Soldier at the Door (3 page)

Zenos nodded. “I imagine they’ve abandoned that strategy, sir. I’m confident the village of Waves will be safe from future water attacks.”

Shin watched him again for a moment—the young man held his penetrating gaze remarkably well—before Shin looked back at the map.

“A lot of people have speculated about where
they launched their canoes. Around here folks are guessing they somehow managed to make a home in the marshes east of here and went south. But then they would have had to travel for quite a distance.”

“It’s not really
that
far, sir,” Zenos suggested.

Shin turned his attention to boy. “About fifty miles in a canoe isn’t ‘that far’? Few people would agree with you, Zenos. Anywhere more than ten miles away might as well be one hundred.”

Zenos swallowed. “Sir, you said you’ve been all the way south, so you’ve travelled, right?”

“Yes,” Shin said slowly.

“Surely you would agree that travelling one hundred twenty miles isn’t that much harder than travelling ten miles. Just . . . do it longer. Most people have never tried it, so they don’t know. You simply keep going. You don’t die from it. You rest, eat, walk, sleep. Every village has a market with food, and there are inns and taverns to stay in. Even some barns if no one’s looking,” he confessed, a little uncomfortably.

Perrin smiled.

The boy’s demeanor changed significantly when he confessed to sleeping in barns. He didn’t have to reveal that information, but apparently he didn’t know how to hold back on the truth. So, likely, he did come from a long distance.

The next question then was, why.

“You’re right,” Shin said, “I don’t understand why people fear travelling, but then again, now that I’ve settled down, I’m rather content to be where I am. Why
leave home
when all that I want is right here?”

“Yes, sir,” Zenos looked down at his hands and started rubbing them as if trying to remove unseen dirt.

Shin noticed the boy’s previously confident manner vanished completely, replaced by guilty behavior.

“Well, we’ll provide you a horse to chase Guarders with, but it may be rather dull here for a time. Been exceptionally quiet for over three moons now. More recently they hit Trades again, just north of Flax, out of the forest about there.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “You could have stayed near home to find Guarders,” he hinted again.

Zenos swallowed again. “But I also wanted to see the world. Saw most of it walking north, sir!” he chuckled anxiously.

“And a very long way to walk it is, Zenos.” Shin smiled genia
lly.

Zenos smiled cautiously back.

In the same casual tone, Perrin got right to the point. “Trouble at home, son?”

Zenos shook his head rapidly. “No, sir. None at all. Not really.”

Shin put down his quill to show he wasn’t about to record anything more. “Was she pretty?”

Zenos’s eyes grew big. “Sir?”

Shin raised his eyebrows in suggestion. The boy needed to hide for two to three seasons. Long enough for anything that might be
developing
to
arrive.

Zenos blushed a deep shade of red. “Sir, no girl! I promise! I’ve never,
never
—”

Shin raised his hand to stop the young man’s frantic defense. He didn’t need
that
much honesty.

Zenos bit his lower lip to silence it.

Perrin considered him. There was no deceit in his clear blue eyes, so there must have been something else. While Zenos’s body was surprisingly broad and muscular, his smooth, almost gentle face looked like it belonged to a twelve-year-old.

“Do you have your parents’ permission to be here?”

Zenos furrowed his eyebrows. “Sir, I don’t have a mother anymore, and my father wasn’t too happy about me leaving, but he’s getting over it.”

“I may need a signature, Zenos.”

Zenos’s mouth dropped open. “Sir, I’m of age! I’m twenty.
My birthday was at the beginning of the season!”

Shin smiled dubiously. “Really.”

Zenos rubbed his smooth chin. “My father can’t grow much of a beard either, sir. I assure you, I am of age. Have been for two years.”

If a single hair emerged on his chin, the boy probably would have thrown a celebration.

“Well, no crime in not growing a beard. Saves you some time each morning. While the rest of the army is shaving, you’ll be first in line for breakfast. But if you choose to sign up later, I may need a verifying signature from your father.”

Zenos shifted uneasily. “Would take some time to get that
but . . . yes, sir.”

So it was likely his age. Nothing else made him as uncomfort
able as that. Perrin would send a message to the chief of enforcement asking if any villages were missing a younger-than-legal boy. Until he received word back, there was nothing else he could do except let him stay and work for food. At least he’d be safe at the fort.

Perrin went back to writing, hoping to elicit something about Zenos’s relationship with his family. “Your father owns cattle, you say? Between Flax and Waves?”

“Yes, sir. Large herd. Even brought some of it up to Idumea once to sell. May do it again when he has a big surplus.”

“The garrison is always looking for good beef.” Shin continued to write.

“My father sold his last surplus to the garrison, sir. About a year ago.”

Perrin nodded as he took careful notes on the paper, stalling to come up with another tactic to gather more information about the boy’s father.

Zenos leaned forward a bit to see what the captain was writing.

Perrin looked up abruptly, but didn’t focus on the young man who froze in alarm that he’d been caught snooping. Instead he watched the door.

A moment later it swung open.

There stood a wide-eyed corporal, panting. Realizing that he’d opened the door without knocking first, he lamely did so then. Then he looked at the door in complete confusion as if trying to work out what he was doing.

“Well, Yip?!” Shin demanded.

The corporal turned immediately to the captain and nodded.

“Said she’s positive this time,” he gasped. “Something about water rupturing? Mrs. Peto arrived and said to come get you. Midwives are on their way.”

Shin slammed down the quill and stood up.

“Zenos, welcome to Edge,” he said hurriedly. “You’ll have to excuse me, but Karna will show you around and get you a cot. I’m due at home. I need to take my daughter for a very
long walk.”

“
Second
child, sir?” Zenos asked.

“Yes!” Shin shouted as he ran down the stairs.

Lieutenant Karna chuckled from the outer office. “About time, Captain! Good luck!” he called. “Zenos, I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“Yes, sir,” Zenos called back. “Take your time.”

All alone in the office, he looked around and took quick mental notes. He was there for research, after all.

Although the documents on the desk were organized and tidy, the fort didn’t seem overly formal, and the lieutenant and the captain appeared to be on easy terms judging by the laughter he heard before the captain came in to interview him, and the casual send-off the lieutenant shouted as the captain left.

Zenos admired the overly large, clear windows of the command office, which revealed a great deal of the forest to the east and west, and the village in the south. The enormous windows in the forward office also afforded an unobstructed view of the forest directly to the north. Much more than he expected, but that was exactly what he needed to find out.

Through the western window he spied the captain sprinting, at an amazing pace for such a burly build, out the fort’s gates and down the road south towards the village. Yet another piece of crucial i
nformation: the captain was a very fast runner, and wholly devoted to his family. And either today or tomorrow, another Shin would be born.

There was a great deal to be learned here, and already new d
evelopments.

“Looks like I got here just in time,” Zenos whispered with a smile.

-
--

Two men sat in a darkened room.

“Any news?” Mal began.

“You mean, any more bodies or canoes wash ashore?” Brisack smirked. It really had been one of Nicko Mal’s more ridiculous ideas.

Mal clasped his hands so tightly his knuckles turned white. “We weren’t to bring that up again, remember?”

“That’s what
you
decided, not me,” the good doctor pointed out. Mal was an easy target tonight.

“What I was asking was, any news
from Edge?”
Mal tried to recover his casual tone.

“What kind of news, specifically?” Dr. Brisack said with teasing smile.

Mal sighed loudly. “You know what I mean! I saw Relf leaving the Administrative Headquarters, and he was smiling. I didn’t have time to ask him myself so . . .?”

“Yes, he’s a grandfather again. Got the news this afternoon,” was all Brisack told him. Antagonizing Mal was one of the simple joys of his life.

“Well?!” Mal steamed.

“Well,” Brisack said slowly, enjoying the tension building in his companion’s face, “it’s a good thing Mrs. Shin survived your little Guarder raid. She’s delivered a healthy son. Another male Shin that can grow up to become a High General Shin. Just what you wanted, correct? He could be the fourth general.”

Mal growled quietly and massaged his hands.

“Shin got lucky,” he mumbled. “He always gets lucky. Spea
king of women delivering babies, did you finish your research about the dangers of women birthing too often?”

“That’s nearly finished,” Brisack smiled at the shift in topic. “Just need to summarize the findings and print it for the villages, should anyone
else
question the need to keep families small.”

Mal shrugged at that. “Still think you made too much of it. Gadiman had things under control—”

“Under
control?!
” Brisack spat, his joyful moment over. “He was ready to execute that midwife! How’s that ‘under control’?!”

“That’s why we have him, my good doctor. To sniff out pote
ntial threats. Question those who question us. Find those who would unravel the cloth that weaves our society together,” Mal slipped into a practiced speech. “Yank one thread inappropriately, and it all comes apart.”

“I know the rationale,” Brisack said impatiently, “I help
ed you write it! But people simply want knowledge. They’ll follow laws more willingly if they understand
why
they exist. It’s not merely about population control. What I’ve done is demonstrate to that midwife, and everyone else, that childbirth truly is a grave danger to women. That’s why I never let my wife subject herself to it.”

Mal opened his mouth in a vain attempt to stop the speech he dreaded was coming, but once Brisack started, it was easier to end a stampede.

“We improve women’s lives by birthing fewer babies!” the good doctor exclaimed. “To birth once is a tremendous risk. Twice? It’s nearly unconscionable to submit a woman to such strain and suffering. To allow a woman to endure it a third time? Through accident or an oppressive husband or her own misguided sense of duty or desire?” He shook his head sadly. “Expecting
changes
a woman’s mind. Have you ever heard a new mother talking?”

The bored frown of Mal told him the question was completely
unnecessary, and Brisack should have known that.

“Well—” Brisack continued undeterred and eager to reveal his findings.

Mal just made himself comfortable for the duration.

“—I’ve heard enough of them state how their entire view of the world changes once they become a mother. I realize they generally mean it in a constructive way, but child birthing alters their mental state, turns normally logical women into emotional creatures that can’t think clearly. Such irrationality is manifested even more dr
amatically after the birth of the second child, moving some women to become so severely imbalanced so as to desire the experience
again
,
even while knowing the government strictly forbids it.”

Mal examined his fingernails, as if he could see them in the dark.

“And on occasion they drag their husbands into this state of defiance,” Brisack blathered on, “and he becomes as manic as she does in a desire for a third child, despite all evidence, all laws, and all logic! Tragic.” He sighed sadly.

Mal nibbled at a hangnail.

“So unnecessary. Amazing, really, that they can even
raise
their children to adulthood after such alterations,” Brisack said in genuine wonder. “I simply can’t figure out why they put their bodies through so much torment and their minds into such a state of frenzy. Can you imagine the frame of mind of a woman with four children? Or eight? She’d be a lunatic!”