While Egert was studying Anatomy, Fox returned to the university.
Their reunion was heartfelt and boisterous; Fox’s copper hair had grown down to his shoulders, his nose was burned by the sun and peeling like a boiled potato, but neither solemnity nor gravity had been added to his habits. From his knapsack appeared an entire smoked goose with dried plums, a string of black blood sausages, home-baked scones, and a variety of vegetables, prepared in diverse ways. At the very bottom of Fox’s sack was nestled an enormous bottle of wine, thick as blood. The food, which Gaetan’s loving mother had collected for her son, intending them to last at least a week, was demolished within a few hours. Fox was, without a doubt, a slacker and a trickster, but in no way was he a miser.
The very first sip of wine turned Egert’s head. Grinning inanely, he watched as the room filled with familiar students. Soon there was no room left, not on the beds, or at the table, or on the windowsill. They were all laughing, clamoring, and recounting tales, licking greasy fingers and proclaiming toasts, gulping wine straight from the bottle. Having laid waste to Fox’s knapsack, the students, as ravenous as young locusts, decided to go out into the city; Egert no longer had any money, but all the same he decided to go out with the rest of them.
They visited At the Rabbit Hole and then dropped by Quench; at the latter tavern a dashing company of guards was drinking, apparently just off duty. Egert was rattled by their close proximity, but the city guards hailed the students complacently and without any distaste whatsoever, and the intoxication that had earlier spun Egert’s head around accepted their company and even dulled his habitual fear.
The two groups swapped bottles, toasts, and amiable taunts; then the troop of guards took up that ancient pastime of all armed men: they started throwing daggers at a target that was painted on the wall. The students quieted down, watching; the most skilled with a knife of all the guards was a broad-shouldered young man with a predatory look, whose hair was tied back with a leather cord. A short sword hung on his belt. Egert examined the sword with interest. No one bore such a weapon in Kavarren.
Knives and daggers whacked into the wooden wall, some closer than others to the center of the target, painted by some dabbler in the shape of a crooked apple. The guards became excited and began to play for money. The broad-shouldered young man, the owner of the short sword, was well on his way toward lightening the purses of his comrades, when one of the guards voiced the thought that it would be a good idea to challenge the tipsy students to a competition.
After a bit of embarrassment on the part of the students, some of them decided to stand up and defend the honor of the university. Fox scurried about, handing out advice and trying to nudge the next knife thrower as close as possible to the target, at which the guards were rightly outraged and pushed him back to his former position, which was marked out by a chalk line. Unfortunately, the knives thrown by the students’ arms resolutely refused to stick into the walclass="underline" slamming into the target sideways, they disgracefully flopped to the floor accompanied by the laughs and jests of the guards. However, the taunts fell short of offense and a full-blown quarrel.
The students lost three bottles of wine, a pile of silver coins, and Fox’s dress hat: being a gambler by nature, so little did he want to admit the defeat of his group that in the end he was throwing knives himself. Every toss was preceded by a hot-tempered bet and soon Fox was deprived of all his money and his well-made leather belt.
Not the slightest bit disconcerted, Fox would probably have bet his father’s apothecary, had not his eyes at that very moment fallen upon the languid form of Egert, who was blissfully enjoying the general merriment and sitting complacently on the edge of a bench.
“Hey, Egert!” Instead of his belt, Fox had tied up his trousers with a cord. “Is there some reason you aren’t playing for your own people? Perhaps you’d like to give it a toss, or is their money too good for you?”
Smiling self-consciously, Egert stood up. At that moment the despondent students, whose defeat was apparently shattering and complete, really did seem to be his own people, almost his family; furthermore, he suddenly begrudged the loss of Gaetan’s belt.
The broad-shouldered guard with the cord in his hair smirked, handing Egert a dagger. Egert measured the distance to the target with his eyes, squinting, and at that moment it was as if he switched on a long-forgotten but still faultless ability.
His hand weighed the dagger, determining its center of gravity; the blade came alive, twisting in Egert’s palm like a small, nimble animal. The tip flashed in a searing arc and with a crunch embedded itself in the very center of the painted apple.
The tavern hushed from astonishment; a stunned cook peered out of the kitchen.
Egert smiled as if apologizing; the guards exchanged wondering glances, as if they did not believe their eyes and had to check if their companions had seen the same thing: maybe they’d all gotten really drunk? The students were simply frozen, their faces stretched long in shock; Fox broke through the general bewilderment.
“But how did you do that?” he asked in a deliberately drunken voice.
The broad-shouldered guard stepped forward resolutely, shaking a purse. “I’ll put up the money. Best of five, what do you say?”
Egert again smiled guiltily.
After that, everything happened quickly. In a silence that was broken only by the subdued gasps of the audience and the dull thuds of blades hitting wood, Egert won back Fox’s belt and hat, all the money lost by the students, and even the money that the broad-shouldered youth had won off his comrades. Egert’s eyes and hands acted almost independently, executing a long-familiar and pleasant task; daggers danced in Egert’s hands, spun round into a glinting fans, flew up into the air and then fell into his palm as if they were glued there. He threw them almost without looking, like clockwork, and they all rushed toward the exact same point: soon a hole, studded with wooden splinters, appeared in the center of the lopsided apple.
The broad-shouldered guard with the cord wound in his hair turned respectfully to Egert. “I swear to Khars, this lad has not spent his whole life wiping books on his trousers, oh no!”
Finally, Egert’s excitement ran dry: unintentionally glancing at the dagger in his hand, he suddenly saw it as a murder weapon and winced at the thought of lacerated flesh. However, no one noticed his distress, because the company of students had long ago recovered from their shock and exchanged it for exuberant high spirits.
They surrounded Egert, shaking his hand and patting him on the back; one by one the guards approached and gravely attested to their heartfelt esteem. To drink away their newly earned money, the triumphant students headed off to the One-Eyed Fly. A pair of girls trailed along after them, apparently lured by the beauty and prowess of the “fair-haired Egert.”
They continued to celebrate Egert’s skill almost until midnight. They stopped by the students’ pub, where Egert finally met Fox’s longtime girlfriend: a good-looking, perpetually laughing woman by the name of Farri. She had missed her sweetheart over the summer, and so at first she pouted her lips aggrievedly, then she threw her arms around Gaetan’s neck, and then she proceeded to flirt recklessly with one and all, trying to call forth Fox’s jealousy. The situation ended when, begging leave of Egert and the whole company, Fox expertly scooped Farri up under his arm and hauled her away. From that moment on, Egert lost interest in the party; scarcely able to escape from the two girls who were besieging him, he wormed his way out onto the dark street. Just as he was about to turn the corner, he ran into a man in a spacious robe. The face of the robed man was hidden by a hood.