Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge)

by Mercer, Trish

  “Learn from their mothers? I don’t know. That’s not the point. Besides, some could have less, and some could have more.”

  Perrin stared at her, wild-eyed.

  “So at a rate of 6.5 children—I ran scenarios for four and eight as well,” she explained, “but this seems to be the most accurate average—”

  “You really have been thinking about this.”

  “There’s little else to do when I’m nursing a baby! So, 500 couples have 6.5 children for 3250 people. Pair them up for another generation and at 6.5 children per couple, that becomes about 10, 500. The third generation at the same rate becomes around 34,000. The fourth generation is, what was it? Oh yes—110,500. Fifth generation means almost 360,000, and by the sixth generation we have over a million and one hundred thousand people. Give or take.”

  Perrin only blinked.

  “The Great War broke out during the seventh generation. Perrin, how many people were in the world then? Does the army have any good estimates?”

  He shook his head slightly, likely trying to catch up to her calculations and frantically trying to figure out the dangerous direction his wife was headed. “Uh, not any better than anyone else. Well over a million people. At least two hundred thousand died over those five years. If it weren’t for the war, we’d have far too many people now. One million is all the land can support.”

  Mahrree ignored his rationale, cultivated into him by his Idumean education. “Yes! Over one million people! Now the only way we got so many was because families were bigger. Now Perrin, consider this—what if the world is already supporting more than only us? Somewhere else? Perrin, how many Guarders might there be?”

  He blinked rapidly and thought for a moment. “Uh, no one’s sure. When they left there were maybe 2,000. But they can’t be more than 10,000 now, according to some of the estimates my father has been given. That’s still a large number to battle, especially if they arm their wives and children. That’s why we’re increasing the army to 15,000.”

  “Has anyone ever encountered an armed woman or child?” she pressed.

  Perrin paused. “No,” he said slowly. “Just the rumor.”

  Mahrree was unimpressed. “Rumor. Since when do you believe in rumors?”

  His eyes flared, and she realized she’d nudged awake the captain again. “Rumor, Mrs. Shin,” he said in a low voice, “was how we knew the Guarders were becoming active again. You might even say rumor is also how I found out about you being marked last season.”

  Mahrree scrunched up her mouth, realizing she was losing that debate. So she shifted it.

  “Then I suppose you should also believe the rumor that Guarder women can have up to fifteen babies. So, with birth rates like that, might there not be more Guarders? Maybe even tens of thousands?”

  “Surviving in the wilderness?” Perrin challenged back.

  “Why not? Didn’t our ancestors live in a kind of wilderness at first and have many children?”

  Perrin shook his head to clear out the fog. “Mahrree, what’s your point?”

  “That the Creator made us capable of having more children!” she nearly exploded. “In order to have reached over one million people in six generations, families were much larger. No one remembers, or even thinks about it, because all the family line records were destroyed. That fire can’t have been an accident. King Querul the First did it on purpose, so generations later no one would remember!”

  He stared at her with what she thought might have been fear. But having never seen fear before in him, she didn’t know how to interpret the look that tried to penetrate her mind.

  “Perrin, if we remembered—had any records left—as to how many children our ancestors had, we would know we could bear more children. Our bodies haven’t changed in merely one hundred twenty years to produce only two children safely. The Office of Family is wrong! Can’t you see?” she pleaded.

  If she wasn’t holding her newborn she would have gripped his shoulders and shook him.

  “It’s a lie, Perrin! A lie started by the kings and continued by the Administrators. I don’t know why they want to keep the population down and refuse to let us explore, but they’re doing it on purpose! I’ve searched The Writings and I can’t find anywhere that the Creator said, ‘And when this people has reached one million, cease to multiply!’ We are only replacing now. And many couples aren’t even doing that. But we can! My body can do this!”

  “Mahrree, Mahrree!” he whispered urgently. “You’ve got to stop! You don’t know what you’re saying—what you’re imagining. Yes, there are questions about the loss of family lines, but we can’t deal with that now. We just have to live with it.”

  He wasn’t holding a baby, so he did grip her shoulders and shake her gently.

  “Everything you’re saying—you must realize—is traitorous! Wanting to go against the edicts of the Administrators?! Please, Mahrree, if you love your family, just stop. Remember, the Administrators don’t hold much to The Writings. I’ve heard Nicko Mal say that those who are believers have ceased being thinkers.”

  That was the wrong thing to say.

  Perrin’s face immediately registered his mistake as Mahrree began to fume.

  “That has to be the most illogical, stupid thing I’ve ever heard! We believe because we think! We choose to believe, which indicates a great deal of thought went into the decision! What, if Mal believes he has a mind, does that mean he no longer thinks with it?! Obviously!”

  She never was skilled at holding her tongue. Not even with her fingers.

  But she had to shake off the narrow-mindedness of Nicko Mal to get back to her point. “But they’ve told us we can still believe! And is not continuing to multiply against our beliefs? Couldn’t we argue that we must follow our hearts?” she implored. “Besides, my mother had only one, and so did your mother. They could’ve had two. Think about this: what if we have the two they didn’t?”

  His eyes nearly popped out.

  “Now you want four children?!” he screamed in a whisper and looked around quickly. It would have been much safer to have the conversation in the house.

  In a closet.

  Under a blanket.

  Into a pillow.

  “Woman, what is with you tonight?!”

  “But couldn’t we make that argument?” she pushed. “That we want to have the children our mothers had a right to, but didn’t? With your father’s connections, couldn’t he get us permission from the Administrator of Family Life—”

  He shook his head violently as if that would change the view he saw of his wife. It didn’t.

  “The High General challenging the Administrators?” he asked as if to make sure he heard her correctly.

  “You defied them all by going in to the forest again!”

  “That was different! Mahrree, this . . . this—I can’t think of a worse idea! Do you know of anyone who deliberately had more than two children? I mean besides the occasional twins or triplets?”

  “No, not really. But I think that’s because no one has tried—”

  “No, it is not,” Perrin said darkly. “Many have tried. I don’t know about this village, but I’ve seen the families from other villages who’ve attempted it.”

  A smile began to grow on Mahrree’s face. “So it’s possible?!”

  “No! It’s not!” Perrin repeated in a panicked whisper. “Physically, maybe yes. But in no other way!”

  He sighed and sat down in front of her.

  “When I was in Command School, I served for a time in the King Oren’s courts building, as all future officers did. I saw several families come in with two children and a mother large with expecting. Mahrree, they were broken apart.” His voice became husky as he saw the tears building in her eyes. “A court would evaluate the parents, always find them unfit to care for so many, and disband them. The father would be incarcerated for not ensuring his wife took The Drink—”

  Mahrree’s chin began to quiver.

  Perrin tenderly
tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “The mother would be sent to a building which houses the mentally ill because she was unfit to care for any children. And their children—”

  Tears were already streaking down Mahrree’s face.

  “—the children and the new baby would be given to different sets of parents, people who found themselves unable to have babies. The Administrators merely took the kings’ Office of Family and put Dr. Brisack over it. Nothing there has changed.”

  Mahrree shook her head in anguished grief. “The Roons claimed as their own a four-year-old only a few weeks ago,” she whispered. “The little girl said her family travelled to Idumea, then they disappeared.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Saysha was told the girl’s parents and younger brother were taken by Guarders. Guarder snatched. Oh Perrin, they weren’t, were they? Her mother may have been expecting again!”

  He smoothed her hair. “Don’t tell Saysha your suspicions,” he warned her softly. “Just let her enjoy becoming a mother. That’s all that can be done now.” He kissed her cheek. “Do you understand why we can’t risk this? Even if my father merely mentions your idea we might be under suspicion. Our babies could still be taken. I love our children, too. Let’s be grateful we have them, and desire no more than we should.”

  “Oh, I wish I could, but I can’t! Because I . . .” She faltered as she sobbed. She’d had it all figured out, too. It could have worked. It could have . . .

  But now?

  “Because you what?” he asked quietly.

  “Because I dream!” she burst out. “I dreamed the night we were engaged, and the night Jaytsy was born and again when Peto was born, and a few other times, too—Perrin, it sounds crazy, I know, but I was sitting with children all around me. And there was a huge house, with weathered gray wood, and window boxes and herb plants growing in them. We needed something so large for all the family. And there were mountains. And the children were ours. Lots of them. Over a dozen, I think. And I was so happy!”

  Perrin’s face showed no new emotion. “Mahrree, a dream’s simply a dream. The coincidence that it came on significant nights for you is, is, is . . . just a coincidence.”

  Mahrree was stunned that he didn’t seemed moved by her revelation. In fact, he seemed to think nothing of it at all, and that bothered her intensely. It’d been so important to her, so comforting, so exciting, so glorious—

  So nothing to him.

  “Are you sure it’s not a gift from the Creator?” she tried again. Maybe it was the captain that was in charge of his mind right now, not her husband. She had to find her Perrin again. “Are you sure a coincidence isn’t really a miracle? In The Writings there are accounts of people having dreams that came true.”

  He sighed. “Mahrree, I don’t think it happens anymore. I like to believe they did, but now . . . have you heard of anyone recently dreaming, I mean, dreams with meaning?”

  “Oh Perrin, people don’t share such dreams lightly. It took me more than two years to dare tell it to you.”

  Perrin sighed again. “Tell me more about it. What else is there? Any landmarks, any activity?”

  Mahrree hesitated, but he did seem open to the idea, even if only a little. “Well, there is something else. I guess this is the part that makes it seem truly unbelievable.” She paused then rushed on. “I was sitting in a garden, a big one, and I was weeding it and I was happy!”

  Perrin burst out laughing, startling his daughter who was drifting off to sleep on the blanket. “Well there you have it! Ridiculous! What kind of garden was it?”

  Mahrree sighed miserably as she confessed, “Vegetables.”

  He grinned as if he’d just easily won a complicated game. “Ah, well, then. You know what I think it is? It’s ‘your condition’ playing tricks on you.”

  His smugness insulted her.

  “I was not in ‘my condition’ when we became engaged!”

  “Ah, but you were dreaming of the time you would be, right?” He smiled virtuously. “You went to bed that night dreaming of the day you could hold your own little baby. Come now, I know the minds of women well enough now.”

  Two years of marriage had made him an expert.

  Mahrree felt as if a crushing boulder had just rolled on top of her hope, and it made her chest tight and achy.

  “I hate to admit it, but that’s a bit true,” she murmured. “That night we decided to marry, I was thinking of you. Of a family.”

  But the dreams had seemed so real, so vivid that she could even make out from which direction the sun hit the house. She couldn’t let it go so easily. Maybe it could work, if only he’d think about it—

  “Do you really think it was only my imagination and coincidence?”

  “Definitely,” he said in a tone that suggested she never speak of it again.

  “Now,” he continued, suddenly cheerful, “I suggest we get these sleepy children in the house and catch a nap ourselves before Peto’s next feeding which should happen, by my estimation, in seventeen minutes.”

  And just like that, it was over.

  Her dream house, her garden, her hopes for more children—all of it wiped away as if it were merely a drawing in the dirt.

  Perrin the deluge destroyed it all.

  Well, not so much him, she admitted grudgingly as the ache in her chest sharpened into genuine pain. It was the Administrators, it was their world—it was everyone. He was merely reminding her of all the obstacles that stood in her way. He didn’t create them, just pointed them out.

  Still, couldn’t he have looked a bit harder for a way around them?

  She watched Perrin as he gently scooped up his little girl, wrapped her in the blanket, and kissed her sleeping form. Mahrree loved him, she was sure of that. But he seemed further away tonight. Not so much the most perfect man in the world.

  She almost forgave him as he tenderly carried Jaytsy into the house. But she couldn’t let this go.

  Women have a list in their brain that keeps a tally of everything. The title of a list which she’d made some time ago materialized again in Mahrree’s mind: “Ways in which Perrin’s mind is not like mine.” Underneath Dogs are better than cats, and Boots do belong on the eating table, Mahrree recorded, Dreams are nonsense.

  They didn’t talk much that evening after Perrin put Jaytsy to bed. Just brief, civil exchanges before he went to his study. And during Peto’s last feeding Mahrree fell into a deep sleep, fed by exhaustion mixed with absolute despair.

  She despaired that there was nothing she could do about the date, already set for next week. The midwives had made the appointment when they reported to Idumea the names of all the women who had recently birthed a second time.

  Then next week a coach carrying an assistant from Family Life and several vials of the drink would stop at a small, windowless building right outside the market, as it did every two weeks.

  Mahrree had seen the assistant’s arrival a couple of times before. She was a brutish woman, nearly as large as Perrin, likely chosen because she was both female—allegedly—and powerful enough to strong-arm any woman who had a sudden last minute change of heart.

  Mahrree had also seen the mothers waiting for their turn, usually a handful each time. Some were there voluntarily after their first babies, not wanting to endure the experience of birthing again. But none of them ever looked up, as if some oppressive and invisible hand from the building forced their heads down to inspect the gravel at their feet. Then they were ushered, one at a time, into the wooden building accompanied by their own mothers, grandmothers, or the occasional brave husband.

  The mothers didn’t look any different coming out again after swallowing down a concoction of bitter herbs and a burning liquid—the brutal recipe created by Dr. Brisack. No, the effects didn’t occur for about another hour, Mahrree had been told. That’s why the women went straight home, because the brew soon made its way into the womb and cramped into a useless nothingness.

  Perrin had said the Guarders were cruel to for
ce their women to have so many children, but she was sure that deliberately killing the part of her body that made new life was crueler.

  Now she was rethinking her decision to have Perrin, with his current attitude, accompany her instead of her mother.

  Then again, while Hycymum had been most attentive and helpful during birthing, she also had a way of multiplying Mahrree’s anxiety. Being concerned about each pain was one thing, but gasping in worry and rushing to horrible conclusions was quite another. Hycymum meant well, but Mahrree was quite sure that the constant reassurance that everything was going to be all right was supposed to go from grandmother to birthing mother, not the other way around.

  Maybe, Mahrree thought glumly as her heavy head nodded that night, she’d just go by herself to take The Drink. She already felt utterly alone.

  Perrin hadn’t bothered to come to bed yet either, nor would he. They’d done too much fighting that night to consider anything like an argument.

  As she drifted off to sleep, her infant tucked securely next to her, she didn’t know that a candle remained lit until the small hours of the night on their eating table until it eventually extinguished itself.

  Nor did she know her copy of The Writings and old maps lay open next to several pages filled with dates, calculations, cross outs, notes, and more calculations.

  Nor did she realize that Perrin snored peacefully with his head on the table, and a quill balanced in his fingers.

  Early in the dark morning, Mahrree padded wearily down the stairs in search of clean changing cloths. Both children were in her bed, again. It was simply easier to keep Peto within arm’s reach during the night, and now Jaytsy was braving the dark to climb the stairs and scale the side of the massive bed to sleep with her parents. Now while the bed was big enough for eight soldiers, it somehow wasn’t large enough for two small children when they stretched and rolled, pushing their parents to the very edges.

  That was likely the real reason Perrin hadn’t come to bed. Jaytsy had kicked him so hard a few weeks ago she actually bruised her father’s ribs. He felt safer on the small sofa.