The Forest at the Edge of the World(169)
Calmly Mal said, “Yes, to understand what makes him Perrin Shin. My good doctor, I will prove to you that he’s just another horse,” he continued with the determination of a man who would never be proven wrong again. “He may be more stubborn and willful than average horses, but I have yet to meet an animal I couldn’t break. It just takes the right amount of force. And the right man!”
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“Are you comfortable?” Mahrree asked Perrin as she tried to find a way to cover his still-oozing wound with the blanket. Realizing the weight could irritate his stitches, she instead tossed a few more logs on the nearby fire.
“I’m comfortable—and warm—enough,” Perrin assured her. “You need to sleep too, my darling wife.”
Mahrree nodded grudgingly and crawled into bed between her husband and daughter, who whimpered briefly in her sleep. Mahrree smiled at her and thought, I’ve been wanting to whimper all day, Jaytsy.
“It’s sadly funny,” Perrin said as she tried to get comfortable, “you’d give anything to sleep on your stomach, and I’d do anything to sleep on my back.”
“We’ll never be satisfied, will we?” she sighed dramatically. “By the way, I saw the plans you drew for the new baby’s bedroom.”
“I think I should be able to start working on it in a few weeks when my stitches are fully healed.”
“You could get help,” she suggested. “Your plans are so detailed, anyone could follow them. Three layers of cross-hatched planking, with a space between two of the layers? Should regulate the heat much better.”
“I’ll add the extra layer to Jaytsy’s room first. It just gets too cold in there for a baby, especially on nights like this.”
“And if it works well, perhaps you could . . .” She paused. She knew he wasn’t going to like her idea, but she was feeling desperate that night.
Actually, that entire day.
Ever since she saw that horrible gash on his back—
“I could what?” he prompted.
“You’d be an excellent builder, Perrin. You’re strong, meticulous, creative—”
“What are you getting at, Mahrree?”
“Why don’t you be a builder instead of a . . .” She hesitated again.
“What, a destroyer?!” he snapped.
No, he wasn’t coming over easily to her idea at all. She sighed.
“I was deciding between saying ‘captain,’ ‘officer,’ or ‘commander.’”
“Which probably all mean destroyer to you!” he exclaimed quietly so as to not disturb his daughter. “We’ve been through this. No one else can keep Edge safe, and have you considered—”
“Have you considered,” Mahrree interrupted evenly, “that there are other commanders in the world? Idumea churns out a new crop of officers every year.”
“None that I trust to keep us safe!”
“If you weren’t the commander, you wouldn’t be a target, Perrin,” she pointed out. “I’m not stupid, you know. Your injury is a result of your job. And if you had a different job—”
“I’d still be a target, Mahrree. And so would you and our children.”
“How?” she demanded, beginning to lose patience with his stubbornness. “Why? We could drop out of sight, live a quiet little life, and no one would care about us. We’re nothing special, Perrin. It’s not like . . .”
She had to say it, just to see how he’d react. Her own little test of him.
“It’s not like . . . . the world’s out to get us,” she declared.
“And how can you be so sure?” he challenged.
Mahrree swallowed hard. “Because . . . because . . .” she faltered.
Someone just failed the test. She suspected it was her.
Then she felt her husband’s large hand tenderly caress her cheek.
Oh, and he was passing it so well, too.
“Don’t you ever get the feeling the world is out to get us, Mahrree?” he said gently. “And I thought you said you could handle be married to an officer. It’s what I was before I met you, what I planned to be ever since I was a child.”
“When I was a child, I planned to find Terryp’s land,” her voice quavered. “Sometimes we have to change our plans.”
He groaned quietly. “It’s just not that easy, Mahrree. This is what I have to do.”
She propped herself up to see him better. “Are you sure? Just explain to me why.”
“I can’t,” he whispered, his eyes pained. “I just know that we aren’t safe, nor might we ever be, no matter what I do.”