The Wise Man's Fear

  Dedan sputtered angrily. “Now listen h—” Hespe said something and tried to pull him down into his seat, but Dedan shook her off. “No. I won’t be called a liar. We were sent here by Alveron himself because of them bandits. And we did our job. We’re not expecting a parade, but I’ll be damned before I let you call me a liar. We killed those bastards. And afterward we did see Felurian. And Kvothe there did take off after her.”

  Dedan glared around the room belligerently, mostly in the direction of the fiddler. “That’s the truth and I swear it by my good right hand. If anyone wants to call me a liar we can have it out right now.”

  The fiddler picked up his bow and met Dedan’s eye. He drew a screaming note across the strings. “Liar.”

  Dedan nearly leapt across the room as people pushed their chairs back to make a clear space for the fight. The fiddler came to his feet slowly. He was taller than I’d expected, with short grey hair and scarred knuckles that told me he knew his way around a fistfight.

  I managed to get in front of Dedan and leaned against him, speaking low in his ear, “Do you really want to brawl with a broken arm? If he gets hold of it, you’ll just scream and piss yourself in front of Hespe.” I felt him relax a bit and gave him a gentle push back toward his seat. He went, but he wasn’t happy.

  “... something here.” I heard a woman say behind me. “If you want to have a scuff with someone you take it outside and don’t bother coming back. You don’t get paid to fight the customers. You hear?”

  “Now Penny,” the fiddler said soothingly. “I was just showin’ some teeth to him. He’s the one took it all personal. You can’t blame me for makin’ fun with the sort of stories they come in with.”

  I turned around and saw the fiddler explaining himself to an angry woman in her middle years. She was a full foot shorter than him, and had to reach up to jab his chest with a finger.

  That’s when I heard a voice exclaim to one side of me, “God’s mother, Seb. You see that? Look at it! It’s movin’ by itself.”

  “You’re blind drunk. It’s just a breeze.”

  “There ain’t no wind in tonight. It’s moving itself. Look again!”

  It was my shaed, of course. By now several people had noticed it blowing gently in a breeze that wasn’t there. I thought the effect was rather nice, but I could tell by their wide eyes that folk were becoming alarmed. One or two slid their chairs away from me uneasily.

  Penny’s eyes were fixed on my gently flowing shaed, and she walked over to stand in front of me. “What is it?” she asked, her voice showing just a hint of fear.

  “Nothing to worry over,” I said easily, holding out a fold of it for her inspection. “It is my shadow cloak. Felurian made it for me.”

  The fiddler made a disgusted noise.

  Penny shot him a look and hesitantly brushed my cloak with a hand. “It’s soft,” she murmured, looking up at me. When our eyes met she looked surprised for a moment, then exclaimed, “You’re Losi’s boy!”

  Before I could ask what she meant, I heard a woman’s voice say, “What?” I turned to see a red-haired serving girl moving toward us. The same one who had embarrassed me so badly on our first visit to the Pennysworth.

  Penny nodded toward me. “It’s your fresh-faced fiery boy from about three span back! You remember pointing him out to me? I didn’t recognize him with the beard.”

  Losi came to stand in front of me. Bright red curls tumbled over the bare, pale skin of her shoulders. Her dangerous green eyes swept over my shaed and made their slow way up to my face. “It’s him all right,” she said sideways to Penny. “Beard or no.”

  She took a step closer, almost pressing against me. “Boys are always wearing beards and hoping it will make them men.” Her bright emerald eyes settled boldly onto mine as if expecting me to blush and fumble about as I had before.

  I thought of everything I’d learned at the hands of Felurian, and felt the strange, wild laughter welling up in me again. I fought it down as best I could, but I could feel it tumbling around inside me as I met her eye and smiled.

  Losi took a startled half-step back, her pale skin blushing to a furious red.

  Penny held out a hand to steady her. “Lord girl, what’s the matter with you?”

  Losi tore her eyes away from me. “Look at him Penny, really look at him. He’s got a fae look about him. Look at his eyes.”

  Penny looked curiously at my face, then flushed a bit herself and crossed her arms in front of her chest, as if I had seen her naked. “Merciful lord,” she said breathlessly. “It’s all true, then. Isn’t it?”

  “Every word,” I said.

  “How did you get away from her?” Penny asked.

  “Oh come on, Penny!” the fiddler cried out in disbelief. “You aren’t buyin’ this pup’s story, are ya?”

  Losi turned and spoke hotly. “There’s a look a man has when he knows his way around a woman, Ben Crayton. Not that you would know. When this one was here a couple span ago I liked his face and thought I’d have a roll with him. But when I tried to trip him . . .” She trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “I remember that,” a man at the bar called out. “Funniest damn thing. I thought he was gonna piss himself. He couldn’t say a word to her.”

  The fiddler shrugged. “So he found some farmer’s daughter since then. It don’t mean . . .”

  “Hush Ben,” Penny said with quiet authority. “There’s more changed here than a bit of beard can account for.” Her eyes searched my face. “Lord but you’re right, girl. There is a fae look about him.” The fiddler started to speak again but Penny shot him a sharp look. “Hush or get out. I don’t want any fights in here tonight.”

  The fiddler looked around the room and saw the tide had turned against him. Red-faced and scowling, he gathered up his fiddle and stormed out.

  Losi stepped close to me again, brushing her hair back. “Was she really as beautiful as they say?” Her chin went up proudly. “More beautiful than me?”

  I hesitated, then spoke softly. “She was Felurian, most beautiful of all.” I reached out to brush the side of her neck where her red hair began its curling tumble downward, then leaned forward and whispered seven words into her ear. “For all that, she lacked your fire.” And she loved me for those seven words, and her pride was safe.

  Penny spoke up. “How did you manage to get away?”

  I looked around the room and felt everyone’s attention settle onto me. The wild, fae laughter tumbled around inside me. I smiled a lazy smile. My shaed billowed.

  Then I moved to the front of the room, sat on the hearth, and told them the story.

  Or rather, I told them a story. If I’d told them the entire truth they wouldn’t have believed it. Felurian let me go because I was holding a song hostage? It simply didn’t fit the classic lines.

  So what I told them was closer to the story they expected to hear. In that story, I chased Felurian into the Fae. Our bodies tangled together in her twilight glade. Then, as we rested, I played her music light enough to make her laugh, music dark enough to make her gasp, music sweet enough to make her weep.

  But when I tried to leave the Fae, she would not let me. She was too fond of my . . . artistry.

  I shouldn’t be coy, I suppose. I implied rather strongly that Felurian thought quite highly of me as a lover. I offer no apology for this behavior except to say that I was a young man of sixteen, proud of my newfound skills, and not above a little bragging.

  I told them how Felurian had tried to trap me in the Fae, how we fought with magic. For this I borrowed a little from Taborlin the Great. There was fire and lightning.

  At the end I bested Felurian but spared her life. In her gratitude she wove me a faerie cloak, taught me secret magics, and gave me a silver leaf as a token of her favor. The leaf was pure fabrication, of course. But it wouldn’t have been a proper story if she hadn’t given me three gifts.

  All in all, it was a good story. And if it wasn’t entirely true . . . w
ell, at least it had some truth mixed in. In my defense, I could have dispensed with the truth entirely and told a much better story. Lies are simpler, and most of the time they make better sense.

  Losi watched me all through the telling, and seemed to take the whole thing as something of a challenge to the prowess of mortal women. After the story was over, she laid claim to me and led me to her small room on the topmost floor of the Pennysworth.

  I managed very little sleep that night, and Losi came closer to killing me than Felurian ever had. She was a delightful partner, every bit as wonderful as Felurian had been.

  But how could that be? I hear you ask. How could any mortal woman compare with Felurian?

  It is easier to understand if you think of it in terms of music. Sometimes a man enjoys a symphony. Elsetimes he finds a jig more suited to his taste. The same holds true for lovemaking. One type is suited to the deep cushions of a twilight forest glade. Another comes quite naturally tangled in the sheets of narrow beds upstairs in inns. Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.

  Some might take offense at this way of seeing things, not understanding how a trouper views his music. They might think I degrade women. They might consider me callous, or boorish, or crude.

  But those people do not understand love, or music, or me.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

  Quick

  WE SPENT A FEW days at the Pennysworth while our welcome was warm. We had our own rooms and all our meals for free. Fewer bandits meant safer roads and more customers, and Penny knew our presence at the inn would draw a better crowd than fiddle playing any night.

  We put the time to good use, enjoying hot meals and soft beds. All of us could use the time to mend. Hespe was still nursing her arrow-shot leg, Dedan his broken arm. My own minor injuries from the fight with the bandits were long since gone, but I had newer ones, mostly consisting of a heavily scratched back.

  I taught Tempi the basics of the lute, and he resumed teaching me how to fight. My training consisted of short, terse discussions concerning the Lethani and long, strenuous periods of practicing the Ketan.

  I also pieced together a song about my Felurian experience. I originally called it “In Twilight Versed,” which you have to admit wasn’t a very good title. Luckily, the name didn’t stick and these days most folk know it as “The Song Half-Sung.”

  It wasn’t my best work, but it was easy to remember. The customers at the inn seemed to enjoy it, and when I heard Losi whistling it as she served drinks, I knew it would spread like a fire in a seam of coal.

  Since folk kept asking for stories, I shared a few other interesting events from my life. I told them how I’d managed to get admitted into the University when I was barely fifteen years old. I told them how I’d gained entry to the Arcanum in a mere three days’ time. I told them how I had called the name of the wind in a furious rage after Ambrose broke my lute.

  Unfortunately, by the third night, I was out of true stories. And, since my audience was still hungry for more, I simply stole a story about Illien and put myself in his place instead, stealing a few pieces from Taborlin while I was at it.

  I’m not proud of that, and in my defense, I’d like to say I’d had quite a bit to drink. What’s more, there were a few pretty women in my audience. There is something powerfully beguiling about the excited eyes of a young woman. They can pull all manner of nonsense out of a foolish young man, and I was no exception to this rule.

  Meanwhile, Dedan and Hespe occupied the small exclusive world new lovers make for themselves. They were a delight to watch. Dedan was gentler, quieter. Hespe’s face lost much of its hardness. They spent a great deal of time in their room. Catching up on their sleep, no doubt.

  Marten flirted outrageously with Penny, drank enough to drown a fish, and generally enjoyed himself enough for any three men.

  We left the Pennysworth after three days, not wanting to wear our welcome thin. I for one was glad to go. Between Tempi’s training and Losi’s attentions I was nearly dead from exhaustion.

  We made slow time on the road back to Severen. Part of this was out of concern for Hespe’s injured leg, but some of it was because we knew our time together was drawing to an end. Despite our difficulties, we had become close, and it is hard to leave such things behind.

  News of our adventures had run ahead of us on the road. So when we stopped for the night our meals and beds were easy to come by, if not free.

  On our third day out of the Pennysworth, we ran across a small troupe of performers. They weren’t Edema Ruh and looked rather out at the heels. There were just four of them: an older fellow, two men in their twenties, and a boy of eight or nine. They were packing up their rickety cart just as we were stopping to give Hespe’s leg a bit of a rest.

  “Hello the troupers,” I called out.

  They looked up nervously, then relaxed as they saw the lute across my back. “Hello the bard.”

  I laughed and shook their hands. “No bard here, just a bit of a singer.”

  “Hello the same,” the older man said, smiling. “Which way are you heading?”

  “North to south. Yourself?”

  They relaxed further once they knew I was heading in a different direction. “East to west,” he said.

  “How’s your luck been?”

  He shrugged. “Poor enough lately. But we’ve heard tell of a Lady Chalker who lives two days off. They say she never turns a man away if he can fiddle a bit or mum a play. We hope to come off with a penny or two.”

  “Things were better when we had the bear,” one of the younger men said. “Folk’ll pay to see a bear-bait.”

  “Went sick of a dog bite,” the other man explained to me. “Died near a year ago.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “Bear’s hard to come by.” They nodded a silent agreement. “I’ve got a new song for you. What will you trade me for it?”

  He eyed me warily. “Well now, new to you isn’t exactly new to us,” he pointed out. “And a new song ain’t necessarily a good song, if you know what I mean.”

  “Judge for yourself,” I said as I uncased my lute. I’d written it to be easy to remember and simple to sing, but I still had to repeat it twice before he caught all of it. As I’ve said, they weren’t Edema Ruh.

  “A good enough song,” he admitted grudgingly. “Everyone likes Felurian, but I don’t know what we can trade you for it.”

  The young boy piped up, “I made up a verse to ‘Tinker Tanner.’ ”

  The others tried to hush him, but I smiled. “I’d love to hear it.”

  The boy puffed himself up and sang out in a piping voice:I once saw a fair farmer’s daughter

  On the riverbank far from all men

  She was taking a bath when I saw her

  Said she didn’t feel right

  If a man caught a sight

  So she soaped herself slowly all over again.

  I laughed. “That’s good,” I complimented him, “But how about this?I once saw a fair farmer’s daughter

  On the riverbank far from all men.

  She confessed to me once when I caught her

  That she didn’t feel clean

  If her bathing was seen

  So she washed herself over again.

  The boy thought about it. “I like mine better,” he said after a moment’s consideration.

  I patted him on the back. “It’s a good man that sticks to his own verse.” I turned back to the leader of the little troupe. “Any gossip?”

  He thought for a moment. “Bandits north of here in the Eld.”

  I nodded. “They’ve been cleared out now, so I’ve heard.”

  He thought some more. “I heard Alveron’s getting married to the Lackless woman.”

  “I know a poem about Lackless!” The young boy chimed in again, and began:Seven things stand before

  The entrance to the Lackless door—

  “Hush.” The old
er man cuffed the boy gently along side of his head. He looked up apologetically. “Boy’s got a good ear, but not one lick of manners.”

  “Actually,” I said. “I’d like to hear it.”

  He shrugged and let go of the boy, who glared at him before reciting:Seven things stand before

  The entrance to the Lackless door.

  One of them a ring unworn

  One a word that is forsworn

  One a time that must be right

  One a candle without light

  One a son who brings the blood

  One a door that holds the flood

  One a thing tight-held in keeping

  Then comes that which comes with sleeping.

  “It’s one of those riddle rhymes,” the father said apologetically. “Lord knows where he hears them, but he knows better than to go spouting every lewd thing he hears.”

  “Where did you hear it?” I asked.

  The boy thought for a moment, then shrugged and began to scratch himself behind his knee. “Dunno. Kids.”

  “We should be getting on,” the older man said, looking up at the sky. I dug into my purse, and handed him a silver noble. “What’s this then?” he asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

  “To help with a new bear,” I said. “I’ve been through some tight times too, but I’m flush now.”

  They left after thanking me profusely. Poor fellows. No self-respecting Ruh troupe would ever stoop to bearbaiting. There was no skill involved, no pride in the performance.

  But they could hardly be blamed for the their lack of Ruh blood, and we troupers have to watch out for each other. No one else does.

  Tempi and I used our walking hours to discuss the Lethani and evenings to practice the Ketan. It was becoming easier for me, and I could sometimes make it as far as Catching Rain before Tempi caught some minuscule mistake and made me start over.

  The two of us had found a halfway secluded place beside the inn where we had stopped for the day. Dedan, Hespe, and Marten were inside drinking. I worked my way carefully through the Ketan while Tempi sat with his back to a tree, practicing a basic fingering drill I had taught him with relentless determination. Over and over. Over and over.