The Name of the Wind

There’s a door without a handle
In a box, no lid or locks
Lackless keeps her husband’s rocks
There’s a secret she’s been keeping
She’s been dreaming and not sleeping
On a road, that’s not for traveling
Lackless likes her riddle raveling.”

I had heard a little girl chant it as she played hop-skip. I’d only heard it twice, but it had stuck in my head. It was memorable, as most child rhymes are.

But my mother heard me and came over to stand by the fire. “What were you just saying, sweet?” Her tone wasn’t angry, but I could tell she wasn’t pleased either.

“Something I heard back in Fallows,” I said evasively. Running off with town children was a largely forbidden activity. Distrust turns quickly to dislike, my father told new members of our troupe, so stay together when you’re in town, and be polite. I laid some heavier sticks on the fire and let the flames lick them.

My mother was silent for a while, and I was beginning to hope she would leave it alone, when she said, “It’s not a nice thing to be singing. Have you stopped to think what it’s about?”

I hadn’t, actually. It seemed mostly nonsense rhyme. But when I ran it back through my head, I saw the rather obvious sexual innuendo. “I do. I didn’t think about it before.”

Her expression grew a little gentler, and she reached down to smooth my hair, “Always think about what you’re singing, honey.”

I seemed to be out of trouble, but I couldn’t keep from asking, “How is it any different than parts of For All His Waiting? Like when Fain asks Lady Perial about her hat? ‘I heard about it from so many men I wished to see it for myself and try the fit.’ It’s pretty obvious what he’s really talking about.”

I watched her mouth grow firm, not angry, but not pleased. Then something in her face changed. “You tell me what the difference is,” she said.

I hated bait questions. The difference was obvious: one would get me in trouble, the other wouldn’t. I waited a while to make it clear I had given the matter proper consideration before I shook my head.

My mother knelt lightly in front of the fire, warming her hands. “The difference is ... go fetch me the tripod, would you?” She gave me a gentle push, and I scampered off to get it from the back of our wagon as she continued, “The difference is between saying something to a person, and saying something about a person. The first might be rude, but the second is always gossip.”

I brought the tripod back and helped her set it over the fire. “Also, Lady Perial is just a character. Lady Lackless is a real person, with feelings that can be hurt.” She looked up at me.

“I didn’t know,” I protested guiltily.

I must have struck a sufficiently piteous figure because she gathered me in for a hug and a kiss, “It’s nothing to cry over, sweet one. Just remember to always think about what you’re doing.” She ran her hand over my head and smiled like the sun. “I imagine you could make it up to both Lady Lack-less and myself if you found some sweet nettle for the pot tonight.”

Any excuse to escape judgment and play for a while in the tangle of trees by the roadside was good enough for me. I was gone almost before the words left her mouth.

I should also make it clear that much of the time I spent with Ben was my free time. I was still responsible for my normal duties in the troupe. I acted the part of the young page when needed. I helped paint scenery and sew costumes. I rubbed down the horses at night and rattled the sheet of tin backstage when we needed thunder onstage.

But I didn’t bemoan the loss of my free time. A child’s endless energy and my own insatiable lust for knowledge made the following year one of the happiest times I can remember.

CHAPTER TWELVE Puzzle Pieces Fitting

Toward the end of the summer I accidentally overheard a conversation that shook me out of my state of blissful ignorance. When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

It was evening, and the troupe was camped by the side of the road. Abenthy had given me a new piece of sympathy to practice: The Maxim of Variable Heat Transferred to Constant Motion, or something pretentious like that.

It was tricky, but it had fallen into place like a puzzle piece fitting. It had taken about fifteen minutes, and from Abenthy’s tone I guessed he had expected it to take three or four hours at least.

So I went looking for him. Partly to get my next lesson, and partly so that I could be just a little bit smug.

I tracked him down to my parent’s wagon. I heard the three of them long before I saw them. Their voices were just murmurs, the distant music that a conversation makes when it’s too dim for words. But as I was coming close I heard one word clearly: Chandrian.

I pulled up short when I heard that. Everyone in the troupe knew my father was working on a song. He’d been teasing old stories and rhymes from townsfolk for over a year wherever we stopped to play.

For months it was stories about Lanre. Then he started gathering old faerie stories too, legends about bogies and shamble-men. Then he began to ask questions about the Chandrian....

That was months ago. Over the last half year he had asked more about the Chandrian and less about Lanre, Lyra, and the rest. Most songs my father set to writing were finished in a single season, while this one was stretching toward its second year.

You should know this as well, my father never let word or whisper of a song be heard before it was ready to play. Only my mother was allowed into his confidence, as her hand was always in any song he made. The cleverness in the music was his. The best words were hers.

When you wait a few span or month to hear a finished song, the anticipation adds savor. But after a year excitement begins to sour. By now, a year and a half had passed and folk were almost mad with curiosity. This occasionally led to hard words when someone was caught wandering a little too close to our wagon while my father and mother were working.

So I moved closer to my parent’s fire, stepping softly Eavesdropping is a deplorable habit, but I have developed worse ones since.

“... much about them,” I heard Ben say. “But I’m willing.”

“I’m glad to talk with an educated man on the subject.” My father’s strong baritone was a contrast to Ben’s tenor. “I’m weary of these superstitious country folk, and the ...”

Someone added wood to the fire and I lost my father’s words in the crackling that followed. Stepping as quickly as I dared, I moved into the long shadow of my parent’s wagon.

“... like I’m chasing ghosts with this song. Trying to piece together this story is a fool’s game. I wish I’d never started it.”

“Nonsense,” my mother said. “This will be your best work, and you know it.”

“So you think there is an original story all the others stem from?” Ben asked. “A historical basis for Lanre?”

“All the signs point to it,” my father said. “It’s like looking at a dozen grandchildren and seeing ten of them have blue eyes. You know the grandmother had blue eyes, too. I’ve done this before, I’m good at it. I wrote “Below the Walls” the same way. But ...” I heard him sigh.