Knock-knock . . . knock-knock-knock.
Perrin dropped his quill and held his head in his hands. Couldn’t Thorne be one to get the pox twice? There’d been a few cases . . .
He felt cheated as he sighed, “Come in.”
It wasn’t fair that Thorne’s pocks were fading so quickly. He’d still have the faint scars, but at least those added a hint of ruggedness that the captain was so severely needing.
“I just wanted you to know that I spotted your daughter working in the fields across from the fort. She looked quite well and happy.”
Not because of you, Thorne! Perrin wanted to say, but he wasn’t entirely sure why Jaytsy looked happy. “Yes, I’m sure she’s just fine. She enjoys farming. Seems to be her calling.”
Thorne frowned. “Calling? Farming?” he scoffed lightly. “Not Miss Jaytsy, sir. Surely not.”
Perrin leaned back in his chair. “Why not? Working the land to produce food for others—what could be more important?”
Thorne chuckled mirthlessly. “Why, lots of things! People who work in the dirt are so . . . dirty.”
“So are men whose hands get stained with blood, Thorne,” said Perrin. “But when our work’s done, men are injured or dead. When farmers are done, people live. I find that exceptionally valiant.”
Thorne rolled his eyes. “But that’s what uneducated people do, sir! People who can’t do anything else stick things in the ground then pull them up again. There’s no intelligence or science or thought needed for that. Animals do that.”
Perrin blinked. “Animals . . . plant . . . farms?”
Thorne gestured wildly. “In a way squirrels do, but I mean, they use animals—”
“So do we. We use animals in our work.”
“But we use horses! They use impotent steers to pull plows. Sir, your daughter is capable of so much more. Surely this is just a passing fancy of hers before she becomes serious about something . . . more serious.”
Perrin folded his arms across his chest. “And what should she become serious about, Captain?”
Perrin could see the answer on his lips. In fact, for just a moment it seemed he would actually break out with, “ME!”
But he didn’t. His mouth worked for a few moments, trying to find the right words. “I’m . . . I’m not entirely sure, sir. Perhaps work in a dress shop?”
Now Perrin rolled his eyes. “And that’s ‘serious?’ Keep that girl trapped inside, she’ll go mad, Captain.” Then, heavily, he added, “Never, never keep her trapped.”
It took Thorne a moment to register the colonel’s meaning. When he realized it was a reference to the incident in the barns, he actually had the decency to blush. “Understood, sir. I’ll be leaving now, unless there was—”
“There’s nothing else, Thorne.”
---
The next day Deckett was waiting at the fence when Jaytsy arrived. “I have to take care of the cattle, but I’ll be back later to help. Is that all right?”
“Absolutely!” she grinned.
Jaytsy’s morning fluctuated between rushing by quickly to dragging on slowly, until Deckett met her in a row to weed for a while before midday meal. As they ate together again, Jaytsy asked about his cattle experiments.
“You really don’t want me to talk about that, do you? I can’t imagine that’d be interesting to you.”
“All right, I’m not that interested in cows,” she confessed. “Just in what you’re doing.” She turned pink.
His face flushed as he examined his hands. “I’m doing on a small scale one of the experiments we were going to try this Raining Season: finding ways to encourage cows to give more milk. We wanted to see if . . . if we talk to the cows—well, if they produce more when they feel appreciated,” he finally finished.
Jaytsy stifled a giggle, but not too well.
“I know, I know. My father had the same reaction. But that’s why we need to test it,” he explained with an embarrassed smile.
“You really like cattle, don’t you?”
“You could say that. I know they’re not as graceful and beautiful as horses—”
He’s the very opposite of Lemuel, Jaytsy’s mind wandered. The Anti-Thorne.
“—but there’s such an honesty about cattle. A realness.” He sighed. “I wish I could explain it. I just feel them. Always have.” Then he chuckled. “Cow eyes,” he murmured.
“Cow eyes?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“No, no,” Jaytsy elbowed him gently. “Tell me about cow eyes.”
“It’s . . . it’s something I would pull on my mother,” he said as his pink went wholly red. “Whenever I wanted something, or was trying to avoid getting into trouble, I would give her what my father called my ‘cow eyes’. Melted her every time.”
Jaytsy grinned. “Show me?”
“No! You wouldn’t appreciate it like she did—”
“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me about cow eyes then not show me. Do cow eyes, in honor of your mother.”
He squinted at her. “That’s really low.”
Jaytsy looked down apologetically.
“Effective,” he admitted, “but low just the same.”
She looked back up at him. “Show me just the same?”
He groaned in embarrassment. “For my mother. I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He looked down, shook out his shoulders, then lifted his head with the biggest, brownest, sweetest eyes ever.
She burst out laughing.
“Augh, I knew you’d laugh! That’s what I get. I knew that was a bad idea.” He turned away from her and hid his face in his knees.
“No! It was really sweet.”
“Sweet? Oh, that’s got to be worse . . .” He moved to get up, but Jaytsy grabbed his arm.
“No, Deck.”
He stopped and looked at her hand on his arm.
She looked at it too. “I’m sorry I laughed. I just wasn’t expecting . . .” She didn’t finish, because she really wasn’t sure what she was feeling at the moment, besides his ample arm under her fingers.
He smiled timidly at her. “We need to get back to the farm,” and he patted her hand with his free hand.
The touch was unexpected, startling, yet somehow familiar.
And overwhelming.
Jaytsy had always thought it would be a soldier. Likely an officer, but not Lemuel. Maybe someone like Jon Offra, but not as tall. Or as nervous. Or as pale, or hesitant—
All right, someone not even remotely like Jon Offra or Lemuel Thorne, but in a uniform. Someone to argue with, like her parents argued. Someone to chase up the stairs . . .
Jaytsy forced away the blush that heated her cheeks.
Deckett reddened as his hand stayed on hers, which they both stared at. Their gazes traveled to each other’s faces, which turned shades of purple, and they released each other. Simultaneously and without a word they marched out to the rows of onions.
The next two weeks flew by. They talked each afternoon about everything under the sun as they pulled weeds. Life in Moorland. Life in Mountseen. Life in Edge. Life in Idumea. Life in general. Jaytsy even got him to do cow eyes for her again. And each night she fell asleep giggling at his expression and hugging her pillow.
---
“There are a few reasons why I like that boy,” Perrin murmured under his breath, but no one was in his office to hear him and he’d shut the door to make sure that he wasn’t disturbed.
He twisted the knobs on his spyglass a little this way, then just a little bit that way . . .
“The first reason is, his last name’s not Thorne.” Perrin tapped the shaft gently and smiled at the result. “The second reason is, he lives . . . right . . . there.”
Perrin pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable as he peered into the eyepiece again. “Never takes her into the house, but keeps her out in the open. Very safe. Very manly. Kneels in the dirt close enough for conversation, but not too close as to touch her.”
He twisted
a knob slightly again.
“He’s subtle about his feelings for her, although, young Mr. Briter, I can read you like a book . . . from several hundred paces away that is.” He chuckled to himself. “I used to watch your parents this way when I was a bit more paranoid,” he confessed in a whisper. “But this is a healthy paranoia, and I’m sure you’ll agree once you have a daughter—”
He sat up abruptly, the notion of who the mother of that eventual daughter might be shoving itself in his mind and causing all of his thoughts to stumble. It took him another minute to regain himself, and as he hunched over to watch the weeders in the fort’s farm he considered the prospect.
“She could do much worse,” he mumbled. “And likely . . . not a whole lot better. I never find myself twitching when I have my weekly chat with him.”
Young Mr. Briter was gathering weeds to put in a bucket, and reached past Jaytsy to retrieve what seemed to be a particularly prickly one. He shook his head as she went to pick it up. Perrin read his lips: Don’t want you to get pricked by a thorn.
Perrin smiled. “That makes two of us, son—”
“What in the world are you doing?”
The loud voice at the door made Perrin jump and jostle the spyglass. He sighed in exasperation. “Zenos, don’t you ever knock?”
“I did,” Shem chuckled, closing the door behind him. “But whatever captured your attention in the spyglass prevented you from hearing.”
Perrin deliberately turned the angle to point it at the boulder field.
Shem smirked. “What, are Jaytsy and Deckett Briter now heading up to the boulders?”
“That’s not what I was . . . I mean, what I was doing was—”
“If you’re at all curious, I approve of him too.”
---
Jaytsy was well on her way home that afternoon when she realized she’d left her hat at the Briter farm. She jogged back, picked up Joriana’s hat from the stairs that led to the kitchen, and paused. There was a strange noise coming muffled from behind the barn, but it took her only a moment to identify it. She’d heard it too often over the past year, and there was nothing quite as disconcerting as the sound of a man sobbing, especially when the man wasn’t accustomed to doing it.
Quietly she crept around the barn to see Deckett sitting on the ground, his head on his knees, quivering. He was supposed to be setting the cheese—
Jaytsy knew what to do, having seen her mother do it many times last year. She sat down next to Deckett, who suddenly stopped. His head came up as she gingerly placed a comforting hand on his back, and he stared at her, startled.
“What are you doing back here?” he asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve and trying to appear as if nothing was wrong.
“I forgot my hat,” Jaytsy said, her eyes brimming with tears to see his still overflowing. “Deck, how often to cry back here, alone?” she asked gently.
He rested his chin on his knees. “I don’t . . . it just . . .” He sighed in surrender. “Not often.” He closed his eyes as a new batch of tears fell from them.
His shoulders heaved and Jaytsy flung her arms around him, hoping to hold him tightly enough to stop his convulsions of grief. Deckett leaned against her, resting his head against her shoulder and letting his tears seep between his fingers.
“I miss them too,” she told him. “I’m sure you loved them much more than I did, but I came to think of them as my aunt and uncle. They were so good to me, and they’ve left such a hole—” She couldn’t say anything more, but sobbed right along with him, aware that some of her tears were sliding on to the back of his head. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that Deckett didn’t mourn alone and that Jaytsy held him as tightly as she dared.
It was several minutes until their weeping subsided, and Deckett, his head still down on her shoulder, attempted a few words.
“After you left, I headed into the house and . . .” His chin trembled and he held his face with his hands. “I started to call out to my parents to tell them something . . . and I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten they were gone,” his voice quavered. “I’d been working and was happy and . . . What’s wrong with me that I forgot?!”
“You did nothing wrong,” Jaytsy told him, now rocking as she embraced his shoulders. “It’s not as if you actually forgot them being gone, because you still feel them here. They love you so much! They’d be thrilled to know you felt happy again. Deckett, I don’t think they’re really gone. I mean, they’re still around us, in so many ways.”
He shrugged against her, still keeping his face covered.
She squeezed him tighter, forgetting the fact that she’d never done more than touch his hand or arm before. Sometimes a moment demands a closer presence, and forgives it as well.
With her own tears flowing she said, “Remember earlier today, when we both suddenly remembered the canal water was on, and we got to the onion patch just before it flooded? Deckett, as we were running I thought of your mother. She seemed so close, and maybe it was her who reminded us. They’re still your parents, and they’re still watching and helping. Paradise isn’t far away; it’s here!”
The heaving of his shoulders slowed as he listened to her.
She realized that she was stroking his hair, but it seemed important to do. “My mother lost her father when she was 15, and she told me once that she still hears him from time to time, that when something’s very important he still advises her.”
Deck roughly cleared his throat. “The calf yesterday, the one that wandered? I could have sworn it was my father telling me to check the cattle fence along the forest’s edge. That’s where I found her.”
“I think that was your father too, Deckett,” Jaytsy said, realizing that she was twisting bits of his coarse, shaggy brown hair between her fingers. She subtly slipped them out, and slid her hand back to hold his shoulder. He’d removed his hands from off of his face, and one was now resting lightly on her knee. But still he didn’t look up.
“My hat there,” she nodded to it, dropped on the ground a few feet away from them, “was my grandmother’s. When I stabbed the holes in it to make it less Idumean, I was sure I heard her giggling.”
Something in Deckett’s shoulders relaxed, collapsing him ever so slightly in her direction. She felt his breathing against her throat and she smelled his hair, realizing that his scent was, in its own unique way, a form of earthy-sweet. Mixed with cow. It took all of her effort to keep her chest calm, worried that if it burned any hotter Deckett would feel it emanating from her dress.
“I think you should keep talking to your parents,” Jaytsy said. “Go into the house and tell them what you planned to say. They’ll hear you. They’re still concerned about you and they still love you. Remember what Yung said last Holy Day? That the work of those who go to Paradise is the work of taking care of their descendants who remain here? My father, when he was very bad a few moons ago, called out for his great uncle Hogal,” she told him quietly. “Something had come into the house that night,” she whispered. “Something horrible and black, as if the night had come to life and planned to destroy us all. I hid in my bedroom, hearing my father yelling at it, and he called out for Hogal. He’d died when I was just a toddler, but Hogal and my father had been very close. Hogal and Tabbit were why my father came to Edge in the first place.”
She smiled sadly and unconsciously twisted a hank of Deckett’s hair again.
“Not that my father would ever confess it, but I suspect that he wasn’t the best young man. So when he was 18 he spent a season with Hogal and Tabbit, and I think they straightening him out a bit. Hogal was also his rector here, and when my father needed him . . .” She struggled to get out the next words, “he came. The Creator sent Uncle Hogal. I could feel him come into the house, Deckett. Everything got brighter and safer, and my father changed for good.” Now her own chin shook too much for her to continue.
Deckett nodded awkwardly against her shoulder. “Your father’s the one who told me to cry,??
? he sniffled. “He said tears were fine for a man, and that the only time I should be alarmed is when I no longer feel tears for anything. Or something like that.”
Jaytsy smiled. “I know what you mean. What he means.”
Deckett sat up slowly, and Jaytsy let her hand slide down his back to release him, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She’d never before realized how much intimacy is created when two people weep together. She suspected Deckett felt it as well, because he moved a bit away from her as he straightened up.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, not daring to look her in the face.
She didn’t look at him either. And even though she wasn’t sure precisely what he was thanking her for, she nodded.
She spied him out of the corner of her eye. “May I ask a question?”
“Sure.”
“What did you want to tell your parents when you went into the house?”
He shrugged. “Can’t remember anymore. Just one of those things that I guess I’ll struggle with for a while, learning how to live without them. I mean, the way I was used to live with them.”
Jaytsy wanted to do nothing more than thrown her arms around him again, but still unsure of what to do with the familiarity they’d accidentally created, she instead just patted his hand. “They’re still here,” she whispered. “I need to go home. Will you be all right or would you like me to come back later?”
Still not looking at her, he smiled faintly. “I’ll be fine. I actually feel a lot better now. Glad you forgot your hat and had to come back.” He elbowed her gently, and it felt almost brotherly.
Something in Jaytsy’s heart sank, and everything about that moment became immensely awkward. She’d been so forward, so affectionate, so motherly—oh, dear . . . Of course he didn’t have any other way to respond except with an elbow nudge.
Jaytsy got to her feet, patted him one more time on the shoulder, and said, “See you tomorrow, Deckett,” before trotting back home, wiping her face all the way.
---
It took Deckett several minutes before he pulled himself to his feet. After drying his face with various sleeves and shirt tails, he made his way up the back stairs to the kitchen again.
Just as he had the hour before, he opened the door and called, “Mother, Father?” He smiled tentatively at the silent house, unsure if they were indeed there but feeling a sense of peace nonetheless, so thick it was tangible.
“I just wanted to tell you something . . . I think I found her.”
And he wasn’t talking about the missing calf.
---
Jaytsy had gone home that evening sullen and worried, not because of her or Deckett’s grief, but because she feared she’d crossed too many lines too quickly and she didn’t know how to backtrack to where she’d left off. She decided by morning, as she headed again to the farm, that she’d say nothing of their closeness the day before.
She watched for Deckett’s reaction to her when she found him opening the canal. He flashed her a smile. “Before we tackle the potato section, the peppers need harvesting again along with some tomatoes. The assistant cooks from the fort will be here before midday meal to retrieve them. They also wanted some onions, and I’ll need to move the cattle to a different pasture. So where do you want to start?”
Jaytsy, in the manner that she inherited from her mother that read too much into a situation, decided that his, Where do you want to start? signified asking how she wanted to proceed after yesterday. Later, she realized he probably was just referring to the farm, but she felt safe in saying, “What do you think we should do first?”
He shrugged as he turned the spigot to adjust the water flow. “Tomatoes, then peppers and onions. Everything else later.”
She mulled that Everything else later for hours, sure that he intended a double meaning although she wasn’t entirely sure what everything else referred to, and when later might be.
For the next few weeks they labored side by side, never mentioning the afternoon when they sobbed together, never becoming more intimate than an elbow bump or a hand brush. They weeded and watered and harvested until all too soon there were only two days before school began again and the farm was as finished as it could be.
Much to Jaytsy’s displeasure.
Deckett seemed disappointed as well as they stood up before midday meal and looked at the perfectly thinned and weeded rows extending all the way to the northernmost canal before the forest.
“Good work,” he said with strained brightness. “I guess . . . there’s nothing left for you to do here now that the crops are taking over most of the dirt. It’ll take me only an hour or so to pull what the fort wants each day. Then again, in another week there should be some more weeds again. Those will take a couple of hours’ work.”
“There’s the full harvest!” Jaytsy reminded him. “That will take weeks!”
“Not for another moon or so,” he said dully.
“We could have an early midday meal together,” Jaytsy suggested.
“We could.”
But even though they ate slowly, too soon that was over as well. Jaytsy stood uncomfortably on the back door steps with him knowing it was time to leave. But because she didn’t know when she’d be back, she desperately tried to think of some way to still see—
“Dinner!”
“What?”
“You should come to dinner tonight. My mother’s been saying she wanted to invite you over. I guess she talked to you after the congregational meeting last Holy Day and heard some of the things you were making for yourself.”
Deckett chuckled softly. “Mothers always think you need something more than meat and potatoes.” His chuckle fell away and his face contorted in sorrow which he tried to hide by kicking at some gravel by his feet.
It was the first time in weeks Jaytsy had seen that level of grief in him, and her arms actually rose up in a desire to hug him, but she forced them down. They were in full sight of the main road, after all, and a group of soldiers walked by just a few dozen paces away on their way to patrol the village.
But Jaytsy felt safe in gripping Deckett’s arm. “Please join us tonight?”
He looked up hesitantly, quickly wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Only if it’s all right with your mother.”
“Oh, it will be! I’m sure,” she assured him, holding his bicep firmly and not wanting to let it go. “My father missed chatting with you last week and I know he wanted to see you again.”
“He’s very . . . diligent,” Deckett said. Nervously, she noticed.
“Is that all right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said, a bit more easily. “It’s just that sometimes I get the feeling that he’s . . . watching me.”
Jaytsy giggled. “He does, but don’t worry about him. I think he actually likes you!”
Deckett’s shoulders relaxed. “And that’s good, right?”
“Oh, yes!”
---
“Jayts,” Perrin murmured, “how long are you going to hold on to his arm? He’s going to need it back sometime.”
He loosened the bolt on the spyglass, realizing that they were about to walk again.
“Farm looks great, guess that means this is the end to weeding for a while? Oh dear . . . maybe she’s hoping . . . Deckett, you’re right in full view of the main fort road, you know. And me, but we won’t get into that. So if you’re going to kiss her, then at least make some pretense for taking her to the barn or something . . . Wait. She’s leaving. And . . . she doesn’t look too happy about that . . . No, wait, she’s smiling. I don’t get it.”
He readjusted the glass. “And Deckett, you’re just watching her . . . watching her walk away . . . and . . . suddenly you look nervous. And now you’re looking . . . up here!”
Perrin sat back quickly, almost embarrassed.
“You can’t see into the windows from where you are. I know—I’ve checked.” He sighted in the young farmer again. Deckett was still gazing at the fort tower but now m
assaging his hands anxiously. He clapped them once as if coming to some kind of conclusion and turned to go to the barn.
Perrin sat up again, thoughtful. “I think it’s time we had you over for dinner.”
---
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Mahrree murmured later that evening as she and Perrin stood in the kitchen. “I feel guilty, spying like this.”
“It’s not spying,” he whispered back. “Our daughter is on the porch talking to a young man, and we need to make sure everything is . . . fine.”
“But they’ve been saying goodbye for the past 15 minutes, and it’s growing quite dark and I think they know we’re here—”
“No, they don’t,” said Perrin confidently.
But Mahrree didn’t believe him, and she suspected he was hoping to see something happen.
Deckett had come over for dinner, a bit warily, and had spent the last three hours growing more at ease and less anxious as the evening wore on. He laughed uproariously at Peto, who he clearly thought was the funniest teenager alive—which irked Jaytsy but thoroughly won over Peto. He listened attentively to Perrin’s description of the attack of Moorland, commenting occasionally about the structures he remembered, and frequently watched Jaytsy with what Mahrree was sure was bashful adoration.
She couldn’t have approved more heartily, especially when Deckett grew teary-eyed that her biscuits tasted just like his mother’s had.
And now Jaytsy stood at the back porch door talking with Deckett who held the door open as he stood halfway out of it. They kept finding “Oh-remembers,” and “I-forgot-to-tell-yous,” punctuated with Jaytsy’s giggles and Deckett’s deeper chuckles.
Perrin kept edging closer to the kitchen door that was open a crack, allowing them glimpses of their daughter and her friend on the porch, but Mahrree nudged him backward into the shadows that hid them well.
“I can’t hear what he’s saying,” Perrin murmured in her ear.
“We’re not supposed to be hearing. We’re just watching,” she whispered back.
“That’s not good enough.”
“They’ll hear you. Be quiet!”
“Just one step closer. It’s darker now. They won’t notice.”
Mahrree sighed and let him noiselessly closer. He really was very good at that, she had to admit. She leaned forward to look at his face in the growing dark, and he was smiling.
“Cows!” he whispered and shook his head.
Mahrree snuck up to him, almost as noiselessly, to listen in.
“I suppose you could help,” Deckett was saying. “I hadn’t considered using a female voice.”
“It would be perfect!” Jaytsy squealed. “Divide the cows into three groups. One group hears no voice, the other a man’s voice, the other a woman’s voice.”
Mahrree wondered briefly who the “woman’s voice” would belong to, then winced to realize her daughter was the woman.
“I like it,” Deckett said and chuckled. “What if we did an experiment where we said only angry things to the cows, then another where we said only sweet things?”
“Sweet talk a cow?” Jaytsy asked dubiously.
“It’s not as uncommon as you might think. Life for a rancher gets pretty lonely, Jayts.”
She giggled.
Perrin groaned quietly.
Mahrree jabbed him in the ribs. “That was funny! Not sappy at all,” she whispered to her husband.
“Please tell me we were never that awkward,” he murmured.
“They’re not awkward. And we were far worse. Don’t you remember, Mr. Icouldloveawomanlikeyou?”
His shoulders shook in a silent laugh as he remembered his first profession of love for her. “But I’ve never kissed a man before!” he whispered, mimicking her panic when he first tried to kiss her.
She clutched his arm and stifled a snort in his shirt sleeve.
“How often would you need me to come by?” they heard Jaytsy ask Deckett.
“Oh, every day after school. Take Holy Day off. We could have your brother come, too. He’s really funny.”
Jaytsy must have been rolling her eyes.
“He could record the results,” Deckett added.
Jaytsy sighed.
“Oh, I like this boy!” Perrin whispered to his wife. “Good young man, building in a chaperone.”
“What will we do when the experiments are done?” Jaytsy asked.
“There are always more,” Deckett assured her. “We could try to test why cattle run from your father.”
Jaytsy laughed. “I think it’s because his favorite food is steak. They must see it in his eyes or something.”
“See? We could keep busy until Planting Season comes again next year.”
“So you are staying?”
“Where else would I go?”
“Last week you mentioned going back to the university.”
“Oh. Yes. Actually, I seem to have forgotten about that. I could always go the next year I suppose . . .”
“Or you could always just stay here.” Jaytsy leaned further out of the open door.
Deckett took a hesitant step closer. “I could.”
“Because Deck, I don’t know what I’d do if you left,” she whispered, and several paces behind her parents leaned ludicrously to eavesdrop.
“Well Jayts, I don’t know where I’d rather be.”
Mahrree realized she was holding her breath with anticipation for what might come next.
Until she was overwhelmed with guilt.
She stepped back quickly and pulled her husband along.
“Hey!” he snarled in a whisper as she dragged him into the eating room. “What are you doing? I think he was just about to ki—”
“We shouldn’t be spying.”
“I’m her father, I’m supposed to be! And it’s not spying!”
Mahrree gave him a stinging look.
Perrin gave it back.
“Think back,” she told him. “Remember how everyone watched us? Remember that last debate? Someone said they’d never had so much fun watching a courtship?”
Perrin’s eyes began to soften, reluctantly. “Yes,” he finally sighed. “But Jaytsy and Deckett didn’t know we were there.”
She squeezed his arm. “I really like him, Perrin. He’s so good for her—I feel it. Jaytsy’s been so happy these past weeks, and she glows when she talks about him. There’s definitely affection between them.”
“But is the affection born out of the shared grief of missing the Briters?” Perrin said. “So when the grief subsides, so does the attachment?”
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Mahrree admitted. “But I don’t think so. They work side by side every day. They’re now managing the entire farm and dairy all by themselves. Obviously they work very well together, which suggests to me an even better chance of them staying together.” Something inside of Mahrree grew hot and anxious realizing that maybe—just maybe—this was it.
“So he’s grown fond of her because of the way she picks peas.” Perrin raised one eyebrow dubiously.
“Better than the reason for which I grew fond of you—arguing with me.”
He bobbed his head. “But she’s still so young, Mahrree.”
“I know, but only in body,” she assured him. “In mind she’s matured at least a decade since the land tremor.”
“True,” he murmured.
“Perrin, I didn’t think something like would happen for another few years yet, but he’s such a good man. And I don’t want us, or anyone, to mess anything up for them. Even if it means that you back off a bit.”
He nodded grudgingly. “I will . . . stop spying. As much.”
When they heard Jaytsy come through the kitchen to the gathering room, they turned expectantly to her.
“What?” she asked, her eyes darting between the two of them as if worried they may have witnessed something that she didn’t want them to see. There was a slight blush to her cheeks that Mahrree was sure was a
lso on her face after Captain Perrin Shin smashed that first clumsy kiss on her mouth.
“Nothing! Nothing,” Mahrree assured her, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from lifting into a smirk. “So he’s headed home, then?” Her voice was unnaturally high.
Jaytsy smiled back and blushed deeper.
Yep, Mahrree thought. First kiss. She glanced at Perrin who, judging by the slight furrowing of his eyebrows, was looking for evidence of one as well, but wasn’t seeing it yet. Mahrree would fill him in later. Maybe.
“Yes, he’s on his way home,” Jaytsy said, admirably in control of her voice, but not her flushed cheeks. “Thank you for letting him come over. He gets lonely there.”
“He’s welcome here any time, Jayts,” Perrin said. “I like him.”
Whatever resolve Jaytsy had acquired before she faced her parents dissolved at her father’s words. She broke out into a huge grin, glanced at her mother with a look of something like triumph, and rushed to her father and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you!”
When she ran to her bedroom, Perrin turned to Mahrree. “What was that all about?”
Mahrree eyes were wet. She knew exactly what Jaytsy was thinking: whomever her father liked, she was free to love.
“When this is all over, I’ll tell you, Perrin. I don’t want you to mess anything up.”
---
“So, I was wondering, sirrr,” Radan said to Thorne, “do you think your mother might mention me to your father or grandfather?”
They were walking across the compound before midday meal when Radan blurted the question that made Thorne scowl.
“Because I did do quite a bit for her while she was here. Took her to the market many times, walked her past the Shins’ home—she didn’t believe me that they lived in something so dumpy—and acted as her personal servant for two weeks. Perhaps she may remember me fondly to the generals?”
Thorne sneered. “Why in the world would they care?”
“Because sirrr, you’ve said I should make my name known to those who have influence. There’s no family with more influence than the Cushes and Thornes. Not even the Shins, now. I was . . . I was trying to follow your advice, sirrr,” he finished pathetically.
Thorne sniggered to himself that Radan wasn’t clever enough to not tell the officers he was trying to manipulate what he was doing. That’s when he spied her, walking briskly to the command tower with a pair of boots in her hand. The colonel must have been planning another race and forgot his running boots at home.
He cleared his throat loudly, and Jaytsy Shin stumbled in her gait. She glanced at Lemuel who tipped his cap roguishly to her. She briefly nodded back, never acknowledging Radan, and broke into a jog to the open doors of the command tower.
Thorne chuckled.
“Sirrr,” Radan cleared his throat, “I don’t know why bother. She’s clearly not interested. You could have anyone else.”
“Of course I could,” Thorne said. “But obviously you don’t get it: she’s his daughter, Radan.”
“But she doesn’t really seem your type—”
“All girls are the same ‘type.’ She’ll come around soon enough and be mine by . . . The Dinner, next year.”
“Really,” Radan said, sounding unconvinced. “So why her?”
“There’s no other girl with her bloodlines. Imagine: the Shin line mixed with the Thorne and Cush lines? Our son will be the greatest general the world ever saw, under my tutelage.”
“So . . .” Radan said hesitantly, “it’s only her blood you want. Her ability to give you a boy.”
“What else is there to want in a girl?”
“I’ve often wondered that myself,” Radan murmured.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sirrr. Nothing.” But Radan wore an enigmatic smile.
Thorne shrugged at it. “She’ll present me with the most remarkable son,” he said confidently. “Maybe even two. Could always use a spare.”
---
“Oh, no you don’t!” Perrin shouted, trying to catch his breath. For once, Jon Offra was faster.
The lieutenant didn’t expel any unnecessary energy as he raced past the fort, but he couldn’t suppress his grin. He’d finally understood what the colonel had been trying to teach him about lengthening his stride and matching his breathing to his pace. While he was only three paces ahead of his commander, it felt like miles.
“You can’t keep it up, Jon!” Shin panted, seemingly right behind his ear.
That sent a chill down the lieutenant’s back, but the good kind that kicked up one’s speed that extra notch.
Four paces ahead. Now five. They sprinted past the barns and beyond the fort, out toward the canals in the east. The race would be decided by whomever leaped across the canal first, stopping before they hit the slope down to the thick marshes that extended for miles to the sea.
Neither man noticed the audience of several dozen soldiers at the fort, shouting encouragement and cheering to see the thin lieutenant, who’d bulked up over the past season, finally outpacing their commander. The men flew by so quickly no sounds reached them.
Captain Thorne’s glare didn’t reach them either. His shoulders tensed, his eye twitched, and he folded his arms in defiance as he watched the race that occurred several times a week now.
But neither of the men, with sweat streaming down their faces, thought for one moment about Captain Thorne. All they saw was the blur in the distance that would soon be the canal. Clearing it accurately would be even more important right now since it was full and running swift.
Offra saw the distant goal and felt his chest swell with pride. Then his chest began to tighten, as if ready to split his flesh. The colonel was right; he couldn’t keep up the pace. Every muscle suddenly protested his speed—
The colonel’s panting was right next to him. Not bothering to waste any energy gloating, Shin raced alongside, his eyes focused solely on the end in front of them.
Offra flagged, a cramp developing, and he fell back—
“Oh, no you don’t!” the colonel shouted for the second time. “Stay with me, Jon! Look beyond the goal. Run to the marshes. Stay with me, son!”
Offra didn’t expect his eyes to fill suddenly with salty water. He thought maybe it was sweat dripping into his eyes, but a stinging around his tear ducts told him otherwise.
The colonel had called him “son.”
No one had ever called him “son.” Not even his father before he died when Jon was twelve.
“Stay with me!” the colonel gasped, somehow finding the strength to turn his gait into a sprint for the last one hundred paces.
Jon wasn’t about to let him finish the race alone. Ignoring the pain and cramps, he pushed until he found himself matching the colonel’s pace.
“Yes!” he gasped in surprised joy.
It didn’t last.
“Noooo!” Both men cried as they reached the edge of the canal—
It took the officers about fifteen seconds to realize that they were flailing chest deep in cold water.
“Did it suddenly get wider?” Shin gasped, wiping his face and grabbing an exposed root along the bank side to keep upright in the current. “I’m sure it got wider!”
Offra shook his head and shivered. When he looked downstream for a way to climb out, he groaned. “There, sir. That’s where we usually jump the canal! The narrower section.”
To his surprise, the colonel laughed. “It is! How’d we miss it?”
Offra dared to smile back. “I guess I was so focused on beating you, I just . . .” he shrugged.
“So which of us won?”
Offra shrugged again.
“Judging by the splash—” An unexpected voice carried over to them, belonging to Sergeant Major Zenos who was accompanied by ten new recruits all on horseback, and all of them sniggering.
“—I would say it was a fair tie. So, am I to expect swimming on the next Strongest Soldier Race?” He was uncoiling a len
gth of rope from his saddle, readying to toss it to the two wet officers.
Colonel Shin glared good-naturedly as he caught the rope and automatically handed it over to Offra. “Just get us out, Zenos!”
---
Ten minutes later the two drenched men, grinning sheepishly, slogged back into the compound of the fort to a variety of stares and snickers from soldiers trying not to show disrespect.
But Captain Thorne was appalled. “Sir! What happened? Offra, what’d you do to the colonel?” He stood in front of the command tower doors, his hands on his waist.
The colonel laughed lightly and put a hand on Offra’s shoulder. “Relax, Captain. We did this to ourselves. Just missed the mark. Quite refreshing, actually. Offra, go change and get back up to the tower. Captain, don’t you have something you should be doing?”
Thorne knew all kinds of things he should be doing; firstly, he would have made sure the colonel wasn’t shamed and humiliated in front of his men.
But all he said was, “I’m doing all I can to serve you, sir.”
He didn’t understand the scowl of the colonel. Even though he’d sidled as much as he could to be under his wing, there was so much about Perrin Shin he just didn’t get. But he would, when he was his son-in-law. And then he’d get the rest of the world.
But for now, he headed to the barracks for a surprise inspection, fuming. Why did Shin bother with Offra? That insignificant—
Thorne stopped dead in his tracks, a most revolting thought occurring to him as he remembered the words of his mother: Jaytsy will feel obliged to love the man her father most approves of.
Thorne clenched his fist.
It was Offra!
He was trying to impress the colonel to get to his daughter! But Offra was so hopelessly incompetent, so completely wrong for Jaytsy. He had no army heritage, no family—weren’t his parents dead?—and no ability to become more than a second-rate officer.
Lemuel turned to the officer’s quarters and noticed the door to Offra’s room had just shut. Thorne pounded on the door.
“Yes?” he heard Offra’s muffled voice. “Enter?”
Thorne opened the door and did his best to smile.
Offra squinted nervously, stopping in mid-motion to remove his white undershirt.
“Just seeing if you need any assistance, Offra?”
“To change my clothes?”
Lemuel realized it sounded stupid too. “I wanted to apologize to you for snapping out there. I was just surprised.”
Offra’s eyes grew bigger. “That’s quite all right, sir. No offense taken.” He pulled off the wet shirt and dropped it on the ground. “Good thing my washing was finished yesterday,” he chuckled tensely. “Everything should dry soon in this heat.” He looked at Thorne to see if he was going to watch him remove his trousers.
“I, uh, was just wondering . . .” Thorne tried to find the best way to bring it up, “how often you and the colonel run?”
Offra sat on his bed to pull of his boots. They made a squishing sound as he yanked one off, and water poured out on the wooden floor. Offra smiled uncomfortably at it. “Several times a week, sir. Long run once a week.”
Thorne nodded slowly, shifting his own boot slightly to keep it from the growing puddle on the ground. “And do you ever run by the colonel’s house?”
Offra shrugged as he removed the other sloshing boot. “I suppose we do. We run past every house in Edge.”
Thorne stepped back to avoid being touched by the new splash of water. “So you’re familiar with the colonel’s home, then.”
Offra sighed. “Sure,” he said. “Captain, I’m not sure where this is going—”
“You really don’t, do you?” Thorne squinted. “Let’s keep it that way.”
And he walked out of the room, leaving a baffled Offra.
Chapter 21 ~ “It was an ambush! Look at us!”