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This is one of the chapters that needs a content warning: references to sexual violence.

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Following reported commentary by Dwalia about the induction of forgetfulness and neglect, “Vindeliar” returns to Bee, noting the remarks by those around her of her improving condition and her uncertainty about the same. The progress of Dwalia’s party across is glossed, and disagreement emerges between Dwalia and Ellik about how to proceed further. Shun notices Bee’s observations and advises her against the appearance of the same, and Bee attends closely as Dwalia exploits Vindeliar’s abilities to persuade Ellik.

Progress continues, and Bee and Shun confer covertly about possible escape. When Dwalia presses Bee for conversation, she replies with reference to the futures she has seen, attempting to turn conversation, and Dwalia upbraids her for doing so. Ellik hears the upset occasioned and intervenes, determining to turn matters to his will. Vindeliar being then absent, he succeeds, and he comprehends that it is Vindeliar’s influence that has allowed Dwalia to retain command. That situation, he moves to address.

The present chapter recalls the cartoonish evil of Chalced, in which Ellik had participated at high level. Thinking back on my earlier impressions, such as I can recall them at this point, I had originally understood Chalced to be an antagonistic but not necessarily “evil” nation-state; the presentation in the Rain Wilds novels was something of an immersion-breaker for me, as I gesture towards in my rereading comments. In the present chapter, which reminds readers of the slavery practices and rampant misogyny at work in Chalced, the evils of that nation-state seem more “real,” although I cannot determine whether my reaction is to the overt presentation, the contrast with earlier work, or my inability to read the text without awareness of the broader context in which I do the reading this time around.

I do find some interest in the construction and its comparison to that of Clerres, however. While the situation in Clerres is not yet directly presented in the text–readers at this point have the Fool’s report, which may well be understood to be biased–they do have the actions of the Servants, both with Bee and with the messengers the Fool had dispatched to Fitz (here and here). While the Elderlings novels as a whole call into question the degree to which any agent of a given nation-state can be said to represent that nation-state as a whole, and while it is certainly the case that the Six Duchies is hardly an innocent place if its agents can be taken to any degree as being representative, Dwalia and her company do not give a good presentation of Clerres even if the Fool’s report can be set aside as biased. The question of which nation-state, Chalced or Clerres, is more evil is one that the chapter gestures towards, and a ponerological study might well be worth undertaking.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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After in-milieu commentary warning of the dangers of travel through the Skill-pillars that might have been useful to characters earlier, “Marking Time” opens with Fitz searching for an outlet for his emotions, taking training alongside his new guard unit to find it. Foxglove reluctantly allows it, giving Fitz some warning, but he persists and regrets it. Afterward, he is confronted by Burrich’s son Steady, who rebukes Fitz for letting his despair flow out into the world, and as Fitz follows the younger man’s direction, the pair discuss Chade’s situation and what led up to it, as well as Steady’s own regrets regarding Bee. The risks Chade had taken are explicated, and Steady asks Fitz for the particularly strong Outislander elfbark. Fitz provides it, and after Steady takes his leave, he reviews Bee’s writings that he has brought with him, recognizing her power for prophecy as he does so.

The next days pass unpleasantly for Fitz, who finds himself caught between hope for Bee and fear for her. He works to navigate his restored identity as a prince of the realm, and he calls on Chade, finding him responsive but largely absent. Steady intervenes as Fitz presses his mentor, glossing the retrieval and analysis of information from where it had been sequestered. It is cold comfort, and Fitz soothes himself with thoughts of murder.

Fitz continues to wait for news and to check on the Fool, whom Spark / Ash attends. Fitz finds himself recalling his and the Fool’s shared youth, and the Fool reports some improvement. Ash reports Chade’s decline, and the three confer about what will become of Ash if Chade dies. The Fool presses Fitz to go to Clerres, and he demurs, citing his ongoing instability in the Skill and his continuing expectation of news of Bee. The Fool avers that Bee will accompany them both to the destruction of Clerres, will indeed conduct them thither, which Fitz rejects. The Fool then advises Fitz about what they will face, and Fitz begins to question whether he can enact the destruction for which the Fool has called. A discussion of logistics ensues, and Fitz asks Ash to help him with his own stitches as a means of forestalling more talk.

More time passes, and Fitz continues to work to regain his combat skills. At length, Thick and Lant return with soldiers who will be discommended, and Thick reports mistreatment at their hands. Lant receives direction and correction, and Perseverance, who had accompanied the group from Buckkeep, is taken aside to give report. Fitz accepts the boy’s report and commends him to the care of one of the senior stable staff, offering a final set of instructions to him.

The present chapter is slightly longer than normal, some twenty-five pages in the edition I have of the novel. I am reminded once again that I need to take a look at a cohesive print-run of the Elderlings novels to see if there is some pattern of chapter-length at work in them and, if there is, what significance that pattern has for the corpus. It remains among my scholarly somedays, things to which I look with some yearning even as I question whether I ought to maintain any pretense of scholarship, being as many years out of academe as I am. But then, given what all is happening in and to academe as I sit and write this, perhaps my small works here and in a few other places–yes, I do still have some stuff going on, about which I expect to write more later–are among what will be regarded as the last vestiges of what might have been a tradition. Or maybe they will be sparks from which some new flame is kindled to warm the heart and light the mind, but I am probably unreasonably vain to think such thoughts and write them where others are apt to see them.

As often before, I find myself reading with no small degree of affect. I expect this is something deliberately constructed, of course; the Eight Deadly Words being a thing, its inverse would be seen as desirable, and “relatability” is something that many readers look for in what they read. While I dislike the term–I don’t know why, but something about it strikes me as insipid, although I recognize it is my own taste at work and not something “wrong” with the word itself–I acknowledge that readers are far from wrong to look to see themselves reflected in what they read, and I acknowledge that so much is true for other media, as well. Representation matters, of course, and people should see themselves represented in the media available to them, just as they well ought to see and be led to empathize with those different from themselves. And while I am fortunate not to have been in the position of waiting for news of my own daughter as she languishes in captivity, I have been anxious to learn how my daughter has fared and impatient with the delay in news reaching me, chafing at my inability to do anything in the moment to make things better for her and chastising myself for my failures with her. And I find, like Fitz, that there is some use in knowing that others have done as much and more; even if it is not a comfort–and it is not; that others feel poorly does not make a poor feeling rich–it is good to have a reminder that others have done things and thus that we can also do them.

There is much to do, ever and always. Having the reminder that what needs doing can be done, one of the many things that a good read offers, is thus a welcome thing.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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After a description of Clerres reported to Chade, “The Strategy” begins with Fitz waking up to the crow, Motley, haranguing him for food and flight. After tending to the bird, Fitz reaches out through the Skill to Chade and finds him dreaming and disoriented. Nettle rebukes him through the Skill, and Dutiful summons him by that same agency. As Fitz considers his response, his anger at his situation grows, and he quashes it as he attires himself in a manner befitting his station.

Suitably attired, Fitz makes to answer Dutiful’s summons, but he is waylaid along the way by Foxglove, a former commander of the guard unit that had formed around Kettricken in her early days at Buckkeep and in which he himself had served for a time. The pair reminisce briefly before Fitz accompanies her to a guards’ mess. There, Fitz finds himself suddenly presented with a guard unit wearing the emblem of a charging buck long ago assigned him by Verity. Foxglove introduces some of her own kin, wearing the livery of Fitz’s new guard unit, and, after some Skilling with Nettle and Dutiful, Fitz accepts their oaths and asks for Foxglove’s own, naming her the captain of his guard.

After Fitz is able to gracefully exit the impromptu ceremony, he attends on Dutiful, Nettle, Kettricken, and Chade, the last of whom shows his age and injuries. Reports are exchanged and counsel taken, and Fitz’s own condition is noted with some concern. Plans for how to search for Bee and Shun are made, and the King, Skillmistress, and Kettricken leave to begin to enact them. Alone, then, Fitz and Chade confer about private events, Fitz voicing concerns about predestination. Their talk turns to dragons’ blood, and Chade notes Shun’s strength in the Skill. Chade reluctantly accepts the attentions of a healer, and Fitz moves to address the terms under which he does so.

Returning to the hidden suite where the Fool is kept, Fitz is startled by the appearance of a young woman–one Spark, who is the truth of Ash, who explains herself to him. The Fool is hurt by the deception, although Fitz seems to accept the explanation offered. As Spark then moves to summon Chade’s preferred healer, Fitz searches out his own medicines for his old mentor, and he and the Fool confer about Spark. The pair determine to talk together again, and Fitz takes his leave.

On his way back to Chade, Fitz encounters Dutiful’s sons, King-in-Waiting Integrity and Prince Prosper. An awkward conversation ensues and is soon concluded, and Fitz returns to Chade. The old assassin is in decline, his mind wandering as Fitz attends to him, and Nettle bustles him out of the room, informing him of the treatment that must follow for Chade and the need for his exclusion therefrom. Reluctantly, Fitz accedes.

As I reread the present chapter, which overtly calls back to earlier events, I find myself annoyed at myself for some of the way in which I gloss the events of earlier chapters. Had I been more thorough with listing names than I was, I would have an easier time of things now. That said, a summary should gloss details; it exists to make a brief account, after all, and offering all of the details means it cannot be shorter. Too, while a summary can be presented as an issue of fair use, especially when it is accompanied by explanation and commentary that run longer than it does, the more that is reproduced directly in the summary, the less fair the use is. I do not want to exceed what is fair, in this or in my other endeavors, so there is some tension…but I could have done better with character names than I did. And than I am likely to do, moving forward.

I find myself also once again uneasy with the Fool’s reaction to gender fluidity. Given the Fool’s own easy movements among presentations of masculinity and femininity, the long-standing failure to consider that the Unexpected Son might be a daughter sat oddly with me; the vehement reaction to the revelation that the boy, Ash, is a performed persona of the girl, Spark, seems even more so. (I do note, though, the parallel to Fitz’s own reaction to the revelation of Amber. Perhaps that underscores what’s going on, that the Fool has taken on some of Fitz’s less admirable ideas. It seems erratic if so, however.) Fitz’s acceptance of Spark’s explanation makes more sense to me, in fact; for one, he does seem to have a soft spot for children (Hap is but one example), and for another, Fitz has long known that Chade is not unaccustomed to doing such things in his own clandestine work. I remain…uncomfortable with it–not the fluidity, but the reactions to it of characters who seem to me as would have other reactions. But that may just be me.

I am more comfortable with the guard company coalescing around Fitz and the ceremonies related thereto. I’m a sucker for such things, honestly, for the presentation of lauds and honors in heavily symbolic contexts; indeed, for a while, I’d thought about how I could get work in the US Office of Protocol. (It’s one of many things that did not happen, like my being a band director or a college professor.) I am overly sentimental, to boot; heartfelt grand gestures get to me. (It’s been a problem before; I’ve been manipulated in such ways on occasion, taking at face value things that were, in the event, merely pro forma. Such cynicism as I evidence has some justification, after all.) I’ll admit that my reading of the ceremony does tend towards the medievalist–go figure that one out–and I’ve picked a post-image to suit that, but I have to wonder–go figure that one out–whether there’s some Native American practice being emulated in the specifics of the ceremony. I’m not versed enough in such things to be able to say so or affirm not, of course, and it is the case that Hobb remains within the Tolkienian fantasy tradition even as she ranges outside it…I’ll hope to see someone more up on such things than I am or can be take up the discussion.

They’re not all scholarly somedays for me.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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Following the text of a binding resolution from the Traders’ Council of Bingtown, “The Changer” begins with Fitz musing over the possible effects the Fool will experience from drinking dragon’s blood and conferring with the Fool about current conditions. The Fool reports feeling more energized, and Fitz prepares a medicine as he settles in to get more information from his friend. Conversation is uncomfortable, ranging to many questions that find few answers, although the Fool is able to lay out some of the social structure in which Dwalia and her company are enmeshed.

Fitz lays out much of Bee’s early history, and the Fool’s belated acceptance of the idea of Bee as the Unexpected Son allows him to understand much of what has happened at last. Fitz, however, does not take the news as calmly. After laughing uproariously, the Fool attempts again to explain matters before turning to the destination towards which Bee is headed–Clerres–and how to intercept her captors. Fitz takes his leave and ruminates on the Fool’s explanations and some implications of the same, and his thoughts turn to Patience in the court where he now resides.

The present chapter brings to mind once again something I found…vexatious…in my first readings of the present novel and its immediate predecessor. On the rereading, or on this rereading, I find myself less vexed and more open to the ideas of 1) magic mucking about with things and 2) longer exposure and engagement prompting different circumstances. After all, I am older, now, than I was then, by more than a decade, and the differences between what I was and what I am are in many cases only those of greater familiarity. I am a better father now than I was then, for instance, but largely because I’ve had more time to learn how to parent. (It’s mostly because I have an excellent daughter who has, so far, made the work of parenting relatively easy. Credit where it is due.)

I am struck once again by the mismatch between the Fool’s understanding of Bee as the Unexpected Son and the Fool’s own gender fluidity (let alone Fitz’s visceral reaction to the Fool’s assertions of their mingling). I know that it is a humanizing thing to give characters blindnesses, and I know that Hobb is much concerned with imparting verisimilitude into her work; both such lend themselves to the Fool having trouble accepting the idea (and Fitz, to be certain). Still, for that to be the sticking point…it is a splinter between my fingers, and I don’t have the tweezers to address it well.

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