[Envinyatar]

He had to admit he was feeling much better. Derufin raised his head from the pillow and wriggled his toes. They were a bit numb from the fact that Cook’s bed was far to short for his long frame and his legs had hung over when he stretched out. Raising his head though brought on an odd feeling – the rather dull sensation that the room was spinning. Not wildly, but just a bit. And from somewhere near came a particularly foul stench that offended his nostrils. A sharp laugh sent a small stab of pain through his head. The source of the stink was himself!

Levering himself up to a sitting position, he groaned slightly noting the brightness of the light through the cracks in the curtains. 'Stars above! What time is it?' he muttered, hoping he had not missed his own handfasting. ‘How am I to explain this to Zimzi?’ he muttered again.

The door to the room opened. ‘No, need to explain anything, almost brother mine,’ said Sakal, a bit too loudly and too cheerily. Derufin looked up to find the man and Zimzi’s other brother, Azar, advancing on him with a rather large towel. They stood to either side of him, ordering him to remove his socks, then, stooping down, they hauled him to his feet.

He protested as they shucked him of his clothes and wrapped the towel about him. And really, what else could he do . . . they spoke quickly to him, like grooms calming a skittish horse, and spun him about as shirt and breeches went flying. Done at last, they maneuvered him out to the locked and shuttered kitchen where he was quite unceremoniously tipped into the hot tub of water.

Cook, from behind the privacy screen that had been hastily placed around the tub, handed round a stiff brush and a rather large bar of soap, lilac scented. ‘No comments from you on how it smells,’ she said firmly to him, hearing him take a deep whiff of it and cough. ‘It smells better than you do.’ Which is like a brewery! she muttered, loud enough for him to hear her. She tapped her foot expectantly until she heard the sound of him scrubbing away and rinsing. ‘There’s a pile of towels on the chair by you for when you’re done. Mind you get that hair of yours washed . . . and behind the ears!’ Long years of raising two boys leave firm remembrances of what details need to be addressed.

‘Yes, m’am!’ Derufin chuckled, feeling better now that the hot water seemed to washing away his aches and pains as well as the dirt. ‘And I’m just now cleaning the dirt from my fingernails, too, if that were the next worry of yours!’

‘Cheeky!’ Cook laughed, liking how much more like himself he sounded. ‘Sakal has gone to fetch your clothes for the party. He should be back soon with them. And I’ve sent Merry to polish your boots.’

‘You know,’ said Derufin, spluttering as he poured a pan of water over his soapy head, ‘I wouldn’t be in this pickle if Sakal hadn’t insisted on a last night of freedom party.’

There was silence on the other side of the curtain, then Cook answered in a most no-nonsense voice. ‘And I suppose it was Sakal who bent your arm at the elbow, was it, and forced the brew down your throat?’

It was an observation, he noted, that did not require an answer. He was glad there was a screen between them so that she could not see him blush. Instead, he said, in his best meek manner, ‘If you’ll just fetch me a little handglass and a razor, Miz Bunce, I’ll scrape the growth from my face . . .