Read the previous entry in the series here.
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After in-milieu commentary about selecting Skill-couriers and their practices, “An Elderling Welcome” begins with Fitz making a decent show of diplomacy and learning that he is, indeed, confronted by Rapskal. Rapskal introduces himself brusquely as the local military leader and begrudgingly agrees to conduct Fitz, Lant, and Perseverance to Kelsingra’s rulership. Fitz finds himself somewhat affected by the prevalence of Skill-stone in the construction of Kelsingra, and he contrasts what he sees in his present situation with what he had seen in the city previously, as well as what he knows of Dutiful’s impressions of Kelsingra.

At length, Rapskal leaves Fitz, Lant, and Perseverance to confer with his leaders, assigning a subordinate to see to them. Fitz presents himself diplomatically once again, and he and his companions are provided refreshment. After they attend to themselves, Fitz and his companions confer about next steps to take, and Fitz soon falls asleep.

Rest is interrupted by the arrival of Reyn Khuprus, who greets Fitz warmly and receives introductions as he has Fitz, Lant, and Perseverance follow him to a kinder reception than Rapskal had given them. Malta joins them there, apologizing for Rapskal’s behavior and welcoming them. She introduces Amber, attended by Spark, and Fitz finds himself taken up into the Fool’s performance as Reyn and Malta invite the rest to sit and eat with them. Fitz finds himself somewhat taken aback by the frank discussion of social structures at work in Kelsingra. Questions about Phron and their answers elicit sympathy from Fitz, and as Amber continues the conversation, Fitz is able to fill in more of his knowledge of his old friend.

After dinner, Phron joins his parents and their guests, and introductions are made. When Fitz offers to shake his hand, he is taken by the Wit and the Skill, and something like a Skill-healing is effected, although without intent. Phron is greatly eased, and Malta marvels at what has occurred. Fitz is shaken by the event, but he manages to explain at least some of the changes his magic has effected in Phron.

Amber redirects conversation, relating a version of her exploits since departing Bingtown and its environs. Malta asks for healing for the other Elderling children whose changes are proving difficult or dangerous, and Amber attempts to deflect conversation again by glossing the depredations Ellik and his followers wrought on Fitz’s home, eliciting a strong response. Talk returns to the Elderling children, and Fitz, noting caveats, agrees to assist them.

With gratitude, Reyn, Malta, and Phron retire, leaving Fitz, the Fool, Lant, Spark, and Perseverance to confer. Arrangements are made for the evening, and Fitz is convinced to accept a sleeping draught for which the Fool vouches.

There are several things that attract attention in the present chapter. That the Fool would present as Amber in a company composed of Traders is not to be wondered at, perhaps, nor is the ease with which Fitz fits himself to the presentation (including shifting his pronoun references to the Fool as Amber); he has had practice at it, after all. That Lant and even Perseverance adapt so readily is more noteworthy, although Fitz notes “There was something of Chade in Lant after all” (714), which comes off to my eyes as begrudgingly respectful of the younger man. In all, it is relatively impressive that the Fool’s presentation, and Amber’s narrative, would carry off so well as they do in the chapter. The writer being Hobb, however, good fortune for the protagonist is not to be trusted, especially with what the second volume of a trilogy is typically supposed to do: put the protagonist/s in a bad situation, from which they emerge in the final volume.

Comments about the social structures at work in Kelsingra also attract attention. Reyn comments to his guests that “Even after years of it, king and queen sit a bit oddly with us” [emphasis in original], adding that “After years of the Satrapy extorting money from the Bingtown Traders, we who were raised as Traders still wonder why anyone would think we preferred a monarchy. But it’s a convenient way for the outside world to see us” (714-15). I have opined, and at some length, about the social structure of the Traders, seeing in them echoes of the nascent United States (if with better reactions to some pernicious social problems), which Reyn’s commentary supports. There does still seem to be something of hereditary rule in force in Kelsingra, however; it must be recalled that the Khuprus Traders are outrageously wealthy (note this, this, and this, among others), and that wealth is, by the time of Reyn and Malta, largely inherited. While Reyn and Malta are both capable people, they had the luxury–Reyn more than Malta, admittedly–of developing their capabilities free from the brute-force concerns of “Do I have enough to eat not to die today?” that typify the lives of many of the other residents of Kelsingra before their emigration. That is to say, they began their lives with advantages that they have parlayed into prominence in Kelsingra; they had the opportunities to be first with dragons because their preexisting socioeconomic status afforded them as much. It is not entirely meritocracy at work–although, Traders being Traders, it is conceivable that the Khupruses would be shunted aside in favor of “better” merchants. It bears thought, another scholarly someday.

I note, too, the particularly Tolkienian resonance (yes, I know) of Fitz’s not-entirely-voluntary healing of Phron. I have written before (here) about the ways in which Fitz enacts the warrior-hero trope common to fantasy literature; he moves away from, but is still substantially grounded in, the Tolkienian iteration of the trope, or I understood him as being so at that point in his existence and in my own. (We ought to revise ideas and opinions as more information becomes available. It’s something with which many people struggle, clearly and unhelpfully.) Even with what I have come to believe since, I acknowledge that there is still enough to sustain such a reading, to look at Hobb as existing within the Tolkienian literary tradition although she is clearly drawing from other sources than Tolkien–or than just Tolkien, especially since she acknowledges her debt to him. In the present chapter, in addition to the martial and diplomatic aspects of the warrior-hero Fitz does not seldom deploy, there is something of “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer” (LotR V, ch. 8) about his interaction with Phron. While it is the case that Fitz has participated in Skill-healing previously, and to miraculous effect (something that edges towards Christ-referencing, as I think on it again), the present chapter, where the healing happens, and not entirely with Fitz’s approval, seems more…otherworldly than most of the examples in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. It’s yet another thing that bears some thought and consideration, yet another scholarly someday I hope I live long enough to address.

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

A brief excerpt from Bee’s dream journal precedes “Kelsingra.” The chapter opens with Fitz and the rest taking such sleep as they can. When Fitz is woken by Perseverance coming off of watch, his Wit-sense responds to the presence of a larger predator that, upon investigation, proves to be a large bear showing the initial decrepitude of age. Fitz directs his companions to minimize the danger to them and reaches out to the bear through the Wit, but the bear attacks. The Fool and Spark flee through a Skill-pillar, while the rest scramble up trees and look on in anguish as the animal destroys their provisions.

After the bear leaves, Fitz, Lant, and Perseverance take stock of what remains and reestablish their camp as best they can. That done, they prepare to follow the Fool and Spark, Fitz speaking plainly of what might befall them. Steeling themselves, they plunge through the Skill-pillar, emerging to find the Fool and Spark before them and angry dragons in evidence. As Fitz directs Lant and Perseverance to take what little shelter there is, the dragons speak to him. As Elderlings approach, Fitz presents himself formally, beginning to defuse the situation as the arrival of additional forces makes violence an unpleasant option. Arrangements are made to conduct Fitz and his group to Kelsingra’s leadership.

The present chapter is not the first part of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus to bear the name; it follows the fourth chapter of City of Dragons in that. Correspondences between the two chapters are limited, although there are some to be found. I’m not sure that there is enough to make any claims about parallel functions; I rather doubt that there is, although I’ve not done the kind of close reading of the two texts against each other that would reveal whether or not there is in any real sense. It’s another scholarly someday, I suppose, if perhaps a winter day due to the brevity I would expect from such a thing.

There are a couple of other things of interest to me as I reread the chapter. One of them is the reinforcement of the idea, going back to the Tawny Man novels, that the dragons communicate with each other and with their Elderlings through the Skill. The implication that the Skill is some lingering trace of Elderling heritage seems clear to me, although I tend to think that it is something that has grown up as the Realm of the Elderlings corpus has extended rather than something that was planned at the outset–but I’ve made comments about that kind of thing before. And it’s not something with which I find fault; people change, and so the work that they do will also change. Nor yet is it necessary for something to be perfect before it gets going.

The other that stood out was the dragons’ inability to find the Fool, the Elderling blanket serving to conceal him from their sight (although not their sense of smell). The implications of that that emerge for me are significant. That there is a limit to the dragons’ abilities is of import; they are often shown as being super-predators and, while some fight against them seems possible, odds are never good for those who oppose them. That the Elderlings of old seem to have produced materials that thwart draconic senses is also suggestive, prompting questions of factionalism and rebellion among them. There’s not enough in the text, certainly at this point, to do more than make a vague suggestion, and I don’t expect that there is some sort of parallel to The Silmarillion waiting in Hobb’s notes for some future editor or scholar to find that would elaborate on it, but what is fantasy for if not for prompting the imagination?

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

After a letter from Malta and Reyn that politely but tersely addresses what appear to be ongoing concerns between Kelsingra and the Six Duchies, “Dragons” begins with Fitz quizzing Lant and Perseverance about the passage of the Fool and Spark. They have no further answers for him, so they eat, and Fitz notes the improvements to the campsite the pair have made in his absence.

Perseverance sits awake with Fitz for the first watch of the night and asks about the way the Fool and Spark are dressed, meeting Fitz’s answers sullenly. Later, after watches are traded, Fitz finds himself wakeful and joins Lant at watch. Lant asks his own questions of Fitz and is answered, although he is less sullen than he is whining in his receipt of those answers.

Further conversation is interrupted by the return of the Fool and Spark through the Skill-pillar. Spark is badly affected, and the Fool sports Silvered skin. Fitz directs Lant and Perseverance to attend to Spark and directs his attentions to the Fool. Managing to secure a glove over the Fool’s Skilled hand, Fitz guides his friend to where Perseverance and Lant attend Spark, and there asks for a report of events. The Fool lays out his reasoning and proceedings, and Fitz notes the uncertainty of Spark’s recovery.

At the Fool’s suggestion, Fitz looks for the camping equipment they had had together in that place after the Fool had died. With assistance from Lant, he finds it, and camp is reassembled. With that done, the Fool resumes his narrative, if with some prompting. Fitz learns that the Fool had gone to Kelsingra, navigating from echoes of draconic memories he had imbibed, finding the Skill well and touching what of the Silver he could. Doing so provoked the wrath of the Elderlings and the dragons, and the Fool and Spark fled to a ruined chamber, escaping from it only narrowly and returning to where they now sit.

The early portion of the present chapter puts Perseverance in a position not unlike that Fitz occupies with the Fool years before. Indeed, some of the boy’s phrasing in the current moment echoes that of the earlier man quite closely, and I am reminded again both of the fraughtness of gender performativity in the Realm of the Elderlings and of the need to update the Fedwren Project more than I have done. There are several scholars’ works already noted in it that speak to the issue; I have to wonder, I have to hope, that there is more current work that takes in the more recent entries in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. It certainly presents itself plainly enough, not through what may or may not be a metaphorical treatment as some other things might or might not have been–but, as with several things, I am not the person to carry out a treatment of the matter, having neither the situated nor the invented ethos to address it.

Not entirely related: I appreciate the references to Rapskal and Heeby made in the Fool’s narrative. They are not named, and sensibly; despite who the Fool does know under the guise of Lady Amber, he would not have any reason to know, or even to know of, Rapskal and the dragon he serves. But it is entirely in keeping with their characters that they would jealously guard the Silver and move to violence before any other concern, and it is suggestive that some uses of the Skill-stone still seem to elude the Elderlings of Kelsingra at this point in the overall narrative. I find myself wondering if and how that will develop if and as Hobb presses ahead with her series (or if there is a Brian to Hobb’s Frank waiting somewhere, although a Christopher to her JRR might well be preferable).

I am somewhat struck with Fitz’s handling of matters in the present chapter. He seems to have a fairly decent handle on himself, which is…uncommon for him, even with his years and experience. So much said, it’s a good thing to see; how long it will last, though, I don’t recall. I guess I need to do more rereading…

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