by Trish Mercer
“He’ll thank us when he wakes,” Cush assured him. “I tell you what, Zenos: take that second bed there. Get some rest yourself. You look exhausted. Stay close to Perrin, and we’ll talk again when he revives.”
Shem sighed at the unconscious figure splayed haphazardly on the narrow bed.
Doctor Brisack walked over to the window and closed the curtains, the thick dark blue cloth hiding the sunlight. He patted Zenos again comfortingly. “It’s been a terrible night and day for him. We’ll be merciful when it’s time to discuss the repercussions of his behavior. The man’s been forced to his knees. Even lower.”
Something in the manner in which the doctor said those last words made Shem think he was happy about it. But Shem must have been more tired than he realized.
“Rest, Sergeant,” Brisack said kindly. “Then the two of you can prepare for the burial this evening.” He gently pushed Shem onto the other bed next to Perrin, and the men filed out the room.
After they closed the door, Shem got up, checked Perrin’s slow pulse himself, and frowned in apology. He repositioned Perrin’s legs more comfortably, lifted his arm hanging off the bed onto his belly, put a pillow under his heavy head, and carefully placed a gray wool blanket over him.
Still deeply worried, Shem watched him for a moment. Eventually he leaned over and positioned his ear almost next to Perrin’s nose and mouth to hear him breathe. After a minute he was satisfied that Perrin was only in a deep sleep.
Shem considered taking off Perrin’s boots, but the exhaustion of the night and the excitement of the morning began to overwhelm him. He sat on the bunk, just for a moment to rest—
He didn’t notice when he fell over, unconscious.
---
No one really ate their breakfast, but just sat at the table staring past the beautiful spread Hycymum created. She wasn’t eating either, just pushing around bits of dried berries in the last of the syrup.
“She was always so kind about the fashions we had here in Edge,” she said quietly, continuing the reminiscing they began last night. Hycymum had said that before, but Mahrree knew her mother needed to talk it out. And talk. And talk.
Someone might as well talk.
“I knew that what we had in our market would never match Idumea, but Joriana always helped me find the best items. She never told me they had silk sheets.”
Mahrree felt a pang of regret she didn’t bring back her gray gown, just for her mother to play with.
“Imagine . . . silk sheets.”
Jaytsy sniffed repeatedly as she rested her head on her hand, and Peto stared glumly at his plate. Mahrree took a few tentative bites of breakfast, but oddly it all tasted of ash.
The only one who ate anything was Major Karna, who stood at the front windows with his plate of pancakes and berries, wolfing them down and squinting out the thick wavy windows.
“Really need to replace these with something thinner and clearer,” he murmured to himself, but in the dreadful silence of the house his words carried to the eating table. “I can barely make out who are soldiers and who aren’t. Serious security concern. Then again, I can’t see anything clearly out of this eye.” He closed his good eye experimentally, shook his head in disappointment, and swallowed down the last bite of food.
Hycymum smiled dismally at him. At least someone still had a working stomach, but it seemed to Mahrree that Brillen ate more because of nerves than hunger.
He returned the plate to the table and nodded once to Hycymum. “Thank you, Mrs. Peto. I should visit the Inn more often—once it opens again—if everything tastes as good as that.” He turned to Mahrree. “I’m going to get an update from the soldiers. The sergeant we sent out after Perrin and Shem should’ve returned with word by now.” His shoulder twitched.
Actually, the sergeant should have returned last night, but he, just like the colonel and the master sergeant, was missing.
Mahrree smiled feebly. “Thank you, Brillen. I’m sure we’ll be fine for the day. We have enough guards.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised her as he picked up his cap. “I’ll stay the night again. Just in case.”
Mahrree nodded, conflicted. It was good to have an experienced officer in the house, but his presence also reminded her as to why he had to be there.
He sent a strained smile to the children, who didn’t notice, before he headed out the back door and slammed it just like Perrin did.
Mahrree’s heart would have broken at the sound, if it weren’t already in too many little pieces.
“Guess I should clean up,” Hycymum said quietly and took up Karna’s plate. “Nice man. Even with his thinning hairline and whatever happened to his eye—” she diplomatically referred to the swelling and bruising caused by Perrin, “—he’s a pleasant looking fellow. Needs to find himself a woman.”
“He’s been talking with one,” Mahrree said dimly. Normally a conversation about a potential match between a soldier and a villager would have kept Hycymum and Mahrree entertained for at least half an hour, but not today. “An egg supplier, in Rivers. Brillen’s visited her a few times. Perrin was going to recommend he put in for a transfer . . .”
Saying her husband’s name sent her thoughts in a completely different direction, and she couldn’t finish the sentence.
Hycymum nodded in understanding. “Need to clean up,” was all she could say as she took the dishes to the kitchen.
“So what do we do today?” Jaytsy whispered to her plate.
“I just want to go back to bed,” mumbled Peto.
“I know,” Mahrree sighed. “But I fear just staying around here will make us all feel worse.”
“So what do we do?” Jaytsy asked again.
“Everything. There’s rubble to move, logs to drag, people to comfort—”
“Like us,” said Peto dismally. “Why haven’t they come back yet?”
Mahrree swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe they’re sleeping somewhere. Your father will be feeling as low and depressed as you are, I’m sure. Shem’s likely just letting him rest, and then they’ll be back.” She couldn’t make any of that sound convincing, because she was wondering the same thing: Why haven’t they come back?
Unless . . .
Unless something more horrible than her in-laws murder was happening—
She stood abruptly from the table. “I have to do something, and so do you two. Up! If we’re busy, we can’t think, right?”
Her children half-heartedly pushed back their chairs and followed her to the shed to retrieve the shovels.
---
Hew Gleace stared, disbelieving, at the man in green and brown mottled clothing. For a minute he couldn’t say a word, and the man in front of his desk licked his lips nervously, waiting for some kind of response.
“He’s really gone?”
The man nodded. “Your brother-in-law visited the Shins himself. They were devastated.”
“Naturally, naturally,” Gleace said, not focusing on anything as his eyes darted around his desk. “Unbelievable. I didn’t expect this—I mean, there was always talk and plans and . . . But they actually killed both the High General and his wife. Unbelievable,” he whispered again. “How did I not see this coming?” he murmured. “There was no . . . Someone just . . . And now Shem’s gone after him?”
He covered his mouth with his hand as he pondered this latest development.
Eventually he said, “This will change everything.”
Chapter 24 ~ “Can you help him see reason?”
Shem awoke about five hours later, just as an aide was coming in to apply another cloth to Perrin’s face.
“He won’t be needing any more doses. He needs to be alert in time for the burial,” Shem said in his best authoritative tone.
The aide nodded and left.
Shem got to his feet, feeling groggier than usual after a long nap, but he bit it back. He opened the curtains to see afternoon on the garrison.
He hadn’t looked at it properl
y when they first brought Perrin there, but now he had a moment to take it in. The place was immense, more than ten times larger than the fort in Edge. As far as he could see there were blue uniforms, wooden fences, block buildings, mules, horses, and silver blades.
But he couldn’t focus on any of it, his head feeling strangely muzzy and his stomach a bit queasy. There was something repulsive about all that gray and blue and brown out there. For the first time he could ever remember, Shem Zenos hated being a soldier.
A low moaning sound turned him around. Perrin was stirring, so Shem sat down next to him on his bed.
Perrin’s eyes slowly opened and he squinted at the sunlight. “Shem, where are we?”
“The garrison hospital. We brought you here after—”
Perrin nodded. “I remember now. They did something to me.”
“They put you to sleep. Sedation. I’m sorry—I wasn’t successful in stopping them. You’ve been out for about five hours. They wanted another hour, but I told the aide you didn’t need any more.”
Perrin sat up quickly and held his head. “So dizzy.” He slumped back down and closed his eyes. “Oh, my stomach. Worse than ale. Didn’t think that was possible.”
“Give it a few minutes,” Shem said, suspecting the reason they didn’t feed Perrin was because they knew the sedation would make him nauseated. “Maybe that’ll help. You’ve been breathing in something. Maybe if you just breathe normally you will feel better.”
“Shem, there were other bodies down there,” Perrin mumbled as he rubbed his forehead. “In the cellar. Find out who they were. If they were Guarders, I want you to look at them for me.”
Shem recoiled at the idea. “For what purpose, Perrin?”
“So, I thought I heard voices!” General Cush stood smiling at the door. “How’s our Perrin?”
Perrin opened his eyes a crack. “Dizzy, nauseated, and not feeling better. Sir.”
“Give it some time,” Cush said good-naturedly. “Come out of it a bit more. Heard you talking about the bodies downstairs. Yes, Perrin, they were the men taken at the mansion. The Guarders that died last night at the garrison—well, Thorne’s already disposed of their bodies,” he added quietly.
“Figures,” Perrin muttered so quietly that Shem almost missed hearing it. In a louder voice he asked the general, “Are any of the men in the cellar Riplak?”
“No, Perrin. But one of them is slightly familiar to me, though. I was hoping to get Kindiri to take a look at them before their burial tonight, but I don’t think she’ll be up to it.”
Perrin waved vaguely in Shem’s direction. “Go find her. Talk to her for me. Cush will take you. I just want to know what happened.”
Shem looked reluctantly at the general.
“Come on, Uncle Shem. Let’s take a little walk. Let Perrin get his mind straight again. We won’t be long, Perrin. Stay down.”
Shem followed the general down the hall to another wing. He felt a bit disoriented and completely out of his element. Maybe he had been sedated too, at some point in the afternoon, to keep him down. But he didn’t feel the level of illness that Perrin was experiencing, so perhaps he had only one dose.
Still, the idea that someone did something to him while he slept made him clench his teeth. But there was nothing to be done about that now, except to focus on someone else instead of himself.
“Uh, General? About Riplak’s jacket . . . does anyone have an idea why it was found in Kindiri’s room?”
Cush looked at him askance. “Yes. We have an idea or two.”
They walked in silence for another moment, Shem feeling he was missing something. “So . . . why was it there, sir?”
Cush slowed his pace and looked more fully at Shem. “You really can’t figure that out? Uncle Shem, there’s a saying among officers, but surely heard by enlisted men: Don’t get caught with your trousers down. Well, at best guess, Riplak was. To be honest, I don’t think we’ll ever see him again. It seems he abandoned his post for a little late night snacking with the cook, if you know what I mean—”
The light of comprehension was slowly, so slowly, growing in Shem’s eyes.
Cush sighed. “Had he been where he should have been, things may not have turned out as they did. If Riplak’s smart, he’ll stay far away, change his name, and take up a safer occupation, like raising pigs. He can chase his sows all he wants and no one will question him about it.”
Shem didn’t like the little snigger that followed that comment. “So if he’s found, and it’s discovered that he did abandon his post, leading to the deaths of the Shins—”
“He’ll be executed,” Cush said grimly. “First time we convened an execution squad since Oren.” He didn’t snigger anymore, Shem noticed, so at least the man had some sense of decorum.
Cush motioned down the wing of the hospital. “We’re caring for Kindiri here, in one of the officers’ rooms,” the general told him. “Best not to house her with the other men, especially since so many seem to have come down with some ailment. Strangest thing: fevers, chills, hallucinations, then itchy spots. Had a breakout just a few days ago, so best stay away. Here we are.”
General Cush knocked politely on the door then opened it a little. “Sorry to bother you, but are you up to talking, dear?”
The young woman, clutching a blanket in the bed where she rested, nodded. Cush and Shem walked in quietly, and Shem involuntarily flinched when he saw how horribly she’d been beaten.
A purple and black bruise covered most of her face and a bloody gash split her lip. One of her arms was fully wrapped, and her hands, cut and bandaged, gripped the blanket tighter.
She tried to sit up until Cush said, kindly, “No, no. No need for that. We don’t want to keep you long. Kindiri, this is Master Sergeant Zenos. He came with Colonel Shin this morning.”
“Colonel Shin is here?” her voice trembled.
“Yes. He’s a bit distraught, as you might imagine. We have him resting down the hall. He asked the sergeant here to find out what happened. Can you tell us?”
Kindiri’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded. “It’s just that I was . . . sleeping,” she began haltingly, and Shem, experienced in recognizing a lie, looked down at his boots. “Then I heard someone break through the kitchen doors. Those never did latch properly. I heard running to the Great Hall, so I got up to see. It was so dark, but from the top of the stairs I saw several men.” Her voice slid into a frightened whisper. “They ran for the study, then for the general’s bedroom. They had knives or daggers or something shiny in their hands that caught the candlelight. I heard them when they . . .”
She faltered, and tried again.
“I ran down the stairs, but it happened so fast. They came out of the bedroom and I was screaming, and they came for me.”
Her face contorted in remembrance.
“One of them shouted something, I don’t know what, and two others just started hitting me, beating me. I thought they would kill me, but they didn’t. I couldn’t do anything. I screamed for Riplak, but he never came.” A sob caught in her throat. “Where is he, General?”
Cush shook his head. “We’re looking, my dear.”
“Tell the colonel I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
Shem nodded, but couldn’t find his voice.
“Kindiri,” Cush said in a tone as warm and soft as butter on a hot day, “we did find Riplak’s jacket, in your room.”
Kindiri wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Oh . . . really?”
“Why was it in your room, dear?”
She gulped.
“Because he couldn’t find it!” she burst out. “Found his trousers, but not the jacket . . . He ran as fast as he could, General! He had his long knife, too, but—” She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.
Cush gave Shem a sidewise glance that said, What’d I tell you?
A suddenly flutter at the door caught Shem’s attention, and when varied and multiple layers of flowing cloth finally came to a rest, they revealed
a young woman who was panting, trying to catch her breath.
“Kindiri!” The woman—and her dress, which Shem guessed could have covered another four women—rushed to the battered girl. Noticing Kindiri’s condition, the woman hugged her gingerly. “Are you all right? I got here as soon as I could. Where’s Kuman?”
Kindiri grew pale under her bruises. “He’s not at your home?”
The woman shook her head.
“Who’s Kuman?” Cush asked.
“My brother,” Kindiri said. She nodded to the woman. “Her husband.”
Growing more anxious, Kuman’s wife turned to Cush. “I’ve been at my mother’s in Pools. I heard the news and left immediately, but I can’t find Kuman. They said he wasn’t at the dress shop all yesterday or today.”
Terrible ideas taking form in his imagination, Shem stared at Cush, but noticed another presence at the doorway.
Perrin.
He had to support himself with the doorframe, but he stood fully awake. “Kuman, the dressmaker? The dance instructor?”
The two women looked apprehensively at each other, then turned to Colonel Shin and nodded.
“What’s your name?” Shin addressed Kuman’s wife.
“Brittum,” she squeaked nervously.
Something about the vacant look in Perrin’s bloodshot eyes made him appear even more terrible, Shem decided. He’d squeak out any response Colonel Shin demanded of him, too.
“I’m sorry, Brittum,” Colonel Shin said dully, “but we need to take a walk down to the cellars. Cush, Zenos, will you help us get there?”
Brittum’s reddish-brown skin turned pale. She looked at her sister-in-law, nodded slowly at the colonel, and walked to the door.
Perrin stepped clumsily aside to let her pass and swayed slightly. Cush followed to lead Brittum, while Shem put his arm around Perrin to help keep him upright.
