The Name of the Wind

I had been walking for less than an hour one morning when I heard a wagon coming up behind me. The road was wide enough for two wagons to run abreast, but I moved to the grass at the edge of the road anyway.

“Hey, boy!” a rough male voice behind me yelled. I didn’t turn around. “Hullo, boy!”

I moved farther off the road into the grass without looking behind me. I kept my eyes on the ground beneath my feet.

The wagon pulled slowly alongside me. The voice bellowed twice as loud as before, “Boy. Boy!”

I looked up and saw a weathered old man squinting against the sun. He could have been anywhere from forty to seventy years old. There was a thick-shouldered, plain-faced young man sitting next to him on the wagon. I guessed they were father and son.

“Are ye deaf, boy?” The old man pronounced it deef

I shook my head.

“Ye dumb then?”

I shook my head again. “No.” It felt strange talking to someone. My voice sounded odd, rough and rusty from disuse.

He squinted at me. “You goin’ into the city?”

I nodded, not wanting to talk again.

“Get in then.” He nodded toward the back of the wagon. “Sam won’t mind pulling a little whippet like yuself.” He patted the rump of his mule.

It was easier to agree than run away. And the blisters on my feet were stinging from the sweat in my shoes. I moved to the back of the open cart and climbed on, pulling my lute after me. The back of the open wagon was about three-quarters full of large burlap bags. A few round, knobby squash had spilled from an open sack and were rolling aimlessly around on the floor.

The old man shook the reins. “Hup!” and the mule grudgingly picked up its pace. I picked up the few loose squash and tucked them into the bag that had fallen open. The old farmer gave me a smile over his shoulder. “Thanks, boy. I’m Seth, and this here is Jake. You might want to be sittin’ down, a bad bump could tip ye over the side.” I sat on one of the bags, tense for no good reason, not knowing what to expect.

The old farmer handed the reins to his son and brought a large brown loaf of bread out of a sack that sat between the two of them. He casually tore off a large chunk, spread a thick dab of butter onto it, and handed it back to me.

This casual kindness made my chest ache. It had been half a year since I had eaten bread. It was soft and warm and the butter was sweet. I saved a piece for later, tucking it into my canvas sack.

After a quiet quarter of an hour, the old man turned halfway around. “Do you play that thing, boy?” He gestured to the lute case.

I clutched it closer to my body. “It’s broken.”

“Ah,” he said, disappointed. I thought he was going to ask me to get off, but instead he smiled and nodded to the man beside him. “We’ll just have to be entertainin’ you instead.”

He started to sing “Tinker Tanner,” a drinking song that is older than God. After a second his son joined in, and their rough voices made a simple harmony that set something inside me aching as I remembered other wagons, different songs, a half-forgotten home.

CHAPTER TWENTY Bloody Hands Into Stinging Fists

It was around noon when the wagon turned onto a new road, this one wide as a river and paved with cobbles. At first there were only a handful of travelers and a wagon or two, but to me it seemed like a great crowd after such a long time alone.

We went deeper into the city, and low buildings gave way to taller shops and inns. Trees and gardens were replaced by alleys and cart vendors. The great river of a road grew clogged and choked with the flotsam of a hundred carts and pedestrians, dozens of wains and wagons and the occasional mounted man.

There was the sound of horses’ hooves and people shouting, the smell of beer and sweat and garbage and tar. I wondered which city this was, and if I’d been here before, before—

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to think of other things.

“Almost there,” Seth raised his voice above the din. Eventually the road opened out into a market. Wagons rolled on the cobbles with a sound like distant thunder. Voices bargained and fought. Somewhere in the distance a child was crying shrill and high. We rode aimlessly for a while until he found an empty corner in front of a bookshop.

Seth stopped the wagon and I hopped out as they were stretching away the kinks from the road. Then, with a sort of silent agreement, I helped them unload the lumpy sacks from the back of the wagon and pile them to one side.

A half an hour later we were resting among the piled sacks. Seth looked at me, shading his eyes with a hand. “What are ye doin’ in town today, boy?”

“I need lute strings,” I said. Only then did I realize I didn’t know where my father’s lute was. I looked around wildly. It wasn’t in the wagon where

I’d left it, or leaning against the wall, or on the piles of squash. My stomach clenched until I spotted it underneath some loose burlap sacking. I walked over to it and picked it up with shaking hands.