“For the last time no,” I said. “I’m done with Ambrose. There’s no percentage in antagonizing him any further.”
“You broke his arm,” Wil said. “I think he’s as antagonized as he’s going to get.”
“He broke my lute,” I said. “We’re even. I’m ready to let bygones be bygones.”
“Like hell,” Sim said. “You dropped that pound of rancid butter down his chimney. You loosened the cinch on his saddle. . . .”
“Black hands, shut up!” I said, looking around. “That was nearly a month ago, and no one knows it was me except for you two. And now Manet. And everyone within earshot.”
Sim flushed an embarrassed red and the conversation lulled until Lily returned with our drinks. Wil’s scutten was in its traditional stone cup. Sim’s mead shone golden in a tall glass. Manet and I got wooden mugs.
Manet smiled. “I can’t remember the last time I ordered a sounten,” he mused. “I don’t think I’ve ever ordered one for myself before.”
“You’re the only other person I’ve ever known to drink it,” Sim said. “Kvothe here throws them back like nobody’s business. Three or four a night.”
Manet raised a bushy eyebrow at me. “They don’t know?” he asked.
I shook my head as I drank out of my own mug, not sure if I should be amused or embarrassed.
Manet slid his mug toward Simmon, who picked it up and took a sip. He frowned and took another. “Water?”
Manet nodded. “It’s an old whore’s trick. You’re chatting them up in the taproom of the brothel, and you want to show you’re not like all the rest. You’re a man of refinement. So you offer to buy a drink.”
He reached across the table and took his mug back from Sim. “But they’re working. They don’t want a drink. They’d rather have the money. So they order a sounten or a peveret or something else. You pay your money, the barman gives her water, and at the end of the night she splits the money with the house. If she’s a good listener a girl can make as much at the bar as she does in bed.”
I chimed in. “Actually, we split it three ways. A third to the house, a third to the barman, and a third to me.”
“You’re getting screwed, then,” Manet said frankly. “The barman should get his piece from the house.”
“I’ve never seen you order a sounten at Anker’s,” Sim said.
“It must be the Greysdale mead,” Wil said. “You order that all the time.”
“But
“It was more expensive than you thought it would be?” Manet asked, grinning. “Wouldn’t make much sense to go through all of this for the price of a short beer, would it?”
“They know what I mean when I order Greysdale at Anker’s,” I told him. “If I ordered something that didn’t actually exist, it would be a pretty easy game to figure out.”
“How do you know about this?” Sim asked Manet.
Manet chuckled. “No new tricks to an old dog like me,” he said.
The lights began to dim and we turned toward the stage.
The night rambled on from there. Manet left for greener pastures, while Wil, Sim, and I and did our best to keep our table clear of glasses while amused musicians bought us round after round of drinks. An obscene amount of drinks, really. Far more than I’d dared to hope for.
I drank sounten for the most part, since raising money to cover tuition was the main reason I’d come to the Eolian tonight. Wil and Sim ordered a few rounds too, now that they knew the trick of it. I was doubly grateful, otherwise I would have been forced to bring them home in a wheelbarrow.
Eventually the three of us had our fill of music, gossip, and in Sim’s case, the fruitless pursuit of serving girls.
Before we left, I stopped to have a discreet word with the barman where I brought up the difference between a half and a third. At the end of our negotiation, I cashed out for a full talent and six jots. The vast majority of that was from the drinks my fellow musicians had bought me tonight.
I gathered the coins into my purse:
My negotiations had also profited me two dark brown bottles. “What’s that?” Sim asked as I began to tuck the bottles into my lute case.
“Bredon beer.” I shifted the rags I used to pad my lute so they wouldn’t rub against it.
“Bredon,” Wil said, his voice thick with disdain, “is closer to bread than beer.”
Sim nodded in agreement, making a face. “I don’t like having to chew my liquor.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said defensively. “In the small kingdoms women drink it when they’re pregnant. Arwyl mentioned it in one of his lectures. They brew it with flower pollen and fish oil and cherry stones. It has all sorts of trace nutrients.”
“Kvothe, we don’t judge you.” Wilem lay his hand on my shoulder, his face concerned. “Sim and I don’t mind that you’re a pregnant Yllish woman.”
Simmon snorted, then laughed at the fact that he had snorted.
The three of us made our slow way back to the University, crossing the high arch of Stonebridge. And, since there was nobody around to hear, I sang “Jackass, Jackass” for Sim.
Wil and Sim stumbled gently off to their rooms in Mews. But I wasn’t ready for bed and continued wandering the University’s empty streets, breathing the cool night air.
I strolled past the dark fronts of apothecaries, glassblowers, and bookbinders. I cut through a manicured lawn, smelling the clean, dusty smell of autumn leaves and green grass beneath. Nearly all the inns and drinking houses were dark, but lights were burning in the brothels.
The grey stone of the Masters’ Hall was silvery in the moonlight. A single dim light burned inside, illuminating the stained glass window that showed Teccam in his classic pose: barefoot at the mouth of his cave, speaking to a crowd of young students.
I went past the Crucible, its countless bristling chimneys dark and largely smokeless against the moonlit sky. Even at night it smelled of ammonia and charred flowers, acid and alcohol: a thousand mingled scents that had seeped into the stone of the building over the centuries.
Last was the Archives. Five stories tall and windowless, it reminded me of an enormous waystone. Its massive doors were closed, but I could see the reddish light of sympathy lamps welling up around the edges of the door. During admissions Master Lorren kept the Archives open at night so all the members of the Arcanum could study to their hearts’ content. All members except one, of course.
I made my way back to Anker’s and found the inn dark and silent. I had a key to the back door, but rather than stumble through the dark, I headed into the nearby alley. Right foot rainbarrel, left foot window ledge, left hand iron drainpipe. I quietly made my way up to my third-story window, tripped the latch with a piece of wire, and let myself in.
It was pitch black, and I was too tired to go looking for a light from the fireplace downstairs. So I touched the wick of the lamp beside my bed, getting a little oil on my fingers. Then I murmured a binding and felt my arm go chilly as the heat bled out of it. Nothing happened at first, and I scowled, concentrating to overcome the vague haze of alcohol. The chill sunk deeper into my arm, making me shiver, but finally the wick bloomed into light.
Cold now, I closed the window and looked around the tiny room with its sloped ceiling and narrow bed. Surprisingly, I realized there was nowhere else in the four corners I’d rather be. I almost felt as if I were home.
This may not seem odd to you, but it was strange to me. Growing up among the Edema Ruh, home was never a place for me. Home was a group of wagons and songs around a campfire. When my troupe was killed, it was more than the loss of my family and childhood friends. It was like my entire world had been burned down to the waterline.
Now, after almost a year at the University, I was beginning to feel like I belonged here. It was an odd feeling, this fondness for a place. In some ways it was comforting, but the Ruh in me was restless, rebelling at the thought of putting down roots like a plant.
As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered what my father would think of me.
