“He was a fool,” she said of The Maben locked away to be forgotten. “And only grew worse with time and arrogance.”
If Vyloria then started speaking to those Maben who remained on Laiya’s behalf, that was her business. Although Fen had gifted her a small pillow for her achy back, adorned with buttercups he’d done himself.
Laiya took to joining Fen and Tellan and Heni’s family by the fire in the once-Maben’s receiving room. She had more time to now, and studied Fen covertly while she made woven cloth with a pair of long wooden needles in a manner that must have been usual there, for no one remarked on it.
She said, at the end of a quiet hour of the two of them in the room and a crackling fire, that she had noticed that Fen could read and write letters, and then remarked, softly, much like Lan, that nobles often could and used them to communicate in ways others couldn’t understand.
Fen asked Tellan if she’d like to learn to read that very night. Figures she knew, letters she did not.
Lan’s mother called him Flower again.
Fen curled up in Lan’s bed and wrapped rope around his wrists and was warmed all over to imagine theGood cubLan might give him for that. It was not the peace of Lan blindfolding him or Lan playfully wrapping the excess length of rope around Fen’s chest until he’d realized how much Fen enjoyed being bound even tighter, but it was a comfort.
He didn’t think he would trade it for Lan, but he could seek it out from time to time, if fate allowed. If not for the worry, and the cold, and the faint annoyance whenever the others seemed to think Fen should be upset over something, he would have said he liked this sort of peace. Others did grow up knowing ways that were not The Acana’s ways. Lan had suffered his father’s neglect and cruelty, but his mother was thoughtful and kind, and given to embracing Tellan and even Maril as though he was claimed kin.
Fen supposed Maril was, and his children too. He wasn’t upset about that, or that he was only learning of such things now. Nor was he upset about what Lan’s victory—if the blessed fae granted him that—would mean. Fen’s family was not like this family. That was all it meant. Fen would have no family when this winter was over.
Tellan seemed to think he should be upset about that too, judging from her silences, as though she was waiting for Fen to speak on the subject.
It was quite possible that Lan would agree with her, and perhaps Dol, and even Ati. Which meant Fen ought to consider the matter more.
That was another thing that made this peace different; he was expected to think and was given no information on anything Lan or other Earls might have been doing. Except for his current sewing projects, he had nothing else to think aboutbutthese matters.
He didn’t like it, but perhaps only because he hadn’t realized how much worrying he had done in the home of his father.
Laiya made Fen a gift of a scarf with her long wooden needles. Fen thanked her and wore it regularly, although after several days, it made him wonder if his mother was well and if she still wore some of the clothing he had embroidered for her.
The thought didnotwarm him, and he stayed in his room, Lan’s room, as though he were back in the household of The Acana and didn’t want to be seen.
Bridie and Maril knocked on his door before too long, and since Lan would want Bridie to smile, Fen rose and dressed and went with her on a short, freezing walk outside, and watched her try to build creatures out of snow but mostly make a mess.
“It’s all right, you know,” Maril told him quietly while his daughter played and screamed as Fen never would have been permitted to do. Fen didn’t understand why, but that was warming as the thought of his mother hadn’t been, and so was Bridie taking his hand to insistently and proudly show Fen the shapes she had left in the snow.
“Are you from the morra too?” Fen had asked Maril later that night, after an exhausted Bridie had been put to bed.
“Carta is my family name,” Maril revealed. “Nothing noble. But Heni renounced this,” he gestured around them at the great hall of the holding, “and Lan is making the morra into something it’s never been before. So, yes and no. Like you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Fen didn’t. It was far nicer to be somewhat of the morra than what he had been. Not part of his old family, but not falling into a new one either. Something else. Something unheard of. He liked that, and thought Lan might too—especially if it frightened more Earls.
The third month became the fourth month of a long, wet winter. Fen wore gloves at all times, Laiya’s scarf, and two robes over his clothes. He added a wool cap as well if he went outside, but left his head bare indoors.
He spent part of his days in the kitchen and pantry, consulting with the cooks on how to free more of Laiya’s time, and if perhaps one of them might step in as at least head of the kitchens. He went through the scrolls in the small library with Tellan, and then, at Maril’s request, with his daughter as well, and her friend from the kitchens.
He embroidered in the afternoons with Vyloria and one of the younger Maben, Cris, who did not have a fine hand but seemed to find Fen of interest. She wanted to visit other territories. Fen began to tell her of the Bal and the Lylanth, and knew Lan would raise an eyebrow but also wouldn’t tell him to stop.
The evenings were often spent in the receiving room or in the great hall, which had a much larger fireplace.
His nights were spent alone.
The keep was decorated for the end of winter festivities those in and around the North practiced, although the winter didn’t seem to be ending. The decorations would remain up for a while longer, although the actual revels had come and gone. Maben, young and old, had emerged from their sulking, as Tellan called it in a whisper, and gathered tree boughs and bound them with string and ribbon and then cleared space in the great hall. Fen had been polite to each of them despite his confusion.
However, the wine punch had been pleasant and the cakes made of dried fruits had been a welcome change in the menu. Fen had only struggled with the dancing. The North had dances with intricate steps and he was no good at learning them. Tellan assured him the laughter was mostly not mean, and that his charming failure had endeared him to many. Mostly the servants, but also some of the nobles.
Fen doubted that, but Tellan insisted it was fine and that if Fen was truly worried, he’d learn better from Lan. That was at least an idea to make Fen flush. The nights were very long and cold, and it was an embarrassing but arousing thought.
If Lan allowed, he might try again someday. Properly prepared for, perhaps in the following years, the festival could be even more fun, and the keep might glow in the light of all the candles and fires to chase away the cold weather. Fen would ask Vyloria although he would not be in this keep next winter.
According to rumors, the holding of Fen’s childhood no longer existed. Or, at least, not as it once had.
