Page 32 of Setting the Break

"I guess I made you a promise." The man puts the waterskin into his hands and waits until he has it. "My name is Fenris."

Indrie's breath catches in his throat.

He doesn't let it reach his face. He has been careful with his face his whole life, in rooms full of men who could have done anything to him. The habit is so old that his mouth stays level and his eyes go down before he's decided a single thing about it. Then he remembers who he's being careful in front of, and a laugh comes up out of him from nowhere, pure nerves, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep it where it is.

Fenris.

Morgan and Bohdi are on the road east right now. They left two days ago with a name and a village and whatever Garrik could remember of the way, riding out to find a boy who was given away twenty years ago. The boy has been in this camp the entire time, or in one exactly like it. He's sitting on his heels in the dirt in front of Indrie with his head tilted toward a sound Indrie can't hear, and he's blind.

Defective. That was the word Garrik said Ivan used, and Garrik had said it with enough contempt in his mouth to make it very clear whose word it was.

Indrie drinks his water and says nothing about any of it. Be quiet, and wait, and then show them your teeth. The man in front of him taught him that less than a day ago and Indrie intends to be a very good student.

"Thank you," Indrie says. "For the name."

"It's not worth much," Fenris says. "But you seemed to want it. What should I call you? I could call you what they’re calling you, but I can promise you it is not flattering."

Indrie huffs out a laugh. “No, I wouldn’t expect it to be. My name is Indrie.”

Fenris shifts to sit, and something about it isn’t right. He puts his weight on the right side and brings the left leg around slowly and straight, and his jaw sets while he does it. When he's down he rests his hand on his shin in a way that's meant to look idle and doesn't manage it at all.

"Is something wrong with your leg?" Indrie asks.

"It's nothing."

"Well," Indrie says. "The nothing on your leg appears to be infected. I can smell it from here."

Fenris is quiet for a moment. Then he laughs, low and genuinely amused, and it's such an unlikely sound in this place that Indrie nearly laughs along with him.

"They told me you were a healer," Fenris says. "I assumed they meant the kind who says prayers over a bowl of water and burns sage to ward off spirits."

"I am quite fond of sage," Indrie says simply. "I have a friend who makes a lovely roast with it. Roll up your trouser leg for me, please."

It's a knife cut, or near enough to one, a hand's width long across the meat of the calf and four or five days old. Somebody washed it at the start and nobody has touched it since. The edges are red and swollen and hot under his fingers, and there's a pocket of pus beneath the middle of it. The smell is sweet and wrong, and a red line has started up toward the back of the knee. It’s on the path of being something very problematic.

"How did you do this?"

"A tent peg," Fenris says. "Somebody moved it. Possibly intentionally."

Indrie has water and nothing else, which is a familiar enough circumstance that he's almost glad of it. He tears a strip off the hem of his own shirt, and then another, and folds the first into a pad. His wrists are raw from the cord and his left shoulder is still wrong from yesterday and sends a hot wire down into his elbow every time he reaches for anything, and the left side of his face is swollen enough that he's working with one good eye and no depth to it.

His hands are completely steady.

He doesn't think about why. He only notices it, the way he notices it every single time. This is the one thing he was made for. It's the one thing nobody in this camp can take out of him no matter what else they decide to do, and it has been true in every bad room he has ever been in. It is a very small stone to stand on but he has stood on smaller.

He presses on the pocket until it opens and drains, and Fenris makes no sound at all, which tells Indrie a great deal about the kind of life he’s lived. He flushes it with the water until what comes out runs clear. He packs it with the clean pad and binds it with the second strip, firm enough to hold and loose enough not to choke the leg.

"My king has been looking for you," Indrie says, while he ties it off.

Fenris goes still under his hands.

"I'm sorry?"

"My king.” It doesn’t feel quite so presumptuous to say it anymore. The words warm him a little every time he says them. “The King of Rengara. He's been looking for you for some time."

"Whatever for?" There's real surprise in it, and underneath the surprise something a good deal warier. "I'm not anyone's business. I haven't been anyone's business since I was eight years old."

"You're Ivan Wolfe's son," Indrie says. "Aren't you?"