And we did our job. We’re not expecting a parade, but I’ll be damned before I let you call me a liar. We killed those bastards. And afterward we did see Felurian. And Kvothe there did take off after her.”
Dedan glared around the room belligerently, mostly in the direction of the fiddler. “That’s the truth and I swear it by my good right hand. If anyone wants to call me a liar we can have it out right now.”
The fiddler picked up his bow and met Dedan’s eye. He drew a screaming note across the strings. “Liar.”
Dedan nearly leapt across the room as people pushed their chairs back to make a clear space for the fight. The fiddler came to his feet slowly. He was taller than I’d expected, with short grey hair and scarred knuckles that told me he knew his way around a fistfight.
I managed to get in front of Dedan and leaned against him, speaking low in his ear, “Do you really want to brawl with a broken arm? If he gets hold of it, you’ll just scream and piss yourself in front of Hespe.” I felt him relax a bit and gave him a gentle push back toward his seat. He went, but he wasn’t happy.
“. . . something here.” I heard a woman say behind me. “If you want to have a scuff with someone you take it outside and don’t bother coming back. You don’t get paid to fight the customers. You hear?”
“Now Penny,” the fiddler said soothingly. “I was just showin’ some teeth to him. He’s the one took it all personal. You can’t blame me for makin’ fun with the sort of stories they come in with.”
I turned around and saw the fiddler explaining himself to an angry woman in her middle years. She was a full foot shorter than him, and had to reach up to jab his chest with a finger.
That’s when I heard a voice exclaim to one side of me, “God’s mother, Seb. You see that? Look at it! It’s movin’ by itself.”
“You’re blind drunk. It’s just a breeze.”
“There ain’t no wind in tonight. It’s moving itself. Look again!”
It was my shaed, of course. By now several people had noticed it blowing gently in a breeze that wasn’t there. I thought the effect was rather nice, but I could tell by their wide eyes that folk were becoming alarmed. One or two slid their chairs away from me uneasily.
Penny’s eyes were fixed on my gently flowing shaed, and she walked over to stand in front of me. “What is it?” she asked, her voice showing just a hint of fear.
“Nothing to worry over,” I said easily, holding out a fold of it for her inspection. “It is my shadow cloak. Felurian made it for me.”
The fiddler made a disgusted noise.
Penny shot him a look and hesitantly brushed my cloak with a hand. “It’s soft,” she murmured, looking up at me. When our eyes met she looked surprised for a moment, then exclaimed, “You’re Losi’s boy!”
Before I could ask what she meant, I heard a woman’s voice say, “What?” I turned to see a red-haired serving girl moving toward us. The same one who had embarrassed me so badly on our first visit to the Pennysworth.
Penny nodded toward me. “It’s your fresh-faced fiery boy from about three span back! You remember pointing him out to me? I didn’t recognize him with the beard.”
Losi came to stand in front of me. Bright red curls tumbled over the bare, pale skin of her shoulders. Her dangerous green eyes swept over my shaed and made their slow way up to my face. “It’s him all right,” she said sideways to Penny. “Beard or no.”
She took a step closer, almost pressing against me. “Boys are always wearing beards and hoping it will make them men.” Her bright emerald eyes settled boldly onto mine as if expecting me to blush and fumble about as I had before.
I thought of everything I’d learned at the hands of Felurian, and felt the strange, wild laughter welling up in me again. I fought it down as best I could, but I could feel it tumbling around inside me as I met her eye and smiled.
Losi took a startled half-step back, her pale skin blushing to a furious red.
Penny held out a hand to steady her. “Lord girl, what’s the matter with you?”
Losi tore her eyes away from me. “Look at him Penny, really look at him. He’s got a fae look about him. Look at his eyes.”
Penny looked curiously at my face, then flushed a bit herself and crossed her arms in front of her chest, as if I had seen her naked. “Merciful lord,” she said breathlessly. “It’s all true, then. Isn’t it?”
“Every word,” I said.
“How did you get away from her?” Penny asked.
“Oh come on, Penny!” the fiddler cried out in disbelief. “You aren’t buyin’ this pup’s story, are ya?”
Losi turned and spoke hotly. “There’s a look a man has when he knows his way around a woman, Ben Crayton. Not that you would know. When this one was here a couple span ago I liked his face and thought I’d have a roll with him. But when I tried to trip him . . .” She trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.
“I remember that,” a man at the bar called out. “Funniest damn thing. I thought he was gonna piss himself. He couldn’t say a word to her.”
The fiddler shrugged. “So he found some farmer’s daughter since then. It don’t mean . . .”
“Hush Ben,” Penny said with quiet authority. “There’s more changed here than a bit of beard can account for.” Her eyes searched my face. “Lord but you’re right, girl. There is a fae look about him.” The fiddler started to speak again but Penny shot him a sharp look. “Hush or get out. I don’t want any fights in here tonight.”
The fiddler looked around the room and saw the tide had turned against him. Red-faced and scowling, he gathered up his fiddle and stormed out.
Losi stepped close to me again, brushing her hair back. “Was she really as beautiful as they say?” Her chin went up proudly. “More beautiful than me?”
I hesitated, then spoke softly. “She was Felurian, most beautiful of all.” I reached out to brush the side of her neck where her red hair began its curling tumble downward, then leaned forward and whispered seven words into her ear. “For all that, she lacked your fire.” And she loved me for those seven words, and her pride was safe.
Penny spoke up. “How did you manage to get away?”
I looked around the room and felt everyone’s attention settle onto me. The wild, fae laughter tumbled around inside me. I smiled a lazy smile. My shaed billowed.
Then I moved to the front of the room, sat on the hearth, and told them the story.
Or rather, I told them
So what I told them was closer to the story they expected to hear. In that story, I chased Felurian into the Fae. Our bodies tangled together in her twilight glade. Then, as we rested, I played her music light enough to make her laugh, music dark enough to make her gasp, music sweet enough to make her weep.
But when I tried to leave the Fae, she would not let me. She was too fond of my . . . artistry.
I shouldn’t be coy, I suppose. I implied rather strongly that Felurian thought quite highly of me as a lover. I offer no apology for this behavior except to say that I was a young man of sixteen, proud of my newfound skills, and not above a little bragging.
I told them how Felurian had tried to trap me in the Fae, how we fought with magic. For this I borrowed a little from Taborlin the Great. There was fire and lightning.
At the end I bested Felurian but spared her life. In her gratitude she wove me a faerie cloak, taught me secret magics, and gave me a silver leaf as a token of her favor. The leaf was pure fabrication, of course. But it wouldn’t have been a proper story if she hadn’t given me three gifts.
All in all, it was a good story. And if it wasn’t entirely true . . . well, at least it had some truth mixed in. In my defense, I could have dispensed with the truth entirely and told a much better story. Lies are simpler, and most of the time they make better sense.
Losi watched me all through the telling, and seemed to take the whole thing as something of a challenge to the prowess of mortal women. After the story was over, she laid claim to me and led me to her small room on the topmost floor of the Pennysworth.
I managed very little sleep that night, and Losi came closer to killing me than Felurian ever had. She was a delightful partner, every bit as wonderful as Felurian had been.
But how could that be? I hear you ask. How could any mortal woman compare with Felurian?
It is easier to understand if you think of it in terms of music. Sometimes a man enjoys a symphony. Elsetimes
