The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (28 page)

“Mother,” Jaytsy whined. “Just once? To see
what the other side is like? What could it hurt to dress up and be
fancy?”

A part of Mahrree felt herself being tugged
over to Jaytsy’s side. She liked to believe it would only be ‘just
once,’ but the look on her mother-in-law’s face suggested she
expected this to be the first of many Idumean events for her son’s
family.

And if Perrin were ever to become High
General, and they moved into the mansion, then the responsibility
of The Dinner would be—

Mahrree hated it when her mind ran too far
ahead. The speed made her head swirl.

“We’ll have to talk to your father about this
dinner,” was all Mahrree could think to say. “He’s the head of our
family, the decision must be his.”

“I’ll talk to him first,” Joriana assured
Jaytsy. “He has to listen to his mother. In the meantime, I want to
see you in that yellow dress next, before we make our decision.
Mahrree, start looking around. If you don’t choose something, I’ll
choose it for you! This is all part of my plot to keep you here,
you realize that, right? Win over the children? Parents will
follow?”

“That’s downright sinister of you!” Mahrree
teased her mother-in-law.

And very Administrative, too
, she
worried to herself.

---

It was nearly dinner time when the women
returned home.

Relf was outside on the flagstone terrace,
reclining upon a sofa he had Perrin and Peto drag outside from the
large gathering room and place in the back garden so he could see
something besides the study door and breathe something fresher than
the air of waiting papers and ink.

When the coach pulled up along the back drive
and stopped before the terrace, he shook his head. “Perrin’s not
going to be happy,” he muttered and smiled.

Footsteps came from the large gathering room
that opened to the terrace. “There you are . . .” and Perrin’s
voice dropped off as soon as his feet hit the flagstones.

Peto joined him. “Where are they?”

“Somewhere behind those boxes, I fear.”

“So help us, Perrin!” the muffled voice of
Joriana came from behind a stack of brown and gray boxes that
jammed the windows.

Perrin and Peto looked at each other.

“This is the worst rubble I’ve seen yet,”
Perrin murmured. “Remind me sometime to tell you about a horrifying
shopping trip to the hat district I barely survived when I was
eighteen.”

“So sorry I can’t get up and help,” the
general chuckled, and propped himself gingerly on an elbow for a
better view of the coach.

The driver sent a worried look to the High
General, and another soldier acting as footman hesitated at the
door. All the men cringed as he cautiously unlatched and opened it.
A wall of boxes greeted them, and the footman looked warily at
Perrin.

Perrin cocked his head to excuse the
soldiers. “This is officer’s work,” he said grimly. “Peto, I see
you slinking away. Get over here.”

His son tentatively approached the coach
which shifted when someone inside stood up. “But
I’m
not an
offi—” A narrow box on the top of the pile popped out and bounced
on Peto’s head.

“That one’s for Peto, by the way,” came
Joriana’s voice.

“He got it,” Perrin said, watching his son
rub his head dramatically. “Not so sure he’s happy about it,
though.” Sensing impending disaster, he began to pull down boxes
and piled them on the ground. Soon he uncovered his daughter.

“What do you think?” Jaytsy asked, standing
in the doorway of the carriage and posing in a bright orange
dress.

“I think I could see you in the dark,” Peto
snickered. “Who needs a lantern when Jaytsy’s dress is around?”

“Not very clever, Peto. Besides, I don’t care
about your opinion.” She looked earnestly at her father.

It was one of those moments men are never
prepared for. The “what do you think?” question. Relf held his
breath in empathy.

Perrin evaluated her. “I can see that you
love it. Good for you!”

Relf released his breath. “Smart man,” he
muttered to himself. “More tactful than any Administrator.”

Jaytsy bounded down the coach steps and
snatched up some of the boxes. “This one’s also for you, Peto. I
chose it out myself,” she said in almost a threatening tone.

“Then I’m not wearing it,” he insisted as
Jaytsy handed him a stack of boxes to carry.

“Oh yes you are! Grandmother will make you.
Now help me get these inside,” she ordered as she picked up more
packages.

“Why would I want to wear something you
chose? I don’t need to look like a glowing carrot.” Their bickering
echoed in Grand Hall as they carried the boxes to their rooms.

Joriana stood at the door of the coach with
two more large packages to hand to her son.

“Mother, what have you done today?” asked
Perrin, astounded at the level of shopping that had been
committed.

“Just had a little fun,” she smiled. “It’s
been such a terrible week, but now so wonderful to have women with
me.”

Perrin helped her down the steps and waited
at the bottom for the next presentation. “I know you’re in there,”
he called.

There was no answer from the dark coach.

“My mother’s had you all day, and I know
she’s done something to you. Might as well get it over with. I’m
getting hungry for dinner out here.”

Mahrree appeared at the opening, not looking
anywhere nearly as orange as her daughter.

Perrin actually smiled. She wore Idumea
well.

“Oh, that’s not bad at all.” He offered her
his hand. “Not purple now, is it.”

“No, not
this
one,” Mahrree warned as
she came down the steps, another box under her arm.

“I think she looks lovely!” Joriana said.
“Not that she didn’t before, but you know what I mean.”

“She always looks lovely,” Perrin smiled at
his wife. “What she wears doesn’t change that.”

“And you don’t want to be a general,” Relf
said under his breath. “With that ability to twist anything to your
favor . . . what a waste of talent.”

“Come Perrin, help your wife with these
things,” Joriana ordered. “And then we need to talk about next
week.”

Perrin’s eyebrows furrowed. “You mean
Jaytsy’s birthday?”

“I mean the day
after
her birthday,”
Joriana said.

Perrin went gray. He looked at his
father.

Relf shrugged and wearily nodded.

“You’re
still having it
?” Perrin
nearly shouted.

“What better time? To show everything is
still well, that life continues in Idumea,” his mother
insisted.

“But, but . . . surely the resources could be
put to some better use.”

Joriana waved that off. “Clean up in Idumea
is going as scheduled. The outer lying villages seem to be
fine—”

“I haven’t heard anything from Edge,” Perrin
said tensely.

“No news, son, remember?” the general said.
“Standing rule? Grandpy Neeks served under me long enough to know
that. Besides, The Dinner will be good for morale. Mind you, I’ll
be moving a bit slowly that night, so some of the duties may fall
to you—”

“Absolutely not! No!” Perrin declared.

“You said you had come to help, right?” his
mother said just as firmly, her hands on her hips. “Or was that
just a line? Because if you really want to help, you
will
help! You will do all that your father needs you to do, and all
that the Administrators expect of the Shin family. Honestly,
Perrin—it’s just a dinner. How can you be so stubborn and selfish
as to object to that?”

He looked down for a moment before meeting
his mother’s glare and offering a penitent smile. “Of course I’ll
help,” he said quietly. “Just tell me what to do. No
complaining.”

Joriana stood on her toes to kiss him on the
cheek and then wiped it off with her thumb. “Let’s eat dinner and
discuss matters. Now go help your father into the house and let’s
see how well he does at the table tonight. He needs to start
practicing, after all. Only ten more days until the
47
^th
!”

---

Mahrree had committed all the words of her
mother-in-law to memory, and the order in which she said them to
her son when she insisted he help with The Dinner, because the
immediate compliance of Perrin was positively stunning.

But he was unusually quiet at the beginning
of dinner.

Mahrree didn’t think it was because of her
dress, but perhaps because he was having second thoughts about The
Dinner. Or maybe it was because Peto and Jaytsy dominated the
conversation. Both tried to outdo the other in what was more
significant, the shopping district or the arena.

“We saw this huge carriage called a bus!”

“It seats fifty thousand people!”

“One store had all kinds of hats in all kinds
of colors!”

“You can even buy food there during the
events!”

“Some shops were three levels high!”

“This place was at least
four
, with at
least forty entrances on the side Father and I walked around!”

“The glass is so thin on the windows you can
see all the way through, even to the windows on the other
sides!”

“It can be flooded for canoe races!”

“Especially when it’s raining, right Peto? At
least the shops are enclosed!”

“They’re devising a way to cover up the
arena, and the cover
might
be big enough for your mouth,
Jaytsy!”

“Enough!” Mahrree finally said, rubbing away
the headache that was forming near her temples.

The family was seated together at the end of
the massive table, Relf at the head, Joriana to his side, and
Perrin next to her. Across from Perrin sat Mahrree, with her
children on either side of her. She wondered how she ended up with
them
again
, both trying to talk louder than the other, and
through her head.

“Please—just eat. And it’s not a competition,
you two.”

“They always have competitions, Mother.
That’s the point of the arena,” Peto said.

“And the shops, um, the uh . . .” Jaytsy
stammered not knowing how to outdo her brother without sounding
absurd.

“Why?” Mahrree asked. “Why does it have to be
a competition?”

Behind her, Jaytsy and Peto stared at each
other, having just discovered that their mother was hopelessly
stupid.

“To see who’s the best,” Jaytsy reminded
her.

“Yeah, what’s the point of . . . running if
you don’t know if you run the fastest?” Peto added.

Mahrree sat up and narrowed her eyes.

Jaytsy murmured, “Oh, no.” She knew what that
look on her mother meant.

“
Interesting
,” Mahrree said slowly,
putting down her fork. “What’s the point of doing something if you
can’t be judged to be the best?”

Jaytsy shot a warning glance to her
grandparents and murmured, “Here it comes.”

Mahrree folded her hands in front of her in a
modified debating position. “Why not just do something to
experience it? You know, running has its purposes, not just as a
race.”

“Ah, Mother—you know what I mean,” Peto
grumbled, and took a big bite of pheasant to avoid being dragged
into the debate.

But there were times when Mahrree saw a
lesson could be taught, and some lessons just can’t wait, even if
her husband and in-laws were watching her closely.

“No, I don’t think
you
know what I
mean. Peto, how often do the boys in Edge play kickball?”

“Well, besides being part of the
Idumean-organized teams
that you won’t let me join
—” he
added bitterly.

“I’m not talking about the teams. See, that’s
precisely it. There’s nothing stopping you and your friends from
starting your own games. When you were still a baby, children
started their own games nearly every day.”

“I’ve heard this before,” Peto muttered.

But Mahrree was never one to cut a good
speech short just because someone complained. “They chose their own
teams and played just for fun, not hoping to be recruited to
Idumea. No one was worried about who was best—they just wanted to
have fun.”

“Some of the teams look like they have fun,”
said Peto, unconvinced.

Mahrree eyed him. “That’s not what Bloch said
last year. Remember? I think it was something like, Thank goodness
practices are over so I can do something else with my life for the
season.”

“He didn’t say it exactly like that!” Peto
scoffed. “Why do parents and
teachers
always translate what
they think teenagers are saying?”

“So what did he say?”

Peto sighed. “I don’t remember. But it wasn’t
that
.
”

“I do remember that his marks improved
significantly when he wasn’t obsessed with impressing his trainer,”
Mahrree pointed out. “Good marks in school and performing well on
the final exams will do far more for his life than being able to
kick a ball. What kind of job will the Administrators allow him for
something as inane as that? As far as I can tell, it’s only the
trainers who benefit from these new teams—and the silver that
they’re paid for them—rather than the boys. What a waste of
time.”

“Come now, Mahrree,” Relf broke in. Propped
up by several pillows squeezed around the chair, he appeared to be
more of a stuffed toy than the High General. “If that’s all you see
to competition, that’s a rather narrow view.”

“No, that’s not all of it,” she agreed. In
the past, she would have felt anxious allowing the High General
into her unauthorized debate. But in his present state—gaunt, pale,
and with a yellow blanket tucked around his waist to keep him
warm—he was as intimidating as a wilting flower.

“In fact, I use competition with my students
all the time,” she told him. “Boys aren’t motivated if they aren’t
ranked somehow. But there’s a difference: I list the boys’ names on
the board for many things. Those whose marks have improved, who’s
got into the least amount of fights, whose name I haven’t heard my
husband utter in contempt.” She smiled at her husband.