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After an excerpt from a translated commentary on killing (one that Dargen seems to have studied), “The Morning After” begins with Bee waking late and ruminating on her displeasure at Fitz’s seeming valuing Shun over her. She also considers how others relate to her, and she fumes as she collects clothing that fits badly and changes in private before seeking Fitz.

Bee finds Fitz at table with Shun and Riddle, and she comments with some aspersion on him having eaten without her. Several barbed exchanges ensue, with Bee aiming at Fitz to some effect–though he does not respond in kind–and Shun to more of it, provoking anger from her. Fitz notes the impending arrival of FitzVigilant, which occasions mild upset from some present and curiosity from others, with Bee remembering his earlier visit to Withywoods. Shun’s continued barbs are shut down, and Bee becomes aware both of Fitz’s approval and the limits of others’ knowledge. More normal conversation follows, with Bee ruminating on preparations and on her status as she excuses herself from the table.

Later, Bee returns to the messenger’s pyre, rekindling the flame and ruminating on the messenger and on bits of prophecy of which she is aware. Returning to her home, she observes a cat at hunt. The successful animal notes the utility of autonomy, and Bee considers the lesson closely.

The present chapter is another brief one, less than ten pages in the edition of the novel I am reading. Again, I am not sure regarding any significance of the chapter lengths or patterns in them, and, again, I am convinced that going through the text and taking page-counts is something that could be done, with some tedium though not with difficulty.

It occurs to me that the idea of some significance associating itself with something like patterns of chapter-lengths runs into the notion of authorial intent. Wimsatt and Beardsley come to mind, of course, as do gallons of ink spilled on reams of paper about curtains being blue. That is, whether Hobb means anything by any patterns of chapter length that exist is immaterial; even if she has attested to it–and I do not know if she has; I’ve admitted that the Fedwren Project is not comprehensive, after all–the attestation would be itself a re/construction of events, a story told about them, subject to the frailties of human memory and perception in the recording and the relation.

What matters is the effect such a pattern has on readers, and whether that effect is in accord with the effects generated by the other features of the text. (Whether chapter length counts as text, proper, or as paratext is something that could be argued meaningfully. It likely has been in other contexts, but , if it has, references thereto do not come to mind.) For me, the shorter chapters stand out no less than the longer ones; the very difference marks them out for some attention. Whether those differences correspond to any particular points of narrative heft, I cannot say at the moment; I’d have to do the data collection and review my notes in a way that composing this entry in the rereading series does not really allow (and, honestly, I should have the notes for the entire body of work ready before I make the attempt). But I can say that anything that sticks out calls for attention, deliberately or not, and even if it is not a deliberate thing on the author’s part, there is some meaning to be gleaned–even if only a little.

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A fragment of recorded prophecy regarding the Unexpected Son prefaces “The Beaten Man,” which begins with Fitz considering that fragment in detail. How the prophecy had been thought to apply to him is noted, and Fitz glosses his long friendship with the Fool. Amid his reverie, Fitz realizes that the Fool had reached out to him before, that he had failed to see it, and he sorrows deeply.

As Fitz considers further and prepares to still his mind for sleep, he is disturbed by a Skill-sending from Chade. FitzViglant, having narrowly escaped being killed, will be sent to Withywoods, and circumstances surrounding both the attempt on his life and his sending out are discussed. Chade also notes something is amiss with Fitz and asks after him, only to be deflected.

Taken wholly out of sleep by Chade’s Skilling, Fitz stalks through Withywoods, assessing its condition and his next steps. He makes some arrangement’s for Bee’s things, then finds himself in the kitchens. There, he eats and manages to fall asleep.

Fitz is woken the next morning by baking in progress. He confers with the baker, then takes himself off to bathe and shave. While bathing, he receives word of some itinerant campers on the land, and he frets about their intentions.

The present chapter is another brief one, some twelve pages in the edition I am reading, and I am reminded that I really need to do the intellectual grunt-work of tracing page-counts across the Realm of the Elderlings novels. It wouldn’t be hard to do, I know, just somewhat tedious–though it would have, for me, the concern of distraction. Often, when doing the kind of work I do, I find myself starting to read again–which seems like no big deal when working with books, but there’s a difference between reading to find something and reading to read, and I slip all too often into the latter while trying to engage in the former. It’s not a problem, as such; reading is good, after all, and even though I am in another line of work, now, it is the kind of thing I trained to do for years. But it is a distraction from work I try to do, sometimes even for money.

In terms of narrative effect, the present chapter seems to me to be doing two things. The first is to set up juxtaposition. Consider one antecedent (among many): Macbeth 2.3, the porter scene (to l. 44). Between intense moments of high drama, the play features a comic, bawdy passage; the function of it, as others have attested, is to highlight the intensity of the drama, the juxtaposition between a whiskey-dick joke and the revelation of a royal murder making the latter hit harder.

The second, more overt, is to bring back into the main narrative a character who had been discussed before. It had been a while, both in chapter-count and in in-milieu time, since Lant had been a factor in the text. That he would be bound to come back seems sensible enough; while there is some utility in introducing a concept or character and not bringing it up again in the same novel–I’m minded of comments about Tolkien’s Legendarium and the “deeper history” mentioned in passing at various points in Lord of the Rings–there is also the issue of Chekhov’s Gun, and FitzVigilant is resonant in a narrative centered on FitzChivalry.

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An incomplete letter from Fitz to the Fool precedes “Invisibility,” which begins with Bee fuming at Fitz’s attention to Shun. She changes into new clothes, noting her late mother’s handiwork upon them, and she stumbles onto a strange cloak left by the now-dead messenger. Taking it up, she finds another entrance to the hidden corridors of Withywoods. There, she attends to a cat that she had bidden hunt for her and secrets it away in her hiding-place. Fitz finds her there, and he takes her to what had been Molly’s sitting room, where they will both spend the night.

The present chapter is startlingly brief, only six pages in the edition I am reading. Following immediately after another brief chapter, it creates the impression of accelerating towards some event of import–sensibly enough, since the book is closer to its end at the end of the present chapter than it is to its beginning. To put it in terms of Freytag’s Pyramid, the falling action is clearly underway–although what the climax of the novel is in that sense is not entirely clear to my reading. Is it the arrival of the messenger? The arrival of Shun? Fitz’s agreement to take her on? The death of Molly, even? And, to expand to the whole of the Fitz-focused portion of the Realm of the Elderlings corpus, where is the overall climax? Is it even appropriate to apply Freytag’s pyramid to such an overarching narrative structure?

Many questions, of course, and it is good to have so many; it means there’s more work to do with the texts. So much is, perhaps, a self-serving assertion; I do, after all, do such work, and it is in my best interest to note there’s more of it to do. But the electrician who sees room for more circuits to be installed is not held to blame for it, nor yet the mason who sees where stonework could be built to benefit. And if it is the case that the work I do does not have the immediate benefit that that done by tradespeople carries, it is also the case that any ill done by my work is less harmful–while the good it does may well endure longer.

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