The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (82 page)

“You said you were too tired to help me milk
the cow, so you must be too tired to see any of the village.
Besides, they all think you’re mad and no one wants to be seen
talking to you. But I’ll talk to you. Tell me, Perrin, what’s life
like in Idumea? Tell me everything, and I mean everything, I’ve
been missing.”

So Perrin did, trying to prove to Hogal
Densal how dismal Edge was in comparison. Hogal listened
attentively, as did Perrin’s aunt Tabbit, and asked thoughtful
questions.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand about the
houses near the pools, Perrin,” Auntie Tabbit once asked. “Why do
people want to be so close to something that could destroy
them?”

“But they rarely do! Only once in a while
does one erupt. And only once in a while does a house go down in
one when the crust breaks. Not that many people die each year.”

“Isn’t just one death enough to discourage
people?” Hogal said. “And if there’s land away from the danger, why
play so close to the edge of it? I knew of a man that wanted to
drive carriages along the cliffs in Coast to give people views of
the sea,” he said thoughtfully. “He told the carriage owner he
could get very close to the edge without sliding off and into the
sea. He didn’t get the job. The carriage owner wanted someone who
could drive the
farthest
away
from the edge, away
from danger.”

Perrin rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard that
story before. It’s even older than you, so it wasn’t your friend.
You just made that part up.”

But Hogal was undaunted. “It’s like teasing a
poisonous snake. You may avoid getting hit for a while, but your
chances of escaping unharmed decrease the longer you taunt it. My
thinking? Live a long life by avoiding the snakes altogether.”

Every night Perrin was exposed to a little
more Hogal Densal thinking, and every day as he baled the
never-ending hay he thought of ways to argue against the old man.
At dinner he’d challenge an idea from the night before, and the old
rector always seemed to have a way to counter his arguments.

When Perrin discovered that Hogal was using
ideas from The Writings, that’s when he started to study them too,
just to find ways to anticipate his arguments and punch holes into
his thinking.

But Perrin had fallen into Hogal’s trap.
Studying so intently didn’t give him weapons against Rector Densal,
but destroyed his Idumean theories instead. He felt his arguments
weakening, his ideas changing, his heart softening.

He didn’t fully notice it until it was almost
time to go. One week before he was to return to Idumea he nearly
finished the baling. In the late afternoon the widow came out of
her house to point Perrin down the road. A large herd of cattle was
making its way down the quiet dirt road to her corral.

“My brother has been keeping them for me
until I could take them again. My husband’s herd. And now I can
feed them all Raining Season with what you’ve put away. I’m going
to survive, thanks to you. You’ve saved me!” and she kissed his
cheek.

That night after dinner, which he ate quietly
still thinking about what the woman said to him, Hogal cracked his
knuckles and said, “What are we to argue tonight, my boy?”

“I don’t feel like arguing.”

“Because it’s useless? Because you keep
losing to me?”

“Because I’m tired,” Perrin said evasively,
“and I’m thinking of other things.”

“Because you’re finally thinking there’s more
to life than just getting what you want, isn’t there?” Hogal said.
“Life is about taking care of others, not yourself. When you
finally feel that in your heart, Perrin, you
will
be a great
leader. Not a leader the king would be proud of, but one the
Creator would be proud of.”

The forty-three-year-old Perrin held his head
again and rubbed his temples. “Hogal, Hogal,” he muttered. “I
am
taking care of others. I’m trying to find the source of
all of this. I’m trying to make a safer world for the woman you
tricked me into debating, and the children we have. I
am
serving them and all of Idumea!”

No, you’re not, my boy.

Perrin heard the words distinctly as they
were announced in his mind.

You’re serving your rage and anger. I
haven’t seen that pride in you in years. Come now, Perrin. Let it
go. Come back to Edge.

“Just give me some time. Hogal, I can get to
the root of this. I can solve it! Just a few weeks—”

Why play with the danger, Perrin? If you
insist on staying, they will get you. Snakes, cats—I know you hate
them all. So why mess with them?

“But my parents—”

Don’t want you here, my boy! Are you doing
it for them or for yourself? Staying here will end in death—yours.
Don’t leave another widow in Edge. There’s another plan for you, my
boy. You’ve changed your path before, now do it again. Don’t take
the wrong path.

Perrin lay down on the bed, weary from the
wrestling in his mind.

He remembered when he went home to Idumea
after that season. Hogal had given him a copy of The Writings and
Tabbit had given him a huge pie that turned to a messy but
delicious sludge in his pack on the horse. He licked it all
clean.

But before he left, he spent most of that
last night confessing to Rector Densal all that he’d ever done, and
to whom—well, as many of the poor girls as he could remember. His
great uncle listened carefully, never interrupting. When Perrin
finally finished all the torrid details, Hogal said, “The past is
behind you, my boy, and the world is before you. Now, head out on
the right path.”

Remember how we talked about the Refuser? He
hated you then, and he held you securely in his grip. But you
escaped him, my boy. With the Creator, we freed you that night.

That night the self-indulgent boy vanished,
and what returned to Idumea was a refocused young man. Suddenly
realizing he wasn’t the center of the cosmos changed the way he
viewed everything. Gone was his desire to conquer hapless, hopeless
females, but instead to conquer himself. Relf Shin thought his son
had grown three inches taller while he was away, but Perrin knew
he’d actually learned how to walk with a better purpose.

The Refuser hates you even more now, and he
wants to destroy you. If you stay, you’ll give him ample
opportunities. Perrin, go home.

Back in Idumea he occasionally ran into some
of those girls from his past, still optimistic despite his treating
them like cheap paper that he used once and tossed away. He usually
met them at the wretched dances his mother forced him to attend.
But he’d use those few minutes on the dance floor with his past
victims to tell them he was sorry for his treatment of them, and
then he’d sneak out of the building when his mother wasn’t looking.
The closeness of the young women nearly drove him from his resolve
to have no contact with females, and he knew there were many more
girls he missed apologizing to.

That was another reason he dreaded returning
to Idumea; he wasn’t sure if someone’s wife or a woman he politely
tipped his cap to along the busy roads in the past few weeks wasn’t
someone he once took advantage of. On more than one occasion he
felt a female’s eyes on him longer than was necessary, and he
worried that it may have been someone still justifiably harboring a
grudge, or worse, lingering feelings. The last thing he wanted was
an uncomfortable meeting in front of his unsuspecting wife and
innocent children.

The only encounter, though, was running into
Versula. She probably was still clinging to her adolescent feelings
for him, unless Idumea had a new custom to express sympathy by
attacking the bereaved with one’s lips.

Never had Perrin been so happy to have his
wife by his side as he was when Versula approached them at The
Dinner. Not only because he used Mahrree as a buffer, but because
the comparison between what he used to want and what he had now was
so extreme. Deciding to have no relationships with women for ten
years had purged his soul and taught him what he really wanted in a
companion.

Little wonder, then, that when he finally met
Mahrree at age twenty-eight he had no idea how to properly court
her. Not only was he rusty in talking with women, the kinds of
conversations he’d had as a teenager were all focused solely on
achieving one selfish result. He didn’t know then how to tell a
woman he wanted to give her his soul. Fortunately Mahrree figured
it out.

And still she loved him, in spite of himself.
He’d told her everything that night after The Dinner. He’d already
explained a bit as to why he’d been in Edge as an
eighteen-year-old, but that night he felt the need to explain a few
things more. Even though Hogal had told him his past was forgiven
and gone, and reminded him just before he married that he needn’t
burden Mahrree about the boy he used to be, Perrin had always felt
a bit dishonest. And now, with his past crowding him on every side,
he decided Mahrree needed to know why he grew more anxious each
day.

So he spilled everything: about Versula,
their past, and why he didn’t want her over for dinner, about the
rest of the innocent girls, his shameful roguishness . . .

He’d wrapped himself around her in their bed
that night, partly so that he could feel her responses to his
confession, but more so because he feared that once she learned
what kind of a young man he had been, she’d never allow his arms
around her again.

She had laid there, patient and motionless,
listening to the stories of his sordid youth, and when he finished,
she remained quiet for several minutes. He’d squeezed his eyes shut
in the dark bedroom, waiting anxiously for her verdict.

Eventually she startled him by kissing his
lips, returning his embrace, and confiding that somehow she always
knew he had a past, but also knew he wasn’t that man anymore. He
didn’t try to mask the tears of relief that slid down his face onto
hers, and concluded that only a woman from Edge could love him so
intensely and forgive him of so much.

Only a few short hours later came that cold
snowy morning, then the frantic ride back to Edge . . .

It wasn’t hard to understand why he loved
Edge so deeply. The little village had grown on him, and now Edge
had grown up before him. Even his old hay field had been recently
taken over by the Edge of Idumea housing development, but he would
make it a point of riding by frequently just to remember what he’d
been and what he was now.

And now that he was an officer with a
beautiful and trusting daughter, he hated what he’d been even
more—

—
That was it
.

It slapped him, clear and cold.

Suddenly he understood as stared up at the
ceiling.

He didn’t hate Idumea as much as he hated who
Perrin Shin was
in
Idumea.

That’s right, my boy. So don’t take the
wrong path again. Come back home to Edge.

“Message received, Hogal,” Perrin whispered
to the darkening room. Edge was where he found his purpose, his
soul, his family, and even forgiveness.

But even though he understood, it didn’t mean
it was easy to let go. The pang in his chest demanded he get to the
bottom of all this, to find out who sits in that filthy pit and
spews out the orders that killed his parents while they slept. Shem
claimed they were happy in Paradise, but how could that be
enough?

Perrin couldn’t imagine how he could ever
sleep that night, but somehow he did.

And then he was sitting, and a small child—a
boy, maybe five years old—was leaning against his knee intent on
telling him something. It was amusing. Perrin laughed.

He saw other children and people, lots of
them, listening and laughing. The child smiled at him, unsure of
what he said that was funny, but enjoying the attention.

There was something familiar about the
children. Or rather, something that
would
be familiar about
them.

Perrin took control of the dream. If he could
just turn his head to see what was behind him, if there were a
structure of some kind, a house of weathered gray wood with window
boxes filled with herb plants . . .

Perrin could tell he was awake, but he didn’t
bother to open his eyes. The scent of rain filled the morning air,
and for a few glorious moments he wasn’t sure where he was as he
let the heavy humidity weigh him down on the bed. He concentrated
on that little boy, trying to remember the details of his face that
were already blurring away—

But then everything came back to him.

The guest quarters, the garrison, the
burial.

Something dark and twisting and bitter spread
through his chest, but just as suddenly as it rose, another feeling
overcame him, curiously warm.

And then it grew.

It grew until it glowed hot like a fire on a
cold rainy night, fully engulfing the dark. The heat dissolved the
sorrow and filled his entire body until there was nothing left but
a new and unexpected feeling.

Joy. Pure joy.

In the space above his heart he felt the
pressure from the evening before, as if two warm hands pressed past
his flesh to touch his soul.

He knew he was smiling. His face hadn’t been
in that position for so long it felt almost unnatural.

A memory came to him as clear as if it was
happening at that moment. He was a little boy, not yet old enough
for school, lying in bed listening to a thunderstorm tearing
through the night. He ran to his parents’ room, not because he was
scared, he’d told himself, but because he needed to make sure his
parents were all right. Besides, their bed was always warmer.

He had crawled over his sleeping father to
slip under the blankets between his parents. His father placed a
warm, heavy hand on his chest.

“I appreciate your concern, son, but the
storm can’t touch me here,” Relf had told him groggily.