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 beat a fighting retreat into its
fortified encampment. During the ensuing siege the enemy penetrated the camp
several times. During one such penetration the volumes in question vanished.
Both the Annalist and his understudy were slain. The Books could not be
reconstructed from memory.
Oh, well. I was ahead of the game.
Books available charted our future almost to the edge of the maps owned by the
monks, and those ran all the way to Here There Be Dragons. Another century and a
half of a journey into our yesterdays. By the time we retraced our route that
far I hoped we would stand at the heart of a map that encompassed our
destination.
As soon as it was clear that we had struck gold I obtained writing materials and
a virgin volume of the Annals. I could write as fast as One-Eye and the monk
could translate.
Time fled. A monk brought candles. Then a hand settled on my shoulder. Lady
said, “Do you want to take a break? I could do that for a while.”
For half a minute I just sat there turning red. That, after I practically
ditched her outside. After I never even thought of her all day.
She told me, “I understand.”
Maybe she did. She had read the various Books of Croaker—or, as posterity might
recall them, the Books of the North—several times.
With Murgen and Lady spelling me the translation went quickly. The only
practical limit was One-Eye’s endurance.
It was not all one way. I had to trade my later Annals for their older ones.
Lady sweetened the deal with a few hundred anecdotes about the dark empire of
the north, but the monks never connected my Lady with the queen of darkness.
One-Eye is a tough old buzzard. He held up. Four days after he made his great
discovery the job was done.
I let Murgen into the game but he did all right. And I had to beg/buy four blank
journals in order to get everything transcribed.
Lady and I resumed our stroll about where we had broken it, but with me a little
down.
“What’s the matter?” she chided, and to my astonishment wanted to know if it was
a postcoital depression. Just the faintest of digs there, I think.
“No. I’ve just found out a ton about the Company’s history. But I didn’t learn
anything that’s really new.”
She understood
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 beat a fighting retreat into its
fortified encampment. During the ensuing siege the enemy penetrated the camp
several times. During one such penetration the volumes in question vanished.
Both the Annalist and his understudy were slain. The Books could not be
reconstructed from memory.
Oh, well. I was ahead of the game.
Books available charted our future almost to the edge of the maps owned by the
monks, and those ran all the way to Here There Be Dragons. Another century and a
half of a journey into our yesterdays. By the time we retraced our route that
far I hoped we would stand at the heart of a map that encompassed our
destination.
As soon as it was clear that we had struck gold I obtained writing materials and
a virgin volume of the Annals. I could write as fast as One-Eye and the monk
could translate.
Time fled. A monk brought candles. Then a hand settled on my shoulder. Lady
said, “Do you want to take a break? I could do that for a while.”
For half a minute I just sat there turning red. That, after I practically
ditched her outside. After I never even thought of her all day.
She told me, “I understand.”
Maybe she did. She had read the various Books of Croaker—or, as posterity might
recall them, the Books of the North—several times.
With Murgen and Lady spelling me the translation went quickly. The only
practical limit was One-Eye’s endurance.
It was not all one way. I had to trade my later Annals for their older ones.
Lady sweetened the deal with a few hundred anecdotes about the dark empire of
the north, but the monks never connected my Lady with the queen of darkness.
One-Eye is a tough old buzzard. He held up. Four days after he made his great
discovery the job was done.
I let Murgen into the game but he did all right. And I had to beg/buy four blank
journals in order to get everything transcribed.
Lady and I resumed our stroll about where we had broken it, but with me a little
down.
“What’s the matter?” she chided, and to my astonishment wanted to know if it was
a postcoital depression. Just the faintest of digs there, I think.
“No. I’ve just found out a ton about the Company’s history. But I didn’t learn
anything that’s really new.”
She understood
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