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

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Following an excerpted translation done by Fitz of a damaged original, “Honored Guests” returns to Bee’s narrative perspective and glosses the adjustments to her life occasioned by the arrival of Shun and the arrival and departure of the messenger. She accompanies Fitz as he secures her in the hidden corridors of Withywoods so that he can make a full search of the facility, and Bee ruminates on her recent visions as he departs to carry out the search. She records what she recalls, then leaves a message for Fitz and strikes out through the corridors on her own again.

Bee’s escapades in the corridors are detailed, and Fitz returns to recover her. When he does, Bee asks him after the results of his search, which he reports, and she asks him for a knife, which he agrees will come in time. The pair discuss Shun, as well, and Bee is annoyed at having been left with her while Fitz and Riddle confer together. Shun, for her part, seems no happier with it, and the two trade barbs until Fitz returns. Then Bee asks to be taken to bed, sniping at Fitz as she does, and she considers the status of the household after Fitz withdraws.

Bee is disturbed from her reverie by the return of the messenger, who is in markedly poor condition. She calls out, and Fitz arrives in haste and anger, but relents as he recognizes the messenger. The messenger provides information that confirms the veracity of her mission to Fitz, and she delivers her message: the Fool has an heir he asks Fitz to find and ensure is safe. The message delivered, she warns of the danger in her body and dies; Fitz and Bee prepare to burn the body and all the cloth they know it has touched.

After too long a while, I have been at work updating the Fedwren Project. My lack of institutional affiliation and access does complicate that work a bit, to be sure, but it is good to return to reading and addressing scholarly writing. I have no doubt that it is going to get into the write-ups I do here, and, in truth, it ought to do so. There is a growing body of scholarship on Hobb’s works, to which I flatter myself that I can contribute in the rereading, the Fedwren Project, and such other learned (or “learned”) writing that is yet in me to do. So there’s that.

To return to discussion, though: the present chapter seems to further the foreshadowing and issues of gender fluidity at work in the previous chapter. (Discussion of the latter in earlier series is in the Katavić, Melville, Nordlund, Prater, Räsänen, Sanderson, and Schouwenaars sources in the Fedwren Project, which I recall now that I’ve resumed some work on it.) After Fitz’s experience thinking that the messenger was, in fact, the Fool and being surprised at the revelation that she was not, the idea that the Fool has sent word of a son lost along the way, coupled with the translation-excerpt at the head of the chapter, it seems fairly obvious (even without the benefit of a rereading) that the object of the Fool’s message is not as the characters expect.

Admittedly, I am rereading, and I am outside the narrative itself, so I have access to information the characters within the narrative do not. The oversight and lack of insight may be Hobb deploying irony, deliberately or otherwise; it seems a bit heavy-handed to my reading if it is the case, but I also know that I have had trouble catching onto things at times, and I flatter myself (among others) that I am an insightful reader. It may also be the case that Hobb is continuing to make the kind of commentary about gendering that the scholars noted above–and possibly others; again, I am at work on the Fedwren Project, so I may run into other piece yet that I do not presently recognize–identify. I’d not be surprised, of course, or disappointed; I do enjoy seeing that others also have recourse to Hobb’s works, and I hope to continue to contribute to such discussions.

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