The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (44 page)

Brisack shrugged. “Perhaps we’ll send relief
that accommodates both. By then it will have been a few weeks, I
will have had that much time to work on the Administrator of
Taxation, and he may be willing then to release the stores.”

Perrin exhaled in frustration, but Brisack
cut him off before he could protest.

“It’s the only way I’ll agree to this,
Colonel. I’m a very fair man, Shin,” the doctor told him, his blue
eyes staring deeply into Perrin’s nearly black ones. “You have no
idea how fair. The preservation of life is critical to me. In the
past I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that some people had a
fighting chance.”

For some reason the old scar across Perrin’s
back, received from flushing out more than a dozen Guarders in the
forest intent on killing his expecting wife and daughter fourteen
years ago, itched.

“Unlike Moorland, Edge will survive,” Brisack
assured him, with his voice strangely not containing any
reassurance, “but on my terms. I’m allowing you the possibility of
altering those terms. At any rate, relief will come to Edge in four
to five weeks. What kind of relief will be up to them, not you. Is
that understood, Colonel Shin?”

There were times Perrin realized there could
be no other answer than the one demanded. It was those times that
let him live to be forty-three years old.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed dully. But he still had
a plan.

An hour later the meeting finally adjourned,
and as the Administrators and officers tidied up their pages,
Perrin made his way over to the lieutenant completing the minutes
of the meeting.

“So,” said Perrin, trying to sound casual,
“some soldiers earn their positions because they run the fastest,
while others are placed because they can scrawl the fastest.”

The lieutenant chuckled and held up a finger
as he finished writing his last sentence.

Perrin frowned. “Did you just record that as
well? Wasn’t even a good line.”

The lieutenant looked up at him and smiled.
“No, sir. Just a note to myself about who wanted copies of the
minutes.”

Perrin nodded slowly, noticed the other men
leaving the room, waved a final goodbye, and turned back to the
lieutenant. “Nelt, is it? I know your father Colonel Nelt. He was a
couple of years ahead of me in Command School.”

“Yes, sir,” Nelt said, standing up and
gathering his notes. “He’s mentioned you a few times. Pleased to
meet you, sir.”

Perrin looked at the pages hungrily. “May I
uh, may I see all that you wrote down?”

Nelt held the papers a bit closer to his
chest. “Everyone who was in attendance will be able to inspect the
minutes and give his final say before they are distributed,
sir.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Perrin a bit hurriedly.
“I was only wondering if I might . . . if I might check one or two
items?” It was his ramblings that worried him, realizing that his
musings about Brillen and Shem and how pay is decided—ideas that he
thought were mostly in his head—had actually come out of his mouth.
Depending upon what this young officer, whose dark brown hands were
gripping the pages even more possessively, wrote, Perrin may come
off looking . . . well, not very supportive of the
Administrators.

“Sir?”

Perrin’s gaze traveled up from the pages to
meet the deep brown eyes of Nelt.

“Trust me, sir? I do an excellent job. That’s
why I was chosen as scribe.”

“Yes,” Perrin said slowly. “That’s what
worries me. Just how excellent a job do you do?”

Nelt chanced a small smile. “I write down
what was
intended
to be heard, sir. After all, with so much
discussion, it’s frequently difficult for me to record every last
word,” he said meaningfully. “So instead I record the spirit of the
conversation, if not every letter. Don’t worry sir, I do an
excellent job,” he repeated. “You will be pleased.”

Perrin’s shoulders relaxed. “Well then, I
suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

Nelt smiled. “My father often remarked how
unusual you were, in a good way.”

That made Perrin chuckle. “You’re coming to
The Dinner, aren’t you?”

Nelt grinned. “Yes, sir! Wouldn’t miss it for
the world. Last year my wife was feeling too ill, so we had to miss
it—”

Perrin’s eyebrows rose. “You’re married? Good
for you! Too many soldiers today think that’s not important
anymore, but I promise you there’s nothing better than finding a
wonderful woman.”

Nelt’s brown cheeks flushed. “She is, sir.
And so is our son. That’s why we missed last year. The idea of food
and dancing kept making her . . . um, throw up,” he said
uncomfortably.

Perrin chuckled. “Understand. My wife had a
rather unpleasant time of expecting herself. And to be honest, the
idea of the food and dancing still makes me a bit sick to my
stomach as well.” But the wheels of planning were turning in
Perrin’s mind. “So your son must be very young?”

“Yes. And my wife’s a bit worried about
leaving our baby with a tender the night of The Dinner, since he’s
barely six moons old—”

“Then don’t leave him, Lieutenant,” Perrin
said. “Bring him! The Dinner is for families, after all. And a
baby’s the most entertaining part of a family, I always
thought.”

Nelt blinked rapidly at that. “Bring the
baby?”

Perrin grinned. “And I’m making that an
order, Lieutenant.”

---

On the way out of the garrison, Perrin
stopped at the rubbish heap where Peto had seen the filthy man.

But the heap—and the man—were both gone.

Perrin tucked the full gold slip back into
his pocket. There were still more rubbish heaps in Idumea.

---

“How was your meeting this afternoon with the
Administrators?” Mahrree asked him as they readied for bed that
night.

He groaned.

She chuckled.

“How was your afternoon with my mother?” he
asked her.

She groaned.

He chuckled.

They slipped into the silk sheets next to
each other, trying not to slide out of the slick bed.

“So, Jaytsy learned to dance today,” Mahrree
began. “I have to confess, it didn’t look as bad as I imagined. I
sort of started to think about it . . .”

Perrin sighed loudly. “Yes?”

She rolled onto her side to face him. “Would
it really be so bad if we . . . I mean, you and I . . . um,
danced?”

To her surprise he chuckled. “You sounded as
nervous as a first-year private at his first dance.”

Mahrree punched his shoulder.

“But no, my darling wife, I guess dancing
really isn’t that bad. It just strikes me as an odd development.
Men and women who normally wouldn’t converse with each other more
than twenty seconds suddenly holding hands and moving in time
together for five minutes? What do you look at? What do you say in
such intimate positions? An odd thing, really—”

She snuggled into him. “I don’t know. Some of
those slower dances could be rather interesting,” she hinted.

He pulled her closer. “I agree. But there’s
something I think you don’t understand about dances. If
we
dance together, we are then obligated to dance with others as
well.”

She stiffened. “Really?”

“Oh yes. Any man that asks you, you must
oblige him unless you are ill or exhausted, or it’s considered an
insult to the Shin family name, which we simply can’t abide,” he
said with a haughty sniff. “And consider—you may even be asked to
dance by an Administrator or two.”

She recoiled as her husband chuckled
again.

“And there’s something else,” he said more
soberly. “I would be expected to ask other women to dance.”

Already Mahrree was gritting her teeth and
clenching a fist at the idea. “Would a certain Versula Cush Thorne
be there?”

Now Perrin went rigid, and Mahrree knew she
had
to find out more about her.

“Colonel Thorne is the commander of the
garrison,” Perrin said in a dead tone. “He’s more socially and
politically connected than even my parents. And since this is the
first major event of the year, he’ll be there. And so will his
wife,” he grumbled.

“Was she at the first one you attended, where
you
did
dance? Your mother told me you did a few times.”

“I don’t remember,” he said hurriedly. “Mrs.
Thorne was already married, and I was more interested in the
dessert tables. Mother would know that. As for actually dancing, I
think Mother’s getting a bit fanciful in her memory as she
ages.”

“Well then, as hosts of the evening trying to
assist your ailing father and your fanciful mother, I suppose it’s
best that we both sit out dancing this year and tend to the party
itself.”

“What an excellent idea,” he declared. “Funny
I didn’t think of that myself, not dancing at all.”

Mahrree giggled, then said, “Perrin, did you
know there’s a huge reserve of food at the garrison?”

“I do. That was part of the discussion at the
garrison today. I want to take part of it back to Edge.”

“Yes!” Mahrree squealed, and kissed him
happily. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“But it’s not what the Administrators are
thinking,” he warned her, and explained what happened.

She sighed, deflated. “But you’re right. Give
too much, people stop taking care of themselves. Just like
thinking. Give them all the answers, especially the wrong ones,
then don’t allow them to think about possibilities or debate those
answers, and people stop questioning, thinking, fixing,
innovating—”

“I got it, I got it.” He kissed her to stop
her rambling.

“You said you have a plan for compensating
those who will want to be repaid for their supplies and help.
How?”

He swallowed. “Mahrree, how much would you
say is in our cellar.”

She swallowed back. “You mean, hidden behind
the jugs?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated only a second to calculate it.
“Much more than we need. Especially since we don’t want to buy a
house in the Edge of Idumea Estates. You want it to supplement what
the auctions bring in, don’t you?”

“If those wanting compensation see there’s
only a certain amount to go around,” Perrin mused, “they’ll lower
their wants to match the supply. But if they think there’s an
inexhaustible amount from Idumea, they’ll become greedier than Peto
when he’s missed midday meal. If they become too accustomed to
taking from the Administrators, they’ll never do anything for
themselves again. What kind of existence is that?”

“They’re nothing more than children
themselves, then,” Mahrree said.

“So you’re all right with this? I mean, it’s
half your silver.”

“No, it’s not. Not half my silver, nor half
my marriage. It’s ours—all of it. There are no lines between what’s
yours and what’s mine. I’m all yours, and you, Mr. Shin, are all
mine.”

He chuckled quietly. “Have I told you lately
how your mind is so much like mine?”

“You don’t have to. I already thought
it.”

“I know what you’re thinking right now, Mrs.
Shin: How do I get out of The Dinner?”

“Hmm. Very good! What’s the solution?”

“I’m sorry, my darling wife, I don’t have
one. I suppose I’m only allowed one genius solution per day. I’ve
discovered a way to help Edge, but I can’t help you.”

---

Two men sat in a darkened room of an unlit
building.

Nicko Mal whistled under his breath. “I
warned you about him, didn’t I?”

Dr. Brisack sighed. “That you did. I hate to
admit it, but I always thought you were exaggerating the
aggravating nature of the man. But today?”

Mal chuckled. “Do tell. I read the draft of
the minutes Nelt took, and they appeared innocuous enough—”

“Someone needs to retrain that lieutenant!”
Brisack declared. “He has very selective hearing. While he captured
the spirit of the meeting, he let escape the most incriminating
moments. I saw Perrin chatting with him after the meeting, and Nelt
told me he was only asking if he was coming to The Dinner. But I’m
sure Perrin persuaded him to clean things up a bit. Our discussion
was far, far messier, I assure you!”

“I
do
so enjoy seeing you humbled, my
good Doctor,” Mal said. “So, do you think he’s right? About the
villagers becoming too greedy and demanding too much without
feeling loyal?”

Brisack shrugged. “I really don’t know. He
compared them to spoiled children, but since neither you nor I ever
had children, I don’t know if his comparison is valid.”

“Remind me again how you became Administrator
of
Family Life
?”

Brisack scoffed. “Because no one else would
take it. Because I do know a few things about families. This is
merely another question for us to test.”

Mal shrugged diffidently. “So will you keep
your end of the deal?”

“Of course. I don’t go back on my word. In
fact, I’ll be sending a few assistants to make sure his survey is
conducted according to my specifications.”

Mal clasped his hands in front of him. “Oh,
good. What
kind
of assistants?”

“Haven’t decided,” Brisack said. “I don’t
know any of our men well enough yet. We just barely regained
contact, and I’m not sure that they can—”

“There are a few we’ve never lost touch with,
my good doctor. We could use one or two.”

“Perhaps.” Brisack paused before saying, “How
does Perrin come up with such ideas? It’s as if he sees the world
sideways, somehow, from angles and perspectives no one else has
ever considered. What makes a man function like that?”

Mal smiled. “It’s most fortuitous that we’ve
started the experiments again, isn’t it? The trials and analysis of
Perrin Shin are about to begin.”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Brisack nodded. “And his
wife.”