Ati’s needle box didn’t contain any delicate needles, but then, it contained needles meant for flesh as well as fabric. It at least had enough fabric needles to fit Fen’s current needs, and the others in the camp had enough thread between them for Fen to set to work.
He walked for half of each day and then sat in Ati’s cart when the light was brightest so he could patch and mend the clothing and bags of everyone in the camp who was not inclined to enjoy sewing, which was most of them. Mending was a necessary task, but soldiers and guards apparently did not take well to it.
He repaired the hole in the knee of his pants first and then accepted whatever mending was passed to him, although it was tricky to keep stitches neat on a cart going shakily over uneven ground. Still, he had a fine hand, and his stitches would hold.
His evenings were spent with Ati, or really, being ordered through the woods to learn more medicinal or edible plants. His nights were spent with Lan, and his mornings more often than not, by himself with his cock in his hand.
He regretted not sneaking off for affairs the way some of his siblings had, but he had never felt the way they seemed to about these matters. Hot blood, desire, was new and humiliating. But as long as he contained himself to staring covertly at Lan and sleeping beside him, he thought he was safe. He had more important things to worry over, in any event, such as the alliance that had progressed to bed-sharing, in one sense, but no farther.
His family might think he was dead. That occurred to him too. He didn’t think they would grieve, except perhaps his mother, although she would leave The Acana’s household to do it; The Acana would have no patience for it and probably would blame Fen for his “death.”
It was fine to not be mourned or worried over. It meant no one would seek Fen, and through Fen, the Wild Dog. Lan would be safe for longer. At least until whatever he was planning next came to pass. Fen didn’t know what that was and couldn’t even guess, since he didn’t have spies and didn’t hear rumors to know which Earl had crossed Lan recently.
The Earls’ trouble, part of it, was that theybelievedthe name they had given Lan. But Lan wasn’t wild that Fen had seen; he was far too careful. So they underestimated him and Lan probably enjoyed letting them. He had the cleverness of a powerful Earl, but Fen didn’t know if he had the cruelty. Moreover, he claimed no desire to be one.
So he was not meant to be an Earl, but he was no farmer, smith, or tanner, either. Nor a soldier in the service of some other noble. Lan did not belong. Hewouldnotbelong.
Then what was he and what did he want? Fen wanted to hand it to him, whatever it was, or at least help him reach for it.
During his contemplation of available facts while he did other people’s mending, he decided that they were likely not going up into the mountains. From what others had told him of life there, wintering in the mountains took preparation, and no one in camp seemed to be storing food or planning for any sort of habitation that could withstand heavy snow or even rain. That meant they were either heading to particular spot in the foothills to spend the winter there, or would soon leave the foothills and head back down into whichever Earl’s territory they happened to be in.
He also thought that whatever Lan was planning could not be delayed for long. Though the nobles tended to not make war when the weather was harsh, they could and would if they felt the need. And having now seen that many of Lan’s people had chosen to leave their sworn nobles to come to him of their own will, he imagined the Earls were more than aware that they were losing farmers and tenants and servants and guards to the upstart Dog. They were bleeding support the longer Lan defied them.
They could resolve that issue by treating those on their lands better, but The Acana, for one, would never do that now; to do that would be to admit that there was a problem other than Lan.
So, their peaceful, though rough, travels would soon come to an end. Fen accepted that but still did not understand Lan’s goal. He might eventually return to the lands of the Maben, running it without ever calling himself Earl. To do that, he would have to make such a strong stand against the Earls around him that they would leave him and those lands alone—at least until Lan’s eventual death, hopefully of old age. Or, he could try to fracture any alliances between the other Earls and perhaps crush the especially strong ones, and then disappear to whatever life he’d had before and hope that was enough to secure no retribution.
Either seemed ambitious, and violent even to people who were growing too used to violence. They also didn’t seem to be… worth much. All of that to ensure only Lan’s future? He could have kept to himself and never gone after The Maben and lived such a life if he’d wanted it. He had chosen action, first for reasons that might have been personal, but then he’d chosen it again.
Maybe Lan wanted an end to the Earls. Fen had that thought in the dark of night, safely curled against Lan’s chest while the Wild Dog slept. Or, if not an end to them, then an end to how they did things. The Earls sat in judgment on their own lands, but who sat in judgment of them?
A startling, fearful thought that would not allow Fen to sleep easily until he rolled over to tuck himself beneath Lan’s chin and Lan woke enough to settle him by throwing a leg over Fen to keep him still. The weight and warmth were soothing, and Fen let the thought go at last so he could rest.
Nine
The next day, they stumbled onto the remnants of a great structure overtaken by the forest so long ago that countless tree roots had broken through what had probably once been towering walls. Everyone stopped, seeming to immediately understand what they beheld.
Fae ruins.
It was afternoon by Fen’s reckoning, though the gray sky made him wonder. Since nearly everyone had abandoned the trail in favor of walking around what they could see of the structure, Lan and the others must have decided to stop there for the night, because people gathered firewood as they cautiously explored, and Ati had raised his tent.
Ati and Race were the only two to leave the pieces of gleaming, nearly iridescent, black masonry alone, although Race glowered at it from time to time. The rest, awed or not, had so far not ventured inside the walls. Collen and Artil, of the Val and the Lithi, respectively, set out to walk the perimeter to see how large the structure must have been and had not returned yet, which told Fen it was no single building but perhaps a complex of them.
There were carvings on some of the fallen stones, smoothed over by time, that Fen doubted the fae would have done, since the carvings did not seem skilled enough for the people who had made the complex in the first place. But the carvings were almost certainly meant to show the fae: small figures with tails or wings or claws, and strange, pointed ears. Figures who did not walk on the ground, as if even without wings the fae did not move on the earth like humans did.
There were humans in the carvings too, creatures with round ears and no tails, who were larger than the fae but kneeled to them—kneeled to one of them, who appeared on two separate pieces of stonework. Maybe it was the same fae or maybe it represented something or someone. Fen didn’t know and his knowledge of ancient letters didn’t tell him much.
That fae was no taller than the others, indistinct except for a circlet of flowers on its head in one depiction, and a circlet of something pointed and sharp-looking on the other. The letters were possibly those meaningdoom, or possibly the ones meaningreasonand Fen had confused them.
Asking Ati if he knew ancient writing had been a mistake, because then Ati had realized Fen could read, asked if he could write as well, and tossed a book on herbs at Fen as if expecting Fen to copy it for him right then.
Instead, Fen had taken his current pile of mending to the wall, climbing onto a tall heap to better catch the light for his work.
The afternoon had something of the air of a feast day. Perhaps everyone had wanted some time to rest and the discovery of traces of the fae were as good of an excuse as any. It amused him and made him warm inside to realize this was allowed. No one was yelled at or forced back to work. They were here of their own will and could stop and rest whenever they wanted.
He wished Lan would stop, but didn’t see him and presumed he was scouting ahead as an excuse to think, or gathering firewood elsewhere. Or maybe he was sensibly avoiding a place where fae eyes must be watching. To Fen, the idea of the fae was much like being in The Acana’s holding and knowing that his actions or words might be reported back to The Acana for any reason. But he didn’t mind as much when it was the fae. Whatever bothered them was nowhere near what bothered The Acana, and if the fae did not want any humans there, they would make it known.
Someone called out that they saw berries within the wall. Race rather heatedly yelled for no one to eat them.
