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

Got another content warning on this chapter: torture.

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Following a report to Chade that discusses the end of Andronicus Kent and the ascent of Chassim, “Red Snow” begins with Fitz and Fleeter proceeding at speed, Fitz detailing their progress through the night and into the dawn. He notes passing “a rare shrine to Eda” (474) as he and his horse move ahead, and Fitz tries to puzzle out his quarry’s path. His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the crow, Motley, who croaks out a warning that Fitz heeds, and he is more cautious as he approaches the remnants of violence.

Fitz surveys the scene, searching for Bee and finding no sign of her. Fleeter’s sudden fatigue reaches Fitz through the Wit, and though he sees to her, he still hardens himself as the assassin he had been trained to be, reflecting on the quiet work he did for Shrewd. Fitz skulks through the terrain, considering implications of the evidence that presents itself to his senses, and he finds the results of the fracas that had broken out between the Servants and the Chalcedeans.

Fitz also finds there are survivors, and he watches for a time before advancing with fatal intent. Seeing the spoils of his own home on display, he questions one of them, Ellik, and secures his person before settling in to extract information. It is forthcoming, and it details how the Chalcedeans were hired and brought into the Six Duchies to effect the raid on Withywoods. It also details the lead-up to the violence that had erupted, and the escape Dwalia and Vindeliar had achieved. It does not report on Bee and Shine.

Securing Ellik, Fitz moves to confront another Chalcedean. He is not more merciful with him, and what he learns confirms what Ellik told him. And then he is beset by Ellik, melee ensuing until interrupted by the onrush of fleeing Chalcedeans and Six Duchies soldiers in pursuit. Perseverance is among them, and his untrained efforts save Fitz from death at Ellik’s hand. The general melee is soon concluded, and Fitz commands a search be organized in haste.

The mention of the shrine early in the present chapter brings to mind some work I have done explicating how Hobb works with concepts of medieval religion in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus. (The short answer is “not a whole lot, but not not at all.” The actual answer is more complex, as the paper bears out.) I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I had missed in the paper the mention of the shrine in the present chapter, as well as its description: “The goddess slumbered under a mantle of white snow, her hands open on her lap. Someone had brushed her hands clean and filled them with millet. Small birds perched on her fingers and thumbs” (474). I’m sure there is something to trace out in the description–there’s enough medievalist resonances in the Disney princesses the shrine’s description evoke that something could be plumbed–but I think it would not be something to stand on its own. Perhaps if I were to rework the conference paper into a longer piece…but that’s just another scholarly someday for me.

I note that Hobb returns again to the theme of torture that pervades her work–and not only her Elderlings corpus, as this rereading series will hopefully address at some point; it factors into the Soldier Son series, as well as some of the out-of-series works such as are in the Warriors anthology edited by Martin and Dozois. A quick glance at available scholarship–which reminds me that I need to do more to update the Fedwren Project–suggests that there is some attention being paid to the topic, which I am glad to see (even as I am somewhat jealous that I’m not the person doing the work). I’m not seeing an extended, systematic study, however, although I will concede that that might be simply a matter of my not having / taking the time to look more closely through the available scholarship at this point. I think I have already noted that such a project is among my many scholarly somedays; I should do so if I haven’t already. Perhaps, as things slow down a bit for me in my “real” life and in the more formal scholarly work that I am, somehow, still doing, I will have time to attend to some of them.

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

This chapter contains sexual violence.

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After an excerpt from Bee’s dream journal, “Parting Ways” begins with Bee musing on changes among her abductors in the wake of Vindeliar’s suborning. The Chalcedeans’ ingratiation with Vindeliar is tracked as they test his abilities and begin to exploit them for themselves, and the threat under which Bee and the others operate with Dwalia out of power is made clear. Within Bee, the echo of Nighteyes she carries urges caution and calm, and she observes as the Chalcedeans fall once again into depravity. Dwalia attempts to redeem her people, but the Chalcedeans refuse, and amid the ensuing fracas, Bee and Shun attempt escape.

The present chapter is another relatively brief one, some ten pages in the edition of the novel I am reading, and I once again think I need to see about looking at a cohesive printing of the Elderlings corpus to see if there is, in fact, some pattern at work. I know I keep mentioning it, and there is a part of me that longs to simply spend the money on it…but I think it might be better either to visit a library or make an arrangement with a bookstore to so such a thing than to buy another sixteen novels that I already own. As it is, I have multiple copies of some of the works, and there’s at least one other that I’d like to buy, correcting a mistake I had the opportunity not to make. I am not so well funded as I might like (although, if you’d like to help, there’s a link below you can use for that purpose), so I would have to do some working-around to make that kind of thing happen.

As far as the content of the present chapter goes, though, I do not know that I can say much. If there is, as I have suggested might be the case, some reference going on to a real-world Odessa, I am not sure what to make of it at this point. It cannot be a pleasant one, given what befalls the thus-named character in the text, and I do not feel at ease explicating the violence being worked out upon her, even if it is somewhat “off-screen,” noted as occurring but not explicitly depicted. Hobb does not shy away from overt presentations of violence elsewhere in her work, as I well know, and she has been direct in presenting sexual violence elsewhere in the Elderlings corpus; Kennit’s violation of Althea comes to mind as one example, but it is not the only one. So I am uncertain what the import of the specific presentation of violence here is, although I expect there has to be one. As others have pointed out with great eloquence, and as I recall telling my students in those receding days when I had them, every word on the page is placed deliberately, and it is placed with the knowledge and consent of several people by the very nature of publishing. Something is at work, even if I and others cannot necessarily say what it is at any given moment…

More scholarly somedays, I suppose.

I’m happy to keep this going; put my pen to work so I can do more of it!

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