“Words of love?” Fen asked when he realized it had been some time since either of them had spoken.
Dol stopped the humming Fen had only just become aware of. Dol was mixing at least three different ballads while he wove a story that someone else would eventually turn into another song. Maybe this one would overshadow The Flower-of-the-North, but more than likely they would end up performed together.
“Words of love in the song to get everyone on your side—and his. People adore a love story and they like their heroes devoted.” Dol hummed again. “Seems late for you to object now. This was your idea, and so plainly obvious that if this camp had a bard wandering about, it would have been put into a song already.”
“The Flower-of-the-North is not true, though people love it.” Fen kicked his feet while staring upward because he was not in The Acana’s court and could move as he pleased. “Did those in the older ballads really feel everything that’s in the songs about them? Vowing to journey into the fae realm for someone,” he named one example, then another, “to go wherever their lover went. Did they really?”
“Did they really make a vow to stay at the side of their beloved?” Dol asked in disbelief, turning his head to look at Fen. “People do that every day,” he added. “So certainly some of the heroes did. And even if that hero in that song didn’t in their life, the power of the story means he does forevermore. Anyway,” Dol scoffed quietly, “there is nothing untrue in The-Flower-of-the-North if you consider it from the point of view of the smitten.”
“Smitten,” Fen echoed quietly, letting the word settle into his chest along with everything else. He shifted in place, then kicked his feet again. “But The Geon does not know me.”
“Smittenis notin love. That would make for a completely different song.” Dol sighed heavily. “I miss my husband.”
“I’m sorry,” Fen told him, although he wasn’t the reason Race was far away.
Dol waved this off. “Not every complaint is a problem for you to solve, Fen-flower. I’m mostly thinking out loud and too drunk to keep in my every stray thought of my brave idiot beloved.”
Fen thought about questioning the use ofidiotfor one’s beloved, but that reminded him of some of his many other questions.
“The new story and new song must be from the point of view of someone in love?” He frowned.
With a grunt, Dol rolled onto his side to give Fen a long, suspicious study. “If not in love, then more than smitten,” he declared finally. “Soon to be in love. Butin loveworks for our purposes and saves time. Anyway,” Dol carried on, smiling now, “it’s so obvious it will show even if I said nothing. As I told you, if a bard were here, it would be in a song already.”
“Soon to be in love?” Fen bit his bottom lip to keep it from quivering. “Is that what the feeling in my chest is? I didn’t mean to be reckless. Heni warned me.”
Dol patted his shoulder. “You have to be reckless to be here with him. We all are, at least a little.”
Of the many words used to describe Fen in that song, not one wasreckless. Orinsidiousfor that matter. That didn’t seem like a word a hero in a ballad would use about anyone they were in love with, even if they were only in love in the song.
Fen closed his eyes because they were growing heavy. “When I heard those songs as a child in The Acana’s holding, I never wondered if there was any truth in them.”
Dol stopped his humming, which he’d begun again without Fen noticing. “Doesn’t seem a place to let you think like that.”
“So I am told.” Fen bit his lip again but it didn’t contain his sigh, or the rest of his thoughts as he voiced them. “And so I believe.” Lan was not the only one to disapprove of Fen’s stories of the holding. Although hewasthe one who thought The Acana should be accountable for them, and Fen had no desire to stop him unless he imagined Lan in danger. “It doesn’t change anything, knowing this. I’d act the same. I don’t expect anything.”
“Demands nothing, for he has only known coldness and cruelty, until he is lifted and carried from the fortress of The Acana into the wilderness at the foot of the Little Mountains,” Dol sang it quietly though it was not a song. Fen opened his eyes to look at him. Dol didn’t seem to notice. “Safe in the strong arms of the Wild Dog, the Flower blooms. The Wild Dog entrusts this rare blossom to no one else, and so it’s to him, Earl-killer, challenger from the North, that the Flower swears his allegiance, but that soon turns to more.”
Fen knew his face was hot, but it had been hot since his first sip of the strange wine. Dol had said Fen had been plainly obvious, so he supposed that was what the song would be about. But it was a great deal to hear it and know his feelings would be known everywhere.
“If that will help, then so be it.” Fen was not Dol and didn’t adore publicly with such ease, but if he was to be trapped far from Lan and the song would clear some of Lan’s path for him, then Fen could learn how to hide his blushes. “But only if Lan doesn’t mind.”
Dol’s pleasant musings stopped again. “Mind?”
“Everyone knowing what I seem to feel,” Fen explained. “And that yet more in this song will be a lie since Lan has not killed an Earl.”
Dol peered at Fen again, for much longer this time. “Nothing in this song will be a lie.”
Fen sat up quickly, stars spinning before his eyes. “Is that how it will end, then?”
“Some things are too big to fit in only one song.” Dol didn’t move. “But nobody ends a love story with a dead Earl, no matter how many might rejoice in the death.” Fen turned to look at him and Dol muttered, “That look. I see what he means,” then heaved himself upright. “I don’t think you’ve had enough,” he declared firmly, before hobbling to the table to pour another cup.
Nineteen
Tellan and Maril were teaching the children a counting song about an old man and his chickens when Dol went past them, stopping to tap Tellan and then Fen on the head as if he had news to impart if they followed him. He didn’t do the same to Maril because when he tried to reach, he wobbled on his crutch and was only saved by Tellan springing to her feet.
Dol didn’t wait until he was fully steady before he continued forward, following a path others were taking to the edge of the camp.
Several of the dogs had howled a while ago. Fen hadn’t paid much attention then, since the dogs sometimes did that for wolves in the distance, but as he got up, he realized most of the dogs in the camp were gone, and the ones who remained were excited, tails wagging and ears perked toward the woods in the same direction the humans were going.
