The Name of the Wind

“Kvothe,

Defend yourself well at the University. Make me proud.

Remember your father’s song. Be wary of folly.

Your friend,

Abenthy.”

 Ben and I had never discussed my attending the University. Of course I had dreams of going there, someday But they were dreams I hesitated to share with my parents. Attending the University would mean leaving my parents, my troupe, everyone and everything I had ever known.

Quite frankly, the thought was terrifying. What would it be like to settle in one place, not just for an evening or a span of days, but for months? Years? No more performing? No tumbling with Trip, or playing the bratty young noble’s son in Three Pennies for Wishing? No more wagons? No one to sing with?

I’d never said anything aloud, but Ben would have guessed. I read his inscription again, cried a bit, and promised him that I would do my best.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Hope

Over the next months my parents did their best to patch the hole left by Ben’s absence, bringing in the other troupers to fill my time productively and keep me from moping.

You see, in the troupe age had little to do with anything. If you were strong enough to saddle the horses, you saddled the horses. If your hands were quick enough, you juggled. If you were clean shaven and fit the dress, you played Lady Reythiel in The Swineherd and the Nightingale. Things were generally as simple as that.

So Trip taught me how to jape and tumble. Shandi walked me though the courtly dances of a half dozen countries. Teren measured me against the hilt of his sword and judged that I had grown tall enough to begin the basics of swordplay. Not enough to actually fight, he stressed. But enough so I could make a good show of it on stage.

The roads were good this time of year, so we made excellent time traveling north through the Commonwealth: fifteen, twenty miles a day as we searched out new towns to play. With Ben gone, I rode with my father more often, and he began my formal training for the stage.

I already knew a great deal, of course. But what I had picked up was an undisciplined hodgepodge. My father systematically went about showing me the true mechanics of the actor’s trade. How slight changes in accent or posture make a man seem oafish, or sly, or silly.

Lastly, my mother began teaching me how to comport myself in polite society. I knew a little from our infrequent stays with Baron Greyfallow, and thought I was quite genteel enough without having to memorize forms of address, table manners, and the elaborate snarled rankings of the peerage. Eventually, I told my mother exactly that.

“Who cares if a Modegan viscount outranks a Vintish spara-thain?” I protested. “And who cares if one is ‘your grace’ and the other is ‘my lord?’ ”

“They care,” my mother said firmly. “If you perform for them, you need to conduct yourself with dignity and learn to keep your elbow out of the soup.”

“Father doesn’t worry about which fork to use and who outranks who,” I groused.

My mother frowned, her eyes narrowing.

“Who outranks whom,” I said grudgingly.

“Your father knows more than he lets on,” my mother said. “And what he doesn’t know he breezes past due to his considerable charm. That’s how he gets by.” She took my chin and turned my face toward her. Her eyes were green with a ring of gold around the pupil. “Do you just want to get by? Or do you want to make me proud?”

There was only one answer to that. Once I knuckled down to learn it, it was just another type of acting. Another script. My mother made rhymes to help me remember the more nonsensical elements of etiquette. And together we wrote a dirty little song called “The Pontifex Always Ranks Under a Queen.” We laughed over it for a solid month, and she strictly forbade me to sing it to my father, lest he play it in front of the wrong people someday and get us all into serious trouble.

“Tree!” The shout came faintly down the line. “Threeweight oak!”

My father stopped in the middle of the monologue he had been reciting for me and gave an irritated sigh. “That’ll be as far as we get today then,” he grumbled, looking up at the sky.

“Are we stopping?” my mother called from inside the wagon.

“Another tree across the road,” I explained.

“I swear,” my father said, steering the wagon to a clear space at the side of the road. “Is this the king’s road or isn’t it? You’d think we were the only people on it. How long ago was that storm? Two span?”

“Not quite,” I said. “Sixteen days.”

“And trees still blocking the road! I’ve a mind to send the consulate a bill for every tree we’ve had to cut and drag out of the way This will put us another three hours behind schedule.” He hopped from the wagon as it rolled to a halt.

“I think it’s nice,” my mother said, walking around from the back of the wagon. “Gives us the chance for something hot,” she gave my father a significant look, “to eat. It gets frustrating making do with whatever you can grab at the end of the day A body wants more.”

My father’s mood seemed to temper considerably. “There is that,” he said.

“Sweet?” my mother called to me. “Do you think you could find me some wild sage?”

“I don’t know if it grows around here,” I said with the proper amount of uncertainty in my voice.

“No harm in looking,” she said sensibly. She looked at my father from the corner of her eye. “If you can find enough, bring back an armload. We’ll dry it for later.”

Typically, whether or not I found what I was looking for didn’t matter very much.

It was my habit to wander away from the troupe in the evenings. I usually had some sort of errand to run while my parents set up for dinner. But it was just an excuse for us to get away from each other. Privacy is hard to come by on the road, and they needed it as much as I did. So if it took me an hour to gather an armload of firewood they didn’t mind. And if they hadn’t started dinner by the time I came back, well, that was only fair, wasn’t it?

I hope they spent those last few hours well. I hope they didn’t waste them on mindless tasks: kindling the evening fire and cutting vegetables for dinner. I hope they sang together, as they so often did. I hope they retired to our wagon and spent time in each other’s arms. I hope they lay near each other afterward and spoke softly of small things. I hope they were together, busy with loving each other, until the end came.

It is a small hope, and pointless really. They are just as dead either way.

Still, I hope.

Let us pass over the time I spent alone in the woods that evening, playing games that children invent to amuse themselves. The last carefree hours of my life. The last moments of my childhood.

Let us pass over my return to the camp just as the sun was beginning to set. The sight of bodies strewn about like broken dolls. The smell of blood and burning hair. How I wandered aimlessly about, too disoriented for proper panic, numb with shock and dread.

I would pass over the whole of that evening, in fact. I would spare you the burden of any of it if one piece were not necessary to the story. It is vital. It is the hinge upon which the story pivots like an opening door. In some ways, this is where the story begins. So let’s have done with it.

Scattered patches of smoke hung in the still evening air. It was quiet, as if everyone in the troupe was