The Forest at the Edge of the World (20 page)

Mahrree sighed.

Maybe the Administrators
were
different. It had been over two years since they took power, and rumor was that Guarders had been spotted in several locations. The pattern was different this time. So maybe it
was
a genuine threat, and the presence of the fort was necessary. Perhaps the twenty-two administrators and their chairman
did
know more than one lone woman at the Edge of the World.

Mahrree grumbled to herself over that most aggravating idea.

She took a deep breath and looked again at the remaining pages of The Writings. Her stack of notes awaited her last entries. She closed her eyes to clear her thoughts of Administrators and Guarders and captains and anything else distracting. Even though she’d read the pages often, she was sure there was something new to learn, if only she—

There was a knock at the door, but she ignored it. She mischi
evously thought it was a Guarder coming to explain his side of the story, or maybe an administrator who had already gathered the ashes of her notes. But she knew she’d never meet any of those stuffed red jackets since no one in the government ever bothered to travel all the way up to the Edge of the World. And she certainly wasn’t about to head down to Idumea for a chat.

At the door was most likely someone telling her they were r
etrieving their goat that was nibbling the weeds in her yard. No need to bother her about that. Just take the weed trimmer and be gone—

The knocking came again.

She opened her eyes and, feeling a mixture of annoyance and amusement, decided it was one persistent Guarder. Hoping that whoever it was wouldn’t take long, Mahrree reluctantly got up and went to the door. When she opened it she could only stare.

There stood a hulking man filling her doorway, dressed in black trousers and a tunic that matched his dark hair. For the briefest of terrifying moments, Mahrree
did
think it was a Guarder, until she noticed the man’s worn brown leather jacket.

And the flowers wrapped appropriately in an old administrative notice.

Mahrree couldn’t move or speak.

It was Captain Perrin Shin.

Chapter 11 ~ “So I’ve actually rendered

you speechless?!”

“
I
t feels like a year since we’ve last spoken.” Captain Shin’s voice was low and earnest. “I never thought two and a half weeks could feel so long. I thought maybe the custom here was to bring more flowers to renew an acquaintance?”

Mahrree blinked, then blinked again to make sure she saw ev
erything properly. Yes, that was him standing in the doorway. And that was her still holding the door open, strangely paralyzed.

The captain leaned towards her, waiting for a response.

She recovered just enough to stiffly answer, “Yes, hello. Yes, it has been some time.”

She simply couldn’t think of what to do next. It wasn’t every day a man stood at her door. Actually, a man was never at her door unless he was there to clear a clog in her water pumps or scrub out her chimney.

They both stood there uneasily for a moment until he slowly presented her the flowers. “Am I doing this right?”

Mahrree felt a slight knock to her mind and said, “Oh! Of course! Yes, thank you. I’ll take those.” She did, thinking they could replace the dried stems still in her tall mug, but continued to hold open the door dumbly.

“So . . . I suppose I’ll leave you now. Unless you’d like to talk? I have ‘some time’ tonight,” he hinted.

Mahrree rolled her eyes. “Please Captain, do you have a jug you can hit me with? I can’t seem to think straight right now.”

He grinned in such a way that Mahrree finally understood the meaning of the phrase
feeling faint and fancied
. He held up his other hand.

“Actually, I do. New berry juice to share with you, not the Densals. And it’s Perrin, remember?”

She smiled back. “I’m trying. Really. Please come in.”

“You
are
trying!” he teased. “And now I see it’s berry juice that gets me in the door, not flowers. I thought maybe mead was more appropriate,” he explained as he entered the gathering room, the area shrinking in relation to his height, “but one’s never sure of the strength, and in case I brought the wrong thing I didn’t want you to think I was trying . . . um, uh . . . ” He rubbed his forehead looking for a graceful exit.

Mahrree squinted, trying to figure out where the rest of the se
ntence may have been headed. When he didn’t say anything, she decided a polite host should help.

“I don’t enjoy mead. I saw enough students at the university in Mountseen drinking the wrong distillations. I couldn’t understand why they’d voluntarily give up their ability to think clearly.”

Perrin smiled. “Exactly! I was always the odd man out when everyone else enjoyed their days off in a stupor. But I wanted to be ready when the call came. As they say in the army, you don’t want to be caught with your trous—” He stopped, searching her face to see if she knew the phrase he nearly uttered.

Her curious and innocent look must have told him she didn’t know his meaning.

He wasn’t about to explain.

“Caught off guard,” he salvaged. He sighed and looked around him for the first time, staring at the number of bookshelves in the room.

“Really, I’m sorry about not letting you in right away,” Mahrree explained as she set the flowers down on the eating room table. She should have put them in the mug in her kitchen, but she didn’t dare leave, just in case the captain vanished while she was gone for two minutes. Besides, she wasn’t ready to replace the dried up stems he gave her three weeks ago. “I was just so surprised to see you there. I wasn’t expecting . . . but I am glad you’ve come. Please, sit down.” She gestured to a stuffed chair her mother bought for her when she moved into her small home.

But he didn’t move. Instead he cocked his head to look at the shelves, reading the titles carefully burned into the leather spine bindings.

“How did you get so many books? They must have cost a small fortune!”

“It cost my father a small fortune,” Mahrree told him. “I inheri
ted them when he passed away. Mother didn’t want them, except for the one about embellishments through the ages. I must confess, I haven’t read all of them yet, but I plan to.”

“May I borrow some? So many of these titles are old. All I could find in Idumea were new writings and ideas. But I find there’s more truth in most of the old writings. Don’t you agree?” He turned to Mahrree with the eagerness of a young student.

Something in her chest burned again. “Of course! Borrow whatever you want. Take home an armful before you leave.”

“Trying to get me out the door already?” Perrin asked.

She didn’t notice the twinkle in his eye. “No! Stay as long as you wish tonight.” 

His eyebrows rose in astonishment at her insinuation.

She still missed the teasing in his eyes. “No, that’s not what I meant!” Mahrree backtracked in a panic. She knew this was why she usually didn’t talk to men. “I’m not implying any impropriety—”

As soon as she said the words she was even more mortified.

“Oh, no,
no
—what I
mean
is . . .”

“Stop!” Perrin laughed. “Stop!” 

He actually laughed, and it cleared Mahrree’s mind completely. It sounded like bells.

“I know what you mean, don’t worry.” He extended his hand as if to take her arm, but pulled it clumsily back instead. “Ah, but you’re so easy to tease and fluster! I can’t help but wonder, why? When we were on the platform I found it very difficult to shake your confidence. You gave me the greatest challenge I’ve had in many years, and that was in front of thousands of people. But when we’re alone,” his voice quieted, “you can’t seem to string a coherent thought together.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment, is it?” Mahrree said, pursing her lips together.

“You’re doing better now, recovering some of your intell
igence.”

She saw the teasing twinkle in his eye that time. “I’m just better able to deceive you now. I’m still incoherent, but I can mask it when I have a few moments to prepare,” she confessed.

He sighed. “I don’t think you could
ever
deceive me. But I’ll confess I’ve deceived you,” he looked around for the stuffed chair. He gestured to Mahrree to sit in its match across from it, and he sat down after she did.

“How have you deceived me?” Mahrree dreaded to hear. She wondered if her father would still like him. She felt a warm touch just above her heart again and she braced to hear just about anything.

As long as it wasn’t about a wife in Idumea . . .

He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, putting his hands together. “I’ve deceived you by not being completely ho
nest. I’ve been testing you, I guess.”

“Testing? Why?”

“I came to the village because I requested this assignment. You see,” he leaned forward in his chair closer to Mahrree.

She could almost smell him, but she didn’t dare get closer, e
specially if what he was about to say would make her hate him.

“You see,” he repeated hesitantly, looking into her eyes, “I wo
rried about the ideas I saw emerging in Idumea. I wanted to find a place that would reinforce my belief in The Writings. Yes, I do believe in The Writings despite what I said at that second debate. I hope I proved that in the fourth. In many ways, your mind is the same as mine. But The Writings and beliefs are dying in Idumea, and new suggestions are spreading. The ‘suggestions’ will be ‘mandates’ soon enough, I’m sure.” His tone hardened as he looked down at his hands. “You see, the Administrators—”

He stopped abruptly again and looked up into her face, as if fearing he’d just revealed a secret.

Mahrree held her breath as a fantastic idea filled her. Suddenly everything in the last half hour—the last several weeks!—was making sense. He’s skeptical too! Just like Father!
She waited in eager anticipation to hear his evaluation of the Administrators.

She wasn’t about to get it.

“I looked for a village as far away as I could,” he instead continued on a safer path, “hoping to find a place where I could continue believing. My great uncle has written me a lot about Edge. When the need arose for the new fort, I had my reason to leave and the general approved my request. I guess I’ve been testing to see just what the people here think. What
you
think.” He looked down at his hands for a moment. “My mother says I have a tendency to ‘stir the pot’,” he said with a small chuckle. “She’s always warning me about behaving.” He looked up at her again. “I realize I haven’t always been honest, and I certainly wasn’t fair with you. I’m sorry about that. Can you forgive me?”

Mahrree was stunned by even more than his apparent skept
icism of the Administrators.

“I never imagined . . . you actually
want
to be here? That was all
you
at the fourth debate? Stir the pot?” Then she remembered something else. “Who’s your great uncle?”

“You don’t know? Our one-time matchmaker: Hogal Densal. He’s married to my mother’s aunt.”

“Of course!” No wonder Rector Densal puffed with pride whenever he saw the captain.

Perrin’s dark eyes softened. He seemed so different this eve
ning, but also familiar somehow.

“He likes you, you know,” he continued. “I’m sure that was o
bvious a few weeks ago. In fact, he’s the one who suggested I debate you the first night. He said he’d make my time here interesting.” Then he chuckled again. “I actually thought the teacher would be an old spinster.”

“So, I’m not old?” Mahrree ventured with a small smile.

“No!” he exclaimed. Then more calmly he said, “No, no, no. Not at all. I was quite surprised to see someone so, so—” He turned a little red.

Mahrree grinned to herself. She flustered him!

“—so, so . . . young and capable,” Perrin finally finished.

Mahrree tried not to look disappointed. She was hoping for something a little more than that, maybe even something bordering on romantic, but “young and capable” would have to suffice.

Perrin appeared frustrated with his words as well.

“I’ve missed our debates,” he continued. “Much more than I e
xpected. These past few weeks have been the longest I’ve experienced since initial training for the army. I’ve worked my new soldiers, mapped the region, planned patrols for the forest borders,
and
,” he looked down at his hands again, “ruined more than one report because your name keeps cropping up in my writing. Not exactly efficient—”

“Wait,” Mahrree stopped him.

He looked at her expectantly.

“Wait, how many patrols can a few soldiers on horseback
watching the forest have?” she asked.

Perrin looked disappointed, then surprised. “What do you mean,
a few soldiers?
The full one hundred arrived last week!”

“One
hundred?”
Mahrree was shocked.
“
The most we ever had in Edge was five! I thought maybe a dozen, but what do you need with one hundred men?”

“You didn’t see them come in?” He sat back in his chair and gestured disbelievingly with his hand. “It was a great parade! One hundred men in uniform, twenty-five of them on matched horses—I thought all of Edge came out.”

He was like a ten-year-old who just figured out how to do a back flip but no one saw him.

“I, I was, uh, at the head of it all,” his voice quieted. “Really quite something to see.” He looked at his hands which didn’t know what to do but slap gently against each other.

“I heard the children in school mention something about a parade, but I didn’t pay much attention to it,” she admitted. “I heard some noise out in the road last week, but I just thought it was the musicians marching as they practiced or something. But why one hundred men? And where are they staying?”

He squinted at her. “The fort is quite large. We took over the old farm and orchard area to the north. Completed the barracks and mess hall just last week. You
really
didn’t notice one hundred new soldiers?!” he persisted. “We marched up the road just one house away from here.”

“I’ve been busy at home,” she said dismissively. “Why so big? What are the Administrators expecting?”

“Guarders,” he said solemnly.

Of course he’d say that. Mahrree saw her chance. He wasn’t in uniform so she could ask him about the real threat of Guarders, and there really wasn’t anything he could do—officially—about her doubts.

“If I may ask you something, in confidence,
Perrin?
”

His eyes brightened. “Anything,
Mahrree!
”

“Honestly, is there really that big of a Guarder threat? After all these years? Especially here in Edge? It just seems so . . . so
convenient
sometimes.”