The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

help him win more slips of
silver from his friends.
    Perrin saw only one person in the Estates at
that hour, and even a lurking teenager would have been a more
welcome sight than Mrs. Hili, Qualipoe’s mother.
    She was walking up to her broad front stairs,
her arms loaded with colored boxes tied in frivolous ribbons,
likely packages from the Adornment Shoppe. She turned quickly when
she heard the horse trotting on the cobblestones, but her enormous
jiggling girth stiffened as she eyed the commander of the fort.
    He eyed her right back, matching her glare
for glare. That had been their customary greeting for the past
eight years. Mrs. Hili didn’t even try to hide her disdain for him,
as if somehow it was Perrin’s fault that he first caught Poe Hili
stealing silver and sweetbread, crumbs of it still on his chin, and
trying to escape clumsily from a neighbor’s back window.
    And Perrin sent back daggers to her, not
bothering to tip his hat. Everyone thinks they deserve respect, but
respect has to be earned. He had none for a woman who claimed Major
Shin had framed her son, and then didn’t even have the decency to
visit that son while he was incarcerated. Not her, and not her
husband. And since Poe had been locked up on four separate
occasions, the Hilis had ample opportunities to earn Perrin’s
disdain.
    He turned away from Mrs. Hili without a
second thought. It’d be useless to ask her where Poe was nowadays.
She didn’t know, and probably didn’t care, as long as it was far
away from Edge.
    Perrin rode on to the edge of the village,
past the fields where adults labored while their children stayed
home alone. He nodded to a large fat man sitting back on a bale of
hay sipping from a mug while he supervised, although Perrin
couldn’t understand why he wasn’t out there as planting in his
fields; for some reason he felt he was needed more to just sit and
watch.
    Taking a short detour, Perrin headed along
the road in front of the old rectory, where his Uncle Hogal and
Auntie Tabbit used to live. Perrin grinned when he saw who he
considered to be the antithesis of Mrs. Hili, and that was exactly
what he needed.
    Rector Yung, a tiny old man with mere slits
for eyes but an enormous grin, looked up from his front herb
garden. He playfully saluted Perrin, and Perrin returned it
smartly. Shem had found the lonely widower in Flax and brought him
back to be Edge’s rector a year ago after the last rector died.
    While only a few dozen people still attended
Holy Day services—everyone else was too busy at the amphitheater,
and now the arena, to bother with the words of the Creator—Rector
Yung delivered sweet and stirring lessons that reminded Perrin of
Hogal. Looking at his faintly yellow skin, Perrin hoped he and the
rector shared a common ancestor. The Shins invited him to dinner
frequently, and he cheerfully came so that Mahrree could try to
fatten up the skinny man.
    Those meals were now the closest thing they
had to the after-congregation-meeting midday meals the village used
to share each Holy Day. No one sat and chatted about farms or
children or the state of the world over chicken and dumplings
anymore. In fact, Holy Day had now even changed its name to holiday —a day each week when people worshipped themselves
instead of the Creator.
    “Tomorrow, midday meal after the meeting?”
Perrin called to Yung, as if the weekly invitation actually needed
reissuing.
    The rector held up some new sprigs of
parsley. “Of course! Mrs. Shin told me she’s expecting this. She’s
down to only her dried preserves in her cellar, and I promised to
bring her a fresh supply.”
    Perrin winked at the Shins’ personal supplier
of herbs and faith, and kicked the mare into a steady trot, past
the dull gray block building that was labeled with the equally
bland name of School Building Number 3. There were five of those
now in Edge, built by Idumeans for Idumean education. Perrin could
barely stand to look at the structure that housed