My writing room is fifteen feet by twenty-two. That gives me space for all my references, for copies of the old Annals, and for a large trestle table where I work on several projects at once. And there is an acre of floor space left for Thai Dei and Uncle Doj.

While I write and study and revise he and Thai Dei clack away with wooden practice swords or squeal and kick and bounce off the walls. Whenever one of them lands in my space I toss him back. They are amazingly good at what they do-they ought to be with all that practice but I think they are more likely to hurt each other than any seriously large person, like our Old Crew guys.

I like this job. It beats hell out of being standardbearer though I am stuck with that, too, still. The standardbearer is always the first guy into a scrape and he always has one hand tied up keeping a bigass pole from falling over.

I worry about not catching details the way Croaker did. And I envy him his naturally sardonic tone. He claims he did good only because he had the time. In those days the Black Company was just a raggedyass gang sneaking around the edge of things and there wasn’t much going on. Nowadays we are in the deep shit all the time. I don’t like that. Neither does the Captain.

I cannot imagine a man less pleased about having the power that has fallen into his lap, mostly by default. He keeps it and uses it only because he doesn’t believe anyone else will take the Company where he is convinced that it has to go.

I managed to get along for several hours without falling down a well into the past. I wasn’t feeling badly. Sarie was in an excellent mood despite all her mother could do to ruin our day. I was lost in my work, as comfortable with existence as ever I get.

Somebody came to the door.

Sarie showed the Captain into the apartment. Uncle Doj and Thai Dei continued clacking away. Croaker watched for a minute. “Unusual,” he said. He did not sound impressed.

“It’s not military,” I told him. “It’s fencing for loners. Nyueng Bao are big on lone-wolf heroes.” Not so the Old Man. His belief that you need brothers to guard your back amounts to a religious conviction.

Nyueng Bao fencing technique consists of brief but intense flurries of attack and defense separated by inactive periods during which the fighters freeze in odd stances, shifting almost imperceptibly as they try to anticipate one another.

Uncle Doj is very good.

“I’ll grant you, they’re graceful, Murgen. Almost like hutsch dancers.”

By marrying into Sarie’s clan I bought into Nyueng Bao fighting styles. No choice, really. Uncle Doj insisted. I am not terribly interested but I go along to keep the peace. And it is good exercise. “It’s all stylized, Captain. Every stance and stroke has its name.” Which I consider a weakness. Any fighter that set in his ways ought to be easy meat for an innovator.

On the other hand, I did see Uncle Doj deal with real enemies at Dejagore.

I changed languages. “Uncle, will you permit my Captain to meet Ash Wand?” They had taken the measure of one another long enough.

Ash Wand is Uncle Doj’s sword. He calls it his soul. He treats it better than he would any mistress.

Uncle Doj disengaged from Thai Dei, bowed slightly, departed. In moments he was back with a monster sword. It was three feet long. He drew it carefully, presented it to Croaker lying along his left forearm, where the steel would not contact moist or oily skin. He bowed slightly as he did so.

He wanted us to believe he spoke no Taglian, A vain pretense. I knew him back when he was fluent.

Croaker knew something about Nyueng Bao customs. He accepted Ash Wand with proper care and courtesy, as though deeply honored.

Uncle Doj ate that up.

Croaker grasped the two-hand hilt clumsily. On purpose, I suspect. Uncle Doj darted in to demonstrate the proper grip, the way he does with me during every training session. That old boy is spry. He has ten years on Croaker but moves more easily than I do. And he possesses remarkable patience.

“Fine balance,” the Captain said in Taglian. It would not surprise me to learn that he had picked up Nyueng Bao, though. He has an easy way with languages. “But this had better be superior steel.” Because the blade was thin and narrow.

I told him, “He says it’s four hundred years old and will cut plate armor. I guarantee it cuts people just fine. I saw him use it more than once.”

“During the siege.” Croaker studied the blade near the sword’s hilt. “Yes.”

“Hallmark of Dinh Luc Doc.”

Eyes suddenly narrow, usually stolid expression shoved aside by surprise, Uncle Doj reclaimed his lover quickly. That Croaker might know something about Nyueng Bao swordsmiths apparently troubled him. Croaker might not be nearly as stupid as foreigners were supposed to be.

Uncle Doj harvested one of his feeble crops of hair, drew it across Ash Wand’s edge with predictable results. Croaker observed, “A man could get cut and never know it.” “It happens,” I told him. “You wanted something?” Sarie brought tea. The Old Man accepted even though he doesn’t like tea. He watched me watch her, amused. Whenever Sahra is in a room I have trouble paying attention to anything else. She gets more beautiful every time I see her. I cannot believe my luck. I keep being scared that I will wake up. Cold shivers.

“You have a definite prize there, Murgen.” Croaker had told me so before. He approved of Sarie. It was her family that trou’ bled him. “How come you married the whole kaboodle?” For that he shifted to Forsberger. None of the others spoke that northern tongue.

“You had to be there.” Which is really all you can say about Dejagore. The Nyueng Bao and Old Crew became alloyed by the living nightmare.

Mother Gota materialized. All four feet ten inches of bile. She glared at the Captain. “Aha! The great man himself!” Her TagHan is an abomination but she refuses to believe that. Those who fail to understand her do so on purpose, to mock her.

She circled Croaker, walking her bowlegged walk. Nearly as wide as she is tall, without being really fat, ugly, waddling that waddle, she looked like a miniature troll. And her own people call her The Troll behind her back. And she has the personality. She could test the patience of a stone.

Thai Dei and Sahra were very late children. I pray my wife will not come to resemble her mother later, in character or physically. Like her grandmother would be fine, though.

Cold in here.

“Why so hard you push my Sahra’s man, ho, Mr. So High and Mighty Liberator?” She hawked and spat to one side, the meaning of that no different to Nyueng Bao than anyone else. She rattled faster and faster. The faster she yakked the faster she waddled. “You think maybe he slave be? Warrior not? No time for grandmother to make of me, him always away to do for you?” She hawked and blank spat again.

She was a grandmother all right. But none were mine and none were alive anymore. I didn’t remind her. No need attracting her attention.

An hour earlier she had climbed all over me because I was a no good bonehead lackwit layabout who wasted all his time reading and writing. Hardly the sort of thing a grown man does with his time.

Nothing ever satisfies Mother Gota. Croaker says that is because she hurts all the time. He pretended he could not fathom her broken Taglian. “Yes, it really is lovely weather. For this time of year. The agricultural specialists tell me we will make two crops this year. Do you think you’ll be able to double harvest your rice?”

I Hawk and spit, then a lapse into ferocious Nyueng Bao liberally spiced with imaginative epithets, not all of them native to her birth tongue. Mother Gota hates being humored or ignored more than she hates everything else.

Somebody pounded on my door. Sarie was busy doing something somewhere that kept her from being close enough to her mother to become embarrassed. I went. I found One-Eye stinking up the hallway. The little wizard asked, “How you doing, Kid? Here.” He shoved a smelly, ragged, grubby bundle of papers into my hands. “The Old Man here ?”