Leaving aside the stereotypes– Because we really ought to leave aside the stereotypes, There being no excuse for not doing better since There is no excuse for not knowing better, This day and age being what they are, And the information being yet available Despite the efforts of some to purge the archives And of others to artificially intercede– There are serpents in the land that need chasing out, Even if they were welcomed here by colors Not associated with some third king or another
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Is there some saint waiting to stand beside A new Brigid, a new Colmcille, Enslaved somewhere and tending sheep, Looking for a sign that all will be well– Some boars rooting around for acorns and truffles, perhaps– An emblem in the heavens that betokens Glories yet to come when Evil is all chased away?
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I look around from where I sit and write,
Consider what emerges in my sight,
And shudder in disgust that covers fright.
I know that more and worse is yet to come
Of what parades in an uneven pace,
Swallows up the music, fills the space
With clamor, posts an ugly painted face
On every wall, leaves truth-speaking dumb.
The numbers swell that join the thronging crowd,
And each new member makes the din more loud
That trumpets peril, is of evil proud,
And strives towards zero for its final sum.
I say what I can say. To what avail
I do not know; I doubt I can prevail.
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They say
You have to fill your own cup
Before you can pour for another
But I
Am already full
Too full
And what my cup holds
Nobody should drink
Such a waste; it hurts the heart to see it… Photo by Connor McManus on Pexels.com
No
I seek always
To be less full
To be more empty
So I can accept
What others must pour out
Because
If it hits the ground
Sinks into the water table
It will poison all the wells
And the waters are already bitter enough
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Following the text of a binding resolution from the Traders’ Council of Bingtown, “The Changer” begins with Fitz musing over the possible effects the Fool will experience from drinking dragon’s blood and conferring with the Fool about current conditions. The Fool reports feeling more energized, and Fitz prepares a medicine as he settles in to get more information from his friend. Conversation is uncomfortable, ranging to many questions that find few answers, although the Fool is able to lay out some of the social structure in which Dwalia and her company are enmeshed.
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Fitz lays out much of Bee’s early history, and the Fool’s belated acceptance of the idea of Bee as the Unexpected Son allows him to understand much of what has happened at last. Fitz, however, does not take the news as calmly. After laughing uproariously, the Fool attempts again to explain matters before turning to the destination towards which Bee is headed–Clerres–and how to intercept her captors. Fitz takes his leave and ruminates on the Fool’s explanations and some implications of the same, and his thoughts turn to Patience in the court where he now resides.
The present chapter brings to mind once again something I found…vexatious…in my first readings of the present novel and its immediate predecessor. On the rereading, or on this rereading, I find myself less vexed and more open to the ideas of 1) magic mucking about with things and 2) longer exposure and engagement prompting different circumstances. After all, I am older, now, than I was then, by more than a decade, and the differences between what I was and what I am are in many cases only those of greater familiarity. I am a better father now than I was then, for instance, but largely because I’ve had more time to learn how to parent. (It’s mostly because I have an excellent daughter who has, so far, made the work of parenting relatively easy. Credit where it is due.)
I am struck once again by the mismatch between the Fool’s understanding of Bee as the Unexpected Son and the Fool’s own gender fluidity (let alone Fitz’s visceral reaction to the Fool’s assertions of their mingling). I know that it is a humanizing thing to give characters blindnesses, and I know that Hobb is much concerned with imparting verisimilitude into her work; both such lend themselves to the Fool having trouble accepting the idea (and Fitz, to be certain). Still, for that to be the sticking point…it is a splinter between my fingers, and I don’t have the tweezers to address it well.
My heart is hot within me now as I
But look about and see how matters lie,
But look about and see lifted on high
What should be low, see how they it exult
Who, gleeful, join the Stupid God’s foul cult,
And see with no great insight the result
That must proceed from out their worship’s course.
I scream into the wind until I, hoarse,
Am blown away by all the gathered force
That thronging fools all rushing in exert,
Not at all caring that they themselves hurt
So long as they inflict their held desert
On those they have been told that they should hate.
To fend them off…it is now far too late.
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She does not often deal in verse Says she finds it indulgent and obtuse As must who write it write it So when she wrote a poem for our girl Three iambic tetrameter couplets I marked it
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Following commentary from Chade about medicinal uses of dragon-parts, “Blood” begins with Fitz relating a remarkably vivid image to describe the sensation of his plunging through the standing stones and of reconstructing himself and Chade as they travel poorly therein. He emerges into the world, pulled thence by Dutiful and his coterie, and as he returns to normal consciousness, he makes such report of his experiences and recent events as his condition allows him to do. He subsequently stumbles through initial tending to his injuries, and he sleeps under pharmaceutical influence.
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Fitz wakes to greater certainty and reaches out through the Skill, conferring with Dutiful and Nettle, although both urge him to restrain his Skill because he is not yet in control of himself. Nettle joins him in person, helping him to steady his magic, and the two confer briefly before food arrives and Fitz’s attention focuses entirely on it. After, Dutiful lays out to Fitz what actions he has taken and is taking, and Fitz gains greater control over himself, although with effort. Dutiful and Nettle also inform Fitz of what has befallen the Fool.
Fitz makes his way to the Fool, assessing his old friend as Kettricken looks on, and he quizzes Ash on what he has given the Fool. Ash reports in detail, and Fitz learns that the Fool has been dosed with dragon’s blood purloined from a supply meant for Andronicus Kent.
The prefatory materials to the present chapter, as often, attract my attention. In the present case, two major reasons obtain for their doing so. The first is the comment that “this scroll has been translated many times, to the extent that seventeen of the [twenty-seven substantiated] remedies make no sense,” which is given an accompanying example. While I know that the commentary is fabricated–and I have more to say about such constructions elsewhere–I also know that the kind of nonsense presented is the result of word-to-word translation, rather than sentence-to-sentence or idiomatic renderings. In the long-ago days when I had students and had occasion to discuss such things with them, I would ask Spanish speakers in my class if “¿Quién cortó el queso?” had the same valence as “Who cut the cheese?”; the answer was always a laughing “no.”
Chade’s comments about the “fifty-two unsubstantiated remedies” are also on-point. The regard for attestation that he uses as a rubric for contrasting the unsubstantiated remedies with the substantiated ones is, perhaps, something of an analytical bias (because, after all, user testimonies can be faked), but it is at least something. Too, the comments about manuscript positions–the unsubstantiated remedies are described as add-ons in the text from which Chade works–check out with what I have seen in discussions of even such august works as Beowulf; there’s a whole big thing about how the section of the poem dealing with the dragon is someone else’s work than who wrote of Grendel and his mother. So there is more than a bit of verisimilitude at work in the prefatory materials, which I appreciate seeing.
I note in the main line of the present chapter a return of one of Hobb’s narrative techniques, one previously deployed on the Skill-road to the stone-quarry and which has occasioned some readerly comment. In the present chapter, as in the earlier, Fitz’s experience with the Skill leaves him confused and befuddled, finding it difficult to conceive of thoughts and to convey them to others in any way they can easily parse. The present chapter, which notes Chade doing much the same thing, suggests that it is the Skill itself that has such an effect, rather than it simply being Fitz’s limits. I note, too, the similarities between Fitz’s narrated experience and the Fool’s report of the Skill-silvering; the intense, intimate focus on even the smallest details is another thing that seems to be of the Skill rather than of its users. I am put in mind of other media; Hobb here seems to be using a particular trope, although she uses it well in the present chapter–and I am taken with the notion that Fitz finds himself lessened by his return to himself after his Skill experience. There is something worth exploring there…
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An echo of an older voice Truer in the hearing again than in the first speaking Called out once again Asking for help Just a few words of praise To help find fulfillment And such safety as the world offers anymore But not where she is Not where I am
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How could I say no? I never did before Even when the voice doing the asking Was not the voice that truly was And should not the greater honesty Now find the greater reward?
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Following more commentary about the Servants and their machinations, “The Journey” returns to Bee as she begins to recover from her illness, tended as she can be amid the demands of travel in haste. Thoughts of escape for her and Shun are quashed by vile threats from Dwalia, and her illness is ascribed to the kind of change that marks the lives of the Fool and Prilkop. Bee is urged to record her dreams again, using materials provided by her captors, and the Wolf-Father within her urges her to caution. Bee, who has dreamt prophecies, manages to dissemble.
Not quite the thing, but it still comes to mind…
It seems treatment of Bee has moved back to shorter chapters with the present one; in the edition I am reading, it is only five pages long, and while it is the case that I have still not done the work to examine chapter-lengths in any kind of rigorous way, there is still something striking about just how brief the present chapter is. I am still not sure what the function of the brevity is, although I am convinced there is some function, some purpose (chimerical as I know discussion of intent and purpose are). It seems to me to be too consistently the case that the Bee-centered chapters are short that it is without some reason. But uncovering it looks like it will remain a scholarly someday for now.
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