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Following an excerpt from Bee’s dream journal, “Loose Ends” opens with Fitz leafing through the same in a sleepless night, rehearsing some of his earlier follies (notably this and perhaps this) and resolving to proceed, but with more deliberation. That deliberation pushes him to return to Withywoods to settle matters there, something to which the Fool objects angrily.

Fitz takes Perseverance with him when he goes, and the guard company commanded by Foxglove accompanies the pair. Their progress towards Withywoods is glossed and uneventful, and Fitz is welcomed back with reports of events there since his last visit. He secures what had been Bee’s room and directs that Shine’s and Lant’s belongings be forwarded to Buckkeep. And in the evening, he considers his course of action, finding himself unexpectedly in communion with Nettle through the Skill.

The next morning sees Fitz begin to learn from the household staff more of how events had fallen out since he was last on site. He learns also, to his surprise, that his treatment of Ellik and other Chalcedean raiders has been made known to the folk of Withywoods by way of Perseverance, who reports sadly on the state of his own mother. Foxglove is also apprised of matters and apologizes for her earlier cool treatment of Fitz.

Fitz spends more time putting things in order, his efforts glossed until he comes to sorting his personal effects. Those receive more detail, few as they are, as he arranges some and seeks out others that he knows Bee had secreted away. As he goes about that work, Fitz is overwhelmed by grief, prompting another Skill-sending from Nettle. As they confer, she notes that the Fool has gone missing, and Fitz offers some recommendation of where he might be found. Too, the two commiserate, after which Fitz outfits himself for the work he means to do.

Outfitted, Fitz reads Bee’s writings, finding himself often moved to tears by them. The next morning, Fitz takes a few things to Bee’s hiding place and locks it before taking his leave.

My background of media consumption shows itself, certainly, in one reaction I had to rereading the chapter. As Fitz equips himself for his trip to Clerres, I was reminded of nothing so much as Batman. The belt full of pouches of weapons and other accoutrements, weapons secreted in other places on his person, and the like all seem very much in the line of Bruce Wayne and his clandestine exploits–although, of course, Fitz is not so skilled as the Dark Knight, and he has little compunction about killing even on a good day.

That little bit of old nerdery aside, it is good to see that Fitz can, occasionally, learn from his mistakes. Although he certainly has the impulse to charge ahead (and, as I read affectively, I find it understandable; I think I would want to charge off after someone who took my daughter, and I am, well, me), he manages to restrain it in favor of making more careful preparations and undertaking careful pursuit. Admittedly, the lesson comes late for him; he reflects on earlier follies, and the fact that they are plural is an indication that he is not always the best of students. His more recent expedition, even in the present volume, suggests as much more forcefully. But the lesson seems, at last, to have taken, and that is good to see.

I don’t know that the present chapter offers a whole lot in terms of scholarly interest; it seems a narrative need, an accounting-for of some of the titular loose ends rather than any thing unto itself. There are a few offhanded comments about religion to be found, and those might be of some interest if there is some revisitation of an earlier project of mine. I’m not averse to doing such a thing, as might well be noted, and I’ve as much as declared my intent to extend at least one earlier project already; I might as well do another one, too, adding to my scholarly somedays. Too, there might be something to do regarding torture–which the present chapter references without presenting directly–as that is a recurring theme in Hobb’s work (not only in the Realm of the Elderlings novels; the Soldier Son series, which I will address at some point, has its share of such, as do some of the “peripheral” works under Hobb’s name). I’m not sure if and how I might address that, though, but there may well be time for me to consider it…and if I don’t, I’m sure someone else will.

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A commentary on how Nettle revitalized the corps of Skill-users in the Six Duchies precedes “Prince FitzChivalry.” The chapter, proper, begins with Fitz returning to his chambers briefly before making himself presentable for an audience with King Dutiful. As he does so and awaits the audience, Fitz muses on the presence of servants and their ministrations.

Fitz is admitted to the king’s presence, the chamber described as he enters it. Dutiful first thanks Fitz for recovering Shine. He then reminds Fitz that he occupies a place in the government of the Six Duchies, one that requires the king be able to trust him to act as a prince of the realm, and he bids him report, in full, his actions. Fitz does so “and left out no detail” (576). In response, Dutiful relives Fitz of his assassin’s duties, which takes Fitz aback.

Being dismissed from his audience with the king, Fitz stalks out without clear purpose, only to be found by Spark and informed that he has been assigned new quarters, the Heliotrope apartments where Patience had formerly dwelt with Lacey. Spark adds that she and the Fool have also been re-quartered, the Fool returning to the rooms he had had as Lord Golden.

From that meeting, Fitz calls upon Chade, finding him in his own chambers and attended by Shine. Fitz is again taken aback, seeing the decline that has afflicted Chade in seeming haste. Conversation between Shine and Fitz is tense, but it soon turns to Shine’s latent talent with the Skill. Chade unlocks that talent, prompting outside intrusion, Nettle soon arriving to take matters in hand and sending Fitz on his way.

Reluctantly acceding to the Skillmistress’s command, Fitz leaves Chade’s rooms and seeks out his own new ones, inspecting them thoroughly and carefully. Finding little to keep him there, Fitz seeks out the Fool, who is upset about the relocation and the interference from Rosemary. Fitz is able to offer the Fool some comfort, and he makes some recommendations for how the Fool might proceed. Beginning to do so, Fitz recalls some of Patience’s wisdom, although he is jarred by how he is enacting it.

Time passes, and Fitz begins to plan how he will proceed, and he takes steps to enact his plans. Most of them take the form of separating himself from his attachments, ensuring that he is not needed where he is so that he can go to where he is needed. How the others in Buckkeep fare is noted, and plans are made to question Shine further about events. Nettle and a reluctant Kettricken assist with the questioning, and useful information is uncovered. Lant is less helpful, but Riddle manages to be of help with him.

At length, Fitz begins to recover his Skill, training it back up as he continues to retrain his body. More of his affairs are settled and those in his care committed to other caretakers. The Fool adopts another new guise, Mage Gray from Satine. Dutiful takes some pleasure in Fitz’s evident integration into the life of the nobility, and, over a conversation between them and Chade, the latter reveals some unexpected insights.

The present chapter prompts another of my many affective readings. Dutiful’s decree removing Fitz from assassin’s work–not only reassigning him, but forbidding him from them–is a career-adjustment that is not unfamiliar to me. I’ve written about it a few times, I think (this is an easy example; it links back to others, as well). There is quite a bit of unease involved in leaving behind a career for which one has trained for decades, even when that career has not been entirely or even largely fulfilling; there’s a lot of identity constructed in such training and execution (yes, the pun is intentional), and so there is a lot of existential uncertainty involved in leaving it behind. There’s more in being forced out of it, and it remains an uneasy adjustment even years later, because it’s not always if ever possible to leave such a background behind entirely (as I’ve noted, too, here and likely elsewhere). Once again, then, I find myself feeling for Fitz, which I still know is unacceptably sentimental but which I persist in doing, regardless.

The present chapter also offers an interesting little bit of humor, the backhanded kind of thing I’ve commented on before and continue to enjoy finding (again? I hope so). The chambers Fitz is given, the ones formerly inhabited by Patience when she had come to Buckkeep after Chivalry’s death, carry the name of a plant that seems to have originated in the Americas (per Luebert, Hilger, and Weigend, here; I do still try to work from good information, you know) and that is toxic to people and animals (per NC State University, here), with the addition of being more dangerous when not in blue than when in it (per New South Wales, here, despite comments about nativeness). Even if it is a weak support, it remains a support for some ideas that I have had. Too, Fitz has not always been healthy to be around, although he seems to be deadlier when he is not wearing Buck blue than when he is. Again, it’s a backhanded thing, but that there is something there to look at is a pleasure.

On the topic of naming: I remarked some years back that Fitz’s very name indicates fundamental failures in the chivalric ideal. In some ways, the present chapter motions towards Dutiful’s recognition of such; he comments, among other things, that the Farseers have failed Fitz in assigning him to the assassin’s duties in which he had been trained by royal command. (To his credit, he also includes Chade among those who have been wronged.) But even that is a failure on Dutiful’s part and a gesture towards the failures of chivalry; for one, the king does not deny the need for such services, glossing over the fact of his retention of Rosemary in the assassin’s role, and, for another, the litany of services that Dutiful recites to Fitz as things for which he is grateful are only possible because Fitz was trained as he was and had his familial connections. It is a peculiar myopia, and while it may well be in keeping with Dutiful’s own name that he feels and acts out of an obligation to his older cousin, it is perhaps not so much in it that he would remove from particular activity someone who has been a resource in that particular activity. To my eye, Fitz continues to be an emblem of the failures of the chivalric ideal, and I think a fuller explication of that will be another scholarly someday for me.

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Following a commentary on a semi-judicial proceeding, “Family” begins with Fitz and company returning to Buckkeep Castle, their progress to that point described. Fitz does not take the journey well, and he does not receive the news of a royal summons well when it reaches him. He takes some time to respond to it and appear as bidden.

When Fitz reports as ordered, he finds the Farseers in array awaiting him, as well as Hap Gladheart and the children of Burrich and Molly, their arrangement described. Soon after, the Fool is led in, as well, and Dutiful calls proceedings to order. The announcement is made to the family that Bee is lost, and Fitz is called upon to report how events have come to that pass. He does, in detail, falling to his knees as he does so. After, the family begins to grieve, and Fitz is surprised to find his kin reaching out to comfort him amid his grief, feeling himself to blame for all that has befallen.

After a too-brief time of offering up shorn hair in token of grief and commiserating with Fitz, the assembled Farseers and others begin to disperse. Dutiful leaves Kettricken and Fitz last, and Kettricken refuses to allow Fitz to vanish once again, bidding him escort her to her rooms. He does so, and she tends to him, dosing him with a soporific and noting the justice of it.

Fitz wakes in Kettricken’s bed in the morning after commiserating with her in the night, and they part. Fitz proceeds thence through the hidden passages of the castle to rejoin the Fool, with whom he confers about how to proceed. Their talk is interrupted by the delivery of a message summoning Fitz to another meeting with Dutiful, and as they part, Fitz and the Fool make mention of the latter’s lost fingertips.

The prefatory materials in the present chapter present another of the callbacks to earlier materials that my nerdy self appreciates seeing. The prefatories make reference to the use of a duel before the Witness Stones to determine justice, something long established as practice in the Six Duchies (see here). In my comments on the early depiction of the practice, I do raise some questions about it; the practice of judicial dueling is fraught, at best. Consequently, with the present chapter’s prefatory materials adding to those questions (one Kitney Moss, accused of murder, maintained his innocence despite appearing to be on the losing end of a judicial duel before the Stones, and dashed into them, inadvertently using one as a Skill-pillar despite a lack of training or understanding, and disappeared, with later circumstances bearing out his innocence), I find myself pleased; even within the milieu, the accuracy of the judicial duel is suspect, and I remain egotist enough to like to be proven right (usually; there have been times I’ve wished I’d been wrong).

Similarly, I appreciate being right about Dwalia’s glove from before. I am less pleased, however, that that pleasure reminds me that it’d been too long since I’d read the book; I’m running into things and only dimly remembering them, if at all, and then taking delight as if I’ve discovered something that I’d already seen before.

Also similar to the preface in referring back to the earlier parts of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus is the shearing and burning of hair as a token of grief. It is mentioned in the first depicted interaction between Fitz and the Fool, if memory serves (see here), and it does reappear throughout the series (as noted here). Again, my nerdy self delights in such consistencies, which I know are not easy to maintain across decades and series and thousands of pages; that they are, here and elsewhere in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus, is part of why I keep coming back to Robin Hobb, again and again.

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A letter from the Duke of Farrow to King Dutiful that complains of dragons’ depredations precedes “Repercussions.” The chapter opens with Fitz struck still as Shine relates the events of Bee’s further abduction. Lant arrives, and Shine turns her attentions to him briefly before Riddle redirects her, prodding her to take the group back to the Skill-pillar into which Bee had been taken. Shine rails against the idea, and the relationship between her and Lant is let slip.

Shine is shaken by the revelation, and the decision is made to follow her trail back to the Skill-pillar. Foxglove, under orders, takes Shine in hand, and Fitz, Riddle, and Lant backtrack her, followed by Perseverance. Riddle asks Fitz about the siblings and receives confirmation, and Lant asks and is answered about his half-sister’s situation. As they go, they find Shine’s trail and are able to follow it, if with difficulty, finding the site from which Shine had fled–and the Skill-pillar. When Fitz attempts to use it, knowing where it emerges, he is unable to due to being under the influence of elfbark and delvenbark–Outislander elfbark of particular potency. He rages at his incapacity until Riddle takes him in hand. Fitz dispatches Fleeter and Perseverance to Buckkeep with a message for Nettle, with Riddle and Lant to follow behind. Other orders are given, and Fitz prepares to keep vigil.

As Fitz waits, he ruminates bitterly, and he is terse with his soldiers as they arrive and set up camp. They are wary of him, having evidently heard of his tricks, and he is largely sleepless. He greets Nettle when she arrives and takes matters in charge, sending a coterie through the Skill-pillar to find no sign of Bee or her captors. The outlook is poor, and when a quiet Riddle and Nettle retire, a silent Fitz remains awake in the night.

Something I only noticed as I was looking back through my rereading to insert appropriate references into this part of it is that discussion of Shine’s parentage and Lant’s occurs in chapters 13. I have no way to know if this was deliberate, of course, and whether it is or not does not much matter; what does matter is that the coincidence or construction makes a pointed, morbid joke; the circumstances making their attraction unlucky are presented at symbolically unlucky times. I’d not noticed it before, as reported, but I am glad to have noticed it now; it’s the kind of textual detail that delights me and many others who go into literary study and upon which I’ve remarked at times (for example here and here), the little bit of sometimes dark humor that rewards careful attention and revisiting a text–and that reminds even a careful reader that there are always more things to pull from a text worth studying.

I note another bit of wordplay at work in the chapter, as well. Two of the soldiers accompanying Fitz are named Reaper and Sawyer. Both of their names bespeak cutting, fitting enough for soldiers using spears and swords; there’s also a bit of reaping and sowing to be found, even if it takes a little squinting to see it. But since I was already either laughing or wincing from the chapter-number thing, that bit showed itself to me.

As I reread this time, as I sat to write, I found myself distracted again by Hobb’s writing. It happens often enough, I admit (and my wife can attest to it, having seen it happen more than once); I go to work on this stuff and get swept away again by the writing. I look up, and an hour or two have passed that I had meant to put to other uses…and I do not know that I can regret it. But then, you’d expect that from someone who’s been going about this as long as I have and who looks to keep on going with it…

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