Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind

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 might 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, featherlike touch on my shoulder, almost insensible through the nahlrout that numbed me. “He has lovely skin.” I heard her muse, presumably to Arwyl.

“Re’lar!” Arwyl said severely. “Such comments are not professional. I am disappointed by your lack of sense.”

“I was referring to the nature of the scar he can expect to have,” she responded scathingly. “I imagine it will be little more than a pale line, provided he can avoid tearing open his wound.”

“Hmmm,” Arwyl said. “Yes, of course. And how should he avoid that?”

Mola walked around to stand in front of me. “Avoid motions like this,” she extended her hands in front of her, “or this,” she held them high over her head. “Avoid over-quick motions of any kind—running, jumping, climbing. The bandage may come off in two days. Do not get it wet.” She looked away from me, to Arwyl.

He nodded. “Very good, Re’lar. You are dismissed.” He looked at the younger boy who had watched mutely throughout the procedure, “You may go as well, Geri. If anyone asks, I will be in my study. Thank you.”

In a moment Arwyl and I were alone again. He stood motionless, one hand covering his mouth as I eased my way carefully into my shirt. Finally, he seemed to reach a decision, “E’lir Kvothe, would you like to study here at the Medica?”

“Very much so, Master Arwyl,” I said honestly.

He nodded to himself, hand still held against his lips, “Come back in four days. If you are clever enough to keep from tearing out your stitches, I will have you here.” His eyes twinkled.

Buoyed by the stimulant effects of the nahlrout and feeling very little pain, I made my way to the Archives. Since I was now a member of the Arcanum, I was free to explore the stacks, something I’d been waiting my whole life to do.

Better still, so long as I didn’t ask for any help from the scrivs, nothing would be recorded in the Archive’s ledger books. That meant I could research the Chandrian and the Amyr to my heart’s content, and no one, not even Lorren, need ever know about my “childish” pursuits.

Entering the reddish light of the Archives I found both Ambrose and Fela sitting behind the entry desk. A mixed blessing if ever there was one.

Ambrose was leaning toward her, speaking in a low voice. She had the distinctly uncomfortable look of a woman who knows the futility of a polite refusal. One of his hands rested on her knee, while the other arm was draped across the back of her chair, his hand resting on her neck. He meant for it to look tender and affectionate, but there was a tension in her body like that of a startled deer. The truth was he was holding her there, the same way you hold a dog by the scruff of its neck to keep it from running off.

As the door thumped closed behind me Fela looked up, met my eyes, then looked down and away, ashamed by her predicament. As if she’d done anything. I had seen that look too many times on the streets of Tarbean. It sparked an old anger in me.

I approached the desk, making more noise than necessary. Pen and ink lay on the other end of the desk, and a piece of paper three-quarters full of rewriting and crossing out. From the looks of things, Ambrose had been trying to compose a poem.

I reached the edge of the desk and stood for a moment. Fela looked everywhere except at me or Ambrose. She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, but obviously not wanting to make a scene. I cleared my throat pointedly.