The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (15 page)

“Oh, yes, of course. Report from Rivers,
quite necessary, quite necessary. Thanks,” Karna whispered, and
massaged his neck as he went to retrieve his oxen team.

---

Armed with only a handful of hours of sleep,
Mrs. Joriana Shin marched, albeit a bit unsteadily, with the aid of
two lieutenants to the remains of the old garrison.

Three days of searching had revealed nothing,
but on the morning of the fourth day, Joriana’s head had snapped up
from her uncomfortable napping position on her husband’s desk. It
was the idea that had awakened her; a whisper that she couldn’t
discern if from a dream or from something else.

“But why would he be
there
?” she asked
no one in particular, forgetting that a lieutenant was on guard in
the room.

“Ma’am?”

“He goes there maybe once a moon, when his
crates are full. Wasn’t he just there last week? He was. So why,
early on a Holy Day, why would he go there
again
. . .
Unless he thought he forgot to put something away, the worry of
which can keep him up at night.” She massaged her eyes. “That’s
where he went, wasn’t it? Oh, dear Creator . . . that man and his
paperwork!”

She stood up abruptly and turned to the
lieutenant. “Riplak, did he say anything to you the night before
the tremor? About needing to file something?”

Lieutenant Riplak shook his head. “I would
have remembered, ma’am. For the past three days I’ve been going
over every conversation we had the day before, trying to think if
he mentioned something—”

Joriana exhaled in exasperation. “And here I
thought the point of having a personal guard was that everything
was confided in said guard—”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, it’s very
difficult to guard someone who doesn’t want to be guarded. What am
I supposed to do, order the High General to tell me his every move?
Sorry ma’am,” he apologized quickly.

“Not good enough,” she said, tucking some
stray hairs into her bun that hadn’t been fixed in days. “Get that
other lieutenant. We’re headed to the garrison. The old one!”

Half an hour later they arrived in the
carriage, Joriana staring in horror at the near-complete
devastation of what used to be the headquarters of the army.

“Good thing they built a new garrison a few
years ago,” the other lieutenant said under his breath as they
stared at hills of rubble.

“Good thing they moved everyone out of this
one,” Riplak replied. “Guess they don’t need to tear it down now.
How could anything survive—” He stopped when he felt the
dagger-like stare of Mrs. Shin. “I mean that . . . never mind,
ma’am.”

Word had already been sent out to the new
garrison that Mrs. Shin was demanding two hundred and fifty
soldiers come help inspect the deserted remains of the old
garrison, and despite the complaints of Colonel Thorne, soldiers
willingly complied, many even volunteering.

Relf Shin had a storage room at the old
garrison, in a basement, where he kept all of his records . . .

---

Twelve grueling hours later, after small
mountains of stone and timbers and papers that had once been a
massive three story building had been moved and removed and moved
yet again like a never-ending stacking game, the hundreds of
soldiers weary of shifting debris took turns looking at the sky
beginning to darken, then glanced at each other wondering just how
much longer this was going to continue.

None of them dared look at Joriana Shin, who
had circled the debris all day long, pointing out areas and calling
for the scrawniest soldiers to wriggle into narrow crevices for
closer inspection. Her fine woolen skirt was stained and torn at
the bottom, her gray-brown hair was falling out of her bun in
disheveled tangles, and her black cloak was now a dusty gray.

But despite her bloodshot eyes, and ignoring
the frequently loud sighs of exasperation from Colonel Thorne who’d
eventually joined the search, Mrs. Shin wasn’t showing signs of
giving up, so none of the soldiers dared to either—

Until one sergeant, on his belly peering into
a dark opening, asked for a torch.

And then, once it illuminated the area, he
swore. “Oh, slag . . . Colonel . . . COLONEL THORNE!”

---

Five days after the land tremor, on the
41
^st
Day of Planting, Mahrree woke up to see the beams
on the ceiling of her gathering room. She groaned. Nearly every
muscle ached. The ones that didn’t were numb. Confined to the end
of the sofa again, because her bear of a husband was sprawled over
the rest of it, she felt like crying.

During the night she’d dreamed she was
stretched out on a beautiful soft bed, surrounded by pillows and
blankets without a shred of debris anywhere. The dream was
familiar, one that she had a dozen times a year of a large house
made of weathered gray wood that was more solid than anything in
the world, and was surrounded by gardens, orchards, mountains . .
.

And then the severe kink in her neck brought
her painfully back to reality. She’d never felt so weary
before—physically, mentally, and emotionally. And now her neck was
stiff. And her husband’s massive feet were on her lap. And his
holey socks needed washing.

Miserably she reminded herself that at least
they weren’t outside again, but finally back in their house. The
sun began to peek through the windows and the sky promised to be
clear again, meaning no Planting Season rains would come today.
Mercifully all the storms Mahrree watched each day skirted Edge, as
if to give the villagers yet another day to secure their homes.

Theirs was deemed safe to enter late
yesterday afternoon—one of the very last to be tested—when Major
Karna’s contraption pushed on each wall without so much as a budge.
Karna turned to Mahrree and said, “Welcome home, Mrs. Shin! Let the
cleanup fun commence.”

In a way it would be nice to stay home for
once. Peto’s spirits had been low ever since he discovered Mrs.
Reed, and Jaytsy was equally somber after helping a little girl
discover her cat hadn’t survived after all.

Indeed, morale all over Edge was
deteriorating. Oh, there had been some moments of hope, such as the
family with young twins who were pulled from the cellar under the
remains of their home relatively unharmed on the evening of the
third day, and the enormous herd of cattle that found their way
back, via the busiest roads in Edge, to the pasture of their
astonished owner just yesterday.

But waking up on the fourth day, Mahrree and
the rest of Edge, it seemed, finally realized that “bouncing back”
would likely take seasons, and some things would never be the same
again.

Perrin had yet to hear from his parents, but
that wasn’t unusual. The family code was, no news means no
problems: carry on, soldier.

He did, however, receive an official report
from the Administrators last night proclaiming that the damage
suffered by Idumea was of such a nature that all soldiers from the
outer lying villages should be sent immediately to help with
removal and reconstruction.

Perrin stared at the message, delivered to
their back garden by a soldier, for several minutes before
“accidentally” dropping it in the fire where a boar was
roasting.

To Mahrree’s questioning look he answered,
“Wasn’t signed by the High General, and I take my orders from him.
No news from him, nothing to report.”

“Should we send them a message that we’re
fine?” Mahrree asked, already knowing his answer.

Perrin shook his head. “I don’t want to spare
a single soldier from the recovery efforts. My parents will know
we’re fine.”

Mahrree hoped that her in-laws weren’t
worrying about them, but strangely her thoughts yesterday kept
returning to Relf and Joriana. Every five minutes she saw them
again in her mind, and she wondered why.

Even now, her third thought of the morning
was about Perrin’s parents, but there was nothing she could do to
assure them they were fine. Mahrree turned her sore neck to
evaluate her sturdy rock walls and smiled in smug appreciation at
how well they held up. Twisting to look up the stairs that led to
her bedroom, she groaned, partially out of pain, partially to see
books, wood, and clothing strewn at the top of the stairs, having
been blown around by the winds that came off the mountains during
the night.

“I feel the same way,” Perrin whispered,
sitting up and glancing at the stairs. He tried to give her an
optimistic smile, but the weary lines under his dark eyes gave him
away.

She smiled feebly back. “How long do you
think we’ll be sleeping down here?”

“No idea. We have to clean out the rubble
upstairs, then evaluate what needs to be rebuilt, and then wait our
turn like everyone else for available lumber. They hope to be
getting the sawmill operational today. So at least a few weeks, but
probably much longer.”

Mahrree closed her eyes. “Can we move the bed
down here?”

“If we can toss it through what used to be
the roof, and if it survives the fall—which it should, since I
built that thing to withstand a land tremor,” he said proudly,
“then we could maybe dismantle it, bring it in here, and rebuild it
again.”

Halfway through his explanation she started
rubbing her temples. “Never mind. Then we’d only have to reverse
the process to get it back upstairs again.”

“Not exactly reverse the process, but we
might be able to drag the mattress down here,
unless
it’s—”

But she put a finger on his lips. “Just . . .
no more bad news.”

“Then I suppose we won’t discuss the
potential food shortages right now . . .” he mumbled through her
finger.

Mahrree dropped her hand. “What did Grandpy
Neeks tell you last night about the reserves?”

“I thought you didn’t want—”

“Just tell me!”

“We have enough grain reserves that we can
dole some out to the village for several weeks.” While his words
were encouraging, his tone was flat.

“Exactly how many weeks?” she pressed. She
wasn’t a farmer or even a gardener, but she knew the long Raining
Season had postponed plantings in many fields. Usually by now the
first snow peas were available at the markets, along with some
early greens, but this year there was nothing yet.

And now, there wasn’t even a market system
left; most of it had burned to the ground, along with many shops
that normally supplied clothing, bedding, and tools. Just when the
owners could have had their greatest business, they had no
businesses left at all.

He shrugged. “We need to get a better
approximation of what everyone still has available. Planting Season
finds everyone’s stores a bit low, but many can’t even get to their
larders or cellars. I kind of wished Gizzada hadn’t left the army
to start a restaurant in Pools. I could have used him right now.
Then again, his idea of ‘necessities’ include four courses and
three different desserts. But Neeks has tasked Lieutenant Rigoff to
start evaluating what the village has left. I’m sure whatever Milo
needs help with, Teeria will be more than obliging.”

“There’s not going to be enough, is there?”
she whispered.

He just looked down at his hands, massaging
them. “I’ve identified four soldiers who grew up on farms. Today
they’ll be tilling the old catapult fields across from the fort and
sowing some of the grain we have in reserves. Then this afternoon
I’m going to have Shem visit farmers and emphasize to them the need
to get planting immediately. Their clean-up efforts can wait.”

She sighed. “Will it be enough? Soon
enough?”

He looked back up at her. “Thought you didn’t
want any more bad news.”

Her expression must have been pitiful.

“A bit of good news, then,” he attempted a
smile. “I have the entire day off to stay here and work on our
house with you and the children. Soldiers will likely come by for
updates and direction, but we can spend all day working here.”

“Yippee,” she said dully.

“Or,” he said with a glint in his eye, “you
could go back to the school and start teaching again.”

“This will be better! Besides, Mr. Hegek has
allowed several homeless families to live in the buildings. And,”
she said more soberly, “I think it’ll be good for Jaytsy and Peto
to just be with us today. Getting back to some kind of routine here
at home will do us all good,” she decided. “Even if it’s just for
the day. Maybe I should even come up with a few school
assignments—”

His curled upper lip stopped her. “I thought
we were trying to make them feel better, not worse.”

Mahrree chuckled sadly just as Peto came out
of his room. He ran his hand over his tousled brown hair and
squinted at his mother. “What?”

“Your father doesn’t think it would be a good
idea for us to do school at home today. He thinks we should just be
cleaning up around here. How does that sound to you?”

Peto nodded once. “If you started teaching us
at home, I’d have to write that letter to the Administrators I keep
threatening to send. I’m sure the Administrator of Education would
have an interesting response. Keep your wife under control,
Lieutenant Colonel!” he said in a cadence the High General of
Idumea would have used, and once again Mahrree felt something prick
in her mind, flooding her with thoughts of Relf and Joriana.

Still, she chuckled with Perrin as Peto
trudged off to the washing room, and Perrin winked at his wife. One
child down, one more to go.

Jaytsy opened her door just in time to see
Peto going through the kitchen door to the washing room. She rolled
her eyes. “Why can’t he just keep going outside like he did for the
past four days? He takes forever in there! I swear he falls asleep
on purpose, just to keep me bouncing in the kitchen.”