by Trish Mercer
Besides, now when she really could have used a bit more friendliness in her life, everyone in Edge pulled back to a safe distance. From the corners of her eyes she could see the villagers’ feet scuffling away to give her plenty of room as she passed.
Blessedly there were a couple of people she could always count on. One was Rector Yung, who frequently stopped by and attempted to talk to Perrin who always suddenly had something else to do. The other was her mother.
Two minutes later she sat on Hycymum Peto’s pink sofa painted with purple flowers and woven with garish threads of gold and green. All Mahrree noticed, though, was that her mother had slipped a thick cloth onto her shoulder today, in anticipation.
Hycymum patted her on the back as if she were a messy infant as Mahrree sobbed on her shoulder.
“Mahrree, I mean it; you and the children stay here for a few days. Let him do . . . whatever he’s doing, but you get a rest. Just when it looks like things are getting better, they get worse again.”
Mahrree sniffled. “I can’t leave him, Mother. He needs us. Someday he may actually be glad—” She couldn’t finish because she didn’t know if her husband ever would be glad for anything, ever again.
Not that long ago she had cried and chuckled about how blessed how her life was, how many miracles had struck them in such a short amount of time. She didn’t realize that the outpouring then was to make up for the drought now.
“At least I know where my husband went. But yours?” Hycymum patted her daughter again. “Who knows where his mind is sometimes. I heard he confronted some weaver yesterday until Shem led him away.”
Mahrree sighed. “I’ll add him to the list of those I need to visit and apologize to. What do people think about him, Mother? What do they say?”
Hycymum sighed back. “People think that the colonel’s been issued orders to interrogate people in Edge, because the Administrators suspect that Guarders are still after him and his family.”
“Hmm,” Mahrree pondered that. “I suppose it works. I wonder where that came from.”
“I think it was Rector Yung. I heard him say that a few weeks ago to the new couple living over by the fort. You know, for a rector he’s a pretty decent gossip.”
Mahrree smiled miserably. “He must have been talking to the Briters. I’d already paid them an apology visit. Perrin was sure they were spies, but they’re the gentlest, kindest, and now most terrified couple I’ve ever met. They like me, at least.”
“So what happened last night?” Hycymum asked her daughter as she smoothed her hair. “At least you visit me more often.” She tried to say that lightheartedly, but even silly Hycymum Peto had lost a great deal of her inanity since Relf and Joriana Shin were killed by Guarders as they slept. Some level of her intellect, usually absorbed by cloth and cooking and decorating, had realized that if her son-in-law’s parents were intended targets, she might be too.
Mahrree sniffed. “Sometimes he does so well. Three nights, no incidents. He almost smiles then . . . it’s all back again. I make him tell me what he sees. Shem said that’s what the book said to do; make him speak it and realize it’s not real.”
Hycymum shifted nervously. “What does he see?”
Mahrree could tell she really didn’t want to know it all, but it helped her to say it out loud. “Variations on the same theme: dirtied men in black. Daggers and knives. Sometimes swords. His family, lying still in pools of blood. He arriving moments too late.”
Hycymum shuddered. “How often do you give him that stuff?”
“That’s the problem; I quit after he’s had a few good nights. He’s fine on his own for a night or so, but then it starts again.”
“So just keep snuffing him.”
“Sedating him,” Mahrree clarified.
“Whatever. Just a little each night.”
“We don’t know how it might affect him, taking it for so long,” Mahrree fretted. “No one knows, not even Dr. Brisack. I’m supposed to report to him each week about Perrin’s reactions.”
“Lovely,” Hycymum said with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Using Perrin as a test squirrel! If Chairman Mal knew that his citizens were being tested on—”
“He likely would ask for a copy of the results for himself,” Mahrree told her mother. “I haven’t sent back any reports, though. I don’t want them to know what’s going on here. I just keep praying.”
“I know,” Hycymum said. “I talked to Rector Yung the other day. He told me he sees you quite frequently.”
Mahrree nodded. “He’s a sweet man. I feel he says to me exactly what Hogal would have advised. He’s trying to get Perrin to talk to him, but on mornings like this?”
She sighed and wiped away another tear.
“Mother, last night we sat on the sofa together talking about the day, the new lieutenants, the obnoxious captain. About how he and Shem need to come up with new facial codes for Lemuel Thorne so he won’t know they’re talking about him. He even smiled last night. I felt safe snuggling up to him the way I always did. Then, only a few hours later, he was screaming through the house, swinging that sword—”
Hycymum patted her daughter again. “Someday, he just might hit something or someone. And then there will be a tragedy.”
Half an hour later Mahrree left her mother’s, a bit dehydrated but feeling lighter for the good cry. She skirted the marketplace and took a longer way home, by the old rectory that used to belong to Hogal and Tabbit Densal but was now cared for by a tiny old man who worked in his front garden. Morning, noon, and night Yung was outside pulling the weeds from his manicured beds of vegetables or pruning fruit trees that still had a few late blossoms. The fruit, Mahrree knew, would be shared with whomever passed and wanted an apple or a pear.
And then there were his herbs. Mahrree stopped a couple of houses away to watch the narrow man trimming his basil and parsley, already green and bushy, into tiny trees. The leaves which he clipped off he carefully gathered. Something in Mahrree’s chest burned, then crumbled, as she watched him.
She’d always had dreams—glorious, baffling dreams—about a large house of faded gray wood. There were fuzzy elements that remained whenever she woke, and she desperately tried to hold on to them, yet the details faded away as she grew more alert. But there were a few constants: always the house, and mountains, and children—more than two—and window boxes filled with herbs.
That was most puzzling thing about the dream—the herbs. She never tried to grow any herself because there wasn’t any aspect of gardening that ever struck her as enjoyable.
But in her dreams she sat in a garden and weeded, happily. She decided some time ago that the dream was symbolic, although she could never grasp what the symbols meant.
Once, briefly a few years ago, she entertained the notion that maybe the house was a peek at some future life, a distant reality, if only she could perform well and long enough.
But it was impossible. There were no more children in her future. Even if she didn’t have to take The Drink that cramped her womb into a barren nothingness, she and Perrin were in their mid-forties now, too old to be new parents again.
So she shoved the dream back into a section of her mind she called, “Mysterious and frustrating. Maybe symbolic. Definitely perplexing.” She hoped recategorizing it might make the brutal fantasy go away. But still she dreamed, every year, a dozen times. She’d wake up smiling, see the faint outline of the house, then wretchedly watch it dissolve like sugar in water.
There was simply nowhere to go with it, so she tried to ignore it, as she tried to ignore the small dog yapping at her right now through a fence. And, just like the dog, there’s only so long you can pretend that you don’t notice it. It’s only your mind that’s not accepting the harsh reality—
Mahrree, in pure frustration, kicked the fence with all her might. The mangy beast yelped as if she’d actually hit it and ran for the house while Mahrree began walking as if she hadn’t the faintest idea why the animal was now barking at her fro
m the safety of the porch.
She slowed her gait in front of Rector Yung’s house, and he automatically looked up. His narrow eyes turned into slits as his gentle and wide smile took over most of his face.
“Mrs. Shin! How lovely to see you. May I interest you in some fresh basil? It’s just growing wild on me this year. Or parsley?”
Earlier something in Mahrree’s chest had burned, then crumbled. Now the fragments tried to smolder pitifully again as she stared at the herbs the rector offered her.
“Thank you.” She arranged them in her hand and their pungency filled her nose. For some reason the scent reminded her of that night years ago when she ran into the forest to question Guarders, surprised herself by finding a female one, then ran back out again because the woman knew her name. She’d sat sobbing under a pine tree so fragrant that, whenever she passed a similar species, the scent brought back the memory with embarrassing intensity.
The combination of basil and parsley was only slightly similar to a pine, but still she could see that night so clearly before her, and the woman, hooded in a black cloak, who chided her—
She looked back at the sweetness of Rector Yung as an escape from that recollection, but still it remained, somehow blurring him into the picture where he didn’t belong.
“Mrs. Shin,” he said gently, reading all sorts of mixed emotions on her face, “how are you?”
It wasn’t a pleasantry; it was a deeply concerned question. All she could do in response was shrug. Rector Yung put a fatherly arm around her waist—even as short as Mahrree was, so was Rector Yung so that he could never put an arm around anyone’s shoulders—and he gave her a little squeeze that conveyed far more warmth and love than she’d felt from the entire village.
“May I drop by later? When he’s home?”
Mahrree sighed heavily. “He was very bad last night.”
Yung nodded once. “I know. Shem told me. I have some ideas that might help.”
Mahrree stared at the herbs scenting her hands. “You can try, but I don’t know how he’ll respond.”
Yung squeezed her again. “If you’re worried that I’ll be offended by his reactions, don’t be. Nothing offends me.” Then, as if he just thought of it, he continued with, “Have you ever fed a puppy that was abandoned by its mother?”
Mahrree looked blankly at him. “Uh, no? Is this another Flax-Waves saying?”
Yung smiled. “Well, sort of. When a puppy is abandoned, others need to step in and feed it. But often the puppy doesn’t want the milk that can sustain it. Maybe it’s too hurt from its loss, or it doesn’t recognize the milk source, or it’s just too weak or sad. But still you try, hour after hour. Because if you don’t, that poor creature suffering through no fault of its own will die,” he whispered the last words, and Mahrree closed her eyes.
He nudged her gently to open her them again. “But we don’t quit, Mrs. Shin. Hour after hour, day after day, until some of the milk gets into that mouth. We keep trying until something opens up and accepts what all of us are trying to give him.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks, even though she was sure she was on empty. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I agree. We never give up. I’d invite you for dinner, but those are angry affairs now.” Her chin trembled violently until she regained control of it again.
To his credit, Rector Yung pretended he didn’t notice. “I have other plans for dinner anyway. But I’ll be by later, just to see if our puppy’s interested yet. If not, I’ll try again, and again, and again.”
Mahrree leaned her head against his shoulder, thinking that her father Cephas would have done the same for her.
As she left to go home a few minutes later, she turned back to wave at Rector Yung, but he had already gone into his house.
Mahrree sniffed the herbs and wondered if the only reason the man’s garden was so immaculate was because he worked out there all day, waiting for her.
Chapter 3 ~ “May I have five minutes—”
Shem stepped out of Perrin’s office and quietly closed the door. In a way he was a bit jealous of Perrin, napping on a stack of paper on his desk. Shem needed a nap, too, but—
He paused when he saw that the only person in the forward command office was Lemuel Thorne. The captain wore a thin smile that suggested he’d planned for them to be alone.
“Is he resting again?” Thorne’s tone had an edge to it.
Shem ignored it. “He is. Make sure he’s not disturbed.” Shem made for the stairs, but Captain Thorne blocked his way.
“I will, and Master Sergeant? I want to help.”
It was the twinkle in his eye that so annoyed Shem. “I don’t need your help, and neither does the colonel.”
“Ah, but you do,” Thorne simpered. “I’m supposed to be learning from you. I believe this may be something I’m to learn?”
Shem was too drained for this train-the-new-Guarder-who-doesn’t-know-he’s-a-Guarder nonsense. The Quiet Man had thought initially that he could make a game of this, but that idea soured quickly.
However, the eager expression in Thorne’s eyes suggested he was willing and ready to do anything, even take over the fort if necessary. In fact, he seemed to hope just that.
“Look, Captain, this isn’t the time, nor is this anything—”
“But I’m supposed to be learning!”
“No!” Shem snarled in a loud whisper. “This isn’t about you, or your training, or anything else. You’re here to help this fort, and that’s all I have for you. What’d you spend all those years in Command School for, huh? Use that training.”
“But—”
“Leave the colonel alone! You need to understand something: Shin is like a brother to me, and I alone will take care of him.”
As he barreled down the stairs he heard Thorne call after him, “How’s that supposed to help me? Zenos! Get back here!”
---
Thorne scowled after Zenos, who hadn’t bothered to show the respect the captain deserved.
A crashing noise behind him spun Thorne around, and he realized it came from behind the colonel’s closed door. It sounded as if a tin lunch bucket had been knocked off the desk, and now there was the commotion of someone getting up abruptly from the desk.
“Stupid Zenos,” Thorne murmured. He braced for impact, waiting for the door to be jerked open and to face the bleary-eyed colonel who would again look past him and mumble incoherently—
Maybe . . . maybe that’s what Zenos was doing: something to the colonel to keep him confused, tired, angry. But why?
Wait—wasn’t that what brothers did to each other? Antagonize and demoralize? Not having one, he didn’t know. But he was sure that’s how it should be.
Thorne held his breath, watching the door, but instead all he heard was awkward lumbering in the office, then the sound of the colonel dropping heavily into his big chair again.
Thorne exhaled and sat in his own chair, much smaller and less comfortable than what the colonel occupied.
Zenos had said Lemuel should use his Command School training to help, so what do second-in-commands do when the commander is incapacitated?
They command.
Thorne’s lips parted in a growing smile. He liked that big chair, and Zenos was essentially saying it was his, in a way.
Of course it was. Lemuel Thorne was born to do this.
---
Shem was headed to the mess hall when the private caught his arm. “Excuse me, sir, but the surgeon’s been looking for you.”
Shem sighed. He’d been dreading this, and he had a feeling the surgeon had been, too. A few minutes later he entered the surgery wing, hoping that he was there to discipline a wounded recruit, but the area was quiet.
Except for the surgeon, whose last name—appropriately or inappropriately, depending upon whom you asked—was Stitch. His heavy white eyebrows appeared even more foreboding as he looked up from his desk.
“Master sergeant?” Dr. Stitch said, seeming so apprehensive that his pale e
yes nearly disappeared in the bushiness of his brow. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
Shem exhaled and shut the door behind him.
“Bolt it, please, Master Sergeant. I don’t wish us to be disturbed.”
The bolt caught a bit, and Shem realized it likely had never been locked in all the years the fort had been there. Still, he worked it just a bit longer than necessary, trying to stall the inevitable.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
Dr. Stitch gestured to a chair near him. “Perhaps I should be asking that of you: what can I do for you and . . . the colonel?”
Shem offered his most charming smile as he sat. “Whatever do you mean, sir?”
The older man waved that off. “You’re a terrible actor, Zenos. You couldn’t tell a convincing lie if your life depended upon it. The colonel is . . .” He paused to find the right word, because when a man’s career is on the line, one had to get it right. “Troubled?”
Shem nodded. “A fair assumption. And quite understandable, you must admit. His parents were recently murdered, you know.”
“Zenos,” the surgeon said quietly, “it’s been rumored that there’s something more going on. Now, out of respect for the man and the years I’ve served here, I’ve tried to ignore those rumors. But to be honest, it’s growing out of hand.”
“Rumors,” Shem said, a bit coldly. “You’ve been here about ten years, right? Tell me, Stitch—what have you learned about soldiers and rumors in those years?”
A corner of the surgeon’s mouth lifted. “That soldiers are bigger gossips than their grandmothers, truth be told.”
“They are. And rumors grow to become ugly, terrible things, don’t they, Stitch?”
“Zenos, tell me honestly. He’s traumatized, isn’t he?”
Shem stiffened. “And what happens to traumatized officers?”