Of Names

“Y OU,” VASHET SAID AS we walked through the hills, “are one great gaudy showboating bastard, you know that?”

I inclined my head slightly to her, gracefully gesturing subordinate acceptance .

She cuffed me on the side of the head. “Get over yourself, you melodramatic ass.You can fool them, but not me.”

Vashet held her hand to her chest as if gossiping. “Did you hear what Kvothe brought back from the sword tree? The things a barbarian cannot understand: silence and stillness. The heart of Ademre. What did he offer to Shehyn? Willingness to bleed for the school.”

She looked at me, her expression trapped between disgust and amusement. “Seriously, it’s like you stepped out of a storybook.”

I gestured: Gracious flattering understated affectionate acceptance .

Vashet reached out and flicked my ear hard with a finger.

“Ow!” I burst out laughing. “Fine. But don’t you dare accuse me of melodrama. You people are one great unending dramatic gesture. The quiet. The blood-red clothes. The hidden language. Secrets and mysteries. It’s like your lives are one giant dumbshow.” I met her eye. “And I do mean that in all its various clever implications.”

“Well, you impressed Shehyn,” she said. “Which is the most important thing. And you did it in such a way that the heads of the other schools won’t be able to grumble too much. Which is the other most important thing.”

We reached our destination, a low building of three rooms next to a small split-timber goat pen. “Here is the one who will tend to your hand,” she said.

“What of the apothecary?” I asked.

“The apothecary is close friends with Carceret’s mother,” Vashet said. “And I would not have her looking after your hands for a weight of gold.” She nodded her head at the nearby house. “Daeln, on the other hand, is who I would come to if I needed mending.”

She knocked on the door. “You may be a member of the school, but do not forget that I am still your teacher. In all things, I know what is best.”

* * *

Later, my hand tightly bandaged, Vashet and I sat with Shehyn. We were in a room I’d never seen before, smaller than the rooms where we had discussed the Lethani. There was a small, messy writing desk, some flowers in a vase, and several comfortably cushioned chairs. Along one wall was a picture of three birds in flight against a sunset sky, not painted, but composed of thousands of pieces of bright enameled tile. I suspected we might be in the equivalent of Shehyn’s study.

“How is your hand?” Shehyn said.

“Fine,” I said.“It is a shallow cut. Daeln has the smallest stitches I have ever seen. He is quite remarkable.”

She nodded. Approval .

I held up my left hand, wrapped in clean white linen. “The hard part will be keeping this hand idle for four days. I already feel as if it were my tongue that were cut, and not my hand.”

Shehyn gave a slight smile at this, startling me. The familiarity of the expression was a great compliment. “You performed quite well today. Everyone is speaking of it.”

“I expect the few that saw have better things to speak about,” I said modestly.

Amused disbelief . “That may be true, but those who watched from hiding will doubtless say what they have seen. Celean herself will have already told a hundred people unless I miss my guess. By tomorrow everyone will expect your stride to shake the ground as if you were Aethe himself come back to visit us.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I kept quiet. A rarity for me. But as I’ve said, I had been learning.

“There is something I have been waiting to speak to you about,” Shehyn said. Guarded curiosity . “After Tempi brought you here, he told me the long story of your time together,” she said. “Of your search for the bandits.”

I nodded.

“Is it true that you made blood magic to destroy some men, then called lightning to destroy the rest?”

Vashet looked up at this, glancing back and forth between us. I had grown so used to speaking Aturan with her that it was odd to see the expressionless Adem impassivity covering her face. Still, I could tell she was surprised. She hadn’t known.

I thought of trying to offer an explanation for my actions, then decided against it. “Yes.”

“You are powerful then.”

I had never thought of it in those terms before. “I have some power. Others are more powerful.”

“Is that why you seek the Ketan? To gain power?”

“No. I seek from curiosity. I seek the knowing of things.”

“Knowing is a type of power,” Shehyn pointed out, then seemed to change the subject. “Tempi told me there was a Rhinta among the bandits as their leader.”

“Rhinta?” I asked respectfully.

“A bad thing. A man who is more than a man, yet less than a man.”

“A demon?” I asked, using the Aturan word without thinking.

“Not a demon,” Shehyn said, switching easily to Aturan. “There are no such things as demons. Your priests tell stories of demons to frighten you.” She met my eye briefly, gesturing a graceful: Apologetic honesty and serious import . “But there are bad things in the world. Old things in the shape of men. And there are a handful worse than all the rest. They walk the world freely and do terrible things.”

I felt hope rising within me. “I have also heard them called the Chandrian,” I said.

Shehyn nodded. “I have heard this too. But Rhinta is a better word.” Shehyn gave me a long look and fell back into Ademic. “Given what Tempi has told me of your reaction, I think that you have met such a one before.”

“Yes.”

“Will you meet such a one again?”

“Yes.”The certainty in my own voice surprised me.

“With purpose?”

“Yes.”

“What purpose?”

“To kill him.”

“Such things are not easily killed.”

I nodded.

“Will you use what Tempi has taught you to do this?”

“I will use all things to that purpose.” I unconsciously began to gesture absolute , but the bandage on my hand stopped me. I frowned at it.

“That is good,” Shehyn said. “Your Ketan will not be enough. It is poor for one as old as you are. Good for a barbarian. Good for one with as little training as you have had, but still poor overall.”

I fought hard to keep the eagerness out of my voice, wishing I could use my hand to indicate how important the question was to me. “Shehyn, I have a great desire to know more of these Rhinta.”

Shehyn was quiet for a long moment. “I will consider this,” she said at last, making a gesture I thought might be trepidation . “Such things are not spoken of lightly.”

I kept my face impassive, and forced my bandaged hand to say profound respectful desire . “I thank you for considering it, Shehyn. Anything you could tell me of them I would value more than a weight of gold.”

Vashet gestured firm discomfort , then polite desire, difference . Two span ago I couldn’t have understood, but now I realized she wanted to move the conversation onto a different subject.

So I bit my tongue and let it go. I knew enough about the Adem by this point to realize that pushing the issue was the worst thing to do if I wanted to learn more. In the Commonwealth I could have pressed the point, teased and wheedled it out of the person I was talking to. That wouldn’t work here. Stillness and silence were the only things that would work. I had to be patient and let Shehyn return to the subject in her own time.

“I was saying,” Shehyn continued. Reluctant confession .“Your Ketan is poor. But were you to train yourself in proper fashion for a year, you would be Tempi’s equal.”

“You flatter me.”

“I do not. I tell you your weaknesses.You learn quickly. That leads to rash behavior, and rashness is not of the Lethani. Vashet is not alone in thinking there is something troubling about your spirit.”

Shehyn gave me a long look. For over a minute she stared at me. Then she gave an eloquent shrug and glanced at Vashet, favoring the younger woman with a ghost of a smile. “Still,” Whimsical musing. “if I have ever met someone without a single shadow on their heart, it was surely a child too young for speaking.” She pushed herself out of her chair and brushed off her shirt with both hands. “Come. Let us go and have a name for you.”

* * *

Shehyn led the three of us up the side of a steep, rocky hill.

None of us had spoken since we had left the school. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but it didn’t seem proper to ask. It would have seemed irreverent, like a groom blurting out, “What comes next?” halfway through his own wedding.

We came to a grassy ledge with a leaning tree clutching tight to the bare face of a cliff. Beside the tree was a thick wooden door, one of the hidden Adem homes.

Shehyn knocked and opened the door herself. Inside it wasn’t cavelike at all. The stone walls were finished, and the floor was smooth wood. It was much larger than I’d expected, too, with a high ceiling and six doors leading deeper into the stone of the cliff.

A woman sat at a low table, copying something from one book into another. Her hair was white, her face wrinkled as an old apple. It occurred to me then that this was the first person I’d seen reading or writing in all my time in Haert.

The old woman nodded a greeting at Shehyn, then turned to Vashet and her eyes crinkled around the edges. Gladness . “Vashet,” she said. “I did not know you were returned.”

“We are come for a name, Magwyn,” Shehyn said. Polite formal entreaty .

“A name?” Magwyn asked, puzzled. She looked from Shehyn to Vashet, then her eyes moved to where I stood behind them. To my bright red hair and my bandaged hand. “Ah,” she said, growing suddenly somber.

Magwyn closed her books and came to her feet. Her back was bent, and she took small, shuffling steps. She motioned me forward and walked a slow circle around me, looking me carefully up and down. She avoided looking at my face, but took hold of my unbandaged hand, turning it over to look at the palm and the fingertips.

“I would hear you say something,” she said, still looking intently at my hand.

“As you will, honored shaper of names,” I said.

Magwyn looked up at Shehyn. “Does he mock me?”

“I think not.”

Magwyn made another circle of me, running her hands over my shoulders, my arms, the back of my neck. She moved her fingers through my hair, then stopped in front of me and looked me fully in the eye.

Her eyes were like Elodin’s. Not in any of the details. Elodin’s eyes were green, sharp, and mocking. Magwyn’s were the familiar Adem grey, slightly watery and red around the edges. No, the similarity was in how she looked at me. Elodin was the only other person I had met who could look at you like that, as if you were a book he was idly thumbing through.

When Magwyn met my eyes for the first time, I felt like all the air had been sucked out of me. For the barest of moments I thought she might be startled by what she saw, but that was probably just my anxiety. I had come to the edge of disaster too often lately, and despite how well my recent test had gone, part of me was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Maedre,” she said, her eyes still fixed on mine. She looked down and made her way back to her book.

“Maedre?”Vashet said, a hint of dismay in her voice. She might have said more, but Shehyn reached out and cuffed her sharply on the side of the head.

It was exactly the same motion Vashet had used to chastise me a thousand times in the last month. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

Vashet and Shehyn glared at me. Actually glared.

Magwyn turned to look at me. She didn’t seem upset. “Do you laugh at the name I have given you?”

“Never, Magwyn,” I said trying my best to gesture respect with my bandaged hand. “Names are important things.”

She continued to eye me. “And what would a barbarian know of names?”

“Some,” I said, fumbling with my bandaged hand again. I couldn’t add fine shades of meaning to my words without it. “Far away, I have made a study of such things. I know more than many, but still only just a little.”

Magwyn looked at me for a long time. “Then you will know you should not speak of your new name to anyone,” she said. “It is a private thing, and dangerous to share.”

I nodded.

Magwyn looked satisfied at this, and settled back onto her chair, opening a book. “Vashet, my little rabbit, you should come and visit me soon.” Gentle chiding fondness .

“I will, grandmother,” Vashet said.

“Thank you, Magwyn,” Shehyn said. Deferential gratitude .

The old woman nodded a distracted dismissal, and Shehyn led us from the cave.

* * *

Later that evening, I walked back to Vashet’s house. She was sitting on the bench out front, watching the sky as the sun began to set.

She tapped the bench beside her, and I took a seat. “How does it feel to no longer be a barbarian?” she asked.

“Mostly the same,” I said. “Slightly drunker.”

After dinner Penthe had pulled me away to her house, where there was a party of sorts. Call it a gathering, rather, as there was no music or dancing. Still, I was flattered that Penthe had gone to the effort of finding five other Adem who were willing to celebrate my admittance to the school.

I was pleased to learn the Adem impassivity dissolved quite easily after a few drinks, and we were all grinning like barbarians in no time. It relaxed me, especially as much of my own clumsiness with the language could now be blamed on my bandaged hand.

“Earlier today,” I said carefully, “Shehyn said she knew a story about the Rhinta.”

Vashet turned to look at me, her face expressionless. Hesitant .

“I have searched all over the world for such a thing,” I said.“There are few things I would value more.” Utter sincerity .“And I worry that I did a poor job of letting Shehyn know this.” Questioning. Intense entreaty .

Vashet looked at me for a moment, as if waiting for me to continue. Then she gestured reluctance . “I will mention it to her,” she said. Reassurance. Finished .

I nodded and let the subject drop.

Vashet and I sat for a while in companionable silence as the sun slowly sank into the horizon. She drew a deep breath and sighed expansively. I realized that, with the exception of waiting for me to catch my breath or recover from a fall, we had never done anything like this before. Up until this point, every moment we had spent together had been focused on my training.

“Tonight,” I said at last. “Penthe told me she thought I had a fine anger, and that she’d like to share it with me.”

Vashet chuckled. “That didn’t take very long.” She gave me a knowing look. “What happened?”

I blushed a bit. “Ah. She . . . reminded me the Adem do not consider physical contact particularly intimate.”

Vashet’s smile grew practically lecherous. “Grabbed hold of you, did she?”

“Almost,” I said. “I move more quickly than I did a month ago.”

“I doubt you move quickly enough to keep away from Penthe,” Vashet said. “All she is looking for is sexplay.There is no harm in it.”

“That is why I was asking you,” I said slowly. “To see if there was any harm in it.”

Vashet she raised an eyebrow, at the same time gesturing vague puzzlement .

“Penthe is quite lovely,” I said carefully. “However, you and I have . . .” I looked for an appropriate term. “Been intimate.”

Realization washed over Vashet’s face and she laughed again. “What you mean is that we have been sexual. The intimacy between a teacher and student is greater by far than that.”

“Ah,” I said, relaxing.“I’d suspected something of the sort. But it is nice to know for certain.”

Vashet shook her head. “I had forgotten what it is like with you barbarians,” she said, her voice heavy with fond indulgence. “It has been so many years since I had to explain such things to my poet king.”

“So you would not be offended if I were to . . .” I made an inarticulate gesture with my bandaged hand.

“You are young and energetic,” she said. “It is a healthy thing for you to do. Why would I be offended? Do I suddenly own your sex, that I should be worried about you giving it away?”

Vashet stopped as if something had just occurred to her. She turned to look at me. “Are you offended that I have been having sex with others all this while?” She watched my face intently. “I see you are startled by it.”

“I am startled,” I admitted. Then I did a mental inventory and was surprised to discover I wasn’t sure how I felt. “I feel I ought to be offended,” I said at last. “But I don’t think I am.”

Vashet nodded approvingly. “That is a good sign. It shows you are becoming civilized. The other feeling is what you were brought up to think. It is like an old shirt that no longer fits you. And now, when you look at it closely, you can see it was ugly to begin with.”

I hesitated for a moment.“Out of curiosity,” I said, “how many others have you been with since we have been together?”

Vashet seemed surprised by the question. She pursed her mouth and looked up at the sky for a long moment before shrugging. “How many people have I spoken with since then? How many have I sparred with? How many times have I eaten, or practiced my Ketan? Who counts such things?”

“And most Adem think this way?” I asked, glad to finally have the chance to ask these questions. “That sex is not an intimate thing?”

“Of course it is intimate,” Vashet said. “Anything that brings two people close together is intimate. A conversation, a kiss, a whisper. Even fighting is intimate. But we are not strange about our sex. We do not feel shame about it. We do not feel it important to keep someone else’s sex all to ourselves, like a miser hoarding gold.” She shook her head. “More than any other, this strangeness in your thinking sets you barbarians apart.”

“But what of romance then?” I asked, slightly indignant. “What of love?”

Vashet laughed again then, loud and long and vastly amused. Half of Haert must have heard it, and it echoed back to us from the distant hills.

“You barbarians,” she said, wiping moisture from her eyes. “I had forgotten how backward you are. My poet king was the same way. It took him a long, miserable time before he realized the truth of things: There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 901