Chapter 10 | The Queen who Ruled by Herself

Blows

Sedra had had an observer when she left the Keep, though she was unaware of it. Temmin had watched her stride purposefully into the woods from a few yards away, though she didn't see him where he stood on the path to the training salon. He would have followed her, but he had a date to spar with Fen; the former footman and Jenks were probably wondering where he was already.

He hurried into the building and found them in the sparring room, warming up. Fen and Jenks were working out on the big punching bag, Jenks holding it as Fen practiced his jabs and kicks. Sweat was already beading up on the young man's freckled, well-muscled body, making his newly-short hair stand up in wet spikes.

As soon as Temmin stepped into the room, bare to the waist and barefoot, Fen left off and bowed. "Your highness," he said.

"H'lo, Fen," Temmin replied. "How's the shoulder?" Fen's left shoulder was almost completely healed now; the giant bruise from the glancing kick he'd gotten from Jebby was now just a faint brown ring, and his left had looked as strong as ever on the punching bag.

"Fine, your highness, fine. I'm ready whenever you are," he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"You're certainly eager," laughed Temmin, joining him on the mat.

"I'm always eager for a fight, your highness," grinned Fen. "It's something I'm good at."

"We shall see," said Temmin.

"Yes, young sir, we shall," said Jenks cryptically. "Take your stances, gentlemen." They bowed and sized each other up, Temmin jiggling loosely, Fen watching carefully until finally Temmin got impatient and launched a series of roundhouse kicks. Fen dodged some, blocked others and finally caught Temmin's foot between his legs, twisted round and dropped the prince neatly onto the mat. Temmin tried to kick up at him; Fen just batted his feet away until finally he aimed a kick downward. Temmin twisted and leapt to his feet, avoiding the kick.

"That was pathetic, the both of you," barked Jenks.

"Too right," mumbled Fen under his breath, but audible.

"Oh, really," said Temmin, eyes narrowing.This time he hung back and waited for Fen. The red-head calculated for a moment and aimed a kick, but Temmin was waiting. He countered with his longer reach and kept Fen from connecting, holding him at bay with a foot on Fen's hip. Fen spun away; Temmin followed him, throwing punches, and Fen came up over his arm, aiming for Temmin's head. He landed a punch on Temmin's left cheekbone, but the victory was short; Temmin grabbed Fen's arm, ducked down, flipped him over bodily and dropped them both to the mat. Fen took the involuntary somersault and came up scrambling, trying to pin Temmin.

Suddenly he let go: "Oh, shit! I mean, I beg your pardon! Mister Jenks, he's bleeding."

"I am?" said Temmin. He approached the mirror on the wall of the room and sure enough, now that the adrenaline was wearing off a bit, he could feel a nice bruise rising just below his eye, and a small cut above it was trickling down the side of his face. "Oh! So I am. Oh, never worry," he said with a grin as he saw his sparring partner's pale, grim face in the mirror. "I've had worse, and it's your job to paste me, isn't it?"

"I'm not going to jail or anything, am I?" said Fen.

"Don't be stupid," said Jenks shortly as he dabbed at the prince's cut with a styptic and Temmin winced. "If you could go to jail for that sort of thing I'd have been executed long ago, along with half the trainers in Farr's Temple."

"You've hit his highness?"

"His highness and his highness's uncle the Duke of Whithorse and a few other lords besides. The King himself, once, before he took the throne. Positively put Lord Patrin through his paces many a time, to be sure. See this?" He pointed to a ragged spot on his ear. "That's where the Duke bit me once."

"Bit you?!" said Temmin.

"Should've seen him, young sir," grinned Jenks. "All is just in war and lust, after all."

"So it is," said Temmin. "Shall we?"

Jenks took a firmer hand at this point, running them both through their forms and rapping out criticism as they sparred. "Why'd you cut your hair?" Temmin panted in between rounds. "You look like a convict!"

Fen didn't reply as he closed with Temmin. They wrestled to a standstill, and then suddenly he got an arm free; he pulled Temmin's long hair so hard, the prince yelped in surprise and dropped his grip on Fen, trying to loosen the hold on his hair. Fen shook him like a doll and threw him to the ground. "That's why, your highness!" he said, breathing hard. "I only grew it out when I got work here at the Keep. At Templestone I always kept it short. I never put vanity over practicality, and I preferred to win when I fought. Anything goes there."

"And here as well, Fen, here as well," said Jenks. "I want you to learn street-level fighting, your highness. Gentlemen's rules don't apply on the battlefield, and should you ever lose your horse, it's a hands-on affair, war is."

"I don't intend to lose my horse, but point well taken. It feels rather like lunch, am I correct?"

"You are, young sir. Fen, you're dismissed," said Jenks. "Go clean up a bit and help around the salon."

"Begging your pardon, Mister Jenks, but this is my afternoon off. Is that all right?" said Fen.

"Oh! Of course. Have you seen the paymaster? Yes? Off you go, then, lad, get cleaned up and off with you."

Fen bowed and took his leave, heading to the training salon baths. The baths were nothing like the ones at the Lovers' Temple; for starters, there was no actual bath. A row of taps in groups of two lined the tiled walls, a stool before each one with a bucket beside it. Wooden benches ran down the middle of the long room.

Fen placed the basket with his clean clothes on a bench. He fished out his towel, his flannel and his soap, stripped off his training trousers, and sat down on a stool, setting the bucket to fill from the hot and cold taps. He dumped it over his head, gasping, and set it to fill again while he soaped himself quickly. He rinsed off, making sure to get the soap from behind his ears, towelled himself dry and got dressed.

"Hittin' the town, eh, Wallek?" said the sergeant on duty at the salon desk as he left.

"Something like that," said Fen with a lopsided smile.

"Throw a few beers back and a few whores down for me, then, eh? I'm on restriction till the middle of Spring's End," said the sargeant sourly.

"I'll see what I can do," said Wallek with a half-salute.

But once he'd walked from the Keep into town, he didn't head for the taverns, nor the whorehouses. Fen kept walking until he came to the Temple District. At the edge stood the great white edifice that housed the Hearth, Venna's Temple. Beside it, even larger and more imposing, stood the Healer's House. He stopped for a moment, grimacing, then walked up the steps into the quiet reception hall.

Gray-robed Sisters and lay healers in civilian clothes trotted here and there through the hall, some had their arms full of bandages, others carried various jars of herbs and odd-looking liquids. Before the great desk where a group of postulants and Sisters waited on people were ranks of benches, on which waited the sick and injured for their turn.

He walked up to the desk. "Yes?" said an older Sister quietly.

"I'm looking for my brother, Bernid Wallek," said Fen. "He's been here some time now, about two weeks?"

"Wallek, Wallek," said the Sister as she thumbed through a set of cards in a tray. "Bernid Wallek. Yes. Brought in by the police--" she gave Fen a suspicious glance-- "on the 24th of this spoke. You're the first to come see him. Relative?"

"I'm his younger brother. I've had to work," said Fen defensively, "and I didn't even know until last week."

"Fine, fine," said the Sister, distractedly. "He's on the third floor, ward four. Elevators are for patients and staff only." Fen turned to go. "Wait! Are you responsible for Mister Wallek?"

"I--well, he's my brother, does that make me responsible?"

"Only if you choose to be," sniffed the Sister. "Just know that Mister Wallek has racked up quite a bill and is still quite injured. He will need family support."

Fen nodded and headed for the stairs. As he climbed up past the first and second to the third floor, he wondered what his brother had been up to this time, and he hoped that whatever they'd done to him it hadn't disabled him permanently. He found ward four and enquired of the Sister on duty for his brother. She nodded and took him to a bed where a young man with reddish-brown hair and a freckled face lay sleeping.

Fen sat down in the chair next to the bed and looked his brother over. He'd been badly beaten. His face showed signs of old bruises, and his nose had been broken. Several cuts had been stitched up and were still healing. More troubling were the casts on both his arms and his right leg to the hip.

"Bern?" said Fen softly, taking the tips of his brother's fingers. "Bern? It's me, Fen."

Bern's eyelids fluttered for a moment, then he turned with a start. "Fen?" He gave a little wince of a smile. "It's so good to see you, little brother. How'd you know I was here?"

Fen grimaced. "I went to see you at your boarding house two weeks ago, and they told me you'd been arrested. It took me days to find out where you were. I paid your rent, by the way."

"Thank you, Fen," murmured Bern. "I'll figure out a way to repay you once I pay off the Hearth bill."

"You will not pay me back, Bernid Wallek, unless by paying me back you mean you'll go home to Templestone and stop this rabble-rousing," said Fen in a sharp undertone. "If not for your own sake, for mine. If anyone checking my background found you in it, I'd lose my job at the Keep. And I rather like my job."

"You like polishing the silver of the king, eh?"

"No, I like pasting the Heir in the eye--I'm the prince's sparring partner now," said Fen with some pride. "Gave him a black eye just this morning."

"That's more like it," said his brother approvingly. "Help me with some water, please?" Fen held the cup to his brother's lips and he took a long pull. Fen wiped Bern's lips with the napkin on the table. "Thank you. Do Mam and Dad know I'm here? Please don't tell them."

Fen frowned, but said. "I won't, for now. So what were you doing this time?"

Bern sighed. "I only tried to talk to the Heir."