Kingkiller 1 - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Author:Patrick Rothfuss [Rothfuss, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780756405892
Published: 2009-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Burning

OWNING A LUTE AGAIN meant I had my music back, but I quickly realized I was three years out of practice. My work in the Artificery over the last couple months had toughened and strengthened my hands, but not in entirely the right ways. It took several frustrating days before I could play comfortably for even an hour at a time.

I might have progressed more quickly had I not been so busy with my other studies. I had two hours of each day in the Medica, running or standing, an average of two hours of lecture and ciphering each day in Mathematics, and three hours of studying under Manet in the Fishery, learning the tricks of the trade.

And then there was advanced sympathy with Elxa Dal. Out of class, Elxa Dal was charming, soft-spoken, and even a little ridiculous when the mood was on him. But when he taught, his personality strode back and forth between mad prophet and galley-slave drummer. Every day in his class I burned another three hours of time and five hours worth of energy.

Combined with my paid work in Kilvin’s shop, this left me with barely enough time to eat, sleep, and study, let alone give my lute the time it deserved.

Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.

After a span of this schedule, I was tired. After three span I was still fine, but only through a grim, set-jaw type of determination. Somewhere around the fifth span I began to show definite signs of wear.

It was during that fifth span that I was enjoying a rare, shared lunch with Wilem and Simmon. They had their lunches from a nearby tavern. I couldn’t afford a drab for an apple and meat pie, so I had snuck some barley bread and a gristly sausage out of the Mess.

We sat on the stone bench beneath the pennant pole where I’d been whipped. The place had filled me with dread after my whipping, but I forced myself to spend time there to prove to myself that I could. After it no longer unnerved me, I sat there because the stares of the students amused me. Now I sat there because I was comfortable. It was my place.

And, because we spent a fair amount of time together, it had become Wilem and Simmon’s place too. If they thought my choice an odd one, they didn’t speak of it.

“You haven’t been around very much,” Wilem said around a mouthful of meat pie. “Been sick?”

“Right,” Simmon said sarcastically. “He’s been sick a whole month.”

Wilem glared at him and grumbled, reminding me of Kilvin for a moment.

His expression made Simmon laugh. “Wil’s more polite than I am. I’m betting you’ve been spending all your free hours walking to Imre and back. Courting some fabulously attractive young bard.

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