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

Perrin burst out laughing.

Shem shook his head but chuckled. “Not funny,
sir
,” he sneered as they marched across the compound. The
last remnants of the Raining Season’s snow piled against the
stockade fence was finally melting, and the men’s boots squelched
in the mud as they passed the mess hall and surgery on their way to
the northeast gates.

“Mahrree’s still on the lookout for you,”
Perrin warned him. “Although I have to remind you again, single
women your age are getting scarce.”

“We’ve been through this before,” Shem sighed
as they walked out of the compound toward the stables, “when I’m
ready, I’ll find the right woman. Or she’ll find me, and then I’ll
know I’m ready. We’ve just never crossed paths yet.”

“That’s because you don’t walk on any paths
except when on duty, Shem! You need to go out and find some new
paths.”

Shem looked around to make sure they were
still out of earshot. “So, what . . . you’re saying you’re tiring
of my company, Perrin? You’re ready to find a new best buddy?”

Perrin smiled. It’d be impossible to replace
Shem Zenos. He became so much a part of the Shin family that more
than once Perrin had to remind himself that he wasn’t actually a
blood relation. For Shem’s 26
^th
birthday he gave him
permission to call him Perrin—and found out then he’d been calling
Mahrree by her first name for years.

But somehow that step past propriety had
sealed Shem Zenos’s connection. If only Shem had black hair and
nearly black eyes like Perrin, he would have been tempted to guess
they were distantly related. There was no way to prove such a
thing, however, since all the records of family lines had been
destroyed generations ago. But since Shem was from between Flax and
Waves, on the farthest reaches of the southern border of the world,
and Perrin’s family had all come from Idumea, there were obviously
no connections. Besides, Shem’s hair was the same color as
Mahrree’s, his skin was hued a different gravelly color than
Perrin’s, and his eyes were of such a pure blue that Perrin knew no
one in his family could ever have produced something close to it.
Black and brown were the dominant colors in the Shins.

“Look,” Perrin told his master sergeant,
“what you do with your life is your life. But you know Mahrree.
‘Coax him a little, Perrin!’” he said in a high-pitched voice.
“‘Tell him how wonderful marriage is!’ By the way,” he added with
cheerful deviousness, “did she tell you she received a letter from
Sareen?”

The moan of despair next to him made Perrin
smirk.

“Apparently not, then. It seems things didn’t
work out too well with her latest conquest, and since Sareen’s
likely gone through the full gamut of men in Quake and now
Mountseen, she’s thinking of coming back to Edge. She was wondering
about you.”

“Dear Creator,” Shem mumbled in earnest
prayer, “please no, please no . . .”

Perrin chuckled. “Mahrree wrote to her that
you’re still wholly committed to soldiering.”

Shem’s shoulders sagged. “Thank you,
Mahrree.”

“She’s not the only one interested in you,
Master Sergeant,” Perrin warned him. “Mahrree’s had a few other
inquiries. She’s given up trying to find Grandpy Neeks a wife, but
there are a few out there your age still. And they are—shall we
say—not as young as they used to be. A few of them are bordering on
full-blown spinsterhood, although they can probably cook well,
judging on the spread of their hips.” He cast a sidelong glance to
Shem to see if he was taking the bait.

But Shem wasn’t.

So Perrin went on. “You can’t wait too much
longer. You’re older than I was when I got married, by several
years now.”

“I know,” Shem murmured. “I just . . .” He
never finished those sentences about his reluctance to find a
female. “Tell Mahrree thanks for fending them off for me.”

“Oh, but she’s not,” Perrin chuckled. “She’s
feeling them out and I have to play along, you know. Do my duty to
my wife, and all that. So, get married. Have a wonderful life.”

“Good man, Perrin,” Shem said solemnly. “I’ll
tell Mahrree you did your duty, and I’ll take your words to
heart.”

“You must be the biggest liar in the army,
Zenos!”

“You really should be giving that lecture to
Major Karna,” Zenos told him. “Brillen asked me to schedule him
three days off in a row again. Seems he’s planning another visit
down to Rivers.”

“I’ve already given him the lecture,” Perrin
said. “It’s not as if their fort needs more training in his
inventory projection procedures.”

A corner of Shem’s mouth went up. “So he’s
still calling on that mystery woman?”

“She’s no longer a mystery,” Perrin smiled
faintly. “Told him I needed some details as to why he’s been a bit
distracted lately. Her name’s Miss Robbing. He met her when she was
making a delivery to the fort’s kitchen and he was inspecting their
paperwork. She’s their egg woman. Brillen seems quite smitten with
her.” Perrin’s smile dimmed.

Shem frowned. “So what’s wrong? Sounds
promising. He should bring her back here for a visit.”

“There’s a bit of a problem. Her parents are
unwell. Something’s wrong with her father’s lungs and he can’t
breathe properly, and her mother’s legs were injured many years
ago, and she can’t walk without assistance. Miss Robbing is not
only their sole support, she’s their caregiver. She’d never leave
them or Rivers.”

“Ah,” Shem said slowly. “She could bring her
parents here—”

“Doesn’t sound like that’s an option. They
have other family that help from time to time, a good neighborhood
that frequently assists—Rivers is their home.” Perrin sighed.

Shem cleared his throat. “Brillen’s long
overdue for a promotion to lieutenant colonel, you know. Just like
you’re long overdue to become a colonel.”

“So what?” Perrin said dully as his gait
slowed. The stables were in view, but he didn’t want to get there
just yet.

“Change isn’t all bad, Perrin. You’ve made a
lot of changes to the forts, for example—”

“That’s not the same,” Perrin interrupted,
and his shoulder twitched. “The changes
I
instigate are
good—”

“He proclaims humbly,” Shem said in an
undertone that Perrin tried to ignore.

“I came to Edge because I despised all that
was going on in Idumea. But it’s followed me here. All good things
change, Shem. Nothing wrong with fighting it, is there?”

The men had stopped walking now, and spoke
just beyond each other’s shoulders, as if surveying the area for
signs of trouble. Their ready stance kept younger soldiers away
from their conversation.

“Bad things also change, Perrin, often to
something better, and change is vital,” Shem said quietly as his
gaze swept across the forest’s edge, a few hundred paces away. “As
manifested by your improvements to the security of the world. But
think about this: what if your children never grew? You and I have
certainly changed, and I think for the better. So why fight
that?”

Perrin grumbled quietly to himself. Shem was
always far too logical. “Careful, master sergeant,” he said quietly
as he watched passing soldiers who glanced back at him nervously,
“you sound like you’re debating, and you know I’m not supposed to
allow that.”

Shem scoffed. “Says the biggest hypocrite in
the village.”

Perrin snorted, but kept his face still.

“Now consider this,” Shem said, pivoting as a
signal that what he was about to say was going to end the illegal
debate. “If Brillen were promoted and transferred to Rivers—you
know the colonel there’s looking to retire soon—what kind of change
would Miss Robbing experience? And think if she were married to a
man who brought home an officer’s pay? She wouldn’t spend so many
hours each day in a hen house now, would she? Even her parents
would benefit, and Brillen Karna would enjoy all those ‘benefits of
marriage’ you keep going on about.”

Perrin folded his arms and growled under his
breath. They were robbing him of his major.

But he knew he was being selfish. Karna had
been there with him from the beginning, chosen by his father
specifically to be Perrin’s second in command, probably because he
was so by-the-book Perrin could use him as a reference guide.

But over the years, Perrin had rubbed off on
Brillen, so that he ignored the High General’s book of procedures
nearly as often as Perrin did. Yet Karna was still an excellent
officer, a careful planner, a most dedicated subordinate, and—worst
of all—a friend who deserved to have a little bit of happiness,
too.

Perrin rubbed his forehead in
frustration.

“Lieutenant Rigoff’s a good officer,” Shem
hinted. “He helped the major develop the new inventory procedures.
He’s bright, willing to learn, and
also
overdue for
promotion to captain. You know, I see those forms arrive in the
messenger’s bag, but I think you lose them all on purpose. I’m sure
Teeria would be happy to have her husband promoted to captain—”

“Yes, yes, yes—all right, I heard you! I
heard you already,” Perrin finally snapped at his conscience.

A passing soldier hustled away to the mess
hall to avoid finding out if the outburst was pointed at him, and
what noise he may have made to set off the lieutenant colonel.

Master Sergeant Zenos just smiled smugly and
folded his arms.

Perrin mumbled, “I’ll talk to Brillen after
his next trip. See how things are going. See if he’s . . .
interested in requesting a transfer.”

“I don’t want to see him go either, Perrin,”
Shem whispered, “but how much longer should he sit under your
shadow?”

Perrin blinked in surprise at that. The
thought had never occurred to him.

Shem raised his eyebrows and tilted his head
toward the stables.

Reluctantly Perrin nodded back. They’d pick
up this conversation later.

As they neared the stables they found the
group of ten new soldiers saddling their mounts for their training
ride. Perrin and Shem both assumed a more reserved demeanor in
front of the young men, which meant extending the distance between
them another foot or so, as if to signal the familiarity all the
soldiers knew existed wasn’t as close as it seemed. But it was a
well-known fact that if you needed one man, just find the
other.

Still, the expectations of the Army of Idumea
simply couldn’t abide an enlisted man ever referring to an officer
by his first name, not even in the privacy of the officer’s home,
and with a family he considered his own. So it was a good thing
that the village Edge of the World was about as far away from
Idumea as one could get.

The men nodded to each other, took their
respective horses, exchanged complicated facials expression that
said,
Mahrree’s expecting you for dinner
, and
I hope it’s
steak,
then headed out in different directions.

Master Sergeant Zenos, in charge of new
recruit training, rode straight to the forest’s edge to monitor the
orientation of the fort’s newest soldiers, while Perrin shoved the
worrying thought of Brillen Karna and a hopeful Miss Robbing into a
recess in his mind—

—But he didn’t shove them
too
closely
together.

Feeling a bit guilty about that, he decided
to let them be a little closer . . .

He prodded the horse chosen for him for the
afternoon—a brown mare the stable master hoped would be the right
combination of strength and speed Perrin was always searching for
but never finding—and headed toward Edge to show the village that
the Eyes, Ears, and Voice of the Administrators was
there
for them.

“Comforting the citizenry,” was what his
father cynically called it. The daily ride was insisted on by the
Administrator of Culture who thought the world would feel comfort,
in spite of the increased thievery, if they saw their fort
commanders out among them.

It was stupid, Perrin frequently thought, but
mystifyingly it worked to make people feel secure, even though they
weren’t.

“Lieutenant Colonel!”

Perrin heard the hopeful call of the owner of
what he privately called the Useless Additional Collars and Cuffs
Shoppe. The store sold little bits of fancy cloth to attach to
clothing that already had enough on them. The place was actually
called the Adornment Shoppe, and Perrin suspected the extra
p
and
e
at the end of shop was to represent the
absurdity of the place.

But, he dutifully put on his How May I Be of
Genuine and Sincere Service smile—one that Mahrree made him
practice until it was genuinely sincere—and nudged his horse over
to the squat man and his towering wife. “And what can I do for you
this fine Planting Season day?”

“You can promise me,” began the woman with a
terrifyingly hooked nose, “that none of those snotty teenagers will
be raiding our Shoppe!”

Perrin could even hear the extra
p
and
e
, along with the capital
s
. The woman’s husband
bobbed his head happily but added a nod of apology.

“We’ve been through this before, Mrs.
Snobgrass; I can’t promise anything beyond my soldiers and myself
working day and night to keep the entire village safe.” His smile
stayed firmly in place the entire time, although he could feel it
cracking around the edges. “You are, however, free to hire
additional guards yourself. There are many former soldiers who hire
out their services.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Mrs. Snobgrass
exclaimed, her crossed arms getting tighter. “It’s not my job to
prevent theft!”

Perrin shrugged casually. “It’s not my job to
raise the teenagers of Edge better, either, but it seems we’re both
stuck with the problem. And honestly,” he said with a tone dripping
so much honey to coat his meaning, “I can’t imagine why anyone
would want to bother your establishment.”