Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

---

Following a message from Erek to Reyall in which the former offers the latter a reference for promotion, “Strange Bedfellows” begins with Leftrin awaiting comments from Bellin, apprehensively given the strangeness of her request for private conference. She notes that crewman Hennesey has clearly become enamored of Tillamon despite the class differences, noting the potential difficulties such infatuation poses. Leftrin muses on them, as well, and agrees to address the issue. He is less sanguine when Bellin mentions Skelly‘s infatuation with one of the keepers and the problems attendant upon the same. But after Bellin leaves to return to her duties, Leftrin goes on deck and notes the clear affection present between Hennesey and Tillamon, knowing that the relationship will have to run its course.

Elsewhere, Hest’s servant wakes him aboard passenger transport he loathes, and he muses sourly about Trehaug and about his servant’s shortcomings. Sitting to a meal he views with contempt, Hest looks forward to being off ship and about the errand to which the Chalcedean assailant has put him. The thought of the assailant quails Hest, and he considers the effects of having been poisoned and humiliated, the latter of which is detailed. The tasks to which Hest is assigned are also detailed, and Hest ponders their importance. As he does so, his servant presents gossip about Tintaglia and Icefyre he has overheard, and Hest considers the implications of the same.

Aboard the Tarman, Reyn grows impatient, and Leftrin lays out the challenges facing them. He also explains the circumstances of the pursuit that dogs them, and Reyn lays out his own concerns. The two confer for a time before Leftrin espies additional pursuit, a so-called impervious ship, moving upstream with good speed. The new challenge presented by the ship is detailed, and Leftrin notes that more awaits invaders in Kelsingra than they expect.

In Chalced, the Duke of Chalced muses bitterly on the reports of failure brought before him. Ordering the deaths of families, he considers his own worsening situation, and his chancellor, Ellik, confers with him. Privately, the pair drop the pretenses of formality, and Ellik warns the Duke of the intentions Chassim, his daughter, harbors. The spread of potentially seditions materials is noted and described, and Ellik cautions the Duke not to react as he is expected to, but to award Ellik Chassim as a wife. The Duke calmly explicates the potential for treachery, with which Ellik agrees calmly, and the Duke agrees to Ellik’s terms while setting one of his own: dragon blood. Ellik notes that a prisoner is en route who will provide it; a sample of the prisoner’s flesh is given to the duke, and he eats. Eased, he reaffirms his agreement to Ellik’s terms.

The epilogue, “Homeward Bound,” turns to Icefyre and Tintaglia as they hunt. Tintaglia finds herself envious of Icefyre’s more practiced abilities, and her thoughts turn to Selden. The pair fall upon prey, which Tintaglia pursues with difficulty due to her wound. The dragons confer about the injury, and Icefyre notes a silver well in Kelsingra that might be of aid. Tintaglia determines that she will return to the Rain Wilds.

I note with some appreciation the way in which the final chapter of the novel calls back to the first chapter, and the epilogue to the front matter. It does make for a nice roundedness and boundedness to the novel, helping it to feel like a complete narrative in itself despite its clear status as one volume–and neither the first nor the last–of a series.

Less structurally, the decks of the Tarman seem awash in affection, whether of the romantic sort or the more familial. Reading affectively–because I seem always to do so, anymore–I find I do not envy Leftrin the tasks of investigating and discouraging young love that he faces. Admittedly, because Hennesey’s infatuation and Skelly’s do have the potential to affect how the crew of the Tarman operates, Leftrin has a compelling interest in at least monitoring their situations; as the captain, he is ultimately responsible for the behavior and performance of the crew. Too, as Skelly’s uncle, Leftrin has a more personal interest in her love affairs, both in the context of familial affection and in the context of Trader society, in which marriages are contracts. As to the former, the fact of the keeper’s transformation into an Elderling is a potential issue; the differences in life expectancy and, potentially, in species-specific mechanics certainly deserve consideration. As to the latter, Skelly already has some arrangements made on her behalf, which Leftrin’s own romantic interests potentially affect, and while readers might balk at the idea of arranged marriages, they are already established in context as part of “how things are done” among the Traders.

By contrast, the scene in Chalced seems calculated to highlight Chalced as stereotypically evil. There has been motion toward that point already, with the long-established history of Chalced as an enslavement-based society whose practices call to mind the worst aspects of chattel slavery in the earlier United States. In the Liveship Traders series, the rampant misogyny of Chalced is highlighted (and presented as a social contagion, not lease in the characters of Kyle Haven and Satrap Cosgo). In the current series, the willingness of Chalcedeans to harvest parts from the dragons is presented as in keeping with prevailing expectations of their nation and its people; there’s something of the “of course Chalced does that stuff” present in discussions of them. The assaults on Hest, the brutalization of Selden, and the willingness to outright slaughter Malta and Phron for parts, extend it further, making Chalced depraved in a way that goes beyond the kind of propaganda that might be expected of a people about their antagonistic neighbors.

The death-men, however, and the Duke of Chalced’s own (relatively) easy cannibalism cement Chalced as evil in an almost cartoonish way. (Not for nothing do I use the gif from Jackson’s movies above; I have to wonder if there’s not some more or less direct influence there.) It comes off as calculated to present Chalced as irredeemably evil, almost inherently so, and while Hobb has done some of that kind of thing before (I am put in mind of Regal again), she usually embeds at least a Freudian excuse into her protagonists. Not so with Chalced, not anymore. And I find myself wondering how such a society could remain in place as a persistent antagonist for both the Traders and the Six Duchies for so long–although I note something of the common conceptions of Sparta at work in the depiction of Chalced; pervasive militarization would have such an effect, and the yoking of such to depravity could easily be read as a comment on what has become called toxic masculinity…ah, to have time to write papers (and to do the reading for that kind of writing)!

One other thing attracts my attention as I conclude discussion of this novel in this series: the seditious materials Chassim is spreading. I note with glee that the motion towards overthrow of tyranny is undertaken in illuminated verse. It is not to be wondered at that an author would valorize writing, as I have noted, but it remains a delight to see done again, all the same.

I recently got laid off; maybe you can help?