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

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The second chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Harbinger,” begins four years after the first chapter, with Nevare musing on the first news of plague. He notes of the day that he had been training under Sergeant Duril with his horse, Sirlofty, both of whom are described. Some of Duril’s youthful exploits are noted and given context, as is his familial situation, and socioreligious norms are expressed.

Duril interrupts Nevare’s horse drills with a pursuit exercise, during which Nevare attempts to track his tutoring sergeant while ruminating on the terrain and its perils. He is surprised to be struck by a rock sling-cast by Duril, who admonishes his pupil to remain cognizant of his surroundings even while tracking intently. Duril instructs Nevare to take up the rock that has struck him, and Nevare reflects on their practice of having him do so.

Exercises concluded, Nevare and Duril return to the family holdings. Their history is glossed, as is their arrangement. As Nevare and Duril return, they find present a chain-gang, criminals condemned to hard labor and relocation in lieu of harsher punishment. Nevare muses on pity for them, which Duril argues against until interrupted by the arrival of the messenger. The royal messaging service is glossed, and the unusual haste of the rider receives remark.

Afterwards, Duril delivers Nevare to his academic tutor, Rissle, from whom he accepts an afternoon of lessons. Following that, Nevare dresses for dinner and joins his family. The various members, as well as those in household service, are described, and conversation regarding the disposition of the family is undertaken. Reports of the children’s activities are made, following birth order, leaving Nevare third. He makes his report and asks after the messenger and his errand, receiving little information from his father in return. Nevare’s older brother, Rosse, asks further and receives more information. Nevare’s mother attempts to redirect conversation, succeeding only temporarily.

As months pass, more news of the plague spreads, and Nevare muses on what he hears and knows. The Gernian project to put a King’s Road to the Barrier Mountains, and its opposition by a people Nevare refers to as the Specks in what is clearly a derogatory term, are noted. The distance from his own life of such concerns receives comment from Nevare, although he notes an ongoing fascination with the topic.

Later, Nevare overhears a conversation among his father, Rosse, and a Scout Vaxton, who had served with Nevare’s father. The social situation of Scouts is noted, and Nevare is taken aback to hear his father overtly angry as he confers with Rosse about the putative sexual immorality of the Specks and their status as “a lesser race” (43). Nevare’s father comments aspersively on the eastern commander, a General Brodg, and bemoans the current state of affairs in the military. He also inveighs heavily against the Specks in general among a rambling conversation about changes and putative progress.

Nevare, after hearing his sisters called inside, makes his own way back inside. The next day sees him ask Duril oblique questions about what his father had said, to which the sergeant responds with remarks that soldiers reflect the qualities of their commanders.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs another 24 pages in length. As with the first chapter, it is approximately 4.16% of the total main text and thus roughly proportional (rounding happens) to the full text. A cursory glance at the table of contents in the front matter indicates that not all chapters are thus proportional; as I reread, I’ll look to see if there is anything signified in the differences.

Also, again for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Bejawi, Burvelle Landing, Canby, Cavalla, Chafer, Cotton, Elisi Burvelle, General Brodg, General Prode, Gettys, Jankship, Kassler, Keft Burvelle, Kenzir bark, Kidona, King Troven, Lady Wrohe, Midlands, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Plague, Rissle “Quills-and-Ink,” Rosse Burvelle, Scout, Scout Vaxton, Sergeant Duril, Shir, Sirlofty, Soudana River, Specks, Spond, Swick Reaches, Tefa River, Thares, Vanze Burvelle, Widevale, Writ, Yaril Burvelle. There are a lot of names in the chapter.

I note that the present chapter not only makes reference to religion, invoking a holy text–the Writ–but quoting from it: “Let each son rise up and follow the way of his father,” it says, and “Of those who bend the knee only to the king, let hem have sons in plenitude. The first for an heir, the second to wear the sword, the third to serve as a priest, the fourth to labor for beauty’s sake, the fifth to gather knowledge” (27-28). Nevare’s mother makes much of what the faith calls proper, and Nevare’s father gives information about his religion that situates it alongside demonstrable magics at work (while also making it overtly colonizing). This is another point of distinction from the Tolkienian tradition, in which (as I’ve remarked) religion is typically not nearly so prominent a force as in fantasy literature’s medieval(ist) antecedents, although I acknowledge the degree to which Hobb’s other writings engage such constructions. She does not develop practice in the Realm of the Elderlings to quite the same extent that even two chapters of the Soldier Son novels have, however, so that the increased development of religious doctrine in the present novel pulls it further away from its own antecedents, both by the author and in the genre.

I note, too, that the present chapter, being still early in the series, could be expected to offer much explication and does offer much explication. Aside from laying out religious structures (including faith-mandated days of rest), it points out quite a bit of social structure, asserting a markedly class-based system that both locks people into prescribed roles by birth (contrary to the stories folks in the United States like to tell about themselves) and addresses the issue of profligation of nobles; sons are expected follow their fathers’ careers, except for nobles, from whom spring other careers as well as their own. The son of a noble is only a noble if he is the first one; others have no such expectations. There are ways in which this parallels much imaginative work, as well as earlier real-world practice; stories abound, within fiction and without, of second sons striking out to seek their fortunes, often in military service, because they do not expect to inherit (and, I’d point out, Hobb’s Verity comments at one point that he was born to be second, the heavy hand to support his brother’s rule). But in such cases, the second son of a noble is a noble–not so in Hobb’s Gernia, which is an interesting point of distinction.

Also, as mentioned above, the present chapter decidedly situates Gernia, or at least the part of it where the Burvelles live, as a markedly colonialist state. Its laws and religion combine to drive overt settlement by Gernian populations at the expense of indigenous people, who are themselves either pushed from their ancestral lands or made a subjugate, client, even subaltern folk. Their native ways are denigrated and destroyed, with such vestiges as remain condemned as “savagery” in need of “civilizing” by the conquering Gernian people, spearheaded by compulsory generational military service and the exploitation of prisoner labor. Some indigenous populations are regarded along the lines of the “noble savage” trope that pervades much of the mythos of the United States, while others are described in flatly racist terms (some of which center on skin coloring), and I find myself again in mind of Helen Young’s article on the series.

Gernia additionally comes off as sexist. I note that, while Nevare’s father, brothers, and sisters are named, his mother is not yet. I note, too, that much is made, both in the present chapter as in the previous, about what is and is not proper for young women of any reputation to do and not do, to hear and not hear. And I note that the Writ, at least as yet revealed, does not speak to what daughters, of nobles or otherwise, are to do, although it comes clear from context that they are to try to marry well (although “well” is left somewhat ambiguous a term). It seems Kyle Haven of Bingtown would be apt to find himself at ease in Gernia, and that is not a compliment.

All that said, I do not fall into the trap of thinking that what an author writes necessarily reflects that author’s belief. It does reflect the author’s understanding of the world, and I, living where I do and where I have, can look around and see and hear much of such as shows in Gernia–and I don’t have to work hard to do it, either. I also try not to fall into the trap of thinking that everything I read ought to agree with what I believe. There’s a lot I don’t know, for one, and for what I do know, there’s some value in sometimes confronting what disagrees with it. In a story, too, having something wrong means there’s an opportunity to put something right.

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