The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (14 page)

Mal furrowed his brow. “Relf’s not the kind
to . . . you know, find a little something interesting on the side?
Got caught up somewhere else,
with
someone else?”

Brisack scowled. “He’s sixty-eight, Nicko.
While he may find someone else interesting, I have a hard time
believing another woman would feel likewise about him.”

“Just looking at possibilities.”

“I suggested to Joriana that she send for
Perrin—” Brisack began, but hesitated when he heard Mal’s
chuckling.

“Ah, how nice, how
convenient.
You
just can’t wait to meet the man, can you?”

Brisack shifted in his chair. “I suggested
that only because Joriana is so distraught. She needs someone
stronger to comfort her instead of Mrs. Cush. The woman seems more
interested in the furnishings than in helping her friend. But,
Joriana refused,” the good doctor said with obvious disappointment.
“Said she won’t send him a message until she knew what kind of news
to send. Shockingly stalwart response, I thought.”

“You just seem to be enamored with all women
called Mrs. Shin, aren’t you?” Mal said.

Brisack glared. “I’m merely gathering
information, Nicko. In order to create a truly entertaining test
with some bite, we need to know exactly who we’re biting! But,” he
sighed sadly, “not until we find out what happened to High General
Shin.”

Chapter 4
~
“Your renovations will have to wait, Mrs.
Shin.”

O
n day three after
the land tremor, Mahrree scrubbed at the stain in her son’s
trousers and sighed. She was tempted to just toss them and purchase
a new pair, but the shop where she usually bought her son and
husband’s work clothes had only ashes.

“Why am I bothering,” she said aloud,
“because they’ll just get dirty again.”

“Am I interrupted something?” she heard
Perrin’s voice in the kitchen, and he peered into the washing room.
“I wasn’t aware you discussed your laundry with . . . the
laundry.”

“No, I’m merely questioning my logic. Why are
you home in the afternoon?”

He leaned against the doorframe. “Where are
Jaytsy and Peto?”

“Out. I’ll join them in a bit—just needed to
try to get these clothes clean and drying for tomorrow again.
Jaytsy’s down the road helping to tend some children while their
parents try to shore up their walls,” Mahrree said as she wrung out
the cloth, “and Peto went to my mother’s to help some of the widows
set their shelves aright. Brillen declared most of their houses
safe now, and my mother’s friends were anxious to get their
knick-knacks put back.”

Since Perrin didn’t have a clever or stinging
commentary about old women and their clutter, she asked,
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly. “Just got word about
Moorland. Considering its proximity to Deceit, I think it’s clear
that the land tremor originated from the mountain. Moorland’s
devastated.”

“Oh, no.”

“The lieutenant who brought me the message
said the commander of the fort and the magistrate both agreed
there’s really nothing salvageable. Probably three-fourths of the
structures are a total loss, and hundreds have died, at least half
the population. Since that leaves maybe only five hundred, they’ve
decided that the survivors will simply leave for other villages.
Moorland has died,” he whispered the last words.

Mahrree’s mouth fell open. “But . . . but . .
. that can’t happen! How can a village just . . . die?”

“They don’t have the resources and manpower
to rebuild,” Perrin said quietly. “And you know Idumea doesn’t care
about the place. It was always the smallest village in the oddest
place—at the base of a mountain that no one likes . . . what’s its
purpose? I was rather shocked myself, but the more I think about
it, the more I reluctantly agree: there’s nothing else to do but
resettle the survivors. The major at the fort was trying to direct
most of the villagers to places further away, where there hadn’t
been so much damage, but he said several families seemed determined
to head over here. He asked that we make a list of temporary homes
for them, anything where the owners died, or maybe even have rooms
in a school building available until something more permanent can
be decided.”

Mahrree nodded sadly. “How awful. I can’t
imagine leaving a village that’s been . . . ruined.”

Perrin shrugged. “Guess we don’t need to
dream about visiting Terryp’s ruins anymore, now that we have our
own.”

Mahrree gasped. “I just thought of something!
Mrs. Reed was visiting her daughter in Moorland! Oh, my poor mother
and her friends—”

But Perrin’s head shaking stopped her. “No,
Mrs. Reed came back early. I saw her the afternoon before the land
tremor. She wanted to bake something, but I told her to go in for a
lie-down until Hycymum’s Herd came back from the market . . . why
are you looking at me like that?”

Mahrree swallowed. “Perrin, didn’t you know?
Mrs. Reed’s house was partially collapsed, but no one worried about
it just yet because they thought Mrs. Reed had stayed with her
daughter—”

“In Moorland,” Perrin finished her sentence
quickly and rubbed his forehead. “I need to get a search team over
there immediately.”

“Peto’s over there,” Mahrree reminded him.
“What if he happens to go to her house and—”

The knocking at the front door startled them,
and they headed quickly to the gathering room when they heard the
door open.

Peto, his head down, was walking toward his
bedroom. At the front door stood two soldiers, one of them Sergeant
Major Grandpy Neeks.

Mahrree’s shoulders sagged as she read the
expression on Grandpy’s bleak face.

“Ma’am, Sir,” Neeks said quietly as Peto
closed his bedroom door behind him.

Mahrree was about to follow Peto, but Perrin
caught her by the arm. “Grandpy,” Perrin said softly, “What
happened?”

“Those women your mother-in-law mixes with?
They were tasking young Mr. Shin there to go to each other’s houses
to find what-nots and shing-bangs, I don’t know what else.
Apparently in his jogs he passed the one cottage that was partially
destroyed, and he smelled something.”

Perrin and Mahrree were both already
wincing.

Grandpy winced back. “Poor boy was only
trying to be helpful, being a good grandson—shouldn’t have to
discover something like that at his age. Had a couple of soldiers
in the area on their way over to evaluate the house for Karna. They
got there just after your son noticed the hand under the
debris—”

Mahrree’s hands were in front of her mouth,
trying to hold back the horror, and tears streaked down her face.
Perrin cleared his throat gruffly.

“The boy took it well, bravely trying to help
the soldiers move the rubble off the body, but once Mrs. Peto and
her friends came over, and started their shrieking—well, that was
too much for young Mr. Shin. I was one road over when I heard the
commotion, arrived just as your son sat himself down on some blocks
and started crying. Didn’t say nothing to him; you know how men
need to be. Sat with him for a time until he quieted down, then
brought him home . . . He’s a solid boy, Mrs. Shin. Just needs to—”
Grandpy shrugged.

Mahrree nodded vigorously, and Perrin cleared
his throat again. “Thank you, Grandpy. Glad you were the one to be
there for him. I’ll accompany you back to the site. And here I
thought we were done uncovering the dead.”

“Mrs. Reed makes number one hundred and two,”
Grandpy said. “Maybe she’s the last.”

Perrin sighed. “Corporal,” he addressed the
second soldier who had been waiting patiently, “find Rector Yung
and see that he gets to the Cottages as soon as possible. They’re
going to need his attention.” He turned to Mahrree. “Give Peto
about ten more minutes, then go in and check on him. Treat him like
a man—”

Mahrree frowned. “And what’s that supposed to
mean? Besides, he’s only thirteen, and he’s just discovered the
corpse of the woman who always made him cookies. Granted, they
weren’t as good as Mother’s, but he was always so sweet about
eating a few in front of her . . .” Mahrree’s chin wobbled too much
for her to go on.

Perrin hugged her briefly. “Just sit with
him, don’t draw attention to the fact that he’s been crying—in
fact, don’t say anything at all. Just listen to him, if he chooses
to speak. That’s how you treat him like a man.”

“That’s never worked with you,” she said.

“How do you know? You’ve never tried it.”

---

A few minutes later Perrin arrived at the
Cottages to hear the chilling wails of two dozen old women. A
tattered blanket covered a thin body, and before he could ask his
soldiers if Karna’s pushing cart was on its way to bring down the
rest of the Cottage safely, he was surrounded by elderly sobs and
grandmothers pulling on him for comfort. The sooner Rector Yung
could get there, Perrin decided, the better. In the end he hugged
each woman—a few getting in line twice, he noticed—then kept his
arm around his mother-in-law who was the safest bet for the
day.

“We didn’t know, Perrin!” she cried as she
twisted her apron in her hands. “We thought she was still in
Moorland! What could we have done?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if she were in
Moorland, Mother Peto,” he told her and the women. “I just received
a message from their fort. The destruction there is worse than
here. It seems Mt. Deceit caused the tremors, and more than half of
the village has died. Had Mrs. Reed stayed there, she probably
would have met the same fate. At least she went while in her own
house.”

Hycymum sniffed and nodded sadly. “She was on
her sofa. Likely taking a nap that lasted until morning.”

Perrin cleared his throat and, seeing the
devastated looks on the women’s faces, decided they were imagining
themselves as the one dying alone on her sofa, so he hugged each
one of them again. Fortunately by then Rector Yung arrived, winded
but ready to help. As he circled the women for prayer, Perrin
slipped over to some of his soldiers working on the rubble.

“Where’s Major Karna and his
contraption?”

“A few roads over, sir,” one of them told
him. “He said he could be over here by dinner.”

“I want him over here now. Get him.”

Less than an hour later Perrin and Karna
watched the major’s contraption at work, one of three he had
devised: a wagon with large timbers positioned at overhanging
angles. A team of oxen were hitched backward to the wagon so that
the timbers could push against weak walls to bring them down, or
test the stability of standing structures. If the walls could
withstand the oxen ramming team, the building was likely strong
enough to house people.

Mrs. Reed’s house took only for the oxen team
to be positioned in place before the last wall crumbled, much of
the debris falling on the wagon and not on any soldiers, old women,
or boys.

“Well, that was unnervingly easy,” Brillen
said quietly.

“Sorry to call you over from your route, but
I wanted this taken care of,” Perrin told him.

“Understood. Rather surprising that the wall
didn’t come down while Peto was poking around—”

Seeing his commander’s jaw shift, Major Karna
nodded once. “I’ll send out the message—no one should enter any
houses or remove any debris until one of the oxen teams can clear
the house.”

“Thank you.”

But Brillen noticed Perrin’s jaw tremble.
“Got to me last night,” he said quietly. “Over a puppy, of all
things. Someone had tossed it in the pit we have dug by the canal
for the animals. I’ve seen plenty of dead, but for some reason that
blasted puppy . . .” His voice cracked. “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be sorry, Brillen. Never be sorry for
feeling compassion. That’s what will make you an excellent
commander someday, and probably soon. I don’t care what they told
us in Command School, our duty isn’t to eliminate the Guarders;
it’s to protect those who can’t protect themselves,” Perrin said as
they watched two soldiers gently place the covered body on a
stretcher. “From anyone and anything. You’ll find plenty of
officers who know all the right names and have all the right
connections, or so they think. But the people we really need to
know are the ones who can’t bring us any power or prestige.”

“I know that,” Karna said as the soldiers
lifted the stretcher onto a wagon. Several women stood near it,
weeping. “Because I’ve learned that from you.”

Perrin nodded once to the driver of the wagon
to take the body to the burial grounds, where a mass grave was
waiting to be covered tomorrow. Slowly the wagon pulled away, and
the widows hugged each other.

“No one cares more for the villagers than you
do,” Karna said, almost reverently. “Which means you’ll make a
fantastic High General when your father retires in two years.”

Perrin groaned quietly and put a hand on
Karna’s shoulder. “Why’d you have to say that?” His grip became
firmer, and his major began to sag under the pinch of his nerve.
“We were having a moment there, and then you had to go and ruin
it.”

Karna was nearly gasping now, trying to
pretend nothing was wrong as the lieutenant colonel dug a finger
into his muscle. “Because you need to get used to the idea,” he
panted. “Because the only fort I ever plan to command is here in
Edge, and I need you out of the way first.”

Perrin almost smiled at that as he finally
released Karna, who exhaled in relief. “Edge is mine, Brillen.
Forever. Find your own fort. Besides, think of Miss Robbing.”

Karna, straightening up again now that the
pain was gone, shrugged. “Well, we
were
planning to
talk—”

“You’re still going to talk,” Perrin said.
“Go on Holy Day. We can spare you. See how she and her parents are
doing, and if you can help them with anything. Besides, I need
someone to drop by the fort and get an evaluation of the damage in
Rivers.”