Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge)

by Mercer, Trish

  Perrin rolled his eyes. “Since when has he ever needed evidence?”

  Zenos sighed. “I’ve been through this with him before. The fourth time we arrested Poe Hili for thieving, he admitted he had buyers for the goods, but he’d never met any of them. And no one was more prolific than Poe.”

  “Since he was released I haven’t seen him around. Where is he anyway?” Karna wondered.

  “Not around here, that’s all I know!” Shem sighed in relief.

  Perrin shrugged. “Been what, two years now? The couple of times I’ve had the unpleasant pleasure of running into his parents, they didn’t mention him. I don’t think they even know what happened to their sweet yet misunderstood lamb.”

  “Lamb in wolf’s clothing,” Karna breathed. “All of those boys. Your son excepted, of course, sir,” the major added quickly.

  Perrin chuckled. “Thank you, Karna. Although Peto’s so small and wiry he’d be an excellent thief. Just doesn’t have any muscle on him to carry anything.”

  “But if he did,” Shem said, “he’d be stuck in your wife’s class with all the other ‘special cases’ she gets to teach.”

  Perrin’s eyes twinkled. “And that’s probably the main reason he’s remained such a good boy—he doesn’t want his mother as his teacher!”

  The three men chuckled.

  “At least Mahrree’s in a position to see if any of those boys are looking at Jaytsy,” Karna said off-handedly, picking up a page from the desk, until Zenos exploded.

  “Why should they be?” Shem nearly shouted. “She’s only fourteen!”

  Karna flinched at the master sergeant’s volume, dropped the page, and held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry . . . it’s just that she doesn’t look fourteen. I keep forgetting her age.”

  The lieutenant colonel winked at him. “So do I, Brillen. And she’s almost fifteen. Doesn’t help that she’s taller than her mother. And . . . and more, uh,” he gestured lamely with his hands, finally balling them into protective fists.

  “Yes . . . all that.” He sighed, not quite sure how to describe his very mature-looking daughter who he still thought of as only four years old.

  “Better not be looking at her,” Uncle Shem mumbled, his shoulder twitching.

  Perrin stifled a smile and picked up the report from Chief Curglaff again. That quickly sobered his mood.

  “In a way, Brillen and Shem, I almost miss outsmarting the Guarders. Chasing down and chaining up Edge’s sons is far less rewarding and far more disturbing. Home grown criminals. I don’t like it, and I’ll never get used to it.”

  “Agreed,” Karna whispered while Shem nodded.

  “So,” Shin said breaking the quiet moment, “have the new duty rosters ready, Zenos?”

  “Right there, on the corner of your desk. I put it there before Curglaff visited.”

  Shin nodded and picked up the pages he hadn’t noticed before. He smiled faintly. “You already put the soldiers on patrols again in the village, hadn’t you?”

  “It’s Planting Season again, after all. Weather’s warming up, so our lizard-like thieves will be coming out of their slumber.” Zenos’s normally sweet expression turned crusty. “I knew Curglaff wouldn’t take on the responsibility, and with this past Raining Season being so long, we’ve got 250 soldiers itching to get out and do something.”

  “Very good, Shem,” Perrin said handing back the duty roster. “Just continue like that for the next two and a half seasons, until it gets cold again and the boys go back into hiding.”

  “Yes, sir.” Zenos smiled and stood up. “Anything else, sir?”

  “No, thank you, Master Sergeant.” Perrin got up as well. “I’m going to make my sweep of the village. Some of those new shop keepers with the Idumean goods wanted to have a word with me about ‘security’ issues.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Curglaff referred them to you?” Karna guessed.

  Perrin grumbled back. “You have the fort, Major,” he said as he put on his cap. “Headed to the stables, Zenos? I’ll accompany you.”

  Out in the forward command office, the lieutenant colonel nodded at the older, gnarled sergeant major.

  “Grandpy, I’m heading out for the afternoon.”

  Grandpy Neeks saluted and grinned his weather-beaten smile. At fifty-three, only ten years older than Perrin, he looked more like the last survivor of the Great War 135 years ago.

  “Lemme guess,” he drawled slowly, “them lovely shops in the center are getting their fine wools coming in. Worried about them being pinched.”

  Perrin chuckled. “It’s Planting Season, Grandpy. The wools are going out, the silks and linens are coming in. More valuable. More anxiety causing.”

  “A shame,” Neeks said slowly shaking his head, “that a man like you is reduced to having to know what kinds of cloth are in fashion.”

  Perrin and Shem laughed.

  “I know about the fashions only because I have a teenage daughter that’s been growing non-stop for the past two years.”

  Neeks winked knowingly at the men as they trotted down the stairs.

  “That’s probably why he never married,” Shem said quietly as they walked through the reception area, returning the salutes of younger soldiers. “Doesn’t want a wife pestering him about fashion. A shame,” he drawled like the sergeant major.

  “So is that why you’re still not married, Shem? A strapping not-so-young man of now thirty-four? Men will start calling you Grandpy soon, too.”

  Shem elbowed his commander. “I look nothing like a Grandpy! And neither do you, I might add.”

  “I thank you for that,” Perrin nodded formally, “And by the way, you now finally look like you’re twenty-one. I thought I saw a whisker on your chin the other day.”

  Automatically Shem’s hand went up to his chin to find it.

  Perrin burst out laughing.

  Shem shook his head and chuckled. “Not funny, sir,” he sneered.

  “Mahrree’s still on the lookout for you. Though I have to remind you again, single women your age are getting scarce.”

  “We’ve been through this before,” Shem sighed as they walked out of the compound toward the stables. “When I’m ready, I’ll find the right woman. Or she’ll find me, and then I’ll know I’m ready. We’ve just never crossed paths yet.”

  “That’s because you don’t walk on any paths except when you’re on duty, Shem! You need to go out and find some new paths.”

  Shem looked around to make sure they were out of earshot of any nearby soldiers. “So, what, you’re saying you’re tiring of my company, Perrin? You’re ready to find a new little best buddy?”

  “Look,” Perrin said with a smile, “what you do with your life is your life.” He put a hand on his master sergeant’s shoulder as they made their way to the stables. “But you know Mahrree. ‘Nag him a little, Perrin!’” he said in a high-pitched voice. “‘Tell him how wonderful marriage is!’ Just doing my duty to my wife, Shem. Get married. Have a wonderful life. There. It’s done.”

  “Good man, Perrin. I’ll tell Mahrree you did your duty, and I’ll take your words to heart,” Shem said gravely.

  “You must be the biggest liar in the army, Zenos!” Perrin chuckled as they neared the stables, but then each man assumed a more formal demeanor.

  They nodded to each other, took their respective horses readied for them, exchanged complicated facials expression that said, Mahrree’s expecting you for dinner, and I hope it’s steak, then headed out in different directions.

  Shem set off for the forest’s edge to monitor the training of the newest set of ten recruits, while Perrin rode a brown mare towards Edge to show the village that the Eyes, Ears, and Voice of the Administrators was there for them.

  Comforting the citizenry, was what his father called it, with an appropriate grimace. Another idea pushed forward by the Administrator over Culture which the High General of Idumea had to support. Let the villagers see their commanders, every day if possible. Assure t
he citizens that the leaders of their forts are working hand in hand with their magistrates and chiefs of enforcement to quell the thievery problem that had been plaguing the world for over ten years. People feel better when they see their leaders out and working for them.

  Perrin smirked to himself. It was stupid, but it seemed to work.

  He accomplished very little on his daily outings except to make Edge feel better about things, although things never changed.

  If only Perrin were allowed to publicly argue this, he could demonstrate how inane all of that “perceptive thinking” really was.

  So it was likely a good thing debating had died in Edge a long time ago, or the army wouldn’t be so appreciated now.

  Edgers loved the commander and his soldiers. They waved to Perrin every day, beckoned him over to share a few words, and begged him to visit their shops and homes to promise them that nothing would be stolen.

  He’d tell them to lock their doors, shut their windows, and, if they really didn’t want anything valuable to be taken, simply don’t possess anything thieves find valuable. It worked for him and his family. No one ever tried to take their books and old maps, but then again, who would dare burgle the lieutenant colonel’s home? He had swords and long knives, and the rumor was they were hidden all over his house and his family knew how to use them.

  He knew of the rumor, because he had Shem spread it for him.

  But in another way, Perrin sighed as he thought of it, so much had changed in the sixteen years since he first came to Edge that he couldn’t see how anything would be better again.

  His horse plodded along. He still wasn’t too fond of this animal, but the stabling sergeant told him she was the strongest and fastest animal they had lately. Together they reached the last ring of houses bordering the farms, and he nodded to the workers out there.

  When he first came to Edge it was children with their parents out working in the fields, but now there were no children left during the day. Full School had been in place for over a decade now, and children were forced into gray blocked buildings for seven hours a day. How Mahrree put up with it, Perrin would never know.

  He cringed whenever he thought of his daughter and son trapped in the buildings that looked a great deal like the incarceration building, forced there to learn whatever trivial drivel the Administrators thought needful for them to memorize that year so that they could regurgitate it on tests twice during the school year.

  Torturous. Insane.

  Mahrree would say he was being overly dramatic, equating Full School with torture.

  His daughter would roll her eyes at him, as she was so skilled in doing, and his son would tell him something new he and his friends got away with while the teacher was preoccupied in trying to control a few other of the thirty students crammed into the same classroom.

  Then his wife would invariably shake her head to top that story by telling the family of yet another attempt by one of her ‘special cases’ to light another student on fire, and she’d spend the next ten minutes going on about how if she was allowed to actually teach something interesting to the teens, they might stop trying to burn down the block building.

  And then he’d look at her lovingly and say, “And you think I’m being overly dramatic?”

  Full School was progressive and that progressiveness was ruining Edge, among many other things, Perrin considered bleakly as he turned his mount towards the village green.

  But his children weren’t being ruined. He and Mahrree made sure of that. She started them on the “What color is the sky?” debate when they were just six and five.

  “Debate” wasn’t exactly the right term.

  “Fight” would be more like it.

  And the two of them hadn’t stopped “debating” ever since . . .

  Acknowledgements . . .

  This will read identical to Book One, because the first two books in the series were combined until my dear friends who read the entire thing begged me to split this massive blob.

  First, thank you for reading this, and for being charitable with the niggling errors that I fear still remain, hiding like crabgrass despite my continuous weeding. (Mahrree and I both have gardening issues.)

  My thanks next to my daughters: Tess (who’s read the entire series—several versions of it—and realized we needed someone named Sonoforen), Alex, and Madison Pearce, who each gave me responses that ranged from, “I loved this part!” to “I hated this part!” (Can’t beat children for honesty; it’s against the law.)

  Thanks also to my friends and neighbors who willingly read drafts—sometimes more than once—and weren’t afraid to tell me what they really thought (and they’re still counted as friends, mostly): Marci Bingham, Stephanie Carver, David Jensen, Robbie Marquez, Cheryl Passey, Kim Pearce, Liz Reid, Liz Riding, Paula Snyder, Alison Wuthrich, and my sister Barbara Goff, whose constant nagging to “get this finished already!” has been motivating as only an older sister can motivate.

  Also thanks to Dr. Daniel Ames, who taught me track changes and that revising the same passage fifty times is perfectly acceptable, and to our neighborhood cop, Cory Thomas, for reviewing some of the fighting sequences to make sure they sounded plausible.

  I also appreciate the rest of my children for coping with my neglect (but I almost always remembered to make dinner). And thanks to my husband David who—after a cursory reading of the first book realized I wasn’t spending hours each day writing something vampy, and that Perrin Shin born a remarkable resemblance to him in both face and spirit—just shrugged when the house looked like nine tornados touched down, because he knew writing this made me oh so happy.

  About the author . . .

  Trish Strebel Mercer has been teaching writing, or editing graduate papers, or revising web content, or changing diapers since the early 1990’s. She earned a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MA in Composition Theory and Rhetoric from Utah State University. She and her husband David have nine children and have raised them in Utah, Idaho, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. Currently they live in the rural west and dream of the day they will be old enough to be campground managers in Yellowstone National Park.

  (One of my friends suggested I use this photo,

  because there’s “mystery on my face.”

  But I think it’s pollen.)