A/N: After playing with a few ideas, I've settled on this one for my Tortall fiction. It has, I think, a slightly better plot than most of the other candidates, and I really only have time for one just now. Actually, I don't really have time for any, what with university looming, and my original writing, and of course I'm trying to finish, or at least continue, the Tonks story. However, here it is, in all its infant glory. The idea of using a book to tell a piece of Tortall's history I stole off Krizsta, in her Nobles Bane, although all other plot devices are my own. The characters and so on that belong to someone else, don't belong to me. Everything else, does. For reference, I'm assuming the Book of Gold, which is only ever mentioned in passing in the actual books, works something like the Doomsday book, although we can pretend it is being written for more noble reasons than taxing people.

"Mother, you can't be serious."

"And why not?" the man's mother, Alanna of Pirates Swoop, Olau and Trebond demanded. "I'll have you know my father was a well noted scholar and…"

"I know, mother, but you hardly have the patience to write Ali, never mind a book."

Alanna grimaced. Her son was right. Time was, he wouldn't have interrupted, she thought bitterly, but Thom was all grown up now, a Master and a teacher at the Royal University, and he seemed to think that gave him some authority to interrupt his mother.

"Perhaps it would be good for her, then." Now it was Thom's turn to grimace. Prince Liam, though a just and capable Prime Minister who was known never to show bias, would nonetheless take Alanna's side over Thom's in any debate. "And you can't deny, if Aunt Alanna puts her mind to something, she gets it done." Thom did know, for all that knowledge brought him little joy.

"I just think…" he knew he was losing the battle.

Alanna threw up her hands. "I'm just sick of people saying I'm the first female knight in Tortall. It's not right."

"You writing a book will hardly help that," Thom observed dryly.

"I'm not so sure of that," Liam said, thoughtful. "The schools Mother started have improved literacy no end within Tortall. And if Auntie wrote it as a story, I'm sure a lot of people might like to read it."

"See?" Alanna told her son. Thom sighed, defeated. Liam might be right; the project could be good for Alanna. He had thought, when she proposed to retire last year, that she would spend her time quietly, running Olau where she and his father now lived. But if someone had been born to a knight's life, it was Alanna. Even though all her coppery hair was now grey, she still spoke, acted, and fought passionately, and her years only made her more dangerous, not less. As highly acclaimed as his brother Alan was as a swordsman, their mother could still beat him two times in three, and if ever she had a grievance, King Jonathon would be found under his bed, hiding from her. Perhaps this project would help her ease into the quiet retirement he had hoped for her.

"Oh, very well." As though his saying 'no' could have stopped her. "Let me know if I can help."

It was impossible. The man was either crazy or a genius. He would have to be, to have even dreamed of such a thing. It was amazing, exciting, tantalizing, but more than anything else, it was impossible. Whoever heard of an empire so big? To stretch from the town of Corus in the south, north into the mountains a week's ride away… the man dreamed big, there was no denying that.

So what was he doing here, sitting in a northern forest, trying to make that dream a reality. The gods alone knew, he thought with a sigh. But when Count Jonathan spoke, you found yourself believing in his visions, and then you did crazy things, like ride north and try to bring order to the scattered kingdoms and holdings that he hoped one day to rule over. No, not just 'one day'. Within ten years, the count had said. As though a man could conquer so much land in ten years, and hold it. Still, he had a way about him that made you believe it could happen.

It's already happening, the knight thought glumly. The holdings were responding, tentatively, to Jonathan and his men. They were starting to call him king. And so the knight had been sent out, to visit those that liked Jonathan, the ones willing to call him king, to take down names. The count, gods alone knew why, wanted a genealogy of those that joined with him, and an accounting of the laws of, for lack of a better term, his new kingdom. He called it the Book of Gold, and the knight could only assume the count meant for others to be written later, of Silver and so forth. That was the way the count thought.

"My lord." The knight looked up. One of his men stood there, rigid and awake despite the late hour. The fire between them, where the knight had been warming himself, made it difficult to see the man. Foolish of me, he thought, but he wasn't ready to give up what little warmth the flames offered.

"Yes, Jerril?" Jerril was a competent soldier. He wouldn't disturb the knight unless it was important.

"I found this, my lord." He thrust something – no, someone – forward. The person was little, but they fought hard against Jerril's firm hold. Why, it's only a child, the knight found himself thinking. "Stop it," the soldier ordered his captive, giving him a rough shake. The child stopped fighting, and subsided into a hostile silence. "He was trying to get at the horses, my lord."

"Were you now?" the knight asked. The child didn't say a word. "Why did you want to get at our horses?" He was quickly losing his control over the situation. There were ways and ways to make an adult talk, from bribery to kind words to torture, but the knight had had very few dealings with children, especially ones as young as this.

"Not tellin' you nutin'," came the sullen response.

Jerril gave the child another shake. "He was armed, my lord." In the hand not hold the child the knight saw a small bow, toy quiver, and a knife near big enough to be a sword for the child.

The knight sat back, thoughtful. He had known these northerners taught their children to fight young, but he would have sworn this child was scarce out of the cradle. "How old are you?" He'd seen others ask children that back in Corus. It seemed a reasonable enough question.

"Seven."

"You ain't never," the knight muttered, surprise causing his words to form in the rough speech he'd left behind years before when he joined the Count.

Now the tyke looked at him, balefully. "I am so. Turned seven a fortnight ago."

"And where are your parents?" He was almost afraid of the answer he would get. These were not peaceful times, here in the north, and many a child was an orphan.

"At home."

"Do they know you're out?"

"Maybe."

"I suppose we'll have to take him back, won't we Jerril?" the knight asked, suddenly tired.

"It seems so, sir."

"Where do you live?" he asked the child.

"The Hold."

"What's the nearest holding, Jerril?" the knight asked. He should know, but just now he was too tired to think.

"The Hold, sir. It doesn't have another name."

The knight sighed. "I'm sure it doesn't. But we've visited four without names already. Surely they call it something to differentiate it."

Jerril hesitated. "'The one in the trees', sir."

"'The one in the…' no. Whoever heard of a place without a name?"

The soldier's shrug was only just visible in the darkness. "Call it the Tree-bound hold then, sir. They'll know what you mean."

The knight sighed again. "And were we to visit this 'Tree-bound hold', do you know?"

"No sir, we weren't. But I think we might have to."

"Very well. Boy, you'll sleep here tonight. We'll take you home tomorrow. Jerril, if it isn't too much trouble, find out what you can about this holding, will you?"

"As you say sir." Jerril saluted, and dragged the child off. The knight put his head in his hands. It was going to be one of those weeks. He could tell already.