Yendi - Chapter Twelve
Nov. 21st, 2025 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatI lied, it's up today! We might well get back to a regular posting schedule after all!
Anyway, this chapter, Cawti and Vlad go to Castle Black to party! Cawti, we're told, is dressed to kill in light grey trousers, a blouse and a grey cloak with black trim. Vlad wore his own "good" trousers and jerkin. We can presume they're probably grey or black too since he says they look like a matched set.
Lady Teldra, of course, greets Cawti by name. I remember Lady Teldra having a much larger role as the series continues, so I'm fond of her even in these very short appearances.
I like this part though:
Lady Teldra admitted us, greeted Cawti by name, and bade us visit the banquet hall. We must have been quite a sight: a pair of Easterners, both in Jhereg colors, with Loiosh on my left shoulder, putting him between us.
No one particularly noticed us.
Aw.
So anyway, Fentor passes Vlad a note. Vlad introduces Cawti to the Necromancer. The Necromancer seems uninterested, but Vlad tells us that it's not a race thing: the Necromancer is really only interested in the dead. Vlad takes a moment to ask her about Baritt, but she doesn't seem to have any relevant information.
Fentor's note, by the way, is a list of names. This gets Cawti curious, so Vlad explains what's been going on. Cawti is pretty irked, and this bit is interesting:
“Laris?”
She didn’t answer.
“Why take it so hard?” I asked her.
She stared at me. “Why take it so hard? He’s using our people. That’s us, Easterners, being set up to be beaten and killed just to manipulate a few guards. What do you mean, why take it so hard?”
“How long have you lived in the Empire, Cawti?”
“All my life.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m used to it, that’s all. I expect things like that.”
She looked at me coldly. “It doesn’t bother you anymore, eh?”
So the thing about Vlad and Cawti is that they got together incredibly quickly. And truth be told, they don't really KNOW each other yet. They're two Easterners in a Dragaeran House, which already gives them a lot of commonality. They're both used to sitting there, with their closest friends thinking nothing of making snide comments about invading their ancestral homeland. They find each other physically attractive and admire each other's skills.
But they're not the same person. They've each got their own individual experiences and traumas and while they're both survivors in a game that they're disadvantaged in, they've survived in different ways. And right now, that's coming to a head.
I opened and shut my mouth a couple of times. “It still bothers me, I guess, but . . . Deathsgate, Cawti. You know what kind of people live in those areas. I got out of it, and you got out of it. Any of them—”
“Crap. Don’t start on that. You sound like a pimp. ‘I don’t use ‘em any more than they want to be used. They can do something else if they want. They like working for me.’ Crap. I suppose you feel the same way about slaves, right? They must like it or they’d run away.”
To be honest, it had never occurred to me to think about it. But Cawti was looking at me with rage in her lovely brown eyes. I felt a sudden flash of anger and said, “Look, damn it, I’ve never ‘worked’ on an Easterner, remember, so don’t give me any—”
“Don’t throw that up at me,” she snapped. “We’ve been over it once. I’m sorry. But it was a job, all right? That has nothing to do with your not caring about what happens to our own people.” She kept glaring at me. I’ve been glared at by experts, but this was different. I opened my mouth to say something about what it had to do with, but I couldn’t. It suddenly hit me that I could lose her, right now. It was like walking into a tavern where you’re going to finalize someone, and realizing that the guy’s bodyguards might be better than you. Except then, all you’re liable to lose is your life. As I stood there, I realized what I was on the verge of losing.
I don't generally like excerpting so much in a row, but this is pretty important. And it's something that will come up again.
Cawti is the more humanistic here, and certainly the more community minded. Vlad's anger over how Easterners are treated, in comparison, is a lot more self-centered. He appreciates his people's struggle in theory, but saves his resentment and bitterness for when it happens to him.
That said, there is a level of hypocrisy here, which Vlad points out. CAWTI is the one who went after Vlad. And while she said earlier that it's the first time she's ever "worked" on an Easterner. She still did it. It was a job, sure. But it was a job that very much went against her morals and ideals.
And one could ask also, what has Cawti done to benefit the lives of her people? One could point out that Vlad keeps his territory as safe as he can, putting money into local businesses, recompensing people who were victims of crimes. And we know he has both Dragaerans and Easterners in his territory.
This is a good conversation to have. A necessary one. But this isn't really the time or the place to get into it. Cawti cuts off the argument, but Vlad salvages the situation with a nice speech about his father, his father's Dragaeran ambitions, his own mistreatment at the hands of Dragaerans (and even Easterners who disliked he was Jhereg), and finishes it up with their common feelings:
She started to say something, but I cut her off. “I don’t doubt that you could tell me stories just as bad; that isn’t the point.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I hate them,” I said, squeezing her hands until she winced. “I joined the organization as muscle so I could get paid for beating them up, and I started ‘working’ so I could get paid for killing them. Now I’m working my way up the organization so I can have the power to do what I want, by my own rules, and maybe show a few of them what happens when they underrate Easterners.
“There are exceptions—Morrolan, Aliera, Sethra, a few others. For you, maybe Norathar. But they don’t matter. Even when I work with my own employees, I have to ignore how much I despise them. I have to make myself pretend I don’t want to see every one of them torn apart. Those friends I mentioned—the other day, they were discussing conquering the East, right in front of me, as if I wouldn’t care.”
I particularly like this bit. And so Vlad's speech about how he has to convince himself that he doesn't care and professes how much he doesn't want to lose Cawti wins her back over. They hold each other and cry a little. And it's very sweet.
But it's not really a fix-it when you think about it. Vlad exposing his vulnerability wins Cawti back over, but it doesn't get into the heart of the problem, which is that Cawti is a slightly hypocritical idealist, Vlad is a self-centered survivor. And it's notable that the exceptions that Vlad listed (except maybe Kragar, who he probably didn't name because Cawti hasn't met him yet) are all very powerful and influential people in Dragaeran society.
And at the risk of spoiling you, this is, I think, the real draw of the idiosyncratic publication order of these books. Because there is a throughline. The story in Jhereg continues into Teckla (book 3), Phoenix (book 5) and onward in a fairly linear fashion. It just happens that the books in between take place at random points earlier. And those books are not in order. Taltos, book 4, is the chronologically earliest book in the series, for example.
But when you read the books in publication order, what you start to notice is that each interlude book actually does have a point. Each one elaborates on an aspect of the main throughline book that came before (in this case, how Vlad and Cawti became a couple) and leads into the book that comes next.
And this argument? This conflict that never quite got resolved? That's going to be a big part of Teckla.
--
Anyway, they go back to the party. Vlad notices the Sorceress in Green, but avoids her, then spots a woman who looks very much like Sethra. It is, indeed, Sethra's apprentice: Sethra the Younger.
She's definitely a personable sort:
“I see,” I said politely. “As a matter of fact, if you can spare a few moments—”
“My dear Easterner,” she said, “I am aware that Sethra Lavode, for reasons best known to herself, chooses to tolerate your presence, but I am no longer apprenticed to her, so I see no reason why I should. I have no time for Easterners, and no time for Jhereg. Is all of this clear to you?”
By a certain definition of the word, anyway. Something for Cawti and Vlad to bond over.
But now Morrolan comes in, escorting Norathar. Norathar, by the way, is wearing Dragon colors: not Jhereg - a signal that both Vlad and Cawti understand. Cawti and Norathar share a moment:
Norathar and Cawti locked eyes, and I couldn’t see what was passing between them. But then they smiled, and Cawti said, aloud, “The colors are most fetching. You wear them well.”
“Thank you,” said Norathar softly. I noticed that there was a ring on the little finger of her right hand. On its face was a dragon, with two red eyes.
Aw. I think I would like a book from their point of view one day.
Vlad asks if this is official: not yet, Aliera's setting things up. Vlad watches Cawti and starts thinking:
I shook my head as I watched Cawti. First, I’d become angry with her, then I had poured out my problems at her feet; when all the time her partner of—how long?—at least five years, was on the verge of becoming a Dragonlord.
By the Demon Goddess! What Cawti must have gone through as a child would have been very much like what I went through, or worse. Her friendship with Norathar must have been like my relationship with Loiosh, and she was watching it end. Gods, but I can be an insensitive ass when I try!
...I mean, yes. You are a self-centered prick, Vlad. But Cawti instigated that fight as much or more than Vlad did. And I still think maybe that you both have issues you need to address.
Sadly, and perhaps fittingly as I remember that Vlad is somewhere around twenty and is a horny bastard, he's distracted into a very long description of Cawti's various physical assets. The man appreciates his eventual wife, shall we say.
Norathar notices the look and calls Vlad to the side for a rather predictable shovel talk. There is a fun bit where Vlad suggests that Cawti would like to see him stay alive, and indirectly suggests Norathar help with that. But sadly, the lady has standards.
She does set slip something interesting, "the one who hired [us]" and I'm wondering if she means Laris or someone else and I'm annoyed to not remember, had known exactly how to find them.
They end up interrupted by the Sorceress in Green. (I am amused by Loiosh calling her "the Sorceress in Chartreuse" via telepathy.)
She pretty much dismisses Vlad to talk to Norathar, but this bit is pretty good:
As I walked away, the Sorceress was saying, “Easterners! I’ll be just as pleased when Sethra the Younger goes after them. Won’t you?”
I heard Norathar say, “Hardly,” in a cold tone of voice, and then I was thankfully out of earshot.
Norathar and Cawti are supposed to be friends after all, so I like to see it.
Vlad meanwhile remembers the speculation on who might have set up Norathar to begin with. An Athyra would have had to be involved. And the Sorceress in Green is an Athyra. He decides that he'll have to figure out how to verify or disprove his new notion.
So he goes to Cawti to suggest they make their exit. She asks if he needs to follow up on the list, but at Castle Black, the party is pretty much eternal. He'll have more opportunities.
--
Back at Vlad's flat, he and Cawti have an impromptu knife throwing session. She wins handily. Vlad notes, appreciatively, that he'll have to practice more.
Morrolan messages with news: Aliera found the names of the Lyorn and Athyra involved in Norathar's test. Sadly, "Baroness Tierella" is not the Sorceress in Green's real name, so Vlad has to discard his new theory. He and Morrolan exchange pleasantries and telepathically hang up.
Vlad sends the name on to Fentor and goes back to bonding with Cawti. Cawti is sad that she can't help him with Laris. Any information that she has comes from him directly, and she can't share information on a former client.
She laments that things were easier before. Vlad wants to confess his love, but thinks he'll be dead pretty soon. But the advantage of having a telepathic familiar is that he'll make your love confession for you. Hah.
Fortunately for Loiosh, an invitation to bed trumps strangling a cute cat-lizard-thing. The chapter ends here.
Anyway, this chapter, Cawti and Vlad go to Castle Black to party! Cawti, we're told, is dressed to kill in light grey trousers, a blouse and a grey cloak with black trim. Vlad wore his own "good" trousers and jerkin. We can presume they're probably grey or black too since he says they look like a matched set.
Lady Teldra, of course, greets Cawti by name. I remember Lady Teldra having a much larger role as the series continues, so I'm fond of her even in these very short appearances.
I like this part though:
Lady Teldra admitted us, greeted Cawti by name, and bade us visit the banquet hall. We must have been quite a sight: a pair of Easterners, both in Jhereg colors, with Loiosh on my left shoulder, putting him between us.
No one particularly noticed us.
Aw.
So anyway, Fentor passes Vlad a note. Vlad introduces Cawti to the Necromancer. The Necromancer seems uninterested, but Vlad tells us that it's not a race thing: the Necromancer is really only interested in the dead. Vlad takes a moment to ask her about Baritt, but she doesn't seem to have any relevant information.
Fentor's note, by the way, is a list of names. This gets Cawti curious, so Vlad explains what's been going on. Cawti is pretty irked, and this bit is interesting:
“Laris?”
She didn’t answer.
“Why take it so hard?” I asked her.
She stared at me. “Why take it so hard? He’s using our people. That’s us, Easterners, being set up to be beaten and killed just to manipulate a few guards. What do you mean, why take it so hard?”
“How long have you lived in the Empire, Cawti?”
“All my life.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m used to it, that’s all. I expect things like that.”
She looked at me coldly. “It doesn’t bother you anymore, eh?”
So the thing about Vlad and Cawti is that they got together incredibly quickly. And truth be told, they don't really KNOW each other yet. They're two Easterners in a Dragaeran House, which already gives them a lot of commonality. They're both used to sitting there, with their closest friends thinking nothing of making snide comments about invading their ancestral homeland. They find each other physically attractive and admire each other's skills.
But they're not the same person. They've each got their own individual experiences and traumas and while they're both survivors in a game that they're disadvantaged in, they've survived in different ways. And right now, that's coming to a head.
I opened and shut my mouth a couple of times. “It still bothers me, I guess, but . . . Deathsgate, Cawti. You know what kind of people live in those areas. I got out of it, and you got out of it. Any of them—”
“Crap. Don’t start on that. You sound like a pimp. ‘I don’t use ‘em any more than they want to be used. They can do something else if they want. They like working for me.’ Crap. I suppose you feel the same way about slaves, right? They must like it or they’d run away.”
To be honest, it had never occurred to me to think about it. But Cawti was looking at me with rage in her lovely brown eyes. I felt a sudden flash of anger and said, “Look, damn it, I’ve never ‘worked’ on an Easterner, remember, so don’t give me any—”
“Don’t throw that up at me,” she snapped. “We’ve been over it once. I’m sorry. But it was a job, all right? That has nothing to do with your not caring about what happens to our own people.” She kept glaring at me. I’ve been glared at by experts, but this was different. I opened my mouth to say something about what it had to do with, but I couldn’t. It suddenly hit me that I could lose her, right now. It was like walking into a tavern where you’re going to finalize someone, and realizing that the guy’s bodyguards might be better than you. Except then, all you’re liable to lose is your life. As I stood there, I realized what I was on the verge of losing.
I don't generally like excerpting so much in a row, but this is pretty important. And it's something that will come up again.
Cawti is the more humanistic here, and certainly the more community minded. Vlad's anger over how Easterners are treated, in comparison, is a lot more self-centered. He appreciates his people's struggle in theory, but saves his resentment and bitterness for when it happens to him.
That said, there is a level of hypocrisy here, which Vlad points out. CAWTI is the one who went after Vlad. And while she said earlier that it's the first time she's ever "worked" on an Easterner. She still did it. It was a job, sure. But it was a job that very much went against her morals and ideals.
And one could ask also, what has Cawti done to benefit the lives of her people? One could point out that Vlad keeps his territory as safe as he can, putting money into local businesses, recompensing people who were victims of crimes. And we know he has both Dragaerans and Easterners in his territory.
This is a good conversation to have. A necessary one. But this isn't really the time or the place to get into it. Cawti cuts off the argument, but Vlad salvages the situation with a nice speech about his father, his father's Dragaeran ambitions, his own mistreatment at the hands of Dragaerans (and even Easterners who disliked he was Jhereg), and finishes it up with their common feelings:
She started to say something, but I cut her off. “I don’t doubt that you could tell me stories just as bad; that isn’t the point.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “I hate them,” I said, squeezing her hands until she winced. “I joined the organization as muscle so I could get paid for beating them up, and I started ‘working’ so I could get paid for killing them. Now I’m working my way up the organization so I can have the power to do what I want, by my own rules, and maybe show a few of them what happens when they underrate Easterners.
“There are exceptions—Morrolan, Aliera, Sethra, a few others. For you, maybe Norathar. But they don’t matter. Even when I work with my own employees, I have to ignore how much I despise them. I have to make myself pretend I don’t want to see every one of them torn apart. Those friends I mentioned—the other day, they were discussing conquering the East, right in front of me, as if I wouldn’t care.”
I particularly like this bit. And so Vlad's speech about how he has to convince himself that he doesn't care and professes how much he doesn't want to lose Cawti wins her back over. They hold each other and cry a little. And it's very sweet.
But it's not really a fix-it when you think about it. Vlad exposing his vulnerability wins Cawti back over, but it doesn't get into the heart of the problem, which is that Cawti is a slightly hypocritical idealist, Vlad is a self-centered survivor. And it's notable that the exceptions that Vlad listed (except maybe Kragar, who he probably didn't name because Cawti hasn't met him yet) are all very powerful and influential people in Dragaeran society.
And at the risk of spoiling you, this is, I think, the real draw of the idiosyncratic publication order of these books. Because there is a throughline. The story in Jhereg continues into Teckla (book 3), Phoenix (book 5) and onward in a fairly linear fashion. It just happens that the books in between take place at random points earlier. And those books are not in order. Taltos, book 4, is the chronologically earliest book in the series, for example.
But when you read the books in publication order, what you start to notice is that each interlude book actually does have a point. Each one elaborates on an aspect of the main throughline book that came before (in this case, how Vlad and Cawti became a couple) and leads into the book that comes next.
And this argument? This conflict that never quite got resolved? That's going to be a big part of Teckla.
--
Anyway, they go back to the party. Vlad notices the Sorceress in Green, but avoids her, then spots a woman who looks very much like Sethra. It is, indeed, Sethra's apprentice: Sethra the Younger.
She's definitely a personable sort:
“I see,” I said politely. “As a matter of fact, if you can spare a few moments—”
“My dear Easterner,” she said, “I am aware that Sethra Lavode, for reasons best known to herself, chooses to tolerate your presence, but I am no longer apprenticed to her, so I see no reason why I should. I have no time for Easterners, and no time for Jhereg. Is all of this clear to you?”
By a certain definition of the word, anyway. Something for Cawti and Vlad to bond over.
But now Morrolan comes in, escorting Norathar. Norathar, by the way, is wearing Dragon colors: not Jhereg - a signal that both Vlad and Cawti understand. Cawti and Norathar share a moment:
Norathar and Cawti locked eyes, and I couldn’t see what was passing between them. But then they smiled, and Cawti said, aloud, “The colors are most fetching. You wear them well.”
“Thank you,” said Norathar softly. I noticed that there was a ring on the little finger of her right hand. On its face was a dragon, with two red eyes.
Aw. I think I would like a book from their point of view one day.
Vlad asks if this is official: not yet, Aliera's setting things up. Vlad watches Cawti and starts thinking:
I shook my head as I watched Cawti. First, I’d become angry with her, then I had poured out my problems at her feet; when all the time her partner of—how long?—at least five years, was on the verge of becoming a Dragonlord.
By the Demon Goddess! What Cawti must have gone through as a child would have been very much like what I went through, or worse. Her friendship with Norathar must have been like my relationship with Loiosh, and she was watching it end. Gods, but I can be an insensitive ass when I try!
...I mean, yes. You are a self-centered prick, Vlad. But Cawti instigated that fight as much or more than Vlad did. And I still think maybe that you both have issues you need to address.
Sadly, and perhaps fittingly as I remember that Vlad is somewhere around twenty and is a horny bastard, he's distracted into a very long description of Cawti's various physical assets. The man appreciates his eventual wife, shall we say.
Norathar notices the look and calls Vlad to the side for a rather predictable shovel talk. There is a fun bit where Vlad suggests that Cawti would like to see him stay alive, and indirectly suggests Norathar help with that. But sadly, the lady has standards.
She does set slip something interesting, "the one who hired [us]" and I'm wondering if she means Laris or someone else and I'm annoyed to not remember, had known exactly how to find them.
They end up interrupted by the Sorceress in Green. (I am amused by Loiosh calling her "the Sorceress in Chartreuse" via telepathy.)
She pretty much dismisses Vlad to talk to Norathar, but this bit is pretty good:
As I walked away, the Sorceress was saying, “Easterners! I’ll be just as pleased when Sethra the Younger goes after them. Won’t you?”
I heard Norathar say, “Hardly,” in a cold tone of voice, and then I was thankfully out of earshot.
Norathar and Cawti are supposed to be friends after all, so I like to see it.
Vlad meanwhile remembers the speculation on who might have set up Norathar to begin with. An Athyra would have had to be involved. And the Sorceress in Green is an Athyra. He decides that he'll have to figure out how to verify or disprove his new notion.
So he goes to Cawti to suggest they make their exit. She asks if he needs to follow up on the list, but at Castle Black, the party is pretty much eternal. He'll have more opportunities.
--
Back at Vlad's flat, he and Cawti have an impromptu knife throwing session. She wins handily. Vlad notes, appreciatively, that he'll have to practice more.
Morrolan messages with news: Aliera found the names of the Lyorn and Athyra involved in Norathar's test. Sadly, "Baroness Tierella" is not the Sorceress in Green's real name, so Vlad has to discard his new theory. He and Morrolan exchange pleasantries and telepathically hang up.
Vlad sends the name on to Fentor and goes back to bonding with Cawti. Cawti is sad that she can't help him with Laris. Any information that she has comes from him directly, and she can't share information on a former client.
She laments that things were easier before. Vlad wants to confess his love, but thinks he'll be dead pretty soon. But the advantage of having a telepathic familiar is that he'll make your love confession for you. Hah.
Fortunately for Loiosh, an invitation to bed trumps strangling a cute cat-lizard-thing. The chapter ends here.