The Wise Man's Fear

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN A Liar and a Thief

Shehyn and I returned to the complex of stone buildings to find Tempi standing outside, shifting nervously from foot to foot. That confirmed my suspicion. He hadn’t sent Shehyn to test me. She had found me on her own.

When we came close enough, Tempi held his sword out in his right hand, point down. His left hand gestured elaborate respect. “Shehyn,” he said, “I—”

Shehyn motioned for him to follow as she entered the low stone building. She motioned to a young boy. “Fetch Carceret.” The boy took off running.

Curiosity. I gestured to Tempi.

He didn’t look at me. Profound seriousness. Attend. It didn’t reassure me that these were the same gestures he had made on the road to Crosson when he thought we were walking into an ambush. His hands, I noticed, were shaking slightly.

Shehyn led us to an open doorway where a woman in mercenary reds joined us. I recognized the thin scars on her eyebrow and jaw. This was Carceret, the mercenary we had met while heading to Severen, the one who had pushed me.

Shehyn motioned the two mercenaries inside, but held up a hand to me. “Wait here. What Tempi has done is not good. I will listen. Then I will decide what is to be done with you.”

I nodded, and she closed the door behind her.

I waited for an hour, then two. I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the door. A few people walked past in the hallway: two in mercenary reds, and another in simple grey homespun. Each of them looked at my hair, though none of them stared.

Instead of smiling and nodding as would have been sociable among barbarians, I kept my face blank, returned their small gestures of greeting, and avoided touching eyes.

Somewhere past the third hour, the door opened and Shehyn waved me inside.

It was a well-lit room with walls of finished stone. It was the size of a large bedroom at an inn, but seemed even larger due to the lack of any significant furniture. There was a small iron stove radiating gentle heat near one wall, and four chairs facing each other in a rough circle. Tempi, Shehyn, and Carceret filled three of them. At a gesture from Shehyn, I took the fourth.

“How many have you killed?” Shehyn asked. Her tone was different than before. Peremptory. It was the same tone Tempi used during our discussions of the Lethani.

“Many.” I responded without any hesitation. I might be thick at times, but I know when I’m being tested.

“How many is many?” Not a request for clarification. It was a new question.

“In killing men, one is many.”

She nodded slightly. “Have you killed men outside of the Lethani?”

“Perhaps.”

“Why do you not say yes or no?”

“Because the Lethani has not always been clear to me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because the Lethani is not always clear.”

“What makes the Lethani clear?”

I hesitated, though I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. “The words of a teacher.”

“Can one teach the Lethani?”

I began to gesture uncertainty, then remembered hand-talk wasn’t appropriate. “Perhaps,” I said. “I cannot.”

Tempi shifted slightly in his chair. This wasn’t going well. For lack of any other ideas, I took a deep breath, relaxed, and tipped my mind gently into Spinning Leaf.

“Who knows the Lethani?” Shehyn asked.

“The windblown leaf,” I responded, though I cannot honestly say what I meant by it.

“Where does the Lethani come from?”

“The same place as laughing.”

Shehyn hesitated slightly, then said, “How do you follow the Lethani?”

“How do you follow the moon?”

My time with Tempi had taught me to appreciate the different sorts of pauses that can punctuate a conversation. Ademic is a language that says as much with silence as with words. There is a pregnant pause. A polite pause. A confused pause. There is a pause that implies much, a pause that apologizes, a pause that adds emphasis. . . .

This pause was a sudden gape in the conversation. It was the empty space of an indrawn breath. I sensed I had said something very clever or something very stupid.

Shehyn shifted in her seat, and the air of formality evaporated. Sensing we were moving on, I let my mind settle out of Spinning Leaf.

Shehyn turned to look at Carceret. “What do you say?”

Carceret had sat like a statue through all of this, expressionless and still. “I say as I have said before. Tempi has netinad us all. He should be cut away. This is the reason we have laws. To ignore a law is to erase it.”

“To blindly follow law is to be a slave,” Tempi said quickly.

Shehyn gestured sharp rebuke, and Tempi flushed with embarrassment.

“As for this.” Carceret gestured at me. Dismissal. “He is not of Ademre. At best he is a fool. At worst a liar and a thief.”

“And what he said today?” Shehyn asked.

“A dog can bark three times without counting.”

Shehyn turned to Tempi. “By speaking out of turn you refuse your turn to speak.” Tempi flushed again, his lips growing pale as he struggled to maintain his composure.

Shehyn drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The Ketan and the Lethani are what make us Ademre,” she said. “There is no way a barbarian can know of the Ketan.” Both Tempi and Carceret stirred, but she held up a hand. “At the same time, to destroy one who has understanding of the Lethani is not correct. The Lethani does not destroy itself.”

She said “destroy” very casually. I hoped I might be mistaken as to the true meaning of the Ademic word.

Shehyn continued. “There are those who might say, ‘This one has enough. Do not teach him the Lethani, because whoever has knowledge of the Lethani overcomes all things.’ ”

Shehyn gave a severe look to Carceret. “But I am not one who would say that. I think the world would be better if more were of the Lethani. For while it brings power, the Lethani also brings wisdom in the use of power.”

There was a long pause. My stomach knotted itself as I tried to maintain a calm appearance. “I think,” Shehyn said at last, “it is possible Tempi did not make a mistake.”

This seemed a long way from a ringing endorsement, but from the sudden stiffness in Carceret’s back and Tempi’s slow, relieved exhalation, I guessed it was the news we were hoping for.

“I will give him to Vashet,” Shehyn said.

Tempi went motionless. Carceret made a gesture of approval wide as a madman’s smile.

Tempi’s voice was strained. “You will give him to the Hammer?” His hand flickered. Respect. Negation. Respect.

Shehyn got to her feet, signaling an end to the discussion. “Who better? The Hammer will show if he is iron worth striking.”

With this, Shehyn pulled Tempi aside and spoke to him for a brief moment. Her hands brushed his arms lightly. Her voice was too soft for even my finely tuned eavesdropper’s ears.

I stood politely near my chair. All the fight seemed to have left Tempi, and his gestures were a steady rhythm of agreement and respect.

Carceret stood apart from them as well, staring at me. Her expression was composed, but her eyes were angry. At her side, out of sight of the other two, she made several small gestures. The only one I understood was disgust, but I could guess the general meaning of the others.

In return, I made a gesture that was not Ademic. By the narrowing of her eyes, I suspected she managed to glean my meaning fairly well.

There was the high sound of a bell ringing three times. A moment later, Tempi kissed Shehyn’s hands, the peak of her forehead, and her mouth. Then he turned and motioned for me to follow.

Together we walked to a large, low-ceilinged room filled with people and the smell of food. It was a dining hall, full of long tables and dark wooden benches worn smooth with time.

I followed Tempi, gathering food onto a wide wooden plate. Only then did I realize how terribly hungry I was.

Despite my expectations, this dining hall didn’t resemble the Mess at the University in the least. It was quieter for one thing, and the food was far better. There was fresh milk and lean tender meat that I suspected was goat. There was hard, sharp cheese and soft, creamy cheese and two kinds of bread still warm from the oven. There were apples and strawberries for the taking. Saltboxes sat open on all the tables, and everyone could take as much as they liked.

It was strange being in a room full of Adem talking. They spoke so softly I couldn’t make out any words, but I could see their hands flickering. I could only understand one gesture in ten, but it was odd being able to see all the flickering emotions around me: Amusement. Anger. Embarrassment. Negation. Disgust. I wondered how much of it was about me, the barbarian among them.

There were more women than I’d expected, and more young children. There were a handful of the familiar blood-red mercenaries, but more wore the simple grey I’d seen during my walk with Shehyn. I saw a white shirt as well, and was surprised to see it was Shehyn herself, eating elbow to elbow with the rest of us.

None of them stared at me, but they were looking. A lot of attention was being paid to my hair, which was understandable. There were fifty sandy heads in the room, a few darker, a few lighter or grey with age. I stood out like a single burning candle.

I tried to draw Tempi into a conversation, but he would have none of it and focused on his food instead. He hadn’t loaded his plate nearly as full as mine and ate only a fraction of what he took.

With no conversation to slow things, I finished quickly. When my plate was empty, Tempi quit pretending to eat and led us away. I could feel dozens of eyes on my back as we left the room.

He took me down a series of passages until we came to a door. Tempi opened it, revealing a small room with a window and a bed. My lute and travelsack were there. My sword was not.

“You are to have another teacher,” Tempi spoke at last. “Do your best. Be civilized. Your teacher will decide much.” Regret. “You will not see me.”

He was obviously troubled, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that might reassure him. Instead I gave him a comforting hug, which he seemed to appreciate. Then he turned and left without another word.

Inside my room, I undressed and lay on the bed. It seems like I should say I tossed and turned, nervous about what was to come. But the simple truth is that I was exhausted and slept like a happy baby at his mother’s breast.