“But,” he shrugged, bringing his shoulders almost to his ears, and back down, “things are not always ideal. That is what a young physicker must learn more than anything.”
He looked up at me as if expecting a response. I nodded seriously.
It seemed to satisfy him, and his squinting smile returned. He turned and opened a cabinet that stood against one of the walls, “Give me just a moment and I will numb the burning that must be all across your back.” He clinked a few bottles together as he rummaged around on its shelves.
“It’s all right, Master Arwyl,” I said stoically. “You can stitch me closed the way I am.” I had two scruples of nahlrout numbing me, and I knew better than to mix anesthetics if I could avoid it.
He paused with one arm deep into the cabinet, and had to withdraw it to turn and look at me. “Have you ever had stitches before, my boy?”
“Yes,” I said honestly.
“Without anything to soften the pain?”
I nodded again.
As I sat on the table, my eyes were slightly higher than his. He looked up at me skeptically. “Let me see then,” he said, as if he didn’t quite believe me.
I pulled my pantleg up over my knee, gritting my teeth as the motion tugged on my back. Eventually I revealed a handspan worth of scar on my outer thigh above my knee from when Pike had stabbed me with his bottleglass knife back in Tarbean.
Arwyl looked at it closely, holding his glasses with one hand. He gave it one gentle prod with his index finger before straightening. “Sloppy,” he pronounced with a mild distaste.
I had thought it was a rather good job. “My cord broke halfway through,” I said stiffly. “I wasn’t working under ideal circumstances.”
Arwyl was silent for a while, stroking his upper lip with a finger as he watched me through half-lidded eyes. “And do you enjoy this sort of thing?” he asked dubiously.
I laughed at his expression, but it was cut short when dull pain blossomed across my back. “No, Master. I was just taking care of myself as best I could.”
He continued looking at me, still stroking his lower lip. “Show me where the gut broke.”
I pointed. It isn’t the sort of thing that you forget.
He gave the old scar a closer examination, and prodded it again before looking up. “You may be telling me the truth.” He shrugged. “I do not know. But I would think that if—” he trailed off and peered speculatively into my eyes. Reaching up he pulled one of the lids back. “Look up,” he said perfunctorily.
Frowning at whatever he saw, Arwyl picked up one of my hands, pressed the tip of my fingernail firmly, and watched intently for a second or two. His frown deepened as he moved closer to me, took hold of my chin with one hand, opened my mouth, and smelled it.
“Tennasin?” He asked, then answered his own question. “No. Nahlrout, of course. I must be getting old to not notice it sooner. It also explains why you’re not bleeding all over my nice clean table.” He gave me a serious look. “How much?”
I didn’t see any way of denying it. “Two scruples.”
Arwyl was silent for a while as he looked at me. After a moment he removed his spectacles and rubbed them fiercely against his cuff. Replacing them, he looked straight at me, “It is no surprise that a boy might fear a whipping enough to drug himself for it.” He looked sharply at me. “But why, if he was so afraid, would he remove his shirt beforehand?” He frowned again. “You will explain all of this to me. If you’ve lied to me before, admit it and all will be well. I know boys tell foolish stories sometimes.”
His eyes glittered behind the glass of his spectacles. “But if you lie to me now, neither I nor any of mine will stitch you. I will not be lied to.” He crossed his arms in front of himself. “So. Explain. I do not understand what is going on here. That, more than anything else, I do not like.”
My last resort then, the truth. “My teacher, Abenthy, taught me as much as he could about the physicker’s arts,” I explained. “When I ended up living on the streets of Tarbean I took care of myself.” I gestured to my knee. “I didn’t wear my shirt today because I only have two shirts, and it has been a long time since I have had as many as that.”
“And the nahlrout?” he asked.
I sighed, “I don’t fit in here, sir. I’m younger than everyone, and a lot of people think I don’t belong. I upset a lot of students by getting into the Arcanum so quickly. And I’ve managed to get on the wrong side of Master Hemme. All those students, and Hemme, and his friends, they’re all watching me, waiting for some sign of weakness.”
I took a deep breath. “I took the nahlrout because I didn’t want to faint. I needed to let them know they couldn’t hurt me. I’ve learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can’t be hurt.” It sounded ugly to say it so starkly, but it was the truth. I looked at him defiantly.
There was a long silence as Arwyl looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly behind his spectacles, as if he were trying to see something inside me. He brushed his upper lip with his finger again before he began, slowly, to speak.
“I suppose if I were older,” he said, quietly enough to be speaking to himself, “I would say that you were being ridiculous. That our students are adults, not squabbling, bickersome boys.”
He paused again, still stroking his lip absentmindedly. Then his eyes crinkled upward around the edges as he smiled at me. “But I am not so old as that. Hmmm. Not yet. Not by half. Anyone who thinks boys are innocent and sweet has never been a boy himself, or has forgotten it. And anyone who thinks men aren’t hurtful and cruel at times must not leave his house often. And he has certainly never been a physicker. We see the effects of cruelty more than any other.”
Before I could respond he said, “Close your mouth, E’lir Kvothe, or I will feel obliged to put some vile tonic in it. Ahhh, here they come.” The last was said to two students entering the room, one was the same assistant who had shown me here, the other was, surprisingly, a young woman.
“Ah, Re’lar Mola,” Arwyl enthused, all signs of our serious discussion passing lightly from his face. “You have heard that your patient has two straight, clean lacerations. What have you brought to remedy the situation?”
“Boiled linen, hook needle, gut, alcohol, and iodine,” she said, crisply. She had green eyes that stood out in her pale face.
“What?” Arwyl demanded. “No sympathy wax?”
“No, Master Arwyl,” she responded, paling a little at his tone.
“And why not?”
She hesitated. “Because I don’t need it.”
Arwyl seemed mollified. “Yes. Of course you don’t. Very good. Did you wash before you came here?”
Mola nodded, her short blond hair bobbing with the motion of her head.
“Then you have wasted your time and effort,” he said sternly. “Think of all the germs of disease that you might have gathered in the long walk through the passageway. Wash again and we will begin.”
She washed with a thorough briskness at a nearby basin. Arwyl helped me lay facedown on the table.
“Has the patient been numbed?” she asked. Though I couldn’t see her face, I heard a shadow of doubt in her voice.
“Anesthetized,” Arwyl corrected. “You have a good eye for detail, Mola. No, he has not. Now, what would you do if E’lir Kvothe reassured you that that he has no need for such things? He claims to have self-control like a bar of Ramston steel and will not flinch when you stitch him.” Arwyl’s tone was serious, but I could detect a hint of amusement hiding underneath.
Mola looked at me, then back to Arwyl. “I would tell him that he was being foolish,” she said after a brief pause.
“And if he persisted in his claims that he needed no numbing agent?”
There was a longer pause from Mola. “He doesn’t seem to be bleeding much at all, so I would proceed. I would also make it clear to him that if he moved overmuch, I would tie him to the table and treat him as I saw fit for his well-being.”
> “Hmmm,” Arwyl seemed a little surprised at her response. “Yes. Very good. So, Kvothe, do you still wish to forgo an anesthetic?”
“Thank you,” I said politely. “I do not need one.”
“Very well,” Mola said, as if resigning herself. “First we will clean and sterilize the wound.” The alcohol stung, but that was the worst of it. I tried my best to relax as Mola talked her way through the procedure. Arwyl kept up a steady stream of comments and advice. I occupied my mind with other things and tried not to twitch at the nahlrout-dulled jabs of the needle.
She finished quickly and proceeded to bandage me with a quick efficiency I admired. As she helped me to a sitting position and wound linen around me, I wondered if all Arwyl’s students were as well-trained as this one.
She was making her final knots behind me when I felt a vague, featherlike touch on my shoulder, almost insensible through the nahlrout that numbed me. “He has lovely skin.” I heard her muse, presumably to Arwyl.
“Re’lar!” Arwyl said severely. “Such comments are not professional. I am disappointed by your lack of sense.”
“I was referring to the nature of the scar he can expect to have,” she responded scathingly. “I imagine it will be little more than a pale line, provided he can avoid tearing open his wound.”
“Hmmm,” Arwyl said. “Yes, of course. And how should he avoid that?”
Mola walked around to stand in front of me. “Avoid motions like this,” she extended her hands in front of her, “or this,” she held them high over her head. “Avoid over-quick motions of any kind—running, jumping, climbing. The bandage may come off in two days. Do not get it wet.” She looked away from me, to Arwyl.
He nodded. “Very good, Re’lar. You are dismissed.” He looked at the younger boy who had watched mutely throughout the procedure, “You may go as well, Geri. If anyone asks, I will be in my study. Thank you.”
In a moment Arwyl and I were alone again. He stood motionless, one hand covering his mouth as I eased my way carefully into my shirt. Finally, he seemed to reach a decision, “E’lir Kvothe, would you like to study here at the Medica?”
“Very much so, Master Arwyl,” I said honestly.
He nodded to himself, hand still held against his lips, “Come back in four days. If you are clever enough to keep from tearing out your stitches, I will have you here.” His eyes twinkled.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Flickering Way
Buoyed by the stimulant effects of the nahlrout and feeling very little pain, I made my way to the Archives. Since I was now a member of the Arcanum, I was free to explore the stacks, something I’d been waiting my whole life to do.
Better still, so long as I didn’t ask for any help from the scrivs, nothing would be recorded in the Archive’s ledger books. That meant I could research the Chandrian and the Amyr to my heart’s content, and no one, not even Lorren, need ever know about my “childish” pursuits.
Entering the reddish light of the Archives I found both Ambrose and Fela sitting behind the entry desk. A mixed blessing if ever there was one.
Ambrose was leaning toward her, speaking in a low voice. She had the distinctly uncomfortable look of a woman who knows the futility of a polite refusal. One of his hands rested on her knee, while the other arm was draped across the back of her chair, his hand resting on her neck. He meant for it to look tender and affectionate, but there was a tension in her body like that of a startled deer. The truth was he was holding her there, the same way you hold a dog by the scruff of its neck to keep it from running off.
As the door thumped closed behind me Fela looked up, met my eyes, then looked down and away, ashamed by her predicament. As if she’d done anything. I had seen that look too many times on the streets of Tarbean. It sparked an old anger in me.
I approached the desk, making more noise than necessary. Pen and ink lay on the other end of the desk, and a piece of paper three-quarters full of rewriting and crossing out. From the looks of things, Ambrose had been trying to compose a poem.
I reached the edge of the desk and stood for a moment. Fela looked everywhere except at me or Ambrose. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, but obviously not wanting to make a scene. I cleared my throat pointedly.
Ambrose looked over his shoulder, scowling. “You have damnable timing, E’lir. Come back later.” He turned away again, dismissing me.
I snorted and leaned over the desk, craning my neck to look at the sheet of paper he’d left lying there, “I have damnable timing? Please, you have thirteen syllables in a line here.” I tapped a finger onto the page. “It’s not iambic either. I don’t know if it’s anything metrical at all.”
He turned to look at me again, his expression irritated. “Mind your tongue, E’lir. The day I come to you for help with poetry is the day—”
“… is the day you have two hours to spare,” I said. “Two long hours, and that’s just for getting started. ‘So same can the humble thrush well know its north?’ I mean, I don’t even know how to begin to criticize that. It practically mocks itself.”
“What do you know of poetry?” Ambrose said without bothering to turn around.
“I know a limping verse when I hear it,” I said. “But this isn’t even limping. A limp has rhythm. This is more like someone falling down a set of stairs. Uneven stairs. With a midden at the bottom.”
“It is a sprung rhythm,” he said, his voice stiff and offended. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Sprung?” I burst out with an incredulous laugh. “I understand that if I saw a horse with a leg this badly ‘sprung,’ I’d kill it out of mercy, then burn its poor corpse for fear the local dogs might gnaw on it and die.”
Ambrose finally turned around to face me, and in so doing he had to take his right hand off Fela’s knee. A half-victory, but his other hand remained on her neck, holding her in her chair with the appearance of a casual caress.
“I thought you might stop by today,” he said with a brittle cheerfulness. “So I already checked the ledger. You’re not in the lists yet. You’ll have to stick with Tomes or come back later, after they’ve updated the books.”
“No offense, but would you mind checking again? I’m not sure I can trust the literacy of someone who tries to rhyme ‘north’ with ‘worth.’ No wonder you have to hold women down to get them to listen to it.”
Ambrose stiffened and his arm slid off the back of the chair to fall at his side. His expression was pure venom. “When you’re older, E’lir, you’ll understand that what a man and a woman do together—”
“What? In the privacy of the entrance hall of the Archives?” I gestured around us. “God’s body, this isn’t some brothel. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s a student, not some brass nail you’ve paid to bang away at. If you’re going to force yourself on a woman, have the decency to do it in an alleyway. At least that way she’ll feel justified screaming about it.”
Ambrose’s face flushed furiously and it took him a long moment to find his voice. “You don’t know the first thing about women.”
“There, at least, we can agree,” I said easily. “In fact, that’s the reason I came here today. I wanted to do some research. Find a book or two on the subject.” I struck the ledger with two fingers, hard. “So look up my name and let me in.”
Ambrose flipped the book open, found the proper page, and turned the book around to face me. “There. If you can find your name on that list, you are welcome to peruse the stacks at your leisure.” He gave a tight smile. “Otherwise feel free to come back in a span or so. We should have things updated by then.”
“I had the masters send along a note just in case there was any confusion about my admission to the Arcanum.” I said, and drew my shirt up over my head, turning so he could see the broad expanse of bandages covering my back. “Can you read it from there, or do I need to come closer?”
There was a pointed silence from Ambrose, so I lowered my shirt and turned to face Fela, ignoring
him entirely. “My lady scriv,” I said to her with a bow. A very slight bow, as my back wouldn’t permit a deep one. “Would you be so good as to help me locate a book concerning women? I have been instructed by my betters to inform myself on this most subtle subject.”
Fela gave a faint smile and relaxed a bit. She had continued sitting stiff and uncomfortable after Ambrose had taken his hand away. I guessed that she knew Ambrose’s temperament well enough to know that if she bolted away and embarrassed him, he would make her pay for it later. “I don’t know if we have anything like that.”
“I would settle for a primer,” I said with a smile. “I have it on good report that I don’t know the first thing about them, so anything would further my knowledge.”
“Something with pictures?” Ambrose spat.
“If our search degenerates to that level I’ll be sure to call on you,” I said without looking in his direction. I smiled at Fela. “Perhaps a bestiary,” I said gently. “I hear they are singular creatures, much different than men.”
Fela’s smile blossomed and she gave a small laugh. “We could have a look around, I suppose.”
Ambrose scowled in her direction.
She made a placating gesture toward him. “Everyone knows he’s in the Arcanum, Ambrose,” she said. “What’s the harm of just letting him in?”
Ambrose glared at her. “Why don’t you run along to Tomes and play the good little fetch-and-carry girl?” he said coldly. “I can handle things out here by myself.”
Moving stiffly, Fela got up from the desk, gathered up the book she’d been trying to read, and headed into Tomes. As she pulled the door open, I like to think she gave me a brief look of gratitude and relief. But perhaps it was only my imagination.
As the door swung shut behind her, the room seemed to grow a little dimmer. I am not speaking poetically. The light truly seemed to dim. I looked at the sympathy lamps hanging around the room, wondering what was wrong.
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