CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE

A Journey to Return

F ATE FAVORED ME ON the way back to the University. We had a good wind and everything was delightfully uneventful. The sailors had heard of my encounter with Felurian, so I enjoyed a modest fame for the duration of the trip. I played them the song I’d written about it, and told them the story about half as often as they asked me to.

I also told them about my trip to the Adem. They didn’t believe a piece of it at first, but then I showed them the sword and threw their best wrestler three times. They showed me a different sort of respect after that, and a rougher, more honest sort of friendship.

I learned a goodly bit from them on my journey home. They told me sea stories and the names of stars. They talked about wind and water and wimmin, sorry, women. They tried to teach me sailor’s knots, but I didn’t have a knack for it, though I proved to be a dab hand at untying them.

Altogether it was very pleasant. The friendship of the sailors, the song of the wind in the rigging, the smell of sweat and salt and tar. Over the long days, these things slowly eased the bitterness I felt toward my ill treatment at the hands of Maer Alveron and his loving lady wife.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO

Home

E VENTUALLY WE DOCKED IN Tarbean, where the sailors helped me find a cheap berth on a billow boat heading upstream toward Anilin. I got off two days later in Imre and walked to the University just as the first blue light of dawn was coloring the sky.

I’ve never in my life had anything like a home. As a young child I grew up on the road, endlessly traveling with my troupe. Home wasn’t a place. It was people and wagons. Later in Tarbean I had had a secret place where three roofs came together and gave me shelter from the rain. I slept there and hid a few precious things, but it wasn’t anything like a home.

Because of this, I’d never in my life enjoyed the feeling of coming home after a journey. I felt it for the first time that day as I crossed the Omethi, the stones of the bridge familiar underneath my feet. As I came to the tallest part of its broad arch I could see the grey shape of the Archives rising out of the trees ahead of me.

The streets of the University were comforting under my feet. I’d been gone for three-quarters of a year. In some ways it seemed much longer, but at the same time everything here felt so familiar that it felt like hardly any time at all had passed.

It was still early when I got to Anker’s, and the front door was locked. I briefly considered climbing up to my window, then thought better of it, given that I was carrying my lute case and travelsack, and wearing Caesura as well.

Instead I made my way to the Mews and knocked on Simmon’s door. It was early, and I knew I’d be waking him, but I was hungry for a familiar face. After waiting a short minute and hearing nothing, I knocked again, louder, and practiced my best jaunty smile.

Sim opened the door, his hair in disarray, his eyes red from too little sleep. He looked blearily out at me. For the space of a breath his expression was blank, then he hurled himself at me with a crushing hug.

“Blackened body of God,” he said, using stronger language than I’d ever heard from him before. “Kvothe.You’re alive.”

* * *

Sim had a bit of a cry, then shouted at me for a while, and then we laughed and sorted matters out. It seems Threpe had been keeping closer tabs on my travels than I’d thought. Consequently, when my ship had gone missing, he’d assumed the worst.

A letter would have cleared things up, but I’d never thought to send one. The thought of writing home was utterly alien to me.

“The ship was reported as all hands lost,” Sim said. “Word spread around the Eolian and guess who heard the news.”

“Stanchion?” I asked, knowing he was a terrible gossip.

Sim shook his head grimly. “Ambrose.”

“Oh lovely,” I observed dryly.

“It would have been bad coming from anyone,” Sim said. “But it was worst from him. I was half convinced he’d somehow arranged to sink your ship.” He gave a sickly smile. “He waited until right before admissions before he broke the news to me. Needless to say, I pissed all over myself during my exam and spent another term as an E’lir.”

“Spent?” I said. “You made Re’lar?”

He grinned. “Just yesterday. I was sleeping off the celebration when you woke me up this morning.”

“How’s Wil?” I asked. “Did he take the news hard?”

“Even-keeled as always,” Sim said. “But for all that, yeah, pretty hard.” He grimaced. “Ambrose has been making his life difficult in the Archives, too. Wil got fed up with it and went home for a term. He should be back today.”

“How’s everyone else?” I asked.

A thought seemed to strike Sim all of a sudden. He stood up. “Oh God, Fela!” Then he sat down hard, as if his legs had been cut from underneath him. “Oh God, Fela,” he said in a completely different tone.

“What?” I asked. “Did something happen to her?”

“She didn’t take the news well either.” He gave me a shaky smile. “It turns out she had quite a thing for you.”

“Fela?” I said stupidly.

“Don’t you remember? Wil and I thought she liked you?”

It seemed like years ago. “I remember.”

Sim seemed uncomfortable. “Well, you see. While you were gone, Wil and I started spending a lot of time with her. And . . .” He made an inarticulate gesture, his expression was stuck between sheepish and grinning.

Realization struck. “You and Fela? Sim, that’s great!” I felt a grin spread across my face, then saw his expression. “Oh.” My grin fell away. “Sim, I wouldn’t get in the way of that.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” He smiled a sickly smile. “I trust you.”

I rubbed my eyes. “This is a hell of a homecoming. I haven’t even been through admissions yet.”

“Today’s the last day,” Sim pointed out.

“I know,” I said, getting to my feet. “I have an errand to run first.”

* * *

I left my baggage in Simmon’s room and paid a visit to the bursar in the basement of Hollows. Riem was a balding, pinch-faced man who had disliked me ever since the masters had assigned me a negative tuition in my first term. He wasn’t in the habit of giving money out, and the entire experience had rubbed him the wrong way.

I showed him my open letter of credit to Alveron’s coffers. As I’ve said, it was an impressive document. Signed by the Maer’s own hand. Wax seals. Fine vellum. Excellent penmanship.

I drew the bursar’s attention to the fact that the Maer’s letter would allow the University to draw any amount needed to cover my tuition. Any amount.

The bursar read it over and agreed that that seemed to be the case.

It’s too bad my tuition was always so low, I mused aloud. Never more than ten talents. It was a bit of a missed opportunity for the University. The Maer was richer than the King of Vint, after all. And he would pay any tuition. . . .

Riem was a savvy man, and he understood what I was hinting at immediately. There followed a brief bout of negotiation, after which we shook hands and I saw him smile for the first time.

I grabbed a bite of lunch, then waited in line with the rest of the students who didn’t have admissions tiles. Most of them were new students, but a few were applying for readmission like myself. It was a long line, and everyone was visibly nervous to some degree. I whistled to pass the time and bought a meat pie and a mug of hot cider from a man with a cart.

I caused a bit of a stir when I stepped into the circle of light in front of the masters’ table. They had heard the news and were surprised to see me alive, most of them pleasantly so. Kilvin demanded I report to the workshop soon, while Mandrag, Dal, and Arwyl argued over which courses of study I would pursue. Elodin merely waved at me, the only one apparently unimpressed by my miraculous return from the dead.

After a minute of congenial chaos, the Chancellor got things back under control and started my interview. I answered Dal’s questions easily enough, and Kilvin’s. But I fumbled my cipher with Brandeur, then had to admit I simply didn’t know the answer to Mandrag’s question about sublimation.

Elodin shrugged away his opportunity to question me, yawning hugely. Lorren asked a surprisingly easy question about the Mender heresies, and I managed a quick and clever answer for him. I had to think for a long moment before answering Arwyl’s question about lacillium.

That left only Hemme, who had been scowling furiously since I’d first stepped up to the masters’ table. My lackluster performance and slow answers had brought a smug curve to his lips by this point. His eyes gleamed whenever I gave a wrong answer.

“Well well,” he said, shuffling through the sheaf of papers in front of him. “I didn’t think we’d have to deal with your type of trouble again.” He gave me an insincere smile. “I’d heard you were dead.”

“I heard you wear a red lace corset,” I said matter-of-factly. “But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.”

Some shouting followed, and I was quickly brought up on charges of Improper Address of a Master. I was sentenced to compose a letter of apology and fined a single silver talent. Money well spent.

It was bad behavior though, and poorly timed, especially after my otherwise lackluster performance. As a result, I was assigned a tuition of twenty-four talents. Needless to say, I was terribly embarrassed.

Afterward I returned to the bursar’s office. I officially presented Alveron’s letter of credit to Riem and unofficially collected my agreed-upon cut: half of everything over ten talents. I put the seven talents in my purse and wondered idly if anyone had ever been paid so well for insolence and ignorance.

I headed to Anker’s, where I was pleased to discover no one had informed the owner of my death. The key to my room was somewhere at the bottom of the Centhe Sea, but Anker had a spare. I went upstairs and felt myself relax at the familiar sight of the sloping ceiling and narrow bed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.

You might think my tiny room with its sloped ceiling and narrow bed would feel cramped after my grand suite in Alveron’s estate. But nothing could be further from the truth. I busied myself unpacking my travelsack and getting cobwebs out of corners.

After an hour, I’d managed to pick the lock on the trunk at the foot of my bed and unpack the things I’d stored away. I rediscovered my half-dismantled harmony clock and tinkered with it idly, trying to remember whether I’d been in the middle of taking it apart or putting it back together.

Then, since I had no other pressing engagements, I made my way back across the river. I stopped at the Eolian, where Deoch greeted me with an enthusiastic bear hug that lifted me from the ground. After so long on the road, so much time spent among strangers and enemies, I’d forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by the warmth of friendly faces. Deoch, Stanchion, and I shared drinks and traded stories until it started to get dark outside, and I left them to tend to their business.

I prowled the city for a while, going to a few familiar boarding houses and taverns. Two or three public gardens. A bench beneath a tree in a courtyard. Deoch told me he hadn’t so much as glimpsed Denna’s shadow in a year. But even looking for her and not finding her was comforting in a way. In some ways that seemed to be the heart of our relationship.

* * *

Later that night I climbed onto Mains and made my way through the familiar maze of chimneys and mismatched slate and clay and tin. I came around a corner and saw Auri sitting on a chimney, her long, fine hair floating around her head as if she were underwater. She was staring up at the moon and swinging her bare feet.

I cleared my throat softly, and Auri turned to look. She hopped off the chimney and came scampering across the roof, pulling up a few steps short of me. Her grin was brighter than the moon. “There is a whole family of hedgehogs living in Cricklet!” she said excitedly.

Auri took two more steps and grabbed my hand with both of hers. “There are babies tiny as acorns!” She tugged at me gently. “Will you come see?”

I nodded, and Auri led me across the roof to the apple tree we could use to climb down into the courtyard. When we finally got there, she looked at the tree, then down to where she still held my long, tan hand with both of her tiny white ones. Her grip wasn’t tight, but it was firm, and she didn’t give any sign of letting go.

“I missed you,” she said softly without looking up. “Don’t go away again.”

“I don’t ever plan on leaving,” I said gently. “I have too much to do here.”

Auri tilted her head sideways to peek up at me through the cloud of her hair. “Like visit me?”

“Like visit you,” I agreed.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 786