The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (21 page)

“HA!” the general barked so loudly that each
Shin jumped. “That’s not entirely accurate—I know. That girl who
was arguing with you was
my daughter
, and she’d fallen for
young Perrin here something fierce.”

Mahrree burst into a grin. While she knew her
husband didn’t have the highest opinion of the Cush—his father
called him “Mal’s lapdog,” which made Mahrree wonder just how large
a lap the Chairman possessed—she recognized a wealth of information
when she met one, and was always eager to uncover the mysteries
from the past. “General, I have a feeling I’ll need to spend some
time with you. I don’t remember hearing this from Mrs. Shin.”

The general laughed. “I don’t think she
knew!”

Perrin looked down at his hands guiltily.

“But don’t worry, my daughter got over that
puppy love quite quickly, because of what he did to her.” He jerked
his thumb in Perrin’s direction.

“Wait, wait,” Mahrree said. “Let me
guess—she’s the girl who ‘sat’ on his hand?”

“That’s what he told everyone, too: my
daughter’s fault he dislocated his finger because she sat on it!
Well, when she heard that, and got in trouble by her mother, she
marched over to the Shins’ house and had it out with him.” Cush
smacked his hand loudly again on Perrin’s thigh, which would be red
by the time they reached the Shins’ house. “She didn’t care he’d
just come back from the fort’s surgeon and was in terrible pain.
She was going to have her revenge for his lie.”

Jaytsy clapped her hands and squealed. “What
did she say to you, Father?”

Perrin looked at each member of his family
before glancing at the general. “This is another reason why I hate
Idumea,” he said in a low voice.

The general laughed. “Tell them, Lieutenant
Colonel. And that’s an order!”

Perrin sighed loudly. “She didn’t say
anything. She just took a stick and—” He pointed to his scar on his
forehead.

“She hit you?” Mahrree exclaimed. “Really?
After our first two debates, I wanted to beat you with a stick,
too.”

Over the laughter in the coach Perrin said
loudly, “I did apologize—”

“—Six year later, at her wedding!” the
general pointed out.

“I hate Idumea,” Perrin said under his breath
as his family howled. “Of all the people to rescue us from a
traffic jam . . .”

When his family finally regained their
composure, Perrin, trying to sound pleasant, asked, “So Cush, how’s
Versula?”

“Doing quite well. Her husband’s been a
full
colonel for a few years now,” the general nudged him
again, “and commander of the garrison. My daughter found a man even
more promising than Perrin here.”

“Well—Qayin Thorne, was it? He was a few
years older, too, Cush, when they married,” Perrin reminded him.
“He was graduating from Command School when Versula was, what,
seventeen?”

“And their boy is graduating at the end of
the season himself,” the general puffed up. “Lemuel’s a most
ambitious young man. Sharp mind, aggressive leader, wants to
command his own fort. If there’s time, I should introduce you two.
I think my grandson could learn a few things from you.”

“Well, I’d be happy to meet with him,” Perrin
said, and Mahrree could tell he didn’t mean it. “As long as he
isn’t carrying a stick,” he added quietly.

Cush elbowed him once more. “Now, about that
scar on his right arm—young Mr. Shin, you’ll appreciate this . .
.”

Perrin kept his eyes trained on the scenery
moving outside of the coach, and Mahrree smirked at his behavior.
It seemed the general had quite a good memory. Mahrree realized
they were passing the famous shops she’d heard so much about over
the years, but listening to her husband’s more tarnished days was
far more entertaining than looking at dresses displayed in the
clear windows.

As the coach turned into the row of old large
houses, Perrin sat up and interrupted the general. “You’ll have to
finish that story . . . never. We’re almost there.”

The Shin family put their heads out of the
windows to see large trees canopying above them, the first leaf
buds beginning to show.

Mahrree bit her lip in worry. How
ridiculously small and quaint her house must have appeared the
first time Perrin’s parents came to visit. Despite the three
additions, it was still just a fraction of the size of these
majestic stone houses with elaborate gardens.

Each yard seemed to try to outdo the other in
color and vibrancy. The earliest flowers were already blooming, and
Mahrree couldn’t imagine how the later flowers would find any room
to grow. She groaned inwardly about her pitiful little garden now
complete with two hunting spits in the back garden and without a
vining and blooming trellis anywhere near them.

But, Mahrree realized, Mrs. Shin had never
said anything unkind or revealed any disappointment in their home.
Yet now Mahrree could see why the Shins so frequently suggested it
was time for Perrin to move on to something grander, because, as
she noticed in one back garden, the size of their current home was
about the same size as the sheds.

Mahrree turned slowly to look at her
husband.

His face was frozen in anxious
anticipation.

“Why did you never tell me where they lived?”
she whispered to him.

“What? You never asked.”

“In all these years, it never occurred to you
to tell me that . . . Look at these houses! I mean, I can’t imagine
how you could grow up in this—”

“I didn’t grow up here,” he reminded her.
“And I didn’t think you’d care. My parents moved here when I
started Command School. King Oren worried his influence was
slipping away, and thought that moving the High General into the
mansion that he had built for his—”

Perrin stopped and looked at his children,
who were gaping out the window and likely heard only bits of what
he said. Still, Mahrree raised her eyebrows in warning at him.

“—for his
friend
and her children,”
Perrin finally decided to call Oren’s favorite mistress and sons,
“would help secure my father’s allegiance. The king’s
friend
had already left him. When the Administrators took over, they
continued to let my parents stay here. No one needed a
mansion—”

Mahrree’s mouth went dry at the word
mansion
.

“—except maybe the administrator over law who
always seems to have another—”

Mahrree gave him a deliberate look that told
him the sordid relationships of the Administrator of Law didn’t
need to be detailed to their two impressionable teens.

General Cush winked knowingly at her.

“So you’re telling me,” she started slowly,
“that we’re about to enter one of the largest—”

“Second largest, actually,” Cush informed
her. “In the world.”

“The second largest mansion
in the
world
that used to be home to King Oren’s sons?”

“Yes,” Perrin said simply.

“I don’t believe it! Us? We don’t belong in
something like that!”

Perrin waved that off, trying to look
nonchalant, but he was too stiff. “It’s not quite as grand as the
kings’ old mansion. Chairman Nicko Mal lives in that one now. But
my mother appreciated the large house for entertaining visiting
officers, holding dinners—you know, all that stuff.”

Mahrree’s mouth fell open. “No, actually, I
don’t know all that ‘stuff’. Is that still expected?”

The general laughed lightly. “The generals
are expected to put on a show. And the High General of Idumea?
Well, his house must be the best, and his shows the best,
right?”

Mahrree gulped and looked at her
children.

They pulled their eyes from the windows,
shared her worried look, and glanced at their father who was
watching out the window.

He smiled glumly. “And . . . there it
is.”

His family twisted to poke their heads out
the windows—

Big wasn’t a big enough word.

Fanfare definitely should have been
playing.

The two soldiers holding shut the large iron
gates certainly could have held horns in their other hands. There
would have been plenty of time for them to play a melody or two as
they opened the gates and the four horses of the coach trotted
easily up the long cobblestone drive to a house far bigger than the
Upper Level Schools of Edge, all put together.

It was a home Hycymum Peto would have walked
by again and again in hopes of catching someone’s attention, then
securing an invitation to tour. Getting her back out would have
required all the soldiers in the area.

The stone was perfectly matched and rose to
great heights, with enormous windows scalloped by silk curtains. On
the first level were five massive, rectangular windows extending on
either side of two ornately carved great front doors, attended to
by another soldier who seemed to be watching for them. The second
full level had another row of matching windows, only slightly
smaller. At least a dozen chimneys rose up from the house, covered
in ivy which also draped parts of the house in such an artful
pattern that Mahrree wondered if someone had deliberately guided
the vines to grow that way.

“Now
that
is a house you could get
lost in,” Peto said with a hint of planning in his voice.

“Don’t even think it, whatever you’re
thinking!” Mahrree warned him. Turning to Perrin she asked, “Is
there a back door?”

“Yes, three in fact. Why?”

“Look at us!” she wailed in a whisper. “We’ve
been traveling for two days and a night and look like nothing that
should walk through those!”

The coach lurched to a stop at the terrifying
front doors.

“Please, Perrin! Ask them to go around.”

Perrin just smiled. “Don’t worry—my mother’s
great, remember?”

The general chuckled at Mahrree’s fretting.
“Mrs. Shin, it’s not like there’s a formal dinner tonight.”

The coach doors opened, and the Shins saw the
great oak doors open as well. Joriana Shin rushed out, holding up
her skirts as she hurried down the perfectly aligned flat stone
stairs. For a woman in her late sixties, she ran with remarkable
speed and, as always, grace. No one in the world moved quite as
smoothly as Mrs. Joriana Shin, even when she was beside herself
with worry and joy.

“You’re here! You’re here!” she yelled
uncharacteristically. Mahrree had never heard more than absolute
calm from her. But this evening Joriana Shin wasn’t anything like
the picture of Idumean elegance she normally was. While she was
still slender and shapely, there was a sense of frumpled panic in
her movement. Her skirt, while still finer than anything Mahrree
owned, was wrinkled, the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up, and
a small lock of graying hair was out of place and falling in front
of her eyes, with no hat in sight to shield the rest.

For Joriana, that was inexcusable.

Perrin bounded out of the coach first and
caught her in a firm embrace. “As fast as we could, Mother. Are you
all right?”

“I am now!” She squeezed her son, not caring
who saw her public display of affection. She reached out an arm,
not ready to let go of her son. “Mahrree!” She caught her
daughter-in-law who had stepped out of the coach with the help of
the footman, and pulled her into the hug. “I can’t tell you how
excited I am you and the children came! I’ve been trying to
convince Perrin to bring you for years. Who knew it would take
something like this to finally get him to do it.”

Mahrree chuckled softly as she patted her
mother-in-law on the other side of her husband. “Actually, Mother
Shin, I had to convince him to let us come.”

“Mother, here’s an idea,” Perrin offered,
trapped uncomfortably between the two women. “Release me so I can
see Father, and so you can maul your grandchildren.”

“Yes, of course! Look how tall they’ve
grown!” she cried as they unloaded from the coach and beamed at
their grandmother who rushed them. “And thank you, Aldwyn. I
appreciate you bringing them here.”

“Anytime, Joriana,” said Cush as he emerged
from the coach. “Perrin, your father’s in the study. Easier access
for the surgeon. I’ll take you there in case you’ve forgotten the
way. Your mother seems to be in the middle of a smothering.”

Perrin looked back at Mahrree and held out
his hand.

Mahrree was startled. He never held her hand
in public, and rarely in their house. After they were first engaged
he told her he needed to keep his sword hand free, along with his
number two-hand for punching the enemy.

But perhaps being at a house guarded with
armed soldiers, he felt for the first time that he could spare one
hand to hold hers.

She willingly took his hand, and he gripped
hers tightly to pull her close. She’d never seen him behave like
this, and wasn’t quite sure what it meant. But she didn’t have time
to wonder, because he pulled her through those massive doors.

It was called a fo-yay, she found out later,
but never figured out why. All she knew was that the ceiling
stretched to the top of the second floor. On one side was a long
side table covered with vases and flowers, and on the opposite wall
was a row of carved hooks to hold visiting soldiers’ caps and
jackets. Perrin tossed his cap casually onto one of the hooks, as
if he’d done it every day for years, then continued to pull his
stunned wife to the Grand Hall.

It was easy to figure out that name. It was a
hall. And it was grand.

Grand enough to put their entire house in it,
Mahrree thought. The ceiling extended up to the second floor again,
and for the first time Mahrree saw chandeliers, filled with
hundreds of candles to light the Grand Hall for guests, but not
tonight. The Hall extended all the way to both ends of the house,
with massive fireplaces on both the west wing and the east wing.
Doors along either side of the Hall lead to bedrooms, washing
rooms, and, Mahrree fancied, probably another house because . . .
why not? This was Idumea, after all.