The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (77 page)

Hycymum smiled dismally at him. At least
someone still had a working stomach, but it seemed to Mahrree that
Brillen ate more because of nerves than hunger.

He returned the plate to the table and nodded
once to Hycymum. “Thank you, Mrs. Peto. I should visit the Inn more
often—once it opens again—if everything tastes as good as that.” He
turned to Mahrree. “I’m going to get an update from the soldiers.
The sergeant we sent out after Perrin and Shem should’ve returned
with word by now.” His shoulder twitched.

Actually, the sergeant should have returned
last night, but he, just like the colonel and the master sergeant,
was missing.

Mahrree smiled feebly. “Thank you, Brillen.
I’m sure we’ll be fine for the day. We have enough guards.”

“I’ll be back,” he promised her as he picked
up his cap. “I’ll stay the night again. Just in case.”

Mahrree nodded, conflicted. It was good to
have an experienced officer in the house, but his presence also
reminded her as to
why
he had to be there.

He sent a strained smile to the children, who
didn’t notice, before he headed out the back door and slammed it
just like Perrin did.

Mahrree’s heart would have broken at the
sound, if it weren’t already in too many little pieces.

“Guess I should clean up,” Hycymum said
quietly and took up Karna’s plate. “Nice man. Even with his
thinning hairline and whatever happened to his eye—” she
diplomatically referred to the swelling and bruising caused by
Perrin, “—he’s a pleasant looking fellow. Needs to find himself a
woman.”

“He’s been talking with one,” Mahrree said
dimly. Normally a conversation about a potential match between a
soldier and a villager would have kept Hycymum and Mahrree
entertained for at least half an hour, but not today. “An egg
supplier, in Rivers. Brillen’s visited her a few times. Perrin was
going to recommend he put in for a transfer . . .”

Saying her husband’s name sent her thoughts
in a completely different direction, and she couldn’t finish the
sentence.

Hycymum nodded in understanding. “Need to
clean up,” was all she could say as she took the dishes to the
kitchen.

“So what do we do today?” Jaytsy whispered to
her plate.

“I just want to go back to bed,” mumbled
Peto.

“I know,” Mahrree sighed. “But I fear just
staying around here will make us all feel worse.”

“So what do we do?” Jaytsy asked again.

“Everything. There’s rubble to move, logs to
drag, people to comfort—”

“Like us,” said Peto dismally. “Why haven’t
they come back yet?”

Mahrree swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe . . .
maybe they’re sleeping somewhere. Your father will be feeling as
low and depressed as you are, I’m sure. Shem’s likely just letting
him rest, and then they’ll be back.” She couldn’t make any of that
sound convincing, because she was wondering the same thing: Why
haven’t they come back?

Unless . . .

Unless something more horrible than her
in-laws murder was happening—

She stood abruptly from the table. “I have to
do something, and so do you two. Up! If we’re busy, we can’t think,
right?”

Her children half-heartedly pushed back their
chairs and followed her to the shed to retrieve the shovels.

---

Hew Gleace stared, disbelieving, at the man
in green and brown mottled clothing. For a minute he couldn’t say a
word, and the man in front of his desk licked his lips nervously,
waiting for some kind of response.

“He’s really gone?”

The man nodded. “Your brother-in-law visited
the Shins himself. They were devastated.”

“Naturally, naturally,” Gleace said, not
focusing on anything as his eyes darted around his desk.
“Unbelievable. I didn’t expect this—I mean, there was always talk
and plans and . . . But they actually
killed
both the High
General and his wife. Unbelievable,” he whispered again. “How did I
not see this coming?” he murmured. “There was no . . . Someone just
. . . And now Shem’s gone after him?”

He covered his mouth with his hand as he
pondered this latest development.

Eventually he said, “This will change
everything.”

Chapter 24
~
“Can you help him see reason?”

S
hem 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 room, 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?”