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

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An extraction from Revel‘s papers, clearly a directive from Fitz, precedes “A Wolf’s Heart.” The chapter, proper, begins with Bee remarking on her continued visits with Thick and their effects on her daily life. She contrives to give gifts to her new friend until Spark, disguised, takes her aside and advises her against the continued practice. Bee’s public routines continue, although Nettle and Riddle also take her aside to discuss the matter with her in reasonable privacy. When, amid their conversation, Bee lowers her Skill-walls, Nighteyes finds her, having sought her to inform her of Fitz’s situation and to bid Kettricken farewell. Bee relates the information to Nettle and Riddle, and while they are uncertain, Riddle advises proceeding as if Bee’s report is accurate, and they call upon Kettricken.

There is some concern noted as the trio make for Kettricken, the older woman’s condition noted. Bee recalls having met Kettricken previously, and the older woman’s austerity receives remark as she greets her visitors. Nighteyes’s influence on Bee becomes clear quickly, not least due to a stated preference for ginger cakes, and comments from the wolf convince Kettricken of the situation, even as Bee is somewhat embarrassed by other comments not voiced. Fitz’s situation is compared to that of a messenger from the Fool who had reached him, and although Nettle continues to question whether Bee speaks truth, Kettricken purposes to go to Fitz in haste. Nettle attempts to intercede, and Bee finds herself dismissed.

Bee stalks through the castle, making her own plans, and finds herself accompanied by Spark again as the calls upon Lord Chance. When Bee rehearses to him what she has learned, Lord Chance immediately makes his own plans to proceed. After some discussion, Spark bids Bee maintain a charade of obedience until it comes time to depart.

As I started to reread the present chapter, I was taken again by my failure to appropriately index things. I really, really should have been better as I went along about identifying characters in place in particular chapters and passages; had I to do this again, it is one of the things I would add to it. Perhaps as I move into the next phase of the rereading series–which will probably take on the Soldier Son novels rather than the “peripheral” works in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus–I will take up doing so. With more than five hundred entries already made, however, going back and updating / correcting what I’ve done so far seems a daunting task. That does not mean it’s not worth doing, of course, but it’s far easier to start out and stay right than to start wrong and get right later.

More directly to the present chapter: I find a parallel between Bee’s nighttime visits to Thick and Fitz’s to Chade decades prior. Both are conducted clandestinely (to an extent), and both leave the young Farseer in question sleep-deprived and stumbling about. Bee’s are less successful, however, being done outside structures of authority (Chade having undertaken to train Fitz at Shrewd’s direction) and by less adept participants. Too, Buckkeep seems less willing to accept internal espionage under Dutiful than it had been under Shrewd or even Kettricken. But it is not to be expected, despite fantasy literature’s seeming preference for cultural stasis, that a court would not change over time.

Even amid such changes, however, certain points of continuity remain. The lupine appreciation both for ginger-cakes and the sensory pleasures of the now are present in the current chapter as they have been through much of the Realm of the Elderlings novels. Kettricken’s insistence on doing what she feels needs to be done, regardless of the consequences to her, is, as well. So, too, is the Fool’s fine disregard for the demands of others. And, curiously, Spark’s willingness to go along with it all despite her knowledge that it will cost her much to do so speaks to a persistent portrayal of Buckkeep covert agents as all too ready to go rogue…which is something that only occurs to me now, and which probably ought to receive more attention than I have given it.

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