by Trish Mercer
When Mahrree didn’t say anything, he gently shook her shoulder. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be all over this? If the vast majority of them are gone, their power is stripped! They’re finished! Even their local recruits will surely be scared out of compliance with them.”
She couldn’t move. It was a fantastic theory which, if true, would open possibilities no one had considered before.
But she knew something that he didn’t.
There were Guarder women.
Well, at least one who chided Mahrree to tears and out of the forest thirteen years ago.
But she couldn’t confess that to him, and while she sat stewing a terrible thought came to her: what if that woman’s sons had been killed in Moorland? Or her husband—
For absolutely no logical reason whatsoever, thoughts of Rector Yung suddenly filled her mind.
She shook her head to dislodge him and to focus back on her husband, who was now bobbing like a four-year-old in search of convenient bush.
“I am all over this,” she assured him. “I’m just stunned,” which wasn’t exactly a lie. “I just never thought of anything like this before, and need to let it sink in a bit . . . Wait. If there are no Guarder women, how are there Guarders now?”
“More castoffs,” he said easily. “Maybe this is how that other civilization deals with their criminals, by throwing them out. They keep coming here generation after generation. Isn’t that amazing!”
“That they loot us?!”
“That we finally put an end to all of this!”
She sighed wearily, wondering how that Guarder woman fit into any of this. The words she said to Mahrree that night long ago still didn’t make any sense: “All I do is save lives.”
Whose lives? Where?
There were so many variables missing to this equation that Perrin was trying to write, and it wasn’t as if math was Mahrree’s best subject to begin with, but after midnight her ability was even more diminished to figure out all of the parts, especially ones he didn’t know were supposed to be in there.
“Oh, Perrin, I just don’t know,” she confessed, truly dismayed. “I mean, I wish—”
She was startled by him suddenly kissing her on the lips.
“I know, I know. There are so many possibilities and we have to wait. It’s a mess in my mind, too, so just think about it Mahrree? Help me get to the bottom of this? And, maybe in a year or so, should there be no more Guarders and no more need for defense, all kinds of marvelous things could happen.” She could even hear him grinning in the dark; he practically lit up the room.
She could never tell him what she knew, or what she did so many years ago, even though she thought he’d understand and even forgive. She was just too prideful, and she was ashamed of that.
Not ashamed enough, however, to confess to her husband about sneaking off to the forest and running back home a coward—
She came up with a perfect avoidance strategy. “In the meantime,” she said, hoping she sounded coy even though her mind was reeling, “maybe something marvelous could happen now . . .”
And she kissed him back for so long that he forgot all about talking for the rest of the night.
---
The next evening Perrin put away his paperwork and picked up his cap to go home. He’d decided that morning, while Mahrree was still dozing on his chest, that he had to put aside the possibility of no more Guarders because the idea filled him with too many possibilities that’d completely sidetrack him. But as he looked around the office, he was struck with the idea that maybe—just maybe—in a year this fort might not even be needed.
Well not as a defensive structure, but perhaps instead as a jumping off point for those brave enough to explore the mountains to the north. Because, he realized with a growing smile, they’d need a guide through the natural hazards, and who better to serve as a guide to the forest than Perrin Shin: former colonel in the former army?
He had to stop thinking like that, because the grin on his face was just too wide. But perhaps people would think he was happy for many reasons.
First, all the wounded soldiers were healing.
Second, nearly the entire village had got wind of what happened in Moorland, and they were waiting yesterday to give the returning soldiers a heroes’ welcome. And also to make sure they got their borrowed horses and wagons back because Edgers, while grateful, were also practical and a bit distrustful.
Third, Edgers’ surprise and joy at the success in Moorland inclined them to be more willing to plant extra crops to fill this year’s local storehouses. The file Perrin put away was an updated list of villagers who had signed Offra’s commitment sheet today.
Then fourth—and best of all—Captain Thorne’s injury meant he was unable to climb the tower stairs for least another week.
Oh yes; for the past year, life had been scowling at him, but today? It smiled upon him again.
And now, he was going home.
Maybe . . .
He sighed as he saw Shem bounding up the stairs to his office, sheets of folded parchment in hand. “Heading home?” Shem asked.
“Trying to.”
“But you’ll want to see this.”
“Walk home with me. Eat dinner with us—I promise Jaytsy’s not cooking tonight—then come back to man the tower.”
Shem smiled at the invitation and handed Perrin the file.
He opened it as they headed down the stairs. “Fadh’s report already? We just got back yesterday!”
“He didn’t want to waste any time. He was even dictating it to his assistants when we were cleaning up in Moorland. He wants Idumea to see his report before they get word from anyone else.”
As they walked through the compound Perrin skimmed the facts sheet. Nothing like the grim tallies of the injured and dead to bring one out of future fantasies.
“These numbers look right. Confirmed Guarders dead: 267. Assumed dead in the explosion: 40+. Prisoners: 0, naturally. Soldiers wounded: 151. Soldiers dead: 36. Soldiers missing: 14, including Beneff . . . The garrison will see those as acceptable ratios, as if lives can be reduced to ratios—”
“Read the next page, Fadh’s description of what happened.”
“I’m avoiding that. Can’t you tell?”
“You’ll enjoy it. I promise.”
Perrin sighed and turned to the next page. He held it at an angle to catch the last of the sunlight as they left the fort’s compound. A minute later he moaned. “What’s he done?”
Shem began to laugh. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Graeson should’ve been a poet.”
Perrin cleared his throat. “‘Colonel Shin acted out of intense concern for the welfare of the citizens of Idumea. His immense devotion extends not only to his village, but to the surrounding village and more importantly to the Administrators, High General of Idumea, and the General’s immediate family’ . . . oh please!”
“Right here—read this,” Shem pointed further down the page. “It’s my favorite. Why you broke probation.”
“‘Out of heartfelt fatherly concern—’ Hold me, Shem; I may swoon.”
Shem laughed.
Perrin tried again to read the words that churned his belly. “‘Out of heartfelt fatherly concern, Colonel Shin violated the orders of his probation to ascertain the welfare of the youngest officer, Captain Lemuel Thorne.’ Not a poet, Shem. A writer of fantastical fiction!”
He continued.“‘Shin felt that more important than holding to his confines was the need to ensure that each of the men under his care was successful in his first major endeavor. Not only did the valiant efforts,’” Perrin paused to shake his head, “‘of Colonel Shin save Captain Thorne’s life, as several witnesses can verify (see their attached testimonies)—’”
“Fadh’s very thorough,” Shem pointed out.
“‘— but his unsurpassed skill also preserved the life of Major Yordin and at least a dozen other soldiers.’” Perrin slapped the papers. “Nicko’s not going to buy this! We need
to make revisions.”
Shem’s face contorted with pained amusement. “It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“It went out already, early this morning. This is a copy. The original should be in the hands of the Chairman and Cush right about . . . now.”
“No! Fadh!” Perrin yelled, as if he could be heard in Quake. “What were you thinking?”
Shem handed him a small note.
Perrin read it out loud.“‘Colonel Shin, you may wonder what I was thinking . . .” He paused to scowl. “Fadh can also predict the future. Talented man. ‘ . . . you may wonder what I was thinking when you read the report. It would be unrealistic to assume that all of the men would keep quiet as to your whereabouts. The truth would get out eventually. We might as well be the ones to present and control it. Remember, you said I could explain the situation as best as I recalled it. I’m sorry I didn’t get to find out exactly why you chose to break your probation, but I assumed my explanation was probably as accurate as any. Get ready to buy a new jacket, General. Major Graeson Fadh.’”
Perrin put the note in the file and folded it with a frustrated sigh. Maybe the sooner the forts could be shut down, the better.
“You don’t want to read the rest?” Shem elbowed him. “Some riveting stuff in there. I came off looking quite well, and apparently Thorne dispatched someone before he got hit, and ‘nobly’.”
“I’ll read the rest later when I’ve got nothing better to do,” Perrin grumbled as they turned down the alley to his home. The men hopped over the back fence and walked up the back porch.
“Got room for another for dinner?” Perrin called as they walked into the kitchen.
“Always!” Mahrree patted Shem’s arm as he came in.
“Mahrree, I’ve got some great reading for you,” Shem said, pulling the file out of Perrin’s hand.
“No, no, no! Give me that!” Perrin lunged for it vainly.
But Mahrree snatched it out of Shem’s hands. “If he doesn’t want me to see it, then it means I really should!”
She opened the file and Perrin, resigned to the fact that she would’ve finagled it away from him sooner or later, started for the gathering room.
“Wait, Perrin!” Mahrree cried. “I need to warn you—”
But her warning came too late. Perrin stopped, dead in his tracks, at what he saw on the rug in the gathering room between his teenagers. For the first time in his family’s life they heard him swear, and loudly.
“What the SLAG is THIS?”
With his hands on his waist, he glared at the small creature that stared up at him. His perfect day was now perfectly ruined.
Instantly Mahrree was at his side, taking his arm in a pretense to calm him, but more likely to keep him from drawing his sword.
Shem had followed close behind Mahrree, his hand on his own hilt and expecting the worst. He stopped suddenly as well, and his shoulders relaxed as Perrin’s tensed.
“Ah, it’s so cute!” Shem crooned. “Why, that kitten can’t be more than five weeks old.”
Perrin shot Shem a look full of daggers before turning to his two shocked teenagers sitting next to the tiny cat, their mouths wide open at hearing the word only the coarsest of soldiers ever uttered.
“I know what it is,” he said darkly. “I want to know why.”
The black and white kitten offered up a pitiful mew, and Peto scooped it up.
“He didn’t mean to scare you,” he said to the kitten. He held it up to his father. “Look at that face. Tiny little nose. Whiskers. Come on, admit it. It’s cute.”
“It’s a cat,” Perrin snarled. “Why is it here?”
Peto looked at Jaytsy, who was cringing. “It’s a gift,” she murmured.
“Who gives gifts like THIS?” Perrin bellowed.
Mahrree now gripped his sword arm with both hands. “It’s a thank you gift,” she said gingerly, “from Captain Thorne.”
“THORNE!”
“I don’t think he meant anything by it—”
“A CAT? Wanna bet?”
Still cringing, Jaytsy held up a piece of paper. “This was in the basket the messenger brought this afternoon.”
Perrin snatched it out of her hands.
Shem read aloud over his shoulder. “Miss Jaytsy, this lonely little animal was found lost and wandering in the surgery wing. All it needs is someone to love and care for it—someone to save it—and it will turn into a devoted creature that will adore you until the day it dies. When I saw it, I thought of you. When you care for it, please think of me. Thank you for your tender care on the field. Yours devotedly, Lemuel.”
Shem’s voice developed a sneering quality halfway through the message, which grew into disdain with the final three words.
“Mahrree, I’ve lost my appetite. Permanently.” Perrin sat down on one of the stuffed chairs and crumpled the note in his hand. He held it up. “Sorry, Jayts. Did you want to keep this?”
She quickly shook her head.
“Give me the cat,” Perrin ordered. “I’ll take care of it.”
Never had five words sounded so final.
“No!” four people shouted at him.
“Father,” said Jaytsy tentatively, “I’d like to keep it. Not as a remembrance of Thorne, but because it has nowhere else to go.”
“How about the river?” he suggested.
“Perrin!” Mahrree snapped.
He held up his hands. “Seriously? You all want to keep this . . . thing?”
The kitten wriggled out of Peto’s hands and walked clumsily to Perrin. It sat down in front of his boots and gave him a pitiful cry.
“Ah, he wants you, Father!” Peto said.
Perrin remained unyielding, staring at it.
It wobbled to the side of the upholstered chair and began to climb it with its needle-like claws.
“No, don’t do that!” He pulled the kitten roughly off the cloth and was surprised by how light it was, its thin ribs poking out of its paper-thin skin and fur. Not knowing what to do with the fragile thing, he dropped it on his lap. It mewed again, curled up into a ball, and began to purr.
Perrin glowered at it.
His family smiled at him adoringly.
“My father had a theory about cats,” Mahrree said. “No matter how many people are in the room, they always find the person who hates them the most and try to win him over. Colonel Cuddly, you have a kitten.”
Shem turned to her. “Colonel Cuddly?”
Mahrree turned pink, remembering that she’d never used that name in front of Shem. “I best check on dinner. Children, make sure your father doesn’t take a walk with that kitten,” and she darted into the kitchen.
Shem raised his eyebrows at Perrin. “When you’re promoted, will you be General Giggles?”
“You’re no longer invited for dinner, Zenos,” Perrin said steadily. “You may leave now. And take this with you,” he pointed at the ball of ragged fluff on his lap.
“Oh, Father,” Jaytsy crawled over to him and took the kitten. “If we really need to, we can find it a new home tomorrow.”
“It needs a name,” Peto said, petting its head with his finger as it rested in Jaytsy’s arms.
“No it doesn’t!” Perrin protested. “Give the cat a name, you get attached. And why are all of you still touching it?”
Shem sat down on the floor with Jaytsy and Peto, and pulled a short rope from his pocket. He dangled it in front of the kitten who batted at it awkwardly. The three of them laughed when the tiny cat got a claw caught in the rope.
“Sergeant Major Giggles,” Perrin muttered.
Shem shook his head. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it. Sorry.”
---
The kitten stayed through the night, somehow wobbling its way out of Jaytsy’s room, struggling up the stairs, wandering into Mahrree and Perrin’s bedroom, and climbing the blankets up the mountain-like span to reach Perrin’s chest where it exhaustedly curled up in the middle of the night and purre
d loudly.
Mahrree didn’t hear it over her husband’s snoring, but she did hear him bellow, “What is THIS?”
She sat up, alarmed and confused, until she heard the purring. Trying not to laugh, she explained, “It’s a baby animal that feels you can protect it.”
“Get it off me, Mahrree!”
She scooped it up. “It really is a sweet little thing.”
“It’s a cat!”
“Just give it a chance, you giant falcon.”
Perrin growled.
The cat mewed back.
In the morning it followed him everywhere. Perrin almost put an end to the entire issue when the kitten climbed onto the sofa just as he was about to sit down on it.
“Stop!” cried Peto, pulling his father away.
The two of them turned to see the tiny black and white face meow up at them.
“You nearly crushed it!” Peto scooped up the kitten.
“Yes. That would have been a problem,” Perrin sighed.
When he came home for dinner the tiny cat was still there. It hobbled up to him and began to climb his trousers.
“Get it off!” he yelled, shaking his leg.
Mahrree extracted the kitten from his knee. “Honestly. How can a grown man be so afraid of a tiny kitten?”
“Afraid? That’s what you think I am? Afraid!”
“Yes! Give me another reason why you run in terror from it.”
“I don’t run.”
“Well, you shout!”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“You’re shouting now!”
“So are you! Give it to me.”
Mahrree clutched the kitten to her chest. “What will you do?”
“Prove you wrong,” he beckoned. “Hand it over.”
“Don’t hurt it!”
“I won’t hurt it. Just hand it over.”
Reluctantly, Mahrree gave him the kitten. Perrin held it up to his face. It mewed in a manner that sounded like a whimper of fear.