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Back Beyond the Burn Line Save as PDF
Chapters (66)
  1. Copyright
  2. Contents
  3. Epigraph
  4. Part One
  5. 1.
  6. 2.
  7. 3.
  8. 4.
  9. 5.
  10. 6.
  11. 7.
  12. 8.
  13. 9.
  14. 10.
  15. 11.
  16. 12.
  17. 13.
  18. 14.
  19. 15.
  20. 16.
  21. 17.
  22. 18.
  23. 19.
  24. 20.
  25. 21.
  26. 22.
  27. 23.
  28. 24.
  29. 25.
  30. 26.
  31. 27.
  32. 28.
  33. 29.
  34. 30.
  35. 31.
  36. 32.
  37. Part Two
  38. 1.
  39. 2.
  40. 3.
  41. 4.
  42. 5.
  43. 6.
  44. 7.
  45. 8.
  46. 9.
  47. 10.
  48. 11.
  49. 12.
  50. 13.
  51. 14.
  52. 15.
  53. 16.
  54. 17.
  55. 18.
  56. 19.
  57. 20.
  58. 21.
  59. 22.
  60. 23.
  61. 24.
  62. 25.
  63. 26.
  64. 27.
  65. 28.
  66. By Paul McAuley:

Noble Seatree studied him for a moment, a single crease bisecting his heavy brow as he tried to work out if he should feel insulted. ‘Don’t cause waves, hand over my fee whenever I ask for it and we’ll get along just fine,’ he said, and swept out, the cur sidling at his heels.

Gentle stepped to the doorway and looked down the stairs and closed the door. ‘So,’ he said to Pilgrim, ‘was that the kind of welcome you were expecting?’

14.

Pilgrim spent most of his time in the Hearth’s library, surveying the damage caused by years of neglect and making a start on cataloguing what had survived. When his tribe had quit the territory, a number of books, chiefly records of tribal history, had gone with them, but the bulk had been left in the care of an order of vestals. The last member of the order had died more than thirty years ago, and the library had been locked up and scarcely disturbed since. Pilgrim had been tasked with choosing books worth sending home, discarding those too badly damaged and preserving the rest as best he could. It was makework as Noble Seatree had observed, but Pilgrim was determined to repay Thorn’s kindness by doing the best he could. There were far worse punishments than restoring a neglected library.

It occupied three floors of the east tower. The upper floor was a desolation of papers and books ruined by water leaking through the broken tiles and rotting rafters of the tower’s conical roof; it didn’t take Pilgrim long to realise that there was nothing worth saving. But the two floors below were relatively dry and intact, and although the shelves had been plundered, and someone had made a bonfire of books in the big fireplace of the lower floor, the rest were in relatively good condition. Some were hundreds of years old, handwritten on pages of vellum or grass paper and bound in leather or wood, but most were copies of common philosophical works, or works that deserved their obscurity. Lives of forgotten eremites and saints, archaic treatises on medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry and natural lore, outdated popular histories … There were a few documents from the age of bears, too. Stiff scrolls of animal hide and a single book: twenty pages of ragged-edged birch bark inscribed with columns of knotty symbols and bound between wooden boards framed with iron.