also don’t overestimate the power you have over them. Wait,” Honri said, sounding befuddled, “that didn’t come out right—”
Mahrree scoffed quietly. “See what I do to people? I’m having the same effect on you. Get you all mixed up so that you’re not sure what the proper thing is to do or say.”
Honri scoffed back. “That’s not it at all! I know you don’t believe me, because you’ve already made up your mind. But Mahrree, don’t lock yourself away. Don’t fade away. For your family’s sake. For your friends’ sake.”
She only nodded, half-heartedly.
“What about dance nights?” he said, and she frowned at another abrupt change in topic.
“What?”
“Dance nights. I remember you and Perrin would
go, but he’d never participate in the circle dances. He’d just stand against the wall with that smirk of his.”
Mahrree almost smiled. “He hated dancing. Enjoyed the music, but hated the dancing. Too many bad memories from when he was younger, even though Salem’s circle dances are nothing like what the world had. For instance, you didn’t change partners every ten seconds in Idumea!”
“I asked him about that once,” Honri said. “And he said something like, ‘Generals do not do-si-do. And they definitely do not promenade.”
“That sounds like him!” she agreed.
“But you would dance,” Honri pointed out. “I remember. You were at our rectory quite a few times, and you were even my partner on several occasions.”
The memories made Mahrree smile. “You were one of the few men who didn’t mind me tripping all over him. One of the few strong enough to hold me upright.”
“You weren’t that inept,” Honri began, but paused. “No, actually, you were quite terrible, always half a beat behind whatever the caller was telling you to do. I had to hold you up, or you’d be trampled by the couple behind us.”
Again Mahrree laughed, and thoroughly enjoyed that she could.
He jostled her playfully. “I think you should try it again. The circle dances? There are some slower ones, some that are more predictable. You could handle those, with my assistance. You need to get out.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, knowing that she sounded like a petulant child.
“Then if not for yourself, for me?” he said, almost timidly. “I feel like I need to get out again, be part of Salem once more, shed the last of this worldliness. But, to be honest, I hate going alone. I could really use some support, besides my children. Someone my age?” he hinted, very unsubtly. “Someone who knows the ways of the world and will forgive my slip-ups when I’m less than Salemitish?”
Remembering that he’d been Salem’s main trader with the dissenter colonies, and that he could broker any kind of deal, Mahrree began to suspect she was being worked.
“Is this a trick to get me out of the house?”
“No. This is a selfish request because I need a friend.”
Immediately Mahrree felt foolish, realizing that once again she’d been too wrapped up in herself to notice that someone else needed help. How childish could one great-grandmother be?
“Of course, Honri, I’ll accompany you. Only if you’ll go with me to the art displays and allow me to say a few rude things without chastising me.”
He grinned, deepening his dimples. “It’s a deal.”
---
“Lannard, I’m almost impressed,” said General Lemuel Thorne. “The supplies came in earlier than I anticipated with no losses, and the calculations on these past season’s reports are, for once, orderly and correct.”
Major Kroop smiled proudly and stood taller in the command office. It was spotlessly neat, with every file and every folder properly put away, the cabinets dusted off, and even the quills lined up. It’d been a mad dash at the end, truth be told, because only three weeks after the corporal started helping Kroop, Thorne sent a message that he was on his way back to Edge again, and would return by the next evening. The corporal had been allowed to stay on and tidy up, mumbling under his breath, “Finally we’re getting things put away where they should be.”
Kroop ignored that, because he discovered early on in the frantic put-everything-away panic that the corporal had a natural orderliness to him, and as he categorized one stack, Kroop subtly slipped another in front of him. In the end, Kroop didn’t put away one file, but instead enjoyed watching the corporal do it all for him, and quite accurately, too. Or so Kroop assumed.
“So tell me,” Thorne said casually, looking up at his major, “who helped you?”
Major Kroop’s smile fell. “Sir, what makes you think I had help?”
Thorne sat back in his big chair, his right arm dangling limply. “Lannard, Lannard,” he simpered, “just how stupid do you think I am?”
The major shifted uncomfortably and Sergeant Major Hili leaned over to whisper, “I suggest you answer that one very carefully, Lannard.”
The captain standing behind General Thorne’s chair stifled a snort, while Thorne remained motionless, waiting for Major Kroop’s answer.
“I did have help, sir,” he confessed, never able to lie to the general. At least, not for long. “I wanted to make sure you and the troops were properly taken care of and—”
“How very noble of you, Major Kroop,” General Thorne cut him off with a small sneer. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. If you can’t do the job, at least you found someone who can. Delegation, soldier.”
Major Kroop smiled, feeling as if he’d passed some test. “Yes, sir! I can delegate with the best of them.”
“Let’s hope so,” Thorne sighed impatiently. “What’s the name of the soldier who helped you? Should we make him a regular in the office so the major has more time to work on his impersonations?”
Kroop and Hili traded nervous glances.
“Uh, sir?” Hili began. “The soldier really prefers . . . soldiering to sitting in an office. We can use him periodically—”
“Yeah, or just once in a while,” the major interrupted eagerly, but a bead of sweat developed on his forehead, even though the temperature in the command tower was brisk because of the swirling snow outside, and the weak fire in the fireplace.
Hili rolled his eyes at Kroop’s unsubtlety. “His sergeant says he’s best as a corporal over Ten, and he hopes to promote him to over Twenty soon. Natural leader. His talent would be wasted in the office. We don’t want him here. Sir.”
All of that sounded a bit too eager to Lemuel, especially coming from Poe Hili, so he made a mental note of it. “Only a corporal, eh? Age?”
Hili cleared his throat. “Eighteen.”
“Name?”
Kroop coughed nervously as Hili answered. “Corporal Shin.”
Thorne sighed. He motioned to the wiry, pale captain behind him. “Lick, how many of those do we have now?”
“Not sure, sir. But I’ll check,” Lick said, turning to the cabinets behind him.
“Lannard,” Thorne asked, “why are you so nervous about this latest Shin? Believing one too many stories?”
Major Kroop shook his head but his eyes said otherwise. “I’m not nervous, sir. He’s just a little familiar, sir. But we learned he is a distant relative to the Briter family. He might be distantly related to the Shins as well. That’s why he’s . . . familiar.” Kroop bit his lower lip.
Hili pressed his together.
Lemuel took more silent notes.
“I think I have it, General,” Captain Lick said, pulling out a file from a stack labeled ‘Shin.’ “Sergeant Hili, how long ago did he sign up?”
“Just over three moons ago.”
The captain came around to the front of the desk. “I think this is the man, then. Grew up in Province 4. Left home after conflicts with his mother . . . not much known about the father . . . took the name ‘Pere Shin’ when he signed up. Has since changed it,” Lick added with a slight snigger.
Thorne made a motion with his good hand. “Come now, let’s have it. Nothing could be worse than Private Turn Your Head and Cough.”
Hili groaned and closed his eyes. He never could convince that one to change his name.
But Major Kroop nodded in appreciation. “My favorite was Private Let’s Stand on Our Heads.”
“Then you’ll enjoy this,” Captain Lick announced, “he is now styling himself as Sword Master Thorne Shin.” He tried not to smirk, too much.
Thorne leaned forward in his chair and raise his eyebrows, looking almost amused. “Well, now. I see I’ve made it into the naming game. I suppose it I should take it as a compliment that Thorne comes before Shin. However, he is still called Corporal Shin, now, isn’t he?” He picked up his quill and tapped it on the desk. “Have I met him?”
Hili shook his head. “He told me recentl
y that he’s always managed to miss you, and he seemed disappointed by that.”
Thorne tipped his head as if that was obvious. “Since he’s taken my name I’ll have to make sure I get to know this young man, the saver of Kroop’s skin.” He sent Kroop a frosty smile, and Lannard nodded happily. “Kroop, Hili—see to the supply lists throughout the fort. I want to compare those to a physical inventory. In fact, I’d like you to go to each area and retrieve their latest counts, right now. Let’s make sure we’re still accurate.”
“Yes, sir,” Hili said, taking Kroop’s arm and directing him out the door before he could say anything else.
Thorne nodded to his captain to shut the door behind them.
“They seem nervous,” Lick said in a low voice.
“Yes, they are,” Thorne said indifferently, not looking at his captain but studying the numbers on the sheets in front of him.
The captain stood in front of the desk. “Sir, if I may ask, why do you keep on Major Kroop? I understand why you brought on Hili. He’s been able to give us much information about the southern forts since he served there for many years, and has certainly lent a great deal of stability to the fort here. And may I add, sir, that it’s certainly magnanimous of you to pardon him so openly for being on the other side under Karna and Fadh when their coalition was battling yours and Snyd’s so many years ago. And the fact that he led out the younger enlisted men from the garrison, leaving your father vulnerable to the Sergeants’ Army? Well, sir, your generosity in forgiving him is astonishing—”
Lemuel gritted his teeth, as he always had to do when Lick went off on one of his ingratiating little speeches.
“—But, sir, Lannard Kroop? You could send him anywhere. Let some other fort enjoy his company.”
After a silent moment intended to make Lick grow uncomfortable with waiting, Thorne looked up from his papers. “Because here he’s so far away from the action that he can’t cause any harm. Not even to the supplies. And besides, since he was a teenager he always talked too much. Men like that are very valuable. He’s how I got to know about you in Yordin’s fort.”
Lick straightened his jacket proudly. “When I met him I had a feeling that leaking the right information to him would get me into this office and General Yordin out of his.”
Thorne nodded once. “As long as I’m careful as to what Lannard hears, he’s my most valuable officer.”
Lick straightened his back, hearing the subtle slight, but ignoring it. “So should we be worried about this latest Shin?”
Thorne waved that off. “This isn’t the first time Lannard thought he saw a ghost. His paranoia comes every year about this time. He starts leaning on his mead a little too heavily to get through the cold nights. He always perks up again like a gopher when Planting Season starts. Give him another six weeks or so.
“Still,” he added in a thoughtful tone, “we really need to put a stop to this naming nonsense. How can we track anyone’s families this way?” he mumbled more to himself.
Lick looked at him carefully. “Are we concerned with tracking family lines, General?”
The general heard the surprise in his voice. “We are never concerned with the lines, Captain!” he insisted. “Just the names. That Lannard was spooked is not unexpected. But something has also worried my sergeant major, and I need Hili to stay solid in order to keep control of Major Kroop!”
“Yes, sir!” Captain Lick said taking a more formal stance, realizing he had inquired too much of a man who was known to not like questions. He tried to salvage his standing with the general with, “I believe the name choosing began when vial heads in a Fog could no longer remember their identities, sir. It’s just become a trend with everyone that age.”
“Agreed,” Thorne said, now calmer. “Still, I want to put a stop to the greater nonsense. When he returns, have Sergeant Hili create a list of acceptable first and last names. Let the recruits choose sensible identities so we no longer have to call for Corporal Cough or Private Heads.”
Lick snorted out a laugh but tried to pull it back in. “Sorry, sir, but you can be very funny.”
The general produced a long-suffering smile.
“Sir, do you want me to assist them with the inventory numbers?”
“I already know the true inventory situation,” Thorne told him. “Those numbers are accurate for what they know,” he nodded at the pages in front of him. “They just needed to go do something to make them feel useful.”
The captain turned for the door.
“One more thing, Lick,” Thorne said. “Tell Sergeant Hili that nowhere on the name list are to be the options of Perrin or Shin.”
Chapter 30--“Run, run, run?”