The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (81 page)

Shem leaned forward and, to Perrin’s cynical
scowl, said, “
All is well
—truly. You must be well, too. Only
you can choose to live again. Stay here to investigate and you
will
die, crushed under the weight of this anger and grief.
Your parents don’t want that. They can’t feel complete joy until
you release this burden. Choose to keep living, for them if for no
one else.”

Perrin’s eyes grew wet. “I wished it was that
easy. I wished I could just let it all go, but you have to have a
heart to do that. I buried my heart this evening. I’m going to bed,
Shem.”

---

The fog was thick again, likely because of
all the melting snow, Gadiman concluded as he made his way to the
usual spot. Something about water on the ground becoming water in
the air . . . Oh, he didn’t care about the tedious explanation. He
was in too good a mood.

It was brilliant—all of it!—from beginning to
end. They wouldn’t be able to deny him now. He patted the pockets
of his trousers filled with two bags of gold. He was even paying
for it himself. Granted, the gold was originally destined for Edge,
from Brisack’s coffers, but now it was to pay off the most
effective lieutenant Gadiman had ever trained.

It wasn’t revenge that motivated lieutenants;
Gadiman now had hard evidence of that. It was greed. Sonoforen/Heth
failed years ago likely because . . . well, Gadiman never did work
that out, but Mal had said he
would
succeed because he was
angry about his father’s execution.

But anger’s not the right motivator. Riplak
wasn’t bitter about the High General. He actually respected the
man. But he respected two bags of gold even more.

The young officer was clever. It was his idea
to leave behind his jacket, to make it appear as if he was derelict
in his duty and allowed the Shins to be stabbed. But it was also
Riplak who stuffed a camouflaging black shirt into his trousers,
along with a jagged dagger he left behind as evidence, and had no
qualms about smashing in the face of his convenient upstairs
friend. He was growing bored with the dull girl anyway.

Now if Gadiman could only
find
Riplak.

He didn’t locate the lieutenant last night to
pay him, but realized the timing may have been off. In this part of
Idumea one can’t sit around waiting for long before someone
mistakes you as one of
them
and decides you look too rich in
that coat or those shoes. Then they relieve you violently of your
burdens.

Gadiman picked his way through the heavy
cold, wishing he had worn his warmer overcoat. But it didn’t
matter. The glow of his victory heated him, head to toe. He didn’t
even have to deal with that creepy Kuman, either. Once again, greed
triumphed as Riplak made sure he killed Kuman, along with the other
two, before they left the mansion. Not only did he get their share
of the gold, but he also left behind the prime suspects dead. Any
investigation would be over by tomorrow morning, when the
Administrators dealt with that
other
piece of annoying
slag.

Gadiman was going to insist Perrin Shin be
tried for attempted murder, although he knew that was the last
thing Brisack wanted. He argued against that most vehemently at the
little gathering Colonel Thorne organized in the afternoon.

There still needed to be
someone
,
Brisack told them again and again. Why destroy it all? Now that it
was finally becoming interesting again? Why be so quick to take out
the wounded falcon?

Gadiman didn’t quite follow all of that, but
Thorne seemed to take that peculiar falcon reference as some kind
of code and reluctantly agreed no execution squad would be convened
in the morning.

But Gadiman had access to prisoners in the
garrison. And when Shin was imprisoned, he could send Riplak,
disguised with longer hair and a beard, to finish off what the
others were oddly hesitant to.

If only Gadiman could
find
Riplak.

He’d reach their meeting place along the
banks of the Idumean River West in mere moments, just below where
the homeless people sat in wooden crates mumbling to
themselves.

“Stupid crazy people,” Gadiman muttered as he
walked passed one of them. He made his way warily along a path
sloping down the river banks. The water was unnecessarily noisy
tonight, more so than he ever remembered.

“Must be the fog. Traps the noise of the
river or something. Where do those smelly men live when the river
banks are flooding? Ridiculous . . . Ew, and now I’ve got muck on
my boots! How can a man walk properly along here with muck on his
boots?”

He didn’t notice two men sitting nearby on
large rocks watching him trek further down the bank. Probably
because their layers of filth and tatters of clothing made them
look like wind-ripped vegetation.

“Should pave it or something. For those
wishing to enjoy the water . . .”

The two men looked at each other and smiled
about the crazy man going further and further.

“Should we tell him?” one asked the
other.

“Mebbe. But would he tell us?”

The first man shrugged.

It was becoming harder for Gadiman to see,
and even harder to hear himself. “Riplak!” he hissed to the foggy
banks. “Where are you? I’ve got your payment! I couldn’t find you
yester—”

There was a slip and a splash, but the sound
was quickly swallowed up by the roar of the swollen river.

The only ones who noticed were the two
scruffy men.

“What’s wrong with them fancy suits?” the
first man asked his companion. “Can’t none of them tell the river’s
flooding?”

The second man shook his head. “They’re too
full of nice coats and blue uniforms and whispers and shifty eyes
and wandering about and secrets. Mebbe when you’re too smart, you
don’t notice the real things. You think you already know it, until
you walk right into it and it eats you.”

“Good entertainment, though, you must admit,”
the first man nodded. “First there’s that young officer last night.
Gave a proper fight against the water, that one did. Then some
stuffed suit tonight? Sounds like he went down much faster.”

“Mebbe his pockets were lined with gold,” the
second man drawled. “Nice coats full of nice gold, dragging him
down to the nice rocky bottom. They’ll find bits of him by the
southern sea in a few days, mixed up with that splashing young
officer.”

“And when the river’s gone down, we’ll nose
about the bottom and find a few pockets?”

“Mebbe. If we’re lucky.”

“Maybe tomorrow we’ll hear a proper lady
drown.”

“Mebbe. If we’re lucky.”

Chapter 26
~
“Snakes, cats—I know you hate them all.”

G
oing to bed and
going to
sleep
are two different things.

Sleep wouldn’t be coming for a very long
time. Especially since Perrin had awoken from a long forced nap
just a few hours ago.

He sat on the narrow bed in the small
adjoining room and tried to think of what to think. He couldn’t
concentrate on anything for any length of time because a little old
man kept butting into his thoughts.

Hogal Densal kicked away Guarders, pushed out
the Administrators and officers, and gently nudged his parents to
the side so he could stand in the middle of Perrin’s mind with his
mischievous smile and his eyebrows waggling.

Perrin couldn’t put out of his mind his first
trip to Edge. The memory nagged him, insisting on being revisited,
so Perrin indulged it just to have something different to think
about, and to be rid of it.

He’d been eighteen when he was sent to Edge,
and he remembered staring glumly at the little old man and woman he
was to stay with. They’d shrunk in the years since he’d seen them
last, and were more wrinkled. He folded his brawny arms across his
broad chest as he evaluated them in front of their small stone
house, in that ridiculously tiny village, against those ugly rocky
mountains. He’d been hoping for a season at Waves, or even Coast,
but was stuck at the Edge of Nothing.

Hogal Densal had smiled at him and said,
“Plan to serve the world as a general, I understand?”

“Of course,” he replied arrogantly.
Everything that came out of his mouth in those days was smug,
prideful, disdainful—any variety of haughtiness, he had it
mastered.

“Good, good.” Hogal eyed him in a way that
seemed to pierce straight through his conceit and into his soul.
“Then you’re here to learn how to do the first part of that
sentence, while your father will train you to do the second part at
the end of the season.”

“The first part?” Young Perrin had asked,
trying to remember what it was.

Rector Densal smiled kindly, but his eyes
were on fire. “The ‘serve’ part. No leader is truly great that
doesn’t know how to serve. Service first, leadership later. First
rule of leadership.”

“No it’s not,” Perrin retorted. “First rule
of leadership is to identify the rival and eliminate it through
defeat or feigned friendship.”

Hogal sighed. “A true product of the king’s
educational system. Learned your lessons well, I see. We do things
differently here in Edge. No king has been here for many years and
we like it that way. Trust me; to be a great leader, you need to be
a great servant. You’ll begin tomorrow at a widow’s house not far
from here. She has a large herd, no children, and lots of feed to
gather in.”

“Baling feed? The son of the High General of
Idumea, baling feed!”

“Don’t worry. No one here knows your
parentage. I told everyone
my
nephew from Quake was coming
for Weeding Season, and he’s a little daft.” Hogal smiled and
tapped his head. “Tell the village whatever you want. No one will
believe who you think you are.”

“I’m not standing for this,” Perrin had
huffed. “I’m going home!”

“My wife’s niece is adamant that you stay,”
Hogal said pleasantly. “You have no choice. Steal a horse to go
home, they won’t let you in the army. I’d report you as a thief.
Tell a lie to get out of here, I’ll send lies back to your home
ahead of you. Who are they going to believe more, a teenage boy or
a revered rector?” He was more wily than anyone realized.

“I won’t work,” Perrin had threatened.

“Then you won’t eat,” said Hogal simply.
“Everyone works for what they get. So will you. In fact, there are
still a few hours of daylight. We’re going to that widow’s house
right now to let you get a start.”

“What!?”

“Are you hungry? Is that the problem?”

“Yes, part of it!”

“Then you’ll work for your dinner. And your
great aunt makes a wonderful berry pie. You really don’t want to
miss that.”

Older Perrin sat on the bed remembering that
walk to the widow’s house. Ten years later he had looked for her
when he came back to Edge as the captain, but she’d already died,
and she wasn’t even that old.

He tried to picture her now. When one is
eighteen everyone older than twenty-five might as well be
grandparents.

No, she wasn’t a grandmother. She was
probably not even forty-five. Close to Mahrree’s age. A widow.

He gripped his head and rubbed it. “Hogal,
what do you want from me? What’s the purpose of this?”

The memory wouldn’t leave, not without being
attended to.

Perrin had been working for about two weeks
on the farm when he realized the cut hay never seemed to end. He
was sure that when he baled and moved the feed, Hogal had sent
other farmers to throw more in the field at night just to keep him
busy. There wasn’t much else to do while working in the hot sun. No
friends to ride with, no girls to chat up—

It was the lack of girls that bothered him
the most; finding women had been the reason he wanted to see the
world to begin with. Yes, there had been something between Versula
Cush and him, more than just false accusations and scars from
sticks. Their teenage years had run cold and hot, dangerous and
stupid, back and forth. It was during one of those cold periods
that the sixteen-year-old Versula caught the eye of an older
third-year cadet named Qayin Thorne.

Only years later did Perrin suspect that
Versula pursued Qayin to make Perrin jealous, but sixteen-year-old
boys simply don’t notice such games. He was too busy realizing
there were many other officers in the world with daughters, and all
of them quite happy to visit Idumea with their fathers and be shown
around the garrison by the strapping and, he was loath to admit,
rakish son of the High General. They eagerly accepted his
invitations to see the secrets of the garrison he told them he only
knew. It was a stupid line, to offer them his private tour, but it
always worked. He couldn’t even remember how many girls there had
been in those years. At least a dozen, but likely many more. All of
them were quick to swoon, then just as quickly were conquered and
crushed. He didn’t even remember their names. They were just silly
girls who were too willing and vulnerable for their own good. And
in those days, Perrin was up to no good.

Before he entered Command School he wanted to
do a little exploring, that was true. But he wasn’t interested in
scenery or villages, only in finding a challenging conquest.

Instead he found only mindless repetition in
baling hay. And, he reminded himself with recurring gratitude,
not
an eighteen-year-old Mahrree Peto. Any relationship they
would have had then would have been disastrous.

The only female he had contact with besides
his great aunt was an older woman—no, a woman still in the prime of
life—bringing him cool water and smiling gratefully at him every
day.

Then older Perrin remembered something else.
Every night Hogal kept him there in his little house and read out
loud to him, usually from The Writings but also from some older
books. A few times Perrin had tried to sneak out to see the action
down in the village green, but his uncle always blocked him, and
only out of politeness—and dread of punishment by his parents—did
he not push the old man away.