“It was broad daylight,” Cob said testily. “In the middle of town. All manner of folk were around to see it.”
Chronicler shook his head stubbornly. “I remember an alley. Anyway, the bandits surprised Kvothe. They wanted his horse,” he paused and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Wait, that’s not right. He wouldn’t have his horse in an alley. Maybe he was on the road to Severen.”
“I told you, it weren’t Severen!” Cob demanded, slapping his hand down on the bar, plainly irritated. “Tehlu anyway, just stop. You’ve got it all mixed up.”
Chronicler flushed in embarrassment. “I only heard it once, years ago.”
Shooting Chronicler a dark look, Kote clattered the tray down loudly onto the bar and the story was momentarily forgotten. Old Cob ate so quickly he almost choked himself, and washed it down with a long swallow of beer.
“Seeing as how you’re still working on your dinner there,” he said none too casually to Chronicler as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Would you mind terrible if I picked up the story? Just so’s the boy can hear it?”
“If you’re sure you know it….” Chronicler said hesitantly.
“Of course I know it,” Cob said as he spun his stool around to face more of his audience. “Alright. Way back when Kvothe was just a pup, he went to the University. But he didn’t live in the University proper, you see, on account of the fact that he was just ordinary folk. He couldn’t afford all the fancy living that went on there.”
“How come?” the smith’s prentice asked. “You said before that Kvothe was so smart they paid him to stay even though he was just ten years old. They gave him a purse full of gold, and a diamond big as his thumb knuckle, and a brand new horse with a new saddle and tack and new shoes and a full bag of oats and everything.”
Cob gave a conciliatory nod. “True, that’s true. But this was a year or two after Kvothe had got all that. And you see, he’d gave a lot of that gold to some poor folk whose houses had all burned down.”
“Burned down during their wedding,” Graham interjected.
Cob nodded. “And Kvothe had to eat, and rent a room, and buy more oats for his horse. So his gold was all used up by then. So he—”
“What about the diamond?” the boy insisted.
Old Cob gave the barest of frowns. “If you’ve got to know, he gave that diamond to a special friend of his. A special lady friend. But that’s a whole different story than the one I’m telling now.” He glared at the boy, who dropped his eyes contritely and spooned up a mouthful of stew.
Cob continued, “Since Kvothe couldn’t afford all that rich living in the University, he stayed in the town nextby instead, place called Amary.” He shot Chronicler a pointed look. “Kvothe had a room in a inn where he got to stay there for free because the widow who owned the place took a shine to him, and he did chores to help earn his keep.”
“He played music there too,” Jake added. “He was all sorts of clever with his lute.”
“Get your dinner into your gob and let me finish my say, Jacob,” Old Cob snapped. “Everyone knows Kvothe was clever with a lute. That’s why the widow had taken such a shine to him in the first place, and playing music every night was part of his chores.”
Cob took a quick drink and continued. “So one day Kvothe was out running errands for the widow, when a fellow pulls out a knife and tells Kvothe if he doesn’t hand over the widow’s money, he’ll spill Kvothe’s guts all over the street.” Cob pointed an imaginary knife at the boy and gave him a menacing look. “Now you’ve got to remember, this is back when Kvothe was just a pup. He ain’t got no sword, and even if he did, he ain’t learned to fight proper from the Adem yet.”
“So what did Kvothe do?” the smith’s prentice asked.
“Well,” Cob leaned back. “It was the middle of the day, and they were smack in the middle of Amary’s town square. Kvothe was about to call for the constable, but he always had his eyes wide open, you see. And so he noticed that this fellow had white, white teeth….”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. “He was a sweet-eater?”
Cob nodded. “And even worse, the fellow was starting to sweat like a hard-run horse, his eyes were wild, and his hands…” Cob widened his own eyes and held out his hands, making them tremble. “So Kvothe knew the fellow had the hunger something fierce, and that meant he’d stab his own mum for a bent penny.” Cob took another long drink, drawing out the tension.
“Whatever did he do?” Bast burst out anxiously from the far end of the bar, wringing his hands dramatically. The innkeeper glared at his student.
Cob continued, “Well, first he hesitates, and the man comes closer with the knife and Kvothe can see the fellow ain’t going to ask again. So Kvothe uses a dark magic that he found locked away in a secret book in the University. He speaks three terrible, secret words and calls up a demon—”
“A demon?” the prentice’s voice was almost a yelp. “Was it like the one…”
Cob shook his head, slowly. “Oh no, this one weren’t spiderly at all. It was worse. This one was made all of shadows, and when it landed on the fellow it bit him on the chest, right over his heart, and it drank all the blood out of him like you’d suck the juice out of a plum.”
“Blackened hands, Cob,” Carter said, his voice thick with reproach. “You’re going to give the boy nightmares. He’ll be carrying around that damn iron stick for a year with all your nonsense stuffed in his head.”
“That’s not how I heard it,” Graham said slowly. “I heard there was a woman trapped in a burning house, and Kvothe called up a demon to protect him from the fire. Then he ran inside and pulled the lady out of the fire and she wasn’t burned at all.”
“Listen to yourselves,” Jake said, disgusted. “You’re like kids at Midwinter. ‘Demons stole my doll.’ ‘Demons spilled the milk.’ Kvothe didn’t meddle with demons. He was at the University learning all manner of names, right? The fellow came at him with a knife and he called out fire and lightning, just like Taborlin the Great.”
“It was a demon, Jake,” Cob said angrily. “Otherwise the story don’t make a lick of sense. It was a demon he called up, and it drank up the fellow’s blood, and everyone who saw was powerful shook up by it. Someone told a priest, then the priests went to the constable, and the constable went and pulled him out of the widow’s inn that night. Then they slapped him into jail for consorting with dark forces and such.”
“Folk probably just saw the fire and thought it was a demon,” Jake persisted. “You know how folk are.”
“No I don’t, Jacob,” Cob snapped, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back against the bar. “Why don’t you tell me how folk are? Why don’t you just go ahead and tell this whole damn story while…”