One corner of Torgun's mouth twitched upward. He caught himself and pressed his lips flat, chin lifted. "Is it true you came here to read our books?"
"Records, primarily. Documents. Correspondence. But yes, essentially, I came here to read."
"Why?"
It was such a simple question. Verity considered giving the simple answer.Because that is my work, because your records contain historical information unavailable elsewhere, because the Senior Council authorized the expedition. All true. All incomplete.
"Because there are things I want to understand," she said instead. "And understanding usually starts with reading."
Torgun considered this seriously. "My father says humans only want to understand things so they can use them against us."
"Your father may be right about some humans." Verity saw no point in pretending otherwise. "But I'm an archivist. I want to understand things so I can write them down accurately. The using-against is generally above my position."
"What's an archivist?"
"Someone who keeps records. Organizes them. Preserves them. Makes sure that when someone needs to know what happened forty years ago, there's a way to find out."
"Like a memory-keeper."
"Yes, exactly like that."
Torgun nodded slowly, as though filing this information away for later examination. Then his brows rose and his head cocked to one side. "The warchief will send for you when the sun touches the western tower. You should eat before then. He doesn't like waiting."
"So I've heard."
Torgun snorted. "The warchief has many virtues. Patience is not one of them. Neither is..." He paused, searching. "Small talk. He does not do small talk."
"I'm not particularly good at small talk myself," Verity admitted. "I tend to skip past it into questions that make people uncomfortable."
"Then you will get along well. Or very badly." Torgun shrugged. "Eat. The bread is good today."
He left before she could respond, pulling the door closed behind him.
Verity looked at the tray. Bread, as promised, a dense round loaf still warm enough to steam when she broke it open. A hard yellow cheese with a sharp smell. Some kind of dried meat, thinly sliced. A small clay pot that proved to contain honey.
She ate standing at the window, watching the courtyard below as the afternoon light shifted. The bread was, in fact, very good.
The sun crept toward the western tower.
Verity washed her hands and face in the basin, which held water cold enough to make her gasp. She changed into a clean dress and attempted to do something with her hair. This proved futile. She settled for removing the two quills she discovered lodged near her left ear and calling the effort complete.
Then she sat at the desk.
And waited.
The sun touched the western tower. She watched it happen, the light catching the stone and turning it briefly gold before sliding past.
No summons came.
Verity pulled out her journal and reviewed her notes from the journey. She made a list of questions for the warchief, then crossed out half of them as too impertinent for a first meeting, then added three of them back because she would forget to ask later if she didn't ask now.
The light faded. The western tower became a dark shape against a darker sky.
Still no summons.
She lit the candle on the desk and flipped through Varresh's topmost journal. The handwriting was cramped and angular, the language peppered with orcish terms Verity didn't recognize. Something about grain stores. A dispute over grazing rights. A note in the margin that said simplyThornvak is a foolwith no further context.
Verity smiled. She had written similar notes in her own margins more times than she could count.
