Three Lines of Report

Gammar reread a report from the night watch. Lekun had written “quiet streets”; beside it Reka had added a list of the places actually patrolled. The Commander of the Guards crossed out only the adjective. Rakshen watched in silence. “If nothing had happened,” he asked later, “what would we need all this paper for?” Gammar handed him the sheet. “Because tomorrow somebody might want to know where we were.” Reka saw the young dark-haired guard leaf through the report and recognise two places he himself had walked past. The document neither created the night nor guaranteed its safety. It preserved the means to describe it. That distinction was less heroic than an arrest and, in Gammar's view, far more useful in a guard post that had to function even after its commander had changed.