The innkeeper nodded. His expression was so easy and amiable it almost wasn’t an expression at all. “I expect you’re right,” Kote said. His voice was perfectly calm. It was a perfectly normal voice. It was colorless and clear as window glass.
Old Cob opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else Bast rapped one knuckle hard on the bar. “Drinks?” he asked the men sitting at the bar. “I’m guessing you’d all like a little something before we bring you out a bite to eat.”
They did, and Bast bustled around behind the bar, pulling beer into mugs and pressing them into waiting hands. After a slow moment, the innkeeper swung silently into motion alongside his assistant, heading into the kitchen to fetch soup. And bread with butter. And cheese. And apples.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Interlude—The Hempen Verse
Chronicler smiled as he made his way to the bar. “That’s a solid hour’s work,” he said proudly as he took a seat. “I don’t suppose there’s anything left in the kitchen for me?”
“Or any of that pie Eli mentioned?” Jake asked hopefully.
“I want pie too,” Bast said, sitting next to Jake, nursing a drink of his own.
The innkeeper smiled, wiping his hands on his apron. “I think I might have remembered to set one by, just in case you three came in later than the rest.”
Old Cob rubbed his hands together. “Can’t remember last time I had warm apple pie,” he said.
The innkeeper went back into the kitchen. He pulled the pie from the oven, sliced it, and laid the pieces neatly onto plates. By the time he carried them out toward the taproom he could hear raised voices in the other room.
“It was too a demon, Jake,” Old Cob was saying angrily. “I told you last night, and I’ll tell you again a hundred times. I’m not a one to change my mind like other folk change their socks.” He held up a finger. “He called up a demon and it bit this fellow and sucked out his juice like a plum. I heard it from a fella who knew a woman that seen it herself. That’s why the constable and the deputies came and hauled him off. Meddling with dark forces is against the law over in Amary.”
“I still say folk just thought it was a demon,” Jake persisted. “You know how folk are.”
“I know folk.” Old Cob scowled. “I’ve been around longer than you Jacob. And I know my own story too.”
There was a long moment of tense silence at the bar before Jake looked away. “I was just sayin’,” he muttered.
The innkeeper slid a bowl of soup toward Chronicler. “What’s this then?”
The scribe gave the innkeeper a sly look. “Cob’s telling us about Kvothe’s trial in Imre,” he said, a hint of smugness in his voice. “Don’t you remember? He started the story last night but only made it halfway through.”
“Now.” Cob glared around, as if daring them to interrupt. “It was a tight spot. Kvothe knew if he was found guilty they’d string him up and let him hang.” Cob made a gesture to one side of his neck like he was holding a noose, tilting his head to the side.
“But Kvothe had read a great many books when he was at the University, and he knew himself a trick.” Old Cob stopped to take a forkful of pie and closed his eyes for a moment as he chewed. “Oh lord and lady,” he said to himself. “That’s a proper pie. I swear it’s better than me mam used to make. She always skint on the sugar.” He took another bite, a blissful expression spreading over his weathered face.
“So Kvothe knew a trick?” Chronicler prompted.
“What? Oh.” Cob seemed to remember himself. “Right. You see, there’s two lines in the Book of the Path, and if you can read them out loud in the old Tema only priests know, then the iron law says you get treated like a priest. That means a Commonwealth judge can’t do a damn thing to you. If you read those lines, your case has to be decided by the church courts.”
Old Cob took another bite of pie and chewed it slowly before swallowing. “Those two lines are called the hempen verse, because if you know them, you can keep yourself from getting strung up. The church courts can’t hang a man, you see.”
“What are the lines?” Bast asked.
“I dearly wish I knew,” Old Cob said mournfully. “But I don’t speak Tema. Kvothe didn’t know it himself. But he memorized the verse ahead of time. Then he pretended to read it and the Commonwealth court had to let him go.
“Kvothe knew he had two days until a Tehlin Justice could make it all the way to Amary. So he set about learning Tema. He read books and practiced for a whole day and a whole night. And he was so powerful smart that at the end of his studying he could speak Tema better than most folk who been doing it their whole lives.
“Then, on the second day before the Justice showed up, Kvothe mixed himself a potion. It was made out of honey, and a special stone you find in a snake’s brain, and a plant that only grows at the bottom of the sea. When he drank the potion, it made his voice so sweet anyone who listened couldn’t help but agree with anything he said.
“So when the Justice finally showed up, the whole trial only took fifteen minutes,” Cob said, chuckling. “Kvothe gave a fine speech in perfect Tema, everyone agreed with him, and they all went home.”
“And he lived happily ever after,” the red-haired man said softly from behind the bar.
Things were quiet at the bar. Outside the air was dry and hot, full of dust and the smell of chaff. The sunlight was hard and bright as a bar of gold.
Inside the Waystone it was dim and cool. The men had just finished the last slow bites of their pie, and there was still a little beer in their mugs. So they sat for a little while longer, slouching at the bar with the guilty air of men too proud to be properly lazy.
“I never much cared for Kvothe stories myself,” the innkeeper said matter-of-factly as he gathered up everyone’s plates.
Old Cob looked up from his beer. “That so?”
The innkeeper shrugged. “If I’m going to have a story with magic, I’d like it to have a proper wizard in it. Someone like Taborlin the Great, or Serapha, or The Chronicler.”
At the end of the bar, the scribe didn’t choke or startle. He did pause for half a second though, before lowering his spoon back into his second bowl of soup.
The room went comfortably quiet again as the innkeeper gathered up the last of the empty plates and turned toward the kitchen. But before he could get through the doorway, Graham spoke up. “The Chronicler?” he said. “I haven’t ever heard of him.”
The innkeeper turned back, surprised. “You haven’t?”
Graham shook his head.
“I’m sure you have,” the innkeeper said. “He carries around a great book, and whatever he writes down in that book comes true.” He looked at all of them expectantly. Jake shook his head too.
The innkeeper turned to the scribe at the end of the bar, who was keeping his attention on his food. “You’ve heard of him, I’m sure,” Kote said. “They call him Lord of Stories, and if he learns one of your secrets he can write whatever he wants about you in his book.” He looked at the scribe. “Haven’t you ever heard of him?”
Chronicler dropped his eyes and shook his head. He dipped the crust of his bread in his soup and ate it without speaking.
The innkeeper looked surprised. “When I was growing up, I liked The Chronicler more than Taborlin or any of the rest. He’s got a bit of Faerie blood in him, and it’s made him sharper than a normal man. He can see for a hundred miles on a cloudy day and hear a whisper through a thick oak door. He can track a mouse through a forest on a moonless night.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Bast said eagerly. “His sword is named Sheave, and the blade is made of a single piece of paper. It’s light as a feather, but so sharp that if he cuts you, you see the blood before you even feel it.”