Soldier at the Door (61 page)

Then again . . .

“Are you sure the truth would ruin it?” she whispered. “I’m not. We
have
to find out, Perrin!”

“So what are you going to do?” he challenged. “Ask Shem Zenos who he
really
is? If he knows something more than he’s letting on to? My father’s interrogating him right now. If he endures that and comes out clean, there’s nothing more you’ll get out of him.”

“I’ll just wait for the right moment,” she decided. “When his guard’s down. My little brother doesn’t keep secrets from me.”

“What if he does to
protect
you, Mahrree?” he asked. “To protect all of us?”

She pondered that for a moment. “Lies don’t protect,” she d
eclared. “The truth is always better.”

“Oh really?” Perrin raised an eyebrow. “Remember telling me that had you known the Guarders had you and Jaytsy marked almost two years ago, you probably would have been so terrified you might have birthed early and we wouldn’t have Peto now? My lie kept you and our son safe.” He folded his arms and waited for her retort.

She pursed her lips. “You may have a point,” she had to admit. “But you didn’t keep that secret for long, and I also suspected something more was going on than simply a dare gone wrong. Shem’s smart, but not
that
clever. We would’ve caught him by now.”

He sat back and studied her. “You’ve already made up your mind about him, haven’t you? Just listen to you. You’ve already d
ecided he’s innocent.”

“No, I haven’t,” she defended, her tone not nearly as convincing as her words. “And just listen to yourself! So have
you
!”

“I didn’t say he was
innocent
, only that he’s . . . not . . . ” he fumbled for the right words, “only he’s not
against
us.” He shrugged hopelessly. “Oh, I don’t know. All I
do
know is that I want to follow my heart and believe Hogal and trust Shem, but my head keeps getting in the way with too many questions about his involvement. Or lack of.”

He closed his tired eyes and rubbed them. “Just when I thought I was on top of everything again . . . Just yesterday, when I showed
my father all our improvements, and watched him grin—I’ve never seen him so happy. So when I think I’ve got a handle on everything . . . suddenly I can’t seem to grip anything.”

Mahrree reached across the table and squeezed his arm. “You’ve done remarkably well, Perrin,” she said earnestly. “You do have a handle on things. This was all completely unexpected. But think about this—if they
were
Guarders, just how desperate have you made them to try something so daring? You’ve got them on the run, Major Shin!”

“Wonderful,” he said drearily. “My extreme measures have pushed them to insane measures, which means at some point they’re going to succeed insanely as well.”

“No it doesn’t!” she insisted. “Because they’ve failed! And this failure’s going to hurt them—”

“Or make them even angrier,” he countered. He massaged his eyes again. “And we don’t even know if they were Guarders. Likely never will. But if they were, how does a certain young soldier fit into all of this?”

Mahrree exhaled and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Math,” Perrin said dully.

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s like a complicated math problem,” he intoned. “When you have symbols instead of numbers and you have to figure out what numbers are supposed to be there.”

“Oh, I hate those,” Mahrree mumbled.

“I love them,” Perrin smiled feebly at her. “Still do. It’s a cha
llenge, defying you to solve it while it keeps its secrets to itself. But you poke it and test it and experiment until it begins to fall apart, and you get one number, and then another, and suddenly it all becomes yours. You know its secrets, and you’ve conquered it!”

She looked at him appreciatively. “That’s how you see the world, isn’t it? As one big equation that you have to solve?”

“Frequently. It used to even be fun,” he admitted, but then his smile faded. “Until recently. Until the equation eliminated Tabbit and Hogal, and tried to smudge out my parents. And now there’s a variable it’s tossing around named Shem Zenos, and I’m afraid to stick a number there, in case I hate the way it all turns out. Ah, Mahrree,” he sighed as he stared at his untouched meal, “there are too many unknowns, too many variables, and this time . . . I’m afraid it’s beating me,” he confessed in a whisper.

Mahrree was struck dumb. She hadn’t seen him so despondent since the Densals died. And he’d come so far, accomplished so much, struck a blow to the Guarders in so many ways, and now he feared—
feared?
—they were striking back. The world really was out to get them.

She realized then, as he now held his head in his hands again, that she’d never before heard him use the word “afraid” to refer to himself, and it unsettled her. How was it that he could accomplish so much, yet then despair so easily?

For a moment she glimpsed a solution to it all, but it was a solution High General Shin had already dismissed. Yet there was no other alternative—Perrin had to go into the forest and find out, once and for all, just what all of this was about. There was simply no other way to end it.

But, as she watched the man she adored, that nasty word starting with a
c
—and that word wasn’t
cautious
—popped into her head again. She clenched her fist in frustration, angry that the world, the Guarders, the events of the previous night, and even her favorite soldier were somehow conspiring to turn her husband into something less than he was.

Even though by all accounts he was a successful commander, he was
afraid
, and he wore it miserably.

---

Normally they would have been in a dark office of the unlit building.

That’s where they began but, upon reading the urgent message from Edge about a bizarre incident that ended with two dead lieute
nants, Mal found himself unable to speak. He also could no longer breathe regularly, but clutched his heart and began to sweat profusely.

Brisack rushed him, with the help of two of his guards, to his immense bedroom formerly belonging to kings.

“Get to my house!” he shouted at the guards. “My emergency bag. Tell my wife the heart one. Run!”

It was fortunate for the chairman that Dr. Brisack lived only three houses down, because the guards came running back with the
correct bag in only minutes.

“Empty the bag on the table,” Brisack shouted, still pushing rhythmically on Nicko Mal’s chest as he had ever since they left, “then retrieve two of my assistants.”

The guards quickly dumped the bag spilling out bandages, small glass bottles of various colors and sizes, along with leaves and berries wrapped in white cloth, all of which disrupted papers scattered over the bedside table. They left the room even faster, shutting the large oak double doors behind them.

“Stupid, stupid man!” Brisack mumbled as he snatched up a smaller uncorked bottle rolling in a slow circle on the table, gripped the cork with his teeth, spat it out, and held the bottle to Mal’s gray lips. “Drink this—it’ll calm you. Of course, had you not pursued this course—which I TOLD you not to—you wouldn’t be needing this, now would you?!”

The weakened Mal dribbled some of the brownish liquid on his chin, but Brisack was satisfied enough went down his throat.

He set down the bottle and tore open Mal’s ruffled white shirt. Then Brisack grabbed another larger bottle before it rolled off the table, uncorked it, and poured some of its contents on the gasping man’s chest. The thick brew which bubbled from the bottle packed with leaves, bark, and shriveled berries smelled simultaneously like an herb garden and a rotting forest.

“And where’s Gadiman right
now?
Probably hiding in his office again with the doors locked? Is
he
here helping save your pitiful life? No, of course not! No one will see him for days, probably. The weasel hiding in his hole. No wonder.”

He straddled his patient and massaged the liquid into his chest over his heart while the old man could do nothing but gasp and pe
rspire.

Brisack turned, keeping one hand in the same constant massa
ging motion, and with his other twitched open a wrapped white cloth to reveal several red berries.

“Lucky for you some late hawthorn berries are still on. Gives me an opportunity to test if the fresh ones applied topically will work in conjunction with the ones I just administered orally, although I don’t know if you deserve it.”

He crushed the berries roughly in his hands, then plastered the juice and skins on Mal’s chest.

“Three lieutenants gone in one season. Three!” he grumbled as he worked the juices into Mal’s narrow gray chest. “You’ve nearly exhausted our supply of new officers. The next batch won’t be ready for another two years, yet. And now we can’t even use them because the army will realize Guarders have infiltrated Command School! Such waste! So much gold!” he seethed as he massaged. “I could have told you this wouldn’t work. Oh, wait.
I did
. But you listened to Gadiman. So bent on getting what you want you’ll listen to any fool who tells you what you want to hear. You didn’t break the Shins, you’ve only made them more powerful. Why, look at what they’ve survived! Right now Relf and Perrin must think they’re invincible! You idiot!”

He continued to massage the berries and tonic over Mal’s heart, watching for when his lips would turn pink again. The good doctor complained loudly all the while since no one could interrupt him.

“The most far-fetched, impulsive undertaking. Everything we planned for by using officers in the army is completely destroyed. The next five years? Gone! Well done, Nicko. Brilliant.”

With one hand he grasped the old man’s wrist and checked his pulse while he continued to massage with the other. After a minute the doctor sighed with exhaustion and slid off his patient and the bed.

“Excellent work, Dr. Brisack. Your patient’s heart rate has stabilized and his color’s coming back, too. He’ll live.”

He plopped into a chair, clearly not satisfied with the prognosis.

“When my assistants arrive they can clean up this mess,” Brisack said, gesturing to the bottles, berries, and liquids spilled around the bed and side table. He started to wipe his wet hands on his red jacket, sighed in exasperation, and instead glared at the Chairman.

Nicko Mal couldn’t say anything, far too frail to move. He
only blinked at the doctor.

“Things are going to change, Nicko,” Brisack said quietly. “You’ve ruined everything, an incredible waste of gold went to pay for Command School, and now we no longer even have those offi
cers. Every two weeks our men wake up and find more gold than their work should ever have earned them. They’ve been spoiled for only a few days’ work each season. But no more. Agreed? Blink once if you agree, twice if you don’t.”

It took him a moment, but eventually Nicko Mal reluctantly—stubbornly—blinked once.

Brisack nodded back. “Now then, here’s what we’re going to do: we stop paying them.”

Mal blinked twice, then twice again.

“Worried they’ll revolt, are you? But they can’t leave the service without their comrades killing them for breaking the oaths. So I propose we cut them off, like a parent cuts off a leeching child. Make them earn their own ways. With no options, I speculate they’ll become very inventive. And
that
will be fascinating to observe. As the saying goes, desperation drives discovery. What methods will they employ to discover new ways of funding themselves?”

Mal opened his mouth to try to speak, but his lips only parted slightly.

“That’s the relaxant at work,” Brisack smiled slyly. “I recently added that to my heart tonic. You remain conscious but unable to do anything so that your body can rest and your heart can heal. One of my better concoctions, and I thank you for being one of my first
human
volunteers to test it. My wife’s dog just runs when she sees me approaching now. She must think I’m you. I’ll be recording your reactions to the relaxant over the next several hours. But think about my suggestion, Nicko, and tell me you’re not intrigued. We test the
testers
. We continue to gain research and be entertained, but keep our remaining gold to ourselves until this situation stabilizes itself in five, maybe ten,
years.
I see it in your eyes. You’re seeing the wisdom in this, aren’t you? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

Again Mal was slow to respond, and it wasn’t because of the r
elaxant. Eventually he blinked once.

Brisack gave him a half smile. “Didn’t you once study what happens to abandoned young of different species? Some grew exce
ptionally strong, others became depressed and died? I referenced some of that for one of my studies once. You can do it again,
but with humans
. How will these sucking ‘children’ survive when we cut them lose and let them struggle on their own?”