Elodin moved quickly through the entryway, through a tasteful sitting room, then into the bedroom. Call it a bedchamber, rather. It was huge, with a four-post bed big as a boat. Elodin threw open a wardrobe and started removing several long, dark robes similar to the one he was wearing.
“Here.” Elodin shoved robes into my arms until I couldn’t hold any more. Some were everyday cotton, but others were fine linen or rich, soft velvet. He lay another half-dozen robes over his own arm and carried them back into the sitting room.
We passed old bookshelves lined with hundreds of books and a huge polished desk. One wall was taken up with a large stone fireplace big enough to roast a pig, though there was currently only a small fire smoldering there, keeping away the early autumn chill.
Elodin lifted a crystal decanter off a table and went to stand in front of the fireplace. He dumped the robes he was carrying into my arms so I could barely see over the top of them. Delicately lifting the top off the decanter, he sipped at the contents and raised an eyebrow appreciatively, holding it up to the light.
I decided to try again. “Master Elodin, why don’t you want to teach me naming?”
“That’s the wrong question,” he said, and upended the decanter onto smoldering coals in the fireplace. As the flames licked up hungrily, he took his armload of robes back and fed a velvet one slowly into the fire. It caught quickly, and when it was blazing away, he fed the others onto the fire in quick succession. The result was a great smoldering pile of cloth that sent thick smoke billowing up the chimney. “Try again.”
I couldn’t help but ask the obvious. “Why are you burning your clothes?”
“Nope. Not even close to the right question,” he said as he took more robes out of my arms and piled them into the fireplace. Then Elodin grabbed the handle for the flue and pulled it closed with a metallic clank. Great clouds of smoke began to pour into the room. Elodin coughed a bit, then stepped back and looked around in a vaguely satisfied way.
I suddenly realized what was going on. “Oh God,” I said. “Whose rooms are these?”
Elodin gave a satisfied nod. “Very good. I would also have accepted, Why don’t you have a key for this room? or What are we doing in here?” He looked down at me, his eyes serious. “Doors are locked for a reason. People who don’t have keys are supposed to stay out for a reason.”
He nudged the heap of smouldering cloth with one foot, as if reassuring himself it would stay in the fireplace. “You know you’re clever. That’s your weakness. You assume you know what you’re getting into, but you don’t.”
Elodin turned to look at me, his dark eyes serious. “You think you can trust me to teach you,” he said. “You think I will keep you safe. But that is the worst sort of foolishness.”
“Whose rooms are these?” I repeated numbly.
He showed me all his teeth in a sudden grin. “Master Hemme’s.”
“Why are you burning all of Hemme’s clothes?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that the room was rapidly filling with bitter smoke.
Elodin looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Because I hate him.” He picked up the crystal decanter from the mantle and threw it violently against the back of the fireplace where it shattered. The fire began to burn more vigorously from whatever had been left inside. “The man is an absolute tit. Nobody talks to me like that.”
Smoke continued to boil into the room. If it weren’t for the high ceilings we’d already be choking on it. Even so, it was becoming hard to breathe as we made our way to the door. Elodin opened it, and smoke rolled out into the hallway.
We stood outside the door, staring at each other while the smoke billowed past. I decided to take a different tack on the problem. “I understand your hesitation, Master Elodin,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t think things all the way through.”
“Obviously.”
“And I’ll admit there have been times when my actions have been . . .” I paused, trying to think of something more humble than ill-considered.
“Stupid beyond all mortal ken?” Elodin said helpfully.
My temper flared, burning away my brief attempt at humility. “Well thank God I’m the only one here that’s ever made a bad decision in my life!” I said, barely keeping my voice this side of a shout. I looked him hard in the eye. “I’ve heard stories about you too, you know. They say you toffed things up pretty well yourself back when you were a student here.”
Elodin’s amused expression faded a bit, leaving him looking like he’d swallowed something and it had gotten stuck halfway down.
I continued. “If you think I’m reckless, do something about it. Show me the straighter path! Mold my supple young mind—” I sucked in a lungful of smoke and began to cough, forcing me to cut my tirade short. “Do something, damn you!” I choked out. “Teach me!”
I hadn’t really been shouting, but I ended up breathless all the same. My temper faded as quickly as it had flared up, and I worried I’d gone too far.
But Elodin just looked at me. “What makes you think I’m not teaching you?” he asked, puzzled. “Aside from the fact that you refuse to learn.”
Then he turned and walked down the hallway. “I’d get out of here if I were you,” he said over his shoulder. “People are going to want to know who’s responsible for this, and everyone knows you and Hemme don’t get on very well.”
I felt myself break into a panicked sweat. “What?”
“I’d wash up before admissions too,” he said. “It won’t look good if you show up reeking of smoke. I live here,” Elodin said, pulling a key from his pocket and unlocking a door at the far end of the hallway. “What’s your excuse?”
CHAPTER NINE
A Civil Tongue
My hair was still wet when I made my way through a short hallway, then up the stairs onto the stage of an empty theater. As always, the room was dark except for the huge crescent-shaped table. I moved to the edge of the light and waited politely.
The Chancellor motioned me forward and I walked to the center of the table, reaching up to hand him my tile. Then I stepped back to stand in the circle of slightly brighter light between the two outthrust horns of the table.
The nine masters looked down at me. I’d like to say they looked dramatic, like ravens on a fence or something like that. But while they were all wearing their formal robes, they were too mismatched to look like a collection of anything.
What’s more, I could see the marks of weariness on them. Only then did it occur to me that as much as the students hated admissions, it was probably no walk in the garden for the masters either.
“Kvothe, Arliden’s son,” the Chancellor said formally. “Re’lar.” He made a gesture to the far right-hand horn of the table. “Master Physicker?”
Arwyl peered down at me, his face grandfatherly behind his round spectacles. “What are the medicinal properties of mhenka?” he asked.
“Powerful anesthetic,” I said. “Powerful catatoniate. Potential purgative.” I hesitated. “It has a whole sackful of complicating secondaries too. Should I list them all?”
Arwyl shook his head. “A patient comes into the Medica complaining of pains in their joints and difficulty breathing. Their mouth is dry, and they claim to have a sweet taste in their mouth. They complain of chills, but they are actually sweaty and feverish. What is your diagnosis?”
I drew a breath, then hesitated. “I don’t make diagnoses in the Medica, Master Arwyl. I’d fetch one of your El’the to do it.”
He smiled at me, eyes crinkling around the edges. “Correct,” he said. “But for the sake of argument, what do you think might be wrong?”
“Is the patient a student?”
Arwyl raised an eyebrow. “What does that have to do with the price of butter?”
“If they work in the Fishery, it might be smelter’s flu,” I said. Arwyl cocked an eyebrow at me and I added, “There’s all sorts of heavy metal poisoning you can get in the Fishery. It’s rare around here because the students are welltrained, but anyone working with hot bronze can inhale enough fumes to kill themselves if they aren’t properly careful.” I saw Kilvin nodding along, and was glad I didn’t have to admit the only reason I knew this was that I’d given myself a mild case of it a month ago.