The Forest at the Edge of the World (38 page)

“Everything all right?” she asked as he made notes on his pages. “I think you would be more comfortable in the eating room.”

“No, I’m fine here. Just making sure you’re all right.”

“Your uniform’s still soaking. Some unusual stains on it,” she said casually.

“Yes, yes,” he said, without looking up, “A few tumbles and struggles. I can finish cleaning it. Did so for years. Don’t want you getting ill again.” He looked up, forced a smile, and went to the washing room to start scrubbing his uniform.

He doesn’t want me to know, she thought as she stirred the pot on the stove. Am I supposed to get it out of him, or just wait until he confesses it? That question occupied her mind until dinner, and du
ring it, when she noticed Perrin frequently watching her out of the corner of his eye.

He knows I know something’s up, she decided. He’s trying to see if I’m going to pry it out of him. She didn’t ask anything revea
ling about his uniform during dinner, nor as they sat on the sofa together afterward. But Mahrree could tell he was paying more attention to her instead of his papers. She rested her legs on his lap and pretended to read a book.

Finally she put it down when she caught him looking at her again.

“All right. I give up. But I’m not a Guarder, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she teased.

“What?” he asked, startled.

“You’ve been staring at me all afternoon. Something’s obviously on your mind, and you’re wondering if it’s on my mind, too. Aren’t you?”

His shoulder twitched. “Maybe. Depends on what you’re thin
king.”

“I think you have something to tell me,” she accused. “Som
ething you haven’t shared.”

She’d never seen such a perplexed look on his face before. “Shouldn’t it be
you
telling
me?
”

Now she was baffled. “How would
I
know?!”

His jaw dropped. “You’re supposed to know first!”

Mahrree blinked. “I’m beginning to think we’re not talking about the same thing.”

He squinted back. “I think you’re right.”

“So, what are you thinking?”

He studied her. “How do you feel right
now?
”

She couldn’t understand where his question was going, but she shrugged. “Better, but still a bit light-headed. I’m just tired, but I think it’s because I haven’t slept well.”

He didn’t seem satisfied by that answer. “Why do you think you were sick?”

“Because you were gone!”

He didn’t smile, but something was changing his eyes. “Are you
sure
that’s the only reason?”

Mahrree sat up a little. “What other reason could there be?”

“It’s just that . . . certain things . . . it could be that . . . you’re so
emotional
today . . .” he stumbled with a growing smile. The dark brooding in his eyes began to lighten for the first time since he came home.

It wasn’t until he raised his eyebrows in suggestion and nodded at her belly that Mahrree caught his meaning.

Oh.

Ohhh
. . .

Every morning, her irrationality and queasiness . . .

She looked quickly down at her belly, then back at him.

“Hmm?” he hinted and shrugged with a gentle smile.

“No!” she gasped.

“Are you absolutely
sure?
”

“No! I’m not!” she admitted. His smile was contagious, now growing on her face.

“So how do we know for sure?”

“We wait, I guess. By the end of the Raining Season we should
definitely
know something!” She laughed. Then she started to cry. Already?! She had heard it could take seasons and even years, but
already?!

“I think we’ll know a bit sooner than
that
. You’re making a good case for it right now!” He dabbed at her tears and chuckled. “My mother told me all kinds of things to watch for, and according to her comprehensive list—”

Mahrree didn’t realize until then that
every
Shin was an extensive list maker.

“—you’re more than just ill.” He sighed—rather contentedly—and his eyes grew shiny. “If you are what I suspect you are, then this will have been a good week after all.”

With growing giddiness she covered her mouth with her hands, astonished that the thought never occurred to her. “I just don’t dare believe it!” 

“So, that’s
not
what you’ve been thinking today?” he reminded her.

“What? Oh, not at all!”

He kissed her. “So my darling wife, who may be getting much larger in size in the next eight moons or so, what was it that you were thinking today?”

“About your uniform!” She kissed him back. “Wondering why it was so muddy with pine sap on it. Why, I completely forgot about it!”

“Good,” he said shortly. “Now, I suppose once we’re sure this is the real thing, we’ll need another addition—”

Mahrree blinked in surprise. “Usually couples wait to see if the baby survives before building an addition.  Not that I’m suggesting that . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the awful alternative, but she knew it was a possibility.

So did her husband, but Perrin wasn’t going to accept that. “
Our
baby will live, Mahrree,” he said with enough determination to almost ensure it. “Every Shin son for the past four generations came into the world robust and screaming.”

“But . . . what if it isn’t a son?” Mahrree winced.

Perrin’s expression went stiff, as if he’d never considered that. He tried to soften it, but the damage was already done.

Of course he’d think only of a boy, Mahrree thought. That didn’t bother her, just
concerned
her.

“You obviously survived,” Perrin finally managed. “So too would our daughter.”

She was impressed he didn’t hesitate on that last word. “We should likely wait anyway,” Mahrree decided. “Just to be sure. Now’s not the best time to begin an addition anyway, with the—”

She stopped, suddenly remembering the previous conversation he’d so easily steered her away from.

“Wait a minute. We were talking about why you uniform was dirty—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he waved it off. “I was thinking, if we put the baby’s addition against the study, both rooms can share the fir
eplace—”

She sat up. “Perrin, why
was
your uniform so filthy, with pine sap on it?”

He patted her shoulder. “Now, now. Don’t overexcite yourself. Not at a time like this—”

“Oh, don’t patronize me!” she snapped. “This is another avoidance tactic, isn’t it? Before we married we promised that we’d be honest with each other from now on. I’m asking you a question, and I expect an honest answer. And so does your baby, should he or she be in there!” She patted her belly and tried to keep her chastising tone, but another wave of joyful anticipation bubbled up and leaked out her tear ducts.

Perrin smiled at her conflicted face. “We can discuss this later.”

“We’re discussing it now!”

He sighed and sat back, keeping a hand on hers. “I went into the forest,” he confessed.

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Did you get out safely?!”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

She rolled her eyes at her stupidity. “
Of course
you got out safely, what am I saying . . . wait, what are YOU saying?! You went in deliberately?”

He nodded.

“Why?!”

“That’s where the Guarders are, Mahrree,” he said simply.

“First rule of the army!” she reminded loudly. “No one in the forests!”

“Yes, yes, yes. I know.”

“So how long were you in there?”

“We were there about . . .” He looked up at the ceiling as if e
stimating, “almost the entire time.”

Mahrree’s mouth dropped open. “Who else?”

“Karna.”

“Willingly?”

Perrin only shrugged.

“What will your father say?!”

“That’s why I can’t sleep. That’s what I’ve been working on—my excuses, explanations, evidence of success, and a proposal to let me do it again—”

“NO!” Mahrree cried, and protectively held her belly. “You’ll die!”

He sat up and took her hands off her belly to hold them. “I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this. Just last season you proposed that I go in there and stop them.”

“Well, now things are different,” she insisted, realizing that she
had
completely reversed her position in the last few minutes.  True, a few moons ago she wanted her intended to defy the rules, barge into that forest, and scare away all of the bad men.

But that was before she realized just
how bad
the bad men were, and before she realized this was real, not just some vain woman’s bravado. Her mind was too frazzled to formulate exactly what had changed but
something
had!

“Back then, you were . . . you were just—” she started.

“Just some man you sort of fancied?” he suggested with a hint of teasing.

“Well, no! I mean, I love you—”

“Oh,
now
, but not
before
?”

“Stop it!” she exclaimed, aggravated by his new attempt to d
etour her. “I mean, you can’t go into the forest because now you might be a father!”

He smiled at that before his face became earnest. “Mahrree, the forest isn’t that bad. The trees are the
safest
parts. Where the ground is unstable, nothing grows. It’s easy to avoid. There were a few gaps and caverns which were overgrown, but watching for them isn’t hard. Mahrree, I can conquer that forest! I scared out several Guarders. They crash around since no one else is there to see them. I’m sure that if I can get an army in there, we can annihilate them, once and for all. Then, Mahrree,
no one
will die.” He put his hand tenderly on her belly. “No one.”

“You can’t be serious about going back,” she whispered.

“Ah, Mahrree, believe me—it’s just not that bad. Not even the cavern where the two Guarders fell in. It was obvious to see. I stood at the edge and—”

She stared at him, horrified.

He stopped talking and rubbed his forehead. “If your response is anything like my father’s—”

“He better be as shocked as me!” she declared. “Perrin, why? Why take such a risk?”

“For you,” he said quietly. “For Edge. For everyone in the world being terrorized.”

“And not for yourself?”

“Maybe a bit for myself,” he confessed, the annoyed officer emerging again. “I wanted answers. Why are they doing this? No one, in all these years, has ever carried on a civil conversation with one of them. It’s always been challenges and shouting then blades and then nothing. We have an entire class on them in Command School, and you know what? There’s nothing to talk about. If I could just find one willing to explain to me what’s going on. Find some truth—
anything.
You understand that, don’t you?”

He slumped on the sofa, discouraged.

“It would have been fantastic to find their base or even a settlement, but Mahrree—there was
nothing
in the forests north of here. Just a few random men chasing each other. And the few men I encountered preferred to die rather than talk.
Why?
It makes no sense.”

“It never has,” she whispered. “It’s never added up. Perrin, right before we were engaged, I charted when new kings came to power and when Guarders attacked: always a year and fourteen weeks later, as if the Guarders knew. Or as if the kings knew they needed to d
efeat someone to prove their strength.”

“You really did that?” he asked, intrigued. “Where are your notes?”

“I burned them before you arrived that night.”

“Good,” he nodded. “That’s what I did, too. It occurred to me some time ago that Guarder attacks were
convenient.
But when the Administrators came to power, and nothing happened after a year and a season, I realized that now maybe things were different.”

“So are they?”

He nodded. “The spy my father interrogated was a hardened, bitter man. He was for real, Mahrree. I remember that conversation we had the night we were engaged, you questioned their authenticity. To be honest, I have too. Even after the attack on Grasses I still had a fragment of doubt. But now?” His face grew pale, his expression grim. “Mahrree, they’re even more mysterious than before. Take that business with the small knives . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the images. “Anyway, I hate mysteries.”