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

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Following another excerpt from Bee’s dream journals, “Tintaglia” begins with Reyn calling on Fitz and the Fool in their chambers to note the arrival of the Tarman. Details of the liveship’s berthing are reported, and Reyn excuses himself. Afterwards, the Fool rebukes Fitz for having gotten him drunk and prepares to meet with Thymara as Amber.

Later, Fitz and Lant go out into Kelsingra, Fitz thinking to revisit the map-tower familiar to him, having lost the map Chade had given him in the bear attack. Their progress is interrupted by the reported arrival of Tintaglia, whom Fitz and Land discuss as they move to join the throng of those greeting her return. They see Reyn, Malta, and Phron greet the dragon, and they witness Tintaglia discover the changes that have been wrought in Phron, to her annoyance. Fitz answers her challenge, and he knows he faces death before the arrival of Heeby offers a distraction.

The dragons’ conference somewhat mollifies Tintaglia, who decides not to kill Fitz. Fitz presses for information, and it is revealed that Tintaglia also lacks knowledge of Clerres. She purposes to seek it after she is tended and issues directives to that effect, sending the Elderlings scrambling to fulfill them. Fitz, shaken, considers what he has learned and retires, Lant and the Fool tending him. They confer about events, and the Fool makes himself available to answer questions about Clerres that Fitz puts to him, laying out more of its structures and development. Prilkop’s experience in Clerres and the Fool’s are contrasted.

Over the next days, the Fool lays out more of his knowledge of Clerres to Fitz. Details of its physical layout emerge, as does more about its organization. The effort of recall exhausts the Fool, however.

Fitz sorts and considers what he learns from the Fool about their objective. He takes stock of his supplies and other resources, advised about the latter by Spark. Lant and Perseverance include themselves into Fitz’s planning, and the Fool seemingly cannot refuse a bitter joke.

The present chapter reads to me, at least partly, as an attempt to paper over some plot-holes introduced not long before. The antagonism between the Servants and the dragons does seem like something that other dragons than Heeby would remember, yet even Tintaglia, who did not suffer the over-long time as a serpent that affected so many dragons so badly, does not have memory of it. (Icefyre could be expected to, as seems to be the case in the chapter.) Comments about dragons’ memories in the present chapter seem calculated to account for the gaps in knowledge, offering what seems a reasonably neat explanation of why such a thing hadn’t come up before. This is in a Watsonian sense; the Doylist is, of course, that Hobb is making it up as she goes along. It’s a work of fiction, though, so so much is to be expected; there’s really no other way to go about doing it. But I appreciate that such an effort is made.

Relatedly, I appreciate that the present chapter makes so many explicit references to earlier events. One of the things that I have tried to do throughout my rereading is point out where a text refers to its predecessors; it’s something of a habit from my days trying to be a scholar that I try to cite sources and trace ideas, even if it’s not something I necessarily do in a formal and rigorous way most of the time at this point in my life. (Witness this, for example.) Admittedly, the earlier parts of the Realm of the Elderlings novels cannot do as much of this as later parts; the simple fact of having more to refer to makes reference easier to carry out. But even later parts are not always good about such things. This is not itself bad; a new work does need to have new things to say and new ways to say them. Still, the idea of multiple novels and series working within a common milieu suggests that there ought, at times, to be acknowledgments of the common threads moving among them. That the present chapter makes such acknowledgments, and that it also attempts to address how the new ideas it contains can fit in with what has already been established and asserted, reads to me as a good thing.

It’s not the only thing that does, but it certainly does.

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