Soldier at the Door (31 page)

With the same heaviness Perrin added, “I’ve been promoted.”

The words seemed to suck the remaining air out of the room.

“Congratulations, Major Shin,” Mahrree choked out. This m
oment hadn’t come as she expected it. She’d planned it to be accompanied by cake.

After a frigid moment, she asked, “Why?”

Perrin slowly shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure.” He sighed deeply as if he hadn’t breathed properly all day. “It came from the Administrators, not the garrison. The Administrators believe that members of the village may pose future threats. The reason Guarders have so much strength in the south might be because of inside help. Even local authorities in some areas are suspect. Only the commanders in the forts seem to be above suspicion, for now.”

“What’s your father have to say about this?”

“I haven’t heard from him,” said Perrin worriedly. “He’s been inspecting forts. This wasn’t his doing, Mahrree.”

Mahrree felt a chill, followed by a sudden sense of panic.

“Perrin, I’ve sent only four letters! No one reads them. I talk only to you! I didn’t cause this,” she gasped. “Is that what you think? Somehow this is my fault?”

Perrin shook his head quickly. “No, no, no, not at all! No one’s going to be concerned with someone like you.
You know what I mean
,” he said in reply to her hurt look. “The only reason I asked is because that’s
precisely
the kind of talk I’m supposed to be listening for!” he said in an earnest whisper. “Anything that
might
suggest anyone is
considering
opposing the Administrators. I didn’t want it to come back to me that I should start keeping a file on my
own wife
!”

Isn’t that what she predicted, three years ago in that second d
ebate where she shouted at an army captain about the Administrators taking away their freedoms? She’d been right. And back then, she would have gloated that she was right.

But tonight?

Tonight that army captain—
major
—tightly cradled his little girl who played quietly with the shining buttons on his uniform’s sleeve. He didn’t notice her lick them, because his gaze darted around the table in deep, troubled thought.

And tonight, Mahrree didn’t feel any sense of triumphant anger, but instead was absorbed by a sense of dread—a foreboding that told her that what she didn’t understand now, she’s wasn’t going like once she did.

“I don’t know what all of this means either,” he said quietly as if he could read her mind. “And now I’m the eyes and ears of the Administrators!” He shook his head at the absurdity of it all.

“And voice,” she reminded him feebly. “Gadiman’s private a
rmy? How progressive. I talked to the director of schools,” Mahrree suddenly remembered. “Perrin, Mr. Hegek asked if you’d approve of his allowing debates.”

“What’d you tell him?” His still stared at the table while his daughter rubbed his buttons with her finger.

“I told him I thought you’d approve, but that I didn’t know why he needed your permission. Oh, but now I do. Will everyone need your permission to do anything?”

He dropped his head into his hands while Jaytsy wriggled off his lap. Other buttons on his jacket needed shining up, and her tongue was out and ready.

“I’m praying no. I’m late because the magistrate and the chief of enforcement were in my office all afternoon, and I had to finish drafting guidelines as to how to execute this stupid new mandate. Mahrree, it was pathetic—two panicked men, old enough to be my father, trying subtly not to ask if I was about to oust them.”

He looked up, exasperation on his face. “I didn’t sign up for this! I want to teach boys how to channel their aggression into som
ething useful. I don’t have all day to assure a nervous magistrate and his furious chief of enforcement that I’m not about to take over their village. And I told them that, repeatedly. Just keep everyone in the village in line, and I’ll keep myself happily to the fort. I hate politics!” he boomed.

“Major Shin!” Mahrree hushed him. “Stop or you’ll have to start a file on yourself!”

She had meant it seriously, but the ridiculousness of it all caught them both by surprise.

Mahrree cracked a smile. 

Perrin began to chuckle.

Then he laughed.

Then he shook his head.

Then he pounded his head on the table repeatedly so that his plate rattled.

Finally Perrin groaned into the table, whether out of pain or aggravation or both, Mahrree wasn’t sure. She didn’t know what to do as she sat helplessly across from him.

But Jaytsy giggled and patted his head. “Fodder funny!”

-
--

“Tell me the color of the sky today, Dormin,” Rector Yung asked over their late dinner.

The last son of King Oren smiled at the nightly routine that he never grew weary of. “It began as solid black, because of the cloud cover. When the sun rose, the black faded to a dull gray which r
emained until midday meal. Then the clouds parted, the white sun shone, and sections of the sky were a deep blue. By late afternoon most of the long stretched clouds were gone, replaced instead by big fluffy white ones. At sunset, many of those clouds hovered at the horizon. The sky behind them was a washed out blue with hints of green, while the sky in the east was so deeply blue it bordered on purple.”

He took a deep breath and plowed on.

“Then the sun dipped behind the clouds, darkening them but blazing all around, like a pillow on fire, but warm and relenting, like mashed potatoes lined with bright white. Then it all faded to pale blue, and is now becoming black again, with white stars beginning to show.”

The rector and his wife beamed at each other.

“He could be an artist, with an eye for color and detail like that,” Mrs. Yung said approvingly.

“Certainly not a poet,” the rector commented. “Clouds like burning pillows? Mashed potatoes?”

“I’m tired and hungry!” Dormin declared, digging into his dinner.

The three of them laughed.

“Besides,” Dormin said after he swallowed down a mouthful, “I could never be an artist. I can’t draw a straight line.”

“Oh, Dormin,” Mrs. Yung chuckled, “that’s not a problem. No one wants to see a straight line in a painting. You see very well now, more than you ever did.”

“I must confess, once I quit assuming I already knew the truth, the truth was much easier to recognize.”

“With a mind like that, you could do about anything, Dormin,” the rector said.

“You keep saying that,” he bobbed his head. “But I still think you have too much faith in me.”

“Well, someone has to,” Mrs. Yung said, sliding him the basket of biscuits. She nodded once to her husband.

He nodded back. “Dormin, did you hear what happened today? About the fort commanders?”

“How could I not!” Dormin took three biscuits. “Everyone was talking about it while we were clearing out the debris from the co
llapsed bridge. Even the soldiers redirecting carts were surprised by the change. And everyone has a different theory of what it means.”

After a moment he asked, “What
does
it mean?”

“We’re not entirely sure ourselves,” the rector admitted. “I was actually hoping you might have an insight or two.”

Dormin shook his head. “Sorry. I was clueless during my years in Idumea. I never paid attention to the politics of anything.”

Rector Yung exhaled. “Then we should probably anticipate the
worst. Mrs. Yung and I discussed it and, Dormin, it’s time to explain a few things to you.”

“All right,” he said, not too concerned as he took a big bite of his biscuit. “You’ve explained so much to me in the past year—”

He stopped when he saw the exceptionally grave expressions on the couple’s faces.

“Dormin,” Rector Yung began quietly, “you’re aware that we know about the so-called servants that your ancestors held, right?”

He nodded slowly.

“Your grandfather Querul the Fourth freed them,” Mrs. Yung reminded him. “Thirty-three of them. Then they were moved, by High General Shin. The older one, not the one now.”

Dormin stopped nodding. “I didn’t know that,” he whispered.

“They were moved here, to Winds,” she explained.

Dormin swallowed. “Oh . . . no. Are, are . . . are you two—”

Mrs. Yung shook her head rapidly. “No, we’re not their descendents, Dormin.”

He sighed in relief. “For a moment there, I thought—”

“Dormin,” Rector Yung cut him off gently, “they were brought here to Winds and taught by some teachers how to do what everyone else takes for granted. How to buy things at the market, how to earn gold and silver, how to read and write. And they did learn, very well.”

“That’s good,” Dormin said, perplexed as to where this was going.

“Dormin, have you ever wondered
where they are now?
”

He hadn’t, and he didn’t know what bothered him more: that he didn’t know where they were, or that he’d never given them a second thought.

“I . . . never thought of that before,” he admitted.

Mrs. Yung leaned towards him, her blonde locks streaked with gray falling on to her face. Seasons ago Dormin decided she was what his grandmothers would have looked like—the ones who, had they lived, would’ve snuck him sweets and read him stories when he was a child.

“Dormin,” she said intently, “would you like to know?”

Chapter
10 ~ “I know who you are--

really
are--

and why you’re here in Edge.”

E
dge was scared.

Just the very next day the entire village that used to embrace
Captain
Shin suddenly feared
Major
Shin.

He knew there was trouble by midday when he came home for his meal and saw Poe Hili. His parents’ new house was finished in the Edge of Idumea Housing Estates, and since he’d be living on the other side of the village he’d no longer attend Mahrree’s After School Care.

Perrin was approaching the house when he saw Poe trotting down the front stairs.

“Mr. Hili!” Perrin shouted to his little friend.

Poe stopped dead in his tracks in the front yard and stared at him.

“I heard you were moving today. Come to say good-bye? We’re going to miss you around here.” Perrin hopped the fence and ruffled Poe’s black hair.

Poe remained motionless.

“Poe? Are you all right?”

“Y-y-yes sir!” Poe said, trying to stand at attention.

“No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sir!” Poe exclaimed, “I’ve done nothing wrong!” and he took off like a spooked horse.

Perrin, flabbergasted, turned to Mahrree who had come to the door. “What do you think that was all about?”

Mahrree bit her lower lip. “He told me he felt bad that you now had to be an Administrator. He said he used to like you, but now?” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. Poe said his parents were worried, and the notices posted all over the village this morning certainly didn’t phrase the change very well.”

She pulled out a scratch piece of paper from her apron pocket.

“‘As of immediately, the commanders of the forts are now the official eyes, ears, and voices of the Administrators. Any and all activity, of any remotely suspicious nature, will immediately be reported to the commander for immediate investigation. As of immediately, the village magistrates and chiefs of security are under the immediate jurisdiction of, and now report to, the Commanders of the Army of Idumea’.”

“You
copied
the notice?” he asked, incredulous.

“I’ve never before seen anything in writing with one word so overused.
Immediately
I knew I wanted a copy of it.” She smiled apologetically.

“And sometimes you think
I’m
odd?” He shook his head. “I’ll visit the Hilis later and try to clear this up. I am
not
an Administrator.”

Mahrree raised her eyebrows. “You think visiting their home is going to make them feel better? You’re not exactly Mrs. Hili’s f
avorite person to begin with, you know.”

“It’s not like I’d go in uniform.”

“Maybe wait a little while, let the news sink in first. No one really knows what it means. Everyone is edgy in Edge right now.”

She was right, Perrin decided. The notices of the new edicts and his promotion had gone up only that morning, but as Perrin walked back to the fort two groups of people switched to the other side of the road to avoid having to acknowledge the new major as he walked past.

At dinner he asked Mahrree how her day went.

“I started a catalog in my mind to record the different looks I r
eceived at the market this afternoon,” she said with an air of disgust. “They ranged from sympathetic to petrified. People hardly knew what to say to me, probably afraid I might report it to you.”

“This can’t last,” he groaned.

“You mean, you
hope
it won’t last,” she pointed out. “It ‘can’ do all kinds of things we don’t want.”

---

Chairman Mal was expecting the visit, although it wasn’t planned on his daily itinerary. He could hear the angry footsteps far down the hallway and the sound of citizens scattering well before his door flew open with a bang.

Mal looked up from his desk with a slick smile. “High General Shin! Did you have a pleasant trip inspecting the fort at Waves?”

Shin marched straight up to his desk and leaned across it. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Asking a question about one’s trip? We call that politeness, High General. Civility. Good manners. Obviously you’ve heard of none of these things.”

Shin slammed his fist on the desk. “The
change!
And how did I find out about it? From the lieutenant colonel at Waves, when he received the message!”

Mal sat back and interlaced his fingers together, resting them on the desk. “I don’t understand your anger, Relf. Why, this is giving you and the army even
more
power.”

“No it’s not,” Shin whispered fiercely. “It’s making the world terrified of the army again! You’re undermining all the good we’ve accomplished—”

“That’s why the order came from me, my dear General,” Mal said with a far too confident smile. “If it came from you, it would have indicated a breach in our cooperation. But now the world sees that I trust the army implicitly, and that the safety of the world is our utmost concern.”

Shin regarded him for a moment.

“Doesn’t make any sense,” he murmured. “Since when do you want to share power? No, no,” he said slowly as his eyes darkened, “this is all about you seizing
more
, isn’t it Nicko? You had no hold on the magistrates and chief of enforcements, but if the commanders are in charge of them, and I’m in charge of the commanders, and
you’re
in charge of
me
. . .”

The High General stood up and straightened his jacket.

“Well done, Mal. You’ve just made yourself king, haven’t you? That’s what you always wanted anyway.”

Mal rolled his eyes. “You’re becoming the most paranoid man
in the world, you know that? You’re going to make Gadiman jealous. You could see a seditious motive in the presentation of a birthday pie.” The Chairman shook his head and leaned forward. “You know as well as I do that the magistrates are, for the most part, shallow men seeking to be popular. All they care about is people looking up to them. They don’t care one bit about the conditions of their villages. And the chiefs of enforcement? They’re only tinsmiths with sticks. Simply unbridled egos and a false sense of superiority—”

Mal didn’t understand the penetrating look the High General was giving him.

He continued. “But Relf, our soldiers are far more adept than those who want to be in control. Threats are increasing—”

“I haven’t seen any evidence,” Shin cut him off.

Mal just blinked at him. “Of course you haven’t. The rumors reach my ears, not yours.”

Shin folded his arms. “Exactly
why
is that, Chairman? Shouldn’t I be hearing the stories too?”

Mal shrugged. “I don’t know why your men are less competent about hearing important news. But at least one of us knows what’s going on in the world. And now your commanders—even your own son—have more authority to truly secure the world. Why aren’t you pleased by that, Relf?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Shin admitted. “That’s why I’m so uneasy.”

Mal sighed loudly. “No, that’s why you’re so unprogressive.”

-
--

Ten minutes later Relf Shin stood next to his horse, writing out a quick message to be sent to Edge and trying to figure out what was going on.

Nicko’s
solidifying his hold on the world, Relf considered. Or he’s trying to subvert the authority of the local magistrates. Or he’s trying to increase loyalty to his regime. Or—

That was likely it. The increase of Guarder activity
had
also increased whispering in the world, but not the kind Mal was suggesting. Shin had heard it—or heard
of
it—from some of his commanders.

Why were the Guarders more active now? They hadn’t been
under the reign of kings. While Oren was an idiot, at least the world was relatively quiet while he was in power. But for the past couple of years? Guarders were everywhere, striking nearly every village on the borders of civilization.

Relf stopped in his writing.

Why
were
the Guarders so active now? What in the past three years had changed in their society to make them so bold and aggressive? Never before in their history had they struck so often and so violently. If only he could capture another one alive. If only Perrin could—

Relf exhaled and shook his head. He couldn’t send his only son back into the forest to find an informant. Twice he risked his life, twice he was unsuccessful in ca
pturing any alive. The army simply had no way to know.

He crumpled up the message he was writing, the one that ra
mbled as aimlessly as his thoughts.

Instead he wrote,

A great many storms have been seen here, son. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Not sure when they will all pass.

It was a pointless message, he knew. But everything seemed pointless right then.

-
--

Three days later, Edge was still edgy.

“The Eyes, Ears, and Voice of the Administrators,” Perrin a
nnounced officially as he sat down to dinner on the fourth day, “has not been looked at, talked to, or given more than a passing nod. Not as if I was ever what one might consider a
sociable
person—”

His wife snorted into her soup.

“—it’s just that I don’t enjoy being regarded as a ravenous bear out for a stroll in the village.”

“Perhaps it’s because the village hasn’t had the opportunity to see you as they remember you. Have you tried smiling at people? Not your scary smile, but your real one that showed up a few times when we were debating.”

“I smile all the time, Mahrree,” he said stiffly.

She bit her lip. “Uh-huh.”

“But I’m working on a plan.”

“Oh, good. What kind of plan?”

“The Plan.” He bit into his bread.

“As convincing as your smile, no doubt.”

“Finally received a message from my father. He’s been in Waves and just got back to Idumea.”

“And what did he say?” Mahrree held her breath.

Perrin only sighed. “He wrote about storms, and he doesn’t know when they’ll pass. He’s as perplexed as I am.”

After dinner he sat doodling for ideas at his desk in the study. He didn’t have anything useful yet because he hated having to make people
like
him. That struck him as a childish—or political—waste of time.

But somehow he had to remind the people, whose hearts and minds he won almost three years ago, that he still was Perrin Shin and nothing had changed. Not even his uniform, and although he’d received a message from his father that the new jacket was on its way, he wasn’t going to
don it until he absolutely had to.

Perhaps next year.

“What have you got so far?” he heard Mahrree whisper into his ear.

“Uh,” he covered some sections with his hand. “Nothing much, yet. Why don’t you go do something?”

“I’ve come to inspire you.” She kissed him on his neck.

“Wrong kind of inspiration, Mrs. Shin.”

“I just hate seeing you so intense.”

He paused. “When am I
not
intense?”

“
Intenser than normal, then,” she said and abruptly slid his arm off his writing. “I knew I saw something there!”

“It’s . . . something I wasn’t really going to use. Rather sil
liness. Only—”

“‘Don’t run, I’m Perrin Shin, not an Administrator,’” Mahrree read out loud the words he had sketched out in the form of an insi
gnia.

He turned a little pink. “Just was thinking if I had a patch r
eminding people who I am, then . . .”

“It’s too big, too many words,” Mahrree said in a mock critical tone. “Ah, but I have it! Take the first letter of each word and put them together, so the phrase is reduced to the word.”

She took the quill out of his hand and wrote it out.

“Look, it would turn into DRIPSNAA. Oh, I like that. You could shorten it even further to Don’t Run, I’m Perrin Shin, and you could be DRIPS.”

She smiled at him, rather pleased with her invention.

He looked at her.

“That’s even sillier,” he declared. “Reduce a phrase to only a representative word? The army would never go for that.”

She
pursed her lips, and he nearly forgot what he was in his study for. “You don’t like any of my ideas, do you?” She pouted purposefully.