“Heh. I’ve seen those little notebooks of hers—” Dethor blinked. “Now, why didn’t I think of this before? Herald-Chronicler, of course! Elcarth’s doing it now, but we want him for Dean of the Collegium, and we need to start training him in that—” His voice faded off as he got that faraway look in his eyes that meant he was thinking, and probably Mindspeaking with his Companion. Alberich now knew that look very, very well.

And Dethor was right, of course; with all of his own reading of the Chronicles, he could see how being the Herald-Chronicler would easily be a full-time job. It wasn’t just the doings of the Heralds that the Chronicler covered, it was everything; anything that had any impact on any part of the Kingdom larger than a small village.

:What do you think?: he asked Kantor.

:That it’s probably the reason she was Chosen,: Kantor replied. :She gets onto a story like a rat-terrier and won’t let go of it until she’s shaken it free of all the facts.:

Annoying little dogs, rat-terriers. All yap and idiotic courage—or was that “stubbornness?” Still. Come to think of it, that described Myste rather well… Or, perhaps, she was more like a cat, one of those mouthy ones that wouldn’t stop caterwauling, came when you didn’t want them, and wouldn’t come when you did.

:We’re in nasty times. Someone has to be willing to put down nasty facts without editing them,: Kantor continued. :And you like cats. You like rat-terriers, too.:

He ignored that last. :Hmm. Nasty facts like my little exercise tonight?: he replied.

:It ought to be written down somewhere,: Kantor countered. :Maybe not for common consumption, but if someone doesn’t record everything, no matter how unflattering to the Heralds it is, the next generation is going to get the idea that we’re all plaster saints. Then when someone has to do something underhanded for a good reason, nobody will be willing to do it…:

He sighed. There was that. And plenty of Chroniclers in the past had created “auxiliary Chronicles” that not everyone was allowed to read, Chronicles that recorded mistakes, blunders, errors in judgment, and jobs undertaken that were somewhat less than the letter of the law, all in unflinching detail. Not the sort of thing one gave the children, of course, but these Chronicles, and not just the standard texts, were what Alberich was studying as history. Just now he was in the middle of the very brief Chronicle of Lavan Firestorm; some of the soul-baring on the part of Herald Pol and King Theran was enough to make the heart ache. He could relate all too easily to the litany of “should haves” and “could haves.”