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

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The second chapter of Forest Mage, “Homeward Bound,” starts with Nevare making ready to depart the King’s Cavalla Academy briefly in the interest of attending his elder brother’s wedding. Preparations at the Academy take longer than he had anticipated, as he is obliged to take assignments with him to complete. Once those are concluded, however, Nevare calls on his uncle Sefert, noting some awkwardness in their interactions in the wake of Epiny’s marriage to Spink, about which Nevare ruminates.

Nevare and Sefert confer at some length about Epiny, Nevare going so far as to let his uncle read the letters his cousin has sent him. Sefert expresses some pride in her determination to have her way and her accommodation to her life in Bitter Springs. Nevare resolves to rebuke Epiny for her neglect of her father, and Sefert dispatches letters and gifts with his nephew as he sends him along his way.

Nevare takes ship and passage upstream begins. He contrasts it sharply with the downstream trip he had taken to get to the Academy,* and he remarks upon an unpleasant series of exchanges between himself and a small group of other passengers who make much of mocking him for his increasing girth. One of them ends up falling and suffering a compound fracture after an exchange with Nevare in which he remarks on having “suddenly felt that I was in full control of this encounter” (34); Nevare admits to feeling some guilt afterwards.

After disembarking at Sorton, Nevare travels overland towards home. Along the way, he presses further ahead than had been planned, spending one night amiably at a farmstead and intimately with a young woman there. Musing on the experience, he comes a few days later to an inn with more common prostitutes, one of whom he engages in an unsatisfactory exchange that reminds him of his coming obligations and educates him about sex workers.

Pressing onwards towards home, Nevare comes to the King’s Road and follows it, noting the uneven quality of improvements made along its route. He also passes a labor gang, ruminating upon those imprisoned and those who must attend upon them, considering their situation gravely as he continues to adjust to his own changing shape.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 15 pages in length, approximately 2.09% of the novel–quite brief, honestly, although not the shortest chapter in the novel. (There are four other chapters of equivalent length and one shorter.) As I make the observation, I am finally getting to the point of systematizing some of my length-data, beginning to collect it into some kind of usable form to address one of the more persistent of my scholarly somedays. It will be the work of a few hours, provided I do not get distracted (as happens frequently when I work with Hobb’s writing), to pull together the relevant data from the editions of the novels I have. I still don’t know what to make of it all, but I also still think there’s something there to investigate and interrogate; I still want to see it.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Barry, Bitter Springs, Caleb, Carsina Grenalter, Colonel Rebin, Cordelling, Council of Lords, Daraleen Burvelle, Epiny Kester (née Burvelle), Jankship, Keft Burvelle, King Troven, King’s Cavalla Academy, King’s Road, Midlands, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Purissa Burvelle, Rory Hart, Rosse Burvelle, Sefert Burvelle, Sirlofty, Sorton, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Trist Wissom. As might be expected of a brief chapter spent mostly in travel, there are relatively few indexables.

That the chapter is brief and with few indexables, however, does not mean it does not prompt points of interest. One of them is the reference to cordelling, which I was surprised to learn is a historical practice, and not dissimilar to its description in the present text. In the historical example, barges and keelboats would be pulled upstream by men ashore hauling on ropes;** the practice is attested in the 1830s and predominantly in the United States and Canada,† helping to reinforce Gernia’s mimicry of the nineteenth-century United States. While it is the case that the practice described in the novel (the use of small craft to ferry forward ropes to tie off to trees for hauling-in and thus progression upstream) is more narrowly known as “warping,” it is deployed in a similar enough fashion to allow the term-blending. In addition, the unique term avoids provoking misunderstandings among the likely primary audience of the text; “warping” brings to mind other transportation than a boat on the river, after all.

Another point is a contrast between Nevare’s comment, while engaging intimately with the young woman at the farmstead, that “I was no more prudish than any young man of my years” (37) and what prompts some of my earlier comments in this rereading series. Notable examples are in discussions of Shaman’s Crossing‘s “The Academy” and “Séance.”‡ Despite Nevare’s comment, he is, or at least has been, far more straitlaced than a great many of his comrades, all young men of approximately his own years. His reactions to several of his cohort’s exploits usually ran to scandalization rather than engagement; only in despair at his expectation of discharge, per Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Disgrace,” does he purpose to take part in what he sees as the debauchery to which his contemporaries are prone. While it might otherwise be regarded as something of a watershed moment for him, prompting a break from previous patterns, those same patterns do largely seem to reassert themselves following the events of the Dark Evening and Dust Dance; in effect, Nevare had an off day and returned to his prior self as much as he could as soon as he could. For him to tell himself otherwise in the present chapter is somewhat disingenuous, mitigated only by the likelihood that he, honestly but mistakenly, believes it.

A final point for now: I think I may need to reread Metsäpelto. While earlier parts of the Soldier Son novels have done much to point out prevailing Gernian attitudes towards fatness, the present chapter directs those attitudes sharply towards Nevare, subjecting him to no small discomfort. Given his earlier treatment of the decidedly heavyset Gord Lading, it might be thought that he has some of it coming; I admit to having such an affective reaction, which should come as no surprise, given this. But at the same time (and still affectively), that Nevare acts badly does not excuse others’ bad actions; that he was a jerk to Gord does not mean others should be jerks to him, in turn. However that might be, the attitudes show forth emphatically in the present chapter, making reference to Metsäpelto worth undertaking again.

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* See Shaman’s Crossing, “Journey” and “Old Thares.”

** Per such sources as the Gateway Arch Park Foundation (https://www.archpark.org/visit/points-of-interest/museum-at-the-gateway-arch/jeffersons-vision/keelboat) and Steamboats.org (https://www.steamboats.org/history-education/glossary/cordelling.html).

†Per the OED (https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cordelling_n) and Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordelle).

‡ It occurs to me that I reference “Séance” a lot. I have to wonder if it does not end up being one of the most important chapters in the trilogy. Seems there’s another scholarly someday to consider.

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