Fen
The scarred lay-brother who leads the hidden readers
A lay-brother with the scarred hands of someone who has handled fire, and the calm of a man who has been keeping a dangerous secret for a very long time. Fen leads the circle of readers who gather in the cellar that exists on no map — people who, for eleven years, have been reading the texts rather than merely performing the lowered gaze. He has been watching Maren since Aldous died.
Description
Fen is a lay-brother, not a priest, and his scarred hands mark him as someone who has done real and dangerous work. He leads a loose circle of seven who meet in the hidden cellar to read — eyes up, mouths moving — the very texts the law of the Lowered Eye forbids anyone to understand. They have been at it for eleven years.
He is careful about whom he trusts, because his circle has survived only by being careful, but he does not flinch from hard truths. He tells Maren plainly what the readers have learned: that what the priests say the texts contain is not what the texts say, and that something the Order has buried is not staying buried by choice.