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

by Trish Mercer

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 properly 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 r
oom, 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.

  They passed the surgeon on their way down the hall. He blinked several times at Perrin, who, by his calculations, was supposed to still be sleeping.

  “We may need your assistance in a few moments, Doctor,” Perrin said, ignoring his surprised look. “Please follow us.”

  They made their way down to the cellar where Perrin focused only on the three still forms on the other side of the room, and not on the two coffins on the ground ready to receive his parents.

  Perrin’s prediction that the surgeon would be needed was correct. When Brittum saw the first dead Guarder’s face, darkened with soot, she screamed out her husband’s name. Shem caught her as she collapsed, and carried her and her many skirts up the stairs. By now he knew the way.

  Ten minutes later Perrin and Shem sat in their room after having delivered Brittum to her sister-in-law down the hall. Both women were sedated to help “calm them down,” the surgeon explained.

  Perrin was agitated, not only by realizing that Kuman had been in the mansion, but by what the surgeon did to the women. He had protested their treatment, but to no avail.

  “When they wake up, the pain of what they feel is still there, Doctor. I know! The sedation doesn’t help solve the heartache. It only postpones it. They don’t need to avoid their grief; they need to face it—”

  Shem had dragged him out of the women’s room before the surgeon came after both of them with his suffocating cloth. Now they sat in their room, staring just beyond each other.

  “The burial is in an hour. We should be getting ready,” Shem hinted.

  “Kuman was one of them,” Perrin said impassively. “How many more Guarders know my family? Where’s Riplak? Was it Kuman or Riplak that knew the kitchen door didn’t latch properly? Or both? And they knew exactly which doors to try: the study and the master bedroom. The mansion has fourteen doors on the main floor, Shem. They knew which two to check. Who else—”

  A quiet knock came at the door.

  The men looked up to see two well-dressed women: one older and very round, the other younger and very tall. The older woman had uniforms draped over her chubby arm, and she sniffled.

  The younger woman, shapely and blonde but with a tear-stained face cried out, “Perrin!” and rushed to him.

  He stood automatically and she threw her arms around him.

  Shem got up too but stopped, astonished, when the beautiful woman kissed Perrin’s neck.

  “You poor man! I’m so sorry! What can I do for you?” She embraced him firmly and kissed his cheek, then kissed him again and again, moving closer and closer to his mouth—

  Shem’s eyes bulged. Idumeans had rather extreme ways of administering comfort.

  Perrin took her arms and pushed her away, holding her at a distance. “Versula, I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “That’s not the story we heard,” the older woman said, giving him a motherly kiss on his other cheek—actually, she had to jump a little to reach him—as Perrin released the blonde woman.

  Perrin glanced at Shem and nodded at the women. “Mrs. Cush and Mrs. Thorne,” he curtly made their introductions.

  Mrs. Cush didn’t seem to think anything unusual about his behavior, or her daughter’s excessive attempts to comfort him. “It’s terrible. Just terrible. We’ve been at the mansion all day, preparing a crate for you to take back of their personal things. But I think they stole all of Joriana’s dresses!”

  “Mahrree already took them to Edge, Mrs. Cush,” he said dully. “We need nothing else.”

  “But maybe your children do, Perrin.” Mrs. Cush gripped his arm. “They’d love to have remembrances. We can’t send any of the furniture, since it belongs to the mansion, but your father’s clothes, their writings, Joriana’s jewels and hats—all that should go to Jaytsy and Peto.”

  Shem stepped forward. “I’m sure they’d appreciate it, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Cush smiled. “And you are, most undoubtedly, Uncle Shem, aren’t you?”

  Shem blushed.

  “It’s lovely to finally meet you. I’m Mrs. Cush, and this is my daughter, Versula Thorne,” she made the proper introductions.

  Mrs. Thorne smiled and looked him up and down, noticing him for the first time. “I see the fort at Edge gets all the handsome, well-built soldiers. Baby tender indeed!”

  Shem was sure he was nearly purple under her intense gaze. He didn’t know a whole lot about Idumea, but he could see why Papa told him to stay away from the city. Something in Mrs. Thorne’s eyes made Shem want to wrap a blanket around himself.

  Mrs. Cush held up the uniforms, still unfazed by her daughter’s forwardness. “Perrin, you look terrible. Maybe you hadn’t noticed. We borrowed these from the tailor shop for you and the master sergeant for the evening. They should fit all right. You need to look presentable for—” Her lip began to quiver, and her daughter put her arm around her.

  “It’s all right, Mother,” but Versula’s voice quavered as well.

  Perrin was unmoved by their emotion. “No, thank you, Mrs. Cush. My parents won’t be buried in their best clothing, so why should I attend in anything else than this? Besides, they won’t see what I look like, and theirs was the only opinion I cared for, aside from the Creator’s.”

  Mrs. Cush turned to Shem. “Can you help him see reason?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t had too much success with that recently, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Cush gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’ll leave these here, just in case. There’s a washing room with supplies down the hall.” Mrs. Cush ran a motherly hand across Perrin’s stubbly chin to remind him he was in need of a shave, but he reco
iled at her touch.

  If she noticed, she didn’t act like it. “Come by the mansion tonight, after everything, dear,” she said pleasantly, either out of habit or amnesia. “There are many guards, and you and the master sergeant can sleep comfortably there. Show him around the place.”

  “Why?” Perrin said shortly. “It’s not my home. It’s not theirs anymore, either. It belongs to the High General of Idumea. I’m sure you and Cush will be most comfortable there.”

  Mrs. Cush flinched as if she had been struck. “Why, I . . . Perrin, no one knows these things—”

  “I thank you for your trouble,” he cut her off. “The master sergeant and I will stay in the guest quarters at the garrison. That’s my home now in Idumea.” He sat down and focused on the wall.

  Shem shrugged apologetically at Mrs. Cush, and the two women nodded back. After a half-hearted wave of farewell, Mrs. Cush left, but Versula Thorne hesitated.

  “Perrin?”

  She watched him earnestly, but he didn’t respond. After an uncomfortable moment, Mrs. Thorne followed after her mother.

  Perrin finally glanced at the door to see that they were alone. “By the way, Shem, Mahrree knows all about Versula Thorne. She does not, however, need to know about what just happened there.”

  Still stunned by ‘what just happened there,’ Shem nodded obediently. “Of course. I agree.” Besides, what in the world would he say to Mahrree about Versula Thorne?

  “And Shem—only you and I will touch the coffins. No one else. Are you up to it?”

  “Of course.”

  ---

  An hour later two men in filthy uniforms with disheveled hair littered with bits of straw and no caps—neither man was sure just when or where they lost them—and with cuts and bruises on their faces stood at attention as the carriage bier carrying the two coffins made its way to the garrison cemetery. A bright sword laid on his coffin, a branch of newly blossomed lilacs laid on hers.

  It was a short trip from the hospital, but by tradition the bier had traveled slowly the long way—up past the Administrator Headquarters, through the university, along the mansion district, and through the garrison.

  Every road was lined with thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder to bid farewell to the High General and his wife. Women wept, men stood at attention even if they had never worn the uniform, and children quieted as the bier passed, feeling the suffocating gloom that came over Idumea.

  Soldiers, more than ten thousand, had come from the garrison and nearby forts to pay their respect. Each was in full dress uniform and lined the roads throughout the garrison, saluting as the bier passed them. There was no section of road that was not heavily protected.

  The significance of that coverage was not lost on Colonel Shin. If only it had been that fortified two days ago none of this would be happening now.

  A steady drum beat began from a soldier behind Colonel Shin and Master Sergeant Zenos. The bier drawn by the single massive black horse came into view over the slight hill to the waiting line of officers who blocked the road of the burial grounds and signaled the end of the procession.

  A large group of officers’ wives and other women stood glum and sniffling on the other side of the road. Mrs. Cush stepped up to the carriage, kissed her fingers, and touched Joriana’s coffin as it passed before stepping back into the huddle of women. Her daughter put her arm around her as she began to sob.

  The horse was stopped in front of the two rows of soldiers that lined the path from the road to the waiting graves. Tradition was that the coffins be handed down between the soldiers, so that all hands could help bring the fallen to their final resting places.

  But tradition was about to be broken.

  The colonel and the sergeant walked unexpectedly to the bier as the major in charge of the burial began to signal to a group of soldiers to retrieve the coffins.

  “My parents, my duty,” Colonel Shin told him. He stepped to the head of his father’s coffin, carefully removed the sword, and placed it on top of his mother’s box. He stood on one side while the master sergeant took the other.

  The line of officers looked at each other, and several began to step out of line. They had allowed the two men to put the coffins on the bier at the hospital alone—Colonel Shin laying the general’s sword and the flowers he cut from a nearby bush on their caskets—but this was too much.

  But Cush shook his head and held out an arm to stop the man closest to him. The officers reluctantly stepped back into line with pained expressions on their faces as they watched the colonel and the sergeant strain to pull the coffin partially off the bier.

  Colonel Shin crouched to take the front, and the sergeant positioned himself to take the back. In silence they dragged the rest of the coffin out and hefted it onto their shoulders. Slowly they walked the coffin to the rows of soldiers.

  The rows shifted uncertainly until, finally recognizing that the coffin wasn’t about to be handed off to them, all of the soldiers took a large step backward to allow the two men enough room to make their way down the gently sloping hillside. Shin and Zenos struggled visibly with the weight and the unpredictability of the soft, wet ground. Once the colonel slipped a little, then the sergeant, but they didn’t drop their precious load. More than once a soldier broke from the line to come forward to help, but was ignored.

  After passing more than two hundred men, Shin and Zenos reached the open grave. Still with no words, the two men awkwardly lowered the coffin to the ground and set it painstakingly on the ropes that would lower it in the hole.

  Master Sergeant Zenos stood back up, but the colonel kneeled next to the coffin. He ran his hand along it tenderly and paused. For a moment he didn’t move.

  Nor did any of the hundreds watching him.

  Eventually he kissed the coffin, patted it, got back to his feet, and looked up the hill at the carriage.

  As he and the sergeant trudged up the soggy slope together, most of the soldiers were no longer officially at attention. Sniffing and dropping a few tears, even if no one moved, were considered violations. But no one noticed because everyone was absorbed in watching the colonel.

  The scene at the bier played out again as the coffin of Mrs. Shin was dragged out, this time with less trouble than the general’s. Colonel Shin removed the flowers and sword, and placed them silently in the bed of the carriage.

  Even among the line of officers there was now a great deal of sniffing, throat clearing, and vague concealing coughs.

  Again Colonel Shin took the front and Sergeant Zenos took the back, heaved the coffin on their shoulders, and plodded carefully to the graves between the soldiers, some who began to weep.

  The colonel and the master sergeant set the coffin down by the first. Shin leaned over the wooden box holding his mother and kissed it. Then he kneeled between the two boxes, with a hand on each one, and bowed his head.

  Not even the birds that normally darted among the tall trees of the burial ground dared to make a sound.

  After a minute, the master sergeant came behind the colonel and gently put a hand on his shoulder. He squatted next to him and whispered something to Shin. After another moment Colonel Shin nodded, wiped his eyes with his dirty sleeve, patted both coffins and struggled to his feet.

  The sergeant put his arm around him, and the lines of soldiers took another step back to allow the two men, arm-in-arm, trudge back up the slope.

  When they reached the road, they didn’t stop or turn around to observe the lowering of the coffins, but continued on slowly away from the gathering, across the vast cemetery past the thousands of other fallen soldiers, and out of view.

  Chapter 25 ~ “So the Quiet Man is still our man.”