The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (90 page)

Two soldiers stopped in their tracks, looking
at each other in concern. Another broke off from the group and went
across the road, and two more followed him, averting their eyes so
as to not see their former colonel. The rest continued in their
walk to him, some still not recognizing who he was.

Perrin kept his hand firmly planted in his
trousers. Fortunately the dirt drive to Deck’s was coming up. He
raised his left hand in a wave to the approaching soldiers, then
cut abruptly through Deck’s field.

Perrin marched—
strolled
—to the Briter
home. The fort was out of his view, as well as everything else
attached to it. All that filled his sight now was the house, the
fields, and the barn that he’d work on this afternoon. He could
leave everything else behind, as simply as that. Just change his
pace, find a new target, and head toward it. This wasn’t going to
be so hard—

A voice from the group of soldiers trailed
after him. “Sir! Goodbye. And thank you, sir. For everything.”

It was Jon Offra.

The Briter house in front of Perrin became
blurry and he felt the need to clear his throat. He sniffed and
slowed in his gait for just a moment. But he didn’t turn around. He
couldn’t.

This was going to be harder than he
thought.

---

Hew Gleace paced back and forth in his office
while the man in green and brown clothing stood by patiently.

“
I don’t believe it . . .
He resigned!” the elderly man whispered in amazement. “Just up and
. . . resigned!”

The man in mottled clothing cleared his
throat. “Rumor is he was to have been the new High General.”

Gleace stopped and pivoted. His mouth was
open, his eyes shiny, and his breathing paused. “That’s it then,
isn’t it. The confirmation.
The highest rank
!” He whispered
the last words and looked up at the planked ceiling. “This is
it.”

The man smiled. “We thought you’d appreciate
that.”

Gleace sat down, then promptly stood back up
as anxious energy propelled him now to pace in a circle. “Not that
I ever doubted, especially after Tuma Hifadhi declared it, but . .
.” He looked up again. “Oh, Tuma—if only you could see this day!
But I have a feeling you are anyway.”

His audience chuckled and Hew Gleace grinned
at the scout. “So where’s Shem?”

The man’s eyebrows went up. “He hasn’t
reported in?”

“
No, he was due back for—”
Gleace stopped, the joyous expression on his face fading into
dread. “What’s he up to?”

The man shrugged. “I thought he was already
here, helping—”

Gleace sat down worriedly. “Oh, he’s helping.
Helping in ways that may prove very dangerous to him and everyone
else. Oh, Shem.” The older man massaged his eyes. “The worst part
is, someone’s going to have to tell his father he’s not coming home
tonight.”

The younger man smiled sadly as Gleace opened
his eyes again. There was simply too much excitement in the news of
the day to keep Hew down for long. “Well, nothing for it, then. We
have a great deal of work to do. Did you notify—”

“
Everyone? Yes. They’ll be
at your briefing this afternoon.”

Gleace rubbed his hands in anticipation.
“I’ll put some people to work on the findings Mrs. Braxhicks gave
you. We need to fully understand what they think they now
understand. But for now, the big question is the Shins.”

“
So how will it
happen?”

Gleace’s eyebrows furrowed in new worry.
“That’s what we have to work out. It’ll be like smuggling an
elephant through a Holy Day service. How do you move something so
obvious without anyone noticing?”

The man in mottled clothing frowned. “I don’t
think you can.”

“
No, we can’t,” Gleace
agreed. “There’ll be a mess—we’ve always known there would be—and
we’ll have to figure out how to clean it up, too.”

The man sighed. “Glad I’m not on the planning
committee.”

“
Then again,” Gleace said
thoughtfully, “if we’re the one
making
the mess, we’ll know
exactly what to clean . . .”

The man shrugged at that, not yet following
his meaning. “Any recommendations for me to send in the
meantime?”

Gleace rubbed his chin. “They have to become
quiet.
Very
quiet.”

“
Hifadhi said that’s the
advice your brother-in-law was hoping to deliver to them. He’ll be
on his way out soon. All rectors are being expelled from the
world.”

Gleace stared out the window as if he could
already see Yung. “As I’d expect. This will be unlike anything
we’ve ever done before. Tuma and I discussed it, many times.”

He glanced upwards as if his old mentor sat
in the rafters.

“
There’s still no other
option, is there, Tuma?” Hew said to the ceiling. “After all these
years, it remains the only one.”

The man standing behind him shifted
nervously. “If I may ask, what’s that only option?”

Gleace watched out the window again. “There’s
no way to make the most well-known family in the world simply
vanish. No, it looks like we’re going to have to kill them.”

The man gasped. “Kill them?!”

Gleace turned to him and grinned.

“
Just like we killed Guide
Pax.”

---

As Mahrree hung out the wash to dry on the
line in the back garden she felt someone watching her. Surely
someone would be. Perrin had warned her last night that they’d be
under guard until Thorne lost interest or the Administrators had a
made a decision as to what to do next. Mahrree subtly looked around
her to discover where the soldier may be lurking. Possibly the
bushes or in the maple tree that spanned the alley behind the
house. Well she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was only hanging
out the clothes. He was more than welcome to help.

She chuckled miserably as she picked up the
empty basket. Seeing Mrs. Hersh in her back garden, Mahrree waved.
But Mrs. Hersh’s eyes bulged and she rushed into her house.

Mahrree frowned. “Hmm,” she said. She walked
back to the house and looked through the window at her
neighbor.

Mrs. Hersh was carefully creeping back out,
watching Mahrree’s back porch door for movement.

“
Hmm,” she said to The Cat
who had followed her in. “I hadn’t quite anticipated
that.
What do you think she’s been told?”

Hearing footsteps in the back garden, Mahrree
turned to see Peto coming up the back stairs and open the door with
a flourish.

Mrs. Hersh rushed back into her house,
shielding her view of the Shins.

Peto didn’t notice, but held out his arms
wide. “I’ve learned all that I can learn in the Administrators’
School,” he announced with feigned pride. “This notice,” he
produced an official piece of parchment from his pocket, “informs
you and Father that I no longer need to attend. Isn’t that
wonderful?” He batted his eyelids.

Mahrree pursed her lips as she took the
notice dated that morning. “Well son, I couldn’t be more proud,”
she said with just as much enthusiasm. “It looks like you’re an
outcast in Edge as well. I’m sorry, Peto. Your father’s at Deck’s.
I’m sure he’ll be pleased with your expulsion.”

He took the parchment and dropped the
meaningless notice on the floor. “Mother,” Peto said, putting his
hand on her shoulder, “all I can say is, why didn’t you get angry
in public earlier? I’m missing only the last few weeks of school.
Had you done this seasons ago, I could have been really enjoying
myself!”

“
Thanks,” she whispered and
gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Now go to Deck and Jaytsy’s
and get to work!” she ordered him.

He started to salute her, but dropped his arm
and shook his head in self admonishment. This was going to take
some time.

Mahrree tried to feel badly about his
expulsion. But she couldn’t. She wondered why she had sent him to
school that morning at all.

---

Peto changed into his work clothes, ducked
out of the back door, smirked that Mrs. Hersh ran back into her
house
again
, and headed around to the front yard. He pulled
the cotton bag of peach pits from his pocket and analyzed the hole
his mother had hacked in the front garden.

A little too close to the house maybe. And a
little too deep. Remarkable how much damage she did to the front
yard with only Grandmother Peto’s fancy fork. It was still lying
there, bent and dirty and startled.

He’d been thinking about this all evening and
morning, and still wasn’t sure what the peach pits meant, but maybe
this was something. He dropped to his knees and poured out the six
pits into the hole. Then, knowing that was about five pits too
many, he fished the extras out and slipped them back into the bag.
They’d go somewhere else. He just didn’t know where in the world
that could be, though.

With the damaged fork he scooped some of the
dirt over the pit, but left a good amount of hole so that his
mother wouldn’t know what was in there. He had no reason as to why
not
to tell her about the peach pits, it’s just that . . .
well, he didn’t know much of anything about anything at all anymore
and . . .

And
that’s
why they let him leave
school, he chuckled to himself on the way to the Briters’ farm.

---

Perrin and Peto left from the Briters a
little before dinner time. Despite everything, Perrin was
smiling.

He had plans.

In the mornings he and Peto would help Deck
with his chores and the cattle, and in the afternoons the young men
would retreat to the privacy of the barn to undergo Perrin’s new
training regime. The first lesson tomorrow would be, “How to Hold
Weapon as It Was Intended,” followed by “How to Move Faster Than
Perrin.” He was also bringing home a gift for Mahrree: some of the
Briters’ old gardening tools.

As they turned down the alley to their home,
Peto murmured to his father. “Looks different than the one earlier
today.”

Perrin nodded. As they neared the house,
Perrin cleared his throat. “Well, Peto, tomorrow we best get to
work on the wasps in the maples. Last I saw they were building a
new nest about five branches up.” They hopped over the fence and up
to the back porch.

Shortly after Perrin shut the door, a blue
uniformed young man fell out of the tree, frantically brushing off
nothing from his clothes.

In the kitchen Perrin groaned in
disappointment as he watched the panicked soldier. “I was really
hoping it was Thorne. Maybe next time.”

“
Perrin, you’re terrible,”
Mahrree chided without meaning it. “What are you
holding?”

He grinned and held out the shovel, hoe, and
rake. “I understand you started to work on the front yard last
night. Perhaps, with all our free time, you want to do the job
properly.”

Mahrree took the tools. “Maybe I
do
like gardening.”

Perrin’s grin faded. “There’s also this,” he
said grimly as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket—an
official notice, ripped from the message board closest to their
house.

“
That may explain a few
things,” Mahrree said as she took it. She glanced at the first
line. “Interesting take on the events, though.”

“
Politics,” Peto said
dully.

“
You’ve learned a lot about
that lately, haven’t you?” Perrin said.

Peto scoffed. “More than I’d learn in school!
I need to wash up. Farms are dirty places, and smelly. But not as
disgusting as that,” he gestured to the notice before he went to
the washroom.

Mahrree sat down on the kitchen chair and
read. “‘
By order of the Army of Idumea
, Perrin Shin is no
longer commander of the army presence in Edge. He is, for all
intents and purposes, as well as according to all considerations
and procedures—’” She paused to scowl. “What does that mean?”

Perrin shrugged. “It means that Thorne, Kori,
and Genev’s assistant have been practicing their Idumea-speak.”

Mahrree shook her head. “‘He is blah, blah,
blah, a regular citizen of Edge and is to be considered as such.”
She rolled her eyes. “So ‘He resigned’ is too few words, and too
accurate?”

He smiled painfully and shrugged again.
“There’s more.”

Mahrree looked back at the notice and her
mouth dropped open. “What does
this
mean? ‘Mahrree Shin,
despite her behavior, is also to be continued to be afforded all
rights and privileges as a citizen of Edge.’ Well what else would I
be ‘afforded’?” She gasped in panic. “Perrin, why did they have to
write this?”

He kneeled down in front of her and took her
arms. “Calm down. Slow breaths. It means nothing.”

“
How can you say that?!”
she panted, ignoring his advice.

He pushed a stray lock of hair behind her
ear. “Deck talked to Chief Barnie after we saw the notice go up.
There are a few Edgers upset right now. Apparently . . .” Perrin
paused to find the right words, and she knew what was coming next
would be awful, “some people went to him insisting that you should
be incarcerated
—
”

Mahrree felt nauseated.

“—
for your outburst. They
thought you were debating and felt you showed extreme disrespect to
the Administrators and to me.”

She closed her eyes and hid her face with her
hands. All she could say was the phrase she repeated so often. “I’m
so sorr—”

“
No, no, no! There’s
nothing to be sorry about! You said what needed to be said. Maybe a
little
loudly
,” he cocked his head. “News should have
reached Idumea by now. I wished Shem was still here. I was really
hoping we would hear from him before he left, but with the house
being watched—”