The Name of the Wind

I pointed. It isn’t the sort of thing that you forget.

He gave the old scar a closer examination, and prodded it again before looking up. “You may be telling me the truth.” He shrugged. “I do not know. But I would think that if—” he trailed off and peered speculatively into my eyes. Reaching up he pulled one of the lids back. “Look up,” he said perfunctorily.

Frowning at whatever he saw, Arwyl picked up one of my hands, pressed the tip of my fingernail firmly, and watched intently for a second or two. His frown deepened as he moved closer to me, took hold of my chin with one hand, opened my mouth, and smelled it.

“Tennasin?” He asked, then answered his own question. “No. Nahlrout, of course. I must be getting old to not notice it sooner. It also explains why you’re not bleeding all over my nice clean table.” He gave me a serious look. “How much?”

I didn’t see any way of denying it. “Two scruples.”

Arwyl was silent for a while as he looked at me. After a moment he removed his spectacles and rubbed them fiercely against his cuff. Replacing them, he looked straight at me, “It is no surprise that a boy might fear a whipping enough to drug himself for it.” He looked sharply at me. “But why, if he was so afraid, would he remove his shirt beforehand?” He frowned again. “You will explain all of this to me. If you’ve lied to me before, admit it and all will be well. I know boys tell foolish stories sometimes.”

His eyes glittered behind the glass of his spectacles. “But if you lie to me now, neither I nor any of mine will stitch you. I will not be lied to.” He crossed his arms in front of himself. “So. Explain. I do not understand what is going on here. That, more than anything else, I do not like.”

My last resort then, the truth. “My teacher, Abenthy, taught me as much as he could about the physicker’s arts,” I explained. “When I ended up living on the streets of Tarbean I took care of myself.” I gestured to my knee. “I didn’t wear my shirt today because I only have two shirts, and it has been a long time since I have had as many as that.”

“And the nahlrout?” he asked.

I sighed, “I don’t fit in here, sir. I’m younger than everyone, and a lot of people think I don’t belong. I upset a lot of students by getting into the Arcanum so quickly. And I’ve managed to get on the wrong side of Master Hemme. All those students, and Hemme, and his friends, they’re all watching me, waiting for some sign of weakness.”

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.