Above His Proper Station by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Author:Lawrence Watt-Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

19

In Which Anrel Is Offered Unexpected

Political Advancement

Lord Blackfield had already left for the baths when Anrel rose the next day, and Anrel once again took refuge in the Quandishman’s library. There he mused on whether he might somehow make a living reading books, since that was what he found himself doing every day of late. He could not think of how that might be managed.

But then he realized that he was reading a book in colloquial Quandish—an account of a shipwreck in the northern isles of the Quandish Archipelago—and it occurred to him that there were not so very many people in the empire who could do that. Might he perhaps find work as a translator? If he found these Quandish travelogues so enthralling, might not other Walasian readers enjoy them, and pay for the privilege?

This might even be an occupation he could pursue more or less anonymously, so that his death sentence would not be an insuperable problem. If he could find a reliable publisher, perhaps use someone he trusted as a go-between …

This, he felt, was a very promising notion, so promising that he found himself distracted from his book. He knew very little about the book trade beyond the fact that as a student he had thought his texts too expensive, but surely, he could learn. A single new copy of a book might sell for a guilder, or even more; he wondered how much of that money found its way back to the author or translator. Did the publisher pay the author a lump sum, or was the money dependent upon how many copies sold?

As a translator, would he need to share his proceeds with the original Quandish authors? He had no idea what the law had to say on the subject, if it said anything at all.

How long would it take to translate a book?

This was intriguing, and offered the first viable alternative he had come up with to working as Lord Blackfield’s spy, so that after some further meditation he decided it was time to visit one of the bookshops off the east end of the Promenade, near the courts, and ask a few questions. He gathered himself up, informed Harban of his destination, and set out.

He discovered that booksellers and publishers were all very willing to discuss their trade, but that no one was sure whether there would be a market for translations from Quandish. A few seemed startled to learn that there were books written in Quandish; the thought had apparently never occurred to them. After all, Quand was outside the Bound Lands, and therefore assumed to be rather barbaric; one didn’t ordinarily think of barbarians as literate. Quand was associated with foggy forests, rocky coasts, and rain-swept moors, not with books.

When all was said and done, Anrel was not sure whether he had found himself a viable career or not. He returned to Dezar House in midafternoon with his head full of information about typesetting costs, print runs, royalty schedules, and the like, through streets that seemed alternately unnaturally quiet or full of angry voices.

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