Lane sat beneath the porch of the "ten-household building" and opened a hardcover notebook.
He had traded half a month's worth of saved allowances for this "luxury" at the town's Merit Points Exchange Office.
The paper was coarse, and the ink bottle's rim was chipped.
He uncapped the ink bottle, carefully dipped his pen, and wrote today's date in his diary.
His handwriting was crooked, and the ink varied in darkness, but he pressed hard.
[Eternal Radiance calendar, year 1374, October 3. Sunny.]
[Day off. Don't have to haul planks to the Lard's Manor. Saw Barton heading to the newly cleared fields this morning. He's the deputy captain, a bastard built like a bear.]
He read it over, blacked out "Lard," and drew a heavy circle beside it.
[Something's wrong in town. Lord Barrett called everyone back from their days off. They carried timber and food into the Swamp. More people are standing guard in the towers outside town, day and night.]
Lane stopped writing and rubbed his aching wrist.
He looked up toward an open space nearby.
A group of children were with their literacy teacher, reading the alphabet at the top of their lungs.
Their loud, young voices dispelled some of the tension hanging over town.
He grinned and set his pen to the paper again.
[I graduated with the first literacy class. Was one of the better students. Tumo, that capable bastard, got pushed up to give a speech on graduation day.]
[His face went bright red, and he kept scratching his head. After struggling for ages, he finally shouted, "Follow our lord and you get food, a house, and even learn to read. Anyone who won't is an idiot!"]
[The crowd laughed, the students laughed, the teacher laughed, and I laughed too.]
[I remember when we