I nodded, and Wilem looked vaguely self-satisfied. Then he frowned. “That makes me remember something strange in your language. People are always asking me about the road to Tinuë. Endlessly they say, ‘how is the road to Tinuë?’ What does it mean?”
I smiled. “It’s an idiomatic piece of the language. That means—”
“I know what an idiom is,” Wilem interrupted. “What does this one mean?”
“Oh,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “It’s just a greeting. It’s kind of like asking ‘how is your day?’ or ‘how is everything going?’”
“That is also an idiom.” Wilem grumbled. “Your language is thick with nonsense. I wonder how any of you understand each other. How is everything going? Going where?” He shook his head.
“Tinuë, apparently.” I grinned at him. “Tuan volgen oketh ama.” I said, using one of my favorite Siaru idioms. It meant ‘don’t let it make you crazy’ but it translated literally as: ‘don’t put a spoon in your eye over it.’
We turned away from the courtyard and walked around the University aimlessly for a while. Wilem pointed out a few more notable buildings, including several good taverns, the alchemy complex, the Cealdish laundry, and both the sanctioned and unsanctioned brothels. We strolled past the featureless stone walls of the Archives, past a cooper, a bookbinder, an apothecary….
A thought occurred to me. “Do you know much herb lore?”
He shook his head. “Chemistry mostly, and I dapple in the Archives with Puppet sometimes.”
“Dabble,” I said, emphasizing the buh sound for him. “Dapple is something else. Who’s Puppet?”
Wil paused. “Hard to describe.” He waved a hand to dismiss the question. “I’ll introduce you later. What do you need to know about herbs?”
“Nothing really. Could you do me a favor?” He nodded and I pointed to the nearby apothecary. “Go buy me two scruples of nahlrout.” I held up two iron drabs. “This should cover it.”
“Why me?” he asked warily.
“Because I don’t want the fellow in there giving me the ‘you’re awfully young’ look.” I frowned. “I don’t want to have to deal with that today.”
I was nearly dancing with anxiety by the time Wilem got back. “He was busy,” he explained, seeing the impatient expression on my face. He handed me a small paper packet and a loose jingle of change. “What is it?”
“It’s to settle my stomach,” I said. “Breakfast isn’t sitting too well, and I don’t fancy throwing up halfway through being whipped.”
I bought us cider at a nearby pub, using mine to wash down the nahlrout, trying not to grimace at the bitter, chalky taste. Before too long we heard the belling tower striking noon.
“I think I must go to class,” Wil tried to mention it nonchalantly, but it came out almost strangled. He looked up at me, embarrassed and a little pale under his dark complexion. “I am not fond of blood.” He gave a shaky smile. “My blood…friend’s blood…”
“I don’t plan on doing much bleeding,” I said. “But don’t worry. You’ve gotten me through the hard part, the waiting. Thank you.”
We parted ways, and I fought down a wave of guilt. After knowing me less than three days Wil had gone out of his way to help me. He could have taken the easy route and resented my quick admittance into the Arcanum as many others did. Instead he had done a friend’s duty, helping me pass a difficult time, and I had repaid him with lies.
As I walked toward the pennant pole, I felt the weight of the crowd’s eyes on me. How many were there? Two hundred? Three? After a certain point is reached the numbers cease to matter, and all that remains is the faceless mass of a crowd.
My stage training held me firm under their stares. I walked steadily toward the pennant pole amid a sea of susurrus murmurings. I didn’t carry myself proudly, as I knew that might turn them against me. I was not repentant, either. I carried myself well, as my father had taught me, with neither fear nor regret on my face.
As I walked, I felt the nahlrout begin to take firm hold of me. I felt perfectly awake while everything around me grew almost painfully bright. Time seemed to slow as I approached the center of the courtyard. As my feet came down on the cobblestones I watched the small puffs of dust they raised. I felt a breath of wind catch the hem of my cloak and curl underneath to cool the sweat between my shoulder blades. It seemed for a second that, should I wish to, I could count the faces in the crowd around me, like flowers in a field.
I spotted none of the masters in the crowd except for Hemme. He stood near the pennant pole, looking piglike in his smugness. He folded his arms in front of himself, letting the sleeves of his black master’s robe hang loosely at his sides. He caught my eye and his mouth quirked up into a soft smirk that I knew was meant for me.
I resolved that I would bite out my own tongue before I gave him the satisfaction of appearing frightened, or even concerned. Instead I gave him a wide, confident smile then looked away, as if he didn’t concern me in the least.
Then I was at the pennant pole. I heard someone reading something, but the words were just a vague buzzing to me as I removed my cloak and lay it across the back of a stone bench that sat at the base of the pole. Then I began to unbutton my shirt, as casually as if I were preparing to take a bath.
A hand on my wrist stopped me. The man that had read the announcement gave me a smile that tried to be comforting. “You don’t need to go shirtless,” he said. “It’ll save you from a bit of the sting.”
“I’m not going to ruin a perfectly good shirt,” I said.
He gave me an odd look, then shrugged and ran a length of rope through an iron ring above our heads. “I’ll need your hands.”
I gave him a flat look. “You don’t need to worry about my running off.”
“It’s to keep you from falling over if you pass out.”
I gave him a hard look. “If I pass out you may do whatever you wish,” I said firmly. “Until then, I will not be tied.”
Something in my voice gave him pause. He didn’t offer me any argument as I climbed onto the stone bench beneath the pole and stretched to reach the iron ring. I gripped it firmly with both hands. Smooth and cool, I found it oddly comforting. I focused on it as I lowered myself into the Heart of Stone.
I heard people moving away from the base of the pole. Then the crowd quieted and there was no sound but the soft hiss and crack of the whip being loosened behind me. I was relieved I was to be whipped with a single headed whip. In Tarbean I had seen the terrible bloody hash a six-tail can make of a man’s back.
There was a sudden hush. Then, before I could brace myself, there came a sharper crack than the ones before. I felt a line of dim red fire trace down my back.
I gritted my teeth. But it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Even with the precautions I had taken, I expected a sharper, fiercer pain.
Then the second lash came. Its crack was louder, and I heard it through my body rather than with my ears. I felt an odd looseness across my back. I held my breath, knowing I was torn and bleeding. Everything went red for a moment and I leaned against the rough, tarred wood of the pennant pole.
The third lash came before I was ready for it. It licked up to my left shoulder, then tore nearly all the way down to my left hip. I grit my teeth, refusing to make a sound. I kept my eyes open and watched the world grow black around the edges for a moment before snapping back into sharp, bright focus.
Then, ignoring the burning across my back, I set my feet on the bench and loosened my clenched fingers from the iron ring. A young man jumped forward as if he expected to have to catch me. I gave him a scathing look and he backed away. I gathered my shirt and cloak, laid them carefully over one arm, and left the courtyard, ignoring the silent crowd around me.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Bloodless
“IT COULD BE WORSE, that much is certain.” Master Arwyl’s round face was serious as he circled me. “I was hoping you would simply welt. But I should have known better w
ith your skin.”
I sat on the edge of a long table deep inside the Medica. Arwyl prodded my back gently as he chattered on, “But, as I say, it could be worse. Two cuts, and as cuts go, you couldn’t have done better. Clean, shallow, and straight. If you do as I tell you, you’ll have nothing but smooth silver scars to show the ladies how brave you are.” He stopped in front of me and raised his white eyebrows enthusiastically behind the round rings of his spectacles, “Eh?”
His expression wrung a smile from me.
He turned to the young man that stood by the door, “Go and fetch the next Re’lar on the list. Tell them only that they are to bring what is needful to repair a straight, shallow laceration.” The boy turned and left, his feet pattering away in the distance.
“You will provide excellent practice for one of my Re’lar,” Arwyl said cheerfully. “Your cut is a good straight one, with little chance of complication, but there is not much to you.” He prodded my chest with a wrinkled finger, and made a tsk noise with his tongue against his teeth. “Just bones and a little wrapping. It is easier for us if we have more meat to work with.”
“But,” he shrugged, bringing his shoulders almost to his ears, and back down, “things are not always ideal. That is what a young physicker must learn more than anything.”
He looked up at me as if expecting a response. I nodded seriously.
It seemed to satisfy him, and his squinting smile returned. He turned and opened a cabinet that stood against one of the walls, “Give me just a moment and I will numb the burning that must be all across your back.” He clinked a few bottles together as he rummaged around on its shelves.
“It’s all right, Master Arwyl,” I said stoically. “You can stitch me closed the way I am.” I had two scruples of nahlrout numbing me, and I knew better than to mix anesthetics if I could avoid it.
He paused with one arm deep into the cabinet, and had to withdraw it to turn and look at me. “Have you ever had stitches before, my boy?”
“Yes,” I said honestly.
“Without anything to soften the pain?”
I nodded again.
As I sat on the table, my eyes were slightly higher than his. He looked up at me skeptically. “Let me see then,” he said, as if he didn’t quite believe me.
I pulled my pantleg up over my knee, gritting my teeth as the motion tugged on my back. Eventually I revealed a handspan worth of scar on my outer thigh above my knee from when Pike had stabbed me with his bottleglass knife back in Tarbean.
Arwyl looked at it closely, holding his glasses with one hand. He gave it one gentle prod with his index finger before straightening. “Sloppy,” he pronounced with a mild distaste.
I had thought it was a rather good job. “My cord broke halfway through,” I said stiffly. “I wasn’t working under ideal circumstances.”
Arwyl was silent for a while, stroking his upper lip with a finger as he watched me through half-lidded eyes. “And do you enjoy this sort of thing?” he asked dubiously.
I laughed at his expression, but it was cut short when dull pain blossomed across my back. “No, Master. I was just taking care of myself as best I could.”
He continued looking at me, still stroking his lower lip. “Show me where the gut broke.”
I pointed. It isn’t the sort of thing that you forget.
He gave the old scar a closer examination, and prodded it again before looking up. “You may be telling me the truth.” He shrugged. “I do not know. But I would think that if—” he trailed off and peered speculatively into my eyes. Reaching up he pulled one of the lids back. “Look up,” he said perfunctorily.
Frowning at whatever he saw, Arwyl picked up one of my hands, pressed the tip of my fingernail firmly, and watched intently for a second or two. His frown deepened as he moved closer to me, took hold of my chin with one hand, opened my mouth, and smelled it.
“Tennasin?” He asked, then answered his own question. “No. Nahlrout, of course. I must be getting old to not notice it sooner. It also explains why you’re not bleeding all over my nice clean table.” He gave me a serious look. “How much?”
I didn’t see any way of denying it. “Two scruples.”
Arwyl was silent for a while as he looked at me. After a moment he removed his spectacles and rubbed them fiercely against his cuff. Replacing them, he looked straight at me, “It is no surprise that a boy might fear a whipping enough to drug himself for it.” He looked sharply at me. “But why, if he was so afraid, would he remove his shirt beforehand?” He frowned again. “You will explain all of this to me. If you’ve lied to me before, admit it and all will be well. I know boys tell foolish stories sometimes.”
His eyes glittered behind the glass of his spectacles. “But if you lie to me now, neither I nor any of mine will stitch you. I will not be lied to.” He crossed his arms in front of himself. “So. Explain. I do not understand what is going on here. That, more than anything else, I do not like.”
My last resort then, the truth. “My teacher, Abenthy, taught me as much as he could about the physicker’s arts,” I explained. “When I ended up living on the streets of Tarbean I took care of myself.” I gestured to my knee. “I didn’t wear my shirt today because I only have two shirts, and it has been a long time since I have had as many as that.”
“And the nahlrout?” he asked.
I sighed, “I don’t fit in here, sir. I’m younger than everyone, and a lot of people think I don’t belong. I upset a lot of students by getting into the Arcanum so quickly. And I’ve managed to get on the wrong side of Master Hemme. All those students, and Hemme, and his friends, they’re all watching me, waiting for some sign of weakness.”
I took a deep breath. “I took the nahlrout because I didn’t want to faint. I needed to let them know they couldn’t hurt me. I’ve learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can’t be hurt.” It sounded ugly to say it so starkly, but it was the truth. I looked at him defiantly.
There was a long silence as Arwyl looked at me, his eyes narrowing slightly behind his spectacles, as if he were trying to see something inside me. He brushed his upper lip with his finger again before he began, slowly, to speak.
“I suppose if I were older,” he said, quietly enough to be speaking to himself, “I would say that you were being ridiculous. That our students are adults, not squabbling, bickersome boys.”
He paused again, still stroking his lip absentmindedly. Then his eyes crinkled upward around the edges as he smiled at me. “But I am not so old as that. Hmmm. Not yet. Not by half. Anyone who thinks boys are innocent and sweet has never been a boy himself, or has forgotten it. And anyone who thinks men aren’t hurtful and cruel at times must not leave his house often. And he has certainly never been a physicker. We see the effects of cruelty more than any other.”
Before I could respond he said, “Close your mouth, E’lir Kvothe, or I will feel obliged to put some vile tonic in it. Ahhh, here they come.” The last was said to two students entering the room, one was the same assistant who had shown me here, the other was, surprisingly, a young woman.
“Ah, Re’lar Mola,” Arwyl enthused, all signs of our serious discussion passing lightly from his face. “You have heard that your patient has two straight, clean lacerations. What have you brought to remedy the situation?”
“Boiled linen, hook needle, gut, alcohol, and iodine,” she said, crisply. She had green eyes that stood out in her pale face.
“What?” Arwyl demanded. “No sympathy wax?”
“No, Master Arwyl,” she responded, paling a little at his tone.
“And why not?”
She hesitated. “Because I don’t need it.”
Arwyl seemed mollified. “Yes. Of course you don’t. Very good. Did you wash before you came here?”
Mola nodded, her short blond hair bobbing with the motion of her head.
“Then you have wasted your time and effort,” he said sternly. “Think of all the germs of disease that you m
ight have gathered in the long walk through the passageway. Wash again and we will begin.”
She washed with a thorough briskness at a nearby basin. Arwyl helped me lay facedown on the table.
“Has the patient been numbed?” she asked. Though I couldn’t see her face, I heard a shadow of doubt in her voice.
“Anesthetized,” Arwyl corrected. “You have a good eye for detail, Mola. No, he has not. Now, what would you do if E’lir Kvothe reassured you that that he has no need for such things? He claims to have self-control like a bar of Ramston steel and will not flinch when you stitch him.” Arwyl’s tone was serious, but I could detect a hint of amusement hiding underneath.
Mola looked at me, then back to Arwyl. “I would tell him that he was being foolish,” she said after a brief pause.
“And if he persisted in his claims that he needed no numbing agent?”
There was a longer pause from Mola. “He doesn’t seem to be bleeding much at all, so I would proceed. I would also make it clear to him that if he moved overmuch, I would tie him to the table and treat him as I saw fit for his well-being.”
“Hmmm,” Arwyl seemed a little surprised at her response. “Yes. Very good. So, Kvothe, do you still wish to forgo an anesthetic?”
“Thank you,” I said politely. “I do not need one.”
“Very well,” Mola said, as if resigning herself. “First we will clean and sterilize the wound.” The alcohol stung, but that was the worst of it. I tried my best to relax as Mola talked her way through the procedure. Arwyl kept up a steady stream of comments and advice. I occupied my mind with other things and tried not to twitch at the nahlrout-dulled jabs of the needle.
She finished quickly and proceeded to bandage me with a quick efficiency I admired. As she helped me to a sitting position and wound linen around me, I wondered if all Arwyl’s students were as well-trained as this one.
She was making her final knots behind me when I felt a vague, feather-like touch on my shoulder, almost insensible through the nahlrout that numbed me. “He has lovely skin.” I heard her muse, presumably to Arwyl.