The Robin and the Kestrel - Chapter Fourteen

[kalinara]

So last time, the long-running undercurrent of communication issues and incompatible coping mechanisms came to a head, leading Gwyna/Robin to make some really fucking stupid decisions.



We rejoin Jonny/Kestrel this time. We've skipped back to the end of their fight. Robin's just stormed out and we're told that his anger evaporated the moment she vanished. He's still indignant though, and equally stubborn, so he doesn't go after her. This is actually kind of cute.

She knew he was right; she wasn't stupid. Once she got over being mad about the way he'd ordered her not to go, she'd realize he was right. The idea of trying to pose as some relative of these people was the height of insanity. Surely, if the Clan was as small as she claimed, they knew every single member, just because she was a [Roma], that wouldn't make her a believable Patsono!

I mean...he's right. The fact that she DIDN'T get nabbed either at the door or at the residence had to do with Lackey caricaturing this group of Bad Roma as every bad stereotype of Roma under the sun. If she'd written them like halfway intelligent people, Robin would have been caught immediately.

But he's also seriously underestimating his wife's stupidity.

I'd probably be a lot more sympathetic to her if she ran off to a tavern, spent the evening making a decent cover story and THEN going in. But we know she doesn't. The only reason she's not in the Bishop's prison cell is sheer dumb luck.

Kestrel tells himself that she'll come back and he'll apologize for trying to order her around, because that was a mistake and he should have known better. And he is pretty clearly rehearsing how he'll apologize/explain his reaction.

And we get a nice couple of paragraphs for him to realize, nope, she's not coming back. Moreover, he doesn't have any idea where the Roma enclave is or where she's heading. He gets angry again, with an italicized inner rant about her lack of responsibility and how she only thinks Roma and Free Bards matter at all, and well...he's not entirely wrong here.

Whoo. You two REALLY need to communicate.

Anger turns to fear as the hour passes. And this is hard to read too:

Hours passed; the anger burned itself out. Fear replaced it, turning him sick with anxiety for her. By the time the bells tolled for midnight, he was certain something terrible had happened to her. Maybe the [Roma] had turned her over to the Cathedral Guards; maybe they had taken matters into their own hands. Maybe she had been arrested for being out on the street after midnight. Maybe a common thief had knocked her unconscious, or even killed her!

I think this is a bit of an anxiety spiral, probably from the trauma of his experiences/fears traveling alone and helpless. The scenario that he comes up with next: someone attacking Robin and Robin using magic to defend herself and getting arrested for it seems a little more likely.

He sat on the bed until the candle burned out. He was sleepless with tension, waiting to see if dawn would bring her back. His throat ached; his stomach twisted and churned, sending bile into the back of his throat. His skull throbbed with headache, and his eyes burned with fatigue. And above it all was helplessness—the knowledge that she was in a situation he couldn't discover, with people he didn't understand, and that his damnable stuttering speech would keep him from even asking a stranger about her.

I like the parallel of emotional distress vs. physical distress for both of our main characters.

He decides, in the morning, to go to the Cathedral. Criminals are displayed there, though he can't really imagine a situation where she would be arrested as a common criminal. But there might be gossip. There are folks friendly to him that he could try to get info from...with the obvious obstacle that he's been playing mute all along. But it's better than nothing.

He takes the wagon to the Market and starts selling. There are no rumors or gossip. There are, however, more sermons and preachers. They're all preaching about the perfidy of women. They're not aiming it at Kestrel, because the license identifies him as deaf as well as mute, so they ignore him outright. Ableism as an advantage for once.

Women are easily corrupted, and spread their corruption gladly. Women are by nature treacherous and scheming. Women are weak, and cannot resist temptation of any sort. Women have no grasp of true faith. Women are inferior, and nearer to the nature of animals than of angels . . . .

But this time there are women present and none of them seem disturbed or insulted, which Kestrel finds notable. He can't imagine staying quiet. He also wonders why this is pouring out now. For a moment, he worries that Robin might have done something to cause it. But sanity ensues:

But no; why would they need to prepare people for the punishment of someone they had already caught in dubious activity? They wouldn't; more than that, with someone as unimportant as Robin, they'd simply fling her into a gaol-cell, and walk away.

So it couldn't be Robin; it must be that something else had happened, involving some woman of standing and importance. Or was there something about to happen?

He starts to wonder if he's underestimated Robin. Maybe she had gotten into the Clan after all and learned something that made her stay. She might have been angry enough not to send word, or just in a position she couldn't get away. But he's still anxious.

I don't really think it's a matter of underestimating her, Kestrel, just overestimating the competence of a racial stereotype.

Anyway, he closes shop to go to the Healing Service. He hopes she'll meet him at their usual place by the statue, but she doesn't make it. He's tempted to leave but that's when the show really starts.

It's a demon possession. And a really big one.

Robere suddenly gave a great cry, convulsed, and went limp in the arms of the Guards. His head sagged, chin against his chest, eyes closed, mouth hung slackly open.

And a thin stream of blue-gray smoke issued from his open mouth.

But it didn't act the way smoke was supposed to. Instead of rising, it snaked down his chest, eeled towards the space between him and Padrik, and pooled there.

Kestrel, at this point, really wishes his wife was there to explain this trick to him. Even the guards look freaked out. And, more intriguingly, as this is happening, Kestrel hears faint, discordant music but not with his ears. It's very similar to Bardic magic, and he realizes that this is, somehow, how the demon is coming into effect.

And whooo...it's a doozy.

The shape shivered, thickened, grew opaque—and took on a clear, defined form. Then more than a form.

It became a demon; a real, three-dimensional being, that looked exactly as the demons portrayed in so many Church paintings and carvings. Pale gray, the color of stone. Manlike, but clearly not a man. Naked, except for a loincloth, clawed feet and hands, huge bat-wings, horns, a raptor's beak where a mouth should be—

—strangely similar to T'fyrr—

People nearest the demon screamed as it snarled at them, then turned its attention towards the altar, and hissed. But before Kestrel had any chance to wonder about that resemblance to T'fyrr, Padrik spread both his arms wide and over his head, his staff of office held between them. A white-gold glow surrounded the staff and the hands that held it.

I feel like the loincloth is the dead giveaway that this thing is a hoax. A "real" demon doesn't need modesty. A prudish churchman does.

Anyway, it's scary as fuck, but when Kestrel realizes that at least some of the fear is because of the music, he's able to shut it away. But he stays on the ground groveling with everyone else as the demon is banished.

Eventually, Padrik definitely knows how to put on a show. It takes a few pages of Padrik "fighting" and looking magnificent, until he finally demands to know who sent him. And it starts to come together as the demon identifies someone named "Orlina Woolwright". A name even Kestrel recognizes.

She was one of the Mayor's Councilors, appointed by her Guild, for the Mayor surely would never have appointed anyone as outspoken as she was on his own. A few days ago, she had made a public speech or two of her own in the Cathedral square from the vantage of her own balcony, concerning the rights of tradesmen, with carefully veiled references to all the restrictions that Padrik had been attempting to have signed into law. She was beautiful, wealthy, a Master in the Weaver's Guild in her own right, and perhaps not so coincidentally, the only person on the Mayor's Council with a sense of humor. She'd certainly been able to make a mockery of some of Padrik's more outrageous statements in those speeches of hers. She had—unwisely now, it seemed—been flaunting the new wave of piety, by dressing as a woman of refinement and fashion, rather than a woman of the "new" Gradford.

She had been too prominent a target for Padrik to attack in the Council or in any other conventional, secular venue. That was what the other merchants had said, anyway. She held too many debts, knew too many secrets.

I do feel like it's a bit late for the book to introduce an idea of a rival/defensive power player. But it's also fairly logical that she wouldn't have consciously come to Robin or Kestrel's attention, being so wealthy and important.

Maybe Talaysen would have remarked on her, if he'd been a presence in this book.

So anyway, Padrik's found a way to take down a rival. He's denouncing the woman as a sorcerer and declaring her anathema. There's even a bolt of lightning to punctuate it.

So now it's full on mob mentality as everyone storms Orlina Woolwright's home. Kestrel can't exactly slip away, so he's caught in the throng. A servant tries to stop the mass and gets beaten severely. Others run. Understandably. Then there's a mass of righteous looting.

Finally:

People snatched their prizes and ran, and no one did anything to stop them. The City Guard had vanished; there wasn't even a Cathedral Guard to be seen. Jonny was quite certain that there was nothing left but the bare walls by the time Orlina appeared, herself bundled up like so much loot, bound and gagged and carried in the ungentle hands of the two men who had first broken down her door. And now the mob parted to let them through, then surged along behind them as they carried her off to Padrik. Strangely, they had not stripped her literally; that seemed odd in the light of their lack of restraint so far—she remained clothed in her fine gown of mulberry-colored wool; not even the badge of Master on its chain around her neck had been taken from her.

I'm not surprised they didn't strip her, they're led by a man so prudish he had a demon wearing a loincloth.

Anyway, Padrik, "his face the very essence of a grieving saint" denounces her:

"You are a witch, Orlina Woolwright," Padrik thundered, as the mob quieted. "You are a dark mage, and a foul demon-lover. Your own acts condemn you, as should I. And yet"—his face softened, and his tone took on new sweetness—"and yet I cannot do other than forgive you."

Eh? OH.

"Yes, I can forgive you, for you are only a woman, and by your very nature you are weak and need to be led in the proper path," Padrik continued, magnanimously. "And I, as man and as your spiritual leader, tailed to give you that guidance. I shall remedy that lack now."

He took a pendant from around his neck, a peculiar piece of jewelry that Kestrel did no* remember him wearing before. It was made of iron, black wrought-iron, in a lacy filigree design in the form of a double circle or an orb. That was all Kestrel could see of it—but something about it made his stomach twist, and he suddenly did not want to look any closer.

A double pronged attack, on this woman and on women in general. When the amulet goes around the woman's neck, she sags. Padrik then orders her to make a pilgrimage "alone and unaided" and on her own two feet to the Carthell Abbey and place the "token of obedience" on the altar. Only THEN can she return.

Surprisingly, Orlina nods submissively, and the mob drags her off to the gate, cutting her bonds, and shoving her out. She starts walking away.

That's fucking scary, Lackey, well done.

It's not all bad though, because...

Robin's stance, not in the least submissive, gave her away, even though she wore the same drab clothing as every other woman in the square. When Jonny saw that familiar figure waiting for him beside the wagon, he was torn between giddy relief and wanting to strangle her with his bare hands.

Heh. Relief wins. He runs to her, though he does stop before hugging her since the cover story had been that she'd been ill. I'm not sure HOW he gave a cover story, since he's pretending mute. But maybe it's a bit of macho dignity. Robin however throws herself in his arms and starts apologizing. He hugs back and urges them inside and away from preachers.

He apologizes too, of course, once they're inside, and they have their reunion moment. Robin explains what happened, she could only get away from her self-appointed protectors during the mob violence. Of COURSE, Rosa couldn't resist going off to loot.

Really, Lackey? As I said before, racist stereotypes don't suddenly stop being racist stereotypes if you're only making the villains do them.

She hadn't gotten a look at the demon show, but Kestrel did, and he's able to tell her enough that she now believes she can make a report to the Roma chiefs about the Patsonos betraying Roma secrets, and they can warn away everyone else. She wants out!

Kestrel agrees, there's nothing back at the inn that they can't replace. Everything important is in the wagon. So they can leave now.

And just to emphasize that Robin DOES think about other people (which we know, but Jonny doesn't see into her head), she immediately asks about Orlina Woolwright. They know she's innocent and they couldn't help her.

Kestrel agrees that they'll go after her. They can take her to a Justiciar, since Wren knows one. And of course, Robin knows the same one! (And I'm reminded again that Kestrel really doesn't know the full story of Robin's traumatic bird experience. I do hope these kids start COMMUNICATING.)

But they resolve to leave before anything else happens. The chapter ends here.