The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (23 page)

Mahrree crept over to the open door and
listened to Perrin talking to his father, giving him details of
each rescue effort. He still held Relf’s hand but gestured
enthusiastically with his other. At least the soldier on guard
seemed entertained.

During dinner, Mahrree decided that under any
other circumstance she would have felt guilty eating as she did.
The spread before them was even greater than at Harvest Festival,
and although Mahrree knew the food was also destined to feed the
maids, the cook, the soldier sitting at guard, and the stable
hands, she was still overwhelmed at the variety.

Maybe it was because she knew back home in
Edge people were scraping together the last of their larders to
make just one satisfying meal. It was only with the worry about her
father-in-law, and the anxious prodding of her nearly hysterical
mother-in-law to “Eat! Eat more!”—probably because her husband
couldn’t—that Mahrree gorged herself to be nearly sick.

She was just starting to feel queasy, and saw
the same affliction on her daughter’s face but not her son’s, when
Perrin appeared at the door. “Mother—I felt him move. I’m sure of
it!”

Joriana dropped her fork, leaped from her
chair, and rushed across the Grand Hall to the study. Her son,
grandchildren and daughter-in-law followed close behind.

Joriana sat in Perrin’s chair and gestured
madly. “Where? What?”

“His hand, Mother,” Perrin motioned for her
to take it. “He squeezed my hand.”

She turned to him. “You held
his
hand?
”

Perrin reddened a little. “Well, the best way
to sense movement.” He glanced accusingly at his wife.

Joriana scooped up her husband’s hand and
squeezed it. “Relf?”

He moved a few fingers on her hand in a
purposeful manner.

“Mahrree, get the soup!” she cried.

By the time Mahrree returned, knowing she had
sloshed some broth on the shiny floor in her hurry but that’s what
maids were for, Perrin had propped up his limp father and Joriana
was holding a mug of water to Relf’s lips, which he appeared to be
drinking, although much dribbled down his chin and to a napkin
tucked into his white undershirt.

“His eyes moved!” Peto shouted, startling his
grandmother.

“I saw it too!” Jaytsy said, but quieter.

Mahrree set down the bowl on the desk as
Joriana dabbed fastidiously at Relf’s face with another napkin.

“You’re going to be all right, Father,”
Perrin said, still supporting him.

“Yes,” they all heard the whisper. “Now.”

No one took a walk that evening. The family
sat clustered around the general spoon-feeding him broth, helping
him sip water, noticing parts of him that moved, and waiting to
hear him whisper something else. Even the staff sergeant on guard
duty for the night put down his book and watched intently for the
High General’s progress.

Twice the surgeon came by to check on him,
and late that evening he smiled guardedly.

“Pulse is stronger, he’s swallowing on his
own—Mrs. Shin, Lieutenant Colonel, I think he’s going to make
it.”

“Thank the Creator!” Joriana breathed and sat
next to her husband on his bed. She took up his hand again and
unexpectedly kissed it.

Mahrree’s eyes widened. She’d never seen open
affection between her in-laws, but she realized that didn’t mean it
never happened. She caught her husband’s eye and smiled at him.

Perrin’s eyes were shiny as he watched his
father weakly squeeze his wife’s hand.

Relf forced his eyes open to briefly gaze at
Joriana. When he whispered to her, “Yes, and thank
you
,”
Mahrree thought it was the sweetest thing she’d ever seen an
officer do. Relf’s eyes closed in exhaustion, and his hand slipped
from hers.

“I’ll have two assistants come by every hour
through the night to get more fluids into him,” the surgeon said
quietly. “They’ll let me know if anything changes. I’ll be by again
at dawn. In the meantime, all of you get some rest. And
congratulations,” he smiled at Joriana. “You married one tough
wolf.”

As the surgeon wrote out instructions, Perrin
said, “Mother, get some sleep now that the danger’s passed. I’ll
sit with him for the night and help the assistants—”

“Oh, no you won’t! Now more than ever I need
to be—”

Mahrree gestured to Jaytsy and Peto to follow
her out of the study.

“Where are we going?” Jaytsy asked as the
argument continued.

“To end this. Can’t have anyone hearing the
High General’s wife and son
debating
now, can we?” Mahrree
chuckled. “Bad enough the staff sergeant and surgeon are witnessing
it.”

She led them into one of the guest rooms with
two beds in it, pulled off the pillow and blanket from one bed,
handed them to Jaytsy, and pulled the bedding from the other to
give to Peto. Mahrree picked up a small stuffed chair and nodded
toward the study. Smiling, the three of them returned to hear
Perrin and his mother still arguing over who should spend the
night.

It was quite easy to make up their beds on
the chairs since they were both standing, hands on hips, trying to
prove who was more exhausted.

The surgeon, taking the sleeping general’s
pulse one more time, nodded in approval as Mahrree and the children
laid the blankets on the chairs, placed the pillows, and then
gently led Perrin and Joriana to sit each in one of the seats. It
wasn’t until they sat that they realized they both could spend the
night by Relf’s side.

“Besides, Perrin,” Mahrree explained, “I
don’t feel like sharing that glorious bed tonight, since you had
the coach's bench all to yourself.”

A little later Mahrree slipped into bed and
melted into silk sheets. She didn’t even know sheets could be made
out of silk, and they were more slippery than she would’ve
imagined. She felt like oil trying to make an impression on water.
Cozy under the thick woven blankets that she didn’t have to share,
she dreamed about living in a big house. All she could remember
later was that it was noisy and chaotic, but wonderful.

Early in the morning Mahrree sat up and
immediately thought of her father-in-law. She dressed and tiptoed
down the Grand Hall, past the fo-yay and to the first door.
Sunlight wasn’t yet peeking through the massive eastern windows,
but the coming dawn illuminated her way enough that she didn’t
bother with a candle. Two surgeon’s assistants were just leaving,
and they nodded a brief greeting to Mahrree.

“Surgeon will be by in an hour,” one of them
whispered. “General continues to slowly improve.”

“Thank you,” she whispered back, and the men
headed toward the kitchen and the middle back door.

She crept to the study door to find her
husband and his mother both sound asleep in their chairs, their
pillows cockeyed, and their blankets askew. Mahrree cringed in
sympathy about how their backs and necks would feel when they
awoke, and made her way to the general’s bed. His eyes were closed
but even in the filtered light his color looked a little
better.

Relieved that he was still all right, Mahrree
turned to leave.

“Don’t go,” she heard a whisper.

She turned back to him. “General?”

His eyes barely opened. He slowly held up his
hand and Mahrree knelt down on the floor next to him, taking his
hand.

“Can I get you something?” She was startled
by her desire to hug him. One never hugs a general. Perrin told her
that the day she had met General Shin before they married and asked
Perrin why he didn’t embrace his father. No one had ever broken
that regulation, so she squeezed his hand instead.

“No. Just good to see you, Mahrree,” he
whispered. His eyes closed again and his hand relaxed in hers.

Mahrree didn’t know what to do next. Perrin
and Joriana still slept, and the night guard was reading one of the
books from the shelf by candlelight. He looked up at her and she
nodded politely to keep reading. Her position wasn’t very
comfortable, but she didn’t want to shift and bother the general.
So she stayed there, trying to discern if her father-in-law was
still awake and wondering why no one had ever told her how to take
care of sick people.

For the next hour or so she remained on the
rug, holding her father-in-law’s limp hand, counting the books on
the shelf, and studying the painting of High General Pere Shin that
hung over the desk. In the portly man’s stern expression Mahrree
could see a bit of her husband—his grandson. He seemed overly
severe—as a High General should be, she assumed—but even in the
painting there was a hint of a twinkle in his eyes.

Mahrree nodded at him once, silently
apologizing for breaking his first rule of the army by entering the
forest to find a Guarder so many years ago. In the dim light of the
coming morning, she thought he winked back at her.

The fort surgeon arrived just as the sun was
rising. When he noticed the sleeping figures of Joriana and Perrin,
and Mahrree keeping vigil next to the bed, he rushed over. “Has he
taken a turn for the worse? Why didn’t anyone send for me?”

“No, no,” Mahrree assured him. “He even spoke
recently. I just didn’t . . . feel like getting up.”

The doctor picked up the general’s other arm
to check his pulse and nodded, satisfied.

“Stronger. Good.” He leaned over to lift the
general’s eyelids when Relf opened his eyes suddenly.

“I can do that myself now, Doctor.” His voice
was low and threatening, but his eyes were soft.

“Even better,” the surgeon smiled broadly.
“Still ornery. Cush called you an old wolf, you know.”

“And so did you last night. My eyes may be
closed, but my ears never are.” The general smiled faintly and
squeezed his daughter-in-law’s hand.

Many movements and motions that week had
startled Mahrree, but nothing more so than the gentle pressure
applied to her hand by the High General of Idumea. Something was
different about Relf Shin.

“Relf!” Joriana roused herself. Perrin woke
up as well, rubbing his eyes and trying to orient himself.

“Sleeping on the job,” Mahrree shook her head
at him. She got to her feet, giving her father-in-law’s hand one
last squeeze, so that Joriana could take her place.

“How are you this morning?” Joriana asked
Relf.

“Better,” he breathed. “Hungry.”

Joriana burst into a smile. “Just like your
grandson! He’s here, remember? And Jaytsy?”

“I remember,” he whispered. “Finally found a
way to get them to Idumea, didn’t we, Dear?”

---

Two men sat in the dark office of an unlit
building.

“Question,” said Brisack, “When might he come
in for a little chat with the Administrators? I saw the report this
afternoon that Relf is expected to recover.”

Mal eyed him. “Are you a bit eager to meet
Perrin?”

The doctor shrugged. “Well, after all these
years, one develops an image of what someone should look like, and
one gets a little interested to see if the man matches the
image.”

“Uh-huh,” Mal said, unconvinced. “I promise
he won’t be volunteering to visit. We’ll have to force it.”

Brisack blinked in alarm. “What do you mean,
force it?”

Mal sighed loudly. “Nothing so threatening,
my good doctor. We’ll have him brought in on some pretext, some . .
.” he waved his hand around as if swatting at unseen flies,
“recognition or the other. Shin and Cush put him in for a promotion
to colonel some time ago. We can approve it now and have him
brought in for . . . services to the world, something inane like
that. He can’t refuse.”

Brisack exhaled in relief. “What about
her?”

Mal clasped his hands on his lap. “You just
can’t stand it, can you? I’ll bet you’ve been conniving ways to
visit the mansion and check on Relf yourself, haven’t you? Just in
the hope of running into Mrs. Mahrree Shin?”

Brisack examined his hands. “Of course not.
It’s just that if we’re to begin testing them again, we really
should establish a baseline evaluation of both of them. Assess
where they are, make suppositions—”

“Yes, yes,” Mal interrupted in a bored tone.
“Point made. You’ll get to see her. We can make up some reason. I
just received a report from Edge about the clean-up efforts.
Something was mentioned about her in there that we could use.
Gadiman’s already been poring over it, salivating for something new
and juicy.”

Brisack twitched. “You’re letting him in on
this again? I thought we agreed that—”

Mal rolled his eyes. “I’m just letting the
Administrator of Loyalty do what he does best: ferret around for
potential threats.”

“He can weasel out a confession from an
innocent rector,” Brisack murmured.

“We need
something
to start with
again,” Mal reminded him. “Gadiman’s just helping me find that soft
spot we can stab.”

Brisack rubbed his chin. “Speculation:
Gadiman won’t find a soft spot.”

“Oh ho,” Mal sneered. “Shin doesn’t have any
weaknesses? How impervious to Nature do you think he’s become over
the years, my good doctor?”

He shook his head. “My speculation wasn’t
about Shin; it was about Gadiman,” he said coldly. “The weasel will
sniff out nothing useful.”

“He already has a rather thick file on her
that says he will.”

Brisack swallowed.

Mal chuckled.

---

Mahrree looked at the scene she was spying on
and sighed in contentment. The High General improved seemingly
every hour, and insisted that by tomorrow he’d be ready to try his
crutch and walk about the house a bit.

But that wasn’t what was so astounding; Relf
was sitting up in his bed talking earnestly to—and Mahrree still
couldn’t believe it—his granddaughter. Jaytsy was on her two-hour
shift, sitting with the general and handing him drinks and soft
foods as the family had been doing for the past two days. Mahrree
couldn’t remember a time when the two of them had exchanged more
than a few predictable pleasantries before Jaytsy sneaked off or
Relf cleared his throat and began a conversation with his son.