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i_read_whatSo last time, I gave a refresher of the series so far! This time, we're actually starting. Woo.
Note: NOTHING in this recap will make sense if you haven't read prior recaps. Sorry.
But first, let's gently mock the old cover. Because it's great and I, unironically, miss when Wurts painted her own book covers. (The new covers are so dull!!!)
The best part about this is that we know, without a doubt, that this is what Arithon looks like. Wonky-eyebrows, angsty expression. Questionable sword placement. All that.
Seriously dude, though, you might want to be careful. I don't think Dakar or Elaira would be pleased if you castrated yourself.
(Interestingly, in obtaining this cover image I also found some youtube reviews/discussions of this book. I might check them out sometime. I don't know very many people who love this batshittery like I do. It might be good to make friends...
Unless, of course, they are WRONG about it.)
We start out with the map of Athera. I don't notice any real difference between this one and the one from previous books. But to be honest, there's so much detail that I probably wouldn't catch the details very well. I can still spot the familiar locations though.
Our first chapter actually gives us a date! Winter, 5647. Which means now, I have to see if I can figure out other important dates. Give me a second...
Okay, so per the timeline at the Paravia wiki, the battle against the Mistwraith was in 5638. Interestingly, we don't see birthdates for Arithon or Lysaer. Though other characters, like Elaira and Eldir get one. Elaira, by the way, was born in 5617. Eldir (and Jieret!) were born in 5625. Good to know!
Sorry, no more tangents. These reviews are long enough!
--
So, we start off with Elaira. Hey, cool, it's been a while since we've seen what she's been up to. She had a pretty huge role in Ships of Merior, but hadn't made an appearance in Warhost of Vastmark. And, oh, we start out with some steaminess actually:
Strong arms closed and locked around Elaira’s slim shoulders. Fingers strengthened by the sword and sensitized to a masterbard’s arts tightened against her back. The dark-haired, driven man who cradled her surrendered at last to his blazing crest of passion. His lips softened against hers, the restraint, the control, the terrible doubts which bound him consumed all at once in a rush of tender need. She responded, melted. Her being exploded into sensation like fire and flight. At one with the prince who had captured her heart, her spirit knew again that single, suspended moment, with its promise of inexpressible joy.
AHEM.
Of course, it's a dream. In fact, Elaira hasn't seen Arithon for two years. Elaira doesn't have the power of purple prose, so the only immediate description we get of her is that she's a "small-boned enchantress".
Elaira is somewhere called Araethura. There was a blizzard recently, and we, of course, get some lovely setting description:
Over the open glens, through stands of scrub oak and across the rustling flats of frozen marsh, the ice whipped in driven bursts, to rattle the ill-fitted shutters of her cottage at the fringe of the moor. Crystals found the cracks, tapped at the lintels, and fanned a frosted arc of silver across the leaked bit of moonlight admitted through the same chink. While the eddies moaned and clawed past the beams of the eaves, and the spent tang of ash commingled with the fragrance of cut cedar and frost-damp miasma of moldered thatch, Elaira exhaled a deep breath. Given time, the runaway pound of her heart would subside.
I did miss these descriptions.
I also missed the overwrought emotional reactions too:
She untangled the fist still clenched through a coil of auburn hair. Too many times she awakened like this, struggling against the blind urge to weep, while the ripping, slow agony of Arithon’s memory threatened to stop her will to live. In desperation, against the vows of the Koriani Order which tied her lifelong to a celibate service, her refuge from despair became the fiercely guarded shelter of her solitude.
Damn girl. Cold shower, maybe?
So anyway, through these two pages of description, there had been note of someone pounding on the door. Elaira might angst in florid terms, but she curses simply enough, wondering if they think she's deaf as a post. She stands up, only to realize that she's completely nude - apparently the storm had soaked through her shift the night before. She grabs her cloak.
“Fiends plague!” The dank cloak would just have to serve. “Whoever you are, I don’t dispense remedies naked!”
I like this line. I don't know why. I just feel like it's one of those quotes that really sum up a character.
As it happens, opening the door, the wind catches on her cloak, giving her visitor a bit more of an eyeful than expected. The visitor, a herder boy, is poleaxed. Elaira manages not to laugh at him and invites him inside.
Okay, that was pretty funny. Much better than Sethvir's bath as first chapter fan service goes. And I really appreciate that the sudden accidental flashing was not used to humiliate Elaira at all. The poor shepherd boy, on the other hand, is too overwhelmed to speak.
Elaira finds her clothes and gets dressed while the poor kid is still stammering. There's actual ice in the hem. Ouch. Eventually, the boy manages to tell her that his aunt is in childbed and the midwife sent for her.
Elaira gets some more information about the woman and baby: labor started at mid-day. The water broke, as did the caul, and let forth an "unlucky color" - greenish and thick. Ew. That can't be good.
Indeed, Elaira tells him that his aunt isn't likely to die, but the baby is in trouble. Enough so that Elaira doesn't really have time to warm herself/her cold (but dry) clothes via a fire. She basically grabs what she needs and they go. The kid, Kaid, doesn't ride, but Elaira can keep him from falling.
As they ride, Elaira muses a bit about the Koriani sisterhood, giving us an idea of their status at this point in time:
Elaira had never known the reverent respect once offered to initiates of the Koriani sisterhood. The arts of her order had been viewed with trepidation for as long as she could remember. The ignorant intolerance arisen since the uprising that upset the rule of the old high kings had not lessened with defeat of the Mistwraith’s fell fogs, which had masked Athera’s skies for five centuries. Quite the contrary, the entrenched distrust the townborn folk held for sorceries had been inflamed to root deeper since the hour the vanished sunlight had been restored.
The Koriani Prime Enchantress held adamant opinion on the reason: the new strife arisen through the Mistwraith’s curse of enmity, laid upon the two princes whose gifts had brought its captivity, just provoked such misguided beliefs. Blame was not shared equally upon the shoulders of Lysaer s’Ilessid, birth-born to wield the powers of light. Only the Master of Shadow, Arithon s’Ffalenn, was raised mage-wise. The Prime and her Senior Circle were swift to point out his shortcomings. Unlike the royal half brother set against him, he had spurned the strictures of his training and invoked the high arts without scruple.
Few would deny that across four kingdoms, Arithon’s name was now linked to destruction and unconscionable acts of bloodshed.
And of course, our main characters. Elaira herself is troubled: she knows that Lysaer's war host came to ruins at Dier Kenton Vale in Vastmark. But she doesn't know the circumstances. She doesn't want to know either, because she doesn't want her Order to use her against him again.
As customary for this book, we get quite a lot of description and contemplation, as well as some environmental obstacles before Elaira and Kaid get to their destination. I'm including none of it, as, while it is interesting to read, it's not that interesting to recap. Elaira's too straightforward for hilarious prose.
They get to the cottage two hours before dawn - apparently the time of night "when death was most apt to be welcomed by a body and spirit in distress".
The midwife is there, also an old woman who greets Elaira with the title "fferedon'li" - an old term for healer that was corrupted from an ancient Paravian phrase meaning "bringer of light." This reminds me how basically every character's name has a meaning in Paravian, and they're all in a GIANT glossary at the back of the book.
So Elaira gets to the woman. She's pretty rough looking, crouching on a birthing stool, sweating, her torso wrapped in quilts and blankets - apparently that's at her husband's assistance as a "matter of her modesty". Leave it to a fuckhead to prioritize his wife's modesty over her comfort. The midwife is as annoyed about this as I am.
The midwife, by the way, has thick wrists, "gouged in crescents where suffering fingernails had dug through the violent cramping pains". Ouch!
The old woman gets a fun description:
Over the girl’s exhausted grunting, from the corner by a clothes chest, a mass first mistaken for a bundle of old rags stirred to scratch. Attenuated, white-boned fingers went on to sketch out a blessing sign in welcome. Behind the gesture, faint in the gloom, a withered face surveyed the enchantress who came as healer.
This lady is the "traditional seeress". Apparently, it's a thing where a matriarch with the Sight attends every birth, death and wedding in the area, so she can interpret omens and deliver auguries. Elaira greets her respectfully, in "accentless Paravian".
So Elaira goes to help. She's happy to see that she's not too late, and when the child comes out, she has the midwife cut and tie the umbilical cord, but not stimulate the child: there's fluid in the baby's lungs that need to come out before the poor thing breathes or cries.
There's quite a lot of gross description here. And an explanation for what went wrong:
The midwife raised no question in protest. Quietly busy with towels and knife, she knew best of any which complications lay beyond reach of her knowledge; had seen warning enough when the mother’s water had broken, clogged and discolored. The trauma of birthing had stressed the unborn babe and caused it to void its bowels before it could be pushed from the womb. The fluid which had cushioned its growing had become fouled by its own excrement. If it chanced to draw such taint into its lungs, the newborn would perish of suffocation. No herbal remedy in her store of experience would change the outcome. The child would die within minutes.
I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about birthing babies. Can this really happen? (A quick google search tells me about something called meconium aspiration syndrome. Egads, childbirth and babies are terrifying.)
The midwife clearly expects Elaira to cast some kind of spell, but this is more nursing skill than it is magic. She finds a thin, curved tube that had been borrowed from her still, warms and cleans it in a dish filled with her precious store of alcohol (I enjoy the thought that, between the still and the precious store, Elaira enjoys a drink occasionally. Good for her.)
Elaira is a bit nervous - if she fails, these superstitious folk may assume that she's the reason the baby died.
Elaira steeled herself, turned, received from the midwife’s competent, broad grasp the sticky, warm bundle of the child. His blood-smeared skin was pale gray, his limbs unmoving, not yet quickened by the first breath of life. She laid him head toward her on the table, aware through the crawling, unsteady light that his wet, whorled hair was coal black. She pried open the tiny, slack mouth, arranged the skull and neck, and with a hurried prayer to Ath, inserted the tube from the still down the throat and into the infant’s airway. She must not tremble. The curved glass was thin, very fragile. Any pressure at an angle might snap it. Where a straw reed might have offered less peril, no interval could be spared to search one out. Need drove her. She must not miss the opening, nor tear the newborn’s tender flesh in her haste. All the while theawareness skittered shivers down her spine, that she had but seconds to complete what must be done.
If the child were to die now, it would be of her own, rank clumsiness.
She felt the tube slide in. A sixth sense, born of her talents and training, told her the insertion was successful. She bent, set her lips to the glass, sucked, and spat the juices into the bowl she used to mix remedies. Against the white porcelain, the secretion was greenish, foul. She sipped at the tube again. Another mouthful, and still the drawn fluid was discolored. She repeated the procedure, was rewarded with a slight change in hue. The fourth mouthful came out clean.
There we go. The baby can breathe now. She slaps its feet to stimulate it. The baby shudders, cries, and Elaira pretty much immediately hands it over to the midwife. She heads outside to find...
Then froze, jolted through her whole being as her eyes met and locked with a man’s.
He had black hair, green eyes. A face of lean angles bent toward her, the rage in each tautened muscle burnished by the hot flare of the tallow dips. The rest of him was muffled beneath a caped cloak, tied with cord, and woven in the fine, colored stripes preferred by the herders of Araethura.
Rocked out of balance, Elaira felt a cry lock fast in her throat. For a moment fractured from the slipstream of time, she could not move or think. Then the nuance of observation she was trained to interpret showed her the subtle differences: the fist, clamped in rough wool, with thick fingers too clumsy to strike song from a lyranthe string. This man was larger, coarser in build; not Arithon s’Ffalenn, Prince and Masterbard. The rough-edged male who loomed over her was the husband of this house, and the newborn child’s father.
It's not quite as egregious as that time in one of the Julian May books where the narrator, unprovoked, starts talking about cousin Parnell, and how he's comparably large but lacks the "massive elegance" of authorial favorite Marc Remillard, but it's pretty close. Soon, soon, you can tell us about Arithon's tiny feral appeal.
It's possibly worth noting that, per the map, Araethura is part of Rathain, Arithon's ancestral kingdom. So there might be a justification for the resemblance.
Anyway, the dude, as befitting the kind of jackass who wants his overheated wife to be wrapped in blankets for "modesty", is immediately hostile at the thought of "her kind" being here. Elaira is happy enough to leave, but the old seeress insists that she needs to stay to see the augury. In the way of powerful old women everywhere, she doesn't seem inclined to take this dude's shit. However...
“Tempt no ill luck. There’s a sacrifice owed by this babe. He would have gained no firm foothold in this world at all, if not for the hand of the fferedon’li.”
Elaira knows the sound of a "child of destiny" type obligation when she hears it and immediately is like "no, no, it's fine." But the seeress isn't having any of her, or the husband's nonsense.
So time for the augury. Elaira can tell immediately that the woman is the real deal. She can feel her tap into her presence. And here we go:
“One child, four possible fates, looped through the thread of his life span. He will grow to reach manhood. Should he die in fire, none suffers but he. Yours to choose when that time comes, Fferedon’li. Should he die on salt water, the one ye love most falls beside him. Should he die landbound, in crossed steel and smoke, the same one ye cherish survives, but betrayed. Yet should this child’s days extend to old age, first the five kingdoms, then the whole world will plunge into darkness, never to see sunlight or redemption. Your burden to choose in the hour of trial, Fferedon’li, and this child’s to give, the natural death or the sacrifice. Let him be called Fionn Areth Caid-an.” The ancient seeress lowered the babe, the hard spark fading from her eyes as she closed her final line. “Let his training be for the sword, for his path takes him far from Araethura.”
...well fuck. Sucks to be you, kid.
I don't actually remember what happens to this kid, but I bet you ten to one, he's going to die "landbound". Because that's Arithon's fucking luck.
---
---
So as is customary for this series, each "chapter" actually consists of three sub-chapters, and then, what I like to call the "sneak peek" section. The first sub-chapter shares the overall chapter title.
This next subchapter is called Crown Council.
It takes place in Winter, 5647-5648, by the way. I LOVE these little date headers!
Unsurprisingly, based on the title, this is a Lysaer chapter. King Eldir of Havish has sent an ambassador to visit "His Grace, the Prince of the Light" in Avenor, the capitol of Tysan.
Lysaer had been in the process of rebuilding Avenor, before he decided to send a warhost after his little half-brother. So how's it going?
No secretaries murmured behind closed doors. A lone drudge polished rows of brass latches, her labors methodically silent. The hush felt inert as the vault of a tomb. Three weeks was too soon for the city to assimilate the impact of a fresh and unalloyed tragedy. The burgeoning industry of Avenor, so magnificently restored, seemed stalled; as if even the very resonance of power stood mute, stricken numb by the news that even now rocked the five kingdoms.
Of the forty thousand dedicated men sent to war in the rocky scarps of Vastmark, all but ten thousand had died of the strategy unleashed by the Master of Shadow.
Tragic, of course, but it's not like they HAD to go chasing after one dude. That's always the issue with Lysaer's losses. They're unnecessary. And sure, Lysaer himself is a victim of the curse (though he doesn't exactly try to fight it...), but the people around him aren't. Any of them could have actually STOPPED this bullshit.
But they don't, of course. Because they buy into Lysaer's propaganda. Because it fits in with the world view that suits them. It justifies their power and their ability to persecute their clannish adversaries with impunity.
We're told that King Eldir, who has declared neutrality, sent an ambassador known for patience and skepticism. Probably wise. He also gave him a warning:
Sensitive to the pitfalls in the tidings he carried, the High King’s ambassador reviewed his firm orders. Then his sovereign lord’s entreaty, unequivocal and clear, given upon his departure:
“Your loyalty may come to be tested, and sorely. Lysaer s’Ilessid can be disarmingly persuasive in pursuit of his hatred of Arithon. But the Fellowship Sorcerers grant no credence to his war to destroy the Crown Prince of Rathain. Your errand may well be received in disfavor. Should you find yourself compromised, even imprisoned under wrongful charges, you must keep my realm of Havish uninvolved.”
Eldir's by far the smartest character in this series, I think. Except maybe for that trust/reliance on the fucking Fellowship.
So, regular readers of this series' recaps may be asking: did Lysaer retain his power of purple prose?
In the smaller room used for closed hearings, Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid awaited. He was alone. A less imposing man, unattended, might have been overlooked on the dais, with its massive oak table, hedged by tall chairs with their carved and gilded finials, then these dwarfed in turn by the star and crown tapestry, device of Tysan’s past high kings. The woven device masked the east wall, gold on blue beneath the spooled rail of the second-floor gallery.
Limned by a flood of cold, winter sunlight, this sovereign’s presence filled that lofty well of space as a jewel might rest in a reliquary.
Hm...maybe...
The dignitary from Havish discovered himself staring, forgetful of protocol or the ingrained polish of court ceremony.
Fair, gold hair seemed tipped in leaf silver. The eyes were direct, the clear, unflawed blue of matched aquamarine. Where Lysaer s’Ilessid had always owned a powerful, charismatic male beauty, the Vastmark campaign left him changed. Now, his majesty went beyond poise. As steel smelted down and reforged could emerge from the punishment of hammer and anvil to carry a keener edge, the pain of a massive defeat had tautened his flesh over its framework of bone. Less given to smiling platitudes, he wore the tempered, private stillness of the veteran who has squinted too long over hostile terrain. The strong southland sun, the cruel weather, the indelible grief imprinted by the loss of thirty thousand lives had but rekindled this prince’s resolve; like a lamp set burning on a fuel of sheer faith, to illuminate where a lesser flame would fail.
The ambassador shook off stunned paralysis. He tendered the bow that acknowledged royal bloodline, but implied no stature of rank. The detail struck him as curious: the prince had eschewed to display the sovereign colors of Tysan. Instead he wore a tabard of white silk, trimmed with gold cord, and fastened at the neck with stud diamonds.
Oh, there we go. I was worried for a moment.
Anyway, Lysaer is courteous, but brisk. He's got a bigger meeting scheduled after this one. He hopes the ambassador will stay as independent witness and King Eldir's representative. The ambassador seems less optimistic.
So why IS he here?
He's actually here because of the Fellowship. Lysaer is interested, though he notes that the Fellowship is no longer welcome in Tysan. Honestly, that's fucking deserved. I mean, I know it's just because Lysaer wants the freedom to continue being a genocidal douchebag. But given that Fellowship machinations helped make him this way to begin with, I can't feel too bad for them.
That said, it's not like the Fellowship will listen.
Okay, so one of the subplots in Vastmark had to do with Arithon kidnapping Lysaer's wife, pirate style, and ransoming her for a shit ton of money. Lysaer actually had to raise said money TWICE, because the first got waylaid (by Arithon, of course). It bought Arithon much needed time.
Well:
The ambassador folded stiff fingers inside the lace of his cuffs. Too circumspect to pass judgment on the doings of mages, he picked his way cautiously. “Your lost gold was returned by Prince Arithon’s hand, and surrendered under Fellowship auspices. By appointment as neutral executor, the crown of Havish will restore the full sum to your Grace’s treasury. The incident, as you claim, went beyond simple theft. The Master of Shadow waylaid your lady’s ransom as a tactic to stall your war host from invasion of Vastmark.”
“Five hundred thousand coin weight in exchange for the time to arrange for thirty thousand deaths.” Lysaer never moved, his seamless detachment enough to raise frost on hot iron. “What price, for the blood that was spilled in Dier Kenton Vale?”
I mean, again, dude. YOU went after HIM. YOU invaded a country and the deaths came, primarily, from the people who lived there. But Lysaer is nothing if not a spin-master.
The ambassador, who seems to be yet another of Wurts's nameless one shot characters that I'm inclined to love, just side-steps the insinuation. He informs Lysaer that the treasure is aboard his galley, under seal, to be given to Lysaer. He knows Lysaer can't really afford to turn him down, and he wants to leave before being forced to attend the meeting as a witness. Something beyond the scope of his authority.
Unfortunately, Lysaer outmaneuvers him:
Yet before he could draw the audience to an end, the royal steward flung wide the door. A tightly bunched cadre of trade ministers filed in, their clothes trimmed in furs and jewelled braids. Costly, dyed plumes cascaded from their hat brims; their hands flashed, expressive with rings.
The prince had staged his private meeting to converge with the ambassador’s presence. Eldir’s delegate settled back on his seat, out-maneuvered by the forms of diplomacy. While the trade worthies vied like rustling peacocks for the places close to the dais, he waited in guarded resignation for the play of Lysaer’s strategy.
The folks here are all partisans who hate Arithon: Tysan's mayors, delegates with complaints against Arithon (like folks from Jaelot), the governor of the "Western League of Headhunters" - including the unfortunately named Skannt, who heads Rathain's headhunters. And so on and so forth.
One of the folks, Lord Commander Harradene, is Diegan's replacement. Good riddance. But there is one interesting face here:
Nearest to the prince, faced bristling across four feet of oak table, a muscled, tight-lipped mercenary traded glares with Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of a clanborn duke from the eastshore kingdom of Melhalla. The scruffy little cleric in scholar’s robes placed between them stared through the window, oblivious to the smoldering hatreds entrenched through five centuries of bloodshed.
If you recall, the s'Brydions ended the last book by switching sides - but offering to keep an eye on things for Arithon. Mearn, then, is likely a spy.
So what IS this meeting about?
Lysaer called the meeting to order. He might wear no coronet of royal office, yet the absent trappings of rank stole no force at all from his majesty. His opening phrase slashed the crosscurrents of ambition and froze them forcefully silent. “We are gathered this hour to resolve my claim to the powers of crown rule, offered to me by legitimate blood descent, and sealed into edict by Tysan’s independent city councils.” His hand, bare of rings, moved, reached, and lifted a heavy document weighted with state seals and ribbons.
Ah. There we go. So Lysaer has finally dispensed with his fiction of being a lord, not a king. He's now got strong enough loyalty to assert his claim outright.
Someone disagrees, of course: an arrow strikes into the parchment, skewering it to the table. Impressive shot. A clan accent shouts that the claim is unlawful. This leads, of course, to pandemonium. Lysaer insists that he wants the archer alive.
The unfortunately named Skannt notes that this is a "clan signal arrow" - the colors (red shaft, scarlet fletching) are a formal declaration of protest. His judgment is that this wasn't an assassination attempt - the archer meant to hit the parchment.
And the archer is caught:
Lysaer fingered the mangled parchment, slit through its ribbons and the artful, inked lines of state language. He said nothing to Skannt’s observation. Motionless before his rumpled courtiers who crowded beneath the shelter of tables and chairs, he awaited the outcome of the fracas in the gallery. Five heavyset war captains rushed the archer, who stood, his weapon still strung. He wore nondescript leathers, a belt with no scabbard, and soft-soled deerhide shoes. In fact, he was unarmed beyond the recurve, which was useless. He carried no second arrow in reserve. As his attackers closed in to take him, he fought.
He was clanborn, and insolent, and knew those combatants who brandished knives bore small scruple against drawing blood to subdue him.
Fast as he was, and clever when cornered, sheer numbers at length prevailed. A vindictive, brief struggle saw him crushed flat and pinioned.
I feel like this won't end well for him.
We get some more description:
Scuffed, bleeding, his sturdy leathers dragged awry, the clansman was bundled down the stairs. He was of middle years, whipcord fit, and athletic enough not to miss his footing. Space cleared for the men who frog-marched him up to the dais. He stayed nonplussed. Through swelling and bruises, and the twist of fallen hair ripped loose from his braid, his forthright gaze fixed on the prince. He seemed careless, unimpressed. Before that overwhelming, sovereign presence, his indifference felt like contempt.
There's some snide comments from the peanut gallery.
Lysaer "grants" an audience here. The clansman confirms what Skannt said. He claims Lysaer's authority doesn't exist. He's bringing protest under the "first kingdom law" and the realm's "founding charter". Lysaer's claim is "flagrant breach of due process".
I don't recall if the books have really elaborated much on the "founding charters" of each kingdom yet. There's some complicated backstory. I feel like more of it might come up in this book. It's actually kind of a big deal though.
Of course, the problem is, old laws, just like old traditions, are only effective as long as people intend to respect them. Poor Halliron discovered that in Jaelot.
“I need no sanction from Fellowship Sorcerers.” Lysaer laid down the arrow, unruffled. Winter sun through the casement spanned the stilled air and exposed him; even so, he gave back no shadow of duplicity. For a prince who had lost untold lives to clan tactics, then his best friend and commander to covert barbarian marksmen, this unconditional equilibrium seemed inspired. His reproof held a sorrow to raise shame as he qualified, “I must point out, your complaint as it stands is presumptuous and premature. This writ from Tysan’s mayors has not been sealed into law. I have not yet accepted the mantle of kingship.”
And we see, of course, the PR spin. How tragic that lives were lost in commission of a genocide, right?
But Lysaer definitely knows how to play a crowd:
To the stir of surprise from disparate city mayors, the murmured dismay from trade factions, and the outright, riveted astonishment of King Eldir’s ambassador, Lysaer gave scant attention. “As for treason, let this be your trial.” He gestured past the clansman bound before him. “The men assembled here will act as your jurors. No worthier circle could be asked to pass judgment. You stand before the highest officials of this realm, and the uninvolved delegates from five kingdoms. Nor are we without a strong voice from the clans. Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of Alestron’s reigning duke, may serve as your voice in defense.”
Ahh, got to love "justice". The men who've spent centuries warring with the clan get to judge him. Oh, of course, there's one voice otherwise. One that, loyal or not, really can't speak up in his defense. It's like Barrabus vs. Jesus. It's a Roman game: offer a "choice" that really isn't one. When the "wrong" answer will lead to death and ruin. But the "right" choice means this really is justice - after all, even the victims agree.
It fits, of course, that Lysaer uses Roman tactics. If there's ever a culture that embodies the concept of "lawful evil", the Romans would qualify.
The barbarian gets to give a good speech though. He claims that, after the murder of Maenalle, caithdein of the realm, her successor, Maenol had empowered him to deliver the warning: forsake his pursuit of Arithon, or there'll be an open declaration of civil war.
I'm sure this will go well.
Lysaer, of course, asserts that Maenalle died a convicted thief and warns, with "saddened" eyes, that Maenol will see worse if he persists in "rash overtures of violence."
The clansman again asserts that it's an issue of sovereignty. Lysaer's fitness to rule was deemed compromised and his vendetta is driven by the curse. The Havish Ambassador thinks that he could confirm that, but his king's will kept him silent. As for the rest of the attendees: the thundering crosscurrents of hatred bent truth to imperil the prisoner".
Apparently, the clansman's words do hit a mark. But Lysaer always knows how to use an occasion:
“How I wish the threat posed by the Master of Shadow were due only to the meddling of Desh-thiere.” A disarming regret rode Lysaer’s pause. Then, as if weariness cast a pall over desperate strength, he relinquished his advantage of height, sat down, and plunged on in bald-faced resolve. “But far worse has come to bear on this conflict than rumors of an aberrant curse. This goes beyond any issue of enmity between the Shadow Master and myself. Hard evidence lies on record in the cities of Jaelot and Alestron. Twice, unprovoked, Arithon s’Ffalenn wielded sorcery against innocents with destructive result. Now, in the course of the late war in Vastmark, a more dire accusation came to light. Since it may touch on the case here at hand, I ask this gathering’s indulgence.”
So, remember how Arithon had the brilliant idea to commit a war crime in order to scare Lysaer into backing off - hopefully saving the lives of a LOT of people in the long run? But it didn't work, because Diegan never let the message get to Lysaer? So Arithon still commits the war crime, but everyone dies anyway?
Yeah...
“I was born a fisherman at Merior by the Sea,” he opened. “When Arithon’s brigantine, the Khetienn, was launched, I left my father’s lugger to sign on as one of her crewmen. Under command of the Master of Shadow, I bore witness to an atrocity no sane man could sanction. For that reason, I deserted, and stand here today. Word of his monstrous act at the Havens inlet must be told, that justice may come to be served.”
An eye-witness:
Then the words poured from him, often halting, tremulous with remembered horror. Too desperately, he wished to forget what had happened on the summer afternoon as the Khetienn put into one of the deep, fissured channels, where the high crags of Vastmark plunged in weather-stepped stone to the shoreline of Rockbay Harbor. Today, pallid under the window’s thin sunshine, the seaman recounted the affray, when two hundred archers under Arithon s’Ffalenn had dispatched, without mercy, a company five hundred and thirty men strong.
“They were murdered!” the sailhand pealed in distress. “The vanguard were cut down in ruthless waves as they scrambled, exposed on the cliff trails. More fell while launching boats in retreat. They were dropped in their tracks by volleys of arrows shot out of cover from above.” The long-sighted seaman’s eyes were raised now, locked to a horrified memory. As if they yet viewed the steep, shadowed cliffs; the wave-fretted channel of the inlet; the still-running blood of men broken like toys in the brazen, uncaring sunlight. As though, beyond time, living flesh could still cringe from the screams of the maimed and the dying, scythed down in full flight, then tumbled still quick in their agony into the thrash of the breakers.
“Such slaughter went on, unrelenting.” Before listeners strangled into shocked quiet, the damning account unfolded. Impelled now by passionate outrage, scene after scene of inhumane practice were described in the fisherman’s slow, southcoast accent. “Those wretches who fled were killed from behind. Any who survived to launch longboats did so by shielding their bodies behind corpses. Their valor and desperation made no difference. They were cut off as they sought to make sail. Every galley turned in flight was run down and fired at the mouth of the inlet. No vessel was spared. Even a fishing lugger burdened with wounded was razed and burned to her waterline. Mercy was forbidden, at Arithon’s strict order. By my life, as I stand here, and Dharkaron as my judge, the killing went on until no man who tried landfall was left standing.”
The fisherman stirred, came back to himself, and shifted his feet in self-consciousness. “All that I saw took place before the great rout at Dier Kenton Vale.”
So yeah, this isn't going well.
I still stand by my opinion though, and maybe you can call me an apologist. But these were all invading men. No civilians. No (non-combatant) women or children. And given actions taken in Strakewood, do we really think they'd have spared the families of the archers?
But again, these are folks who have their own investment in the cause. The one neutral man, Havish's Ambassador, thinks that there's something off about the sailor's "lidded gaze, that darted and shied from direct contact." He thinks that this man might be hiding something or slanting his account.
Lysaer is happy to use this though:
“But Arithon s’Ffalenn never acts without design.” The passionate impact of Lysaer’s rebuttal spun electrifying tension in contrast. “No man alive is more clever, or sane. This Spinner of Darkness would have his reason, cold-blooded, even vicious, to have timed and effected such slaughter.”
Lysaer stood, fired now by conviction which no longer let him keep still. The light shimmered across his collar yoke of diamonds, template to his distress. “We know the scarps above Dier Kenton Vale were splintered into a rock fall. Earth itself was suborned as a weapon to break the proud ranks of our war host. If the rim walls in that territory are prone to slides, the ruin rained down on our troops was a feat beyond all bounds of credibility. What if more than exploitation of a natural disaster were the cause? Could sorcery in fact have been used to cleave a new fault line? Even weaken the structure of the shale?”
It is remarkable how Lysaer can turn his own mistakes into enemy maliciousness. He really proves, yet again, why charisma and diplomacy are not dump stats.
Oh, hey.
“Arithon s’Ffalenn was born to mage training!” Prince Lysaer exhorted above the noise. “Through his seemingly wanton slaughter at the Havens, could he not have tapped the arcane power to rend the very fabric of the earth?”
Is that possible?
On orchestrated cue, the shriveled little man in scholar’s robes started up from his unobtrusive dreaming. “The premise is not without precedent,” he affirmed in a drilling, treble quaver. “There are proscribed practices that herb witches use to tap forces of animal magnetism.”
A stunning truth. Every common man-at-arms who ever bought an illicit love philter had observed the filthy practice.
So, logic holds, if animal lives could do that, then five hundred human lives... Damn, you know, Arithon. If you were going to war crime anyway, you COULD have used that power. Oh well, hindsight.
Lysaer isn't just aiming this at his half brother though. He's got a bigger target:
“The question is raised,” Avenor’s deep-voiced justiciar sliced through the uproar. He nodded in respect to his prince, then addressed the bound clansman. “If the Master of Shadow engages dark magecraft, the preeminent arcane order on this continent has not stepped forth to denounce him. The Fellowship Sorcerers have not spoken. Nor have they acted to curb his vile deeds. The Warden of Althain himself is said to feel each drop of blood spilled in Athera. Every death at the Havens would be known to him. Why should he let this atrocity pass?”
There are a LOT of reasons to hate the Fellowship, admittedly. This one is a little much. And Havish's ambassador agrees, thinking about how it was the Fellowship that sent him to bring the money back to Lysaer. But he's wise enough not to say anything.
So anyway, it's not hard to link the Fellowship to Arihon's crimes, because they support Arithon. (And honestly, that's not entirely unfair. Especially as they did jack shit about Lysaer's crimes, which, again, only happened because their stupid prophecy needs Arithon on the throne.)
There is someone else here who has an opinion though:
Volatile as spilled flame in the red-and-gold surcoat of Alestron’s unvanquished clan dukes, Mearn s’Brydion, appointed delegate of his brother, sprang up in pacing agitation. “While you bandy conjecture in mincing, neat words, let us pay strict attention to procedure! If this slaughter at the Havens ever happened, where’s hard proof?” He cast suspicious gray eyes toward the sailhand, impervious himself to the looks turned his way by townsmen distrustful of his breeding. “Or will you sheep dressed in velvets let yourselves be gulled by the word of a man disaffected?”
As the deckhand surged forward, flushed into outrage, Mearn raised a finger like a blade. “I’ve not said you’re a liar! Not outright. Arithon’s a known killer, that much I grant. I witnessed the debacle he caused in our armory. But whether his slaughter of these companies at the Havens took place as a blood crime, or some cruel but expedient act of war, the killing was done on the soil of Shand. Can’t mix your legalities for convenience. Town law won’t apply to a kingdom. Under sovereignty of Shand’s founding charter, as written by the Fellowship of Seven, Prince Arithon’s offense is against Lord Erlien, High Earl of Alland. As caithdein of that realm, the Teir s’Taleyn is charged to uphold justice in the absence of his high king. The question of Prince Arithon’s guilt falls under his province to determine.”
The funny thing is, I think Mearn would have said this even if the s'Brydions hadn't switched over to Arithon's banner. Legality is important to the clans. As is the individual sovereignty of the nations. Or...maybe I'm giving him too much credit. After all, Erlien also "tested" Arithon about the armory, and the s'Brydions weren't inclined to listen then.
That said, the s'Brydions are Lysaer's only clannish ally. So Mearn's the only guy in this room who actually cares about the old laws. Which is a problem for the messenger:
Yet it was Lord Shien, joint captain of Avenor’s field troops, whose remark stormed the floor into quiet. “If the barbarian before this council was sent as an envoy to declare his chieftain’s enmity, we have sure trouble here at home!” A large man, with meaty, chapped knuckles and a frown that seemed stitched in place, he raised the bull bellow he used to cow recruits. “And whether or not the Master of Shadow has embraced wickedness, or sacrificed lives to buy power, dissent from the clans will give him a free foothold here to exploit. We dare not allow such a weakness. Not before such dire threat.”
Attention swung back. Like blood in the water amidst schooling sharks, men fastened their outrage upon the offender held bound within reach. “Sentence the archer! Condemn him for treason! Let him die as example to his brethren!”
“Do that,” interceded the long-faced justiciar, “and according to town edict, he dies on the scaffold, broken one limb at a time.”
Mearn tries to warn them. The man was sent to properly contest a point of law, if they take his life, there will never be a reconciliation.
No one's listening. They want him dead. But now, it's Lysaer's chance to be dramatic:
Lysaer used the pause. While the atmosphere simmered in fierce anticipation, his study encompassed every minister, hard breathing in velvets and furs. The officers of war endured his regard, unflinching, then the mayors, with their gnawing, hidden fear. The prince they had signed into power was royal, closer in ties to clan ancestry than they wished. The price of their protection from the Spinner of Darkness might come at the cost of their coveted autonomy.
Yet to refute the traditions of city law outright, Lysaer had to know, he would flaw the amity of their support. Foremost a statesman, he showed no hesitation. “The case of your clans might have fared best by waiting. Before you shot down your colorful ultimatum, you could have heard out my answer to this document.” He fingered the torn scroll of parchment in unfeigned regret, as he added, “For you see, I have no intent to accept the burden of crown rule at this time.”
Of course, ultimately, Lysaer doesn't need to be a king. Especially not when the gesture of refusing has far more impact.
“Arithon s’Ffalenn may have been born a man, but he has foregone his humanity,” Prince Lysaer resumed. “His birth gift presents an unspeakable threat. This, paired with his use of unprincipled magic, redoubles our peril before him.” Lest the quiet give way to fresh altercation, Lysaer delivered his solution. “I sit before you as this criminal’s opposite, my gift of light our best counterforce to offset his shadow. For this reason, I must decline Tysan’s kingship. My purpose against Arithon must stay undivided for the sake of the safety of our people.”
The logic was unassailable. Defeat on a grand scale had shown the futility of choosing one battlefield for confrontation. The inevitable striving to forge new alliances, to restore shaken trust after broadscale ruin, then the wide-ranging effort to buy a mage-trained enemy’s downfall, must draw this prince far afield from Avenor.
He said, “For the stability of this realm, I suggest that a regency be appointed in my name, answerable to a council of city mayors. This will serve the crown’s justice and bind Tysan into unity until the day I have an heir, grown and trained and fit beyond question for the inheritance of s’Ilessid birthright.”
The Havish ambassador and Mearn both see the move for what it is.
And we get some more declarations. To sum. 1) the clansman gets to go free, as messenger. Maenol must turn himself in by a certain date to swear his clan's fealty, or else there'll be sanctions and reprisals against their treason.
2) Lysaer will use the returned money to rebuild a trade fleet for the merchants that lost their crafts in Minderl Bay. And to discourage Arithon from fighting with fire, they'll be manned by chained convicts - specifically men convicted of being Arithon's allies. Particularly the clansfolk, if Maenol doesn't swear.
3) He's not repealing any bounties for the scalps of "renegade clan" but, if Maenol doesn't swear, he'll pay double for male barbarians brought in alive.
Woo, conscript slavery.
So the clansman is set free. The ambassador from Havish slips out. His reaction is interesting:
The ambassador from Havish used the confusion to slip through the ranks of halberdiers. Outside in the corridor, he ducked into a window niche, while the sweat dewed his temples and curled the short hairs of his beard. This was not his fight. And yet, even still, his mind seemed loath to relinquish the pull of Lysaer’s seductive delivery.
The prince owned a terrifying power of conviction. Thirty thousand lives gone and wasted in Vastmark had left his dedication unshaken. Nor would his adherents awaken and see sense, tied to his need as they were through inherited blinders of prejudice.
That first paragraph makes it sound like he is leaning Lysaer's way. But the second adds a different tone. He seems to have a pretty clear idea of what's going on after all. He thinks about Mearn's seething features - figuring that his brother, the duke, must have ordered restraint. The ambassador, "worn from the effort of leashing his own temper" - thinks about how the word he bears home bodes ill.
He does get to hear Lysaer declaring the foundation of an alliance to "act against the terror and darkness". Sickened, tired, and afraid for the future, the ambassador hastens away. Poor guy.
---
--
The third sub-chapter is Stag Hunt.
It's set in spring, 5648. Woo. Amusingly, it's not actually necessary here, as the opening paragraph tells us this is two months after Lysaer had leveled his charges of dark sorcery against Arithon.
Things are still kind of gloomy, we're told. For his part, Mearn s'Brydion ("the rakish youngest brother of the clansborn Duke of Alestrion") is chafing at all the endless meetings. He decides, for once, that he's going to skip the social events and go hunting instead.
He's not subtle about it, causing a bit of uproar through the town that he's clanblood enough to really enjoy. Folks can tell he's clan because of his clipped accent, but Lysaer's said that any "old blood family" bound to his alliance can walk free. So Mearn's got free rein.
The guards are fine with it, figuring that Mearn is unlikely to be bothered by any local clan ambush, seeing as how he's a barbarian himself. They're probably right.
So we follow Mearn through some lavishly described wilderness. I'll add a bit for the nature loving reader of these recaps:
The spring was too new for greenery. Ice still scabbed the north sides of the dales, and the air held its chill like a miser. What warmth kissed Mearn’s shoulders was borrowed from the sun, half-mantled in streamers of cloud. Their shadows flowed like blown soot across the valleys, and rinsed the bright glints from the streamlets. Mearn gave on his reins, let his horse and his hounds drink the wind at a run, as man and beast might to celebrate life as frost loosed its hold on black earth.
There's a lot of that. Anyway, we're told that Mearn's grown up some since Vastmark. He's now focused on other pursuits than "tumbling loose ladies and gambling", and he's shaved off his beard, growing a lovelock instead.
Anyway, Mearn may not be here for just pleasure hunting. At least not judging by this:
A slow interval passed, with Mearn touched to prickles by the certain awareness that he was being watched from all angles. Then, with no ceremony, a young man moved upslope to meet him. His approach scarcely woke any sound from dry grasses. He wore undyed leathers and a vest with dark lacing. He carried bow, knife, and sword as if weapons were natural as flesh. Large framed, deliberate, he had a step like a wary king stag’s. His light eyes, never still, swept the hillock behind, then Mearn, and measured him down to his boot soles. On that day, the high chieftain of Tysan’s outlawed clansmen was nineteen, one year shy as the old law still reckoned manhood.
Hello, Maenol.
The greeting is more of a challenge than a welcome, but, we're told that can to clan, the ways of charter law and the old codes of honor are held in common. So there's a trust here that runs deep beyond words.
Maenol, we're told, has a startling mellow baritone. He notes that Mearn's taken an unmentionable risk to come. Mearn bears "unmentionable tidings". He also has a packet meant for Arithon, that he'd been very careful to keep from the grooms. (I didn't include the excerpt because it hadn't seemed relevant, but Mearn HAD been very insistent about saddling his own horse and his dismay over the groom's carelessness. Well played, Wurts!)
He advises Maenol to read them as well, since his clans are the most threatened. Maenol is pretty unphased, noting that Arithon is planning to sail soon. From where, I wonder. Though the mention of an "island haven at Corith" would seem to answer that question. (A quick look: Corith is off the coast of Havish, south of Tysan. Nearer than seems wise, you spoony bard!)
So what's in the packet?
“Oh, well-done,” murmured Maenol. Still standing, stiff backed, against a sky that now threatened fine drizzle, he nipped through the twine ties with his teeth, then flipped through the pressed, folded parchments. The dark arch of his eyebrows turned grim as he read. Documents recording rightful claim to clan prisoners to be bound over into slavery; documents of arraignment without trial for acts of dark sorcery, attested and signed, which named Prince Arithon criminal and renegade. Maenol’s sharp features, never animated, stilled to pale quartz as he perused the signatures and seals.
Maenol wonders how so many mayors can bind these acts into law on only Lysaer's word. Mearn asserts that Lysaer has a tongue of pure honey, and his family fell for it once. I think it's simpler than that, personally.
As I think I've said before, Lysaer has a gift of telling the right people what they want to hear, and giving the right people permission to do what they really want to do. In this case, it's less about Arithon per se, though of course, he's hated and feared, and more about the right to continue hunting, and now enslaving, their enemies.
That said, Arithon has never made a decision that didn't backfire on himself. Maenol asks if there's truth to the accusation of what Arithon did at the havens.
Mearn admits, he doesn't know. He does confirm however the proven fact that Arithon had lost his mage powers years ago at Tal Quorin. So, if there was dark sorcery, he couldn't have cast the spells.
That said, as Maenol points out, the deaths could still be his. An accomplice could cast the spells. And the funny thing is, that's not even wrong. Arithon didn't kill those men for death magic, but he did kill them. We saw him do it. Dakar helped with other sorcery. Not this. But does it really matter?
Mearn asks if Maenol had met Arithon. Once. But he'd seemed unimportant. Maenol had been devoted to Lysaer. I remember that. It's so sad in retrospect.
There's an interesting element throughout these books that when it comes to characters who either love or hate either brother, it's the reasons that are significant. Before, it was relevant that the s'Brydions hated Arithon for something tangible, rather than the grand accusations that Lysaer laid at Arithon's feet. It was relevant that Talith followed Lysaer because she loved him, rather than blind worship.
So here, we see, in Mearn's defense, what he values as most important to him:
Mearn at last looked away, his sigh a soundless exhalation. “Arithon’s nothing like his half brother. Trust me in this. As for his guilt, there’s no guessing, given the nature of the man. He’s determined, and beyond any doubt, the most dangerous creature my family has ever chanced to cross.” Attuned to his master’s distress, one of the brindle hounds roused and whined; the horse stamped, and clouds lowered, dimming the earth beneath their soft-footed shrouding. The sky threatened torrents before nightfall.
“This much I can say,” Mearn added finally, his arms folded as if the chill of the wetting to come later bit through his leathers beforetime. “I have never yet known Arithon to lie. He received the Fellowship’s sanction as Crown Prince. Since his oathswearing to Rathain, his integrity has been tested, once in life trial by the caithdein of Shand, and again, by my blood family. His morals were not found wanting. No act he undertook had been done without reason. Before I dared judge on those deaths at the Havens, I would ask in his presence to hear out his sworn explanation.”
Maenol takes that under consideration, then admits that, in the end, it's not going to be his, or Mearn's job to untangle this, but Jieret's. He'll send the messages on to Arithon.
Mearn has more news: Lysaer's having scholars comb the archives to find the lost arts of navigation. This means that, sooner or later, Arithon is going to lose the advantage he has by sea. Time is on Lysaer's side.
---
---
The last sub-chapter in a set is always a set of three paragraphs that give us an idea of things going on in the world, and plot threads that are about to manifest.
This one is called Three Warnings. (Spring-Summer 5648).
Our first paragraph tells us that official couriers are carrying out Lysaer's dispatches (the same that Mearn stole). There's a note about the new sunwheel on gold that serves as "the Prince of the Light"'s new device. They pass a messenger going the opposite way: King Eldir will not be permitting any slave-bearing galleys in the ports of Havish.
It looks like Eldir may not be completely neutral anymore. Nicely done.
--
Our second paragraph tells us over a black arrow screaming over Avenor's city walls. A letter, affixed by Maenol's own blood, "pronounces a forfeit of life against the s'Ilessid pretender who has dared break the freedom of the first kingdom charter..."
--
And third, the "Earl of the North" is having one of his prophetic dreams: a packed city square with a scaffold, white banners and sunwheel blazons, and a chained up Arithon about to be executed.
Well. That sounds exciting!
Note: NOTHING in this recap will make sense if you haven't read prior recaps. Sorry.
But first, let's gently mock the old cover. Because it's great and I, unironically, miss when Wurts painted her own book covers. (The new covers are so dull!!!)
The best part about this is that we know, without a doubt, that this is what Arithon looks like. Wonky-eyebrows, angsty expression. Questionable sword placement. All that.
Seriously dude, though, you might want to be careful. I don't think Dakar or Elaira would be pleased if you castrated yourself.
(Interestingly, in obtaining this cover image I also found some youtube reviews/discussions of this book. I might check them out sometime. I don't know very many people who love this batshittery like I do. It might be good to make friends...
Unless, of course, they are WRONG about it.)
We start out with the map of Athera. I don't notice any real difference between this one and the one from previous books. But to be honest, there's so much detail that I probably wouldn't catch the details very well. I can still spot the familiar locations though.
Our first chapter actually gives us a date! Winter, 5647. Which means now, I have to see if I can figure out other important dates. Give me a second...
Okay, so per the timeline at the Paravia wiki, the battle against the Mistwraith was in 5638. Interestingly, we don't see birthdates for Arithon or Lysaer. Though other characters, like Elaira and Eldir get one. Elaira, by the way, was born in 5617. Eldir (and Jieret!) were born in 5625. Good to know!
Sorry, no more tangents. These reviews are long enough!
--
So, we start off with Elaira. Hey, cool, it's been a while since we've seen what she's been up to. She had a pretty huge role in Ships of Merior, but hadn't made an appearance in Warhost of Vastmark. And, oh, we start out with some steaminess actually:
Strong arms closed and locked around Elaira’s slim shoulders. Fingers strengthened by the sword and sensitized to a masterbard’s arts tightened against her back. The dark-haired, driven man who cradled her surrendered at last to his blazing crest of passion. His lips softened against hers, the restraint, the control, the terrible doubts which bound him consumed all at once in a rush of tender need. She responded, melted. Her being exploded into sensation like fire and flight. At one with the prince who had captured her heart, her spirit knew again that single, suspended moment, with its promise of inexpressible joy.
AHEM.
Of course, it's a dream. In fact, Elaira hasn't seen Arithon for two years. Elaira doesn't have the power of purple prose, so the only immediate description we get of her is that she's a "small-boned enchantress".
Elaira is somewhere called Araethura. There was a blizzard recently, and we, of course, get some lovely setting description:
Over the open glens, through stands of scrub oak and across the rustling flats of frozen marsh, the ice whipped in driven bursts, to rattle the ill-fitted shutters of her cottage at the fringe of the moor. Crystals found the cracks, tapped at the lintels, and fanned a frosted arc of silver across the leaked bit of moonlight admitted through the same chink. While the eddies moaned and clawed past the beams of the eaves, and the spent tang of ash commingled with the fragrance of cut cedar and frost-damp miasma of moldered thatch, Elaira exhaled a deep breath. Given time, the runaway pound of her heart would subside.
I did miss these descriptions.
I also missed the overwrought emotional reactions too:
She untangled the fist still clenched through a coil of auburn hair. Too many times she awakened like this, struggling against the blind urge to weep, while the ripping, slow agony of Arithon’s memory threatened to stop her will to live. In desperation, against the vows of the Koriani Order which tied her lifelong to a celibate service, her refuge from despair became the fiercely guarded shelter of her solitude.
Damn girl. Cold shower, maybe?
So anyway, through these two pages of description, there had been note of someone pounding on the door. Elaira might angst in florid terms, but she curses simply enough, wondering if they think she's deaf as a post. She stands up, only to realize that she's completely nude - apparently the storm had soaked through her shift the night before. She grabs her cloak.
“Fiends plague!” The dank cloak would just have to serve. “Whoever you are, I don’t dispense remedies naked!”
I like this line. I don't know why. I just feel like it's one of those quotes that really sum up a character.
As it happens, opening the door, the wind catches on her cloak, giving her visitor a bit more of an eyeful than expected. The visitor, a herder boy, is poleaxed. Elaira manages not to laugh at him and invites him inside.
Okay, that was pretty funny. Much better than Sethvir's bath as first chapter fan service goes. And I really appreciate that the sudden accidental flashing was not used to humiliate Elaira at all. The poor shepherd boy, on the other hand, is too overwhelmed to speak.
Elaira finds her clothes and gets dressed while the poor kid is still stammering. There's actual ice in the hem. Ouch. Eventually, the boy manages to tell her that his aunt is in childbed and the midwife sent for her.
Elaira gets some more information about the woman and baby: labor started at mid-day. The water broke, as did the caul, and let forth an "unlucky color" - greenish and thick. Ew. That can't be good.
Indeed, Elaira tells him that his aunt isn't likely to die, but the baby is in trouble. Enough so that Elaira doesn't really have time to warm herself/her cold (but dry) clothes via a fire. She basically grabs what she needs and they go. The kid, Kaid, doesn't ride, but Elaira can keep him from falling.
As they ride, Elaira muses a bit about the Koriani sisterhood, giving us an idea of their status at this point in time:
Elaira had never known the reverent respect once offered to initiates of the Koriani sisterhood. The arts of her order had been viewed with trepidation for as long as she could remember. The ignorant intolerance arisen since the uprising that upset the rule of the old high kings had not lessened with defeat of the Mistwraith’s fell fogs, which had masked Athera’s skies for five centuries. Quite the contrary, the entrenched distrust the townborn folk held for sorceries had been inflamed to root deeper since the hour the vanished sunlight had been restored.
The Koriani Prime Enchantress held adamant opinion on the reason: the new strife arisen through the Mistwraith’s curse of enmity, laid upon the two princes whose gifts had brought its captivity, just provoked such misguided beliefs. Blame was not shared equally upon the shoulders of Lysaer s’Ilessid, birth-born to wield the powers of light. Only the Master of Shadow, Arithon s’Ffalenn, was raised mage-wise. The Prime and her Senior Circle were swift to point out his shortcomings. Unlike the royal half brother set against him, he had spurned the strictures of his training and invoked the high arts without scruple.
Few would deny that across four kingdoms, Arithon’s name was now linked to destruction and unconscionable acts of bloodshed.
And of course, our main characters. Elaira herself is troubled: she knows that Lysaer's war host came to ruins at Dier Kenton Vale in Vastmark. But she doesn't know the circumstances. She doesn't want to know either, because she doesn't want her Order to use her against him again.
As customary for this book, we get quite a lot of description and contemplation, as well as some environmental obstacles before Elaira and Kaid get to their destination. I'm including none of it, as, while it is interesting to read, it's not that interesting to recap. Elaira's too straightforward for hilarious prose.
They get to the cottage two hours before dawn - apparently the time of night "when death was most apt to be welcomed by a body and spirit in distress".
The midwife is there, also an old woman who greets Elaira with the title "fferedon'li" - an old term for healer that was corrupted from an ancient Paravian phrase meaning "bringer of light." This reminds me how basically every character's name has a meaning in Paravian, and they're all in a GIANT glossary at the back of the book.
So Elaira gets to the woman. She's pretty rough looking, crouching on a birthing stool, sweating, her torso wrapped in quilts and blankets - apparently that's at her husband's assistance as a "matter of her modesty". Leave it to a fuckhead to prioritize his wife's modesty over her comfort. The midwife is as annoyed about this as I am.
The midwife, by the way, has thick wrists, "gouged in crescents where suffering fingernails had dug through the violent cramping pains". Ouch!
The old woman gets a fun description:
Over the girl’s exhausted grunting, from the corner by a clothes chest, a mass first mistaken for a bundle of old rags stirred to scratch. Attenuated, white-boned fingers went on to sketch out a blessing sign in welcome. Behind the gesture, faint in the gloom, a withered face surveyed the enchantress who came as healer.
This lady is the "traditional seeress". Apparently, it's a thing where a matriarch with the Sight attends every birth, death and wedding in the area, so she can interpret omens and deliver auguries. Elaira greets her respectfully, in "accentless Paravian".
So Elaira goes to help. She's happy to see that she's not too late, and when the child comes out, she has the midwife cut and tie the umbilical cord, but not stimulate the child: there's fluid in the baby's lungs that need to come out before the poor thing breathes or cries.
There's quite a lot of gross description here. And an explanation for what went wrong:
The midwife raised no question in protest. Quietly busy with towels and knife, she knew best of any which complications lay beyond reach of her knowledge; had seen warning enough when the mother’s water had broken, clogged and discolored. The trauma of birthing had stressed the unborn babe and caused it to void its bowels before it could be pushed from the womb. The fluid which had cushioned its growing had become fouled by its own excrement. If it chanced to draw such taint into its lungs, the newborn would perish of suffocation. No herbal remedy in her store of experience would change the outcome. The child would die within minutes.
I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about birthing babies. Can this really happen? (A quick google search tells me about something called meconium aspiration syndrome. Egads, childbirth and babies are terrifying.)
The midwife clearly expects Elaira to cast some kind of spell, but this is more nursing skill than it is magic. She finds a thin, curved tube that had been borrowed from her still, warms and cleans it in a dish filled with her precious store of alcohol (I enjoy the thought that, between the still and the precious store, Elaira enjoys a drink occasionally. Good for her.)
Elaira is a bit nervous - if she fails, these superstitious folk may assume that she's the reason the baby died.
Elaira steeled herself, turned, received from the midwife’s competent, broad grasp the sticky, warm bundle of the child. His blood-smeared skin was pale gray, his limbs unmoving, not yet quickened by the first breath of life. She laid him head toward her on the table, aware through the crawling, unsteady light that his wet, whorled hair was coal black. She pried open the tiny, slack mouth, arranged the skull and neck, and with a hurried prayer to Ath, inserted the tube from the still down the throat and into the infant’s airway. She must not tremble. The curved glass was thin, very fragile. Any pressure at an angle might snap it. Where a straw reed might have offered less peril, no interval could be spared to search one out. Need drove her. She must not miss the opening, nor tear the newborn’s tender flesh in her haste. All the while theawareness skittered shivers down her spine, that she had but seconds to complete what must be done.
If the child were to die now, it would be of her own, rank clumsiness.
She felt the tube slide in. A sixth sense, born of her talents and training, told her the insertion was successful. She bent, set her lips to the glass, sucked, and spat the juices into the bowl she used to mix remedies. Against the white porcelain, the secretion was greenish, foul. She sipped at the tube again. Another mouthful, and still the drawn fluid was discolored. She repeated the procedure, was rewarded with a slight change in hue. The fourth mouthful came out clean.
There we go. The baby can breathe now. She slaps its feet to stimulate it. The baby shudders, cries, and Elaira pretty much immediately hands it over to the midwife. She heads outside to find...
Then froze, jolted through her whole being as her eyes met and locked with a man’s.
He had black hair, green eyes. A face of lean angles bent toward her, the rage in each tautened muscle burnished by the hot flare of the tallow dips. The rest of him was muffled beneath a caped cloak, tied with cord, and woven in the fine, colored stripes preferred by the herders of Araethura.
Rocked out of balance, Elaira felt a cry lock fast in her throat. For a moment fractured from the slipstream of time, she could not move or think. Then the nuance of observation she was trained to interpret showed her the subtle differences: the fist, clamped in rough wool, with thick fingers too clumsy to strike song from a lyranthe string. This man was larger, coarser in build; not Arithon s’Ffalenn, Prince and Masterbard. The rough-edged male who loomed over her was the husband of this house, and the newborn child’s father.
It's not quite as egregious as that time in one of the Julian May books where the narrator, unprovoked, starts talking about cousin Parnell, and how he's comparably large but lacks the "massive elegance" of authorial favorite Marc Remillard, but it's pretty close. Soon, soon, you can tell us about Arithon's tiny feral appeal.
It's possibly worth noting that, per the map, Araethura is part of Rathain, Arithon's ancestral kingdom. So there might be a justification for the resemblance.
Anyway, the dude, as befitting the kind of jackass who wants his overheated wife to be wrapped in blankets for "modesty", is immediately hostile at the thought of "her kind" being here. Elaira is happy enough to leave, but the old seeress insists that she needs to stay to see the augury. In the way of powerful old women everywhere, she doesn't seem inclined to take this dude's shit. However...
“Tempt no ill luck. There’s a sacrifice owed by this babe. He would have gained no firm foothold in this world at all, if not for the hand of the fferedon’li.”
Elaira knows the sound of a "child of destiny" type obligation when she hears it and immediately is like "no, no, it's fine." But the seeress isn't having any of her, or the husband's nonsense.
So time for the augury. Elaira can tell immediately that the woman is the real deal. She can feel her tap into her presence. And here we go:
“One child, four possible fates, looped through the thread of his life span. He will grow to reach manhood. Should he die in fire, none suffers but he. Yours to choose when that time comes, Fferedon’li. Should he die on salt water, the one ye love most falls beside him. Should he die landbound, in crossed steel and smoke, the same one ye cherish survives, but betrayed. Yet should this child’s days extend to old age, first the five kingdoms, then the whole world will plunge into darkness, never to see sunlight or redemption. Your burden to choose in the hour of trial, Fferedon’li, and this child’s to give, the natural death or the sacrifice. Let him be called Fionn Areth Caid-an.” The ancient seeress lowered the babe, the hard spark fading from her eyes as she closed her final line. “Let his training be for the sword, for his path takes him far from Araethura.”
...well fuck. Sucks to be you, kid.
I don't actually remember what happens to this kid, but I bet you ten to one, he's going to die "landbound". Because that's Arithon's fucking luck.
---
---
So as is customary for this series, each "chapter" actually consists of three sub-chapters, and then, what I like to call the "sneak peek" section. The first sub-chapter shares the overall chapter title.
This next subchapter is called Crown Council.
It takes place in Winter, 5647-5648, by the way. I LOVE these little date headers!
Unsurprisingly, based on the title, this is a Lysaer chapter. King Eldir of Havish has sent an ambassador to visit "His Grace, the Prince of the Light" in Avenor, the capitol of Tysan.
Lysaer had been in the process of rebuilding Avenor, before he decided to send a warhost after his little half-brother. So how's it going?
No secretaries murmured behind closed doors. A lone drudge polished rows of brass latches, her labors methodically silent. The hush felt inert as the vault of a tomb. Three weeks was too soon for the city to assimilate the impact of a fresh and unalloyed tragedy. The burgeoning industry of Avenor, so magnificently restored, seemed stalled; as if even the very resonance of power stood mute, stricken numb by the news that even now rocked the five kingdoms.
Of the forty thousand dedicated men sent to war in the rocky scarps of Vastmark, all but ten thousand had died of the strategy unleashed by the Master of Shadow.
Tragic, of course, but it's not like they HAD to go chasing after one dude. That's always the issue with Lysaer's losses. They're unnecessary. And sure, Lysaer himself is a victim of the curse (though he doesn't exactly try to fight it...), but the people around him aren't. Any of them could have actually STOPPED this bullshit.
But they don't, of course. Because they buy into Lysaer's propaganda. Because it fits in with the world view that suits them. It justifies their power and their ability to persecute their clannish adversaries with impunity.
We're told that King Eldir, who has declared neutrality, sent an ambassador known for patience and skepticism. Probably wise. He also gave him a warning:
Sensitive to the pitfalls in the tidings he carried, the High King’s ambassador reviewed his firm orders. Then his sovereign lord’s entreaty, unequivocal and clear, given upon his departure:
“Your loyalty may come to be tested, and sorely. Lysaer s’Ilessid can be disarmingly persuasive in pursuit of his hatred of Arithon. But the Fellowship Sorcerers grant no credence to his war to destroy the Crown Prince of Rathain. Your errand may well be received in disfavor. Should you find yourself compromised, even imprisoned under wrongful charges, you must keep my realm of Havish uninvolved.”
Eldir's by far the smartest character in this series, I think. Except maybe for that trust/reliance on the fucking Fellowship.
So, regular readers of this series' recaps may be asking: did Lysaer retain his power of purple prose?
In the smaller room used for closed hearings, Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid awaited. He was alone. A less imposing man, unattended, might have been overlooked on the dais, with its massive oak table, hedged by tall chairs with their carved and gilded finials, then these dwarfed in turn by the star and crown tapestry, device of Tysan’s past high kings. The woven device masked the east wall, gold on blue beneath the spooled rail of the second-floor gallery.
Limned by a flood of cold, winter sunlight, this sovereign’s presence filled that lofty well of space as a jewel might rest in a reliquary.
Hm...maybe...
The dignitary from Havish discovered himself staring, forgetful of protocol or the ingrained polish of court ceremony.
Fair, gold hair seemed tipped in leaf silver. The eyes were direct, the clear, unflawed blue of matched aquamarine. Where Lysaer s’Ilessid had always owned a powerful, charismatic male beauty, the Vastmark campaign left him changed. Now, his majesty went beyond poise. As steel smelted down and reforged could emerge from the punishment of hammer and anvil to carry a keener edge, the pain of a massive defeat had tautened his flesh over its framework of bone. Less given to smiling platitudes, he wore the tempered, private stillness of the veteran who has squinted too long over hostile terrain. The strong southland sun, the cruel weather, the indelible grief imprinted by the loss of thirty thousand lives had but rekindled this prince’s resolve; like a lamp set burning on a fuel of sheer faith, to illuminate where a lesser flame would fail.
The ambassador shook off stunned paralysis. He tendered the bow that acknowledged royal bloodline, but implied no stature of rank. The detail struck him as curious: the prince had eschewed to display the sovereign colors of Tysan. Instead he wore a tabard of white silk, trimmed with gold cord, and fastened at the neck with stud diamonds.
Oh, there we go. I was worried for a moment.
Anyway, Lysaer is courteous, but brisk. He's got a bigger meeting scheduled after this one. He hopes the ambassador will stay as independent witness and King Eldir's representative. The ambassador seems less optimistic.
So why IS he here?
He's actually here because of the Fellowship. Lysaer is interested, though he notes that the Fellowship is no longer welcome in Tysan. Honestly, that's fucking deserved. I mean, I know it's just because Lysaer wants the freedom to continue being a genocidal douchebag. But given that Fellowship machinations helped make him this way to begin with, I can't feel too bad for them.
That said, it's not like the Fellowship will listen.
Okay, so one of the subplots in Vastmark had to do with Arithon kidnapping Lysaer's wife, pirate style, and ransoming her for a shit ton of money. Lysaer actually had to raise said money TWICE, because the first got waylaid (by Arithon, of course). It bought Arithon much needed time.
Well:
The ambassador folded stiff fingers inside the lace of his cuffs. Too circumspect to pass judgment on the doings of mages, he picked his way cautiously. “Your lost gold was returned by Prince Arithon’s hand, and surrendered under Fellowship auspices. By appointment as neutral executor, the crown of Havish will restore the full sum to your Grace’s treasury. The incident, as you claim, went beyond simple theft. The Master of Shadow waylaid your lady’s ransom as a tactic to stall your war host from invasion of Vastmark.”
“Five hundred thousand coin weight in exchange for the time to arrange for thirty thousand deaths.” Lysaer never moved, his seamless detachment enough to raise frost on hot iron. “What price, for the blood that was spilled in Dier Kenton Vale?”
I mean, again, dude. YOU went after HIM. YOU invaded a country and the deaths came, primarily, from the people who lived there. But Lysaer is nothing if not a spin-master.
The ambassador, who seems to be yet another of Wurts's nameless one shot characters that I'm inclined to love, just side-steps the insinuation. He informs Lysaer that the treasure is aboard his galley, under seal, to be given to Lysaer. He knows Lysaer can't really afford to turn him down, and he wants to leave before being forced to attend the meeting as a witness. Something beyond the scope of his authority.
Unfortunately, Lysaer outmaneuvers him:
Yet before he could draw the audience to an end, the royal steward flung wide the door. A tightly bunched cadre of trade ministers filed in, their clothes trimmed in furs and jewelled braids. Costly, dyed plumes cascaded from their hat brims; their hands flashed, expressive with rings.
The prince had staged his private meeting to converge with the ambassador’s presence. Eldir’s delegate settled back on his seat, out-maneuvered by the forms of diplomacy. While the trade worthies vied like rustling peacocks for the places close to the dais, he waited in guarded resignation for the play of Lysaer’s strategy.
The folks here are all partisans who hate Arithon: Tysan's mayors, delegates with complaints against Arithon (like folks from Jaelot), the governor of the "Western League of Headhunters" - including the unfortunately named Skannt, who heads Rathain's headhunters. And so on and so forth.
One of the folks, Lord Commander Harradene, is Diegan's replacement. Good riddance. But there is one interesting face here:
Nearest to the prince, faced bristling across four feet of oak table, a muscled, tight-lipped mercenary traded glares with Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of a clanborn duke from the eastshore kingdom of Melhalla. The scruffy little cleric in scholar’s robes placed between them stared through the window, oblivious to the smoldering hatreds entrenched through five centuries of bloodshed.
If you recall, the s'Brydions ended the last book by switching sides - but offering to keep an eye on things for Arithon. Mearn, then, is likely a spy.
So what IS this meeting about?
Lysaer called the meeting to order. He might wear no coronet of royal office, yet the absent trappings of rank stole no force at all from his majesty. His opening phrase slashed the crosscurrents of ambition and froze them forcefully silent. “We are gathered this hour to resolve my claim to the powers of crown rule, offered to me by legitimate blood descent, and sealed into edict by Tysan’s independent city councils.” His hand, bare of rings, moved, reached, and lifted a heavy document weighted with state seals and ribbons.
Ah. There we go. So Lysaer has finally dispensed with his fiction of being a lord, not a king. He's now got strong enough loyalty to assert his claim outright.
Someone disagrees, of course: an arrow strikes into the parchment, skewering it to the table. Impressive shot. A clan accent shouts that the claim is unlawful. This leads, of course, to pandemonium. Lysaer insists that he wants the archer alive.
The unfortunately named Skannt notes that this is a "clan signal arrow" - the colors (red shaft, scarlet fletching) are a formal declaration of protest. His judgment is that this wasn't an assassination attempt - the archer meant to hit the parchment.
And the archer is caught:
Lysaer fingered the mangled parchment, slit through its ribbons and the artful, inked lines of state language. He said nothing to Skannt’s observation. Motionless before his rumpled courtiers who crowded beneath the shelter of tables and chairs, he awaited the outcome of the fracas in the gallery. Five heavyset war captains rushed the archer, who stood, his weapon still strung. He wore nondescript leathers, a belt with no scabbard, and soft-soled deerhide shoes. In fact, he was unarmed beyond the recurve, which was useless. He carried no second arrow in reserve. As his attackers closed in to take him, he fought.
He was clanborn, and insolent, and knew those combatants who brandished knives bore small scruple against drawing blood to subdue him.
Fast as he was, and clever when cornered, sheer numbers at length prevailed. A vindictive, brief struggle saw him crushed flat and pinioned.
I feel like this won't end well for him.
We get some more description:
Scuffed, bleeding, his sturdy leathers dragged awry, the clansman was bundled down the stairs. He was of middle years, whipcord fit, and athletic enough not to miss his footing. Space cleared for the men who frog-marched him up to the dais. He stayed nonplussed. Through swelling and bruises, and the twist of fallen hair ripped loose from his braid, his forthright gaze fixed on the prince. He seemed careless, unimpressed. Before that overwhelming, sovereign presence, his indifference felt like contempt.
There's some snide comments from the peanut gallery.
Lysaer "grants" an audience here. The clansman confirms what Skannt said. He claims Lysaer's authority doesn't exist. He's bringing protest under the "first kingdom law" and the realm's "founding charter". Lysaer's claim is "flagrant breach of due process".
I don't recall if the books have really elaborated much on the "founding charters" of each kingdom yet. There's some complicated backstory. I feel like more of it might come up in this book. It's actually kind of a big deal though.
Of course, the problem is, old laws, just like old traditions, are only effective as long as people intend to respect them. Poor Halliron discovered that in Jaelot.
“I need no sanction from Fellowship Sorcerers.” Lysaer laid down the arrow, unruffled. Winter sun through the casement spanned the stilled air and exposed him; even so, he gave back no shadow of duplicity. For a prince who had lost untold lives to clan tactics, then his best friend and commander to covert barbarian marksmen, this unconditional equilibrium seemed inspired. His reproof held a sorrow to raise shame as he qualified, “I must point out, your complaint as it stands is presumptuous and premature. This writ from Tysan’s mayors has not been sealed into law. I have not yet accepted the mantle of kingship.”
And we see, of course, the PR spin. How tragic that lives were lost in commission of a genocide, right?
But Lysaer definitely knows how to play a crowd:
To the stir of surprise from disparate city mayors, the murmured dismay from trade factions, and the outright, riveted astonishment of King Eldir’s ambassador, Lysaer gave scant attention. “As for treason, let this be your trial.” He gestured past the clansman bound before him. “The men assembled here will act as your jurors. No worthier circle could be asked to pass judgment. You stand before the highest officials of this realm, and the uninvolved delegates from five kingdoms. Nor are we without a strong voice from the clans. Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of Alestron’s reigning duke, may serve as your voice in defense.”
Ahh, got to love "justice". The men who've spent centuries warring with the clan get to judge him. Oh, of course, there's one voice otherwise. One that, loyal or not, really can't speak up in his defense. It's like Barrabus vs. Jesus. It's a Roman game: offer a "choice" that really isn't one. When the "wrong" answer will lead to death and ruin. But the "right" choice means this really is justice - after all, even the victims agree.
It fits, of course, that Lysaer uses Roman tactics. If there's ever a culture that embodies the concept of "lawful evil", the Romans would qualify.
The barbarian gets to give a good speech though. He claims that, after the murder of Maenalle, caithdein of the realm, her successor, Maenol had empowered him to deliver the warning: forsake his pursuit of Arithon, or there'll be an open declaration of civil war.
I'm sure this will go well.
Lysaer, of course, asserts that Maenalle died a convicted thief and warns, with "saddened" eyes, that Maenol will see worse if he persists in "rash overtures of violence."
The clansman again asserts that it's an issue of sovereignty. Lysaer's fitness to rule was deemed compromised and his vendetta is driven by the curse. The Havish Ambassador thinks that he could confirm that, but his king's will kept him silent. As for the rest of the attendees: the thundering crosscurrents of hatred bent truth to imperil the prisoner".
Apparently, the clansman's words do hit a mark. But Lysaer always knows how to use an occasion:
“How I wish the threat posed by the Master of Shadow were due only to the meddling of Desh-thiere.” A disarming regret rode Lysaer’s pause. Then, as if weariness cast a pall over desperate strength, he relinquished his advantage of height, sat down, and plunged on in bald-faced resolve. “But far worse has come to bear on this conflict than rumors of an aberrant curse. This goes beyond any issue of enmity between the Shadow Master and myself. Hard evidence lies on record in the cities of Jaelot and Alestron. Twice, unprovoked, Arithon s’Ffalenn wielded sorcery against innocents with destructive result. Now, in the course of the late war in Vastmark, a more dire accusation came to light. Since it may touch on the case here at hand, I ask this gathering’s indulgence.”
So, remember how Arithon had the brilliant idea to commit a war crime in order to scare Lysaer into backing off - hopefully saving the lives of a LOT of people in the long run? But it didn't work, because Diegan never let the message get to Lysaer? So Arithon still commits the war crime, but everyone dies anyway?
Yeah...
“I was born a fisherman at Merior by the Sea,” he opened. “When Arithon’s brigantine, the Khetienn, was launched, I left my father’s lugger to sign on as one of her crewmen. Under command of the Master of Shadow, I bore witness to an atrocity no sane man could sanction. For that reason, I deserted, and stand here today. Word of his monstrous act at the Havens inlet must be told, that justice may come to be served.”
An eye-witness:
Then the words poured from him, often halting, tremulous with remembered horror. Too desperately, he wished to forget what had happened on the summer afternoon as the Khetienn put into one of the deep, fissured channels, where the high crags of Vastmark plunged in weather-stepped stone to the shoreline of Rockbay Harbor. Today, pallid under the window’s thin sunshine, the seaman recounted the affray, when two hundred archers under Arithon s’Ffalenn had dispatched, without mercy, a company five hundred and thirty men strong.
“They were murdered!” the sailhand pealed in distress. “The vanguard were cut down in ruthless waves as they scrambled, exposed on the cliff trails. More fell while launching boats in retreat. They were dropped in their tracks by volleys of arrows shot out of cover from above.” The long-sighted seaman’s eyes were raised now, locked to a horrified memory. As if they yet viewed the steep, shadowed cliffs; the wave-fretted channel of the inlet; the still-running blood of men broken like toys in the brazen, uncaring sunlight. As though, beyond time, living flesh could still cringe from the screams of the maimed and the dying, scythed down in full flight, then tumbled still quick in their agony into the thrash of the breakers.
“Such slaughter went on, unrelenting.” Before listeners strangled into shocked quiet, the damning account unfolded. Impelled now by passionate outrage, scene after scene of inhumane practice were described in the fisherman’s slow, southcoast accent. “Those wretches who fled were killed from behind. Any who survived to launch longboats did so by shielding their bodies behind corpses. Their valor and desperation made no difference. They were cut off as they sought to make sail. Every galley turned in flight was run down and fired at the mouth of the inlet. No vessel was spared. Even a fishing lugger burdened with wounded was razed and burned to her waterline. Mercy was forbidden, at Arithon’s strict order. By my life, as I stand here, and Dharkaron as my judge, the killing went on until no man who tried landfall was left standing.”
The fisherman stirred, came back to himself, and shifted his feet in self-consciousness. “All that I saw took place before the great rout at Dier Kenton Vale.”
So yeah, this isn't going well.
I still stand by my opinion though, and maybe you can call me an apologist. But these were all invading men. No civilians. No (non-combatant) women or children. And given actions taken in Strakewood, do we really think they'd have spared the families of the archers?
But again, these are folks who have their own investment in the cause. The one neutral man, Havish's Ambassador, thinks that there's something off about the sailor's "lidded gaze, that darted and shied from direct contact." He thinks that this man might be hiding something or slanting his account.
Lysaer is happy to use this though:
“But Arithon s’Ffalenn never acts without design.” The passionate impact of Lysaer’s rebuttal spun electrifying tension in contrast. “No man alive is more clever, or sane. This Spinner of Darkness would have his reason, cold-blooded, even vicious, to have timed and effected such slaughter.”
Lysaer stood, fired now by conviction which no longer let him keep still. The light shimmered across his collar yoke of diamonds, template to his distress. “We know the scarps above Dier Kenton Vale were splintered into a rock fall. Earth itself was suborned as a weapon to break the proud ranks of our war host. If the rim walls in that territory are prone to slides, the ruin rained down on our troops was a feat beyond all bounds of credibility. What if more than exploitation of a natural disaster were the cause? Could sorcery in fact have been used to cleave a new fault line? Even weaken the structure of the shale?”
It is remarkable how Lysaer can turn his own mistakes into enemy maliciousness. He really proves, yet again, why charisma and diplomacy are not dump stats.
Oh, hey.
“Arithon s’Ffalenn was born to mage training!” Prince Lysaer exhorted above the noise. “Through his seemingly wanton slaughter at the Havens, could he not have tapped the arcane power to rend the very fabric of the earth?”
Is that possible?
On orchestrated cue, the shriveled little man in scholar’s robes started up from his unobtrusive dreaming. “The premise is not without precedent,” he affirmed in a drilling, treble quaver. “There are proscribed practices that herb witches use to tap forces of animal magnetism.”
A stunning truth. Every common man-at-arms who ever bought an illicit love philter had observed the filthy practice.
So, logic holds, if animal lives could do that, then five hundred human lives... Damn, you know, Arithon. If you were going to war crime anyway, you COULD have used that power. Oh well, hindsight.
Lysaer isn't just aiming this at his half brother though. He's got a bigger target:
“The question is raised,” Avenor’s deep-voiced justiciar sliced through the uproar. He nodded in respect to his prince, then addressed the bound clansman. “If the Master of Shadow engages dark magecraft, the preeminent arcane order on this continent has not stepped forth to denounce him. The Fellowship Sorcerers have not spoken. Nor have they acted to curb his vile deeds. The Warden of Althain himself is said to feel each drop of blood spilled in Athera. Every death at the Havens would be known to him. Why should he let this atrocity pass?”
There are a LOT of reasons to hate the Fellowship, admittedly. This one is a little much. And Havish's ambassador agrees, thinking about how it was the Fellowship that sent him to bring the money back to Lysaer. But he's wise enough not to say anything.
So anyway, it's not hard to link the Fellowship to Arihon's crimes, because they support Arithon. (And honestly, that's not entirely unfair. Especially as they did jack shit about Lysaer's crimes, which, again, only happened because their stupid prophecy needs Arithon on the throne.)
There is someone else here who has an opinion though:
Volatile as spilled flame in the red-and-gold surcoat of Alestron’s unvanquished clan dukes, Mearn s’Brydion, appointed delegate of his brother, sprang up in pacing agitation. “While you bandy conjecture in mincing, neat words, let us pay strict attention to procedure! If this slaughter at the Havens ever happened, where’s hard proof?” He cast suspicious gray eyes toward the sailhand, impervious himself to the looks turned his way by townsmen distrustful of his breeding. “Or will you sheep dressed in velvets let yourselves be gulled by the word of a man disaffected?”
As the deckhand surged forward, flushed into outrage, Mearn raised a finger like a blade. “I’ve not said you’re a liar! Not outright. Arithon’s a known killer, that much I grant. I witnessed the debacle he caused in our armory. But whether his slaughter of these companies at the Havens took place as a blood crime, or some cruel but expedient act of war, the killing was done on the soil of Shand. Can’t mix your legalities for convenience. Town law won’t apply to a kingdom. Under sovereignty of Shand’s founding charter, as written by the Fellowship of Seven, Prince Arithon’s offense is against Lord Erlien, High Earl of Alland. As caithdein of that realm, the Teir s’Taleyn is charged to uphold justice in the absence of his high king. The question of Prince Arithon’s guilt falls under his province to determine.”
The funny thing is, I think Mearn would have said this even if the s'Brydions hadn't switched over to Arithon's banner. Legality is important to the clans. As is the individual sovereignty of the nations. Or...maybe I'm giving him too much credit. After all, Erlien also "tested" Arithon about the armory, and the s'Brydions weren't inclined to listen then.
That said, the s'Brydions are Lysaer's only clannish ally. So Mearn's the only guy in this room who actually cares about the old laws. Which is a problem for the messenger:
Yet it was Lord Shien, joint captain of Avenor’s field troops, whose remark stormed the floor into quiet. “If the barbarian before this council was sent as an envoy to declare his chieftain’s enmity, we have sure trouble here at home!” A large man, with meaty, chapped knuckles and a frown that seemed stitched in place, he raised the bull bellow he used to cow recruits. “And whether or not the Master of Shadow has embraced wickedness, or sacrificed lives to buy power, dissent from the clans will give him a free foothold here to exploit. We dare not allow such a weakness. Not before such dire threat.”
Attention swung back. Like blood in the water amidst schooling sharks, men fastened their outrage upon the offender held bound within reach. “Sentence the archer! Condemn him for treason! Let him die as example to his brethren!”
“Do that,” interceded the long-faced justiciar, “and according to town edict, he dies on the scaffold, broken one limb at a time.”
Mearn tries to warn them. The man was sent to properly contest a point of law, if they take his life, there will never be a reconciliation.
No one's listening. They want him dead. But now, it's Lysaer's chance to be dramatic:
Lysaer used the pause. While the atmosphere simmered in fierce anticipation, his study encompassed every minister, hard breathing in velvets and furs. The officers of war endured his regard, unflinching, then the mayors, with their gnawing, hidden fear. The prince they had signed into power was royal, closer in ties to clan ancestry than they wished. The price of their protection from the Spinner of Darkness might come at the cost of their coveted autonomy.
Yet to refute the traditions of city law outright, Lysaer had to know, he would flaw the amity of their support. Foremost a statesman, he showed no hesitation. “The case of your clans might have fared best by waiting. Before you shot down your colorful ultimatum, you could have heard out my answer to this document.” He fingered the torn scroll of parchment in unfeigned regret, as he added, “For you see, I have no intent to accept the burden of crown rule at this time.”
Of course, ultimately, Lysaer doesn't need to be a king. Especially not when the gesture of refusing has far more impact.
“Arithon s’Ffalenn may have been born a man, but he has foregone his humanity,” Prince Lysaer resumed. “His birth gift presents an unspeakable threat. This, paired with his use of unprincipled magic, redoubles our peril before him.” Lest the quiet give way to fresh altercation, Lysaer delivered his solution. “I sit before you as this criminal’s opposite, my gift of light our best counterforce to offset his shadow. For this reason, I must decline Tysan’s kingship. My purpose against Arithon must stay undivided for the sake of the safety of our people.”
The logic was unassailable. Defeat on a grand scale had shown the futility of choosing one battlefield for confrontation. The inevitable striving to forge new alliances, to restore shaken trust after broadscale ruin, then the wide-ranging effort to buy a mage-trained enemy’s downfall, must draw this prince far afield from Avenor.
He said, “For the stability of this realm, I suggest that a regency be appointed in my name, answerable to a council of city mayors. This will serve the crown’s justice and bind Tysan into unity until the day I have an heir, grown and trained and fit beyond question for the inheritance of s’Ilessid birthright.”
The Havish ambassador and Mearn both see the move for what it is.
And we get some more declarations. To sum. 1) the clansman gets to go free, as messenger. Maenol must turn himself in by a certain date to swear his clan's fealty, or else there'll be sanctions and reprisals against their treason.
2) Lysaer will use the returned money to rebuild a trade fleet for the merchants that lost their crafts in Minderl Bay. And to discourage Arithon from fighting with fire, they'll be manned by chained convicts - specifically men convicted of being Arithon's allies. Particularly the clansfolk, if Maenol doesn't swear.
3) He's not repealing any bounties for the scalps of "renegade clan" but, if Maenol doesn't swear, he'll pay double for male barbarians brought in alive.
Woo, conscript slavery.
So the clansman is set free. The ambassador from Havish slips out. His reaction is interesting:
The ambassador from Havish used the confusion to slip through the ranks of halberdiers. Outside in the corridor, he ducked into a window niche, while the sweat dewed his temples and curled the short hairs of his beard. This was not his fight. And yet, even still, his mind seemed loath to relinquish the pull of Lysaer’s seductive delivery.
The prince owned a terrifying power of conviction. Thirty thousand lives gone and wasted in Vastmark had left his dedication unshaken. Nor would his adherents awaken and see sense, tied to his need as they were through inherited blinders of prejudice.
That first paragraph makes it sound like he is leaning Lysaer's way. But the second adds a different tone. He seems to have a pretty clear idea of what's going on after all. He thinks about Mearn's seething features - figuring that his brother, the duke, must have ordered restraint. The ambassador, "worn from the effort of leashing his own temper" - thinks about how the word he bears home bodes ill.
He does get to hear Lysaer declaring the foundation of an alliance to "act against the terror and darkness". Sickened, tired, and afraid for the future, the ambassador hastens away. Poor guy.
---
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The third sub-chapter is Stag Hunt.
It's set in spring, 5648. Woo. Amusingly, it's not actually necessary here, as the opening paragraph tells us this is two months after Lysaer had leveled his charges of dark sorcery against Arithon.
Things are still kind of gloomy, we're told. For his part, Mearn s'Brydion ("the rakish youngest brother of the clansborn Duke of Alestrion") is chafing at all the endless meetings. He decides, for once, that he's going to skip the social events and go hunting instead.
He's not subtle about it, causing a bit of uproar through the town that he's clanblood enough to really enjoy. Folks can tell he's clan because of his clipped accent, but Lysaer's said that any "old blood family" bound to his alliance can walk free. So Mearn's got free rein.
The guards are fine with it, figuring that Mearn is unlikely to be bothered by any local clan ambush, seeing as how he's a barbarian himself. They're probably right.
So we follow Mearn through some lavishly described wilderness. I'll add a bit for the nature loving reader of these recaps:
The spring was too new for greenery. Ice still scabbed the north sides of the dales, and the air held its chill like a miser. What warmth kissed Mearn’s shoulders was borrowed from the sun, half-mantled in streamers of cloud. Their shadows flowed like blown soot across the valleys, and rinsed the bright glints from the streamlets. Mearn gave on his reins, let his horse and his hounds drink the wind at a run, as man and beast might to celebrate life as frost loosed its hold on black earth.
There's a lot of that. Anyway, we're told that Mearn's grown up some since Vastmark. He's now focused on other pursuits than "tumbling loose ladies and gambling", and he's shaved off his beard, growing a lovelock instead.
Anyway, Mearn may not be here for just pleasure hunting. At least not judging by this:
A slow interval passed, with Mearn touched to prickles by the certain awareness that he was being watched from all angles. Then, with no ceremony, a young man moved upslope to meet him. His approach scarcely woke any sound from dry grasses. He wore undyed leathers and a vest with dark lacing. He carried bow, knife, and sword as if weapons were natural as flesh. Large framed, deliberate, he had a step like a wary king stag’s. His light eyes, never still, swept the hillock behind, then Mearn, and measured him down to his boot soles. On that day, the high chieftain of Tysan’s outlawed clansmen was nineteen, one year shy as the old law still reckoned manhood.
Hello, Maenol.
The greeting is more of a challenge than a welcome, but, we're told that can to clan, the ways of charter law and the old codes of honor are held in common. So there's a trust here that runs deep beyond words.
Maenol, we're told, has a startling mellow baritone. He notes that Mearn's taken an unmentionable risk to come. Mearn bears "unmentionable tidings". He also has a packet meant for Arithon, that he'd been very careful to keep from the grooms. (I didn't include the excerpt because it hadn't seemed relevant, but Mearn HAD been very insistent about saddling his own horse and his dismay over the groom's carelessness. Well played, Wurts!)
He advises Maenol to read them as well, since his clans are the most threatened. Maenol is pretty unphased, noting that Arithon is planning to sail soon. From where, I wonder. Though the mention of an "island haven at Corith" would seem to answer that question. (A quick look: Corith is off the coast of Havish, south of Tysan. Nearer than seems wise, you spoony bard!)
So what's in the packet?
“Oh, well-done,” murmured Maenol. Still standing, stiff backed, against a sky that now threatened fine drizzle, he nipped through the twine ties with his teeth, then flipped through the pressed, folded parchments. The dark arch of his eyebrows turned grim as he read. Documents recording rightful claim to clan prisoners to be bound over into slavery; documents of arraignment without trial for acts of dark sorcery, attested and signed, which named Prince Arithon criminal and renegade. Maenol’s sharp features, never animated, stilled to pale quartz as he perused the signatures and seals.
Maenol wonders how so many mayors can bind these acts into law on only Lysaer's word. Mearn asserts that Lysaer has a tongue of pure honey, and his family fell for it once. I think it's simpler than that, personally.
As I think I've said before, Lysaer has a gift of telling the right people what they want to hear, and giving the right people permission to do what they really want to do. In this case, it's less about Arithon per se, though of course, he's hated and feared, and more about the right to continue hunting, and now enslaving, their enemies.
That said, Arithon has never made a decision that didn't backfire on himself. Maenol asks if there's truth to the accusation of what Arithon did at the havens.
Mearn admits, he doesn't know. He does confirm however the proven fact that Arithon had lost his mage powers years ago at Tal Quorin. So, if there was dark sorcery, he couldn't have cast the spells.
That said, as Maenol points out, the deaths could still be his. An accomplice could cast the spells. And the funny thing is, that's not even wrong. Arithon didn't kill those men for death magic, but he did kill them. We saw him do it. Dakar helped with other sorcery. Not this. But does it really matter?
Mearn asks if Maenol had met Arithon. Once. But he'd seemed unimportant. Maenol had been devoted to Lysaer. I remember that. It's so sad in retrospect.
There's an interesting element throughout these books that when it comes to characters who either love or hate either brother, it's the reasons that are significant. Before, it was relevant that the s'Brydions hated Arithon for something tangible, rather than the grand accusations that Lysaer laid at Arithon's feet. It was relevant that Talith followed Lysaer because she loved him, rather than blind worship.
So here, we see, in Mearn's defense, what he values as most important to him:
Mearn at last looked away, his sigh a soundless exhalation. “Arithon’s nothing like his half brother. Trust me in this. As for his guilt, there’s no guessing, given the nature of the man. He’s determined, and beyond any doubt, the most dangerous creature my family has ever chanced to cross.” Attuned to his master’s distress, one of the brindle hounds roused and whined; the horse stamped, and clouds lowered, dimming the earth beneath their soft-footed shrouding. The sky threatened torrents before nightfall.
“This much I can say,” Mearn added finally, his arms folded as if the chill of the wetting to come later bit through his leathers beforetime. “I have never yet known Arithon to lie. He received the Fellowship’s sanction as Crown Prince. Since his oathswearing to Rathain, his integrity has been tested, once in life trial by the caithdein of Shand, and again, by my blood family. His morals were not found wanting. No act he undertook had been done without reason. Before I dared judge on those deaths at the Havens, I would ask in his presence to hear out his sworn explanation.”
Maenol takes that under consideration, then admits that, in the end, it's not going to be his, or Mearn's job to untangle this, but Jieret's. He'll send the messages on to Arithon.
Mearn has more news: Lysaer's having scholars comb the archives to find the lost arts of navigation. This means that, sooner or later, Arithon is going to lose the advantage he has by sea. Time is on Lysaer's side.
---
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The last sub-chapter in a set is always a set of three paragraphs that give us an idea of things going on in the world, and plot threads that are about to manifest.
This one is called Three Warnings. (Spring-Summer 5648).
Our first paragraph tells us that official couriers are carrying out Lysaer's dispatches (the same that Mearn stole). There's a note about the new sunwheel on gold that serves as "the Prince of the Light"'s new device. They pass a messenger going the opposite way: King Eldir will not be permitting any slave-bearing galleys in the ports of Havish.
It looks like Eldir may not be completely neutral anymore. Nicely done.
--
Our second paragraph tells us over a black arrow screaming over Avenor's city walls. A letter, affixed by Maenol's own blood, "pronounces a forfeit of life against the s'Ilessid pretender who has dared break the freedom of the first kingdom charter..."
--
And third, the "Earl of the North" is having one of his prophetic dreams: a packed city square with a scaffold, white banners and sunwheel blazons, and a chained up Arithon about to be executed.
Well. That sounds exciting!
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Date: 2023-12-13 03:59 am (UTC)