Pride of Princes - Part Five, Chapter One

[kalinara]

So last time we saw our protagonists...well...Brennan got carted away by a pregnant Rhiannon (whose kid really should be Firstborn, but the villains can't add fractions) to get shoved into a very tiny space. Hart got his hand chopped off by the guy who manipulated him into gambling away his kingdom, and then sold him to Strahan. And Corin jumped off a cliff, only to be fished out by the villains afterward.

So we're three for three when it comes to princes in distress. That's a track record alright!



Chapter One reunites us with Brennan, who has been captive the longest. Hopefully it hasn't been that bad?

The door was opened. Light spilled into the cell. Brennan, hunched against the wall, shut his eyes at once.

"Come out," the voice said.

The syllables were strange. Brennan did not at first know them, hearing only sound. And then he pieced them together, understood them, stared through the crack he made in the shield of his fingers.

"Come out," the voice repeated.

He pressed himself against the wall and tried to climb inside it.

...that sounds pretty bad.

They got him as far as the door. Light fell full upon him. To a man who had lived too long in darkness, the flame was intolerable.

But no more so than the fear.

He was poised on the threshold, blinded by the light.

He turned his head aside, shutting his eyes, trying to avoid it; a torch was held nearer yet.

"Behold the Prince of Homana."

The voice was Rhiannon's voice. Brennan opened his eyes.

Alone in the darkness, he had lost track of time. He knew it had been weeks; he had not expected months.

But she was big with the weight of his child.

Okay, well. That sounds pretty fucking horrifying.

So Rhiannon orders him taken to Strahan. But as scary as that undoubtedly sounds, it actually has a positive effect:

Slowly it penetrated. He was out of the cell—free of the cell—they had taken him out of the cell. The stink of it clung to him, but the scent of hope replaced it.

I really like the use of the repetition there, I have to say. Nicely expressive of emotional state.

Fortunately, Brennan is an analytical guy when he's not being directly triggered, and he starts to take stock. He's weak from inactivity and being cramped in that tiny cell ("bound up by the burden of fear"). Honestly, from the sound of it, I'm not sure how he can walk at all. Muscle atrophy is a thing! He also notes that he's not mad, per se, but he's also not quite sane either.

I mean, that's fair. Even people without phobias don't do well in months-long solitary confinement.

So Brennan is shoved into the room, with the door locked behind him. And perhaps as evidence for his "not quite sane" self-evaluation, his immediate response is to try to claw at the door behind him:

His nails broke on the wood. The latch did not give beneath his desperate fingers. The door was securely locked. It was no less than he should have expected. He closed his eyes and pressed his face against the wood, trying to calm himself, but the fear was ever-present.

It was all he had known for months.

He does turn around then, and we get a look at Valgaard's interior design aesthetic.

The chamber was small, but large to him, after captivity in his cell. The walls were black—Valgaard's dominant color—but soft rugs carpeted the floors even as tapestries brightened the walls. Fire blazed in the fireplace. There were chairs and tables and candleracks, all ablaze with light. It made him squint; he was yet unaccustomed to light.

There's also food in the room.

He hadn't been starved, we're told, since they wanted him alive. But the food was plain and less than he's used to. And well, now there's a whole bounty.

Brennan stared at the silver platters. Hot meat: beef, venison, pork and poultry. Fresh bread: brown, white, hard and soft, redolent of fresh baking. Wheels of cheese: creamy ivory, pale yellow, ocher-gold. Baskets of fruit: apples, grapes, pears, peaches, plums and countless others. Beakers of wine and ale and usca.

Damn, now I'm hungry. As is Brennan, of course, he rushes toward the food, savagely tearing a portion of beef off. But then he backs away, horrified by the transformation in himself.

And then, still shaking, he sought a chair and fell into it, leaning forward to press his face against his hands.

The flesh was slack and lifeless. His nails were rimmed in black. He smelled the stink of himself. He was awash in the filth of his cell. The Brennan he knew was gone.

Not so dignified anymore. Though who could blame him?

Of course, this is when Strahan makes his appearance, playing demonic host to a T.

"I offer you food." He indicated the table. "I offer you wine, ale, bread. Yet you touch none of it."

Brennan had spoken to no man for weeks, for no one had spoken to him. All he could do was stare.

Strahan's eyes narrowed slightly. And then he smiled, and sat down across fr6m his kinsman.

So this is actually Brennan's first time meeting Strahan face to face. And of course this means we get a suitably vivid (and slightly homoerotic) description.

One blue, one brown, set slightly oblique in a face built of flawless bones. His beauty did not in any way make him effeminate, but the features were as arresting as those of a beautiful woman. Straight, narrow nose, winged blade brows; the fall of raven hair, held bade by a silver circlet.

He was a man who ruled through beguilement, and Brennan felt its touch.

Strahan, always apt to twist the knife, tells Brennan he should see himself.

"It is unfortunate," Strahan said quietly, "that you have come to this state. A prince should never be brought so low, nor a Cheysuli warrior."

Brennan locked himself up in silence.

Strahan gazed at curiously. "Was it the Womb of the Earth that did it? I have been there, you know. I have seen the marble tomb, the bottomless oubliette, the rune-carved walls of the narrow passageway.” He nodded. "I myself have never been afraid of small places, but it must be a difficult thing to bear. Particularly for a Cheysuli." He paused. "Particularly for you."

Strahan, of course, knows exactly how to trigger someone into a traumatic flashback. He keeps talking, of course, using fake empathy to emphasize the terror of being locked in, trapped, helpless and alone. And he very exquisitely brings it back to Brennan's more recent experience:

"And so filthy, too," Strahan said sympathetically. "Such humilation, on top of all the fear. Having to relieve yourself in a corner like an animal instead of like a man . . . contending with dungeon vermin . . . smelling the stink of one's own body." He shifted in his chair; gemstones glittered on his fingers. Glittered to mirror his eyes. "Hearing things . . . seeing things . . . and too afraid to sleep."

Yep, Brennan's been having a great time.

Strahan, of course, chooses now to make his offer. And I know I'm including too many excerpts, but I genuinely love how Roberson weaves in the details of Brennan's experience throughout the scene. It'd have been easy to info-dump, but instead, we get bits like:

"Will you serve me, Brennan?"

Brennan's scalp itched. Lice infested him. All he could do was stare.

Strahan drank wine.

Brennan drew an unsteady breath. The room was warm, dry, brightly lighted, filled with the beguiling aromas of food and drink. His body cried out for kindness again.

His battered spirit demanded it.

Strahan put down the wine. "I have a smaller cell."

Brennan flinched, and hated himself.

Strahan knows better than to overplay his hand though, so now he sends Brennan back to his cell, seeds planted.

It's Hart's turn now. He's not in great shape at all.

The sorcerer turned from the casement as Brennan's brother was ushered in. He looked at Hart's gaunt face, looked at the leather-wrapped stump, looked back at the haunted eyes. "I apologize," he said kindly. "Dar was overly enthusiastic."

Hart's pretty angry, understandably, but tries not to react overtly. Strahan, again, uses food as a weapon:

As was becoming habitual. Hart cradled the stump in bis remaining hand, pressing it gently against his chest in an unconsciously vulnerable gesture of retreat and self-protection.

Strahan indicated food and wine. "Will you eat? Will you drink? I should hate to see it go to waste." And then he paused, as if arrested in mid-motion. "But of course, I had forgotten . .. someone will have to cut it for you.

Hart doesn't react to the food in the same way Brennan did. His gauntness seems to have more to do with illness: we're told that he's pale and unsteady, as shock and fever "had served to sap his strength."

Strahan asks if the loss of a hand is anything like the loss of an ear. And this bit makes me inexplicably sad.

Hart looked at him in shock. He had forgotten that Strahan had only one ear. The other had been cut off in a fight with one of Hart's own kinsmen long ago on the Crystal Isle.

That was Finn, of course. Alix's tormentor. Carillon's unrequited-but-actually-requited true love. Donal's mentor. It's so strange. He was such a vivid part of the first three books: at his worst, at his best, and everything in between.

But we're half a century later. These boys will never know Finn the way that Alix, Carillon and Donal did. The way that we, as readers, did. Instead, he's just a "kinsman".

Strahan muses about his misfortune: sadly, the ear had been lost entirely. If it hadn't, the Seker could have made him whole. There is of course a point to this, but Hart doesn't see it yet. For once, I won't blame him. He's been through a lot.

Strahan twists the knife more:

"I know, of course, the loss of a hand precludes you from returning to your clan." Strahan's mouth shaped the words with a deep and abiding compassion. "We Ihlini are not so harsh. A man's mind may be useful even if the body is not."

Hart gazed blindly at the hand that no longer existed.

"But it would be so difficult for a maimed warrior to contribute to his clan," Strahan remarked. "How can you use a bow? How can you mount a defense? How can you ward your woman and children against the enemy?"

Earlier books touched on this. Now it's explicit. And I both like and dislike it. I like it, in one sense, because it's a flaw that makes sense with how the Cheysuli have been characterized all along. They're a warrior-centered culture that defines their purpose and worth by how well they serve the prophecy.

I dislike it because it's really fucking short-sighted. People can learn to compensate for disability. Most societies in history have found ways to deal with disability. And while the Cheysuli are a warrior race, so to speak, there really should be other roles that someone can take. The shar tahl, for example, are not expected to fight. And really, Hart could still be a warrior. He lost a hand, okay. But pirate hooks are cliche for a reason!

But I should stop bitching because this is an excellent vehicle for temptation. I don't think any of us really expect steadfast Brennan to take Strahan's offer. It goes too drastically against what we know about his personality, and Strahan really doesn't have anything tangible to offer him except an end to the torture. If he survives, then he goes home, he inherits the throne, and continues to repress his claustrophobia (and more recent trauma) as he's been doing.

Hart, for all his faults, isn't really temperamentally suited to succumb to Strahan's temptation either. Fall for a trick? Sure, dude is a fucking idiot as we've seen. But as we saw at the end of his own part, he's not really one to give in once he understands exactly what's on the table.

But he has basically lost everything that matters. He may never have cared about Solinde, but his disability means that, for all intents and purposes, he's lost HOMANA. And that's something that Strahan can work with.

Right now though, Hart's putting on a brave face. He points out that his father lost an eye. But a hand isn't an eye, Strahan points out, then digs the knife in deeper:

"Will they strip you of your gold? Blot out your rune in the birthlines? From the path of the prophecy?"

Breath caught in Hart's tight throat. He felt the slow churning of his belly.

"Will they tear down your pavilion? Take cheysula or meijha from you?" Strahan paused. "Or will no Cheysuli woman be allowed to speak your name?"

Oh come on, Strahan. Roberson won't let her precious heirs to the throne(s) marry CHEYSULI women. We haven't seen a full-blooded Cheysuli woman since Raissa. (And isn't that a little bit fucked up? Even the women whose characterization is very much entrenched around their Cheysuli identity like Sorcha and Keely are explicitly described as taking after their Homanan/white parent.)

The questioning is getting to Hart though, especially when Strahan goes so far as to call him clanless and unable to serve his race.

Hart stood up so fast he overset the chair. "Ku'reshtin!"

But before he could move to strike him, Strahan caught hold of his wrist.

"No," the sorcerer said, and closed his lingers on the leather that warded the healing stump.

The pain was excruciating. Hart wavered on his feet.

"No," Strahan said, "I can offer you better."

Right now, at least, Hart shakes his head. Strahan has him taken away.

So now it's Corin's turn. Corin, as you recall, very recently took a nosedive off a cliff. This means that Strahan's had far less time to work on him. But it also means that the poor guy is in pretty rough shape.

The hand was cool on Corin's brow. It took the heat away. For so long there had been heat. Heat and unbearable pain. And now Strahan took it away.

"You are a fortunate man," the sorcerer told him gently. "You very nearly died."

The eyes transfixed him utterly.

"But you are better now. The bones begin to heal. I think you will walk again, though possibly with a limp."

It's interesting to me that no one brings up the idea of a limp as being a debilitating or permanent enough injury to trigger the Cheysuli ableism.

Anyway, Strahan asks if Corin remembers what happened. He does. He also remembers what Sidra had said: her child is Strahan's. Strahan acknowledges this by wishing it perfect health.

Kiri, of course, is captured. She's well, but kept away. He offers Corin pain relief, but Corin, remembering Alaric and Lillith, very clearly says no.

Strahan lays it on thick here:

Strahan smiled, and then he laughed. "Why do you think the worst of me? If I wanted you dead, I would have left you at the bottom of the cliff, to wash out into the sea. Perhaps to wash up on Erinn's shores, where Aileen could grieve over you."

Corin shut his eyes. "I will not give you Atvia."

"Atvia, for the moment, is quite within my grasp." Strahan's palm touched his brow again. "I was thinking of Homana."

See, Sidra told Strahan everything. He knows Corin wants his brother's bride and his brother's title and his brother's throne.

Strahan and Corin have a bit of a theological debate here:

"The Seker is a generous god. What a man wants, he often bestows.”

"Then why does he not simply give you the realms you want?" The level of pain was rising. He was transfixed by Strahan's stare. "Why does he not simply take them?"

"Through men like me, he will." Strahan tore back the covers to bare splints and linen wrappings. "Both legs, Corin. And ribs I cannot count. You are fortunate the bones of your head were left intact, else I could offer you nothing."

Corin is more of a thinker than I usually give him credit for. Anyway, Corin turns down both the pain relief and the other, implied offer. Homana isn't his to give.

Strahan notes that he could share Homana with Corin, and that, while he could use a minion, he prefers working with living men.

Strahan's sales pitch is shorter here:

“You should hope instead to aid me." Strahan touched Corin's head. "I will be here if you need me. Dream awhile, my lord. Dream of your red-headed princess . . . dream of your brother's throne."

Corin slipped into darkness. He dreamed of his brother's bride.

Brennan's not likely to turn. It doesn't fit his personality and Strahan has very little to actually offer him.

Hart's personality doesn't fit either, but, as has been hinted in this chapter, Strahan might actually have something to offer here.

And then there's Corin. Jealous Corin. Ambitious Corin. Strahan has a hell of a lot to offer him.

(And well...only one of them really needs to father the next generation, right?)

See you next time!