by Trish Mercer
Perrin tried to stay nearby to shoot warning glares at the young men who happened to be lucky enough to have the beautiful—yes, Perrin had to acknowledge she’d become uncomfortably stunning—young woman notice their “need.”
Soldiers from other forts who somehow missed the fact that her dark eyes, nearly black hair, and confident gait were identical to the colonel’s were usually enlightened by Edge’s men, although a few were allowed to naively try to sweet talk her, just to see what kind of punishment the colonel hovering behind would impose on the hapless soldier. It was usually their ranked yelled loudly in their face, followed by the words, “Would you like me to get a little bit closer to check your wound?”
Perrin tried to steer Jaytsy—who seemed innocent to the differences between smiling and leering—away from where Thorne was waiting to be loaded onto a wagon, but she happened upon him by accident when Perrin was distracted elsewhere. Too late Perrin turned to watch from several wagons away as Jaytsy adjusted the bandages on a soldier whose face she only glanced at with a practiced smile. One of the surgeons had asked her to rewrap the oozing wound three litters away, and her attention was focused on the blood, not the bleeder. Without his undershirt and jacket, and splattered with dirt and dried blood, Captain Thorne was not immediately recognizable to Jaytsy.
Until he put a hand gently on her arm.
She looked up with the same comforting smile she gave all the soldiers, but then her face froze and the smile dissolved.
Perrin took a quick step forward but decided instead to observe from the distance. He could make it to her side with his fist ready in less than two seconds, and he rather hoped for the opportunity. He hadn’t spoken to Jaytsy about what happened between her and Thorne a few weeks ago—he needed her to keep her confidence in Shem—and now he wanted to see her reaction to Lemuel.
He had a clear view of his daughter’s eyes when she recognized Thorne. They bulged in anger. But she bit her lip and went back to fixing his wound, albeit more aggressively.
Perrin beamed when Thorne flinched as Jaytsy tightened the bandage around his ribs.
But Lemuel still held her arm and squeezed it gently. She paused in her straining to really tighten that knot, and shifted her hardened gaze to his face. He said something quietly and Perrin’s hand balled into a ready fist.
Jaytsy’s face remained wooden, but she nodded slightly and went back to securing his bandages that would likely require a knife to remove. She stood, glanced briefly in the direction of her father without fully seeing him, then turned to help the next soldier as Thorne’s litter was hefted into the wagon.
It would be hours until Shem returned to find out for Perrin what transpired between the two of them. At least seething over Thorne holding his daughter’s arm, especially since he told him just over three weeks ago to never touch her again, gave Perrin something else to think about instead of the burning at Moorland.
Chapter 16 ~ “Who gives gifts like THIS?”
As the horses lurched to take the wagon back to Edge, Mahrree turned around one last time on the bench.
Perrin waved again and gave her a look that said, Trust me. He promised he would be home for dinner tomorrow, and that she didn’t need to come check up on him again.
She felt a little guilty about seeing him this morning, but her relief that he was fine outweighed the guilt. She knew he wouldn’t have been able to stay within his confinement. The smell of action would be too strong, and he’d violate any decree to do what he thought was right.
But before Mahrree and the children left, Perrin pulled her aside to the empty command tent.
“To be honest, I’m a bit concerned about how all of this may be interpreted. Although we were successful, once word of this reaches Idumea—well, Mahrree, how would you feel being married to a forty-four-year-old lieutenant?”
She gripped his muscled bicep. “You still feel the same to me.”
He’d startled her by stealing a quick kiss and whispering, “I love you,” before he escorted her to the wagon.
She glanced down behind her at the three wounded soldiers resting in the bed of the wagon. The most seriously injured had been sent back hours ago. These three had mostly superficial wounds, but they couldn’t walk or ride well. Perrin insisted on sending his family home with this last wagon of injured. He didn’t want them going home with the dead, and he received no argument about that from his wife.
Peto sat in the wagon bed chatting with a corporal who had a wounded leg. The soldier used to live in Idumea and had watched the champion kickball team. The young men talked about plays and strategies and people Mahrree didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. Peto was happy.
She had just turned back around when she heard Peto say, “When we move to Idumea, I’m going to try out for one of the teams.”
Mahrree gulped, even though her mouth had gone dry. She subtly leaned back to eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation.
“When do you think you’re going?” the soldier asked Peto.
“Soon as they make him general. I guess I can wait a couple of years, though. I need to improve my defensive game.”
“I heard it’ll be a lot sooner than that. Some were saying last night he’s definitely going to be promoted now, because of what happened.”
“Yes!” Peto exclaimed. “Perfect!”
Mahrree fought down a worried whimper, reminding herself that corporals didn’t decide transfers and promotions, and glanced to her side to see if Jaytsy had heard.
But Jaytsy’s mouth was moving as if she were carrying on a conversation with herself. She stared intently ahead, oblivious to everything else.
Mahrree had been waiting for an opening to talk to her. She’d seen Jaytsy tending to Lemuel Thorne before he was brought back to the fort, and while Mahrree had no real reason to not trust him—except that he was the son of Versula Thorne—for some reason she just didn’t like the young captain. He had looked at Jaytsy with an earnestness that Jaytsy didn’t return. At least, not yet.
Mahrree prayed silently again. Dear Creator, I know it’s not as if there is one perfect man out there for her, but could there be some other options sent her way so Lemuel isn’t her only choice?
Mahrree glanced around again. On the bench before her, the driver of the wagon was busy in conversation with his relief driver; behind her, Peto was exchanging more strange words related to kickball with the soldier, and the two other injured soldiers were snoring quietly in the bed of the wagon despite its jostling. Mahrree assumed they must have been exhausted or sedated. Her daughter was trapped by her side for the next hour. Good as time as any.
Mahrree patted Jaytsy on the leg. “Doing all right? Quite a day.”
“What?” Jaytsy blurted, as if Mahrree had just pulled her out of some faraway thought. “Oh, I’m fine. Yes.”
Mahrree tried again. “I was quite pleased with how well you did. The sight of all that blood and the burns . . . a few times I had to go take a break. Some of those men really took a beating, didn’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose. It wasn’t that bad, really. All of them seemed to be smiling.”
Mahrree chuckled. “Smiling at you!”
Jaytsy rolled her Perrin-brown eyes, but then turned to her mother. “You really think so?”
“Of course! What wounded man wouldn’t be thrilled to have a beautiful girl fawning over him?”
Jaytsy faced forward again, her long ponytail cascading over her shoulder where she caught it and fretfully fingered the braid. “I don’t know. Sometimes it just seems there aren’t any right men in the world. Plenty of men, but not the right ones, you know?”
“Right one for you?”
Jaytsy nodded. “I mean, I know I need to seriously consider what’s before me, but—”
“Jayts, you have time!” Mahrree exclaimed, but quietly so as to not disturb the soldiers around them. “You’re only sixteen. There’s no need to rush, trust me.”
“Mother, I really don’t want to w
ait another twelve years to find my husband like you did,” Jaytsy exclaimed quietly back. “And I don’t want to get married next week, either. I just wished I knew when, and who.”
“Don’t we all?” Mahrree sighed. “The biggest decision one can make, and you don’t even know when you get to make it. It’s not all up to you, I’m afraid. But that’s also good,” she decided. “It’s got to be the Creator’s timing. He knows when we’re ready to find a good match. I wouldn’t have wanted to marry your father if I’d met him in Edge when we were eighteen, and we weren’t ready for each other at twenty-seven, either. It took us time to become the person the other would love. You’re probably not ready for him yet. Or he’s not ready for you, but both of you will be eventually.”
Jaytsy twisted to face her mother. Something in her words had certainly pricked Jaytsy, but Mahrree didn’t understand why her daughter wore an expression akin to pain.
“Not ready yet,” Jaytsy muttered. She sighed and faced forward again, gripping her ponytail. “Mother, how did you know Father was the one for you?”
Mahrree had been waiting for this question, but she thought she had a few more years to prepare for it.
“Your father wasn’t the one for me. I don’t believe in that. There were a couple of men I’ve been attracted to over the years. Before and after him,” she confessed. “But he was the one I chose to love. Not only was I attracted to him, but I loved his mind, his spirit, his personality—”
“How?” Jaytsy turned to her. “I mean, you hardly spent any time with him alone before you were engaged, right? It was through the debates you fell in love with him. So how did you know everything else about him?”
She’s got me there, Mahrree thought, scrunching her lips. They really did have an unusual courtship; it occurred after they decided to marry. She had often wondered why she said yes to his proposal. As flimsy as it sounds, the idea just felt right.
And then there was her own father . . .
“I didn’t really know that much about him—that’s true,” Mahrree conceded. “But I felt he was a good choice, and I never felt that way about any other man. And there was something else—Jaytsy, my father liked him.”
Jaytsy started to respond, until she thought more on what her mother just said. “Umm . . . Grandfather Peto? I hate to ask this, but wasn’t he already dead?”
Mahrree smiled. “Yes, he had already died. But when I need his guidance about something that’s important, I still feel him. And marrying the right man is very important. The first moment I saw Captain Shin, I felt my father distinctly and I had the impression that he liked this man. He’s told me that many times, even after we were married. And he’s also told me that I should always trust my husband, which has been a little hard to do this last year—”
Jaytsy nodded in agreement.
“—but I should always have faith in him, too. Trust your father, Jaytsy. I guess if there’s any man that he likes, you have his blessing to love him.”
Jaytsy sighed again. “Any man that Father thinks is worthy of finding or saving?”
Mahrree hesitated. “Uh, all right,” she said, trying to understand Jaytsy’s odd phrasing. “Perhaps.”
Jaytsy blew out heavily, as if she was having a hard time catching her breath that afternoon. “I still have time,” she said more to herself.
Mahrree massaged her hands, realizing that she was missing something.
---
Shem returned from Moorland in the afternoon, but it wasn’t until later that night that Perrin finally got him alone. Perrin had been briefed by Fadh about the fire to destroy the remaining structures, and received the final count of the dead, but there was one more piece of information that only Shem could supply.
“I saw Jaytsy talking to you before she left—what did Lemuel say to her when she was changing his bandage?”
Shem started to twist his face into an odd configuration.
“No, no, no,” Perrin stopped him before Shem rearranged all of his features. “She didn’t say, ‘Not a word,’ did she?”
Shem searched his memory. “You’re right, she didn’t. Good. I was having a hard time figuring out how to do this one.”
“So?”
Shem smirked. “Your thorney little friend said to your daughter, ‘Your father thinks I’m worth finding and saving. I hope you will think so too. Please save me, Miss Jaytsy.’”
Perrin scowled. “Oh, that’s awful. That’s the best he could do? Good.”
Shem pointed at Perrin’s expression. “Exactly the same face she made when she told me! Granted, the boy had been under sedation most of the night, and likely didn’t have a lot of time to prepare something less sappy. What was Jaytsy’s reaction to him?”
“She didn’t look impressed, from what I could tell,” Perrin said. “But she nodded slightly. Should I be worried about that?”
Shem shook his head. “I wouldn’t. She’s starting to recognize his manipulation. She asked me if it would be her fault if he wasn’t ‘saved,’ whatever he meant by that. I told her only Lemuel was responsible for Lemuel’s successes and failures—not her or anyone else. She seemed to accept that. And then,” he paused, “she said if you had known what he tried to do to her in the barns, you probably would’ve left him to die on the field.”
Perrin released a low whistle. “For a second, I considered it.”
Shem folded his arms. “So why didn’t you?”
Perrin couldn’t have been more surprised by Shem’s response; he actually sounded disappointed.
“Why didn’t I? Because he’s still my responsibility. Because I have a duty to protect him.”
Then Perrin smiled partway.
“Because then I was also struck with the thought, ‘Not today. Some other battle.’”
---
Deep in the forest east of Moorland, four men dressed in mottled green and brown clothing picked up the body in the blue uniform and brought it to wide crack in the ground. It was the last to go into the bottomless crevice which had already swallowed dozens of Guarders who died as the soldiers chased them last night into the woods and into their waiting blades.
The dozens of other men in concealing clothing watched silently as the four hefted the old man, swung him over the chasm, and released his body, letting it tumble to depths unknown for a burial not to be commemorated.
No words were said over the body of Beneff.
No words should be said for a traitor.
---
Late the next night, Perrin was thrashing in bed again.
Mahrree next to him wasn’t worried or disturbed, but was chuckling.
“Do you realize—really realize—what we’ve done?” he asked for the sixth time.
“I do, Perrin. You destroyed the Guarders!”
It was only now that it hit him—now that everyone was back safely to their forts, after the dead soldiers were given a proper burial, after the injured were secured and recovering, after the borrowed horses were returned, and the trees remained exceptionally silent—now that he went to lay down in his bed for the first time in a few nights, it finally hit him: over a hundred years of terror might finally be over.
He sat up abruptly again, pulsating. “I mean, true—we need to wait to see. Probably a year, I’m afraid, to make sure there are no other attacks and that they are truly gone, but then?”
In an effort to try to relax him enough to sleep, Mahrree sat up to massage his shoulders. But even as broad as they were, she had a hard time finding him because he fidgeted so.
“And then,” she answered his question, “then the world can be declared a different and better place. We may not even need forts or the army anymore. Who’s there left to fight?”
“Even more than that, Mahrree,” he bounced in enthusiasm. “The world can be declared open!”
She stopped trying to rub his shoulders. “Open? What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.” He turned eagerly to her and tried to
search her features in the dark. “Remember on our second wedding anniversary when you came up with a ridiculous plan to go through the Guarder land and find a new place to settle?”
She swallowed down a lump that appeared in her throat. “Yes.”
“Well, it wasn’t a ridiculous plan, and I apologize now for ever thinking so. Remember how my grandfather went over the wall to free the servants—”
“Oh, Perrin,” she whispered in anticipation and anxiety, “I know where you’re going with this. You want to find Terryp’s land!”
“And more! Mahrree, if there are no Guarders what’s to keep us confined here? Poison? The entire world simply can’t all be poisoned.”
Mahrree hugged her legs, suddenly very nervous. “Remember something else from that discussion we had on our anniversary? That Guarder women have many children?”
“I’ve thought about that, too,” he said, now on his knees and ready to bounce through the roof. “We got that information years ago from the delusional Guarder that Shem was talking to. I never trusted him, and soon after that he vanished. Consider this: the rumors have always been that Guarder women and children are armed, but never in the entire history of fighting Guarders have we ever seen women or children. I had Fadh and Shem look specifically at the Guarder dead in Moorland, and all they found were men, ages late teens up to middle-aged.”
Mahrree swallowed again.
“Here’s my theory,” he plowed on. “Those who raid from us? They’re castoffs from their own society that exists somewhere far, far away. Maybe even hundreds of miles from us. They don’t even know about us, like we don’t know about them. These men, though, are maybe thieves or murderers and were booted out. They wandered and happened upon us during the Great War, then assumed the role of Guarders. They’ve been using us to survive ever since. That would explain their poor communication, their lack of consistency, their changing strategies—they’re just a bunch of criminals, and they recruit others to join them from among us, like they did with Riplak, to make their jobs easier.”