Since daylight was limited and not particularly warm, he took the laundry to the stream to scrub it right then, and his own shirt as well, although it meant he was left to shiver inside his double cloaks knowing it would take all day for the clothes to dry. He had no replacement pants to wear, so those had to stay dirty for now.
He hung Lan’s laundry and his shirt up on a tree branch and worried over his shriveled, frozen hands for a while before hunger drove him to one of the fires for breakfast. He kept the larger of his cloaks close around him and ate while hoping his skin was not too roughened from the clothes washing. Rough hands caught on embroidery, but he supposed clean clothes were more important than decorative needlework at the moment.
Before he could return to the stream, Ati called Fen into his tent and set him to copying formulations onto small cuts of thick paper. The recipes were for ointments to help prevent infections and one tincture for helping bring down fevers, which occurred often with battle wounds. The copies were meant for other healers who were not as skilled as Ati but nonetheless necessary, who must not be in this camp, which meant there were others, or would be others.
Those healers would also need ingredients if such battles happened, as Ati clearly thought such battles would. So Fen helped with that as well for a time, sent out into the woods with a few others to look for certain trees in certain stages of life.
Tellan found him when he was nearly done with that, decided hewasdone, and waved off an indignant Ati as she lugged Fen away to hand him another shirt.
“Someone thought you could use one,” she explained. “Pants too, I’m guessing? I’ll work on that. Laundry is tricky among the trees.”
“It needed to get done,” Fen explained himself. “Lan has no time, yet must look presentable. And he has no servant here.” He paused there, curious. “Or perhaps never had one of his own? But the nobles will already look down upon his clothes. He won’t be granted anything from them if he wears stained clothing.”
Tellan had a thoughtful expression on her face, not like her brother who hid things and let his friends and trusted advisors read into what he did not do or say. Fen couldn’t read into any of that yet, so Tellan’s openness was pleasing.
“New clothing? No extra fabric around at the moment.” But her pensive expression remained, as though she was thinking of how to address the issue in the future. “Anything else?”
“He didn’t eat enough on the trail up here.” It didn’t feel disloyal to say so. Even the cooks had agreed with Fen about that. “Out of principle, but also because he won’t let himself sit.”
“No one to bring him meals wherever he is?” Tellan’s lips twitched with a brief smile. “Is that all?”
Fen stopped. “From my understanding, which is not the greatest, I have heard that armor of all kinds has to be maintained.” He waited until she nodded in agreement before continuing on. “I’m sure he takes care of what he wears most often, and probably the rest when he has the time to spare, but…”
“But he doesn’t have much time to spare,” Tellan finished. “Dol will know about armor. Get dressed and we’ll find him.”
Which was how Fen spent his afternoon in someone else’s shirt, in Lan’s tent with Dol, learning to clean armor, and that regular cleanings kept away rust that weakened the metal and also made armor shine even in dim light.
By evening, Fen was back in his own shirt and Lan’s clothes were folded and waiting for him in his tent. Directed by Tellan and Heni, who were eating together with Heni’s husband, Maril, and their children by one cook fire, Fen took a bowl of rabbit stew across the camp to another fire, where Lan was standing, not sitting, with a half circle of his closer friends or advisors around him.
They went silent as Fen approached but Fen expected that and didn’t mind. He handed the bowl to Lan, who opened his mouth as if about to protest but shut it with a snap when Fen looked up.
“Surely you can talkandeat,” Fen said, all honey, and moved only when the bowl was lifted from his hands. Then he turned to go back the way he’d come, ignoring the flush creeping from his face to his neck.
“You’re not going to thank your flower?” Race wondered, slippery and amused.
Lan was as serious as a petitioner before an Earl. “Thank you, flower. But you know you don’t have to.”
Fen stopped but didn’t turn, not wanting Race to see his bright cheeks. “I know. I want to.”
He could hear the crackle of the fire but nothing else for several moments. Then only Race’s quiet, “I feel as though I’m witnessing something I should not. I need a drink. Do we have anything?”
Fen angled his head down but did not quite look at any of them. “I can ask.”
“No, cub, but thank you.” Lan’s voice was warm and soft enough to make Fen shiver. “See to your own dinner now.”
Fen nodded and continued on his path back to Tellan and Heni and Heni’s family, where he sat and ate, and said not a word although Heni and Tellan both eyed him with interest, and Heni’s children were hummingthatsong which Heni must have taught them.
“Is this part of an alliance too?” Lan asked when they were alone in the tent sometime after sunset. He had stopped to consider the neat pile of clothing on the chair when he’d first come in and was now removing his outer layers and boots with his back to Fen. “Tending to my belongings for me?”
“It can be, if you like.” Fen answered honestly, although he had never heard of any noble doing any such thing. “Thank you for requesting that Tellan find me some spare clothes.”
He didn’t know that Lan had, but he couldn’t imagine who else would have. Dol or Race, Lan’s sisters, Ati, all would have simply pressed a shirt into his hands. Or, in the case of Ati, thrown it at him, very likely. But they would have first waited for Fen to ask about one.
“It is servant’s work to most in your position.” Lan did not acknowledge Fen’s gratitude. His boots off, he stood to strip away even his undershirt, which Fen hadn’t known he did to sleep. Bare to the waist, he crossed the small space to close the tent flap and leave the tent in deeper darkness. “Do you mind it?”
He was not referring to his skin, or the ink beneath it, or the curls of hair down his chest.
Fen swallowed. “I have always longed to be useful.”
