Mahrree couldn’t do anything while the crowd whole-heartedly applauded the captain, except plot against him. In one little speech the captain, who was now smiling in triumph to the villagers, had taken her accusation of dismissing the death of the last guide to suggesting that the Creator would be pleased with the Administrators. She hadn’t anticipated he could twist the argument so quickly.
She’d just have to twist it back.
“Captain Shin,” she started loudly, “what year is this?”
The audience immediately silenced at the obvious question.
The captain blinked. “It’s 319.”
“What year is it in Idumea?”
Now he squinted. “Still 319. Has been for the last six days.”
“But it will instead be 313, if some professors at the University of Idumea have their way. Correct?”
The amphitheater waited silently.
The captain swallowed. “Perhaps.”
The members of the audience looked at each other in surprise. No one had heard this before, but Mahrree had, from another teacher she knew from her university days in Mountseen.
“You see,” Mahrree turned to the villagers, “a few professors, one of them a brother to the Administrator of Culture, believe that our history should begin with the foundation of Idumea, and that the six years preceding that, when the first five hundred families were under the tutelage of the Creator for three years, then under the governance of His chosen Guide Hieram, be eliminated from our children’s education. The Administrator of Culture wants our history to be taught that we began with the organization of Idumea, and that no mention should be made that the six men who founded it also murdered Guide Hieram.”
Captain Shin paled slightly. “No changes can be made unless the majority of Administrators agree to it, Miss Peto,” he said firmly. “That’s why there are twenty-three. Had such a suggestion been made to King Oren, he would have foolishly enacted it and changed all the books the next day. But that can’t happen under the Administrators. The suggestion is currently dying in a committee. That’s progress, Miss Peto.”
Mahrree couldn’t help but smile slightly at him in admiration. He twisted that argument masterfully, too, judging by the applause of the villagers. He was nothing like the way she had imagined army officers. He was thoughtful, articulate, and hadn’t once drawn the large sword he wore strapped to his side. If he weren’t in a uniform, Mahrree would have thought him to just be an intelligent, insightful man.
“I’m glad to hear that suggestion is dying, Captain. And I strongly suspect it won’t go anywhere because it would be most difficult to change the dating throughout the world. But I wonder if the question first arose because children in Idumea struggled with some ideas. Perhaps the Administrator of Culture was trying to simplify our children’s education. But here in Edge, our children are intelligent enough to learn all the truth, including how the world changed after the foundation of Idumea. I still question how any of those changes were progressive!”
Captain Shin slowly shook his head as the crowd once again cheered, this time for Mahrree. “Indeed, Miss Peto, they grow them remarkably loud and brave in Edge. I suspect if you shouted, they could hear you in Mountseen.”
Mahrree didn’t know why the villagers laughed. Maybe it was the way he looked her small frame up and down.
It wasn’t the first time an opponent tried to demean her. Back in upper school, before she went to Mountseen, many debaters—males, usually—would make some biting comment about her size in relation to her volume.
She never put up with that. Years ago she came up with a retort that was as sudden and sharp as, as . . . well as the captain’s two-edged sword which seemed to be about as long as Mahrree’s leg.
She firmed her stance and yanked out her response. “The Writings, Captain Shin, tell us we waited eons for our chance on the world. Since this is my only shot, I decided long ago to go bold, or don’t go at all!”
Oh yes, others rarely had a response for that. She sounded educated, enlightened, and patronizing all in one fell swish. It was a line she perfected when she was fifteen, and it always—
Captain Shin took a step closer, his brown-black eyes staring so deeply into hers that even her thoughts paused. He arched an eyebrow—which had the effect of making Mahrree’s chest tighten and her tongue forget to move—then said, “Go bold . . . where?”
She swallowed.
No one had ever asked her that.
She didn’t even realize until then that it was a potential question.
The audience tittered in anticipation while Mahrree blinked in sudden self-doubt, until the captain suddenly spoke again.