The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (36 page)

Mahrree experimentally put her boot on a
lower rock. “You could climb this if you found just the right
bulges to support yourself.”

“Exactly!” he said with agitated excitement.
“My grandfather scaled this himself, just to show the servants. And
you’ve seen his portrait: he wasn’t exactly a thin and limber man.
Look, it’s really not that high. I could probably toss you right to
the top of the wall.”

Mahrree stared up at the height. “Only
you
could, though,” she chuckled lightly, until a darker
thought struck her. “Toss me up where I could sit, look over the
wall, and be the perfect target for an assassin’s arrow.”

Perrin frowned. “What?”

“That’s probably what they thought,” she
explained. “Undoubtedly they came to the wall at some time during
those many years. Someone must have noticed it was quiet outside—no
raging battles, no starving children, no women screaming because of
horrible atrocities happening just outside the only safe place in
the world. But something
else
kept them in.”

“Fear,” he sighed. “The first three Queruls
had them so convinced the outside was pure evil, they willingly
stayed in. What they didn’t realize what that it was the evil that
trapped them there. You’re probably right. They believed the
compound was surrounded by the enemy, ready to kill whoever came
out or tried to escape.”

“So sad,” she murmured. “To be so fearful
that you never question—” She stopped, as a new realization came to
her. “That’s why you went into the forest, isn’t it?”

He turned his gaze from the wall and looked
at her with what he likely hoped was quizzical innocence.

“When you were a captain. First you took in
Karna looking for Guarders, then you went in alone again to find
the fourteen Guarders sent after Jaytsy and me. You were looking
for reasons to go over the wall!”

He smiled guiltily. “I was. My grandfather
told me that sometimes there’s only one man out of the whole world
who can accomplish something. He was the only one with the right
authority to free the servants. They believed only him that there
was nothing dangerous on the other side. So I always had it stuck
in my head that maybe I’d be the one to enter the forests and
confront the Guarders. I don’t think you know about my first time
trying to do so. It was before we were together. Karna and
Wiles—remember Wiles?—they dragged me away from the forest. I was
there for all of five minutes. But yes; I always wondered if I’d be
brave enough to escape from the ‘compound.’”

“Oh, you were!” she said proudly. “No man’s
ever been as daring as you.”

“Except for the men who already live in the
forest,” he pointed out ruefully.

“The ones your father think now live here,
instead,” she reminded him. “Perrin, I don’t think anyone has ever
lived there permanently,” she whispered as if anyone could overhear
them. “What if the Guarders have only done what you did? Run in for
a time, cause their trouble, then run away to . . . somewhere
else?”

He sighed. “So where’s that ‘somewhere else,’
Mahrree?”

She swallowed, having no ideas.

He ran his hand along the rocks again,
fingering the small ledges that protruded. “How often does fear
hold us back?” he wondered aloud. “How often do we come face to
face with the truth, the reality we never suspected, but turn and
run away from it instead? Would we even know how close we
came?”

Mahrree gulped again. His words stung her so
directly that she wondered if he might not have known about her own
adventure into the forest more than twelve years ago. And the shame
of that moment—facing the truth and running away from it—still
panged her at the oddest times, like right now.

His eyes traveled down the rock wall and over
to her. She looked into them. There was no accusation there; just
innocent wondering.

She shook her head slowly. “They were so
close. All they had to do was climb this wall, and then they could
have seen for themselves.”

He stared at a particularly smooth stone.
“All
we
have to do is go to the end of the forest—”

“That’s not all!” she said, alarmed at his
idea. “Then there’s that massive boulder field, and the mountains
themselves. And then where?”

He looked back at her again. “Think about
Terryp,” he whispered, glancing around as if uttering a most secret
and abominable name. “Mahrree, he didn’t go north. He went west,
remember? Querul sent him and his soldiers west. They had to cross
only the desert and they found other land. They went
over the
wall
.”

The look of hope and longing in his eyes was
so intense she wanted desperately to join him. But why was he
suddenly talking like this?

“What’s your point, Perrin?”

The glow in his eyes faded. He looked down at
the ground and kicked at some gravel. “It’s just that . . . there
are lots of walls, Mahrree. And on the other side is probably . . .
nothing.”

“Oh, you don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“You know as well as I do Terryp found something that so amazed him
that he went nearly crazy with the desire to record it all. Ruins,
Perrin! Evidence that others lived in the world before we did. But
then Querul told everyone the land was poisoned.”

“And you believe that as firmly as I do.” He
looked into her eyes with such yearning that she was startled.

“Oh, Perrin,” she whispered, troubled to be
the one knocking down whatever scheme was growing in him, “there’s
not even a known route, or a speculated one. All of his writings
and maps were destroyed in that fire that burned all the family
lines and histories more than 130 years ago. Perrin,” she gripped
his arm as if to hold him back, “there’s just nothing we can
do.”

“You’re right.” He smiled dimly, thoroughly
unconvinced. “I know. I’m sorry.” He exhaled loudly. “I don’t know
why, but sometimes the desire to just
jump the wall
grips me
so ferociously that I just want to, to . . .”

“Where do you want to go?” she prodded. She’d
never heard him say such things.

He shook his head. “Just don’t listen to me,
Mahrree. I feel such an agitation in Idumea that makes me want to
escape my own skin.” In frustration he smacked his hand against the
stone wall and cringed in pain.

Mahrree took his palm, already turning red,
and kissed it. Idumea may have been getting to him, but he was
fighting it back. Not in exactly the most effective manner, she
acknowledged, when one’s weapon is a bare hand and the opponent is
a century old stone wall. But at least the effort was
admirable.

He smiled miserably at her.

“Before you knock down Chairman Mal’s
compound wall,” she went on tiptoe to kiss his lips, “perhaps we
should start heading back to your parents. I’m sure they have some
rocks you can break your hand on.”

Chapter 11
~
“You messed up again, didn’t you?”

G
adiman believed he
was a patient man, but sitting in the outer office of the Chairman
was wearing on him.

He bounced his leg vigorously and stared at
the Chairman’s assistant who refused to look up and risk catching
the Administrator of Loyalty’s gaze. He’d told him twice already
that Chairman Mal would call for him when he was ready.

Gadiman looked down at the empty folder
again, the contents still in the Chairman’s office, and focused on
the orange dot that labeled Mahrree Peto Shin as “Beyond Watched,
Not Yet Traitorous.” He swore under his breath that he allowed the
Chairman to read through the documents without him present. These
were
his
projects, and the idea of someone else holding them
was disturbing, like allowing another man to take his wife
home.

At least, that’s what he eventually decided
happened to her. Most annoying.

He had to take his dinners in the tavern
since then. Most inconvenient.

But watching how Colonel Shin stood mutely
behind his yammering wife, Gadiman once again saw the wisdom of no
longer being bound to a woman, even if it meant he had to hire out
for someone to do the washing up.

When the office door was opened by a young
aide, Gadiman leaped to his feet and barged through the door.

Nicko Mal looked up from his desk. “And what
makes you think I was calling for you?”

“Who else would you want?” Gadiman plopped
down in a chair without an invitation.

The Chairman sat back in his chair and lifted
a stack of papers from his desk. “Quite a thick file for such a
small woman, wouldn’t you say?”

“She started it!” Gadiman said.

“And so your concern today is . . .”

“Did you
hear
her this morning?
Accusing us of the same atrocities of the kings?”

The Chairman shook his head. “I didn’t hear
that, and neither did you. You took a few liberties with your
summation, Gadiman. Rather sloppy for a former law assessor, by the
way.”

Gadiman scoffed at that. “What do you intend
to do about her?”

The Chairman raised his eyebrows. “We gave
her a certificate. Do you have any other suggestions?”

“And whose idea was that meaningless
parchment?” Gadiman demanded.

Mal clasped his hands in front of him.
“Brisack’s. He wanted a pretense for bringing her here.”

“That’s not why I gave you the report! It
wasn’t to congratulate her—it was to prove to you how she’s
undermining her husband’s authority!” the weasel spat. “She took
over! She issued orders! She—”

“Provided a needed service to her village
when no one else would step up and do so,” Mal intoned. “One man’s
vixen is another man’s hero, Gadiman.”

Gadiman spluttered. “He, he . . . that doctor
has strange ideas about heroic behavior, Chairman!”

Mal simply shrugged. “I haven’t made up my
mind about her yet. She was quite unlike anything I expected. For
some reason I thought she’d be a domineering brute of a woman. Like
Perrin, in female form. But instead, in walked a petite, attractive
woman I suppose some would say, who spoke without hesitation—”

“She’s dangerous!” Gadiman huffed. “Didn’t
you see how she dominated the conversation? Colonel Shin was
completely impotent.”

“Colonel Shin had already expressed himself
very well,” Chairman Mal said patiently. “It was his wife’s turn,
and the questions were pointed at her.”

“Except for mine,” Gadiman reminded him. “I
asked my question to the colonel about where the soldiers were, and
she butted in.”

“And I thought she defended her husband and
his work adequately. She’s obviously fond of him. I see no other
crime than that.”

“Fond? Fond!”

The Chairman leaned forward. “Does that word
bother you, Gadiman?”

He ignored that. “She’s questioned our
decisions, repeatedly,” he gestured at the letters in the
Chairman’s hand.

“She has, I agree. But her last letter was
dated several years ago. Perhaps she’s had a change of heart.”

“Or maybe just a change of tactic! Did you
see Karna’s report about her disarming the entire fort? No wonder
the village ‘loves’ the soldiers! And what about her allegation
that the instruction system is a holdover from the last corrupt
kings?”

Mal nodded. “We’ve already been through that,
long ago. She was the reason we changed the entire education system
of the world. Well, one of the reasons,” he admitted. “She was the
only one who read the entire document and questioned us about the
changes. She passed that test, which was why we continued to watch
her. And yes, she was right—it
is
a holdover. Full school
has controlled what the world learns and believes, allowing us to
raise a new generation that’s profoundly loyal to us and, as she
pointed out this morning, relies entirely on us to tell them what
to do.”

Mal sat back and smiled smugly.

“Nice to get such unsolicited and honest
reports,” he said. “Even the adults are falling in line, not daring
to make a move without someone telling them in which direction. We
were wise to expand the kings’ educational methods.” Then, with a
penetrating glare, he added, “Even raving madmen get a few things
right sometimes.”

Gadiman missed the insinuation. “Well then .
. . the Shin family as generals in Idumea is also a holdover! She
suggests we get rid of kingly traditions, why don’t we begin with
the Shin family?”

“Because the Shin family has served each
government very well.” Mal droned. “Show me one incident where a
High General of Idumea didn’t fulfill his duty. I don’t like Relf;
you know that. But be it to the king or to the Administrators, the
Shins have been unswerving. Relf was most accommodating in helping
our transition to power, and Perrin’s recruiting numbers are the
highest in the world. Nearly all the innovations in the army came
from him. So how do you punish loyalty, Administer of Loyalty?”

“
She
is not a Shin!” Gadiman seethed.
“Only by marriage. We have no evidence of her loyalty, and she was
terribly forward today.”

Chairman Mal waved much of that away. “Oh, I
don’t know about that. I thought she was merely a confident woman.
Relf has mentioned a few times that she’s a bit of a hotpot
herself. Honestly, I’m amazed their marriage has lasted this long
without breaking into violence.” The Chairman actually chuckled.
“Or maybe it has! Perrin was quite a confrontational young man at
the university. Once, during one of my lectures—”

“Is this going to take long?” Gadiman
interrupted. “Because I fail to see how your sentimentality is
pertinent here. I care only about her potential.”

“Gadiman, Gadiman,” the Chairman shook his
head. “If you understand
people
better, you understand their
actions
better. Human nature is fascinating. Of all the
experiments on animal behavior I’ve conducted, none were more
revealing than those conducted on humans. If only they knew about
it,” he added wistfully, with a suggestion that the conversation
was about to take another meandering detour.