For some time now, I’ve been getting worried about the steadily increasing number of hopeful historians on this Isle of Gramarye. There weren’t any when I came here—none that I was aware of, anyway. Then Brother Chillde started keeping his chronicles, and, first thing I knew, there were five more just like him. Not that this is all bad, of course—Gramarye’ll be much better off if it has an accurate record of its history. What bothers me is that each one of these young Thucydideses is conveniently forgetting all the events that make his own side look bad, and definitely overdoing it more than a bit, about the happenings that make his side look good. I’m mostly thinking of the Church here, of course, but not exclusively—for example, I know of one young warlock who’s taken to keeping a diary, and a country lord’s younger son who’s piling up an impressive number of journals. So, in an effort to set the record straight, I’m going to set down my version of what happened. Not that it’ll be any more objective, of course; it’ll at least be biased in a diff-

“Tis my place, Delia!”

“Nay, Geoffrey, thou knowest ‘tis not! This end of the shelf is mine, for the keeping of my dolls!”

“Tis not! I’ve kept my castle there these several weeks!”

Rod threw down his quill in exasperation. After three weeks of trying, he’d finally managed to get started on his history of Gramarye—and the kids had to choose this moment to break into a quarrel! He glared down at the page…

And saw the huge blot the quill had made.

Exasperation boiled up into anger, and he surged out of his chair. “Delia! Geoff! Of all the idiotic things to be arguing about! Gwen, can’t you…”

“Nay, I cannot!” cried a harried voice from the kitchen. “Else thou’lt have naught but char for thy… Oh!” Something struck with a jangling clatter, and Rod’s wife fairly shrieked in frustration. “Magnus! How oft must I forbid thee the kitchen whiles I do cook!”