The Wise Man's Fear

babies!”

“It does not happen every time there is sex,” I said. “There are only certain times when a woman is ripe for a baby.”

“And have you done this?” she asked, looking at me with mock seriousness while a smile tugged at her mouth. “Have you made a baby with a woman?”

“I have been careful not to do such a thing,” I said. “There is an herb called silphium. I chew it every day, and it keeps me from putting a baby in a woman.”

Penthe shook her head. “This is more of your barbarian sex rituals,” she said. “Does bringing a man to the flowers also make a baby where you come from?”

I decided to take a different tack. “If men do not help with making babies, how do you explain that babies look like their fathers?”

“Babies look like angry old men,” Penthe said. “All bald and with . . .” She hesitated, touching her cheek. “. . . with face lines. Perhaps the old men are the only ones making babies then?” She smirked.

“What about kittens?” I asked. “You have seen a litter of kittens. When a white cat and a black cat have sex, you get kittens both white and black. And kittens of both colors.”

“Always?” she asked.

“Not always.” I admitted. “But most times.”

“What if there is a yellow kitten?” she asked.

Before I could put together an answer, she waved the question away. “Kittens have little to do with this,” she said. “We are not like animals. We do not go into season. We do not lay eggs. We do not make cocoons, or fruit, or seeds. We are not dogs or frogs or trees.”

Penthe gave me a serious look. “You are committing a false thinking. You could as easily say two stones make baby stones by banging against each other until a piece breaks off. Therefore two people make baby peoples in the same way.”

I fumed, but she was right. I was committing a fallacy of analogy. It was faulty logic.

Our conversation continued along this vein for some time. I asked her if she had ever known a woman to get pregnant who had not had sex in the previous months. She said she didn’t know of any woman who would willingly go three months without sex, except those who were traveling among the barbarians, or very ill, or very old.

Eventually Penthe waved a hand to stop me, gesturing exasperation. “Do you hear your own excuses? Sex makes babies, but not always. Babies look like man-mothers, but not always. The sex must be at the right time, but not always. There are plants that make it more likely, or less likely.” She shook her head. “You must realize what you say is thin as a net. You keep sewing new threads, hoping it will hold water. But hoping does not make it true.”

Seeing me frown, she took my hand and gestured comfort into it as she had before in the dining hall, all the laughter gone out of her face. “I can see you think this truly. I can understand why barbarian men would want to believe it. It must be comforting to think you are important in this way. But it is simply not.”

Penthe looked at me with something close to pity. “Sometimes a woman ripens. It is a natural thing, and men have no part in it. That is why more women ripen in the fall, like fruit. That is why more women ripen here in Haert, where it is better to have a child.”

I tried to think of some other convincing argument, but none would come to mind. It was frustrating.

Seeing my expression, Penthe squeezed my hand and gestured concession. “Perhaps it is different for barbarian women,” she said.

“You are only saying that to make me feel better,” I said sullenly and was overcome with a jaw-popping yawn.

“I am,” she admitted. Then she gave me a gentle kiss and pushed at my shoulders, encouraging me to lie back down on the bed.

I did, and she nestled into the crook of my arm again, resting her head on my shoulder. “It must be hard to be a man,” she said softly. “A woman knows she is part of the world. We are full of life. A woman is the flower and the fruit. We move through time as part of our children. But a man . . .” She turned her head and looked up at me with gentle pity in her eyes. “You are an empty branch. You know when you die, you will leave nothing of any import behind.”

Penthe stroked my chest fondly. “I think that is why you are so full of anger. Maybe you do not have more than women. Maybe the anger in you simply has no place to go. Maybe it is desperate to leave some mark. It hammers at the world. It drives you to rash action. To bickering. To rage. You paint and build and fight and tell stories that are bigger than the truth.”

She gave a contented sigh and rested her head on my shoulder, snugging herself firmly into the circle of my arm. “I am sorry to tell you this thing. You are a good man, and a pretty thing. But still, you are only a man. All you have to offer the world is your anger.”

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT Names

It was the day that I would either stay or leave. I sat with Vashet on a green hill, watching the sun rise out of the clouds to the east.

“Saicere means to fly, to catch, to break,” Vashet said softly, repeating herself for the hundredth time. “You must remember all the hands that have held her. Many hands, all following the Lethani. You must never use her in an improper way.”

“I promise,” I said for the hundredth time, then hesitated before bringing up something that had been bothering me. “But Vashet, you used your sword to trim the willow branch you beat me with. I saw you use it to hold your window open once. You pare your nails with it . . .”

Vashet gave me a blank look. “Yes?”

“Isn’t that improper?” I asked.

She cocked her head, then laughed. “You mean I should only use it for fighting?”

I gestured obvious implication.

“A sword is sharp,” she said. “It is a tool. I carry it constantly, how is using it improper?”

“It seems disrespectful,” I clarified.

“You respect a thing by putting it to good use,” she said. “It may be years before I return to the barbarian lands and fight. How does it harm my sword if it cuts kindling and carrots in the meantime?” Vashet’s eyes grew serious. “To carry a sword your whole life, knowing it was only for killing . . .” She shook her head. “What would that do to a person’s mind? It would be a horrible thing.”

Vashet had returned to Haert last night, dismayed that she had missed my stone trial. She said I was right to lay aside my sword when Carceret did, and that I had made her proud.

Yesterday, Shehyn had formally invited me to stay and train at the school. In theory, I already had earned that right, but everyone knew that was more of a political fiction than anything. Her offer was a flattering one, an opportunity I knew I would likely never have again.

We watched a boy herd a flock of goats down the side of a hill. “Vashet, is it true that the Adem have no concept of fatherhood?”

Vashet nodded easily, then paused. “Tell me you did not embarrass both of us by talking about this with everyone while I was gone,” she said with a sigh.

“Only with Penthe,” I said. “She thought it was the funniest thing she had heard in ten months’ time.”

“It is fairly amusing at that,” Vashet said, her mouth curving a little.

“It’s true then?” I asked. “Even you believe this? You’ve . . .”

Vashet held up a hand and I trailed off. “Peace,” she said. “Think whatever you wish about your man- mothers. It is all the same to me.” She gave a soft smile of remembrance. “My poet king actually believed a woman was nothing more than the ground in which a man might plant a baby.”

Vashet made an amused huffing sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “He was so sure he was right. Nothing