Soldier at the Door(28)

Mahrree smiled at the lonely grandfather. “Well, you’re welcome to ours any time, especially when they’re crying!”

Perrin nodded in agreement. “Quite a touch you have there. What’s the secret?”

The old man opened his eyes and shrugged. “No secret. Simply experience.” He reluctantly handed Peto back to his grateful mother, but not before sniffing in his baby scent. “Beautiful family,” he declared as he stood up.

He turned and put his hands on Perrin’s and Mahrree’s shoulders. “May the Creator always bless and preserve this family.”

He smiled at them and slowly shuffled away, missing the perplexed expressions of the parents he just left.



---



Hew Gleace watched the window anxiously from his seat behind the desk. He didn’t like sitting there. It wasn’t his desk to claim, but it was his to watch over while its true owner was away. He tried to read the papers resting on it, but couldn’t concentrate.

He gazed out the window again. Eventually he saw a cloud of dust and the appearance of eight horses and riders.

Gleace exhaled and got up from his seat. He darted outside just in time to see some of the younger men helping an old man off his horse.

“Tuma!” Gleace exclaimed when he saw how weary he was. “Are you all right?”

Tuma Hifadhi smiled. “Of course! Of course! Wonderful excursion. Now, if you could help me sit down on something that’s not moving . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Gleace said as he led the old man back into the small building. Two younger men guided him to sit down on a cushioned bench.

Tuma sighed as he put up his feet on the bench. “Much better!”

To the younger men he said, “Please tell my daughter I’ve returned, so she’ll stop fretting. She’ll inform everyone else.”

The men nodded and headed out the door.

Gleace pulled a chair over to sit across from Tuma. “If your wife were still alive—”

“She’d be as overly worried as my daughter, I know.”

Gleace shook his head. “So? Did you succeed in your little adventure?”

“I’m not a rebellious seventeen-year-old, you know!” Hifadhi chuckled.

“You acted like one, you know! Taking such a risk—”

“Now you sound like my father!”

“Well, maybe an eighty-seven-year-old needs to listen to a father!”

Tuma wiped a tear of laughter from his eyes.

Gleace smirked. He couldn’t keep up his angry pretense. “So?” he asked again.

Tuma beamed at him. “I saw him! And her! And their children! I even held both of them.”

Gleace’s mouth fell open. “Really? But you were there for such a short time—”

“I knew exactly where to be and what to do.”

“And you said whatever it was you wanted to say?”

Tuma smiled and nodded.

“There were easier ways, you know,” Gleace chided him.

“But easier is rarely better,” Tuma reminded.

Gleace sighed. “I hope you’ve satisfied your curiosity now. And Tuma, I hope you were careful.”

Hifadhi waved that off. “Of course I was careful. It’s been a few years, but I still know how to cover my tracks. They’ll remember me only as a lonely old man, if they remember me at all. And yes, Hew—I’ve satisfied my curiosity. It’s your curiosity I worry about now.”

Gleace chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not curious in the least bit. I’m just glad you’re safely back.”

“So am I!” Tuma admitted and closed his eyes. “And now I have no doubt. I looked into his eyes—it is him. The one we’ve been watching for.”

Gleace closed his eyes too, absorbing Tuma’s words.

After a restful moment Tuma Hifadhi whispered, “Hew, send in our man. Officially.”



---



It was almost the end of Weeding Season, Captain Shin noticed as he wrote the date on the document that sat in front of him on his desk. The 90th Day. He had been a father to two small children for three full moons now, and so far they were both still alive. He and Mahrree must be doing something right, he thought proudly to himself.

He smiled at the anxious young man seated across from him, and he put the document into a file. “And now all that’s left to say is, Welcome to Fort Edge,” he said to his newest recruit.

The thin, sickly pale young man with stringy dirt-colored hair nodded to the captain as he rose from his chair. “I hope I won’t disappoint you, sir,” he said in a shaky voice as he shook the captain’s offered hand.

“Oh, I’m sure you won’t,” Shin lied genially as he came around the desk and opened the door to his office.