The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (49 page)

“Hear, hear!” many soldiers called in
agreement.

Oblong nudged Gizzada. “Sarge, he’d be a
great High General, wouldn’t he?”

Gizzada smiled. “Not only would he be, he
will
be. It’s not something he wants to do, but it’s
something he realizes he should do. Don’t worry about Snyd or
Thorne in the mansion,” Gizzada said to the closed door. “In about
two years, I’ll be delivering a few Large Gizzadas to the mansion
at least once a week, compliments of the owner. World’s going to be
a better place, men . . .”

---

“Now
that
was an experience,” Mahrree
chuckled as the coach lurched forward.

Perrin dropped his cap on the seat next to
him, grabbed his head and moaned. His children giggled.

“I thought you were feeling better,” Mahrree
said as she massaged his neck.

“No, no, no . . . that stuff’s worse than
mead. I drank mead a couple of times back in Command School, and
the same thing always happened—sicker than an expecting woman.”

Mahrree frantically wrenched open the window
on his side of the coach, while his children burst out
laughing.

“Too loud,” he murmured pitifully. “Please
don’t.”

“Yes, please don’t,” Mahrree said to him.
“And if you have to, aim it out the window.”

“Don’t anybody tell my parents what happened
when we get back,” he mumbled. “They’re probably asleep already,
but I don’t want them knowing.”

Jaytsy turned to her brother. “Did you have
any idea we had such a rebellious father? He’s been drinking, and
now he wants us to sneak him in past his parents?”

Mahrree snorted as their children laughed.
“I’m sorry, Perrin, but really—it’s rather funny.”

“Another reason why I hate Idumea,” he
grumped as he flopped on the bench. His family’s continued laughter
didn’t help.

After a few minutes Jaytsy said slowly,
“Father?”

“Hmmf?” he mumbled from his prone position
where Mahrree was now massaging his head.

“Are Colonel Snyd and Colonel Thorne
rich?”

Peto sat up a bit at that.

“Hm. Suppose so, if they can pay that much to
eat things I crunch under my boots.”

Peto and Jaytsy exchanged glances in the dark
coach, and Mahrree knew what the next question would be.

“So, is Colonel Shin now rich, too?”

“Of course we are!” Mahrree declared. “We’ve
been rich for many years, with a comfortable home, good friends and
family, and each other.”

“Isn’t that cute, Peto,” Jaytsy said in the
same tone her father had used earlier, “how she still thinks we’re
only five and four years old?”

“What does it matter how much he earns?”
Mahrree said. “We have all we need.”

Perrin waved aimlessly. “What your mother
said.”

“So we
are
rich,” Peto nodded in
approval. “Now we’ll have to take the coach everywhere in
Edge.”

“No . . . no . . . no,” Perrin droned slowly
and forced himself into a semi-sitting position. “Pay is based on
years of service, ranking, and size of fort. The garrison and the
fort at Pools are both much larger than Edge, which is the second
smallest fort.”

“So Jayts,” Peto explained, “Father’s the
second
least
rich colonel in the world.”

“Ah, but Moorland doesn’t have a colonel,”
Jaytsy reminded him. “So he is
the
least rich colonel in the
world.”

“Ah, well done Colonel Shin,” Peto said
smugly, and he and his sister chuckled.

But Perrin wasn’t amused. “And since Moorland
is dying as a village, there’s not even a major there either
anymore,” he reminded them sternly.

His children quieted and looked down.

Mahrree wasn’t unsympathetic. It was easy to
forget that others were losing their homes while they were living
in a mansion. She’d been guilty of forgetting about home
herself.

To try to swing the conversation around
again, she said, “Oh, your father’s not getting that much of a pay
increase.”

“Uhh . . .” Perrin said slowly.

“Need the window?”

“No . . . it’s that . . . the pay
increase.”

Mahrree frowned at him. “We already discussed
it. And,” she added more quietly, “what you’ll be doing with
it.”

“Yes, but it’s a
little
larger than
you may think, and . . . it also comes with a bonus.”

“How much?”

Perrin shifted uncomfortably. “Enough to buy
a new house. Apparently brass buttons need bigger houses.”

“As if what you live in reflects who you
really are?” Mahrree scoffed.

“I’m not in the mood to argue with you, or
agree with you, wife,” Perrin moaned. He took up her hand and put
it on his temple again so she’d massage it.

“Just agree with me, then.” Mahrree kissed
his cheek.

“Usually do.” He closed his eyes.

Jaytsy and Peto exchanged anxious looks. “Do
we have to?” Jaytsy said. “Move, I mean? I know our house is rather
small but it’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

“I don’t want to move either,” Peto
announced.

Mahrree smiled at them. “Nor do we.
Right?”

Perrin grunted. “No one in Edge expects us to
move. And the gold’s already going another direction,” he added
cryptically.

“What’s that mean?” Peto wondered.

“It means, your Father and I already
discussed that it could go to someone who could use it more than
us,” Mahrree explained. “Although I wasn’t aware of that
bonus.”

“Been working out how to deal with it,” he
mumbled. “Think I have it figured out.”

“Where’s it going?” Jaytsy asked.

“Where all my future pay is going: to people
who need it more. It’s not as if my duties are changing, or my
hours increasing, but your mother and I know of someone who knows
of someone—” He paused to work out if that was the correct thing to
say, “So we’re going to just slip it over there.”

To Mahrree’s pleasure, Jaytsy grinned. “I
like that! Someone’s going to get a welcome surprise, and we don’t
have to move.”

“Like that man in the rubbish pile at the
garrison?” Peto said.

Perrin opened his eyes. “What, son?”

“The gold—is it going to that man we saw
trying to get a blanket out of the rubbish pile?” A quality in the
tone of Peto’s voice suggested he already knew the answer was
no.

“I have looked for him,” Perrin said quietly.
“But I haven’t seen him again. I’ll keep trying, though, each time
I have to go to the garrison. There are a few things I’d like to
give him, but no—the pay increase isn’t going to him, but it’s a
nice idea.”

Peto nodded slowly. “I’ll just imagine that
someone did that for him already. That’s why you can’t find him
again.”

Mahrree blinked back tears. The boy could be
so obnoxious, then abruptly so compassionate. It was if it was his
secret, and he accidentally revealed his softer nature.

“Someone will take care of him, I’m sure,”
Jaytsy said with hollow confidence, and she patted her brother
comfortingly on the leg.

Mahrree sniffled. It was times like this she
thought she could envision her children as adults, and the kind of
people they could become astonished her—

“Listen Jaytsy—Mother’s sniffling. It sounds
like she’s about to sing about
her
long-lost love,” said
Peto earnestly.

And just like that, they were snickering
teenagers again.

“Let’s talk about something different, such
as . . .” Mahrree faltered, because there was only one other thing
that overwhelmed her mind lately, and since she couldn’t come up
with anything else, she finally said, “what your grandparents
expect of us in a few days at The Dinner.”

Perrin lunged for the window and lost half a
Large Gizzada on the road to Idumea.

It was about ten minutes after that—after the
coachman assured Colonel Shin that they could get the outside of
the coach all cleaned again, no problem, sir—that Jaytsy said, “Why
does the garrison have so many men? It’s not like Idumea ever gets
attacked.”

“And they’ll claim that’s why,” Perrin said,
lying back down again and resting his head on Mahrree’s lap. At
least he was finally sounding more alert, she thought. “So many
soldiers keep the place safe.”

“But it’s the villages on the edges of the
world that need protection, isn’t it?” Jaytsy insisted.

“And
that
, my daughter,” Perrin said,
“is why you’d never make a good officer or Administrator. You’re
thinking logically, not politically. The only thing logic and
politics share are a few letters. Idumea’s so messed up,” he
mumbled as he repositioned Mahrree’s hand to rub his forehead. “A
city where a fifteen-year-old girl is more reasonable than dozens
of adult men—”

“Hey, she’s right,” Peto said, startled. And
not to be outdone by his sister who smiled smugly, he added, “It’s
all of the northern villages that get hit the most, then the ones
in the west.”

“Doesn’t Trades have a sizable fort?” Mahrree
asked. “In the southwest.”

Perrin grunted. “Largest outside of the
garrison. Fifteen hundred men,” he said to the gasps of his family.
“And you know why? The gold and silver mine. Five hundred soldiers
are on duty, round the clock, guarding the roads in and out,
stationed around the perimeter, and inspecting every worker. The
mine is where the wealth is, so that’s where the soldiers are. Any
time there’s even a hint of a presence in the forest twenty miles
away, the garrison sends down another one or two thousand men just
to keep the mine protected.”

“How often have they been raided?” Mahrree
asked.

“Since the beginning when Guarders made their
presence known again? I think only two or three times, and only
once was successful, back when Jaytsy was still a baby.”

“Wait a minute!” Jaytsy exclaimed loudly, and
Perrin flinched and rubbed his temples until Mahrree’s fingers
could get over there for him. “We’ve been hit dozens of times! By
thieves! And Moorland—didn’t you say they lost a small herd of cows
not long ago? We should have the majority of the soldiers in the
north!”

Perrin sighed. “Moorland got hit several
times a year,” he intoned sadly. “Their major requested more
soldiers, my father tried to convince the Command Board they were
needed, and always the three Administrators shot it down. Cush is
also on that Board, but he quit trying to even bring it up.”

“But why?” Now Peto was angry.

“Politics, Peto. Moorland is small, far away,
and no one important has ever come from there. That’s why no one in
Idumea cares it’s been wiped out by the land tremor. They’re not
rich, so their taxes were minimal. They’re strange people who
actually like the mountains, are happy with simply raising cattle
and crops, and don’t even have an arena. They don’t benefit the
Administrators at all, so they see no reason to send protection or
assistance.”

“But that’s . . .” Jaytsy spluttered.

Mahrree nodded sadly. “Politics. The
Administrators care only about two kinds of people: those who bring
them wealth and power, and those who threaten to take it away.
Moorland does neither. Same with Edge.”

“Your mother’s right,” Perrin told his
children. “Trades is the source of all wealth. Moorland provides
nothing but some wheat and corn—which is far more valuable in an
emergency than shiny metals, anyway. The Administrator of Taxation
stores the grain until the next harvest, at which point they simply
throw it away to make room for the new.”

“What?” Peto exclaimed. “They could give that
away instead of throwing it away! Like to those homeless people, by
the river.”

“There’s a lot Idumea could do better, son,”
Perrin grumbled.

“I hate Idumea,” Jaytsy murmured.

Perrin grinned, and Mahrree patted his
cheek.

“Why didn’t Moorland complain?” Peto
wondered. “Look at everything here, and compare it what they have
there, and—”

“Ah, but that’s the thing, Peto,” Perrin
pointed out, struggling to sit up again. “How many people do you
know—besides soldiers—that ever travel to another village?”

His children pondered that for a moment.

“Mr. Hegek came from somewhere else,” Jaytsy
offered. “And sometimes students leave to go to a university. But
after that?”

“And why don’t people travel?” Perrin
pressed.

“Because they think it’s too hard, too far,”
said Peto in disappointment. “Something bad will happen, and then
when you get to someplace else, like Coast, everything is different
than what you know—”

“It’s a terrifying hassle,” Jaytsy summed
up.

“Exactly,” Perrin told them. “So no one
travels, anywhere. And if they do, it’s because of an emergency, or
they think they’re dying and should see something first. The travel
is usually tied to something unpleasant, so the whole trip becomes
unpleasant.”

“Then people complain,” Mahrree said, “and
talk about how strange and hard it all was, and so naturally no one
ever wants to go or do anything. It’s easier to stay at home. And,
you have to admit—our trip down here was anything but fun and
relaxing.”

Everyone grunted in agreement to that.

“But I’d still do it over again,” Peto said
in a small voice.

“Me too,” Jaytsy chimed in. “It was hard, but
I’m kind of proud of us. Actually,” she wrinkled her nose in
thought, “it wasn’t all that bad. You can get used to it, like
Grandmother and Grandfather have. Why, look at us now, going to
Pools just for dinner and driving all the way back again! It’s
almost as far as to Mountseen, but people rarely make that drive
unless they have to.”

Peto sat up taller. “So people don’t travel
because they’re convinced it’s just too hard. That’s dumb!”

Perrin chuckled sadly. “No, that’s just human
nature. We believe the wrong things, and can’t think of
alternatives. Like those in Moorland. I doubt any of them ever came
to Idumea. In their minds, the city is the same as their little
village, just . . . spread out more. Even their major had lingering
fears from his time in Command School, so he likely never talked to
anyone about the city. People from Moorland never imagine anything
as grand as you’ve seen, so they didn’t think they could demand
anything more of it. If they knew just how much Idumea possessed,
I’m sure they’d insist on more soldiers and better defenses. As it
is, they just grew used to their condition and saw no sense in
fighting the inevitable.”