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

Gadiman believed he was a patient man, but sitting in the outer office of the Chairman was wearing on him.

  He bounced his leg vigorously and stared at the Chairman’s assistant who refused to look up and risk catching the Administrator of Loyalty’s gaze. He’d told him twice already that Chairman Mal would call for him when he was ready.

  Gadiman looked down at the empty folder again, the contents still in the Chairman’s office, and focused on the orange dot that labeled Mahrree Peto Shin as “Beyond Watched, Not Yet Traitorous.” He swore under his breath that he allowed the Chairman to read through the documents without him present. These were his projects, and the idea of someone else holding them was disturbing, like allowing another man to take his wife home.

  At least, that’s what he eventually decided happened to her. Most annoying.

  He had to take his dinners in the tavern since then. Most inconvenient.

  But watching how Colonel Shin stood mutely behind his yammering wife, Gadiman once again saw the wisdom of no longer being bound to a woman, even if it meant he had to hire out for someone to do the washing up.

  When the office door was opened by a young aide, Gadiman leaped to his feet and barged through the door.

  Nicko Mal looked up from his desk. “And what makes you think I was calling for you?”

  “Who else would you want?” Gadiman plopped down in a chair without an invitation.

  The Chairman sat back in his chair and lifted a stack of papers from his desk. “Quite a thick file for such a small woman, wouldn’t you say?”

  “She started it!” Gadiman said.

  “And so your concern today is . . .”

  “Did you hear her this morning? Accusing us of the same atrocities of the kings?”

  The Chairman shook his head. “I didn’t hear that, and neither did you. You took a few liberties with your summation, Gadiman. Rather sloppy for a former law assessor, by the way.”

  Gadiman scoffed at that. “What do you intend to do about her?”

  The Chairman raised his eyebrows. “We gave her a certificate. Do you have any other suggestions?”

  “And whose idea was that meaningless parchment?” Gadiman demanded.

  Mal clasped his hands in front of him. “Brisack’s. He wanted a pretense for bringing her here.”

  “That’s not why I gave you the report! It wasn’t to congratulate her—it was to prove to you how she’s undermining her husband’s authority!” the weasel spat. “She took over! She issued orders! She—”

  “Provided a needed service to her village when no one else would step up and do so,” Mal intoned. “One man’s vixen is another man’s hero, Gadiman.”

  Gadiman spluttered. “He, he . . . that doctor has strange ideas about heroic behavior, Chairman!”

  Mal simply shrugged. “I haven’t made up my mind about her yet. She was quite unlike anything I expected. For some reason I thought she’d be a domineering brute of a woman. Like Perrin, in female form. But instead, in walked a petite, attractive woman I suppose some would say, who spoke without hesitation—”

  “She’s dangerous!” Gadiman huffed. “Didn’t you see how she dominated the conversation? Colonel Shin was completely impotent.”

  “Colonel Shin had already expressed himself very well,” Chairman Mal said patiently. “It was his wife’s turn, and the questions were pointed at her.”

  “Except for mine,” Gadiman reminded him. “I asked my question to the colonel about where the soldiers were, and she butted in.”

  “And I thought she defended her husband and his work adequately. She’s obviously fond of him. I see no other crime than that.”

  “Fond? Fond!”

  The Chairman leaned forward. “Does that word bother you, Gadiman?”

  He ignored that. “She’s questioned our decisions, repeatedly,” he gestured at the letters in the Chairman’s hand.

  “She has, I agree. But her last letter was dated several years ago. Perhaps she’s had a change of heart.”

  “Or maybe just a change of tactic! Did you see Karna’s report about her disarming the entire fort? No wonder the village ‘loves’ the soldiers! And what about her allegation that the instruction system is a holdover from the last corrupt kings?”

  Mal nodded. “We’ve already been through that, long ago. She was the reason we changed the entire education system of the world. Well, one of the reasons,” he admitted. “She was the only one who read the entire document and questioned us about the changes. She passed that test, which was why we continued to watch her. And yes, she was right—it is a holdover. Full school has controlled what the world learns and believes, allowing us to raise a new generation that’s profoundly loyal to us and, as she pointed out this morning, relies entirely on us to tell them what to do.”

  Mal sat back and smiled smugly.

  “Nice to get such unsolicited and honest reports,” he said. “Even the adults are falling in line, not daring to make a move without someone telling them in which direction. We were wise to expand the kings’ educational methods.” Then, with a penetrating glare, he added, “Even raving madmen get a few things right sometimes.”

  Gadiman missed the insinuation. “Well then . . . the Shin family as generals in Idumea is also a holdover! She suggests we get rid of kingly traditions, why don’t we begin with the Shin family?”

  “Because the Shin family has served each government very well.” Mal droned. “Show me one incident where a High General of Idumea didn’t fulfill his duty. I don’t like Relf; you know that. But be it to the king or to the Administrators, the Shins have been unswerving. Relf was most accommodating in helping our transition to power, and Perrin’s recruiting numbers are the highest in the world. Nearly all the innovations in the army came from him. So how do you punish loyalty, Administer of Loyalty?”

  “She is not a Shin!” Gadiman seethed. “Only by marriage. We have no evidence of her loyalty, and she was terribly forward today.”

  Chairman Mal waved much of that away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I thought she was merely a confident woman. Relf has mentioned a few times that she’s a bit of a hotpot herself. Honestly, I’m amazed their marriage has lasted this long without breaking into violence.” The Chairman actually chuckled. “Or maybe it has! Perrin was quite a confrontational young man at the university. Once, during one of my lectures—”

  “Is this going to take long?” Gadiman interrupted. “Because I fail to see how your sentimentality is pertinent here. I care only about her potential.”

  “Gadiman, Gadiman,” the Chairman shook his head. “If you understand people better, you understand their actions better. Human nature is fascinating. Of all the experiments on animal behavior I’ve conducted, none were more revealing than those conducted on humans. If only they knew about it,” he added wistfully, with a suggestion that the conversation was about to take another meandering detour.

  Gadiman had noticed that the older Mal became, the more reflective he was. Maybe it was a result of age—the need to wax melancholy and reminisce about events no one cares about. But still listeners smile politely until the speaker forgets his direction and blathers on until he stumbles upon a new one.

  Gadiman never quite caught on to the art of smiling politely.

  Maybe because it involved smiling, and politeness.

  “The greatest experiment in the world,” Mal continued, “is to observe how individuals react in different situations. Because you have yet to grasp that concept, I’ve yet to include you in my research.”

  Mal sat back with a thoughtful smile on his face that suggested he had an idea, that it would likely be uncomfortable for someone, and that someone wasn’t about to be Nicko Mal.

  “You really need to leave that office of yours more often,” Mal decided as Gadiman fidgeted. “I have an idea—go to The Dinner at the Shins next week. Watch these people. Then you’ll have a better perspective on what’s really going on.”

  “All I need is in that f
ile!” He shook his open hand, desperate to get the pages placed back in them. “And I demand an answer about this woman!”

  The Chairman sighed and held out his free hand for the folder. Reluctantly Gadiman gave it to him, and the Chairman returned the pages.

  “Until I see action on her part,” Mal said quietly, holding on to the file, “and not just words or ideas that you think intimates treachery, there’s nothing to be done by you. We have no laws governing how a person thinks—”

  “Not yet!”

  “And how would you enforce such a law? How can you legislate thought?” He shook his head and handed the file to Gadiman who snatched it greedily.

  Not having an answer for Mal, Gadiman instead said, “I have some men already trained. I started again a few years ago, in anticipation of this,” and he shook the folder about Mahrree Shin as if it were the woman herself.

  “Yes, yes I know,” Mal sighed. “I also have a few highly placed men that I’ve been grooming—”

  “But mine are ready to act, at a moment’s notice—”

  Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. “You had others ready to act as well, many years ago. And the only ones to die in that situation were the ones you trained, strangely.”

  Gadiman squirmed angrily in his chair.

  “However . . .” the Chairman continued with a completely different tone which meant—finally—business, “I do see potential in her as well. After all these years of silence, I thought perhaps she’d seen the error of her ways. But she’s only been simmering and intensifying. She may have just misspoken, but each time I gave her that benefit of the doubt, she reared up and proved me wrong. Rereading those four letters of hers, I realized that what sounded innocent was actually quite pointed.”

  At last he’s seeing it, Gadiman thought cheerfully—that was the correct term, right? Cheerfully?—as he attempted a grin in pleasure.

  “She did the same thing today; she’s not as docile as she appears,” Mal continued. “Some will see only the simple wife of the colonel, but I’ve spent my life analyzing people: she has the potential to be the most dangerous woman in the world.

  “That’s why we’re going to bring our colonel home to Idumea, very soon,” Mal declared as Gadiman’s yellow teeth were exposed to more light than they’d ever seen. “If she’s kept closer, we can monitor the situation better. And yes, you have my permission to watch.”

  The Chairman held up a warning finger to tone down the nearly rabid expression of the Administrator of Loyalty.

  “Only watch. It’s not time to do anything else right now. Until I see action on her part, there’s nothing more to be done, according to the laws of Idumea. Is that understood, Administrator Gadiman?”

  Gadiman stood up with his file clutched firmly in his hands. He’d heard what he wanted. “Yes, Chairman!”

  ---

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Shem asked as he saw Poe standing at the door of the Shins’ bedroom, rubbing his eyes. He’d been dozing each morning on the Shins’ sofa since they’d left, acting as the “sleeping guard.”

  “No, Zenos,” Poe assured him, leaning against the door frame. “I’m usually up an hour before midday meal anyway. What’re you doing?”

  Shem was holding up a tall timber and marking off a section with a sharpened piece of charcoal. “Getting the height correct.”

  “But this room was never that tall.”

  “I know. Perrin frequently bumped his head,” Shem garbled as he held the charcoal between his teeth to shift the wood. “But when I’m done, he won’t.”

  “Need a hand?”

  Shem grinned, dropping the charcoal into his hand. “Yes, please. Hold that end. The pitch won’t be as steep, but still enough for the snows to slide off.”

  Poe, holding up a piece of framing, shook his head. “Never seen construction quite like this.”

  Shem marked another section. “And you’ve seen a lot of construction, haven’t you? This is the way all houses are built in the south. I helped with quite a few. We’ll make this the best bedroom Edge has ever seen.”

  Poe smiled. “Whatever you say, Zenos. I can give you about two hours before I’m on duty again.”

  “Perfect. But you know,” Shem paused, “if there’s anything else you’d like to do, I’m fine here. Maybe . . . check in on your parents?”

  “Nothing better to do than to help the Shins,” he said quietly.

  Shem nodded and made a few more marks. He laid down the timber on the frame of the large bed—the mattress had been brought to Mrs. Peto to see if she could get it clean—and he took up a saw. “See that piece there? You can cut that one for me. Extra saw behind you.”

  It never once occurred to Poe that Shem wouldn’t need a second saw unless he expected additional help. Half an hour later the timbers were joined in a framework that still had Poe scratching his head.

  “I don’t get it, there will be gaps—”

  “Planking,” Shem anticipated his question. “On both sides, outside and in. Space between will act as a buffer. Keep this room warmer in the Raining Season than what was here before.”

  Poe shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “It’s the same technique Shin used on the children’s bedrooms. Trust me.”

  “I do,” Poe muttered with a great deal more confidence implied than merely about one’s opinion in wall building.

  Shem winked at him. “Thanks.”

  As they positioned the framing, creating a large back wall with a wide cutout for a window, Shem asked in the tight tones of someone trying to be casual while handling a sleeping skunk, “So what does your mother think about you joining the army? I remember years ago you telling me she didn’t appreciate soldiers.”

  “She saw me working in the village yesterday, wearing the jacket,” said Poe indifferently. “She shook her head and walked on.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shem whispered. “And your father?”

  “Dunno. Doesn’t matter.”

  Shem sighed. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. Give them some time. Maybe they’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know why they would,” Poe said as distractedly as one could be about throwing a sleeping skunk out of a window. “They haven’t cared for years. Why start now?”

  “Ah, Poe, I really don’t know what to say to that except that I care, if that matters at all. I think you look great in the jacket. I even told the lieutenant colonel that.”

  Poe smiled softly. “Thanks, Zenos. I put it on for him,” he whispered.

  Shem paused. “What do you mean?”

  “Wanted to repay him, somehow.”

  Shem nodded and hammered in a nail. “For giving you a ride on your first day back?”

  Poe swallowed and shook his head. He let go of the framing Shem had tacked into place. “Will be a big window,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Yes, it will,” Shem grinned. “Rigoff found the fort has an extra large thin pane of glass. We figured the commander should have a clear view to the back alley, since that’s always the direction the threats arrive.”

  “Was there really an extra pane of glass?” Poe raised an eyebrow.

  “There will be, when Grandpy orders one from Sands next moon,” Shem said. “He promised he’d take care of everything.”

  Poe grinned. “Grandpy’s not as fearsome as he tries to appear, right?”

  “Right. But don’t tell him I told you that. He has a reputation to keep up, you know.”

  The men chuckled and continued their work.

  “You’ll like living at the fort,” Shem assured him as he took measurements for the planking. “Grandpy’s just like a real grandfather. An ornery, scowling one, but a grandfather nonetheless. Perrin—he’s kind of like everyone’s father. But don’t tell him that unless you want to see him turn red.”

  Poe chuckled.

  “Brillen Karna, he’s like a trusted uncle: solid, devoted, never straying. Me, I kind of like to think I
’m an uncle, too. Rigoff, he’s our youngest brother come to join the family. That’s what it’s like, Poe—a big family out on an extended camping trip. Really, there’s nothing closer to home than the fort.”

  “Then it will be the only home I know,” Poe sighed.

  Shem gave him a brief one-armed hug. “We’re always happy to have another nephew, Poe. But you—you’re more like a little brother, finally old enough to join the ranks.”

  “Thanks,” Poe whispered. “I’ve always thought of Lieutenant Colonel Shin as my uncle. If I had one.”

  Sensing a story behind that, Shem asked, “Why?”

  Poe looked down at a pile of sawdust and started to kick it around. “He was the only one to ever regularly visit me,” he finally mumbled.

  Shem thought about that for a moment. “Visit you?”

  Poe nodded. “When I was incarcerated,” he whispered. Feeling guilty about the mess with the sawdust, he began to nudge it back into a pile with his boot.

  “Ah,” Shem said quietly, watching the developing anthill of sawdust just as intently as Poe did. “He told me he checked on you occasionally.”

  “Not occasionally, Zenos. Every day.”

  “Really?” said Shem, surprised.

  Poe nodded without looking up. Making a proper sawdust mountain required his full attention. “My parents never came by. But he did. First time, I was in for two weeks. I didn’t even respond to him when he came by. I was so mad at him. Thought it was his fault I was in there. He’d stay for maybe five minutes, chatting to the wall. But he always came back. Second time, I was in for six weeks. Answered him back a few times. Third time, I was in the center cell. No windows, very little light. Nine weeks.”

  There was little sawdust left to pile, but still Poe gently nudged stray little bits to the mound.

  Shem just stood silently listening.

  “Every day he came,” Poe eventually continued. “Usually brought a piece of cake or bacon or something. The last time, I was in a full season. And every day he came, again. Always brought me something to eat. When it got cold, he brought sweaters, blankets—things I wasn’t supposed to have, but he’d just give the guards a threatening look and hand them to me anyway. Sometimes we’d talk for half an hour, just about nothing. Every day. You came by sometimes, Zenos, but he never missed a day.”

  Poe finally looked up at Shem, his eyes dry but bloodshot. “How do I repay every day, Zenos?”

  Shem’s eyes hadn’t been dry for several minutes. He sniffed and quickly wiped at the wetness. “I had no idea, Poe. He never told me.”

  Poe started to kick at the careful sawdust pile, but stopped just short of connecting with it. “I left Edge right after they released me. I didn’t want to mess up here again. I couldn’t bear for him to have to come visit me again in incarceration. That place stinks, you know. I thought going somewhere else would help me change.”

  “You messed up again, didn’t you?” Shem asked gently.

  Poe barely nodded, his gaze focused on the floor. “So much easier to steal. Decided, when I was alone in that cell in Mountseen, I’d find a way to make things right again. Not sure where to start, but I figured he could help me.”

  Shem couldn’t help himself. He hugged Poe again, who almost returned the awkward gesture.

  “You made an excellent decision, for once, Private Hili! We’ll give you something better to do. You want to repay Perrin Shin? Be the best soldier you can be. The most obedient, the most willing, the hardest worker, and the one ready to do anything for him. Can you do that, Private?”

  Poe looked up with the faintest of hope in his eyes, and stood at attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent! So, since I’m in charge of your training at the fort, once things get back to normal again, you better tell me exactly what happened when you left Edge. Just in case we get some complaints, we can take care of it.”

  Poe blinked innocently. “What do you mean?”

  “No one gets caught every single time, Poe,” Shem said in a low voice. “You got away with a few things, right?”

  After a long moment, Poe nodded.

  “Are you serious about making things right, Private Hili?”

  Poe hesitated, but nodded again.

  “Well then, we need to catalogue what you’ve done, then find ways to rectify it. It can be done anonymously.”

  Poe exhaled, and secretly Shem worried that this might be a bigger project than he anticipated.

  “Don’t worry, Poe—I’ll help you. You won’t be taken to incarceration, either. I can guarantee that. We’ll fix things together. That’s what big brothers are for.”

  “Thanks, Zenos,” he whispered.

  ---

  That afternoon Mahrree finally got to see the enormous colored pools of Idumea. The only way the Shin family gained access to the largest pools was by using the High General’s open carriage to take in more fully the sights of Idumea.

  “Benefits of high-ranking army life,” Joriana reminded them. “Access to everywhere, even if the general is at home resting from a rough morning.”

  Perrin’s presence—and the brass buttons on his new colonel’s jacket that Joriana had already purchased in anticipation—also helped get them through the locked iron gates monitored by private guards. As they drove through the most exclusive communities with elaborate and large homes, Mahrree and her children could only gape.

  “Not quite as big as the mansion district,” Joriana sniffed almost haughtily as the carriage slowly traveled along a wide drive that fully encircled one massive hot pool, blue and steaming. “They do try, though. Newer houses just don’t quite have the same character.”

  Mahrree opened her mouth to point out that was exactly what they’ve been trying to tell her whenever she pressured them to move from their little old house, but Colonel Shin was already practicing his new brass button glare, and Mahrree decided she had probably already said a bit too much that day anyway.

  Jaytsy and Peto were just glad they got to go to the pools instead of seeing some “old statue” their mother went on and on about during midday meal.

  The pools were more fantastic than Mahrree imagined. Some were several hundred paces across, and the water that welled up in them came from depths immeasurable. The greens, blues, and even oranges were radiant and most tempting to leap into, if the water hadn’t been near boiling temperatures. The crust around the edges had been known to break away at times, and few people had lost their lives, as well as a few stray animals.

  Since the tremor many were more active. A few were even bubbling steadily and sending sprays of water into the air. In one neighborhood a guard was posted by the Administrator of Science at a particularly active pool to record its changes. Two evenings before it had sent a spray so high a young woman passing it was severely burned.

  “So Mother Shin, explain to me why people want to live here?” Mahrree asked after they learned about the injured girl. They were walking around another pool, but several paces away from it, and Mahrree nudged her children to observe the hot colored water from an even safer distance.

  “Mahrree, see the beauty of them!” her mother-in-law held out her hands. “Look at those colors.”

  “Which you can hardly see because of all the steam.”

  “The steam is helpful. Notice how most of the houses are positioned to be hit by the steam when the wind blows? In the Raining Season these pools and their steam warm the whole neighborhood. If you had places like this in Edge, you wouldn’t have nearly so much snow on the ground. It’d all be melted.”

  “Hmm,” Mahrree considered. “I have to admit, that’s a tempting thought. And when the wind blows just right, you actually can see the colors. Nor do they smell as bad as I imagined they would.”

  “Depends on the time of year,” Mrs. Shin told her. “And even then, you get used to the smell. I’ve been told the smellier the water, the healthier it is.”

  Peto made a face. “Smelly healthy water? Are you sure
?”

  “No, son,” Mahrree said sadly. “Someone brought this water to Edge to try to cure my father when he was dying.”

  Jaytsy shook her head. “I’ve smelled the water after Peto’s bathed. There’s nothing healthy about that.”

  “Different smell, Jayts,” Perrin assured her. “More sulfur, just like the smaller hot springs in Edge and Moorland. But I’ve never heard of anyone being healthier here than anywhere else, Mother.”

  His mother sighed. “You’re always so cynical, Perrin.”

  By the time they finished their tour Mahrree had to admit that while the pools could be deadly, they were most beautiful. Although the idea of them being ‘healthy’ was debated loudly and at length by Mrs. Shin and her son as they reentered the carriage.

  From the pools they traveled to the center of Idumea and the business district. Here were the buildings Peto thought should have been named hill-makers because of their size. All were built from block, but in unique designs and patterns that almost made up for the dull shapes of the pieces. These had held up surprisingly well during the land tremor, and Perrin wondered aloud why Idumea had been begging for assistance.

  That’s when Joriana had the driver take them to the old garrison.

  Perrin hadn’t visited either garrison, new or old, since he’d come back. Even though they were only about two miles from the Shin home in the opposite direction of the Administrators’ Headquarters, Perrin had confided to Mahrree he was in no hurry to be garrisoned again.

  “Why are there two garrisons?” Jaytsy asked as they left the city center.

  “The old one was too small,” Perrin told her. “The army kept growing under my father, and instead of adding on to the old buildings, some of which were crumbling, they decided to cut down the last orchard in Idumea,” he said with obvious disappointment, “and build a larger, stronger garrison.”

  “There was an orchard in the city?” Peto said, astonished.

  Before Perrin could harp on the tragedy of chopping down the trees, Joriana sent him a withering look. “The orchard was older than the reign of kings, Peto,” she said. “The trees had stopped producing and needed to come down anyway! It was logical to build the new garrison next to the old one, so that the objective of fighting Guarders was uninterrupted.”

  Perrin folded his arms and brooded, having no response for that. Eventually he said, “They didn’t have to use block for the new garrison, though.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing they did!” his mother exclaimed. “I know you think it’s dull, as if that’s important, but when you see what happened to the stone structures, you may change your mind. They were going to tear the old buildings down in Weeding Season, but now they don’t have to.”

  When they arrived at the old section, it was to see a massive pile of rubble that made Perrin stand up in surprise. “Stop!” he shouted at the driver, and he leaped out of the carriage as it lurched to a halt.

  Mahrree looked at her children quizzically, then helped herself out of the carriage to follow him. Perrin had stopped in his jog and gestured helplessly to the destruction in front of him. The footman helped Joriana out of the carriage, and she walked almost timidly with her grandchildren to join her son.

  When he felt Mahrree next to him, Perrin said in hushed tones, “That was our old home, right there. This whole line of rubble,” he waved his hand, “were the officers’ homes in Idumea. It looks like the soldiers and ox carts have pushed all the rubble together, though.”

  Joriana and her grandchildren caught up to him. “Now you understand. They’ve been piling the rubble to move it easier. Some of us went through the empty houses right after the tremor, looking for things, looking for . . . your father,” she said shakily.

  Perrin put a bracing arm around her.

  “Most of it was just storage, fortunately,” she continued. “Imagine if people had still been living here! There were a few layabouts, but I think they expelled them some moons ago.”

  Perrin said nothing but stared.

  “I’m really tired of seeing rubble,” Jaytsy said miserably. Her mother put her arm around her.

  “There’s just one more stop we need to make though, Jaytsy,” her grandmother assured her. “Well, at least, I want to see it, but I didn’t want to go without Perrin.”

  He turned to look at her. “Where they found Father?”

  Joriana nodded at him.

  “Of course,” said Perrin.

  “It was dark when they finally pulled him out,” Joriana said as they walked back to the carriage. “I was lying down in the surgeon’s coach, so worried, so drained . . . No one thought he was still alive, but I was praying, oh, how I was praying!”

  A short ride later around the housing district, which was now a make-shift quarry, they came to the old administrative building. Or what would have been it.

  “How big did it used to be?” Peto asked in awe.

  “Three levels, with at least twenty offices on each level, and the cellar basement,” Perrin said, shaking his head slowly at the mountain of devastation. “It was the biggest building in Idumea for many years, and it’ll take seasons to remove it all.”

  Joriana was already out of the carriage, walking determinedly to the enormous pile of rubble, so the rest of the family caught up to her. They picked their way cautiously through the large blocks of stone and miscellaneous debris. The women frequently lifted their skirts while Perrin and Peto took their hands and helped them over the more unstable sections.

  Mixed together were smashed bookshelves, crates, chairs, papers and indefinable clutter. A team of soldiers sifted through the rubble nearby, looking for anything worth salvaging before the rest of the soldiers used the mule teams to drag the larger pieces away.

  Peto seemed surprisingly interested. “What was in here?”

  “Mostly storage, again,” his grandmother told him as she gingerly squeezed between two splintered desks. “But a few people still kept offices. With the army growing so fast, the new garrison is already too small. Some of the lesser departments kept their staff here, at the bottom level. But no one had workers here so early in the morning, especially on Holy Day. Only Relf.” She shook her head. “He and his misplaced papers.”

  Jaytsy and Joriana made their way to an area where they didn’t have to hold their skirts up so high, but Peto crouched and cautiously pulled ripped pages out from under rock and wood.

  His parents watched him brush the dust off a page, read the words, put it down in disappointment, and slide out another.

  “Peto, are you looking for something?” his father asked.

  “Just curious,” Peto answered casually as he pulled out another piece of parchment. “I’ve never seen so many documents in one place. Seems like you brass button types are obsessed with how many blankets the men go through.” He smiled as he held up an old inventory list.

  Perrin smiled cynically back at him, not at all satisfied with his answer. “This isn’t where they found your grandfather, if you’re interested.”

  Peto immediately looked up.

  “The storage room where he kept his files is down there about twenty paces. You can see where they moved the rubble to reach him.”

  Joriana and Jaytsy were already on their way to the spot. Peto stood up and picked and jumped his way through the rubble to beat them there. Mahrree and Perrin looked at each other questioningly and followed their son.

  Two soldiers were where Relf had been retrieved, salvaging large pieces of carved wood. One, a sergeant, left the excavation effort and led Joriana to a small opening in the rock.

  “Down there, ma’am. It’s really quite remarkable we noticed him. You can’t even see how he could have fit in there. Hey! Where you going, boy?”

  That’s what Mahrree was wondering as she stopped in shock. Peto was lowering himself down into a crevice near the soldier, and before Mahrree could cry out, he slipped between two large stones and vanished from view.

  ?
??Peto, NO!” cried four Shins at the same time.

  Mahrree rushed to the edge of the crevice to see Peto look up at her innocently, the sunlight reaching the top his head.

  “I can squeeze, see?”

  “But it’s not stable!” the sergeant exclaimed.

  “No, it’s not!” Perrin seconded as he squatted at the opening. “Peto, out of there now!”

  “I just wanted to see if I could find what Grandfather left here. He seemed a little upset yesterday that he didn’t get the files put away properly.”

  His voice sounded muffled in the enormous piles of debris, and Mahrree chewed her lower lip, scanning for ways to reach her foolish son. But even as slight as she was, she couldn’t see a reasonable way into the mess.

  “I thought that maybe—” Peto bent to peer further into the dusty, jagged gloom, “—if I found some of what he was looking for, he might feel better about things.”

  “Peto, that’s very noble, but also very stupid,” Joriana told him, wringing her hands. “Relf’s obsessed with keeping his files orderly. Something like this will be good for him. Make him realize life goes on without perfect paperwork!”

  “Peto, you’re making me very nervous,” Mahrree said as he took a step in a small opening under shadowy broken rock. He tried to shift aside what looked like a splintered bookshelf, but too much wreckage rested on it. Instead he inched around it.

  “Peto, just let it go,” Mahrree pleaded. “Whatever it is, your grandfather wouldn’t want you to risk your life for a piece of paper!”

  Peto paused and looked up at her between the cracks of crisscrossing timbers. “Are you really sure about that?”

  In disbelief, Mahrree looked at Perrin.

  Perrin transferred the incredulous look to his son. “Of course we’re sure! Peto, OUT NOW!”

  Usually that tone made his son shrink with immediate obedience. It certainly made the soldier flinch as he lay down before the crevice and extended his arm into it to try to touch Peto, but he was several paces away. Perrin crouched next to the sergeant and put a protective hand on his back.

  Peto looked up at his father then back into the deep rubble again. “I think I can see something—”

  “Peto, just stop!” Jaytsy shouted.

  A sound of shifting rock began at the far end of what would have been the back of the storage room.

  “Peto!” cried Mahrree as the scraping noise grew louder.

  A section of timbers caved in with a deafening crash and a plume of dust rose just a few paces away from Peto, but he was already scrambling back to the crevice. As a small hill of debris shifted into the collapse, Peto grabbed the soldier’s outstretched hand. Perrin reached down to grab his other arm, and together they pulled. Peto kicked up to the surface just as several large pieces of rock shifted and gave way, compressing the crevice into a mere slit.

  Mahrree gripped her chest in relief as the dust began to clear, Joriana fanned herself, and Jaytsy put a supportive arm around her grandmother.

  Perrin, however, punched his son angrily on the shoulder before pulling him into a firm hug. “Stupid, son. Don’t ever, ever do something like that again.”

  The sergeant stood up and dusted off his jacket. Perrin slapped him gratefully on the back.

  The soldier nodded to him. “Whatever files the general was going for, boy,” the sergeant said a little breathlessly, “are destined to be entombed. No paper is worth that.”

  Peto actually looked disappointed as he pulled out of his father’s grip and turned to the pile of rock and wood. “I guess we already know enough,” he said vaguely. “Just had to try.” He looked at the sergeant and nodded.

  “Well, I’ve seen enough,” Joriana said, patting her chest. Mahrree and Jaytsy nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Joriana squeezed the arm of the soldier in gratitude and marched quickly to the carriage. Mahrree and Jaytsy each took a side of Peto and escorted him back, just in case he had any additional less-than-brilliant ideas.

  Perrin turned to the soldier. “I’m sorry about that, Sergeant. I don’t know what got into him. But I’ll never forget your assistance. You’ve just earned yourself a seat at The Administrative Celebration Dinner at the High General’s Mansion next week.”

  “Really, sir?” the sergeant said excitedly.

  Mahrree, Jaytsy, and Peto chuckled to each other as they headed for the carriage.

  “Absolutely,” they heard Perrin say. “You can even be in charge for the evening.”

  Joriana heard that, too. She spun around and bellowed, “PERRIN!”

  He cringed and turned back to the sergeant. “Woman has ears like a bat. It was worth a try. Still, come by for The Dinner and bring a friend. My personal invitation. Tell them that at the door.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  A few quiet minutes later—Joriana glaring at her son, and Perrin looking everywhere but at her—the carriage went around a bend and out toward the large gates of the garrison. The driver stopped the impatient horses, waiting for a gap in the steady stream of wagons passing before they could continue on to the road.

  Peto, bored already by the delay and surprisingly unperturbed by his near brush with death, looked around. He stopped suddenly, twisting to see behind them.

  “Grandmother, what is that?”

  Joriana, facing him in the carriage, already had a clear view of what captured his attention. She groaned and shuddered. “With so much happening this week, the rubbish removers haven’t been able to do their jobs. Look at that pile of waste and filth! Disgusting.”

  Mahrree, Perrin, and Jaytsy twisted to see what Peto had pointed out. A sloppy structure of debris, cloth, paper, and even what may have been food was heaped in a mass about thirty paces away.

  “That’s not what I meant, Grandmother,” Peto said in a quieter voice. “I meant that man.”

  None of them had noticed him yet; his dress and filth blended in with the mound of refuse. He was gently tugging at something in the precarious pile, not realizing he had an audience. His age was undetectable under his dirt. He could have been eighteen or sixty-eight. He might have been tall, but his gaunt body was hunched over. His hair, maybe dark, was tousled and unkempt.

  Peto swallowed hard. “He’s looking for food or clothes, isn’t he?”

  Joriana shuddered again. “Turn around Peto. Never mind him. He was probably one of the layabouts they evicted from the old houses that are now rubble. But people that are like him, they want to live that way.”

  Jaytsy turned sharply to her grandmother. “They want to live that way?”

  Joriana sighed loudly. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

  Mahrree and Perrin looked at her for an explanation.

  “What I meant was . . .” Under the scrutiny of her family, she tried again. “People like that—there are a lot of them in Idumea. We seem to attract them from the other villages. They don’t have jobs or families, no ambition, no desire to help themselves. They eat from our trash and live in crates down by the river. Well, some of them probably lived in the abandoned garrison up until last week, and I think they uncovered a corpse or two—”

  Her family stared in dismay when she casually waved that little detail away.

  “Really, they’re fine. This is what they do.”

  Peto turned again to look at the man. He had stopped tugging at the pile and was examining something in his hands. Perhaps feeling the stare of the thirteen-year-old, he slowly looked up and met Peto’s gaze.

  Peto gulped again as the vacant eyes looked past him, and he turned back around. The carriage was leaving the garrison.

  “That’s not right,” Peto whispered. “Someone should do something for them.”

  “Well,” Joriana sighed, “the Administrators believe that—”

  “The Administrators!” Peto scoffed exactly like his father.

  Perrin beamed with pride.

  “Why should the Administrators do something, Grandmother? Why should the gove
rnment step in and take over in every little thing?”

  Now Mahrree beamed at their son.

  “The first words of The Writings are, ‘We are all family,’” Peto reminded everyone. “Even people who haven’t read it in years should remember that first line! So he does have family, Grandmother: all of us. There are dozens of shops near here. Why doesn’t one of them give him an out-of-fashion coat? Another one a meat pie? It wouldn’t hurt them at all. Even over at the garrison, they were throwing blankets and pillows into that pile that’s going to be dumped by the river. Why not give them to people like him instead of just throwing it away? Why aren’t we doing something?” He looked around himself for something he could offer, but the horses were already in a fast trot down the road away from the garrison.

  Joriana stared at him. “I honestly don’t know, Peto. But I promise I’ll speak to your grandfather about it. When he’s better, I’m sure he’ll see what he can do. What we can do,” she clarified.

  Peto nodded in satisfaction and looked out at the road again.

  But Mahrree noticed his grandmother continued to stare at him as if she’d never heard such words in her entire life, and it seemed to bother Joriana.

  Chapter 12 ~ “In an emergency, you need to preserve the hierarchy to prevent anarchy.”