Soldier at the Door (66 page)

Hegek nodded. “Mrs. Alrick, was it? A few houses down from Mrs. Peto’s?”

Mahrree shook her head. “That’s
Miss
Alrick—”

Early thirties, she recited in her head, pleasantly plump, sweet smile, long red hair, used to be a teacher, patient demeanor, loves children, but far too shy around men for her own good—

Hegek began to grow pale.

For a moment Mahrree wondered if this was such a good idea after all. It could be a very, very quiet meeting.

Unless . . .

Unless
Hycymum
was still there. They couldn’t find any women young enough for Grandpy Neeks, but maybe . . .

“Remember, they’re making cake today,” Mahrree added. “I think you should inspect what she’s doing and maybe . . . sample a piece? Show the girls—and
Miss
Alrick—that you recognize their efforts?”

Hegek cleared his throat. “I know I’ve already said this,” he b
egan in a low voice, “but I really—”

“Yes,” Mahrree cut him off before the poor man became too emotional, “I know. But actually what you
really
need is to try my mother’s recipe.
At Miss Alrick’s
. Their attempts should be cooling right now.”

Go before my mother leaves
, Mahrree added in her head. These two are going to need all the mindless chatter—and purposeful meddling—they can get.

Hegek gulped again, smiled apprehensively, and headed to the road, forgetting about the crates by his shack.

Major Shin had a couple of soldiers pick them up later that evening—since they contained such valuable information that, if in the wrong hands, could prove to be . . . well,
not good
—and put the crates in the back of the armory where broken weapons were stored and usually forgotten.

---

By the time Mahrree crawled into bed that night it was very late. The suggestion from her father bounced around in her mind frequently that day, and she wondered how—or even
if
—she should explain it to Perrin. But how does one tell one’s husband that, according to a quiet idea placed in her mind, they might someday be on the wrong side? She wasn’t even sure she fully understood it. By the time it was bedtime, she had shelved the thought far back into her mind, unsure of what to do with it. Besides, she needed to concentrate on more important matters that evening, because first she was on a spider hunt.

Poor Jaytsy had this problem at least twice a week. Ever since she saw a spider crawling on her pillow over a season ago, she fr
equently woke up screaming about “Biders!” crawling on her. Mahrree was ready to go to bed an hour ago, but the panicked squeal of two-year-old Jaytsy told her she was hunting “biders” first. She spent half an hour with a candle showing Jaytsy every corner and edge of her bedroom, assuring her that there were no spiders.

That wasn’t entirely true. Mahrree
did
see two spiders on the floor which she subtly squashed under her feet before her worried little girl saw them. Mahrree wished she was wearing her shoes. Or at least her stockings. But that was yet another example, she decided, of the depths of a mother’s love.

And yes, occasionally there were times one needed to lie to let someone believe they were safe.

Not that she’d confess that to her husband, already asleep upstairs.

She finally appeased Jaytsy and she drifted off to sleep while Mahrree told her the simplified stories of Terryp that her father Cephas always told her. Mahrree gave each one a happy ending. What was the point of the story otherwise? There were enough wo
rries and darkness in the world that they didn’t need any more.

When she finally got into bed, after washing her feet, she cu
ddled up to Perrin and breathed in the comfort of his closeness.

“My wife, the mighty Bider Hunter!” he rumbled quietly. “I think I’ll be sad when Jaytsy finally figures out how to make an ‘s’ sound. But maybe not. The other day in the command tower I ha
ppened to say, ‘Ooh, I better go get that
bider!
’ and promptly smacked the thing with a stack of parchment and as much pride as if it were a Guarder. The two sergeants on duty just stared at me.”

Mahrree chuckled. “Didn’t know you were still awake, or I would have had you come help.” 

“I shooed away the spiders last time, remember?”

“I think that was
two
times ago.”

“But you still love me anyway?”

She giggled and was about to kiss him when an urgent pounding came at the door.

“Oh no,” she whimpered as he leapt out of bed and into his trousers and boots in record time. Perrin ran down the stairs simult
aneously buttoning his jacket and fastening his sword while Mahrree looked out the back window. There didn’t seem to be any dark blobs of horses or soldiers waiting.

She went to the landing at the top of the stairs to listen as Perrin opened the front door. Soldiers always came to the back porch door,
so something else was up. She hoped the loud knocking didn’t disturb their sleeping toddlers. She strained to hear who was at the door, but Perrin’s low voice was too quiet for her to pick up any conversation. A minute later he closed the door, paused to hear if Jaytsy and Peto were still asleep, then plodded back up the stairs, complaining under his breath.

Mahrree sighed in relief. “So you’re still mine tonight?”

He chuckled. “The forest is still quiet, the children are quiet, the spiders are quiet, so yes: I’m all yours.”

“Good! Because if whoever it was at the door woke up Jaytsy, I would have made him come in and search for spiders.”

“That would have resulted in even more nightmares for our little Jayts. It was a stupid Administrators’ messenger.”

Mahrree cringed. Whenever the little men in red uniforms a
rrived, it was with yet another new way that something would be altered in the name of progress. “Now
I’m
going to have nightmares. What was so important that he came so late?”

“It
wasn’t
that important!” he said with irritation. “Just delivered news to the fort that there was going to be another tax levied beginning in the next season. Expenses of the world, and all.”

“Oh, I think I know what those expenses are.”

They went back to their room, both grumbling.

“And for that he came so late?” Mahrree complained as she got back into bed and Perrin replaced his sword and belt carefully by the bedroom door.

Perrin scoffed as he undid his jacket. “He was afraid there might be violence that came with the news. He wanted me to be prepared for tomorrow evening’s announcement. Said we should emphasize to the village that much of the tax would be going to improving the world for the next generation. It’s all in the
wording,
you see—”

Mahrree imagined he was rolling his eyes at the advice.

“—if we really want the next generation to succeed, we need to be willing to pay for it. After all, the
best
education is also the
most
expensive education. I was ready to punch his little smarmy face myself. If he
really
wants to avoid violence, then he shouldn’t bother me when my wife is about to kiss me.”

He set his trousers exactly at the right angle on the seat of the desk’s chair, to be snatched and put on in another moment’s notice.

Mahrree smiled. “Remember, you should never kill the messenger. Idumea might notice us. So the best education is the most expensive? The best education happens when someone really wants to learn and someone is eager to share what they know! No amount of money will change that.”

“So Full School is actually
Fool School
,” Perrin muttered, placing his boots in precisely the landing-into-them position.

“Ooh, be careful,
Major Shin!
” she smirked.

“I left the major at the fort,” he said draping his jacket exactly over the back of the chair and getting into bed. “I can complain about whatever I want in the privacy of my own bedroom. I promise you, the money’s not going only for education or for teachers or buildings or books, but also to the best buddies of the Administrators who’ve been put in place to oversee every new little program and regulation they can come up with. I didn’t tell you yet what my f
ather said before they left. The Administrator of Law was hiring more than one hundred new law assessors. And they’ll be helping with army law as well. Nice, huh?”

Mahrree’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Why that’s . . . that’s probably one man to every law!
Unless,
” her voice quieted, “there are going to be
more laws
.”

“My father suggested the same thing. For what other reason would they need so many assessors? Except to give one’s friends an easy income, which is probably half the reason. If we thought the kings were overzealous, just wait until we see what the Administr
ators come up with next. Now that they’re well entrenched and the world has embraced them, they’ll push that acceptance to the very limits. Although it takes them weeks of discussions and committees to enact something new, I suspect they won’t let the process keep this government from bloating like a dead cow.”

“Lovely image for me to dream about, Perrin. Thank you.”

“Well, it’s true. The larger the government gets, the more stench-filled and abhorrent it becomes.”

“And then it all rots,” she shuddered. “I suppose it
is
an apt analogy.”

“That’s not the only thing bloating,” he warned. “My father also mentioned something that you might be interested in: the Admini
strator of Education has now established
four
levels of hierarchy to ‘oversee’ instruction. To adequately supervise the seventeen villages, they need about sixty more overseers.”

“And
exactly what are they doing?” Mahrree asked, mystified. “Mr. Hegek seems to be working non-stop, but I never see those piles of papers move on his desk. I still can’t figure out what takes up all of his time!” she murmured. “Just let the teachers teach. I still don’t get it—why should anyone else besides parents be in charge of the children?”

“You know why. You figured it out earlier this year. Parents feel stupid because their government tells them they are, so they’re humbly—and even willingly—allowing someone else to guide their children’s teaching. But there’s another reason,” Perrin hesitated, as if worried the little man in red might still be in earshot. “This way the Administrators get to pick and choose what the growing gener
ation learns, and anything that’s not supporting the Administrators simply isn’t covered. In one generation, the entire population should be as loyal to the Administrators as they are—
or were
—to their parents’ beliefs. Whatever they say, the people will believe.”

“Let’s hope there are still a few rebellious ‘teenaged’ souls out there. Besides us, I mean.” Mahrree sucked in her breath as a memory from long ago came to her, bearing the mark of coming from her father. “Perrin, did you ever know that King Querul and the three
Queruls after him for eighty years kept . . .
servants?
”

Perrin tensed up next to her. “Yes, I know. The question is, how did
you
know about that? That’s hardly common knowledge, even forty years ago!”

“My father told me,” Mahrree confessed. “He had an older friend over in Winds, another teacher, who helped to settle the ser
vants in their own homes after they were freed. He told my father about it years later, how he had to teach them how to read and write and even shop.”

“Amazing!” he breathed. “I really wished I knew Cephas. How many other secrets of the world did he know about?”

“I think that was the only one,” Mahrree said. “How many more
are
there?”

“Uh,” Perrin hesitated, “that’s probably it,” he said, not soun
ding completely honest. “Those thirty-three people—they weren’t Querul’s servants, Mahrree. They were
slaves
,” he said bitterly. “They and their children and their children’s children. They knew nothing but what Querul and his descendents told them. They were never paid or educated.”

“They had been with the kings for years,” Mahrree remembered, “and believed everything he told them. He was their only source of knowledge about anything.”

“Querul the First brought them to his mansion and compound during the Great War. He kept them sequestered for their safety, and they never left, for decades,” Perrin whispered. “He told them all kinds of terrible things were happening out in the world. Battles, bloodshed, men killed, and their women and children abused in atrocious ways . . . But in the compound they were safe. What they didn’t realize was that they were actually trapped. The war ended, but no one told them. Querul and his sons and family had grown so accustomed to those seven people doing all their labor that they simply kept them and told them the world was an awful place to be. The so-called servants had no idea that everyone else had more freedom than they did,” he sighed.