Authors: Patrick Rothfuss

Tags: #Mercenary troops, #Magicians, #Magic, #Attempted assassination, #Fairies, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Heroes, #Epic

The Wise Man's Fear (91 page)

The taproom was mostly empty, and a serving girl came up to me almost as soon as I took my seat. She eyed the rich fabric of my cloak and smiled. “What can I get you?”

I eyed the impressive array of polished glass behind the bar. I motioned the serving girl closer and spoke softly, with a rasp in my throat, as if I were recovering from the croup cough. “I’ll take a tumble of your best whiskey,” I said. “And a glass of fine Feloran red.”

She nodded and left.

I turned my finely tuned eavesdroppers’ ears to the next table.

“. . . your accent,” I heard Denna say. “Where are you from?”

There was a pause and a murmur as the girl spoke. Since she was facing away from me, I couldn’t hear what she said.

“That’s in the western farrel isn’t it?” Denna asked. “You’re a long way from home.”

There was murmuring from the girl. Then a long pause where I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t tell if she’d stopped talking, or if she was speaking too quietly for me to hear. I fought the urge to lean forward and peer at their table.

Then the murmuring came back, very soft.

“I know he said he loved you,” Denna said, her voice gentle. “They all say that.”

The serving girl set a tall wineglass in front of me and handed me my tumble. “Two bits.”

Merciful Tehlu. With prices like that, no wonder the place was nearly empty.

I tossed back the whiskey in a single swallow, fighting the urge to cough as it burned down my throat. Then I drew a full silver round out of my purse, set the heavy coin on the table, and put the empty tumble down over the top of it.

I motioned the serving girl close again. “I have a proposal for you,” I said quietly. “Right now I want nothing more than to sit here quietly, drink my wine, and think my thoughts.”

I tapped the overturned tumble with the coin underneath. “If I am allowed to do this without interruption, all of this, less the cost of my drinks, is yours.” Her eyes went a little wide at that, darting down to the coin again. “But if anyone comes over to bother me, even in a helpful way, even to ask if I would like anything to drink, I will simply pay and leave.” I looked up at her. “Can you help me get a little privacy tonight?”

She nodded eagerly.

“Thank you,” I said.

She hurried away and went immediately to another woman standing behind the bar, making a few gestures in my direction. I relaxed a bit, reasonably certain they wouldn’t be drawing any attention to me.

I sipped my wine and listened.

“. . . does your father do?” Denna asked. I recognized the pitch of her voice. It was the same low, gentle tone my father had used when talking to skittish animals. A tone designed to calm someone and set them at their ease.

The girl murmured, and Denna responded. “That’s a fine job. What are you doing here then?”

Another murmur.

“Got handsy, did he?” Denna said matter-of-factly. “Well that’s the nature of eldest sons.”

The girl spoke up again, this time with some fire in her voice, though I still couldn’t make out any of the words.

I buffed the surface of my wineglass a little with the edge of my cloak, then tipped it out and away from me a bit. The wine was so deep a red that it was almost black. It made the side of the glass act like a mirror. Not a wonderful mirror, but I could see tiny shapes at the table around the corner.

I heard Denna sigh, cutting off the low murmur of the girl’s voice. “Let me guess,” Denna said, sounding exasperated. “You stole the silver, or something similar, then ran off to the city.”

The small reflection of the girl just sat there.

“But it wasn’t like you thought it would be, was it?” Denna said, more gently this time.

I could see the girl’s shoulders begin to shake and heard a series of faint, heartbreaking sobs. I looked away from the wineglass and set it back on the table.

“Here.” There was the sound of a glass being knocked onto the table. “Drink that,” Denna said. “It will help a bit. Not a lot. But a bit.”

The sobbing stopped. The girl gave a surprised cough, choking a little.

“You poor, silly thing,” Denna said softly. “Meeting you is worse than looking in a mirror.”

For the first time, the girl spoke loudly enough for me to hear her. “I thought, if he’s going to take me anyway and get it for free, I might as well go somewhere I can pick and choose and get paid for it. . . .”

Her voice trailed off until I couldn’t make out any words, leaving only the low rise and fall of her muffled voice.

“
The Tenpenny King?
” Denna interrupted incredulously. Her tone more venomous than anything I’d ever heard from her before. “Kist and crayle, I hate that Goddamn play. Modegan faerie-story trash. The world doesn’t work like that.”

“But . . .” the girl began.

Denna cut her off. “There’s no young prince out there, dressed in rags and waiting to save you. Even if there were, where would you be? You’d be like a dog he’d found in the gutter. He’d own you. After he took you home, who would save you from him?”

A piece of silence. The girl coughed again, but only a little.

“So what are we going to do with you?” Denna said.

The girl sniffed and said something.

“If you could take care of yourself we wouldn’t be sitting here,” Denna said.

A murmur.

“It’s an option,” Denna said. “They’ll take half of what you make, but that’s better than getting nothing and having your throat slit on top of it. I’m guessing you figured that out yourself tonight.”

There was the sound of cloth on cloth. I tipped my wineglass to get a look, but all I saw was Denna making some indistinct motion. “Let’s see what we have here,” she said. Then there came the familiar clatter of coins on a table.

The girl made an awed murmur.

“No, I’m not,” Denna said. “It’s not so much when it’s all your money in the world. You should know by now how expensive it is to make your own way in the city.”

A murmur that rose at the end. A question.

I heard Denna draw a breath, then let it out again slowly. “Because someone helped me once when I needed it,” she said. “And because if you don’t get some help you’ll be dead in a span of days. Take it from someone who’s made her own share of bad decisions.”

There was the sound of coins sliding on the table. “Okay,” Denna said. “First option. We get you apprenticed up. You’re a little old, and it will cost, but we could do it. Nothing fancy. Weaving. Cobbling. They’ll work you hard, but you’d have your room and board, and you’d learn a trade.”

A questioning murmur.

“With your accent?” Denna asked archly. “Can you curl a lady’s hair? Paint her face? Mend her dress? Tat lace?” A pause. “No, you don’t have the training to be a maidservant, and I wouldn’t know who to bribe.”

The sound of coins being gathered together. “Option two,” Denna said. “We get you a room until that bruise is gone.” Coins sliding. “Then buy you a seat on a coach back home.” More coins. “You’ve been gone a month. That’s the perfect amount of time for some serious worry to set in. When you come home they’ll just be happy you’re alive.”

Murmur.

“Tell them whatever you like,” Denna said. “But if you’ve got half a brain in your head you’ll make it sensible. Nobody’s going to believe you met some prince who sent you home.”

A murmur so soft I could hardly hear it.

“Of course it will be hard, you silly little bint,” Denna said sharply. “They’ll hold it over your head for the rest of your life. Folk will whisper when you walk by on the street. It will be hard to find a husband. You’ll lose friends. But that’s the price you’ll have to pay if you want to have anything like your normal life back again.”

The coins clinked as they were gathered together again. “Third option. If you’re certain you want to make a go of whoring, we can arrange it so you don’t end up dead in a ditch. You’ve got a nice face, but you’ll need proper clothes.” Coins sliding. “And someone to teach you manners.” More coins. “And someone else to get rid of that accent of yours.” Coins again.

Murmur.

“Because it’s the only sensible way to do it,” Denna said flatly.

Another murmur.

Denna gave a tight, irritated sigh. “Okay. Your father’s stable master, right? Think about the different horses the baron owns: plow horses, carriage horses, hunting horses. . . .”

Excited murmur.

“Exactly,” Denna said. “So if you had to pick, what sort of horse would you want to be? A plow horse works hard, but does it get the best stall? The best feed?”

Murmur.

“That’s right. That goes to the fancy horses. They get petted and fed and only have to work when there’s a parade or someone goes hunting.”

Denna continued, “So if you’re going to be a whore, you do it smart. You don’t want to be some dockside drab, you want to be a duchess. You want men to court you. Send you gifts.”

Murmur.

“Yes, gifts. If they pay, they’ll feel like they own you. You saw how that turned out tonight. You can keep your accent and that low bodice and have sailors paw you for ha’penny a throw. Or you can learn some manners, get your hair done, and start entertaining gentlemen callers. If you’re interesting, and pretty, and you know how to listen, men will desire your company. They’ll want to take you dancing as much as take you to bed. Then
you
have the control. Nobody makes a duchess pay for her room in advance. Nobody bends a duchess over a barrel in an alley then kicks out her teeth once he’s had his fun.”

Murmur.

“No.” Denna said, her voice grim. There was the sound of coins being clinked softly into a purse. “Don’t lie to yourself. Even the fanciest horse is still a horse. That means sooner or later, you’re going to get ridden.”

A questioning murmur.

“Then you leave,” Denna said. “If they want more than you’re willing to give, that’s the only way. You leave, quick and quiet in the night. But if you do, you’ll burn your bridges. That’s the price you pay.”

A hesitant murmur.

“I can’t tell you that,” Denna said. “You need to decide what you want for yourself. You want to go home? There’s a price. You want control over your life? There’s a price. You want the freedom to say no? There’s a price. There’s
always
a price.”

There was the sound of a chair being pushed away from a table, and I pressed myself back against the wall as I heard the two of them stand up. “It’s something everyone has to figure out on their own,” Denna said, her voice growing more distant. “What do you want more than anything else? What do you want so badly you’ll pay anything to get it?”

I sat for a long time after they left, trying to drink my wine.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Blood and Ink

I
N THE
THEOPHANY
, Teccam writes of secrets, calling them painful treasures of the mind. He explains that what most people think of as secrets are really nothing of the sort. Mysteries, for example, are not secrets. Neither are little-known facts or forgotten truths. A secret, Teccam explains, is true knowledge actively concealed.

Philosophers have quibbled over his definition for centuries. They point out the logical problems with it, the loopholes, the exceptions. But in all this time none of them has managed to come up with a better definition. That, perhaps, tells us more than all the quibbling combined.

In a later chapter, less argued over and less well-known, Teccam explains that there are two types of secrets. There are secrets of the mouth and secrets of the heart.

Most secrets are secrets of the mouth. Gossip shared and small scandals whispered. These secrets long to be let loose upon the world. A secret of the mouth is like a stone in your boot. At first you’re barely aware of it. Then it grows irritating, then intolerable. Secrets of the mouth grow larger the longer you keep them, swelling until they press against your lips. They fight to be let free.

Secrets of the heart are different. They are private and painful, and we want nothing more than to hide them from the world. They do not swell and press against the mouth. They live in the heart, and the longer they are kept, the heavier they become.

Teccam claims it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart. Any fool will spit out poison, he says, but we hoard these painful treasures. We swallow hard against them every day, forcing them deep inside us. There they sit, growing heavier, festering. Given enough time, they cannot help but crush the heart that holds them.

Modern philosophers scorn Teccam, but they are vultures picking at the bones of a giant. Quibble all you like, Teccam understood the shape of the world.

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