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

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After a journal entry from Bee, “Unsafe Harbor” begins with Fitz grousing about sleeping poorly in advance of major tasks facing him. He rises from sleep aboard the Paragon and makes his way to the bow of the ship, considering Clerres. His reverie is interrupted by news through the Skill that he is a grandfather, Nettle having been delivered of her child, a daughter she has allowed to be named Hope. Fitz delights in the news, and he delights further in the news that Dutiful and Elliania are now expecting, their child to be named Promise. Upbuoyed by the prospect of his family continuing, Fitz returns his attentions to his task at hand, in which he is exhorted by his king.

Fitz breaks off Skill contact when he feels the touch of Vindeliar’s magic upon his mind, and he hides as he can; the Paragon rejects the touch from Clerres. Fitz is aware through the Skill of how Vindeliar is being questioned about the deaths of Symphe and Dwalia, as well as how Vindeliar lashes out through the magic at those around him. Fitz struggles to disentangle himself from Vindeliar’s mind, roused to awareness in his own body by Brashen, bidding him bestir himself.

Brashen relates that Amber has absconded from the Paragon, and Fitz realizes he was drugged. He finds Spark similarly befuddled, and the two confer about Amber’s likely progress. Fitz doses himself with carris seed rather than cindin, and the two realize that one of the tubes of Silver that had been given Fitz has been taken.

Given the assertion of two new Farseer names, I am reminded in the present chapter of Hobb’s predilection in the Realm of the Elderlings novels towards emblematic names (most recently discussed here). The names in question seem uncommonly optimistic for the Farseers; Hope is something of a contrast to Nettle or Bee, and while Promise is not necessarily at odds with Integrity or Prosper (or Dutiful, for that matter) denotatively, the connotations of the latter three names are somehow sterner and more rigid. They certainly contrast with Chivarly, Verity, and Regal, and with Shrewd before, but such sequels as are hoped for by many of Hobb’s readers may well show how clear but uncommon associations of those names can be brought forward. Shrewd’s shrewdness, Chivalry’s chivalry, Verity’s verity, Regal’s regality, and Dutiful’s dutifulness can all be read in some ways as back-handed commentaries on the ostensible virtues the names represent (perhaps another scholarly someday for me), and it does not stretch credulity to think that integrity, prosperity, and promise can be similarly regarded. All that lies in a future that may be hoped for but may not come to pass, however.

The present chapter also presents a certain irony, again, of Fitz being drugged (and from his own stores, no less). It might well be thought that someone who had drugged his own companions to rebuke and had not long ago been drugged by another of them, to strong effect, would be wary of it happening again. That Fitz was so trusting…I’m not sure how to read it, honestly. On one hand, he knows and should be expected to know that Amber is problematically fixated on things; on the other, Fitz is himself publicly fixated on things and has fatigue and grief to contend with, to boot. The oversight makes some sense…but not as much as it might. At least as I read the chapter this time.

I also note, as a minor point, the extended list of effects of cindin use in the chapter. I’ve commented before on the substance and the possibility of it paralleling cocaine. The comment in the present chapter that one of the effects of cindin use is increased libido seemed to confirm it for me to some extent; I recall claims about cocaine driving sexual behaviors from my work alongside substance use disorder treatment, and a short search of formal research finds at least one study appearing to confirm the anecdotal evidence. That study–“Cocaine Administration Dose-Dependently Increases Sexual Desire and Decreases Condom Use Likelihood: The Role of Delay and Probability Discounting in Connecting Cocaine with HIV” by Johnson et al. and appearing in Psychopharmacology 234 (599-612)–might possibly have been available to Hobb during composition of the present chapter; an electronic version appears to have been in evidence in 2016, although formal publication did not occur until 2017. Even if Hobb lacked access to it, though, the fact of it…it amuses me.

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