She went to the landing at the top of the stairs to listen as Perrin opened the front door. Soldiers always came to the back porch door, so something else was up. She hoped the loud knocking didn’t disturb their sleeping toddlers. She strained to hear who was at the door, but Perrin’s low voice was too quiet for her to pick up any conversation. A minute later he closed the door, paused to hear if Jaytsy and Peto were still asleep, then plodded back up the stairs, complaining under his breath.
Mahrree sighed in relief. “So you’re still mine tonight?”
He chuckled. “The forest is still quiet, the children are quiet, the spiders are quiet, so yes: I’m all yours.”
“Good! Because if whoever it was at the door woke up Jaytsy, I would have made him come in and search for spiders.”
“That would have resulted in even more nightmares for our little Jayts. It was a stupid Administrators’ messenger.”
Mahrree cringed. Whenever the little men in red uniforms arrived, it was with yet another new way that something would be altered in the name of progress. “Now I’m going to have nightmares. What was so important that he came so late?”
“It wasn’t that important!” he said with irritation. “Just delivered news to the fort that there was going to be another tax levied beginning in the next season. Expenses of the world, and all.”
“Oh, I think I know what those expenses are.”
They went back to their room, both grumbling.
“And for that he came so late?” Mahrree complained as she got back into bed and Perrin replaced his sword and belt carefully by the bedroom door.
Perrin scoffed as he undid his jacket. “He was afraid there might be violence that came with the news. He wanted me to be prepared for tomorrow evening’s announcement. Said we should emphasize to the village that much of the tax would be going to improving the world for the next generation. It’s all in the wording, you see—”
Mahrree imagined he was rolling his eyes at the advice.
“—if we really want the next generation to succeed, we need to be willing to pay for it. After all, the best education is also the most expensive education. I was ready to punch his little smarmy face myself. If he really wants to avoid violence, then he shouldn’t bother me when my wife is about to kiss me.”
He set his trousers exactly at the right angle on the seat of the desk’s chair, to be snatched and put on in another moment’s notice.
Mahrree smiled. “Remember, you should never kill the messenger. Idumea might notice us. So the best education is the most expensive? The best education happens when someone really wants to learn and someone is eager to share what they know! No amount of money will change that.”
“So Full School is actually Fool School,” Perrin muttered, placing his boots in precisely the landing-into-them position.
“Ooh, be careful, Major Shin!” she smirked.
“I left the major at the fort,” he said draping his jacket exactly over the back of the chair and getting into bed. “I can complain about whatever I want in the privacy of my own bedroom. I promise you, the money’s not going only for education or for teachers or buildings or books, but also to the best buddies of the Administrators who’ve been put in place to oversee every new little program and regulation they can come up with. I didn’t tell you yet what my father said before they left. The Administrator of Law was hiring more than one hundred new law assessors. And they’ll be helping with army law as well. Nice, huh?”
Mahrree’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Why that’s . . . that’s probably one man to every law! Unless,” her voice quieted, “there are going to be more laws.”
“My father suggested the same thing. For what other reason would they need so many assessors? Except to give one’s friends an easy income, which is probably half the reason. If we thought the kings were overzealous, just wait until we see what the Administrators come up with next. Now that they’re well entrenched and the world has embraced them, they’ll push that acceptance to the very limits. Although it takes them weeks of discussions and committees to enact something new, I suspect they won’t let the process keep this government from bloating like a dead cow.”
“Lovely image for me to dream about, Perrin. Thank you.”
“Well, it’s true. The larger the government gets, the more stench-filled and abhorrent it becomes.”
“And then it all rots,” she shuddered. “I suppose it is an apt analogy.”
“That’s not the only thing bloating,” he warned. “My father also mentioned something that you might be interested in: the Administrator of Education has now established four levels of hierarchy to ‘oversee’ instruction. To adequately supervise the seventeen villages, they need about sixty more overseers.”