Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind

I felt Master Elodin look at me. Actually felt it, I suppressed a shiver. “So-heketh 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 direction 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.