Ben leaned forward on his stump. “What if a dozen people told you, with perfect earnestness, that shamble-men were out in the fields, eating—”
“Of course I wouldn’t believe them,” my father said, irritated. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Of course it is,” Ben agreed, raising a finger. “But the real question is this: Would you go into the woods?”
My father sat very still and thoughtful for a moment.
Ben nodded. “You’d be a fool to ignore half the town’s warning, even though you don’t believe the same thing they do. If not shamble-men, what are you afraid of?”
“Bears.”
“Bandits.”
“Good sensible fears for a trouper to have,” Ben said. “Fears that townsfolk don’t appreciate. Every place has its little superstitions, and everyone laughs at what the folk across the river think.” He gave them a serious look. “But have either of you ever heard a humorous song or story about the Chandrian? I’ll bet a penny you haven’t.”
My mother shook her head after a moment’s thought. My father took a long drink before joining her.
“Now I’m not saying that the Chandrian are out there, striking like lightning from the clear blue sky. But folk everywhere are afraid of them. There’s usually a reason for that.”
Ben grinned and tipped his clay cup, pouring the last drizzle of beer out onto the earth. “And names are strange things. Dangerous things.” He gave them a pointed look. “That I know for true because I am an educated man. If I’m a mite superstitious too …” He shrugged. “Well, that’s my choice. I’m old. You have to humor me.”
My father nodded thoughtfully. “It’s odd I never noticed that everyone treats the Chandrian the same. It’s something I should’ve seen.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “We can come back to names later, I suppose. What was it you wanted to talk about?”
I prepared to sneak off before I was caught, but what Ben said next froze me in place before I took a single step.
“It’s probably hard to see, being his parents and all. But your young Kvothe is rather bright.” Ben refilled his cup, and held out the jug to my father, who declined it. “As a matter of fact,’bright’ doesn’t begin to cover it, not by half.”
My mother watched Ben over the top of her mug. “Anyone who spends a little time with the boy can see that, Ben. I don’t see why anyone would make a point of it. Least of all, you.”
“I don’t think you really grasp the situation,” Ben said, stretching his feet almost into the fire. “How easily did he pick up the lute?”
My father seemed a little surprised by the sudden change of topic. “Fairly easily, why?”
“How old was he?”
My father tugged thoughtfully at his beard for a moment. In the silence my mother’s voice was like a flute. “Eight.”
“Think back to when you learned to play. Can you remember how old you were? Can you remember the sort of difficulties you had?” My father continued to tug on his beard, but his face was more reflective now, his eyes far away.
Abenthy continued. “I’ll bet he learned each chord, each fingering after being shown just once, no stumbling, no complaining. And when he did make a mistake it was never more than once, right?”
My father seemed a little perturbed. “Mostly, but he did have trouble, just the same as anyone else. E chord. He had a lot of trouble with greater and diminished E.”
My mother broke in softly. “I remember too, dear, but I think it was just his small hands. He was awfully young… .”
“I bet it didn’t stall him for long,” Ben said quietly. “He does have marvelous hands; my mother would have called them magician’s fingers.”
My father smiled. “He gets them from his mother, delicate, but strong. Perfect for scrubbing pots, eh woman?”
My mother swatted him, then caught one of his hands in her own and unfolded it for Ben to see. “He gets them from his father, graceful and gentle. Perfect for seducing young nobles’ daughters.” My father started to protest, but she ignored him. “With his eyes and those hands there won’t be a woman safe in all the world when he starts hunting after the ladies.”
“Courting, dear,” my father corrected gently.
“Semantics,” she shrugged. “It’s all a chase, and when the race is done, I think I pity women chaste who run.” She leaned back against my father, keeping his hand in her lap. She tilted her head slightly and he took his cue, leaning in to kiss the corner of her mouth.
“Amen,” Ben said, raising his mug in salute.
My father put his other arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “I still don’t see what you’re getting at, Ben.”
“He does everything that way, quick as a whip, hardly ever makes mistakes. I’ll bet he knows every song you’ve ever sung to him. He knows more about what’s in my wagon than I do.”
He picked up the jug and uncorked it. “It’s not just memorization though. He understands. Half the things I’ve been meaning to show him he’s already figured out for himself.”
Ben refilled my mother’s cup. “He’s eleven. Have you ever known a boy his age who talks the way he does? A great deal of it comes from living in such an enlightened atmosphere.” Ben gestured to the wagons. “But most eleven-year-olds’ deepest thoughts have to do with skipping stones, and how to swing a cat by the tail.”
My mother laughed like bells, but Abenthy’s face was serious. “It’s true, lady. I’ve had older students that would have loved to do half as well.” He grinned. “If I had his hands, and one quarter his wit, I’d be eating off silver plates inside a year.”
There was a lull. My mother spoke softly, “I remember when he was just a little baby, toddling around. Watching, always watching. With clear bright eyes that looked like they wanted to swallow up the world.” Her voice had a little quaver in it. My father put his arm around her and she rested her head on his chest.
The next silence was longer. I was considering sneaking away when my father broke it. “What is it you suggest we do?” His voice was a mix of mild concern and fatherly pride.
Ben smiled gently. “Nothing except to think about what options you might give him when the time comes. He will leave his mark on the world as one of the best.”
“The best what?” my father rumbled.
“Whatever he chooses. If he stays here I don’t doubt he will become the next Illien.”
My father smiled. Illien is the troupers’ hero. The only truly famous Edema Ruh in all of history. All our oldest, best songs are his songs.
What’s more, if you believed the stories, Illien reinvented the lute in his lifetime. A master luthier, Illien transformed the archaic, fragile, unwieldy court lute into the marvelous, versatile, seven-string trouper’s lute we use today. The same stories claim Illien’s own lute had eight strings in all.
“Illien. I like that thought,” my mother said. “Kings coming from miles away to hear my little Kvothe play.”
“His music stopping barroom brawls and border wars.” Ben smiled.
“The wild women in his lap,” my father enthused, “laying their breasts on his head.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then my mother spoke slowly, with an edge to her voice. “I think you mean ‘wild beasts laying their heads in his lap.’ ”
“Do I?”
Ben coughed and continued. “If he decides to become an arcanist, I bet he’ll have a royal appointment by the time he’s twenty-four. If he gets it into his head to be a merchant I don’t doubt he’ll own half the world by the time he dies.”
My father’s brows knitted together. Ben smiled and said, “Don’t worry about the last one. He’s too curious for a merchant.”
Ben paused as if considering his next words very carefully. “He’d be accepted into the University, you know. Not for years, of course. Seventeen is about as young as they go, but I have no doubts about …”
I missed the rest of what Ben said. The University! I had come to think of it
in the same way most children think of the Fae court, a mythical place reserved for dreaming about. A school the size of a small town. Ten times ten thousand books. People who would know the answers to any question I could ever ask… .
It was quiet when I turned my attention back to them.
My father was looking down at my mother, nestled under his arm. “How about it, woman? Did you happen to bed down with some wandering God a dozen years ago? That might solve our little mystery.”
She swatted at him playfully, and a thoughtful look crossed her face. “Come to think of it, there was a night, about a dozen years ago, a man came to me. He bound me with kisses and cords of chorded song. He robbed me of my virtue and stole me away.” She paused, “But he didn’t have red hair. Couldn’t be him.”
She smiled wickedly at my father, who appeared a little embarrassed. Then she kissed him. He kissed her back.
That’s how I like to remember them today. I snuck away with thoughts of the University dancing in my head.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Interlude—Flesh with Blood Beneath
In the Waystone Inn there was a silence. It surrounded the two men sitting at a table in an otherwise empty room. Kvothe had stopped speaking, and while he seemed to be staring down at his folded hands, in reality his eyes were far away. When he finally pulled his gaze upward, he seemed almost surprised to find Chronicler sitting across the table, pen poised above his inkwell.
Kvothe let out his breath selfconsciously and motioned Chronicler to set down his pen. After a moment Chronicler complied, wiping the nib of the pen on a clean cloth before setting it down.
“I could use a drink,” Kvothe announced suddenly, as if he were surprised. “I haven’t told many stories lately, and I find myself unreasonably dry.” He rose smoothly from the table and began to make his way through the maze of empty tables toward the empty bar. “I can offer you almost anything, dark ale, pale wine, spiced cider, chocolate, coffee… .”
Chronicler raised an eyebrow. “Chocolate would be wonderful, if you have it. I wouldn’t expect to find that sort of thing this far from …” He cleared his throat politely. “Well, anywhere.”
“We have everything here at the Waystone,” Kvothe said, making an offhand gesture to the empty room. “Excepting any customers, of course.” He brought an earthenware jug up from underneath the bar, then set it on the bar with a hollow sound. He sighed before calling out, “Bast! Bring up some cider, would you?”
An indistinct reply echoed from a doorway at the back of the room.
“Bast,” Kvothe chided, seemingly too quiet to be heard.
“Shag down here and get it yourself, you hack!” the voice shouted up from the basement. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Hired help?” Chronicler asked.
Kvothe leaned his elbows on the bar and smiled indulgently.
After a moment, the sound of someone climbing a set of wooden stairs in hard-soled boots echoed from the doorway. Bast stepped into the room, muttering under his breath.
He was dressed simply: black long-sleeved shirt tucked into black pants; black pants tucked into soft black boots. His face was sharp and delicate, almost beautiful, with striking blue eyes.
He carried a jug to the bar, walking with a strange and not unpleasant grace. “One customer?” he said reproachfully. “You couldn’t get it yourself? You pulled me away from Celum Tinture. You’ve been harping on me to read it for nearly a month now.”
“Bast, do you know what they do to students at the University who eavesdrop on their teachers?” Kvothe asked archly.
Bast put a hand on his chest and began to protest his innocence.
“Bast …” Kvothe gave him a stern look.
Bast closed his mouth and for a moment looked as if he was about to try and offer some explanation, then his shoulders slumped. “How did you know?”
Kvothe chuckled. “You’ve been avoiding that book for a mortal age. Either you had suddenly become an exceptionally dedicated student, or you were doing something incriminating.”
“What do they do to students at the University who eavesdrop?” Bast asked curiously.
“I haven’t the slightest idea, I was never caught. I think making you sit and listen to the rest of my story should be punishment enough. But I forget myself,” Kvothe said, gesturing to the common room. “We are neglecting our guest.”
Chronicler seemed anything but bored. As soon as Bast entered the room, Chronicler began to watch him curiously. As the conversation continued, Chronicler’s expression had grown by degrees more puzzled and more intent.
In fairness, something ought to be said about Bast. At first glance, he looked to be an average, if attractive, young man. But there was something different about him. For instance, he wore soft black leather boots. At least, if you looked at him that’s what you saw. But if you happened to catch a glimpse of him from the corner of your eye, and if he were standing in the right type of shadow, you might see something else entirely.
And if you had the right sort of mind, the sort of mind that actually sees what it looks at, you might notice that his eyes were odd. If your mind had the rare talent of not being fooled by its own expectations, you might notice something else about them, something strange and wonderful.
Because of this, Chronicler had been staring at Kvothe’s young student, trying to decide what was different about him. By the time their conversation was through, Chronicler’s gaze would be considered intense at the very least, and rude by most. When Bast finally turned from the bar, Chronicler’s eyes widened perceptibly, and the color drained from his already pale face.
Chronicler reached inside his shirt and tugged something from around his neck. He set it on the table at arm’s length, between himself and Bast. All this was done in half a second, and his eyes never left the dark-haired young man at the bar. Chronicler’s face was calm as he pressed the metal disk firmly onto the table with two fingers.
“Iron,” he said. His voice sounding with strange resonance, as if it were an order to be obeyed.
Bast doubled over as if punched in the stomach, baring his teeth and making a noise halfway between a growl and a scream. Moving with an unnatural, sinuous speed, he drew one hand back to the side of his head and tensed himself to spring.
It all happened in the time it takes to draw a sharp breath. Still, somehow, Kvothe’s long-fingered hand caught Bast’s wrist. Unaware or uncaring, Bast leaped toward Chronicler only to be brought up short, as if Kvothe’s hand were a shackle. Bast struggled furiously to free himself, but Kvothe stood behind the bar, arm outstretched, motionless as steel or stone.
“Stop!” Kvothe’s voice struck the air like a commandment, and in the stillness that followed, his words were sharp and angry. “I will have no fighting among my friends. I have lost enough without that.” His eyes caught Chronicler. “Undo that, or I will break it.”
Chronicler paused, shaken. Then his mouth moved silently, and with a slight tremor he drew his hand away from the circle of dull metal that lay upon the table.
Tension poured out of Bast, and for a moment he hung limply as a rag doll from the wrist Kvothe still held, standing behind the bar. Shakily, Bast managed to find his feet and lean against the bar. Kvothe gave him a long, searching look, then released his wrist.
Bast slumped onto the stool without taking his eyes from Chronicler. He moved gingerly, like a man with a tender wound.
And he had changed. The eyes that watched Chronicler were still a striking ocean blue, but now they showed themselves to be all one color, like gems or deep forest pools, and his soft leather boots had been replaced with graceful cloven hooves.
Kvothe motioned Chronicler forward imperiously, then turned to grab two thick glasses and a bottle seemingly at random. He set the glasses down as Bast and Chronicler eyed each other uneasily.
“Now,” Kvothe said angrily, “you’ve both acted understandably, but that does not by any means mean that either of you has behaved
well. So, we might as well start over altogether.”
He drew a deep breath. “Bast, let me introduce you to Devan Lochees, also known as Chronicler. By all accounts a great teller, rememberer, and recorder of stories. In addition, unless I have suddenly lost all my wit, an accomplished member of the Arcanum, at least Re’lar, and one of perhaps two score people in the world who knows the name of iron.
“However,” Kvothe continued, “in spite of these accolades he seems to be a bit innocent of the ways of the world. As demonstrated by his plentiful lack of wit in making a near-suicidal attack on what I guess is the first of the folk he has ever had the luck to see.”
Chronicler stood impassively throughout the introduction, watching Bast as if he were a snake.
“Chronicler, I would like you to meet Bastas, son of Remmen, Prince of Twilight and the Telwyth Mael. The brightest, which is to say the only student I’ve had the misfortune to teach. Glamourer, bartender, and, not last, my friend.
“Who, over the course of a hundred and fifty years of life, not to mention nearly two years of my personal tutelage, has managed to avoid learning a few important facts. The first being this: attacking a member of the Arcanum skilled enough to make a binding of iron is foolish.”
“He attacked me!” said Bast hotly.
Kvothe looked at him coolly. “I didn’t say it was unjustified. I said it was foolish.”
“I would have won.”
“Very likely. But you would have been hurt, and he would be hurt or dead. Do you remember that I had introduced him as my guest?”
Bast was silent. His expression remained belligerent.
“Now,” said Kvothe with a brittle cheerfulness. “You’ve been introduced.”
“Pleased,” Bast said icily.
“Likewise,” Chronicler returned.
“There is no reason for you two to be anything other than friends,” Kvothe continued, an edge creeping into his voice. “And that is not how friends greet each other.”
Bast and Chronicler stared at each other, neither moved.
Kvothe’s voice grew quiet, “If you do not stop this foolishness, you may both leave now. One of you will be left with a slim sliver of story, and the other can search out a new teacher. If there is one thing I will not abide, it is the folly of a willful pride.”
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