The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (86 page)

A part of Mahrree wanted to laugh as she
stood up. “What did you do to your father?”

“Something Shem taught him. It’s called a
throw or something. The idea is to flip someone over your back.
First you disable them in a
vulnerable
area—” She gave a
sideways groin-high kick in the air.

“Jaytsy, you didn’t—not my husband!” Mahrree
exclaimed as they jogged around the house to the back garden.

“No, of course not. I just did the other
part: when they double over in pain you flip them. Honestly, I hope
I never encounter any men as heavy as Father. I nearly hurt my
back. And that’s his problem right now.” She held her hands out in
display as they rounded the back of the house.

Perrin lay sprawled on the rocky ground, flat
on his back. “A little help, please?”

“What did you do to yourself?” Mahrree and
Jaytsy each took an arm and slowly raised him to a sitting
position.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow. Just what Shem suggested.
Honestly, he’s been holding out on us,” Perrin said, now sitting on
his own. “He showed me a few moves, all kinds of hits and kicks.
Said his sister was very good at them. As you can see, it was
effective.”

“On men with back problems,” Mahrree chuckled
and used all her weight to help pull him to his feet.

He stretched cautiously and grunted. “That’s
better. He said it was a style of defensive fighting women did in
the south, when they had Guarder problems years ago, but it’s
nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“Well,” Jaytsy said striking a pose with one
arm in the air and a foot slightly raised, “send me any man—I’m
ready for him.”

Peto came running around the house. “It’s
here—the wagon, the crate, and the two new soldiers.”

“Just what you ordered, Jayts,” Mahrree
chuckled. “Go get them!”

When they reached the front of the house,
Jaytsy realized only one of them could ever pose a real problem.
The two soldiers had already left the wagon and were placing a
large crate on the ground. One soldier was older and more gnarled
than Neeks, while the other was a young lieutenant. He took one
look at Jaytsy and a smile—or what Mahrree worried was more of a
leer—spread across his face.

Until his new colonel loudly cleared his
throat. “At attention, Lieutenant!”

“Yes sir!” the young man said, startled by
the shout, and stood at attention while the old sergeant major,
already in position, sent him a dour glare.

The older soldier cleared his throat and
announced loudly, “Sergeant Major Beneff and Lieutenant Radan,
reporting for duty, sir. And I will work on the impertinence of the
young men, ho-ho, while I am here, Colonel! Forgive the absence of
Lieutenant Kel, sir. He came down with an outbreak of fever and
spots, hi-hum. I volunteered to come in his stead, sir.”

Mahrree blinked at the odd dithering of the
sergeant major, and glanced at her husband. His mouth was pressed
firmly together to avoid smiling, but his lips quivered.

“I was disappointed to lose Neeks,” Perrin
said, “but Beneff, you’ll take over quite nicely. It’s good to see
you again.”

That’s why Perrin wasn’t startled by the
man’s bizarre delivery, Mahrree realized: he already knew him. Of
course. He knew everyone, everywhere.

“We seem to have quite the crop of budding
new officers to train,” Perrin continued. “I’m sorry you had to
leave Orchards, though. My father said you were very happy
there.”

“Not at all, sir, not at all, hum-hum. I was
in Idumea awaiting a new transfer anyway. I’ve always wanted to
serve under a Shin,” his voice cracked with emotion. “Your father
was a great man, oh-HO. And besides, I’ve always found the north
appealing, with diced apples on top.”

“Glad to hear it, Beneff,” Perrin nodded,
ignoring the snickering and questioning look his children
exchanged.

Perrin nodded to the men. “If you two will
bring the crate to the house, you may then take the wagon to the
fort. Captain Thorne is expecting you and will see you to your
quarters.”

It’s not as if Perrin was really worried that
if he bent down to pick up the crate he wouldn’t be able to get
back up again, Mahrree concluded, but if he stiffened up that
wasn’t exactly the way to make a good first impression on his new
soldiers. Besides, he needed to evaluate their strength. Beneff
must have been over sixty, but he readily picked up the crate with
the strapping Lieutenant Radan like a twenty-year-old.

Once inside, Beneff glanced around the house
as if expecting a thief to be hiding, then nodded to the
lieutenant. Both of the men reached into their inner jacket
pockets.

“Was given these by Mrs. Cush herself,
he-ho,” he said uneasily, and produced a cloth bag filled with
something that clinked.

Lieutenant Radan did the same thing.

“Said she’d have our patches and anything
else, ho-hem, she could rip off if these didn’t reach you safely,”
Beneff added.

“What is it?” Peto asked, but Mahrree knew by
its heaviness as soon as she took the tied cloth from Beneff.
Perrin intercepted Radan’s bag before Jaytsy could get close to
touching him.

Mahrree undid the string and sighed. “Mother
Shin’s jewelry.”

Jaytsy snatched the other bag from her father
and hurriedly fumbled with the knot. A moment later she gasped and
pulled out a thick, gold chain. “I never saw her wear this. It’s
amazing!”

Perrin shook his head. “She never wore her
best when traveling. Too worried about thieves.”

“I promise, sir—the lieutenant and I won’t
tell anyone you possess such finery now, ho-no,” Beneff assured
him. “Besides, the wheat grows when it’s dark, too.”

Lieutenant Radan started to nod in agreement,
until he considered that last nugget dropped by Beneff. Mahrree
fully understood his confusion, and her children looked at each
other wondering that wheat had to do with . . . anything.

But Perrin’s eyes glowed with amusement, and
he winked subtly at Mahrree as if to suggest, Just get used to
it.

Lieutenant Radan shrugged off his bemusement.
“It’s a relief to be rid of them. Sagged down my jacket. I’ve been
feeling jittery the whole ride here. That jewelry’s worth more than
twenty wagons of food, I suspect. That’s why Mrs. High General
didn’t want anyone to know we had them.”

Perrin took the chain out of Jaytsy’s hand.
“I thank you. Well done. But these won’t be here long,” he said
quietly. “We have no use for such things, but others do.” He looked
at Mahrree meaningfully.

She burst into a grin. Selling the gold
chains, the colored stones, and the fancy silver work would
certainly be enough, once it was coupled with their hidden savings,
to pay for the rebuilding of Edge.

After Beneff announced that hats don’t weave
themselves, and the new soldiers headed back to the wagon, Perrin
retrieved the iron bar by Mahrree’s side of the bed and began to
pry off the top of the large crate that now sat in the middle of
the gathering room.

Mahrree surveyed their house. “We may need to
put up another bookshelf. I’m sure I heard the thudding of books in
there.”

“Where, Mother?” Jaytsy asked. “There’s
hardly any room left!”

“We’ll make room,” Peto decided. “For
everything in there.”

Mahrree put an arm around him. “Of course we
will.”

Perrin wrenched off the top and they were
greeted by gray silk.

“My dress!” Mahrree pulled out the shimmering
gown and looked at it with weepy eyes. A note dropped from it.

Jaytsy picked it up. “It’s from Mrs. Versula
Thorne. She wants you to come back next year wearing it again. It’s
your official invitation to next year’s Dinner. We’re all invited,”
she grimaced.

“Hmm,” Mahrree said, not interested in going
to a dinner where Relf and Joriana weren’t leading the evening. Not
interested in going back to Idumea at all, but glad that she could
at least give her mother quite a bit of gray silk to play with.
“We’ll have to consider next year’s dinner at another time, right
Perrin?”

But he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring
at the contents underneath the dress.

Slowly he crouched to be nearer the crate.
With one hand he picked up the gleaming sword of General Relf Shin.
With his other he picked up a large spray of lilacs, wilted and
drying. Without a word he stood again, turned and plodded up the
stairs.

Mahrree had the sensation that something had
died, again.

A moment later they all heard the bedroom
door shut.

---

Shem heard the knock on his bedroom door.

Knock-knock.

Pause.

Knock-knock-knock.

It was a distinctive rhythm that said, “I’m
here and I’m important and this is how I will announce myself every
single time, so you better get used to it,
master
sergeant
.”

“Come in,” Shem sighed and got up from his
bed.

The door opened and Captain Lemuel Thorne
stepped in with a smile that seemed to be made of molded sugar.

Shem didn’t return it. Perrin had been right:
Thorne was mushroom pudding.

Perrin first said that when they were leaving
the Administrative Headquarters. “
Captain
Thorne?” he had
bristled when the two of them were finally alone. “He’s barely
twenty-two, never been tested outside of Command School, and they
have the
nerve
to promote him to captain?”

“That’s really young,” Shem agreed.

“Younger than I was,” Perrin grumbled. “And
everyone thought twenty-five was too young. I’m warning you right
now, Shem: he’s mushroom pudding.”

Shem’s upper lip curled. “Yuck! And what’s
that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly the right response, Shem. It means
he’s the wrong combination of everything, and he’s being placed
before us, and we’re supposed to
like
him.”

“Ugh,” Shem groaned. “Like beets. Oh no,” he
had moaned with new understanding. “With Karna gone, and Thorne as
captain—”

“Yep,” Perrin said dully. “Guess who’ll be
second in command at the fort.”

“They can’t do that!”

“They just did, Master Sergeant. The new High
General and his Advising General just put their best little apple
tree in my garden. Wished I had a goat to nibble away at him.”

“This is bad,” Shem mumbled.

“Pray for conflict, Shem,” Perrin
suggested.

“Why?”

“Doesn’t matter what rank Thorne is,” Perrin
reminded him, “in a battle situation, you still have far more
experience. You outrank him in the field. In fact, now you’ll be
second only to me. At least, in situations where it counts.”

Shem had shaken his head at that. “That’s
right. I don’t believe it. Now I’m actually hoping for Guarder
attacks just so I can order him around!”

Perrin patted him on the back. “Idumea has a
way of confusing everything, doesn’t it? I really hate this
place.”

All during the long, wearying ride back to
Edge, Captain Thorne had done his best to initiate, monopolize, and
control every conversation. It wasn’t hard; Perrin and Shem weren’t
about to answer him with anything more than a one or two-word
response.

Poor Lieutenant Offra, however, had been
quite confused about the forwardness of the captain, but began to
realize just how overbearing the mushroom pudding was.

He talked about rules. Books. Rules in books.
His grandfather General Cush. His father the new general. Rules his
grandfather and father—
the generals
—put into books.

By the time they passed Pools, Thorne was
talking only to himself. That’s when Perrin decided they would
frequently stop for fresh horses, and race all the way back to
Edge.

That’s also when Thorne started to talk about
the exceptional horses his paternal grandfather raised, how Edge
likely had nothing to compare to those studs, and that his
Grandfather Thorne would be sending him a most excellent specimen
in another season.

Shem had never seen Perrin roll his eyes so
much. He must have grown dizzy.

And now, the mushroom pudding stood in his
doorway, with a squidgy smile on his face. “Did I wake you,
Sergeant?”

“Just preparing for my evening shift,
Captain. What can I do for you?”

Without waiting for an invitation, Thorne
shut the door behind him. “Master Sergeant, you’re a very difficult
man to find alone.”

“You’ve been here only two days, Captain. I
frequently work the night shift, and you work during the days,
therefore . . .” He held up his hands.

“Of course, Zenos,” he simpered. “I was
wondering if I could have a few words with you, just the two of
us.”

“Make it quick, Captain,” Shem said, “I have
new recruits to take out. Regular training resumes this
evening.”

“Yes, that’s right!” he said brightly. “Read
your record: highest recruiting and retention rates of any fort in
the world. You’re to be commended.”

“But that’s not why you’re here.” Shem folded
his arms.

“No, no.” Thorne scratched his angular chin
and took a step closer.

He seemed to be sizing Shem up. While Thorne
was taller than the average man, he didn’t reach the height—or the
bulk—of Shem, which Shem noted with some satisfaction.

“It’s just that I understand that you have a
special relationship, shall we say, with the Colonel and his
family.”

Shem shrugged. “So?”

Thorne took another step closer. “Master
Sergeant Zenos,
I’m here to help
.”

Shem’s throat went dry and his shoulders
tensed. He’d heard those words before, a few times, and by lesser
men. It had been simple to lure them out into the forest where they
‘deserted.’ But the son of General Thorne? It’s not as if he could
vanish without any question.

“And here I thought it was just because you
found the north appealing,” Shem tested.