“Lithium salt?” I asked without thinking, then backpedaled. “No, a sodium oil that burned in an enclosed…no, damn.” I mumbled my way to a stop. The other applicants hadn’t had to deal with questions like these.
He cut me off with a short sideways gesture of his hand. “Enough. We will talk later. Elxa Dal.”
It took me a moment to remember that Elxa Dal was the next master. I turned to him. He looked like the archetypal sinister magician that seems to be a requirement in so many bad Aturan plays. Severe dark eyes, lean face, short black beard. For all that, his expression was friendly enough. “What are the words for the first parallel kinetic binding?”
I rattled them off glibly.
He didn’t seem surprised. “What was the binding that Master Kilvin used just a moment ago?”
“Capacatorial Kinetic Luminosity.”
“What is the synodic period?”
I looked at him oddly. “Of the moon?” The question seemed a little out of sync with the other two.
He nodded.
“Seventy-two and a third days, sir. Give or take a bit.”
He shrugged and gave a wry smile, as if he’d expected to catch me with the last question. “Master Hemme?”
Hemme looked at me over steepled fingers. “How much mercury would it take to reduce two gills of white sulfur?” he asked pompously, as if I’d already given the wrong answer.
One of the things I’d learned during my hour of quiet observation was this: Master Hemme was the king-high bastard of the lot. He took delight in student’s discomfort and did everything he could to badger and unsettle them. He had a fondness for trick questions.
Luckily, this was one I had watched him use on other students. You see, you can’t reduce white sulfur with mercury. “Well,” I drew the word out, pretending to think it through. Hemme’s smug smile grew wider by the second. “Assuming you mean red sulfur, it would be about forty-one ounces. Sir.” I smiled a sharp smile at him. All teeth.
“Name the nine prime fallacies,” he snapped.
“Simplification. Generalization. Circularity. Reduction. Analogy. False causality. Semantism. Irrelevancy….” I paused, not being able to remember the formal name of the last one. Ben and I had called it Nalt, after Emperor Nalto. It galled me, not being able to recall its real name, as I had read it in Rhetoric and Logic just a few days ago.
My irritation must have shown on my face. Hemme glowered at me as I paused, saying. “So you don’t know everything after all?” He leaned back into his seat with a satisfied expression.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I had anything to learn,” I said bitingly before I managed to get my tongue under control again. From the other side of the table, Kilvin gave a deep chuckle.
Hemme opened his mouth, but the Chancellor silenced him with a look before he could say anything else. “Now then,” the Chancellor began, “I think—”
“I too would ask some questions,” the man to the Chancellor’s right said. He had an accent that I couldn’t quite place. Or perhaps it was that his voice held a certain resonance. When he spoke, everyone at the desk stirred slightly, then grew still, like leaves touched by the wind.
“Master Namer,” the Chancellor said with equal parts deference and trepidation.
Elodin was younger than the others by at least a dozen years. Clean-shaven with deep eyes. Medium height, medium build, there was nothing particularly striking about him, except for the way he sat at the table, one moment watching something intently, the next minute bored and letting his attention wander among the high beams of the ceiling above. He was almost like a child who had been forced to sit down with adults.
I felt Master Elodin look at me. Actually felt it, I suppressed a shiver. “Soheketh ka Siaru krema’teth tu?” he asked. How well do you speak Siaru?
“Rieusa, ta krelar deala tu.” Not very well, thank you.
He lifted a hand, his index finger pointing upward. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I paused for a moment, which was more consideration than the question seemed to warrant. “At least one,” I said. “Probably no more than six.”
He broke into a broad smile and brought his other hand up from underneath the table, it had two fingers upright. He waved them back and forth for the other masters to see, nodding his head from side to side in an absent, childish way. Then he lowered his hands to the table in front of him, and grew suddenly serious. “Do you know the seven words that will make a woman love you?”
I looked at him, trying to decide if there was more to the question. When nothing more was forthcoming, I answered simply, “No.”
“They exist.” He reassured me, and sat back with a look of contentment. “Master Linguist?” He nodded to the Chancellor.
“That seems to cover most of academia,” the Chancellor said almost to himself. I had the impression that something had unsettled him, but he was too composed for me to tell exactly what. “You will forgive me if I ask a few things of a less scholarly nature?”
Having no real choice, I nodded.
He gave me a long look that seemed to stretch several minutes. “Why didn’t Abenthy send a letter of recommendation with you?”
I hesitated. Not all traveling entertainers are as respectable as our troupe, so, understandably, not everyone respected them. But I doubted that lying was the best course of action. “He left my troupe three years ago. I haven’t seen him since.”
I saw each of the masters look at me. I could almost hear them doing the mental arithmetic, calculating my age backward.
“Oh come now,” Hemme said disgustedly and moved as if he would stand.
The Chancellor gave him a dark look, silencing him. “Why do you wish to attend the University?”
I stood dumbfounded. It was the one question I was completely unprepared for. What could I say? Ten thousand books. Your Archives. I used to have dreams of reading there when I was young. True, but too childish. I want revenge against the Chandrian. Too dramatic. To become so powerful that no one will ever be able to hurt me again. Too frightening.
I looked up to the Chancellor and realized I’d been quiet for a long while. Unable to think of anything else, I shrugged and said, “I don’t know, sir. I guess I’ll have to learn that too.”
The Chancellor’s eyes had taken on a curious look by this point but he pushed it aside as he said, “Is there anything else you would like to say?” He had asked the question of the other applicants, but none of them had taken advantage of it. It seemed almost rhetorical, a ritual before the masters discussed the applicant’s tuition.
“Yes, please,” I said, surprising him. “I have a favor to ask beyond mere admission.” I took a deep breath, letting their attention settle on me. “It has taken me nearly three years to get here. I may seem young, but I belong here as much, if not more, than some rich lordling who can’t tell salt from cyanide by tasting it.”
I paused. “However, at this moment I have two jots in my purse and nowhere in the world to get more than that. I have nothing worth selling that I haven’t already sold.
“Admit me for more than two jots and I will not be able to attend. Admit me for less and I will be here every day, while every night I will do what it takes to stay alive while I study here. I will sleep in alleys and stables, wash dishes for kitchen scraps, beg pennies to buy pens. I will do whatever it takes.” I said the last words fiercely, almost snarling them.
“But admit me free, and give me three talents so I can live and buy what I need to learn properly, and I will be a student the likes of which you have never seen before.”
There was a half-breath of silence, followed by a thunderclap of a laugh from Kilvin. “HA!” he roared. “If one student in ten had half his fire I’d teach with a whip and chair instead of chalk and slate.” He brought his hand down hard on the table in front of him.
This sparked everyone to begin talking at the same time in their own varied tones. The Chancellor made a little wave in my direc
tion and I took the chance to seat myself in the chair that stood at the edge of the circle of light.
The discussion seemed to go on for quite a long while. But even two or three minutes would have seemed like an eternity, sitting there while a group of old men debated my future. There was no actual shouting, but a fair amount of hand waving, most of it by Master Hemme, who seemed to have taken the same dislike of me that I had for him.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have understood what they were saying, but even my finely tuned eavesdropper’s ears couldn’t quite make out what was being said.
Their talking died down suddenly, and then the Chancellor looked in my direction, motioning me forward.
“Let it be recorded,” he said formally, “that Kvothe, son of—” He paused and then looked at me inquiringly.
“Arliden,” I supplied. The name sounded strange to me after all these years. Master Lorren turned to look in my direction, blinking once.
“…son of Arliden, is admitted into the University for the continuance of his education on the forty-third of Caitelyn. His admission into the Arcanum contingent upon proof that he has mastered the basic principles of sympathy. Official sponsor being one Kilvin, Master Artificer. His tuition shall be set at the rate of less three talents.”
I felt a great dark weight settle inside me. Three talents might as well be all the money in the world for any hope I had in earning it before the term began. Working in kitchens, running errands for pennies, I might be able to save that much in a year, if I was lucky.
I held a desperate hope that I could cutpurse that much in time. But I knew the thought to be just that, desperate. People with that sort of money generally knew better than to leave it hanging in a purse.
I didn’t realize that the masters had left the table until one of them approached me. I looked up to see the Master Archivist approaching me.
Lorren was taller than I would have guessed, over six and a half feet. His long face and hands made him look almost stretched. When he saw he had my attention, he asked, “Did you say your father’s name was Arliden?”
He asked it very calmly, with no hint of regret or apology in his voice. It suddenly made me very angry, that he should stifle my ambitions of getting into the University then come over and ask about my dead father as easy as saying good morning.
“Yes.” I said tightly.
“Arliden the bard?”
My father always thought of himself as a trouper. He never called himself bard or minstrel. Hearing him referred to in that way irritated me even more, if that were possible. I didn’t deign to reply, merely nodded once, sharply.
If he thought my response terse he didn’t show it. “I was wondering which troupe he performed in.”
My thin restraint burst. “Oh, you were wondering,” I said with every bit of venom my troupe-sharpened tongue could muster. “Well maybe you can wonder a while longer. I’m stuck in ignorance now. I think you can abide a while with a little piece of it yourself. When I come back after earning my three talents, maybe then you can ask me again.” I gave him a fierce look, as if hoping to burn him with my eyes.
His reaction was minimal, it wasn’t until later that I found getting any reaction from Master Lorren was about as likely as seeing a stone pillar wink.
He looked vaguely puzzled at first, then slightly taken aback, then, as I glared up at him, he gave a faint, thin smile and mutely handed me a piece of paper.
I unfolded and read it. It read: “Kvothe. Spring term. Tuition: -3. Tln.” Less three talents. Of course.
Relief flooded me. As if it were a great wave that swept my legs from beneath me, I sat suddenly on the floor and wept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bright-Eyed
LORREN LED THE WAY across a courtyard. “That is what most of the discussion was about,” Master Lorren explained, his voice as passionless as stone. “You had to have a tuition. Everyone does.”
I had recovered my composure and apologized for my terrible manners. He nodded calmly and offered to escort me to the office of the bursar to ensure that there was no confusion regarding my admission “fee.”
“After it was decided to admit you in the manner you had suggested—” Lorren gave a brief but significant pause, leading me to believe that it had not been quite as simple as that “—there was the problem that there was no precedent set for giving out funds to enrolling students.” He paused again. “A rather unusual thing.”
Lorren led me into another stone building, through a hallway, and down a flight of stairs. “Hello, Riem.”
The bursar was an elderly, irritable man who became more irritable when he discovered he had to give money to me rather than the other way around. After I got my three talents, Master Lorren led me out of the building.
I remembered something and dug into my pocket, glad for an excuse to divert the conversation. “I have a receipt from the Broken Binding.” I handed him the piece of paper, wondering what the owner would think when the University’s Master Archivist showed up to redeem the book a filthy street urchin had sold him. “Master Lorren, I appreciate your agreeing to do this, and I hope you won’t think me ungrateful if I ask another favor….”
Lorren glanced at the receipt before tucking it into a pocket, and looked at me intently. No, not intently. Not quizzically. There was no expression on his face at all. No curiosity. No irritation. Nothing. If not for the fact that his eyes were focused on me, I would have thought he’d forgotten I was there. “Feel free to ask,” he said.
“That book. It’s all I have left from…that time in my life. I would very much like to buy it back from you someday, when I have the money.”
He nodded, still expressionless. “That can be arranged. Do not waste your worry on its safety. It will be kept as carefully as any book in the Archives.”
Lorren raised a hand, gesturing to a passing student.
A sandy-haired boy pulled up short and approached nervously. Radiating deference, he made a nod that was almost like a bow to the Master Archivist. “Yes, Master Lorren?”
Lorren gestured to me with one of his long hands. “Simmon, this is Kvothe. He needs to be shown about, signed to classes and the like. Kilvin wants him in Artificing. Trust to your judgment otherwise. Will you tend to it?”
Simmon nodded again and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
Without another word, Lorren turned and walked away, his long strides making his black master’s robes billow out behind him.
Simmon was young for a student, though still a couple years my senior. He stood taller than me, but his face was still boyish, his manner boyishly shy.
“Do you have somewhere to stay yet?” he asked as we started to walk. “Room at an inn or anything?”
I shook my head. “I just got in today. I haven’t thought much further than getting through admissions.”
Simmon chuckled. “I know what that’s like. I still get sweaty at the beginning of each term.” He pointed to the left, down a wide lane lined with trees. “Let’s head to Mews first then.”
I stopped walking. “I don’t have a lot of money,” I admitted. I hadn’t planned on getting a room. I was used to sleeping outside, and I knew I would need to save my three talents for clothes, food, paper, and next term’s tuition. I couldn’t count on the masters’ generosity two terms in a row.
“Admissions didn’t go that well, huh?” Simmon said sympathetically as he took my elbow and steered me toward another one of the grey University buildings. This one was three stories tall, many-windowed, and had several wings radiating out from a central hub. “Don’t feel bad about it. I got nervous and pissed myself the first time through. Figuratively.”
“I didn’t do that badly,” I said, suddenly very conscious of the three talents in my purse. “But I think I offended Master Lorren. He seemed a little…”
“Chilly?” Simmon asked. “Distant? Like an unblinking pillar of stone?” He laughed. “Lorren is always like that. Rumo
r has it that Elxa Dal has a standing offer of ten gold marks to anyone who can make him laugh.”
“Oh,” I relaxed a little. “That’s good. He’s the last person I’d want to get on the wrong side of. I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time in the Archives.”
“Just handle the books gently and you’ll get along fine. He’s pretty detached for the most part, but be careful around his books.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “He’s fiercer than a mother bear protecting her cubs. In fact, I’d rather get caught by a mother bear than have Lorren see me folding back a page.”
Simmon kicked at a rock, sending it skipping down the cobblestones. “Okay. You’ve got options in the Mews. A talent will get you a bunk and a meal chit for the term.” He shrugged. “Nothing fancy, but it keeps the rain off. You can share a room for two talents or get one all to yourself for three.”
“What’s a meal chit?”
“Meals are three a day over in the Mess.” He pointed to a long, low-roofed building across the lawn. “The food isn’t bad so long as you don’t think too hard about where it might have come from.”
I did some quick arithmetic. A talent for two month’s worth of meals and a dry place to sleep was as good a deal as I could hope for. I smiled at Simmon. “Sounds like just the thing.”
Simmon nodded as he opened the door into the Mews. “Bunks it is, then. Come on, let’s find a steward and get you signed up.”
The bunks for non-Arcanum students were on the fourth floor of the east wing of Mews, farthest from the bathing facilities on the ground floor. The accommodations were as Sim had described, nothing fancy. But the narrow bed had clean sheets, and there was a trunk with a lock where I could keep my meager possessions.
All the lower bunks had already been claimed, so I took an upper one in the far corner of the room. As I looked out one of the narrow windows from on top of my bunk, I was reminded of my secret place high on Tarbean’s rooftops. The similarity was oddly comforting.