Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind

Ambrose looked over his shoulder, scowling. “You have damnable timing, E’lir. Come back later.” He turned away again, dismissing me.

I snorted and leaned over the desk, craning my neck to look at the sheet of paper he’d left lying there, “ I have damnable timing? Please, you have thirteen syllables in a line here.” I tapped a finger onto the page. “It’s not iambic either. I don’t know if it’s anything metrical at all.”

He turned to look at me again, his expression irritated. “Mind your tongue, E’lir. The day I come to you for help with poetry is the day—”

“. . . is the day you have two hours to spare,” I said. “Two long hours, and that’s just for getting started. ‘So same can the humble thrush well know its north?’ I mean, I don’t even know how to begin to criticize that. It practically mocks itself.”

“What do you know of poetry?” Ambrose said without bothering to turn around.

“I know a limping verse when I hear it,” I said. “But this isn’t even limping. A limp has rhythm. This is more like someone falling down a set of stairs. Uneven stairs. With a midden at the bottom.”

“It is a sprung rhythm,” he said, his voice stiff and offended. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Sprung?” I burst out with an incredulous laugh. “I understand that if I saw a horse with a leg this badly ‘sprung,’ I’d kill it out of mercy, then burn its poor corpse for fear the local dogs might gnaw on it and die.”

Ambrose finally turned around to face me, and in so doing he had to take his right hand off Fela’s knee. A half-victory, but his other hand remained on her neck, holding her in her chair with the appearance of a casual caress.

“I thought you might stop by today,” he said with a brittle cheerfulness. “So I already checked the ledger. You’re not in the lists yet. You’ll have to stick with Tomes or come back later, after they’ve updated the books.”

“No offense, but would you mind checking again? I’m not sure I can trust the literacy of someone who tries to rhyme ‘north’ with ‘worth.’ No wonder you have to hold women down to get them to listen to it.”

Ambrose stiffened and his arm slid off the back of the chair to fall at his side. His expression was pure venom. “When you’re older, E’lir, you’ll understand that what a man and a woman do together—”

“What? In the privacy of the entrance hall of the Archives?” I gestured around us. “God’s body, this isn’t some brothel. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s a student, not some brass nail you’ve paid to bang away at. If you’re going to force yourself on a woman, have the decency to do it in an alleyway. At least that way she’ll feel justified screaming about it.”

Ambrose’s face flushed furiously and it took him a long moment to find his voice. “You don’t know the first thing about women.”

“There, at least, we can agree,” I said easily. “In fact, that’s the reason I came here today. I wanted to do some research. Find a book or two on the subject.” I struck the ledger with two fingers, hard. “So look up my name and let me in.”

Ambrose flipped the book open, found the proper page, and turned the book around to face me. “There. If you can find your name on that list, you are welcome to peruse the stacks at your leisure.” He gave a tight smile. “Otherwise feel free to come back in a span or so. We should have things updated by then.”

“I had the masters send along a note just in case there was any confusion about my admission to the Arcanum.” I said, and drew my shirt up over my head, turning so he could see the broad expanse of bandages covering my back. “Can you read it from there, or do I need to come closer?”

There was a pointed silence from Ambrose, so I lowered my shirt and turned to face Fela, ignoring him entirely. “My lady scriv,” I said to her with a bow. A very slight bow, as my back wouldn’t permit a deep one. “Would you be so good as to help me locate a book concerning women? I have been instructed by my betters to inform myself on this most subtle subject.”

Fela gave a faint smile and relaxed a bit. She had continued sitting stiff and uncomfortable after Ambrose had taken his hand away. I guessed that she knew Ambrose’s temperament well enough to know that if she bolted away and embarrassed him, he would make her pay for it later. “I don’t know if we have anything like that.”

“I would settle for a primer,” I said with a smile. “I have it on good report that I don’t know the first thing about them, so anything would further my knowledge.”

“Something with pictures?” Ambrose spat.

“If our search degenerates to that level I’ll be sure to call on you,” I said without looking in his direction. I smiled at Fela. “Perhaps a bestiary,” I said gently. “I hear they are singular creatures, much different than men.”

Fela’s smile blossomed and she gave a small laugh. “We could have a look around, I suppose.”

Ambrose scowled in her direction.

She made a placating gesture toward him. “Everyone knows he’s in the Arcanum, Ambrose,” she said. “What’s the harm of just letting him in?”

Ambrose glared at her. “Why don’t you run along to Tomes and play the good little fetch-and-carry girl?” he said coldly. “I can handle things out here by myself.”

Moving stiffly, Fela got up from the desk, gathered up the book she’d been trying to read, and headed into Tomes. As she pulled the door open, I like to think she gave me a brief look of gratitude and relief. But perhaps it was only my imagination.

As the door swung shut behind her, the room seemed to grow a little dimmer. I am not speaking poetically. The light truly seemed to dim. I looked at the sympathy lamps hanging around the room, wondering what was wrong.

But a moment later I felt a slow, burning sensation begin to creep across my back and realized the truth. The nahlrout was wearing off.

Most powerful painkillers have serious side effects. Tennasin occasionally produces delirium or fainting. Lacillium is poisonous. Ophalum is highly addictive. Mhenka is perhaps the most powerful of all, but there are reasons they call it “devil root.”

Nahlrout was less powerful than these, but much safer. It was a mild anesthetic, a stimulant, and a vascular constrictor, which is why I hadn’t bled like a stuck pig when they’d whipped me. Best of all, it had no major side effects. Still, there is always a price to be paid. Once nahlrout wears off, it leaves you physically and mentally exhausted.

Regardless, I had come here to see the stacks. I was now a member of the Arcanum and I didn’t intend to leave until I’d been inside the Archives. I turned back to the desk, my expression resolute.

Ambrose gave me a long, calculating look before heaving a sigh. “Fine,” he said. “How about a deal? You keep quiet about what you saw here today, and I’ll bend the rules and let you in even though you aren’t officially in the book.” He looked a little nervous. “How does that sound?”

Even as he spoke I could feel the stimulant effect from the nahlrout fading. My body felt heavy and tired, my thoughts grew sluggish and syrupy. I reached up to rub at my face with my hands, and winced as the motion tugged sharply at the stitches all across my back. “That’ll be fine,” I said thickly.

Ambrose opened up one of the ledger books and sighed as he turned the pages. “Since this is your first time in the Archives proper, you’ll have to pay the stack fee.”

My mouth tasted strangely of lemons. That was a side effect Ben had never mentioned. It was distracting, and after a moment I saw that Ambrose was looking up at me expectantly. “What?”