The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (87 page)

“
We can ask him tomorrow,”
the first man suggested. “He’s on leave in the morning. We can plan
the details then.”

A fourth man, larger and quieter than the
rest, broke his pensive silence. “I wouldn’t be so sure about
that.”

The group of men looked at him.

Jothan stood up and took the note. “I think I
know
who
he’s talking about. And if that’s the case, we need
to be prepared at every moment for any contingency. This will be
unlike anything we’ve ever done before.”

The men regarded their massive leader with
surprise and fascination. But before any of them could ask who he
was talking about, they were startled by a movement in the forest
behind them. Bounding through the trees a bit too noisily were
three more men in brown and green. Breathless, they nearly fell
into the cluster of men.

“
My wife!” one of them
gasped, “my wife contacted me!”

“
What’s wrong, Braxhicks?”
Jothan gripped his arm.

“
She was at the meeting
they had at the amphitheater,” he sat on the ground, trying to slow
his breathing. “Did Zenos tell you yet what happened? Or
Yung?”

“
Yung rarely comes up here,
but Zenos will be here tomorrow—”

“
They named him general!”
Braxhicks burst out.

“
Who, Zenos?”

“
No, of course not. Shin!
They announced it earlier, along with the declaration that the
ruins are still poisonous, and the Creator was merely a man who led
them all away from there. Here,” and he handed the startled men a
few wrinkled pages. “They gave these out to everyone, explaining
the . . . the whatever lies they’re trying to call it.” Braxhicks
slumped against a stump to catch his breath. “Mrs. Shin tried to
argue it in front of everyone, but her husband forced her off the
platform. The representative of the Administrators called him
‘General.’”

None of the men around him could speak for
several moments.

Finally one of them broke their stunned
silence by saying, “That’s it, then, isn’t it? They’ve named him a
general . . . so . . .”

“
A few more things have to
fall into place, though, before . . .”

“
But, but how can . .
.”

“
We’ve been waiting for
this moment for . . . for almost twenty years, so now what are
supposed . . . what should we . . .”

None of the men could finish their sentences,
too taken aback by the news.

But Jothan slowly nodded. “As I was about to
say, men: this one will be anything but routine.”

---

It took them a long time to finally fall
asleep that night, if they actually did. Perrin and Mahrree laid
next to each other in bed trying to make sense of what everything
might mean now. They had no idea.

“
At least we have another
supply of gold and silver slips in the cellar,” Mahrree said
sometime after midnight. “I had been thinking we should find
someone to donate it to, but now I think we’ll need to donate it to
ourselves.”

“
Yes—we have a bit to get
us by for several seasons,” Perrin said, “until we figure out
what’s next.”

“
And next is . . .
?”

Perrin exhaled loudly and pulled her closer.
“A very good question.”

They lay in silence, pondering.

“
Remember the wall you
showed me in Idumea?” Mahrree said after a while. “Around Chairman
Mal’s mansion?”

“
The wall that kept in all
the servants?”

“
We now know what’s on the
other side of it, don’t we?”

“
Pretty much nothing at
all, is there?” Perrin stroked his wife’s hair. “When you stood up
on that platform and said that the whole world was the barn, you
actually gave me goose bumps. In fact, the moment you stood up in
the audience, I knew everything was about to change, and
drastically.”

“
Sorry,” she
whispered.

He kissed her head. “Don’t be. I was hoping
someone would be brave enough to challenge the findings. I just
really didn’t expect it would be you. Then again, Hogal did warn me
about you, many years ago. Who else would it have been if not you?”
He chuckled tensely for a moment, but then he grew somber. “As I
sat up there watching you trying to debate Kori, I knew what I had
always suspected: we’ve been kept confined just like the
servants.”

Mahrree shivered in his arms. “Do you think
they ever suspected the truth themselves? Did they ever think,
‘Hey, it’s been awfully quiet on the other side. I don’t think
there’s any danger’?”

“
I have no idea,” Perrin
whispered. “But consider this: if they did, what did the Queruls do
to then keep them away from the wall again? What horror did they
throw over to keep them contained?”

Mahrree snuggled closer to him. “What you
really mean is, what will happen next to the world because we know
the truth?”

He cleared his throat gently. “Uh . . .
sure.”

“
Oh, no,” she whispered.
“That’s
not
what you meant. What you really meant is, what
will happen next to
us
, because I tried to declare the
truth?”

He squeezed her tighter and kissed her again.
“Remember, tonight I erased much of what could happen because I’m
no longer in the army. In a way, it
is
like dices; we have
to see what Idumea proclaims about us, then we throw the dices and
see what happens.”

Mahrree considered that. “I don’t think
that’s quite right,” she decided. “We did the right things, I’m
sure of it. And I believe the Creator will help us, no matter what
comes back to us.”

He squeezed her again. “Of course you’re
right,” he said with genuine confidence. “Did you see the look Shem
gave me, just before he left with Thorne?”

“
I did, but I didn’t
recognize it.”

“
It’s a look he made up in
Idumea,” Perrin explained. “Before we were to hear what my
punishment would be for the stolen caravan. He told me it was
something his rector told him before he signed on with me long
term. Shem even twitched the message to me several times while they
read my long list of offenses, just to keep me calm.”

Intrigued, and growing a bit impatient,
Mahrree said, “So what did that expression mean?”

“‘
You were in the Creator’s
army long before you were ever in Idumea’s. And the Creator takes
care of His own.’”

Mahrree closed her eyes, feeling another wave
of peace pass over her as it had a few times already that night.
The insistent sense of calm seemed to both of them an odd sensation
considering that never before had their future been so uncertain.
Yet still the tranquility filled their home, and only then did
Mahrree realize how chaotic their lives had been before.

“
The Creator takes care of
His own,” Mahrree murmured. “We’re His own, aren’t we?”

“
We’ve never been anyone
else’s,” Perrin shrugged.

Hours later, when Mahrree eventually drifted
into unconsciousness, she dreamed of a large home with faded gray
wood, window boxes, gardens, and mountains. She chuckled in her
sleep.

And when Perrin finally surrendered to the
exhaustion of the day, he saw in his dreams a mass of Guarders run
straight for his house, but continue on to another target.

He didn’t hear that annoying knocking on his
door, either. He wouldn’t, ever again.

Instead he saw a little face looking up at
him, smiling.

The child had perfectly squishy cheeks.

---

Rector Yung sat patiently in his old
cushioned chair. It had been dark for many hours, but he knew the
back door would soon be opening—

“
I didn’t think you’d still
be up,” said the voice that came through the door and silently
closed it behind him. “I tried to get here earlier, but there’s a
remarkable amount of activity for so late at night.”

“
Tell me, Jothan—how could
I possibly sleep after what happened tonight?”

Neither of them lit a candle, but the large
man dressed head-to-toe in black sat in the only other chair in the
sparse room of the unlit rectory. “No one’s going to be sleeping
for a while, I suspect.”

“
Jothan, how much did you
hear?”

“
Mr. Braxhicks caught up to
us. His wife was at the amphitheater and filled him in. She even
sent a copy of the findings for us. I don’t know when I’ve ever
seen a husband so proud of his wife.”

Yung chuckled quietly.

“
She’s still safe as an
unknown midwife, but you aren’t, Rector,” Jothan pointed out.
“According to what we read, all rectors are officially out of a
job. Who knows what Idumea will come up with next. We need to get
you out of here tonight.”

Yung shook his head. “Can’t. There’s another
wrinkle, because Idumea has already come up with that ‘next’. I had
another visitor not too long ago.”

“
Oh?”

“
An assistant of Genev’s,
the Administrator of Loyalty. You’re right—there’s no need for
rectors, so I’ve been asked to hand over the rectory tomorrow
morning to the Administrators. Likely because I was perhaps a bit
too vocal myself.”

Jothan let out a low whistle. “What do they
want with the rectory?”

“
Who knows. Apparently I
haven’t paid my taxes since I arrived, although my records show
otherwise. I’m being evicted.”

“
So why not let me take you
now?”

“
Think about it,” Yung said
steadily. “They expect to find me in the morning. If I’m gone,
questions will be asked. No, I’ll do my duty, say a few good-byes,
then . . . take a walk. I’ll meet you at one of the usual places.
Besides, it’s not
me
that will be a complicated vanishing.”
His tone was the weight of boulders.

Jothan sighed just as heavily. “I know. It’s
not as if they can suddenly move somewhere else, or even receive
visitors—”

“
Are they being
watched?”

Jothan nodded in discouragement. “Both houses
are guarded.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“We’re already brainstorming ideas, but until we hear back . . .
what do you think your brother-in-law will recommend?”

Yung thought for a moment. “Right now
everyone’s on high alert. But if the Shins suddenly become
silent—boringly silent—Thorne and his soldiers will lose interest.
Give it a few weeks and I predict the surveillance will drop off,
and then you can get to work.”

“
But I’ll likely have to
work quickly,” Jothan mused out loud. “I have some serious qualms
about this succeeding. My instinct is to do an old-fashioned
snatch-and-run, but—”

“
But this is a situation
unlike any other we’ve ever encountered,” Yung reminded
him.

His companion nodded dismally.

“
No matter what you end up
doing, there are going to be questions asked and people wondering
and even
wandering
,” Yung warned him. “We have to be
prepared for anything and everything. It’s going to be messy, no
matter what.”

“
Shem and I have talked
about this before, and we’ve both come to that same conclusion,”
Jothan agreed. “So many things can go wrong, and I have a hard time
envisioning it going smoothly.”

“
It doesn’t have to go
smoothly,” Yung reminded him. “It just has to
go.
”

“
I suppose you’re right,”
Jothan said. “I just thought of another problem: who’s going to do
it?”

“
Why not Shem?”

“
He’s due to leave tomorrow
to visit his father.”

Yung scoffed. “He won’t do any such thing.
Not right now.”

“
But he does have to leave.
He told me the other day that Thorne reminded him he’s got three
weeks leave coming, and he expects him to take it all beginning
tomorrow.”

Yung scratched his chin. “I might not have
time to catch up to Shem tomorrow. Not even sure where he’ll be . .
.”

The men sat in thoughtful silence for a
minute.

“
It just may have to be
you,” Yung finally said. “Stand up,” he said, getting to his own
feet. “Right in front of me . . . yes, I do believe you’re rather
larger than him.”

“
Meaning?”

“
How hard can you
hit?”

“
Rector?”

“
I mean, can you knock out
a man roughly your size with one blow?”

“
Of course. Most of us
can.”

“
Then how far can you carry
a man, roughly your size, who happens to be
unconscious?”

Jothan smiled reluctantly. “Perhaps a mile,
as long as I’m not running.”

“
Can you do that multiple
times?”

“
Probably. Why?” his smile
grew, although he tried to hem it in. “What are you
suggesting?”

“
If worse comes to worst,
you just may have to employ your old snatch-and-run techniques. And
bring some friends.”

“
Not a problem,
Yung.”

The rector smiled, a bit sadly, as he looked
around the dark room. “I’ve enjoyed my time here. The Densals were
very good to me. I regret having to hand their home over to the
Administrators, but—”

Jothan peered around too. “Yung, there really
isn’t anything here aside from that rickety table, that thin
blanket you sleep on, and a handful of chipped dishes. Besides, the
Densals haven’t been here for years.”