folk,” he said.
I smiled despite my discomfiture and raised my wooden mug. “A fine tradition.”
We both drank, Dal sighing appreciatively at the wine.
Dal looked at me across the table. “So tell me,” he said. “Have you ever considered what you’re going to do with yourself when you’re done here? After you have your guilder, I mean.”
“I haven’t thought of it that much,” I admitted honestly. “It seems such a long way off.”
“At the rate you’re rising through the ranks it might not be so long at that. Already a Re’lar at . . . how old are you again?”
“Seventeen,” I lied smoothly. I was sensitive about my age. Many students were nearly twenty before they enrolled in the University, let alone joined the Arcanum.
“Seventeen,” Dal mused softly. “It’s so easy to forget that. You carry yourself so tall.” His eyes got a faraway look in them. “Lord and lady, I was a mess at seventeen. My studies, trying to sort out my place in the world. Women . . .” He shook his head slowly. “It gets better, you know. Give it three or four years and everything settles down a bit.”
He raised his clay cup to me briefly before taking another drink. “Not that you seem to be having much trouble. Re’lar at seventeen. Quite a mark of distinction.”
I flushed a bit, not knowing what to say.
The host returned and began laying dishes on the table. A small board with an array of different sliced cheeses. A bowl with small, toasted pieces of bread. A bowl of strawberry preserves. A bowl of blueberry jam. A small dish of shelled walnuts.
Dal picked up a small piece of bread and a slice of crumbling white cheese. “You’re quite the sympathist,” he said. “There are any number of opportunities out there for a person as skilled as yourself.”
I spread a bit of strawberry across a piece of cheese and toast, then put it into my mouth to give myself time to think. Was Dal implying he wanted me to focus more on my study of sympathy? Was he implying he wanted to sponsor me to El’the?
Elodin had sponsored my elevation to Re’lar, but I knew these things changed. Masters occasionally fought over particularly promising students. Mola, for example, had been a scriv before Arwyl stole her away into the Medica.
“I do enjoy my study of sympathy quite a bit,” I said carefully.
“That’s abundantly clear,” Dal said with a smile. “Some of your classmates wish you enjoyed it a little less, I can assure you of that.” He ate another piece of cheese, then continued, “That said, it is possible to overdo it. Didn’t Teccam say ‘Too much study harms the student?’ ”
“Ertram the Wiser, actually,” I said. It had been in one of the books Master Lorren had set aside for Re’lar to study this term.
“It’s true at any rate,” he said. “You might want to consider taking a term off to relax a bit. Travel a little, get some sun.” He took another drink. “It’s not good to see one of the Edema Ruh without a tan.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The thought of taking a holiday from the University had never occurred to me. Where would I possibly go?
The host arrived with plates of fish, steaming and smelling of lemon and butter. For a while both of us concentrated on our food. I was glad for an excuse not to talk. Why would Dal compliment me on my studies, then encourage me to leave?
After a while Elxa Dal gave a contented sigh and pushed back his plate. “Let me tell you a little story,” he said. “A story I like to call ‘The Ignorant Edema.’ ”
I looked up at that, slowly chewing my mouthful of fish. I kept my expression carefully composed.
He arched an eyebrow, as if waiting to see if I had anything to say.
When I didn’t, he continued. “Once there was a learned arcanist. He knew all of sympathy and sygaldry and alchemy. He had ten dozen names tucked neatly into his head, spoke eight languages, and had exemplary penmanship. Really, the only thing that kept him from being a master was poor timing and a certain lack of social grace.”
Dal took a sip of wine. “So this fellow went chasing the wind for a while, hoping to find his fortune out in the wide world. And while he was on the road to Tinuë, he came to a lake he needed to cross.”
Dal smiled broadly. “Luckily, there was an Edema boatman who offered to ferry him to the other side. The arcanist, seeing the trip would take several hours, tried to start a conversation.
“ ‘What do you think,’ he asked the boatman, ‘about Teccam’s theory of energy as an elemental substance rather than a material property?’
“The boatman replied he’d never thought on it at all. What’s more, he had no plans to.
“ ‘Surely your education included Teccam’s
“ ‘I never had what you might call an education, y’honor,’ the boatman said. ‘And I wouldn’t know this Teccam of yours if he showed up selling needles to m’wife.’
“Curious, the arcanist asked a few questions and the Edema admitted he didn’t know who Feltemi Reis was, or what a gearwin did. The arcanist continued for a long hour, first out of curiosity, then with dismay. The final straw came when he discovered the boatman couldn’t even read or write.
“ ‘Really sir,’ the arcanist said, appalled. ‘It is every man’s job to improve himself. A man without the benefits of education is hardly more than an animal.’ ”
Dal grinned. “Well, as you can guess, the conversation didn’t go very far after that. They rode for the next hour in a tense silence, but just as the far shore was coming into sight a storm blew up. Waves started to lash the little boat, making the timbers creak and groan.
“The Edema took a hard look at the clouds and said, ‘It’ll be true bad in five minutes, then sommat worse afore it clears. This boat of mine won’t hold together through it all. We’re gonnta have to swim the last little bit.’ And with this the ferryman takes off his shirt and begins to tie it around his waist.
“ ‘But I don’t know how to swim,’ says the arcanist.”
Dal drank off the last of his wine, turned the cup upside down, and set it firmly on the tabletop. There was a moment of expectant silence as he watched me, a vaguely self-satisfied expression on his face.
“Not a bad story,” I admitted. “The Ruh’s accent was a little over the top.”
Dal bent at the waist in a quick, mocking bow. “I will take it under consideration,” he said, then raised one finger and gave me a conspiratorial look. “Not only is my story designed to delight and entertain, but there is a kernel of truth hidden within, where only the cleverest student might find it.” His expression turned mysterious. “All the truth in the world is held in stories, you know.”
Later that evening, I related the encounter to my friends while playing cards at Anker’s.
“He’s giving you a hint, thickwit,” Manet said irritably. The cards had been against us all night, and we were five hands behind. “You just refuse to hear it.”
“He’s hinting I should leave off studying sympathy for a term?” I asked.
“No,” Manet snapped. “He’s telling you what I’ve told you twice already. You’re a king-high idiot if you go through admissions this term.”
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
Manet set his cards down with profound calm. “Kvothe. You’re a clever boy, but you have a world of trouble listening to things you don’t want to hear.” He looked left then right at Wilem and Simmon. “Can you try telling him?”
“Take a term off,” Wilem said without looking up from his cards. Then added, “Thickwit.”
“You really have to,” Sim said earnestly. “Everyone’s still talking about the trial. It’s all anyone is talking about.”
“The trial?” I laughed. “That was more than a span ago. They’re talking about how I was found completely innocent. Exonerated in the eyes of the iron law and merciful Tehlu himself.”
Manet snorted loudly, lowering his cards. “It would have been better if you’d been guilty in a quiet way, rather than be innocent so loud.” He looked at me. “Do you know how long it’s been since an arcanist was brought up on charges of Consortation?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Neither do I,” he said. “Which means it’s been a long, long while. You’re innocent. Lovely for you. But the
