The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (46 page)

But Perrin had a different strategy this
time.

“
I appreciate the
sentiment, Thorne.”

He appreciated the falsity that was employed
to make the captain seem sincere.

“
I look forward to seeing
you someday wear the label of general, sir,” Thorne added with a
small smile. “And I imagine you may want to take a vacation for a
time now that you’re no longer confined to Edge. I’ve checked the
files and you rarely leave the fort. You have several weeks of
leave available to you, sir. Perhaps, after such a long year, and
with the threat of Guarders eliminated because of your exceptional
leadership—”

Perrin really needed to find a way to keep
his stomach from churning.

“—
I wanted you to know that
should you feel the desire to take Mrs. Shin somewhere for some
well-deserved rest, I can certainly handle things here.”

Perrin rubbed his forehead. Smooth. Usher out
the commander, take over the fort . . . at least Shem was always
here. And since he was a sergeant major, they didn’t need to
replace Beneff who, after weeks of searching, was still unaccounted
for. They concluded he was lost in Moorland.

“
I have no doubt you could
handle things here,” Perrin said heavily. “However, I feel no need
to leave. Edge is my home.”

Thorne shifted his position slightly. “Not
that I’m trying to send you away, Colonel,” he simpered. “I just
want you to know that you can rely on me, as second in
command.”

There is was again. That
reminder
. As
if someone suffering from the stomach flu needed reminding of his
ailment. Was the stench not enough? And in this case, the stench
was . . . lavender, today. Not even Hycymum smelled as flowery as
this boy.

“
Understood, Captain. Is
there anything else?” Perrin asked in a tight tone.

“
Well, yes, now that you
mentioned it . . . is Miss Jaytsy enjoying the kitten?”

Anything to generate a conversation. Perrin
knew the tactic: get the other side talking about something you
have in common.

He realized just then that all of the
officers took a few courses in negotiations, but never had they
negotiated with Guarders. Perrin didn’t know why it never before
occurred to him that all of the diplomacy classes were designed for
officers to manipulate other soldiers and the citizenry.

He employed strategy number eight in avoiding
a sticky question: ask a stickier one in response. “I’ve been
wondering, Thorne—where exactly did that kitten come from? We don’t
have cats in the compound.”

Thorne’s eyes lit up, as if he’d been waiting
for the question. “Sir, that
is
a strange thing, isn’t it?
Why, of all places, would a helpless creature be wandering around
in such a dangerous place?”

Perrin’s hand under the cover of his desk
formed a fist. If Thorne dared draw a parallel between himself and
the kitten—

And Perrin was quite sure that the kitten had
never been near the fort. He suspected that Thorne employed Radan,
who had delivered the basket, to snatch some kitten from its mother
while he was evaluating empty barns to become storehouses.

“
Immediately I knew,”
Thorne continued in a well-rehearsed speech, “when I saw it
bobbling between the cots, that the only person capable of taking
care of such a needy living thing was your own very conscientious
daughter. I saw her once in a garden last year, carefully tending
to a row of corn, and knew that she—”

Perrin held up his hand. “Let me get this
straight. Because Jaytsy flicks the bugs off of corn, you assumed
she’d want a cat?”

He blinked at that. “Uh, well, not exactly
following that chain of thought, sir, however—”

That was the thing about throwing people off
their scripts, Perrin thought smugly to himself as he allowed his
fist to unclench. If someone relays the truth, it’s easy to pick up
the thread again. But if it’s a story they wove themselves, they
frantically fuss over the sudden appearance of a rope they didn’t
anticipate, and generally tie themselves up in it.

They taught recognizing
this
in
Command School, too, but never taught how to disentangle
yourself.

Perrin settled in for the duration. He was
more than capable of an extended head-to-head with the boy who
coveted his chair, his fort, and his daughter. He sat back,
confident that Lemuel Thorne wouldn’t get any of it.

“—
it’s well-known, sir,
that young women enjoy taking care of baby animals—”

“
Is it, now?” interrupted
Perrin. “My wife’s never mentioned that.”

“
Well, uh, she’s obviously
a bit different then, sir—”

“
Really? How
so?”

“
Uh, not exactly knowing
your wife, sir, I wouldn’t dare hazard a guess—”

“
But
,” Perrin cut in
frostily, “you’d guess that my daughter would want a scruff of an
animal that complains in a high-pitched whine day and night which
causes me to lose precious sleep again. Why? Did you think it’d
remind her of you?”

Blank eyes stared back at Perrin, and
Thorne’s color faded a bit. “That . . . that wasn’t the intention,
sir.”

“
It is, however, the
effect.” Then, with several layers of meaning that Thorne couldn’t
possibly miss, Perrin said, “The next time you find a
lost
creature that needs
saving
, do us all a favor and
throw
it in the river
. Now, anything else, Captain?”

Thorne took a nervous step backward, having
understood enough. “No, sir. I suppose not.”

---

One man sat in the dark office of an unlit
building.

It was useless.

He couldn’t think, all alone. But he couldn’t
end it yet. So much remained to be done. All of his research needed
to be compiled into the greatest evaluation of the animal nature of
humans that the world would ever know.

If
he decided to ever let the world
know of it . . .

But it was useless.

Nicko Mal could only wring his hands while
quietly cursing Perrin Shin, and stare dismally at the empty
chair.

Chapter 18
~
“Please, Mahrree, please. Stay for me.”

E
dge was quiet.

Six weeks after the attack on Moorland it,
too, was quiet, as were Quake, Rivers, Mountseen, Idumea and the
entire world. If there was another enemy—be it Guarders, or
mountain lions, or whatever—it was either busy with planning or
licking its wounds, Mahrree decided.

And that was more than just fine with her.
Ever since the land tremor she craved monotony and the sense of
easy happiness that came with it which people generally dismissed
as “routine”. That Weeding Season, now a year and a season after
the tremor, showed real promise. Jaytsy was happy weeding the
Briters’ garden each day, Peto was happy practicing kickball with
some professional players who traveled looking for future recruits,
and Perrin was happy because the fort was calm, he slept like a
teenage boy all on his own, and Captain Thorne’s schedule was,
thanks to Shem, usually opposite of his. And soon Hycymum Peto
would be happy as well. She was dying.

She’d been declining for the last year; she
got up slower, moved less, and was losing weight. She even quit
cooking at Edge’s Inn last season. The doctor, unsure of what was
wrong, gave her until the Harvest Celebration. She was fine with
that.

“
I’ve been without your
father for thirty years now. He may not even want me back. Who
knows who he’s met in Paradise.”

She said that on the 13
^th
Day of
Weeding, almost two weeks after Peto’s 15
^th
birthday.
Mahrree had brought her mother dinner again. She chuckled as
Hycymum tried to fluff up her mostly gray curls, as if those would
be traveling to Paradise with her.

“
Oh honestly, Mother, who
would Father possibly want instead?” She set down a tray of food on
Hycymum’s sewing table, still with a few unfinished projects but
folded neatly and waiting. Hycymum had been too weary to leave the
house more than a couple of times since Peto’s birthday, and now
she sat on her lavender sofa propped up by numerous pink and yellow
pillows. Even though it was a hot day, she still wanted her green
blanket over her legs, giving her the appearance of drowning in a
flower bed.

Mahrree dragged the sewing table over to the
sofa, positioning it so that her mother didn’t have to leave her
comfort to eat.

Hycymum, her hand wobbling, scooped up
spoonful of Mahrree’s vegetable stew and analyzed it. “You know,
this looks remarkably good! Mahrree, you’ve become quite the cook
in your own right, you know that?”

Mahrree felt herself blushing at the
compliment from the finest cook she’d ever known. “The vegetables
are straight from the Briters’ farm, picked this morning by Jaytsy.
Mrs. Briter wanted you to have them, to see if they would
help.”

Hycymum sniffed the stew on the spoon,
sampled a bit, and smiled. “Wonderful. Tell Mrs. Briter and Jaytsy
that they’ve made my daughter into a marvelous cook.”

“
Now, stop that. It’ll all
go to my head if you keep talking like that.”

Hycymum picked up a slice of bread and
examined it. “Well, then how’s this: your bread’s still a bit flat,
Mahrree. You’re not letting it rise enough. Has that humbled you
again?”

“
Yes, thank you!” She sat
down on a blue poufy chair next to the sofa. “I mean that,” she
added more soberly. “Thank you, Mother. For everything.”

“
Now
you
stop that,”
Hycymum said, her voice shaky as she scooped up more stew. “You
keep talking like that, and I’ll cry into the parsnips and make
them too salty.”

She could finish only half the bowl, and just
a few bites of bread, before she slouched again. “Maybe you can
leave the rest in the kitchen under a dish cloth,” she murmured.
“If I get hungry in the night I can finish it.”

Mahrree smiled sadly. “Of course,” she said,
as if Hycymum would really find the energy to go looking for a
midnight snack. “Let’s move you to your bed for the night, shall
we? There’s a cool breeze coming from the mountains already, and
that will feel nice tonight.”

After extracting Hycymum from the flowery
sofa and planting her again in her overly soft bed, Mahrree opened
the window a crack.

“
A bit more, Mahrree,”
Hycymum said. “I’m starting to feel the heat of the day catch up to
me.”

Mahrree adjusted the window, feeling safe in
the fact that no Guarders would be coming after Colonel Shin’s
mother-in-law ever again. “Anything else before I go?”

“
No, but thank you for
everything.”

Mahrree sat down on her bed to smooth a
blanket and kissed her mother’s cheek. “You know, you don’t feel as
cool and clammy as you have in the past. In fact, you’re rather
warm! Maybe you’re improving?” She pulled a thicker blanket off her
mother, leaving her with only a sheet.

Hycymum sighed. “Please don’t take this the
wrong way, but I hope not. I love you and Perrin and the children,
but I feel it’s time for me to go. And I miss your father. Lately
I’ve been unable to think of nothing but Cephas. I’m ready to be
with him again.”

Mahrree didn’t know how to respond to
that.

“
I’m not worried about
dying, Mahrree,” Hycymum told her. “I’m more worried about the pain
of lingering.”

That, Mahrree understood. “Well, Mother, I’m
happy to have every day I can with you, but as much as I’ll hate to
see you go, I’ll pray that you can go as quickly as the Creator
will allow.”

As Mahrree got up to leave, Hycymum called to
her again. “Tomorrow, how about a nice veal chop for dinner? Do you
know how to do that?”

Mahrree grinned. “Of course, I do. I follow
your recipe.”

“
Which one? I have four,
you know.”

Not realizing that she did, Mahrree pretended
to contemplate that for a moment. “I’ll surprise you, all
right?”

“
As long as it’s the recipe
with the rosemary and salt jacket.”

As she walked home that evening Mahrree
wondered what a “salt jacket” was, and made a mental note to visit
Rector Yung in the morning for fresh rosemary.

But early that next morning, Mahrree lay in
bed trying to understand what disturbed her awake. Perrin wasn’t
snoring, The Cat was silently stretched out between them, and
outside was still. But something had definitely had roused her. She
tried to listen to the air, then felt the presence of her father
Cephas.

She needs you, now
.

Mahrree sat up. Hycymum must have fallen on
her way to get an early breakfast, or was struggling to make it to
the washing room. Perhaps, Mahrree considered as she dressed
quickly without disturbing Perrin, they should move her to their
house for a time.

Downstairs she wrote a note for her family as
to where she was going, then started out—the air already
surprisingly warm—for her mother’s house. By the time she fumbled
with the lock on her mother’s back door the sun had yet to
rise.

Mahrree made her way through the shelves of
knick-knacks and paddy-whacks and saw that the dinner from last
night still untouched under the towel. Mahrree crept quietly to her
mother’s bedroom, unsure of what she’d find.

“
Mother? Are you all
right?”

Between her shallow breaths, Hycymum
whispered, “Mahrree, always remember that the Creator is real. I
asked Him to send you to me this morning, and here you are.”