Free Interregnum by S. J. A. Turney

for the purchase and complimenting the scribe who owned the place when an angry looking Athas had flung open the door and drawn him painfully outside by the ear.
    “Where the hell have you been?” he’d demanded. “You can’t just go wandering off whenever you want, you know?”
    Athas had taken in the wide-eyed expression of the lad and the way he clutched the book tightly to his chest and had sighed.
    “The armourer’s going to take the rest of the day to put your stuff together, so we’re heading for the tavern. Now.” With those few words, the burly sergeant had hustled Quintillian across the street and into The Rapture.
    Since then he’d had a reasonably good and filling meal and two glasses of beer. The Company had refused to order him the watered wine he wanted, just spirits or beer. He sighed again as his eyes strayed from the plate of chicken bones to the book lying open before him. He like Carso’s writing. The style was fluid without being over-elegant; factual yet readable. He smiled as he turned the page. It was strange to think that he’d read so much history in his young life and now here he was, among the men who’d actually made that history. The Grey Company had been there when the Empire had crumbled; had seen it fall, even been involved in it. His eyes flicked around the room taking in his companions and finally lit on Mercurias, heading for his table and carrying a small tray.
    “T’aint no good sitting drinking on your own” he grinned, his teeth flashing surprisingly white in the lamplight. “Solitude drives a man mad.”
    Quintillian returned the smile.
    “I find solitude gives me time to read and think. I’m used to it.”
    The medic sat heavily in the chair opposite the lad. He unloaded the contents of the tray onto the table, a brooding unlabelled bottle of some unknown spirit and two small slightly chipped glasses, and then reached out to the book. The boy drew in a sharp breath involuntarily and the medic stayed his fingers as he touched the cover.
    “You value this too much” Mercurias sniffed. “Books are for entertainment. Food and drink and company are worth a great deal more. You’ll learn that in time.”
    Quintillian frowned.
    “The written word” he said haughtily, “is far more important than the mere vulgarities of physical existence. We’ll be long dead when this text is still illuminating and educating generations of scholars.”
    Mercurias smiled sarcastically and patted the book once before turning it to see the spine. His smile broadened as he read the title.
    “Carso: Empire in Ashes” he chuckled. “Utter crap!”
    Quintillian bridled and snatched the book from under the medic’s hand, cradling it in front of him. His voice had risen in pitch when he addressed the medic.
    “This is a work of genius” he argued. “Well written and accurate, from a man who was well placed in the Imperial bureaucracy at the time of the fall. I’ll bet you haven’t even read it!”
    Mercurias smiled.
    “Don’t take offence lad; none’s intended.” He sighed. “Probably is well written, but it is also crap. You’ve got to stop taking things at face value. True, I haven’t read it, but I’ll guarantee you its inaccurate. Carso was no better placed to document the collapse than your average provincial farmer. He may have been in the bureaucracy, but that means nothing. The man was harbourmaster at Rilva, way over in the east. I shouldn’t think he set foot within a thousand miles of the capital during the entire time. Carso’ll have done what most historians do and pieced together bits from other people’s writing; people who really were there.”
    The lad continued to hold the book defensively.
    “But it’s corroborated so well by everything else I read.”
    “’Course it is” the medic continued. “All these writers use each other for information. They’re bound to all be the same. Don’t take ‘em as gospel. Personal experience is the only thing