“I ran into Tabbit this afternoon, and she said she can come over to help tomorrow. She can give Jaytsy a bath in the morning, and I’ll get her tired before I leave,” he said, picking up his daughter. He grunted loudly as he pretended to strain at the effort, and Jaytsy squealed. “You’re so big!” he rubbed noses with her. “Look at my big girl, and those tiny teeth, sharp as knives! I should start feeding you steak.”
Mahrree couldn’t stay mad at him, not when he played with his daughter who adored him.
Jaytsy grabbed at his face and squealed again as he tried to bite her fingers. They always played more aggressively than Mahrree did. She sat and read books to her daughter, which was about all she could handle right now. But Jaytsy didn’t mind; she saved up all her energy for her father. He growled at her, she screamed at him—they were a great combination.
Mahrree plopped on the sofa and grumbled.
Perrin put Jaytsy on the floor and started crawling and growling after her. Jaytsy growled too, screamed in delighted terror, then turned to bat at her father.
“You’re turning her into a wild animal. You know that, don’t you?” Mahrree accused.
“I’m toughening her up!” Perrin said in a loud growl which Jaytsy matched.
“When do you have to leave?”
“In about ten minutes!” he roared. Jaytsy screamed and laughed.
“And when will you be back?”
“I’m not sure!” he howled in a wolf impersonation. Jaytsy started to chase him back, gnashing her small teeth.
“And your father didn’t tell you about this until now?”
“The message came in the late afternoon.” Perrin scrambled to hide behind a stuffed chair. Jaytsy kept up her pursuit, giggling all the way.
“So for how many nights?”
“Unsure!” he cried in a mock squeal of horror as Jaytsy touched his leg and roared at him.
“Days? Weeks?”
“Maybe!”
“Can you come home during the day? To sleep? For us to see you?”
“I’ll try!” he squealed in a high pitch as he scramble-crawled away from Jaytsy. “Have to get a clean uniform!” Jaytsy was laughing so hard she could barely crawl.
“Yes, Jaytsy’s looking exhausted now. I thank you for that,” Mahrree said, dejected. “It’s so cold outside, too. Full fort night patrols? Really, what kind of Guarders will be out now?”
“We’re drilling in case they change their tactics!” he said in the frantic tone of one being pursued by an infant with sharp teeth and a desire to taste her first meat. He came around the sofa where Mahrree sat, got up on his knees and kissed her belly. Panting, he looked up into her worried face. “I’ll dress warmly, and I’ll be just fine. You stay here and . . . don’t worry.” He kissed her again and this time she returned it.
“I don’t like the sound of this, Perrin. For some reason I’m feeling very uneasy.”
He waved that off. “That’s just your condition,” he assured her, putting his hand on her belly. Whoever was in there rolled and kicked at his hand. Perrin chuckled as Mahrree grimaced. “Jaytsy never kicked that hard, did she?”
“Not that I remember,” Mahrree said. “But the motion is very much like you at night. I’m guessing Little Perrin is in there this time.”
“That’s why I need to toughen up Jaytsy,” he winked at her, “to handle a little brother. I heard those can be rough—OW!” He’d forgotten about Jaytsy in pursuit.
Mahrree and Perrin looked down at their daughter, her teeth sunk deep into her father’s calf. She released him, his trouser’s leg clearly showing eight small indentations in a circle. She looked up at them with dark brown eyes, enormous with worry.
“Oh, she’s tough all right.” Mahrree giggled. “Jaytsy, don’t cry, sweety. Your father didn’t mean to startle you.”
Perrin twisted to pick her up, gave her kiss, and placed her on the sofa next to Mahrree. “Did I at least taste good?”
Jaytsy giggled.
Perrin sat down on the floor and pulled up his trouser’s leg to inspect the damage. “Look at that. She nearly punctured my flesh! No, she can handle a little brother, all right.” He chuckled and looked up into Mahrree’s face.
Her eyes were filled with tears. “Why am I so worried, Perrin?”
He placed a hand on her belly. “No pains, right?”
“No pains, but . . .”
“Your condition, my darling wife. Merely your emotions running away with you again. I’ll be fine, all will be secured, and you and Jaytsy will be fine, too.”
“Dress warmly?” she sniffed.
“I’ve got my overcoat and gloves, so don’t worry.”
“Telling me to not worry is like telling Jaytsy to not bite you. Useless.”
“I love you,” he said before giving her one last kiss.
“So much that you leave me?” she moped.
He stood up and put his cap back on. “So much that I have to. See you in the morning.”
---
Tuma Hifadhi didn’t feel even a twinge of guilt for knocking loudly on the door so early in the morning. He kept pounding to make sure the message was received. It was.
Hew Gleace yanked opened his door, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
“Tuma? Tuma! What’s wrong? Why are you here so early?”
Without waiting for an invitation, the stooped man with faded gray hair and skin stepped quickly into the room so Hew could shut the door to the outside cold.
“We have very little time, Hew. We need to move men out, immediately.”
Hew blinked several times. “What? Why?”
“It was made known to me very early this morning. We need them readied and on their way within the hour.”
Hew both nodded and shook his head to shake out the sleep and to make sense of Tuma’s words. “Are you sure?”
Tuma didn’t move a muscle.
“I’m sorry,” Hew said. “Of course you’re sure. Who am I to question . . . So, how many do you need?”
“How many do we have?”
---
Staff Sergeant Gizzada stood outside the shop trying not to look conspicuous as he waited for it to open. He shifted nervously not because he was cold—his army-issued woolen overcoat kept him quite toasty—but because he never visited this part of the market. He was usually several shops away at one of the bakeries awaiting the fresh goods to come out of the ovens. They even knew his name down there, but no one here was familiar with him.
That was probably why the older woman coming up to her door regarded him suspiciously. “Is there something wrong, soldier?” she asked, looking him up and down as she pulled out her key for the latch on the door.
“No, no!” he beamed, his dark rosy cheeks nearly purple with the cold and his nervousness. “I just need a . . . coat.”
She unlatched the door. “That overcoat is as fine as anything I have in here.”
“It’s not for me,” he said quickly. “It’s for my brother. His birthday. Want to get him something nice.”
The woman shrugged and opened the door to let him in. “I hope you can find something you like. Anything in particular?”
“Yes, actually,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “Do you have anything in . . . white?”
“A white coat?” she pulled a face. “White in Raining Season?”
He nodded eagerly. “My brother has always liked white. Why? Is that wrong?”
“Nothing wrong with white,” she answered quickly. “It’s just not very common.”
Gizzada nodded and looked at the clothing hanging on rods along the sides of the shop. His eyes were drawn immediately to one in particular. “Ah, this one, perhaps?” He walked over to a long white coat with a hood, edged in fur. “This is white!”
The woman winced. “Yes it is, but . . .”
“This is fur, isn’t it?” Gizzada stroked the fluffy white edges along the front and bottom. “Feels like a bunny I had once as a child.”
&n
bsp; “It is rabbit,” the woman said gently trying to take it out of his hands. “The latest Idumean fashion. Perhaps such a coat would be inappropriate since it reminds you of a beloved pet—”
“Not that beloved. We turned it into an excellent stew. Carrots, turnips, onions—”
“Well, you see,” she said, clenching her teeth as he put it on and strained to wrap it around the front around his ample body, “it being the latest Idumean fashion means it’s also very expensive—”
The staff sergeant, stroking the white fur on the front, paused. “How expensive?”
“Twenty full slips of silver!” She looked appropriately shocked.
The sergeant went back to petting the memory of the stew. “That’s within my range, actually. At the very end of it, but—”
“It’s a woman’s coat!” the shop owner blurted. “You can’t buy it for your brother!”
Gizzada only slowed in his petting. “Doesn’t look like a woman’s coat to me.”
“But it will to everyone else. Look at the design of the rabbit fur—it’s stitched in butterflies!”
“Do you have any other white coats?”
“No,” she admitted, looking around frantically in case a coat decided to pale overnight in order to fit the sergeant’s odd need. “And it doesn’t close completely on your front. If your brother is the same size—”
The sergeant shook his head. “Need it only to close around the chest area. My brother is the same size there, but not down here,” he chuckled as he patted his round belly. “I’ll take it! It’s perfect.”
The woman rubbed her cheeks with one last protest. “But . . . people will laugh at your brother if he wears that in public!”
“He’s not expecting to be seen much in public with it, ma’am. And certainly not in Edge.”
“Not in Edge? Oh, well then. That’s different. Shall I wrap it for you?”
---
Karna walked tensely to the feed barn outside the compound as the sun was setting. Although the entire reason for what was about to take place had been explained to him, he still felt very ill at ease. His only consolation was that he wasn’t the only one unhappy about it.
He glanced around before stepping into the barn, but it was unnecessary. Nearly every soldier was out on patrol on the new all-night training regime devised by the Command Board in Idumea.
Or so they were told.
Edge was the first to try the “experiment,” and while the soldiers weren’t too thrilled about altering their sleep schedules so that every last one of them was on the night shift, they were obedient. Besides, it had been dull for the past year, so this was definitely something new and even a bit exciting.
The lieutenant slipped into the barn and saw the lamp light coming from the middle of it. He made his way quickly there, weaving around large bales of hay, and when he saw the scene, kept his pfft! in his head.
“I still can’t believe you’re doing this, sir.”
“Not ‘sir’,” Perrin said as he finished unbuttoning his uniform jacket. He took it off and handed it to Grandpy Neeks, who also groaned in displeasure. “Without my uniform, I am no longer the captain. Just call me . . . Perrin,” he winked. “Told you that before, Brillen.” He stood in the frigid air in only his thin white undershirt, goose bumps developing on his large shoulders.
Gizzada winced and looked at the other two soldiers.
“When Idumea finds out . . .” Karna shook his head. “You remember what General Cush said after that first raid?”
“Yes, Brillen, I remember,” Perrin intoned. “If Idumea finds out, I’m out of the army. Well you know what? I don’t care what Cush, Mal, or even my father has to say about this. I’m not about to sit waiting for Guarders to come after my family! It’s not as if I’m violating the Creator’s law. It’s a rule made by a man who didn’t anticipate such a scenario. I have no doubt Pere Shin would approve of my breaking his rule to save his granddaughter-in-law and great grandchildren.”
Karna, Neeks and Gizzada exchanged dubious looks as Perrin began to unbutton his trousers.
“But you could lose your commission—”
“Brillen,” Perrin stopped unbuttoning midway, “I’d rather be an impoverished sausage-on-a-stick vendor in Moorland with a family, than be the next High General of Idumea knowing that I let my wife and children die. Mahrree would prefer to live as well, I’m sure. So I’ll do what’s right and let the Creator decide my fate.”
Grandpy Neeks sighed loudly and shook his head, while Gizzada bit his lip.
Karna cleared his throat. “So she believed your ‘night training’ story?”
“Of course she believed my story,” he said tersely, removing his trousers. “She trusts me implicitly, as she should. She knows I have to go out a second night, and perhaps for many more, to do my duty. But since none of you is married, I can see why you don’t understand.”
Neeks rubbed his mouth. “Can’t believe I’m watching this happen,” he murmured as Captain Shin—Perrin—handed him his trousers.
“You have no choice, Grandpy,” Perrin said, almost as coldly as he felt. “So quit complaining, all right?” He glanced down at himself in only his thin undershirt and shorts. “At least these are white, too.” He shivered, picked up a thick knitted wool tunic—white—that lay on a bale of hay and pulled it over his head. Next he took a pair of brown woolen trousers and pulled those on.
“Sorry if they’re a little loose,” Gizzada apologized as Perrin fastened them in the front. “I had to guess at the size.”
“Not a problem,” Perrin said. “Better than being too tight.” Over the trousers he put on the only kind of white leg coverings Gizzada could find in the middle of Raining Season—thin linen dress trousers.
“Fit for a picnic, those are!” the staff sergeant smiled. “That’s what the shop keep told me. He wasn’t even sure why he still had them in stock, but fortunate for us, right sir? I mean, Perrin?”
Karna and Neeks glowered at Gizzada.
He looked back at them confused, unsure of the cause of their irritation.
“And now, for the final touch,” Perrin said as he lifted the long white coat off from another bale of hay.
Gizzada sighed. “It’s simply lovely, isn’t it?”
Perrin stopped in mid motion and stared at the staff sergeant.
“Could let your wife wear it when you’re finished. They do alterations at that shop,” Gizzada assured him.
“Do they also remove blood stains, Gizzada?” Perrin said heavily. “Because when I’m done with it, I anticipate this rabbit fur looking worse than the day it was slaughtered.”
Gizzada swallowed. “Perhaps Mrs. Shin would prefer another coat, then.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Shin will never hear about this coat, or any other coat from you, Staff Sergeant! That’s the entire reason I sent you, so no one would see me purchasing these things and telling my wife she might be getting a surprise. This is one surprise I never intend for her to find out about, right?” He thrust a fist through the sleeve of the white coat.
Gizzada shrank in his own overcoat and nodded quickly. “Of course, sir. Of course.”
“We all understand, Captain,” Karna said walking up to him. From his overcoat pocket he pulled out thick white gloves and a white knitted hat.
Perrin pulled the hat over his head, concealing his black hair completely underneath.
“Not that we approve, Perrin,” Karna added.
The nearly all-white man acted as if he didn’t hear Karna finally calling him by his first name. It was likely because Brillen’s tone was as foul as a sulfur pit.
Shin slipped on the gloves and said to his lieutenant, “Where are they?”
Karna pulled out the two long knives from another pocket, dulled so as to not catch any light that might reflect down from the two moons, nearly full that night.
“Excellent,” Shin said with a half smile. “Good work.” He slipped the two dulled knives into his waistband and put o
n his boots—the only things still black. He took two more shiny knives from a bale of hale and put them into the sides of his boots.
“Four knives,” Neeks said, slowly shaking his head.
“Yep,” Perrin said easily. “Not that I’m planning to lose all of them, but one can never be too sure.” He took up the full quiver of arrows waiting on another bale of hay and slung it over his shoulder. “Are the other two quivers placed where I wanted them?”
Karna nodded. “Did it about half an hour ago. You have enough arrows to kill an army now.”
Perrin picked up the large bow and checked the string. “Nice choice, Brillen.”
“Your strength is in the sword,” Neeks reminded him.
“A sword is loud and obvious,” Perrin reminded back.
“Just like you,” Karna bravely whispered.
“Karna, I can’t help but notice my ‘second mind’ gets more vocal and braver the closer I get to the forest. And Grandpy, I’m sufficient with the bow,” Perrin assured him. “Not as skilled as Brillen, mind you, but I can take something out from a distance this way, unseen and mostly unheard.”
“This is madness,” Neeks hissed. “Goes against every single rule in the book. If the High General knew—”
Perrin rounded on the older man. “He will know nothing, Neeks! Not unless something goes terribly wrong. And then it will be too late for him to demote me. But if everything goes right, then what I’m about to do won’t matter at all. Is that understood, Master Sergeant?”
Neeks simply folded his arms. He’d been in the army too long to be intimidated by mere officers.
“You said you’re no longer the captain, remember? And since I have more experience than Karna, in a battle situation I’m in command. And if I don’t like what I see happening, I’ll use that position and pull rank. Is that understood, Perrin?”
Perrin took a deep breath, accentuating his broad chest. Implausibly, even the white bunny fur stitched into butterflies appeared threatening. “You do something stupid, Neeks, you’ll have to explain why to my wife and my daughter. Tell them why they are now vulnerable. Is that understood?”
The Forest at the Edge of the World Page 39