Golden Fool

He frowned thoughtfully. “Eat it, and it’s gone. Like the raisins.”

I nodded slowly. “But you could get another one, perhaps. From the Prince.”

His gaze had reverted to a suspicious glare. “From the Prince?”

“Of course. If you do good things that help your prince, he will probably give you good things in return.” I let him ponder that for a time, and then asked, “Thick, do you have any other clothes?”

“Other clothes?”

“Different clothes from what you are wearing. Extra shirt and pants.”

He shook his head. “Just these.”

Even I had never been so poorly provided for. I hoped it wasn’t true. “What do you wear when those clothes are being washed?” I poured hot water into the tub.

“Washed?”

I gave it up. I really didn’t want to know any more. “Thick, I brought you water and heated it for a bath.” I went to a shelf and took down Chade’s sewing supplies. At least I could stitch up some of the worst rents.

“A bath? Like, wash in the river?”

“Sort of. But with hot water. And soap.”

He thought about it for a moment. Then, “I don’t do that.” He went back to his contemplation of the sugar cake.

“You might like to try it. It feels nice to be clean.” I splashed my hand invitingly in the tub.

For a time he sat still, staring at me. Then he pushed back his chair and came over to the tub. He looked into the water. I splashed my hand in it again. Slowly he knelt down next to the tub. Holding tightly to the edge of the tub with one hand, he splashed with the other. He gave a grunt of amusement, and then said, “It’s warm.”

“It’s nice to sit in it and be warm all over. And to smell nice afterward.”

He made a sound, neither agreement nor denial. He thrust his hand deeper into the water. It soaked the ragged cuff of his shirt.

I stood up and walked away, leaving him alone by the water. It took him quite a while to investigate the water completely. When his sleeves were both soaking wet, I suggested that he should take his shirt off. The water had cooled substantially before he decided he would risk taking off his shoes and trousers and getting into the tub. He had no smallclothes. He was very suspicious when I tried to add more hot water, but after thinking it over, he allowed it. He more played with the soap and washing cloth than used them. As the warm water reached him, he gradually relaxed. Persuading him not only to wash his face, but also to rub soap in his hair and then rinse it out was not an easy task.

In scraps of conversation, I learned he had not washed at all since Spring Fest. No one told him to after his mother died. It made me realize how recent his bereavement was. When I asked him how he had come to work in the castle, he could not really tell me. I suspected he had wandered in one day, and with the general influx of people for Spring Fest and then the betrothal ceremony, the folk of the keep had simply assumed he had belonged to someone. I would have to ask Chade how he had come to be his personal servant, I decided.

As Thick experimented with the water and soap, I hastily stitched up what I could of his clothing. Where seams had given out, the work was fairly easy despite the grime crusted onto the fabric. He had simply worn through his clothes at the knees and elbows, and with nothing to use for a patch, I had to leave them as they were.

When his fingers began to wrinkle, I found him a towel to dry on and told him to stand before the fire. I tossed his clothes into the silty water and gave them a quick scrubbing. When I wrung them out and hung them on the chair backs, they were not clean, but they were cleaner than they had been.

Persuading him to sit down and let me work the knots out of his hair was just as difficult as coaxing him into the bath had been. He was suspicious of the comb, even when I let him hold the looking glass and watch what I was doing. I had not had such a demanding task since I had first taken Hap in and emphasized that nits and lice were not an ordinary part of one’s hair.

Scrubbed and dried, his hair combed, Thick sat lethargically before the fire wrapped in one of Chade’s quilts. I think the warm bath had worn him out. I turned one of his cracked shoes in my hand. This was something I knew how to do from Burrich’s tutelage. “I can make you some new shoes as soon as I go to town and buy some leather,” I told him. He nodded sleepily, no longer shocked by this largesse. I moved his clothing closer to the hearth to dry. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about clothes for you right now. My sewing skills are limited to repair rather than construction. But we’ll think of something.” He nodded again. I thought a time, and then went to Chade’s old wardrobe in the corner of the chamber. A number of his old wool workrobes were still in it. One was scorched, and almost all the others had blotches and stains of various kinds on them. I doubted that he had worn any of them in recent years. Even so, they were cleaner and in better repair than Thick’s rags. I took one out, held it up to gauge the length of it, marked it, and then ruthlessly sheared it off short. “This will give you something to wear until we can get more clothes made for you.” He barely nodded as he stared, half-dozing, into the fire. As he relaxed, the music of his spilling Skill became more expansive. I started to firm my walls against it. Then, instead of that, I opened myself to it.