Penthe looked at me with something close to pity. “Sometimes a woman ripens. It is a natural thing, and men have no part in it. That is why more women ripen in the fall, like fruit. That is why more women ripen here in Haert, where it is better to have a child.”
I tried to think of some other convincing argument, but none would come to mind. It was frustrating.
Seeing my expression, Penthe squeezed my hand and gestured concession. “Perhaps it is different for barbarian women,” she said.
“You are only saying that to make me feel better,” I said sullenly and was overcome with a jaw-popping yawn.
“I am,” she admitted. Then she gave me a gentle kiss and pushed at my shoulders, encouraging me to lie back down on the bed.
I did, and she nestled into the crook of my arm again, resting her head on my shoulder. “It must be hard to be a man,” she said softly. “A woman knows she is part of the world. We are full of life. A woman is the flower and the fruit. We move through time as part of our children. But a man . . .” She turned her head and looked up at me with gentle pity in her eyes. “You are an empty branch. You know when you die, you will leave nothing of any import behind.”
Penthe stroked my chest fondly. “I think that is why you are so full of anger. Maybe you do not have more than women. Maybe the anger in you simply has no place to go. Maybe it is desperate to leave some mark. It hammers at the world. It drives you to rash action. To bickering. To rage. You paint and build and fight and tell stories that are bigger than the truth.”
She gave a contented sigh and rested her head on my shoulder, snugging herself firmly into the circle of my arm. “I am sorry to tell you this thing. You are a good man, and a pretty thing. But still, you are only a man. All you have to offer the world is your anger.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT
Names
It was the day that I would either stay or leave. I sat with Vashet on a green hill, watching the sun rise out of the clouds to the east.
“Saicere means to fly, to catch, to break,” Vashet said softly, repeating herself for the hundredth time. “You must remember all the hands that have held her. Many hands, all following the Lethani. You must never use her in an improper way.”
“I promise,” I said for the hundredth time, then hesitated before bringing up something that had been bothering me. “But Vashet, you used your sword to trim the willow branch you beat me with. I saw you use it to hold your window open once. You pare your nails with it . . .”
Vashet gave me a blank look. “Yes?”
“Isn’t that improper?” I asked.
She cocked her head, then laughed. “You mean I should only use it for fighting?”
I gestured obvious implication.
“A sword is sharp,” she said. “It is a tool. I carry it constantly, how is using it improper?”
“It seems disrespectful,” I clarified.
“You respect a thing by putting it to good use,” she said. “It may be years before I return to the barbarian lands and fight. How does it harm my sword if it cuts kindling and carrots in the meantime?” Vashet’s eyes grew serious. “To carry a sword your whole life, knowing it was only for killing . . .” She shook her head. “What would that do to a person’s mind? It would be a horrible thing.”
Vashet had returned to Haert last night, dismayed that she had missed my stone trial. She said I was right to lay aside my sword when Carceret did, and that I had made her proud.
Yesterday, Shehyn had formally invited me to stay and train at the school. In theory, I already had earned that right, but everyone knew that was more of a political fiction than anything. Her offer was a flattering one, an opportunity I knew I would likely never have again.
We watched a boy herd a flock of goats down the side of a hill. “Vashet, is it true that the Adem have no concept of fatherhood?”
Vashet nodded easily, then paused. “Tell me you did not embarrass both of us by talking about this with everyone while I was gone,” she said with a sigh.
“Only with Penthe,” I said. “She thought it was the funniest thing she had heard in ten months’ time.”
“It is fairly amusing at that,” Vashet said, her mouth curving a little.
“It’s true then?” I asked. “Even you believe this? You’ve . . .”
Vashet held up a hand and I trailed off. “Peace,” she said. “Think whatever you wish about your man-mothers. It is all the same to me.” She gave a soft smile of remembrance. “My poet king actually believed a woman was nothing more than the ground in which a man might plant a baby.”
Vashet made an amused huffing sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “He was so sure he was right. Nothing could sway him. Years ago I decided arguing such things with a barbarian is a long, weary waste of my time.” She shrugged. “Think what you want about making babies. Believe in demons. Pray to a goat. So long as it doesn’t bruise me, why should I bother myself?”
I chewed it over for a moment. “There’s wisdom in that,” I said.
She nodded.
“But either a man helps with a baby or he does not,” I pointed out. “There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth.”
Vashet smiled lazily. “And if the pursuit of truth was my goal, that would concern me.” She gave a long yawn, stretching like a happy cat. “Instead I will focus on the joy in my heart, the prosperity of the school, and understanding the Lethani. If I have time left after that, I will put it toward worrying on the truth.”
We watched the sunrise for a while longer in silence. It occurred to me Vashet was quite a different person when she wasn’t struggling to cram the Ketan and all of Ademic into my head as quickly as possible.
“That said,” Vashet added, “if you persist in clinging to your barbarian beliefs about man-mothers, you would do well to keep quiet about it. Amusement is the best you can hope for. Most will simply assume you an idiot for thinking such things.”
I nodded. After a long moment, I decided to finally ask the question I had been holding off for days. “Magwyn called me Maedre. What does it mean?”
“It is your name,” she said. “Speak of it to no one.”
“It is a secret thing?” I asked.
She nodded. “It is a thing for you and your teachers and Magwyn. It would be dangerous to let others know what it is.”
“How could it be dangerous?”
Vashet looked at me as if I were daft. “When you know a name you have power over it. Surely you know this?”
“But I know your name, and Shehyn’s and Tempi’s. What danger is in that?”
She waved a hand. “Not those names. Deep names. Tempi is not the name he was given by Magwyn. Just as Kvothe is not yours. Deep names have meanings.”
I already knew what Vashet’s name meant. “What does Tempi mean?”
“Tempi means ‘little iron.’ Tempa means iron, and it means to strike iron, and it means angry. Shehyn gave him that name years ago. He was a most troublesome student.”
“In Aturan temper means angry.” I pointed it out rather excitedly, amazed at the coincidence. “And it is also something you do with iron when forging it into steel.”
Vashet shrugged, unimpressed. “That is the way of names. Tempi is a small name, and still it holds much. That is why you should not speak of yours, even to me.”
“But I do not know your language well enough to tell what it means myself,” I protested. “A man should know the meaning of his own name.”
Vashet hesitated, then relented. “It means flame, and thunder, and broken tree.”
I thought for a while and decided I liked it. “When Magwyn gave it to me, you seemed surprised. Why is that?”