CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

Height

I WAS ALMOST BEGINNING TO feel comfortable in Haert. My language was improving and I felt less isolated now that I was able to exchange brief pleasantries with others. Vashet occasionally shared meals with me, helping me feel like slightly less of a pariah.

We had done sword-work this morning, which meant an easy start to the day. Vashet was still showing me how the sword was incorporated into the Ketan, and the moments we fought were few and far between. After a few hours of this, we worked on my Ademic, then more sword-work.

After lunch, we moved on to hand fighting. I couldn’t help but feel that here, at least, I was progressing well. After half an hour, not only was Vashet breathing harder, but she began to sweat a bit. I was still no sort of challenge to her, of course, but after days of humiliating nonchalance on her part, she was finally having to put forth a shred of effort to keep ahead of me.

So we continued to fight, and I noticed that—How can I say this delicately ? She smelled wonderful. Not like perfume or flowers or anything like that. She smelled like clean sweat and oiled metal and crushed grass from when I’d thrown her to the ground some time before. It was a good smell. She . . .

I can’t describe this delicately, I suppose. What I mean to say is that she smelled like sex. Not as if she’d been having it, as if she was made of it. When she came in close to grapple me, the smell of her combined with her body pressing against mine ... For a second it was like someone had thrown a switch in my head. All I could think of was kissing her mouth, biting the soft skin of her neck, tearing at her clothes and licking the sweat off her—

I did none of these things, of course. But at the moment I wanted nothing more. This is embarrassing to look back on, but I will not bother defending myself except to point out that I was in the full flower of my youth, fit and healthy. And she was quite an attractive woman, though ten years my senior.

Add to this the simple fact that I had gone from the loving arms of Felurian, to the eager arms of Losine, and from thence to a long, barren stretch of training with Tempi as we traveled to Haert. That meant for three span, I had been constantly exhausted, anxious, confused, and terrified by turns.

Now I was none of these things. Vashet was a good teacher and made sure I was well-rested and relaxed as possible. I was growing more confident in my abilities and more comfortable around her.

Given all of this, it’s no great surprise I had the reaction I did.

At the time, however, I was startled and embarrassed as only a young man can be. I stepped away from Vashet, blushing and fumbling an apology. I tried to hide my obvious arousal, and in doing so only drew more attention to it.

Vashet looked down at what my hands were trying vainly to conceal. “Well then, I suppose I will take that as a compliment and not a curious new avenue of attack.”

If a person could die from shame, I would have.

“Would you like to take care of it yourself?” Vashet asked easily. “Or would you prefer a partner?”

“I beg your pardon?” I said stupidly.

“Come now.” She gestured to my hands. “Even if you could keep your mind away from that, it would doubtless throw your balance off.” She gave a low, throaty chuckle. “You’ll need to tend to it before we continue your lessons. I can leave you to it, or we can find a soft spot and see who can pin the other best two of three.”

The casual tone of her voice convinced me I’d misunderstood her. Then she gave me a knowing smirk, and I realized I’d understood her perfectly well.

“Where I come from, a teacher and a student would never . . .” I stumbled, trying to think of a polite way to defuse the situation.

Vashet rolled her eyes at me, the exasperated expression looking odd on an Adem face. “Do your teachers and students also never fight? Never talk? Never eat together?”

“But this,” I said, “This . . .”

She sighed. “Kvothe, you need to remember. You come from a barbarous place. Much of what you grew up thinking is quite wrongheaded and foolish. None of it as much as the strange customs you barbarians have built around your sexplay.”

“Vashet,” I said. “I . . .”

She cut me off with a sharp gesture. “Whatever you are about to say, I have doubtless heard before from my poet king. But there are only so many hours of light in the day. So I ask you this: are you desirous of sex?”

I gave a helpless shrug, knowing it would be pointless to deny it.

“Would you like to have sex with me?”

I could still smell her. At that moment, I wanted it more than anything. “Yes.”

“Are you free of disease?” she asked seriously.

I nodded, too off balance to be startled by the frankness of the question.

“Very well then. If I remember correctly, there is a nice patch of moss out of the wind not too far from here.” She began to walk up a nearby hill, her fingers working the buckle that fastened her sword’s scabbard over her shoulder. “Come with me.”

Her memory did serve her well. Two trees arched their branches over a thick bed of soft moss that was snugged up against a small stony bluff, sheltered from the wind by some convenient bushes.

It quickly became obvious that what Vashet had in mind was not an afternoon of twining idly in the shade. To say she was businesslike would be a great disservice to her, as Vashet’s laughter always ran very close to the surface. But she was not flirtatious or coy.

She stripped off her mercenary reds without the least fanfare or teasing, revealing a few scars, and a body hard and lean and corded with muscle. Which isn’t to say that she wasn’t also round and soft as well. Then she teased me for staring as if I’d never seen a naked woman before, when the truth was I’d simply never seen one standing full naked in the sunlight.

When I didn’t undress fast enough to suit her, Vashet laughed and mocked my bashfulness. Stepping close, she stripped me naked as a plucked chicken, then kissed me on the mouth, her warm skin pressing against the entire front of my body.

“I’ve never kissed a woman my own height before,” I mused when we stopped for a breath. “It’s a different experience.”

“See how I continue to be your teacher in all things?” she said. “Your next lesson is this: all women are the same height lying down. The same cannot be said for your sort, of course. Too much depends on a man’s mood and his natural gifts.”

Vashet took my hand and brought us both to lie on the soft moss. “There,” she said. “As I suspected. Now you are taller than me. Does this set you at your ease?”

It did.

* * *

I was prepared for things to be awkward after Vashet and I returned from the bushes, and was surprised to find they were nothing of the sort. She did not suddenly grow flirtatious, which I wouldn’t have known how to cope with. Neither did she feel obliged to treat me with any newfound tenderness. This became clear somewhere around the fifth time she managed to lure me off my guard, catch me with Thunder Upward, and throw me roughly to the ground.

In all, she acted as if nothing odd at all had happened. Which meant either nothing odd had happened or something very odd had happened and she was pointedly ignoring it.

Which meant that everything was lovely, or everything was going terribly wrong.

Later, as I ate supper alone, I rolled what I knew of the Adem around in my head. No nudity taboo. They didn’t consider physical contact particularly intimate. Vashet had been very casual both before, during, and after our encounter.

I thought back to the naked couple I had stumbled onto several days ago. They had been startled, but not embarrassed.

Sex was viewed differently here, obviously. But I didn’t know any of the specific differences. That meant I didn’t have the first idea of how to conduct myself properly. And that meant what I was doing was dangerous as walking around blind. More like running blind, really.

Normally if I had a question about the Adem culture, I asked Vashet. She was my touchstone. But I could imagine too many ways for that conversation to go astray, and her goodwill was all that stood between me and the loss of my fingers.

By the time I finished eating, I’d decided it would be best to simply follow Vashet’s lead. She was my teacher, after all.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 855