losing them over money. As my father used to say: “There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.”
Besides, I did my best to keep my desperate poverty to myself. Pride is a foolish thing, but it is a powerful force. I wouldn’t ask them for money except as my very last resort.
I briefly considered trying to cutpurse the money, but I knew it was a bad idea. If I were caught with my hand in someone’s pocket, I would get more than a cuff round the head. At best I’d be jailed and forced to stand against the iron law. At worst, I’d end up on the horns and expelled for Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum. I couldn’t risk it.
I needed a gaelet, one of the dangerous men who lend money to desperate people. You might have heard them referred to romantically as copper hawks, but more often they’re referred to as shim-galls, or lets. Regardless of the name, they exist everywhere. The hard part is finding them. They tend to be rather secretive as their business is semilegal at best.
But living in Tarbean had taught me a thing or two. I spent a couple of hours visiting the seedier taverns around the University, making casual conversations, asking casual questions. Then I visited a pawnshop called the Bent Penny, and asked a few more pointed questions. Finally I learned where I needed to go. Over the river, to Imre.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Negotiations
Imre lay a little over two miles from the University, on the eastern side of the Omethi River. Since it was a mere two days in a fast coach from Tarbean, a great many wealthy nobles, politicians, and courtiers made their homes there. It was conveniently close to the governing hub of the Commonwealth, while being a comfortable distance from the smell of rotten fish, hot tar, and the vomit of drunken sailors.
Imre was a haven for the arts. There were musicians, dramatists, sculptors, dancers, and the practitioners of a hundred other smaller arts, even the lowest art of all: poetry. Performers came because Imre offered what every artist needs most—an appreciative, affluent audience.
Imre also benefited by its proximity to the University. Access to plumbing and sympathy lamps improved the quality of the town’s air. Quality glass was easy to come by, so windows and mirrors were commonplace. Eyeglasses and other ground lenses, while expensive, were readily available.
Despite this, there was little love lost between the two towns. Most of Imre’s citizens did not like the thought of a thousand minds tinkering with dark forces better left alone. Listening to the average citizen speak, it was easy to forget that this part of the world had not seen an arcanist burned for nearly three hundred years.
To be fair, it should be mentioned that the University had a vague contempt for Imre’s populace, too, viewing them as self-indulgent and decadent. The arts that were viewed so highly in Imre were seen as frivolous by those at the University. Often, students who quit the University were said to have “gone over the river,” the implication being that minds that were too weak for academia had to settle for tinkering with the arts.
And both sides of the river were, ultimately, hypocrites. University students complained about frivolous musicians and flufmead actors, then lined up to pay for performances. Imre’s population griped about unnatural arts being practiced two miles away, but when an aqueduct collapsed or someone fell suddenly sick, they were quick to call on engineers and doctors trained at the University.
All in all, it was a long-standing and uneasy truce where both sides complained while maintaining a grudging tolerance. Those people did have their uses after all, you just wouldn’t want your daughter marrying one....
Since Imre was such a haven for music and drama, you might think I spent a great deal of time there, but nothing could be further from the truth. I had been there only once. Wilem and Simmon had taken me to an inn where a trio of skilled musicians played: lute, flute, and drum. I bought a short beer for ha’penny and relaxed, fully intending to enjoy an evening with my friends....
But I couldn’t. Bare minutes after the music started I practically fled the room. I doubt very much you’ll be able to understand why, but I suppose I have to explain if things are to make any sense at all.
I couldn’t stand being near music and not be a part of it. It was like watching the woman you love bedding down with another man. No. Not really. It was like....
It was like the sweet-eaters I’d seen in Tarbean. Denner resin was highly illegal, of course, but that didn’t matter in most parts of the city. The resin was sold wrapped in waxy paper, like a sucking candy or a toffee. Chewing it filled you with euphoria. Bliss. Contentment.
But after a few hours you were shaking, filled with a desperate hunger for more, and that hunger grew worse the longer you used it. Once in Tarbean I saw a young girl of no more than sixteen with the telltale hollow eyes and unnaturally white teeth of the hopelessly addicted. She was begging a sailor for a sweet, which he held tauntingly out of reach. He told her it was hers if she stripped naked and danced for him, right there in the street.
She did, not caring who might be watching, not caring that it was nearly Midwinter and she stood in four inches of snow. She pulled off her clothes and danced desperately, her thin limbs pale and shaking, her movements pathetic and jerky. Then, when the sailor laughed and shook his head, she fell to her knees in the snow, begging and weeping, clutching frantically at his legs, promising him anything, anything....
That is how I felt, watching the musicians play. I couldn’t stand it. The everyday lack of my music was like a toothache I had grown used to. I could live with it. But having what I wanted dangled in front of me was more than I could bear.
So I avoided Imre until the problem of my second term’s tuition forced me back across the river. I had learned that Devi was the person anyone could ask for a loan, no matter how desperate the circumstances.
So I crossed the Omethi by Stonebridge and made my way to Imre. Devi’s place of business was through an alley and up a narrow balcony staircase behind a butcher’s shop. This part of Imre reminded me of Waterside in Tar-bean. The cloying smell of rancid fat from the butcher shop below made me thankful for the cool autumn breeze.
I hesitated in front of the heavy door, looking down into the alley. I was about to become involved in dangerous business. A Cealdish moneylender could take you to court if you didn’t repay your loan. A gaelet would simply have you beaten, or robbed, or both. This was not smart. I was playing with fire.
But I didn’t have any better options. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and knocked on the door.
I wiped my sweaty palms against my cloak, hoping to keep them reasonably dry for when I shook Devi’s hand. I had learned in Tarbean that the best way to deal with this type of man was to act with confidence and self-assurance. They were in the business of taking advantage of other people’s weakness.
I heard the sound of a heavy bolt being drawn back, then the door opened, revealing a young girl with straight, strawberry-blond hair framing a pixielike face. She smiled at me, cute as a new button. “Yes?”
“I’m looking for Devi,” I said.
“You’ve found her,” she said easily. “Come on in.”
I stepped inside and she closed the door behind her, sliding the iron bolt home. The room was windowless, but well-lit and filled with the scent of lavender, a welcome change from the smell of the alley. There were hangings on the walls, but the only real furniture was a small desk, a bookshelf, and a large canopy bed with the curtains drawn around it.
“Please,” she said, gesturing to the desk. “Have a seat.”
She settled herself behind the desk, folding her hands across the top. The way she carried herself made me rethink her age. I’d misjudged her because of her small size, but even so, she couldn’t be much older than her early twenties, hardly what I had expected to find.
Devi blinked prettily at me.
“I need a loan,” I said.
“How about your name, first?” She smiled. “You already know mine.”
“Kvothe.”
