The other wagons trundled on, and I followed Ben mutely back to his wagon. He made a show of puttering around, checking the cords that held the tarpaulin tight. I collected my wits and was helping as best I could when the final wagon in the troupe passed us.
When I looked up, Ben’s eyes were furious. “What were you thinking?” he hissed. “Well? What? What were you thinking?” I’d never seen him like this before, his whole body drawn up into a tight knot of anger. He was shaking with it. He drew back his arm to strike me…then stopped. After a moment his hand fell to his side.
Moving methodically he checked the last couple of ropes and climbed back onto the wagon. Not knowing what else to do, I followed him.
Ben twitched the reins and Alpha and Beta tugged the wagon into motion. We were last in line now. Ben stared straight ahead. I fingered the torn front of my shirt. It was tensely silent.
In hindsight, what I had done was glaringly stupid. When I bound my breath to the air outside, it made it impossible for me to breathe. My lungs weren’t strong enough to move that much air. I would have needed a chest like an iron bellows. I would have had as much luck trying to drink a river or lift a mountain.
We rode for about two hours in an uncomfortable silence. The sun was brushing the tops of the trees when Ben finally drew in a deep breath and let it out in an explosive sigh. He handed me the reins.
When I looked back at him I realized for the first time how old he was. I had always known he was nearing his third score of years, but I’d never seen him look it before.
“I lied to your mother back there, Kvothe. She saw the end of what happened and was worried about you.” His eyes didn’t move from the wagon ahead of ours as he spoke. “I told her we were working on something for a performance. She’s a good woman. She deserves better than lies.”
We rode on in an endless agony of silence, but it was still a few hours before sunset when I heard voices calling “Greystone!” down the line. The bump of our wagon turning onto the grass jostled Ben from his brooding.
He looked around and saw the sun was still in the sky. “Why are we stopping so early? Tree across the road?”
“Greystone.” I gestured up ahead to the slab of stone that loomed over the tops of the wagons ahead of us.
“What?”
“Every once in a while we run across one by the road.” I gestured again to the greystone peering over the tops of smaller trees by the roadside. Like most greystones it was a crudely hewn rectangle about a dozen feet tall. The wagons gathering around it seemed rather insubstantial compared to the stone’s solid presence. “I’ve heard them called standing stones, but I’ve seen a lot of them that weren’t standing, just lying on their sides. We always stop for the day when we find one, unless we’re in a terrible hurry.” I stopped, realizing I was babbling.
“I’ve known them by a different name. Waystones,” Ben said quietly. He looked old and tired. After a moment he asked, “Why do you stop when you find one?”
“We just always do. It’s a break from the road.” I thought for a moment. “I think they’re supposed to be good luck.” I wished I had more to say to keep the conversation going, his interest piqued, but I couldn’t think of anything else.
“I suppose they could be at that.” Ben guided Alpha and Beta into a spot on the far side of the stone, away from most of the other wagons. “Come back for dinner or soon afterward. We need to talk.” He turned without looking at me and began to unhitch Alpha from the wagon.
I’d never seen Ben in a mood like this before. Worried that I’d ruined things between us, I turned and ran to my parents’ wagon.
I found my mother sitting in front of a fresh fire, slowly adding twigs to build it up. My father sat behind her, rubbing her neck and shoulders. They both looked up at the sound of my feet running toward them.
“Can I eat with Ben tonight?”
My mother looked up at my father, then back to me. “You shouldn’t make yourself a nuisance, dear.”
“He invited. If I go now, I can help him set up for the night.”
She wiggled her shoulders, and my father started rubbing them again. She smiled at me. “Fair enough, but don’t keep him up until the wee hours.” She smiled at me. “Give me a kiss.” She held out her arms and I gave her a hug and a kiss.
My father gave me a kiss too. “Let me have your shirt. It’ll give me something to do while your mother fixes dinner.” He skinned me out of it and fingered the torn edges. “This shirt is wholly holey, more than it has any right to be.”
I started to stammer out an explanation but he waved it aside. “I know, I know, it was all for the greater good. Try to be more careful, or I’ll make you sew it yourself. There’s a fresh one in your trunk. Bring me needle and thread while you’re in there, if you’d be so kind.”
I made a dash into the back of the wagon and drew on a fresh shirt. While I rummaged around for needle and thread I heard my mother singing:
“In evening when the sun is setting fast,
I’ll watch for you from high above
The time for your return is long since past
But mine is ever-faithful love.”
My father answered:
“In evening when the light is dying
My feet at last are homeward turning
The wind is through the willows sighing
Please keep the hearthfire burning.”
When I came out of the wagon, he had her in a dramatic dip and was giving her a kiss. I set the needle and thread next to my shirt and waited. It seemed like a good kiss. I watched with a calculating eye, dimly aware that at some point in the future I might want to kiss a lady. If I did, I wanted to do a decent job of it.
After a moment my father noticed me and stood my mother back on her feet. “That will be ha’penny for the show, Master Voyeur,” he laughed. “What are you still here for, boy? I’ll bet you the same ha’penny that a question slowed you down.”
“Why do we stop for the greystones?”
“Tradition, my boy,” he said grandly, throwing his arms wide. “And superstition. They are one and the same, anyway. We stop for good luck and because everyone enjoys an unexpected holiday.” He paused. “I used to know a bit of poem about them. How did it go…?
“Like a drawstone even in our sleep
Standing stone by old road is the way
To lead you ever deeper into Fae.
Laystone as you lay in hill or dell
Greystone leads to something something ‘ell’.”
My father stood for a second or two looking off into space and tugging at his lower lip. Finally he shook his head. “Can’t remember the end of that last line. Lord but I dislike poetry. How can anyone remember words that aren’t put to music?” His forehead creased with concentration as he mouthed the words silently to himself.
“What’s a drawstone?” I asked.
“It’s an old name for loden-stones,” my mother explained. “They’re pieces of star-iron that draw all other iron toward themselves. I saw one years ago in a curiosity cabinet.” She looked up at my father who was still muttering to himself. “We saw the loden-stone in Peleresin, didn’t we?”
“Hmmm? What?” The question jogged him out of his reverie. “Yes. Peleresin.” He tugged at his lip again and frowned. “Remember this, son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart, and some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.”
My mother made a slightly unladylike snort. “Elitist. You’re just getting old.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “Truly, all the more’s the tragedy; the second thing to go is a man’s memory.”
My father puffed up into an indignant pose but my mother ignored him and said to me, “Besides, the only tradition that keeps troupes by the greystone is laziness. The poem should run like this:
“Whatever the
season
That I’m on the road
I look for a reason
Loden or laystone
To lay down my load.”
My father had a dark glimmer in his eye as he moved behind her. “Old?” He spoke in a low voice as he began to rub her shoulders again. “Woman, I have a mind to prove you wrong.”
She smiled a wry smile. “Sir, I have a mind to let you.”
I decided to leave them to their discussion and started to scamper back to Ben’s wagon when I heard my father call out behind me, “Scales after lunch tomorrow? And the second act of Tinbertin?”
“Okay.” I burst into a jog.
When I got back to Ben’s wagon he had already unhitched Alpha and Beta and was rubbing them down. I started to set up the fire, surrounding dry leaves with a pyramid of progressively larger twigs and branches. When I was finished I turned to where Ben sat.
More silence. I could almost see him picking out his words as he spoke. “How much do you know about your father’s new song?”
“The one about Lanre?” I asked. “Not much. You know what he’s like. No one hears it until it’s finished. Not even me.”
“I’m not talking about the song itself,” Ben said. “The story behind it. Lanre’s story.”
I thought about the dozens of stories I’d heard my father collect over the last year, trying to pick out the common threads. “Lanre was a prince,” I said. “Or a king. Someone important. He wanted to be more powerful than anyone else in the world. He sold his soul for power but then something went wrong and afterward I think he went crazy, or he couldn’t ever sleep again, or…” I stopped when I saw Ben shaking his head.
“He didn’t sell his soul,” Ben said. “That’s just nonsense.” He gave a great sigh that seemed to leave him deflated. “I’m doing this all wrong. Never mind your father’s song. We’ll talk about it after he finishes it. Knowing Lanre’s story might give you some perspective.”
Ben took a deep breath and tried again. “Suppose you have a thoughtless six-year-old. What harm can he do?”
I paused, unsure what sort of answer he wanted. Straightforward would probably be best. “Not much.”
“Suppose he’s twenty, and still thoughtless, how dangerous is he?”
I decided to stick with the obvious answers. “Still not much, but more than before.”
“What if you give him a sword?”
Realization started to dawn on me, and I closed my eyes. “More, much more. I understand, Ben. Really I do. Power is okay, and stupidity is usually harmless. Power and stupidity together are dangerous.”
“I never said stupid,” Ben corrected me. “You’re clever. We both know that. But you can be thoughtless. A clever, thoughtless person is one of the most terrifying things there is. Worse, I’ve been teaching you some dangerous things.”
Ben looked at the fire I’d laid out, then picked up a leaf, mumbled a few words, and watched a small flame flicker into life in the center of the twigs and tinder. He turned to look at me. “You could kill yourself doing something as simple as that.” He gave a sickly grin. “Or looking for the name of the wind.”
He started to say something else, then stopped and rubbed his face with his hands. He gave a great sigh that seemed to deflate him. When he took his hands away, his face was tired. “How old are you again?”
“Twelve next month.”
He shook his head. “It’s so easy to forget that. You don’t act your age.” He poked at the fire with a stick, “I was eighteen when I began at the University,” he said. “I was twenty before I knew as much as you do now.” He stared into the fire. “I’m sorry Kvothe. I need to be alone tonight. I need to do some thinking.”
I nodded silently. I went to his wagon, gathered tripod and kettle, water and tea. I brought them back and quietly laid them beside Ben. He was still staring into the fire when I turned away.
Knowing my parents wouldn’t expect me back for a while, I headed into the forest. I had some thinking of my own to do. I owed Ben that much. I wished I could do more.
It took a full span of days before Ben was his normal, jovial self again. But even then things weren’t the same between us. We were still fast friends, but there was something between us, and I could tell he was consciously holding himself apart.
Lessons ground to a near standstill. He halted my fledgling study of alchemy, limiting me to chemistry instead. He refused to teach me any sygaldry at all, and on top of everything else, he began to ration what little sympathy he thought safe for me.
I chafed at the delays, but held my peace, trusting that if I showed myself to be responsible and meticulously careful, he would eventually relax and things would return to normal. We were family, and I knew that any trouble between us would eventually be smoothed over. All I needed was time.
Little did I know our time was quickly drawing to an end.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Distractions and Farewells
THE TOWN WAS CALLED Hallowfell. We stopped for a handful of days because there was a good wainwright there, and nearly all our wagons needed tending or mending of some sort. While we were waiting, Ben got the offer he couldn’t refuse.
She was a widow, fairly wealthy, fairly young, and to my inexperienced eyes, fairly attractive. The official story was that she needed someone to tutor her young son. However, anyone who saw the two of them walking together knew the truth behind that story.
She had been the brewer’s wife, but he had drowned two years ago. She was trying to run the brewery as best she could, but she didn’t really have the know-how to do a good job of it….
As you can see, I don’t think anyone could have built a better snare for Ben if they had tried.
Plans were changed and the troupe stayed on at Hallowfell for a few extra days. My twelfth birthday was moved up and combined with Ben’s going away party.
To truly understand what it was like, you must realize that nothing is so grand as a troupe showing off for one another. Good entertainers try to make each performance seem special, but you need to remember that the show they’re putting on for you is the same one they’ve put on for hundreds of other audiences. Even the most dedicated troupes have an occasional lackluster performance, especially when they know they can get away with it.
Small towns, rural inns, those places didn’t know good entertainment from bad. Your fellow performers did.
Think then, how do you entertain the people who have seen your act a thousand times? You dust off the old tricks. You try out some new ones. You hope for the best. And, of course, the grand failures are as entertaining as the great successes.
I remember the evening as a wonderful blur of warm emotion, tinged in bitter. Fiddles, lutes, and drums, everyone played and danced and sang as they wished. I dare say we rivaled any faerie revel you can bring to mind.
I got presents. Trip gave me a belt knife with a leather grip, claiming that all boys should have something they can hurt themselves with. Shandi gave me a lovely cloak she had made, scattered with little pockets for a boy’s treasures. My parents gave me a lute, a beautiful thing of smooth dark wood. I had to play a song of course, and Ben sang with me. I slipped a little on the strings of the unfamiliar instrument, and Ben wandered off looking for notes once or twice, but it was nice.
Ben opened up a small keg of mead he had been saving for “just such an occasion.” I remember it tasting the way I felt, sweet and bitter and sullen.
Several people had collaborated to write “The Ballad of Ben, Brewer Supreme.” My father recited it as gravely as if it were the Modegan royal lineage while accompanying himself on a half harp. Everyone laughed until they hurt, and Ben twice as much as everyone else.
At some point in the night, my mother swept me up and danced around in a great spinning circle. Her laughter sang out like music trailing in the wind. Her hair and skirt spun around me as she twirled. She smelled comforting, the way only mothers do. That smell, and the quick laughing kiss she gave me did
more to ease the dull ache of Ben’s leaving than all the entertainments combined.
Shandi offered to do a special dance for Ben, but only if he came into her tent to see it. I’d never seen Ben blush before, but he did it well. He hesitated, and when he refused it was obviously about as easy for him as tearing out his own soul. Shandi protested and pouted prettily, saying she’d been practicing it for a long time. Finally she dragged him into the tent, their disappearance encouraged by a cheer from the entire troupe.
Trip and Teren staged a mock sword fight that was one part breathtaking swordplay, one part dramatic soliloquy (provided by Teren), and one part buffoonery that I’m sure Trip must have invented on the spot. It ranged all over the camp. In the course of the fight Trip managed to break his sword, hide under a lady’s dress, fence with a sausage, and perform such fantastical acrobatics that it’s a miracle he didn’t seriously injure himself. Although he did split his pants up the back.
Dax set himself alight while attempting a spectacular bit of fire breathing and had to be doused. All he suffered was a bit of singed beard and a slightly bruised pride. He recovered quickly under Ben’s tender ministrations, a mug of mead, and a reminder that not everyone was cut out to have eyebrows.
My parents sang “The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard.” Like most of the great songs, Sir Savien was written by Illien, and generally considered to be his crowning work.
It’s a beautiful song, made more so by the fact that I’d only heard my father perform the whole thing a handful of times before. It’s hellishly complex, and my father was probably the only one in the troupe who could do it justice. Though he didn’t particularly show it, I knew it was taxing even for him. My mother sang the counter-harmony, her voice soft and lilting. Even the fire seemed subdued when they took a breath. I felt my heart lift and dive. I wept as much for the glory of two voices so perfectly enmeshed as for the tragedy of the song.