The Wise Man's Fear

restraint.”

“I think she rues the truth. A trouper’s tongue has gotten her to bed more quickly than her sister.”

As soon as I said it, I knew I had gone too far. I clenched my teeth to keep from saying anything worse.

“That will be all,” Alveron said with cold formality, his eyes flat and angry.

I left with all the angry dignity I could muster. Not because I had nothing else to say, but because if I had stayed one moment longer he would have called for guards, and that is not how I wished to make my exit.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY Just Rewards

I was in the middle of dressing the following morning when an errand boy arrived bearing a thick envelope with Alveron’s seal. I took a seat by the window and discovered several letters inside. The outermost one read:

Kvothe,

I have thought a while and decided your blood matters but little in light of the services you have rendered me.

However, my soul is bound to another whose comfort I hold more dearly than my own. Though I had hoped to retain your services, I cannot. What’s more, as your presence is the cause of my wife’s considerable distress, I must ask you to return my ring and leave Severen at your earliest convenience.

I stopped reading, got to my feet, and opened the door to my rooms. A pair of Alveron’s guards were standing at attention in the hallway.

“Sir?” one of them said, eyeing my half-dressed state.

“Just checking,” I said, closing the door.

I returned to my seat and picked up the letter again.

As to the matter that precipitated this unfortunate circumstance, I believe you have acted in the best interest of myself and Vintas as a whole. In fact, I have received report just this morning that two girls were returned to their families in Levinshir by a red-haired “gentleman” named Kvothe.

As reward for your many services I offer the following:

First, a full pardon for those you killed near Levinshir.

Second, a letter of credit enabling you to draw on my coffers for the payment of your tuition at the University.

Third, a writ granting you the right to travel, play, and perform wherever you will within my lands.

Lastly, my thanks.

Maershon Lerand Alveron

I sat for a few long minutes, watching the birds flit in the garden outside my window. The contents of the envelope were just as Alveron had said. The letter of credit was a work of art, signed and sealed in four places by Alveron and his chief exchequer.

The writ was, if anything, even more lovely. It was drawn on a thick sheet of creamy vellum, signed by the Maer’s own hand and fixed with both his family’s seal and that of Alveron himself.

But it was not a writ of patronage. I read through it carefully. By omission it made it clear that neither was I in the Maer’s service, nor were we bound to each other. Still, it granted free travel and the right to perform under his name. It was an odd compromise of a document.

I’d just finished dressing when there came another knock on the door. I sighed, half expecting more guards coming to roust me out of my rooms.

But opening the door revealed another runner boy. He carried a silver tray bearing another letter. This one had the Lackless seal upon the top. Beside it lay a ring. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands, puzzled. It wasn’t iron, as I’d expected, but pale wood. Meluan’s name was burned crudely into the side of it.

I noticed the runner boy’s wide eyes darting back and forth between the ring and myself. More importantly, I noticed the guards were not staring at it. Pointedly not staring. The sort of not-staring you only engage in when something very interesting has come to your attention.

I handed the boy my silver ring. “Take this to Bredon,” I said. “And don’t dawdle.”

Bredon was looking up at the guards as I opened the door. “Keep up the good work, my boys,” he said, playfully tapping one of them on the chest with his walking stick. The silver wolf’s head chimed lightly against the guard’s breastplate, and Bredon smiled like a jolly uncle. “We all feel safer for your vigilance.”

He closed the door behind himself and raised an eyebrow at me. “Lord’s mercy boy, you’re up the ladder by leaps and bounds. I knew you sat solid in the Maer’s good grace, but to have him assign you two of his personal guard?” He pressed his hand to his heart and sighed dramatically. “Soon you will be too busy for the likes of poor old useless Bredon.”

I gave him a weak smile. “I think it’s more complicated than that.” I held up the wooden ring for him to see. “I need you to tell me what this means.”

Bredon’s jovial cheer evaporated more quickly than if I’d pulled out a bloody knife. “Lord and lady,” he said. “Tell me you got that from some oldfashioned farmer.”

I shook my head and handed it to him.

He turned the ring over in his hands. “Meluan?” he asked quietly. Handing it back, he sank into a nearby chair, his walking stick across his knees. His face had gone slightly grey. “The Maer’s new lady wife sent you this? As a summons?”

“It’s about as far from a summons as anything can be,” I said. “She sent a charming letter, too.” I held it up with my other hand.

Bredon held out his hand. “Can I see it?” he asked, then drew his hand back quickly. “I’m sorry. That’s terribly rude of me to ask—”

“You could do me no greater favor than reading it,” I said, pressing it into his hands. “I am in desperate need of your opinion.”

Bredon took the letter and began to read, his lips moving slightly. His expression grew paler as he made his way down the page.

“The lady has a gift for well-turned phrase,” I said.

“That cannot be denied,” he said. “She might as well have written this in blood.”

“I think she would have liked to,” I said. “But she would have had to kill herself to fill the second page.” I held it out to him.

Bredon took it and continued to read, his face growing even paler. “Gods all around us,” he said. “Is ‘excrescence’ even a word?” he asked.

“It is,” I said.

Bredon finished the second page, then went back to the beginning and slowly read it through a second time. Finally he looked up at me. “If there were a woman,” he said, “who loved me with one-tenth the passion this lady feels for you, I would count myself the luckiest of men.”

“What does this mean?” I asked, holding up the ring. I could smell smoke on it. She must have burned her name into it just this morning.

“From a farmer?” he shrugged. “Many things, depending on the wood. But here? From one of the nobility?” He shook his head, obviously at a loss for words.

“I thought there were only three types of courtly rings,” I said.

“Only three a person would use,” he said. “Only three that are sent and displayed. It used to be you sent wooden rings to summon servants. Those too low for iron. But that was a long while back. Eventually it became a