in the light of a late afternoon sun. The
forest beyond and the fields before were as intense a dark green as
ever I have seen. The place looked restful.
As we entered, a wave of well-being cleansed us. A feeling of I
have come home washed over us. I looked at Lady. The things I felt
glowed in her face, and touched my heart.
“I could retire here,” I told Lady two days into our
stay. Clean for the first time in months, we stalked a garden never
disturbed by conflicts more weighty than the squabbles of
sparrows.
She gave me a thin smile and did me the courtesy of saying
nothing about the delusive nature of dreams.
The place had everything I thought I wanted. Comfort. Quiet.
Isolation from the ills of the earth. Purpose. Challenging
historical studies to soothe my lust to know what had gone on
before.
Most of all, it provided a respite from responsibility. Each man
added to the Company seemed to double my burden as I worried about
keeping them fed, keeping them healthy, and out of trouble.
“Crows,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Everywhere we go there’re crows. Maybe I only
started noticing them the past couple months. But everywhere we go
I see crows. And I can’t shake the feeling they’re
watching us.”
Lady gave me a puzzled look.
“Look. Right over there in that acacia tree. Two of them
squatting there like black omens.”
She glanced at the tree, gave me another look. “I see a
couple of doves.”
“But . . . ” One of the crows
launched itself, flapped away over the monastery wall. “That
wasn’t any—”
“Croaker!” One-Eye charged through the garden,
scattering the birds and squirrels, ignoring all propriety.
“Hey! Croaker! Guess what I found! Copies of the Annals from
when we came past here headed north!”
Well. And well. This tired old mind cannot find words adequate.
Excitement? Certainly. Ecstasy? You’d better believe. The
moment was almost sexually intense. My mind focused the way
one’s does when an especially desirable woman suddenly seems
attainable.
Several older volumes of the Annals had become lost or damaged
during the years. There were some I’d never seen, and never
had known a hope of seeing.
“Where?” I breathed.
“In the library. One of the monks thought you might be
interested. When we were here heading north I don’t remember
leaving them, but I wasn’t much interested in that kind of
thing then. Me and Tom-Tom was too busy looking over our
shoulders.”
“I might be interested,” I said. “I
might.” My manners deserted me. I deserted Lady without so
much as an “Excuse me.”
Maybe that obsession was not as powerful as I’d worked it
up to be.
I felt like an ass when I realized what I had done.
Reading those copies required teamwork. They had been recorded
in a language no longer used by anyone but the temple monks. None
of them spoke any language I understood. So our reader translated
into One-Eye’s native tongue, then One-Eye translated for
me.
What filtered through was damned interesting.
They had the Book of Choe, which had been destroyed fifty years
before I enlisted and only poorly reconstructed. And the Book of
Te-Lare, known to me only through a cryptic reference in a later
volume. The Book of Skete, previously unknown. They had a half
dozen more, equally precious. But no Book of the Company. No First
or Second Book of Odrick. Those were the legendary first three
volumes of the Annals, containing our origin myths, referenced in
later works but not mentioned as having been seen after the first
century of the Company’s existence.
The Book of Te-Lare tells why.
There was a battle.
Always, there was a battle in any explanation.
Movement; a clash of arms; another punctuation mark in the long
tale of the Black Company.
In this one the people who had hired our forebrethren had bolted
at the first shock of the enemy’s charge. They had broken so
fast they were gone before the Company realized what was happening.
The outfit
forest beyond and the fields before were as intense a dark green as
ever I have seen. The place looked restful.
As we entered, a wave of well-being cleansed us. A feeling of I
have come home washed over us. I looked at Lady. The things I felt
glowed in her face, and touched my heart.
“I could retire here,” I told Lady two days into our
stay. Clean for the first time in months, we stalked a garden never
disturbed by conflicts more weighty than the squabbles of
sparrows.
She gave me a thin smile and did me the courtesy of saying
nothing about the delusive nature of dreams.
The place had everything I thought I wanted. Comfort. Quiet.
Isolation from the ills of the earth. Purpose. Challenging
historical studies to soothe my lust to know what had gone on
before.
Most of all, it provided a respite from responsibility. Each man
added to the Company seemed to double my burden as I worried about
keeping them fed, keeping them healthy, and out of trouble.
“Crows,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Everywhere we go there’re crows. Maybe I only
started noticing them the past couple months. But everywhere we go
I see crows. And I can’t shake the feeling they’re
watching us.”
Lady gave me a puzzled look.
“Look. Right over there in that acacia tree. Two of them
squatting there like black omens.”
She glanced at the tree, gave me another look. “I see a
couple of doves.”
“But . . . ” One of the crows
launched itself, flapped away over the monastery wall. “That
wasn’t any—”
“Croaker!” One-Eye charged through the garden,
scattering the birds and squirrels, ignoring all propriety.
“Hey! Croaker! Guess what I found! Copies of the Annals from
when we came past here headed north!”
Well. And well. This tired old mind cannot find words adequate.
Excitement? Certainly. Ecstasy? You’d better believe. The
moment was almost sexually intense. My mind focused the way
one’s does when an especially desirable woman suddenly seems
attainable.
Several older volumes of the Annals had become lost or damaged
during the years. There were some I’d never seen, and never
had known a hope of seeing.
“Where?” I breathed.
“In the library. One of the monks thought you might be
interested. When we were here heading north I don’t remember
leaving them, but I wasn’t much interested in that kind of
thing then. Me and Tom-Tom was too busy looking over our
shoulders.”
“I might be interested,” I said. “I
might.” My manners deserted me. I deserted Lady without so
much as an “Excuse me.”
Maybe that obsession was not as powerful as I’d worked it
up to be.
I felt like an ass when I realized what I had done.
Reading those copies required teamwork. They had been recorded
in a language no longer used by anyone but the temple monks. None
of them spoke any language I understood. So our reader translated
into One-Eye’s native tongue, then One-Eye translated for
me.
What filtered through was damned interesting.
They had the Book of Choe, which had been destroyed fifty years
before I enlisted and only poorly reconstructed. And the Book of
Te-Lare, known to me only through a cryptic reference in a later
volume. The Book of Skete, previously unknown. They had a half
dozen more, equally precious. But no Book of the Company. No First
or Second Book of Odrick. Those were the legendary first three
volumes of the Annals, containing our origin myths, referenced in
later works but not mentioned as having been seen after the first
century of the Company’s existence.
The Book of Te-Lare tells why.
There was a battle.
Always, there was a battle in any explanation.
Movement; a clash of arms; another punctuation mark in the long
tale of the Black Company.
In this one the people who had hired our forebrethren had bolted
at the first shock of the enemy’s charge. They had broken so
fast they were gone before the Company realized what was happening.
The outfit
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