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

---

The final chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Vindication,” opens on Nevare convalescing once again. Dr. Amicas notes Nevare’s peculiar condition to him, and Nevare is aware that he has been relocated from the Academy to his uncle’s estate. He is also soon aware that news is being kept from him as his condition slowly improves, and he ruminates unhelpfully over the events at the end of his first term at the Academy.

Epiny visits Nevare as he convalesces, briefing him on at least some of what has transpired during the ten days while he was unconscious from his illness and exertions. Spink’s condition and partial recovery receive attention, and Nevare finds himself moved to pity for his friend. Epiny notes looking forward to joining Spink’s family, and after Nevare voices misgivings, she reaffirms her decision and asks him if he can say as much for Carsina as Spink can for her. Nevare deflects attention to the fates of those at the Academy, which Spink had anticipated he would want to know. Despite the toll that hearing the information takes on him, Nevare asks for more, learning about reorganization at the Academy and the effects of the plague on the world outside it.

Epiny turns talk to the liminal realm in which Nevare had contested Tree Woman, and she is reminded as she does so that Caulder Stiet has sent Nevare a letter requesting a meeting. She passes the letter along and notes that she had destroyed evidence of Nevare’s discharge from service. Although shocked at the act and her open explanation of the reasoning behind it, Nevare does not contest it.

Nevare continues to recover, albeit slowly, and he manages to confer with Spink about events before the latter is married and departs for home with his new wife. His friend having left, Nevare posts a letter to Carsina and then answers Caulder’s letter. Calling on the boy in his home, he receives an apology for the boy having taken the rock retained from his experience on the plains.* He also receives apologies for the lies told about him and for Caulder’s other misdeeds and abuses. And he is rattled when Caulder asks about the possiblity that Tree Woman might return, growing upset at the thought. He is not more pleased that he will be adopted by his father’s scholar brother.

The meeting between Nevare and Caulder is interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Stiet, who upbraids Nevare for upsetting Caulder. Nevare asks after his Academy record and is told that he remains eligible to attend. He is also told that others complicit in Caulder’s misdeeds are also dead of the plague, and he excuses himself. Caulder calls for a blessing upon him as he goes.

Nevare returns to his uncle’s estate and continues to convalesce. Dr. Amicas continues to tend him and to remark on the oddity of his progress. He receives his orders to return to the Academy, as well, and he consults his father’s journals in the night. There, Sefert finds him, and the two confer, Sefert working to reestablish their relationship. The next day sees him return to the Academy, where he finds Rory promoted and is briefed on how many matters have fallen out. Reporting into his new quarters, he notes the privileges that had been afforded to others and gets to work on his assigned duties. After Nevare reads the mail that has arrived for him, he is joined by Gord at the work.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 27 pages in length, approximately 4.58% of the novel–not quite a return to average. It might have been a nice touch to have the last chapter mimic the first, “Magic and Iron,” in heft; the symmetry would have been somehow satisfying. But such was not to be, it seems. Alas.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Bridge, Bringham Hall, Cader Captain Jaffers, Caleb, Captain Infal, Captain Maw, Car Stiet, Carsina Grenalter, Caulder Stiet, Colonel Rebin, Colonel Stiet, Corporal Dent, Council of Lords, Daraleen Burvelle, Dr. Amicas, Epiny Burvelle, Gord Lading, Hotorn Burvelle, Jaris, Kase Remwar, Keft Burvelle, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Lieutenant Wurtram, Lord Grenalter, Mr. and Mrs. Spinrek Kester, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Ordo, Oron, Otter, Plague, Purissa Burvelle, Rory Hart, Sefert Burvelle, Sergeant Rufet, Sirlofty, Skeltzin Hall, Speck, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Stone, Tiber, Tree Woman, Trist Wissom, Yaril Burvelle. For a final chapter, it seems a lot; given how much of it is a listing of the dead, it likely is not so.

The chapter makes an interesting insinuation about the value of study. In reporting events to Nevare, Epiny makes the comment that “there is talk around the Academy that if it does not take action to demonstrate that Academy-trained officers are superior to those who buy their positions, the existence of the Academy itself may be called into question. It is not a cheap institution to run” (557). Reading perhaps affectively again, I have to wonder about whether there is some backhanded comment about formal education to be found in the comment. In “5000 Words about Myself,” Hobb notes attending but not completing college; she also emphasizes the importance of experience in her writing. Taken together, the remarks open the possibility for such a comment, particularly amid prevailing discourses surrounding higher education and its costs; it may be something to follow further.

There is also an interesting comment made about succession (557-58). The plague inflicted substantial damage on the entrenched nobility in Old Thares, many lords and / or their designated heirs dying from the disease. In no few of those cases, younger sons are being promoted to heirship, and many of those so promoted are the priestly third sons rather than the primogeniture-suggested soldierly second sons. I find myself in mind of comments made in “Manifestations of Medieval Religion in Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Corpus” and in “Unchurched: On the Relative Lack of Religion in Tolkienan-Tradition Fantasy Literature”; I wonder how much might well be applicable to Gernia, despite its removal from the Realm of the Elderlings and its separation from Middle-earth and the more obvious followers of the same.

Caulder’s condition also prompts some interest (566-68). After apologizing to Nevare for his misdeeds regarding him and his cohort, the boy asks about what he witnessed in the liminal realm, growing upset at the thoughts he voices. When Nevare calls for help, he panics more, working to force himself to calm against the threat of being drugged. I have been told by a folklorist, long my friend and hopefully still despite the time that has passed, that many people who report spiritual experiences find themselves subjected to pharmaceutical interventions, not always willingly or happily. Given the parallels between Gernia and the nineteenth-century United States, I have to imagine that such interventions as are available are not at all pleasant; the hint of them given in the present chapter is only a hint, but it is a chilling one.

A small note, and in a line about which I have commented before (see “Classmates,” “Séance,” and “Crossing“): at one point in the present chapter, the Academy’s physician is referred to as “Dr. Amicus,” as opposed to the “Dr. Amicas” that has been the norm since his introduction in “Bessom Gord.” I bring it up not because I am immune to such typographical mistakes–far from it–and not because I expect paid copyeditors never to err–they, too, are human. But it is of interest, nonetheless; as a medievalist, I’ve been taught that such errors are ways to trace textual legacies. I do not have the apparatus to trace transmission for the work at this point, and the presence both of mass-production and resale markets frustrate what might otherwise be for such study, but I do wonder how others will respond to Hobb’s work as she acknowledges responding to Tolkien’s (albeit with divergences therefrom noted from time to time to time).

A smaller note: the present chapter reveals Rory’s surname of Hart. As with previous such revelations, I have updated my indexing to account for the new information.

A longer note: the fates of Nevare’s cohort (and others at the Academy) certainly deserve some attention. Nevare himself survives, if with some difficulty and decided changes to his appearance. Of his classmates, Nate, Oron, and Caleb die and are removed from further consideration outside memory. Trist and Spink survive, although similarly diminished; since they are, earlier in the novel, set up as foils for one another, it seems fitting that they share a similar outcome. (It must be noted that, as Spink had gotten the better of Trist via unconventional means in their earlier conflict, he seems to have gotten the better outcome between himself and Trist, and with the decidedly unconventional Epiny.) Gord seems to have fared as well as could be expected, returning to the Academy further along than he left it and unimpaired; again, his absence seems to have served him well. Rory seems to have fared best of Nevare’s cohort, being promoted.

Of Nevare’s instructors, both of his most challenging, Infal and Maw, succumbed to the plague, as did his unexpected ally, Sergeant Rufet; the passing of mentor figures is usually a trigger for character growth. That the deaths happen by disease and mostly out of narrative view,** as well as at the end of the novel, indicates that 1) the typical progress for Nevare’s growth is likely to be frustrated and 2) it will definitely happen in the novels to which I will turn my attentions next. The parallel of the two captains, however, seems to carry some significance. I don’t know what that is, at the moment, except for another scholarly someday towards which I can hope.

---

* See “The Return” and “Tiber.”

** Nevare does see Rufet in the liminal realm dominated by Tree Woman, collapsing into a puddle Nevare’s alternative self consumed. But Nevare does not see the man die, as such.

Novels yet remain to reread and write up, but that’s not all I can do. Get your writing in line; fill out the form below!

Or you can send your support along directly!