Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind

It wasn’t worn or flawed as I had thought it would be. The broken end was clean, as if it had been cut with a knife or snipped with a pair of scissors.

For a while I simply stared at it dumbly. My lute had been tampered with? Impossible. It was never out of my sight. Besides, I had checked the strings before I left the University, and again before I had come on stage. Then how?

I was running the thought in circles in my head when I noticed the crowd quieting. I looked up in time to see Stanchion take the last step onto the stage. I hurriedly got to my feet to face him.

His expression was pleasant but otherwise unreadable. My stomach tied a knot as he walked toward me, then it fell as he held out his hand the same way he had held it out for the other two musicians who had been found wanting.

I forced my best smile onto my face and reached to take his hand. I was my father’s son and a trouper. I would take my refusal with the high dignity of the Edema Ruh. The earth would crack and swallow this glittering, self-important place before I would show a trace of despair.

And somewhere in the watching audience was Ambrose. The earth would have to swallow the Eolian, Imre, and the whole Centhe Sea before I gave him a grain of satisfaction over this.

So I smiled brightly and took Stanchion’s hand in my own. As I shook it, something hard pressed into my palm. Looking down I saw a glimmer of silver. My talent pipes.

My expression must have been a delight to watch. I looked back up at Stanchion. His eyes danced and he winked at me.

I turned and held my pipes aloft for everyone to see. The Eolian roared again. This time it roared a welcome.

“You’ll have to promise me,” a red-eyed Simmon said seriously, “That you will never play that song again without warning me first. Ever.”

“Was it that bad?” I smiled giddily at him.

“No!” Simmon almost cried out. “It’s . . . I’ve never—” He struggled, wordless for a moment, then bowed his head and began to cry hopelessly into his hands.

Wilem put a protective arm around Simmon, who leaned unashamedly against his shoulder. “Our Simmon has a tender heart,” he said gently. “I imagine he meant to say that he liked it very much.”

I noticed that Wilem’s eyes were red around the edges too. I lay a hand on Simmon’s back. “It hit me hard the first time I heard it too.” I told him honestly. “My parents performed it during the Midwinter Pageantry when I was nine, and I was a wreck for two hours afterward. They had to cut my part from The Swineherd and the Nightingale because I wasn’t in any shape to act.”

Simmon nodded and made a gesture that seemed to imply that he was fine but that he didn’t expect to be able to talk any time soon and that I should just carry along with whatever it was I was doing.

I looked back at Wilem. “I forgot that it hits some people this way,” I said lamely.

“I recommend scutten,” Wilem said bluntly. “Cut-tail, if you insist on the vulgar. But I seem to remember you saying that you would float us home tonight if you got your pipes. Which may be unfortunate, as I happen to be wearing my lead drinking shoes.”

I heard Stanchion chuckle behind me. “These must be the two non-castrati friends, eh?” Simmon was surprised enough at being called a non-castrati to collect himself slightly, rubbing his nose on his sleeve.

“Wilem, Simmon, this is Stanchion.” Simmon nodded. Wilem gave a slight, stiff bow. “Stanchion, could you help us to the bar? I’ve promised to buy them a drink.”

“ S ,” Wilem said. “Drink s .”

“Sorry, drinks,” I stressed the plural. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”

“Ah,” Stanchion said with a grin. “Patrons, I understand completely!”

The victory tankard turned out to be the same as the consolation one. It was ready for me when Stanchion finally managed to get us through the throng of people to our new seats at the bar. He even insisted on buying scutten for Simmon and Wilem, saying that patrons have some claim to the spoils of victory as well. I thanked him earnestly from the bottom of my rapidly thinning purse.

While we were waiting for their drinks to come, I tried to peer curiously into my tankard, and found that doing so while it was sitting on the bar would require me to stand on my stool.

“Metheglin,” Stanchion informed me. “Try it and you can thank me later. Where I’m from, they say a man will come back from the dead to get a drink of it.”

I tipped an imaginary hat to him. “At your service.”

“Yours and your family’s,” he replied politely.

I took a drink from the tall tankard to give myself a chance to collect my wits, and something wonderful happened in my mouth: cool spring honey, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, pressed grape, burnt apple, sweet pear, and clear well water. That is all I have to say of metheglin. If you haven’t tried it, then I am sorry I cannot describe it properly. If you have, you don’t need me to remind you what it is like.

I was relieved to see the cut-tail had come in moderately sized glasses, with one for Stanchion too. If my friends had received tankards of the black wine, I would have needed a wheelbarrow to get them back to the other side of the river.

“To Savien!” Wilem toasted.

“Hear hear!” Stanchion said, lifting his own glass.

“Savien . . .” Simmon managed, his voice sounding like a stifled sob.

“. . . and Aloine,” I said, and maneuvered my great tankard to touch glasses with them.

Stanchion drank off his Scutten with a nonchalance that made my eyes water. “So,” he said, “Before I leave you to the adulation of your peers, I have to ask. Where did you learn to do that? Play missing a string, I mean.”

I thought for a moment. “Do you want the short or the long of it?”

“I’ll take the short for now.”

I smiled. “Well, in that case, it’s just something I picked up.” I made a casual gesture as if tossing something away. “A remnant of my misspent youth.”

Stanchion gave me a long look, his expression amused. “I suppose I deserve that. I’ll take the long version next time.” He took a deep breath and looked around the room, his golden earring swung and caught the light. “I’m off to mix the crowd. I’ll keep them from coming at you all at once.”

I grinned relief. “Thank you, sir.”

He shook his head and made a preemptory motion to someone behind the bar who quickly fetched him his tankard. “Earlier tonight ‘sir’ was proper and good. But now it’s Stanchion.” He glanced back in my direction, and I smiled and nodded. “And I should call you?”

“Kvothe,” I said, “just Kvothe.”

“Just Kvothe,” Wilem toasted behind me.

“And Aloine,” Simmon added, and began to cry softly into the crook of his arm.

Count Threpe was one of the first to come to me. He looked shorter up close, and older. But he was bright-eyed and laughing as he talked about my song.

“Then it broke!” he said, gesturing wildly. “And all I could think was, Not now! Not before the ending! But I saw the blood on your hand and my stomach knotted up. You looked up at us, then down at the strings, and it got quieter and quieter. Then you put your hands back on the lute and all I could think was, There’s a brave boy. Too brave. He doesn’t know he can’t save the end of a broken song with a broken lute. But you did!” He laughed as if I’d played a joke on the world, and danced a quick jig step.

Simmon, who had stopped crying and was on his way to becoming well-buttered, laughed along with the count. Wilem didn’t seem to know what to make of the man, and watched him with serious eyes.