The Wise Man's Fear tkc-2, page 92
part #2 of The Kingkiller Chronicle Series
“No,” she said. “Of course you’re not. That’s part of the problem.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “Okay. You should know about this as soon as possible. It will save us both trouble in the long run.” She looked me in the eye. “You’re a whore.”
I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Pay attention for a moment. You’re not thick. You must have realized there are huge cultural differences between here and where you grew up in . . .”
“The Commonwealth,” I said. “And you’re right. The cultural divide between Tempi and myself was huge compared to the other mercenaries from Vintas.”
She nodded. “Part of that is because Tempi has fewer wits than tits,” she said. “And he is as fresh as a baby chick when it comes to making his way in the world.” She waved a hand. “All that aside, you’re right. There are huge differences.”
“I noticed,” I said. “You don’t seem to have a nudity taboo for one thing. Either that or Tempi is a bit of an exhibitionist.”
“I’d be curious how you found that out,” she chuckled. “But you’re right. Strange as it may seem to you, we have no particular fear of a naked body.”
Vashet looked thoughtful for a moment, then seemed to reach some kind of decision. “Here. It will be simpler to show you. Watch.”
I watched the familiar Adem impassivity slide over her face, leaving her face blank as new paper. Her voice lost most of its inflection at the same time, shedding its emotional content. “Tell me what I mean when I do this,” she said.
Vashet stepped close, making no eye contact. Her hand said, respect. “You fight like a tiger.” Her face was expressionless, her voice flat and calm. She grabbed hold of the top of my shoulder with one hand, and gripped my arm with the other, giving it a squeeze.
“It’s a compliment,” I said.
Vashet nodded and stepped back. Then she changed. Her face grew animated. She smiled and met my eyes. She stepped close to me. “You fight like a tiger,” she said, her voice glowing with admiration. One of her hands rested on the top of my shoulder while the other slipped around my biceps. She squeezed.
I was suddenly embarrassed at how close we were standing. “It’s a sexual advance,” I said.
Vashet stepped away and nodded. “Your folk view certain things as intimate. Naked skin. Physical contact. The nearness of a body. Loveplay. To the Adem, these are nothing remarkable.”
She looked me in the eye. “Can you think of a single time you have heard one of us shout? Raise our voice? Or even speak loudly enough we can be overheard?”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head.
“That is because for us, speaking is private. Intimate. Facial expression too. And this . . .” She pressed her fingers to her throat. “The warmth a voice can make. The emotion it reveals. That is a very private thing.”
“And nothing carries more emotion than music,” I said, understanding. It was a thought too strange for me to cope with all at once.
Vashet nodded gravely. “A family might sing together if they are close. A mother might sing to her child. A woman might sing to her man.” A slight flush rose on Vashet’s cheeks as she said this. “But only if they are very much in love, and very much alone.
“But you?” She gestured to me. “A musician? You do this to a whole room full of people. All at once. And for what? A few pennies? The price of a meal?” She gave me a grave look. “And you do it again and again. Night after night. With anyone.”
Vashet shook her head in dismay and shuddered a bit, while her left hand unconsciously clenched in rough gestures: Horror, disgust, rebuke. It was rather intimidating getting both sets of emotional signals from her at the same time.
I fought off the mental image of standing naked on the stage of the Eolian, then moving through the crowd, pressing my body to everyone there. Young and old. Fat and thin. Rich noble and penniless commoner. It was a sobering thought.
“But Play Lute is the thirty-eighth position in the Ketan,” I protested. I was grasping at straws and I knew it.
“And Sleeping Bear is twelfth.” She shrugged. “But you will find no bears here, or lions, or lutes. Some names reveal. The names in the Ketan are meant to hide the truth, that we may speak of it without spilling its secrets to the open air.”
“I understand,” I said at last. “But many of you have been out in the world. You yourself speak Aturan beautifully and with much warmth in your voice. Surely you know there is nothing inherently wrong with a person singing.”
“You have been out in the world as well,” she said calmly. “And surely you know there is nothing inherently wrong with having sex with three people in a row on the broad hearth of a busy inn.” She looked me in the eye pointedly.
“I imagine the stone would be rather rough. . . .” I said.
She chuckled. “Very well, assume they had use of a blanket too. What would you call that person?”
If she’d asked me two span ago, when I’d been fresh out of the Fae, I might not have understood her. If I’d stayed with Felurian any longer, it’s entirely possible that having sex on the hearth wouldn’t have seemed odd to me. But I’d been back in the mortal world for a while now. . . .
A whore, I thought silently to myself. And a cheap and shameless whore to boot. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned Tempi’s desire to learn the lute to anyone. How ashamed he must have felt for such an innocent impulse. I thought of a young Tempi wanting to make music but never telling anyone because he knew it was dirty. It broke my heart.
My face must have given away quite a bit, because Vashet reached out to grip my hand gently. “I know this is hard for you folk to understand. So much harder because you have never even entertained the possibility of thinking otherwise.” Caution.
I struggled with everything this implied. “How do you get your news?” I asked. “With no troupers wandering from town to town, how do you keep in touch with the outside world?”
Vashet smirked a bit at this, and made a gesture to the windswept landscape. “Does this seem to be a place that concerns itself overmuch with the turning of the world?” She dropped her arm. “But it is not so bad as you think. Traveling peddlers are more welcome here than in most places. Tinkers doubly so. And we ourselves travel quite a bit. Those who take the red come and go, bringing news with them.”
She laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “And, occasionally, a rare singer or musician will travel through. But they do not play for a whole town at once. They will visit a single family. Even then, they perform while sitting behind a screen so they cannot be seen. You can tell an Adem musician because when they travel they carry their tall screens on their backs.” Her mouth pursed a bit. “But even these are not viewed in an entirely favorable light. It is a valuable occupation, but not a respectable one.”
I relaxed a bit. The thought of a place where no performer was welcome struck me as profoundly wrong, sick even. But a place with strange customs I could understand. Adapting to fit your audience is common as changing costumes to the Edema Ruh.
Vashet continued. “This is the way of things, and you would do well to accept it sooner rather than later. I say this as a well-traveled woman. I have spent eight years among the barbarians. I have even listened to music in a group of people.” She said this proudly, with a defiant tilt to her head. “I have done it more than once.”
“Have you ever sung in public?” I asked.
Vashet’s face went stony. “That is not a polite question to ask,” she said, stiffly. “And you will make no friends with it here.”
“All I mean,” I said quickly, “is that if you tried it, you might find it is nothing shameful. It is a great joy to everyone.”
Vashet gave me a severe look and made a hard gesture of refusal and finality. “Kvothe, I have traveled much and seen much. Many of the Adem here are worldly. We know of musicians. And, to be completely forthright, many of us have a secret, guilty fascination with them. Much the same way your folk are enamored with the skill of the Modegan courtesans.”
She gave me a hard look. “But for all that, I would not want my daughter to bring one home, if you catch my meaning. Neither would it improve anyone’s opinion of Tempi if others knew he had shared the Ketan with such as you. Keep it to yourself. You have enough to overcome without all Ademre knowing you are a musician on top of everything.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN
His Sharp and Single Arrow
Reluctantly, I took Vashet’s advice. And though my fingers itched for it, I did not bring out my lute that night and fill my small corner of the school with music. I even went so far as to slide my lute case underneath my bed, lest the mere sight of it fill the school with rumor.
For several days I did little but study under Vashet. I ate alone and made no attempt to speak with anyone, as I was suddenly self-conscious of my language. Carceret kept her distance, but she was always there, watching me, her eyes flat and angry as a snake’s.
I took advantage of Vashet’s excellent Aturan and asked a thousand questions that would have been too subtle for Tempi to understand.
I waited three entire days until I asked her the question that had been slowly smoldering inside me since I’d climbed the foothill of the Stormwal. Personally, I thought this showed exceptional restraint.
“Vashet,” I asked. “Do your people have stories of the Chandrian?”
She looked at me, her normally expressive face gone suddenly impassive. “And what does this have to do with your hand-talk?” Her hand flickered through several different variations of the gesture that indicated disapproval and reproach.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Does it have something to do with your fighting, then?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted. “But—”
“Surely it relates to the Ketan?” Vashet said. “Or to the Lethani? Or perhaps it touches on some subtle shade of meaning you have difficulty grasping in Ademic.”
“I am merely curious.”
Vashet sighed. “Can I persuade you to focus your curiosity on more pressing matters?” She asked, gesturing exasperated. Firm rebuke.
I quickly let the matter drop. Not only was Vashet my teacher, she was my only companion. The last thing I wanted to do was irritate her, or give the impression that I was less than attentive to her lessons.
With that one disappointing exception, Vashet was a sparkling font of information. She answered my endless questions quickly and clearly. As a result, I couldn’t help but feel that my skill in speaking and fighting was progressing in great leaps and bounds.
Vashet did not share my enthusiasm, and was not bashful about saying so. Eloquently. In two languages.
Vashet and I were down in the hidden valley that contained the sword tree. We had been practicing our hand fighting for about an hour, and were now sitting in the long grass, catching our breath.
Rather, I was catching my breath. Vashet was not winded at all. Fighting me was nothing to her, and there was no time when she couldn’t chide me for sloppiness by reaching lazily past my defenses to cuff me on the side of the head.
“Vashet,” I said, mustering the courage to ask a question that had been bothering me for some time. “May I ask a question that is perhaps presumptuous?”
“I prefer a presumptuous student,” she said. “I had hoped we were beyond the point of worrying about such things.”
“What is the purpose of all of this?” I gestured between the two of us.
“The purpose of this,” she mimicked my gesture, “is to teach you enough so that you no longer fight like a little boy, drunk on his mother’s wine.”
Today her sandy hair was tied in two short braids that hung down her back on either side of her neck. This made her look oddly girlish, and had not done wonders for my self-esteem over the last hour as she had repeatedly thrown me to the ground, forced me into submission, and struck me with countless solid but generously pulled punches and kicks.
And once, laughing, she had stepped easily behind me and slapped me firmly on the ass, as if she were a lecherous taproom drunk and I some low-bodiced serving girl.
“But why?” I asked. “To what purpose are you teaching me? If Tempi was wrong to teach me, why continue to teach me more?”
Vashet nodded approvingly. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to ask that,” she said. “It should have been one of your first questions.”
“I’ve been told I ask too many questions,” I said. “I’ve been trying to step a little more carefully here.”
Vashet sat forward, suddenly businesslike. “You know things you should not. Shehyn does not mind that you know of the Lethani, though others feel differently. But there is agreement on the subject of our Ketan. It is not for barbarians. It is only for the Adem, and only for those who follow the path of the sword tree.”
Vashet continued, “Shehyn’s thought is thus. If you were part of the school, you would be part of Ademre. If you are part of Ademre, you are no longer a barbarian. And if you are no longer a barbarian, it would not be wrong for you to know these things.”
It had a certain convoluted logic to it. “That also means Tempi would not be wrong for teaching me.”
She nodded. “Exactly. Instead of bringing home an unwanted puppy, it would be as if he had returned a lost lamb to the fold.”
“Must I be a lamb or a puppy?” I sighed. “It’s undignified.”
“You fight as a puppy fights,” she said. “Eager and clumsy.”
“But aren’t I already part of the school?” I asked. “You are teaching me, after all.”
Vashet shook her head. “You sleep in the school and eat our food, but that does not make you a student. Many children study the Ketan with hopes of entering the school and someday wearing the red. They live and study with us. They are in the school, but not of the school, if you follow me.”
“It seems odd to me that so many want to become mercenaries,” I said as gently as possible.
“You seem eager enough,” she said with an edge to her voice.
“I am eager to learn,” I said, “not take the life of a mercenary. I mean no offense.”
Vashet stretched her neck, working out some stiffness. “It is your language getting in the way. In the barbarian lands, mercenaries are the lowest rung of society. No matter how thick or useless a man might be, he can carry a cudgel and earn a ha’penny a day guarding a caravan. Am I right?”
“The lifestyle does tend to attract a rough sort of person,” I said.
“We are not mercenaries of that kind. We are paid, but we choose which jobs we take.” She paused. “If you fight for your purse, you are a mercenary. What are you called if you fight out of duty for your country?”
“A soldier.”
“If you fight for the law?”
“A constable or a bailiff.”
“If you fight for your reputation?”
I had to think a bit on that one. “A duelist, perhaps?”
“If you fight for the good of others?”
“An Amyr,” I said without thinking.
She cocked her head at me. “That is an interesting choice,” she said.
Vashet held up her arm, displaying the red sleeve proudly. “We Adem are paid to guard, to hunt, to protect. We fight for our land and our school and our reputations. And we fight for the Lethani. With the Lethani. In the Lethani. All of these things together. The Adem word for one who takes the red is Cethan.” She looked up at me. “And it is a very proud thing.”
“So becoming a mercenary is quite high on the Adem social ladder,” I said.
She nodded. “But barbarians do not know this word, and wouldn’t understand even if they did. So ‘mercenary’ must suffice.”
Vashet pulled two long strands of grass from the ground and began to twist them together into a cord. “This is why Shehyn’s decision is not an easy one to make. She must balance what is right against what is best for her school. All the while taking into consideration the good of the entire path of the sword tree. Rather than make a rash decision, she is playing a more patient game. Personally, I think she’s hoping the problem will take care of itself.”
“How would this take care of itself?” I asked.
“You could have run off,” she said simply. “Many assumed you would. If I’d decided you were not worth teaching, that would have taken it out of her hands as well. Or you could die during your training, or become crippled.”
I stared at her.
She shrugged. “Accidents happen. Not often, but sometimes. If Carceret had been your teacher . . .”
I grimaced. “So how does one officially become a member of the school? Is there some sort of test?”
She shook her head, “First, someone must stand on your behalf, saying you are worthy of joining the school.”
“Tempi?” I asked.
“Someone of consequence,” she clarified.
“So that would be you,” I said slowly.
Vashet grinned, tapping the side of her crimped nose, then pointing at me. “Only took you two guesses. If you ever progress to the point I feel you won’t embarrass me, I’ll stand on your behalf and you can take the test.”
She continued to twist the blades of grass together, her hands moving in a steady, complicated pattern. I’d never seen another Adem idly toy with something like this while talking. They couldn’t, of course. They needed one hand free to talk. “If you pass this test, you are no longer a barbarian. Tempi is vindicated, and everyone goes home happy. Except for those who aren’t, of course.”
“And if I don’t pass this test?” I asked. “Or what if you decide I’m not good enough to take it?”
“Then things grow complicated.” She came to her feet. “Come, Shehyn has asked to speak with you today. It would not be polite of us to be late.”
Vashet led the way back to the small cluster of low stone buildings. When I’d first seen them I’d assumed they were the town itself. Now I knew they composed the school. The group of buildings was like a tiny University, except there was none of the scheduled regimen I was used to.
