Read Online The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - Free Book Online

colleague, really.”
    Kote nodded, still expressionless. “I might have
guessed he would be the first to find me. Rumormongers, both of you.”
    Chronicler’s smile grew sour, and he swallowed the
first words that came to his lips. He struggled for a moment to recapture his
calm demeanor.
    “So what can I do for you?” Kote set aside the
clean linen cloth and gave his best innkeeper’s smile. “Something to eat or drink?
A room for the night?”
    Chronicler hesitated.
    “I have it all right here.” Kote gestured
expansively behind the bar. “Old wine, smooth and pale? Honey mead? Dark ale?
Sweet fruit liquor! Plum? Cherry? Green apple? Blackberry?” Kote pointed out
the bottles in turn. “Come now, surely you must want something?” As he spoke,
his smile widened, showing too many teeth for a friendly innkeeper’s grin. At
the same time his eyes grew cold, and hard, and angry.
    Chronicler dropped his gaze. “I’d thought that—”
    “You thought, ” Kote said
derisively, dropping all pretense of a smile. “I very much doubt it. Otherwise,
you might have thought, ” he bit off the word, “of
how much danger you were putting me in by coming here.”
    Chronicler’s face grew red. “I’d heard that Kvothe
was fearless,” he said hotly.
    The innkeeper shrugged. “Only priests and fools are
fearless, and I’ve never been on the best of terms with God.”
    Chronicler frowned, aware that he was being baited.
“Listen,” he continued calmly, “I was extraordinarily careful. No one except
Skarpi knew I was coming. I didn’t mention you to anyone. I didn’t expect to
actually find you.”
    “Imagine my relief,” Kote said sarcastically.
    Obviously disheartened, Chronicler spoke, “I’ll be
the first to admit that my coming here may have been a mistake.” He paused,
giving Kote the opportunity to contradict him. Kote didn’t. Chronicler gave a
small, tight sigh and continued, “But what’s done is done. Won’t you even
consider…”
    Kote shook his head. “It was a long time ago—”
    “Not even two years,” Chronicler protested.
    “—and I am not what I was,” Kote continued without
pausing.
    “And what was that, exactly?”
    “Kvothe,” he said simply, refusing to be drawn any
further into an explanation. “Now I am Kote. I tend to my inn. That means beer
is three shims and a private room costs copper.” He began polishing the bar
again with a fierce intensity. “As you said, ‘done is done.’ The stories will
take care of themselves.”
    “But—”
    Kote looked up, and for a second Chronicler saw
past the anger that lay glittering on the surface of his eyes. For a moment he
saw the pain underneath, raw and bloody, like a wound too deep for healing.
Then Kote looked away and only the anger remained. “What could you possibly
offer me that is worth the price of remembering?”
    “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
    “You don’t get it, do you?” Kote shook his head,
stuck between amusement and exasperation. “That’s the whole point. People don’t
look for you when you’re dead. Old enemies don’t try to settle scores. People
don’t come asking you for stories,” he said acidly.
    Chronicler refused to back down. “Other people say
you’re a myth.”
    “I am a myth,” Kote said easily, making an
extravagant gesture. “A very special kind of myth that creates itself. The best
lies about me are the ones I told.”
    “They say you never existed,” Chronicler corrected
gently.
    Kote shrugged nonchalantly, his smile fading an
imperceptible amount.
    Sensing weakness, Chronicler continued. “Some
stories paint you as little more than a red-handed killer.”
    “I’m that too.” Kote turned to polish the counter
behind the bar. He shrugged again, not as easily as before. “I’ve killed men
and things that were more than men. Every one of them deserved it.”
    Chronicler shook his head slowly. “The stories are
saying ‘assassin’ not ‘hero.’ Kvothe the Arcane