The Wise Man's Fear (137 page)
Read The Wise Man's Fear Online
Authors: Patrick Rothfuss
Tags: #Mercenary troops, #Magicians, #Magic, #Attempted assassination, #Fairies, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Heroes, #Epic
Vashet saw. “I knew it!” she said triumphantly, pointing a finger at me. “You standing there like you’re ready to be hanged. I knew you were ready to run like a rabbit!” She stamped her foot in frustration. “I knew I should have taken a swing at you!”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. I managed to get my shirt on, then realized it was inside out. I decided to leave it rather than drag it across my stinging back again.
“What gave me away?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” I said. “It was a masterful performance.”
“Then how’d you know I wasn’t going to crack your skull open?”
“I thought it through,” I said. “If Shehyn had really wanted me driven off, she could have just sent me packing. If she wanted me dead, she could have done that too.”
I rubbed my sweaty hands on my pants. “That meant you were really meant to be my teacher. So there were only three sensible options.” I held up a finger. “This was a ritual initiation.” A second finger. “It was test of my resolve . . .”
“Or I was really trying to run you off,” Vashet finished as she sat on the bench opposite me. “What if I’d been telling the truth and thumped you bloody?”
I shrugged. “At least I’d have known. But it seemed like long odds that Shehyn would choose someone like that. If she’d wanted me beaten she could have let Carceret do it.” I cocked my head. “Out of curiosity, which was it? Initiation or test of resolve? Does everyone go through this?”
She shook her head. “Resolve. I needed to make sure of you. I wasn’t going to waste my time teaching a coward or someone afraid of a little smack or two. I also needed to know you were dedicated.”
I nodded. “That seemed the most likely. I thought I’d save myself several days of welts and force the issue.”
Vashet gave me a long look, curiosity plain on her face. “I will admit, I’ve never had a student offer himself up for a vicious beating in order to prove he’s worth my time.”
“This was nothing,” I said nonchalantly. “Once I jumped off a roof.”
We spent an hour talking about small things, letting the tension between us slowly bleed away. She asked how exactly I’d come to be whipped, and I gave her the bones of the story, glad to have the chance to explain myself. I didn’t want her thinking of me as a criminal.
Vashet examined my scars more closely afterward. “Whoever tended to you certainly knew their physic,” she said admiringly. “This is very clean work. As good as any I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll pass along your compliments,” I said.
Her hand brushed gently along the edge of the hot welt that ran across the whole length of my back. “I’m sorry for this, by the way.”
“It hurts worse than the whipping ever did, I’ll tell you that for free.”
“It’ll be gone in a day or two,” she said. “Which isn’t to say you won’t be sleeping on your stomach tonight.” She helped me settle my shirt, then moved back to the other bench, facing me.
I hesitated before saying, “No offense, Vashet. But you seem different from the other Adem I’ve met. Not that I’ve met many, mind you.”
“You’re just hungry for familiar body language,” she said.
“There is that,” I said. “But you seem more . . . expressive than the other Adem I’ve seen.” I pointed at my face.
Vashet shrugged. “Where I’m from, we grow up speaking your language. And I spent four years as bodyguard and captain for a poet in the Small Kingdoms who also happened to be a king. I probably speak Aturan better than anyone in Haert. Including you.”
I ignored the last. “You didn’t grow up here?”
She shook her head. “I’m from Feant, a town farther north. We’re more . . . cosmopolitan. Haert only has the one school, and everyone is tied very tightly to it. The sword tree is one of the old paths, too. Rather formal. I grew up following the path of joy.”
“There are other schools?”
Vashet nodded. “This is one of the many schools that follow the Latantha, the path of the sword tree. It’s one of the oldest, behind the Aethe and Aratan. There are other paths, maybe three dozen. But some of those are very small, with only one or two schools teaching their Ketan.”
“Is that why your sword is different?” I asked. “Did you bring it from your other school?”
Vashet gave me a narrow look. “What do you know of my sword?”
“You brought it out to trim the willow switch,” I said. “Tempi’s sword was well-made, but yours is different. The handle is worn, but the blade looks new.”
She gave me a curious look. “Well you certainly have your eyes open, don’t you?”
I shrugged.
“Strictly speaking, it’s not my sword,” Vashet said. “It’s merely in my keeping. It is an old sword, and the blade is the oldest part of it. It was given to me by Shehyn herself.”
“Is that why you came to this school?”
Vashet shook her head. “No. Shehyn gave me the sword much later.” She reached back and touched the hilt fondly. “No. I came here because while the Latantha might be rather formal, they excel in the use of the sword. I had learned as much as I could from the path of joy. Three other schools refused me before Shehyn brought me in. She is a clever woman and realized there was something to be gained in teaching me.”
“I guess we’re both lucky she has an open mind,” I said.
“You more than me,” Vashet said. “There’s a certain amount of one-upsmanship among the different paths. When I joined the Latantha, it was a bit of a feather in Shehyn’s cap.”
“It must have been hard,” I said. “Coming here and being the stranger to everyone.”
Vashet shrugged, making her sword rise and fall on her shoulder. “At first,” she admitted. “But they recognize talent, and I have that to spare. Among those who study the path of joy, I was viewed as rather stiff and stodgy. But here I’m seen as somewhat wild.” She grinned. “It’s pleasant, like having a new set of clothes to wear.”
“Does the path of joy also teach the Lethani?” I asked.
Vashet laughed. “That is a matter of some considerable debate. The simple answer is yes. All Adem study the Lethani to some degree. Those in the schools especially. That said, the Lethani is open to a broad interpretation. What some schools cling to, others spurn.”
She gave me a thoughtful look. “Is it true you said the Lethani comes from the same place as laughing?”
I nodded.
“That is a good answer,” she said. “My teacher in the path of joy once said that very thing to me.” Vashet frowned. “You look pensive when I say that. Why?”
“I’d tell you,” I said. “But I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“I think less of you for keeping something from your teacher,” she said seriously. “There must be trust between us.”
I sighed. “I am glad you like my answer. But honestly, I don’t know what it means.”
“I didn’t ask you what it means,” she said easily.
“It’s just a nonsense answer,” I said. “I know you all place great stock in the Lethani, but I don’t really understand it. I’ve just found a way to fake it.”
Vashet smiled indulgently. “There is no pretending to understand the Lethani,” she said confidently. “It is like swimming. It is obvious to anyone watching if you really know the way of it.”
“A person can pretend to swim too,” I pointed out. “I’ve simply been moving my arms and walking on the bottom of the river.”
She gave me a curious look. “Very well then. How have you managed to fool us?”
I explained Spinning Leaf to her. How I had learned to tip my thoughts into a light, empty, floating place where the answers to their questions came easily.
“So you have stolen the answers from yourself,” she said with mock seriousness. “You have cleverly fooled us by pulling the answers from your own mind.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, growing irritated. “I don’t have the slightest idea what the Lethani really is! It’s not a path, but it helps choose a path. It’s the simplest way, but it is not easy to see. Honestly, you people sound like drunk cartographers.”
I regretted saying it as soon as it was out of my mouth, but Vashet merely laughed. “There are many drunks who are quite conversant with the Lethani,” she said. “Several legendarily so.”
Seeing I was still agitated, she made a motion to calm me. “I don’t understand the Lethani either, not in a way that can be explained to another. The teaching of the Lethani is an art I do not possess. If Tempi has managed to instill the Lethani in you, it is a great mark in his favor.”
Vashet leaned forward seriously. “Part of the problem is with your language,” she said. “Aturan is very explicit. It is very precise and direct. Our language is rich with implication, so it is easier for us to accept the existence of things that cannot be explained. The Lethani is the greatest of these.”
“Can you give me an example of one other than the Lethani?” I asked. “And please don’t say ‘blue,’ or I might go absolutely mad right here on this bench.”
She thought for a moment. “Love is such a thing.You have knowledge of what it is, but it defies careful explication.”
“Love is a subtle concept,” I admitted. “It’s elusive, like justice, but it can be defined.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Do so then, my clever student. Tell me of love.”
I thought for a quick moment, then for a long moment.
Vashet grinned. “You see how easy it will be for me to pick holes in any definition you give.”
“Love is the willingness to do anything for someone,” I said. “Even at detriment to yourself.”
“In that case,” she said. “How is love different from duty or loyalty?”
“It is also combined with a physical attraction,” I said.
“Even a mother’s love?” Vashet asked.
“Combined with an extreme fondness then,” I amended.
“And what exactly do you mean by ‘fondness’?” she asked with a maddening calm.
“It is . . .” I trailed off, racking my brain to think how I could describe love without resorting to other, equally abstract terms.
“This is the nature of love.” Vashet said. “To attempt to describe it will drive a woman mad. That is what keeps poets scribbling endlessly away. If one could pin it to the paper all complete, the others would lay down their pens. But it cannot be done.”
She held up a finger. “But only a fool claims there is no such thing as love. When you see two young ones staring at each other with dewy eyes, there it is. So thick you can spread it on your bread and eat it. When you see a mother with her child, you see love. When you feel it roil in your belly, you know what it is. Even if you cannot give voice to it in words.”
Vashet made a triumphant gesture. “Thus also is the Lethani. But as it is greater, it is more difficult to point toward. That is the purpose of the questions. Asking them is like asking a young girl about the boy she fancies. Her answers may not use the word, but they reveal love or the lack of it within her heart.”
“How can my answers reveal a knowledge of the Lethani when I don’t truly know what it is?” I asked.
“You obviously understand the Lethani,” she said. “It is rooted deep inside you. Too deep for you to see. Sometimes it is the same with love.”
Vashet reached out and tapped me on the forehead. “As for this Spinning Leaf. I have heard of similar things practiced by other paths. There is no Aturan word for it that I know. It is like a Ketan for your mind. A motion you make with your thoughts, to train them.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “Either way, it is not cheating. It is a way of revealing that which is hidden in the deep waters of your mind. The fact that you found it on your own is quite remarkable.”
I nodded to her. “I bow to your wisdom, Vashet.”
“You bow to the fact that I am unarguably correct.”
She clapped her hands together. “Now, I have much to teach you. However, as you are still welted and flinching, let us forbear the Ketan. Show me your Ademic instead. I want to hear you wound my lovely language with your rough barbarian tongue.”
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