Song of Homana - Part One - Chapter Ten
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i_read_whatSo last time, Finn came back and our characters ascended to a whole new level of not-unrequited homoeroticism. I'm sure other things happened, but honestly, all I remember is the rampant amount of gay subtext.
...Apparently something woke up in Carillon, because this is how this chapter begins:
The harpsong filled the forest. The melody was so delicate, so fragile, and yet so strong. It drew me as if it were a woman calling me to her bed; Lachlan’s Lady, and I a man who knew her charm. I forgot the warriors Finn had promised and followed a song instead, feeling its magic reach out to touch my soul.
I found him at last perched upon the ruin of a felled beech, huge and satin-trunked. The tree had made its grave long since, but it provided a perfect bench—or throne—for the harper. The sunlight pierced the surrounding veil of branches and limbs like enemy spears transfixed upon a single foe: the harp. His Lady, so dark and old and wise, with her single green eye and golden strings. Such an eloquent voice, calling out; such a geas he laid upon me. I reined in my horse before the beech and waited until he was done.
Lachlan smiled. The slender, supple fingers grew quiet upon the glowing strings, so that music and magic died, and he was merely a man, a harper, blessed with Lodhi’s pleasure.
“I knew you would come,” he said in his liquid, silken voice.
“Sorcerer,” I returned.
He laughed. “Some men call me so. Let them. You should know me better now.” For a moment there was a glint of some unknown emotion in his eyes. “Friend,” he said. “No more.”
Are you SURE you're straight?
Anyway, Carillon realizes thathis husband Finn is missing. He starts getting anxious, but Lachlan explains that Carillon followed the music because both Lachlan and Carillon wanted him too. He didn't want Finn to come yet (ahem), though he notes that he will. And Duncan too. No, don't invite Duncan to the orgy. He sucks.
Lachlan cryptically explains that he's a Harper, Harpers require men of legend to do what they do. "You, my lord, are legend enough for most" Lachlan asks if he hasn't proven his loyalty.
Carillon rightly points out that just because he was willing to kill one dude doesn't mean he's not a spy. Lachlan basically says that he could be his spy, and he's willing to serve, as long as the orders don't go against the All-Father's teaching.
Lachlan offers to go to Mujhara for Carillon and report what Bellam does. Finn, who has appeared dramatically, thinks it's dangerous. Lachlan agrees, but he's the only one who can do it. We're actually slipping a bit into Roberson's repetitive tendencies again, because I feel like this spying discussion came up before. But credit where it's due, this is the first time I've complained about that in ten chapters. So...an admitted improvement.
Anyway, Carillon asks what Lachlan is really offering, and Lachlan conjures an image of Carillon's sister, Tourmaline. Carillon starts to react badly, but Lachlan gently warns him that if he seeks to injure Lachlan's Lady (the harp), she'll hurt him back.
Carillon backs down, while Finn wants to know what Lachlan has in mind. Lachlan admits that he can't rescue her, but he can pass along messages and get information. Carillon likes the offer and wishes that he trusts him.
But Lachlan is by far the smartest man in the room and definitely knows the lay of the land here:
“Do, my lord,” he said gently. “Trust your liege man, if not me. Has he not questioned my intent?”
...
There's the requisite gazing at Finn, and finally Finn says that they should trust him. The worst thing Lachlan can do is tell Bellam where they are, and if the soldiers come, they'll kill them. Carillon doesn't doubt him. So Carillon gives his okay, and it's dramatic and effective.
When Lachlan leaves, Finn urges him onward: Duncan waits with little Donal.
"Abruptly Duncan bent down and caught the boy in his arms, sweeping him up to perch upon one shoulder. He turned, smiling a wry, familiar smile—Finn’s smile—and I realized there was much of Duncan I did not know. What I had seen was a rival, a man who sought the woman I sought; the man who had won her, when I could not. The man who had led an exiled race back from the edge of death to the promise of life again. I had given him little thought past what he had been to me. Now I thought about what he was to the Cheysuli…and to the boy he carried on his shoulder.
Ugh. Duncan. But I am amused that Carillon looks at him and sees Finn. He also looks at Duncan and Donal and feels like he's seeing the future of Homana.
So Carillon does something interesting here. Instead of going to Duncan, he goes to Donal, kneeling on one knee. He introduces himself to Donal, who recognizes him, noting that his jehan (father) and su'fali (uncle) serve him. Donal declares that he will serve him too. And Carillon accepts it gravely, telling him: "Could I have but one Cheysuli by my side, it would be you"
Aw.
“Donal,” Finn said from behind me, “do you wish to serve your lord as I do, you might see to his mount. Come and tend it for him.”
The boy was gone at once. I turned, rising, and saw the light in his face as he ran to do Finn’s bidding. My horse’s reins were taken up and the gelding led away with great care toward the picket-string in the forest. Finn, like Donal, walked, and I saw the calm happiness in his face as he accompanied the boy. Indeed, he needed a son.
Oh for fuck's sake, you two. Get married and adopt.
Anyway, Duncan thanks Carillon for honoring his son. Carillon realizes that Duncan had forgotten none of what lay between [them] and may have been anxious about the meeting. Maybe he was worried Finn would tell you how ready he was to leave you in slavery.
Anyway, Carillon notes that he's spent five years with Finn and therefore has learned a little of their customs and how they raise their children (...get married already), and so he's respecting Donal as a warrior not fully grown.
And the they talk about Finn:
I laughed, suddenly lighthearted. “You have your brother to thank for that. Finn has made me what I am.”
“Not in his image, I hope.”
“Could you not stand two?”
“Gods,” he said in horror, “two of Finn? One is too much!” But I heard the ring of affection in his tone and saw the pleasure in his face; I realized, belatedly, he had undoubtedly missed Finn as much as Finn had missed him. No matter how much they disagreed when they were together.
I put out my hand to clasp his arm in the familiar Cheysuli greeting. “I thank you for him, Duncan. Through him, you have saved my life many times.”
His hand closed around my upper arm. “What Finn knows, he learned elsewhere,” he retorted. “Little enough of me is in him. Though the gods know I tried—” He grinned, forgoing the complaint. “He did not lie. He said you had come home a man.”
I don't know about that. You both managed to be pretty fucking rapey in Shapechangers. But maybe you're right, because somehow you managed to be worse than him even in that book. Now Finn is tolerable, are you?
Also, I am amused by Finn's tendency to praise Carillon but never in his hearing.
Well, where Song of Homana's Finn is delightfully grumpy and gay, Song's Duncan is prone to being cryptic and dramatic
“My tent is too small for Mujhars,” he said quietly, and when I looked harder I saw the glint of humor in his eyes. “My tent is particularly too small for you, now. Come with me, and I will give you a throne better suited, perhaps, than another. At least until you have slain the man who makes it his.”
What does he mean:
He took me away from the tents to a pile of huge granite boulders, gray and green and velveted with moss. The sunlight turned the moss into an emerald cloak, thick and rich and glowing, like the stone in Lachlan’s Lady. The throne was one rump-sized stone resting against another that formed a backrest. The moss offered me a cushion. Gods-made, Finn would say; I sat down upon it and smiled.
...
Please stop quoting your husband at weird times. It makes you look married.
“Little enough to offer the rightful Mujhar.” Duncan perched himself upon a companion rock. The veil of tree limbs hanging over us shifted in a breeze so that the sunlight and shadow played across his face, limning the planes and hollows and habitual solemnity. Duncan had always been less prone to gaiety than Finn; steadier, more serious, almost dour. Seeming old though he was still young by most men’s reckoning. Young for a clan-leader, I knew, ruling because his elders were already dead in Shaine’s qu’mahlin.
Actually, Duncan should be thirty five, going by Shapechanger's timeline. Even going by Finn's modified timeline in Song, Duncan is thirty-two. That's not too young by anyone's standards.
So now Carillon and Duncan get to the more serious talk that they should have had in Shapechangers.
“You will have trouble reconciling the Homanas with Cheysuli.”
“Not with all.” I understood him at once. “Some, perhaps; it is to be expected. But I will have no man who does not serve willingly, whether it be next to a Cheysuli or myself.” I sat forward on my dais of moss and granite. So different from the Lion Throne. “Duncan, I would have this qu’mahlin ended as soon as may be. I will begin with my army.”
He did not smile. “There is talk of our sorcery.”
“There will ever be talk of your sorcery. It is what made them afraid in the first place.” I recalled my uncle’s rantings when I was young; how he had said all of Homana feared the Cheysuli, because he had made them feared. How the shapechangers sought to throw down the House of Homana to replace it with their own.
The clan chief of the Cheysuli and the would-be Mujhar of Homana. Why did it take so long to have this conversation?
Duncan brings up another issue: Rowan.
See, Rowan was doing well for himself for a while. He's Cheysuli, but he's been passing for Homanan very well for most of his life. People like Alix and Carillon, who have close experience with full blooded Cheysuli knew what they were seeing in him, but most normal Homanans missed it.
But now the normal Homanans have seen what real Cheysuli look like. And they recognize what he is.
“Cai has confirmed it,” Duncan said. “I called Rowan here and told him, but he denies it still. He claims himself Homanan. How a man could do that—” He broke it off at once, as if knowing it had nothing to do with the subject. “I bring Rowan up because he illustrates the troubles within your army, Carillon. You have Homanas and Cheysuli, and you expect them to fight together. After thirty years of Shaine’s qu’mahlin.”
Duncan's being really judgmental of Rowan here. Fuck you, Duncan. But it is an interesting cultural note, and something we'll see with Finn soon too. Duncan's not wrong about the rest though. Carillon can't undo thirty years of genocide with wishful thinking.
But Carillon needs all of the men he can get, so he's going to have to figure this out. And Duncan admits that he has faith in him.
I admit, Song's Duncan is growing on me too. Especially with lines like this:
I laughed shortly, with little humor in the sound. “Ever so solemn, Duncan. Is there no laughter in you? And do you not fear the Ihlini gods are stronger than your own?”
He did not smile. His eyes appraised me in their quiet, competent way, and I knew again the chafing of youth before an older, wiser man. “I will laugh again when I do not fear to lose my son because his eyes are yellow.”
Ouch.
And see, Ms. Roberson, how much better these characters are when they're not rapists?
So, here we get the start of a very interesting thread between Carillon and Duncan, when Carillon asks Duncan what he'd do as Mujhar. He notices a flicker in Duncan's eyes when he asks. Eventually Carillon will come to believe that Duncan is descended from the line that would have been Mujhar had the Homanans not taken over to begin with. It's an interesting dynamic.
Anyway, Duncan tells him to win back his throne. Carillon feels his crisis of confidence again and:
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned my face away from my hands and looked into Duncan’s eyes, so wise and sad and compassionate. Compassion, from him; for a man who wished to be his king. It made me small again.
Why couldn't we have this Duncan in Shapechangers? Why couldn't we have this Finn? Wouldn't seeing THIS Duncan and THIS Finn meet the heir to the monster that started the genocide have been so much more interesting than the mess we got?
I suppose I'm glad that Ms. Roberson improved overtime, but I'll always mourn the Shapechangers book that might have been.
...Apparently something woke up in Carillon, because this is how this chapter begins:
The harpsong filled the forest. The melody was so delicate, so fragile, and yet so strong. It drew me as if it were a woman calling me to her bed; Lachlan’s Lady, and I a man who knew her charm. I forgot the warriors Finn had promised and followed a song instead, feeling its magic reach out to touch my soul.
I found him at last perched upon the ruin of a felled beech, huge and satin-trunked. The tree had made its grave long since, but it provided a perfect bench—or throne—for the harper. The sunlight pierced the surrounding veil of branches and limbs like enemy spears transfixed upon a single foe: the harp. His Lady, so dark and old and wise, with her single green eye and golden strings. Such an eloquent voice, calling out; such a geas he laid upon me. I reined in my horse before the beech and waited until he was done.
Lachlan smiled. The slender, supple fingers grew quiet upon the glowing strings, so that music and magic died, and he was merely a man, a harper, blessed with Lodhi’s pleasure.
“I knew you would come,” he said in his liquid, silken voice.
“Sorcerer,” I returned.
He laughed. “Some men call me so. Let them. You should know me better now.” For a moment there was a glint of some unknown emotion in his eyes. “Friend,” he said. “No more.”
Are you SURE you're straight?
Anyway, Carillon realizes that
Lachlan cryptically explains that he's a Harper, Harpers require men of legend to do what they do. "You, my lord, are legend enough for most" Lachlan asks if he hasn't proven his loyalty.
Carillon rightly points out that just because he was willing to kill one dude doesn't mean he's not a spy. Lachlan basically says that he could be his spy, and he's willing to serve, as long as the orders don't go against the All-Father's teaching.
Lachlan offers to go to Mujhara for Carillon and report what Bellam does. Finn, who has appeared dramatically, thinks it's dangerous. Lachlan agrees, but he's the only one who can do it. We're actually slipping a bit into Roberson's repetitive tendencies again, because I feel like this spying discussion came up before. But credit where it's due, this is the first time I've complained about that in ten chapters. So...an admitted improvement.
Anyway, Carillon asks what Lachlan is really offering, and Lachlan conjures an image of Carillon's sister, Tourmaline. Carillon starts to react badly, but Lachlan gently warns him that if he seeks to injure Lachlan's Lady (the harp), she'll hurt him back.
Carillon backs down, while Finn wants to know what Lachlan has in mind. Lachlan admits that he can't rescue her, but he can pass along messages and get information. Carillon likes the offer and wishes that he trusts him.
But Lachlan is by far the smartest man in the room and definitely knows the lay of the land here:
“Do, my lord,” he said gently. “Trust your liege man, if not me. Has he not questioned my intent?”
...
There's the requisite gazing at Finn, and finally Finn says that they should trust him. The worst thing Lachlan can do is tell Bellam where they are, and if the soldiers come, they'll kill them. Carillon doesn't doubt him. So Carillon gives his okay, and it's dramatic and effective.
When Lachlan leaves, Finn urges him onward: Duncan waits with little Donal.
"Abruptly Duncan bent down and caught the boy in his arms, sweeping him up to perch upon one shoulder. He turned, smiling a wry, familiar smile—Finn’s smile—and I realized there was much of Duncan I did not know. What I had seen was a rival, a man who sought the woman I sought; the man who had won her, when I could not. The man who had led an exiled race back from the edge of death to the promise of life again. I had given him little thought past what he had been to me. Now I thought about what he was to the Cheysuli…and to the boy he carried on his shoulder.
Ugh. Duncan. But I am amused that Carillon looks at him and sees Finn. He also looks at Duncan and Donal and feels like he's seeing the future of Homana.
So Carillon does something interesting here. Instead of going to Duncan, he goes to Donal, kneeling on one knee. He introduces himself to Donal, who recognizes him, noting that his jehan (father) and su'fali (uncle) serve him. Donal declares that he will serve him too. And Carillon accepts it gravely, telling him: "Could I have but one Cheysuli by my side, it would be you"
Aw.
“Donal,” Finn said from behind me, “do you wish to serve your lord as I do, you might see to his mount. Come and tend it for him.”
The boy was gone at once. I turned, rising, and saw the light in his face as he ran to do Finn’s bidding. My horse’s reins were taken up and the gelding led away with great care toward the picket-string in the forest. Finn, like Donal, walked, and I saw the calm happiness in his face as he accompanied the boy. Indeed, he needed a son.
Oh for fuck's sake, you two. Get married and adopt.
Anyway, Duncan thanks Carillon for honoring his son. Carillon realizes that Duncan had forgotten none of what lay between [them] and may have been anxious about the meeting. Maybe he was worried Finn would tell you how ready he was to leave you in slavery.
Anyway, Carillon notes that he's spent five years with Finn and therefore has learned a little of their customs and how they raise their children (...get married already), and so he's respecting Donal as a warrior not fully grown.
And the they talk about Finn:
I laughed, suddenly lighthearted. “You have your brother to thank for that. Finn has made me what I am.”
“Not in his image, I hope.”
“Could you not stand two?”
“Gods,” he said in horror, “two of Finn? One is too much!” But I heard the ring of affection in his tone and saw the pleasure in his face; I realized, belatedly, he had undoubtedly missed Finn as much as Finn had missed him. No matter how much they disagreed when they were together.
I put out my hand to clasp his arm in the familiar Cheysuli greeting. “I thank you for him, Duncan. Through him, you have saved my life many times.”
His hand closed around my upper arm. “What Finn knows, he learned elsewhere,” he retorted. “Little enough of me is in him. Though the gods know I tried—” He grinned, forgoing the complaint. “He did not lie. He said you had come home a man.”
I don't know about that. You both managed to be pretty fucking rapey in Shapechangers. But maybe you're right, because somehow you managed to be worse than him even in that book. Now Finn is tolerable, are you?
Also, I am amused by Finn's tendency to praise Carillon but never in his hearing.
Well, where Song of Homana's Finn is delightfully grumpy and gay, Song's Duncan is prone to being cryptic and dramatic
“My tent is too small for Mujhars,” he said quietly, and when I looked harder I saw the glint of humor in his eyes. “My tent is particularly too small for you, now. Come with me, and I will give you a throne better suited, perhaps, than another. At least until you have slain the man who makes it his.”
What does he mean:
He took me away from the tents to a pile of huge granite boulders, gray and green and velveted with moss. The sunlight turned the moss into an emerald cloak, thick and rich and glowing, like the stone in Lachlan’s Lady. The throne was one rump-sized stone resting against another that formed a backrest. The moss offered me a cushion. Gods-made, Finn would say; I sat down upon it and smiled.
...
Please stop quoting your husband at weird times. It makes you look married.
“Little enough to offer the rightful Mujhar.” Duncan perched himself upon a companion rock. The veil of tree limbs hanging over us shifted in a breeze so that the sunlight and shadow played across his face, limning the planes and hollows and habitual solemnity. Duncan had always been less prone to gaiety than Finn; steadier, more serious, almost dour. Seeming old though he was still young by most men’s reckoning. Young for a clan-leader, I knew, ruling because his elders were already dead in Shaine’s qu’mahlin.
Actually, Duncan should be thirty five, going by Shapechanger's timeline. Even going by Finn's modified timeline in Song, Duncan is thirty-two. That's not too young by anyone's standards.
So now Carillon and Duncan get to the more serious talk that they should have had in Shapechangers.
“You will have trouble reconciling the Homanas with Cheysuli.”
“Not with all.” I understood him at once. “Some, perhaps; it is to be expected. But I will have no man who does not serve willingly, whether it be next to a Cheysuli or myself.” I sat forward on my dais of moss and granite. So different from the Lion Throne. “Duncan, I would have this qu’mahlin ended as soon as may be. I will begin with my army.”
He did not smile. “There is talk of our sorcery.”
“There will ever be talk of your sorcery. It is what made them afraid in the first place.” I recalled my uncle’s rantings when I was young; how he had said all of Homana feared the Cheysuli, because he had made them feared. How the shapechangers sought to throw down the House of Homana to replace it with their own.
The clan chief of the Cheysuli and the would-be Mujhar of Homana. Why did it take so long to have this conversation?
Duncan brings up another issue: Rowan.
See, Rowan was doing well for himself for a while. He's Cheysuli, but he's been passing for Homanan very well for most of his life. People like Alix and Carillon, who have close experience with full blooded Cheysuli knew what they were seeing in him, but most normal Homanans missed it.
But now the normal Homanans have seen what real Cheysuli look like. And they recognize what he is.
“Cai has confirmed it,” Duncan said. “I called Rowan here and told him, but he denies it still. He claims himself Homanan. How a man could do that—” He broke it off at once, as if knowing it had nothing to do with the subject. “I bring Rowan up because he illustrates the troubles within your army, Carillon. You have Homanas and Cheysuli, and you expect them to fight together. After thirty years of Shaine’s qu’mahlin.”
Duncan's being really judgmental of Rowan here. Fuck you, Duncan. But it is an interesting cultural note, and something we'll see with Finn soon too. Duncan's not wrong about the rest though. Carillon can't undo thirty years of genocide with wishful thinking.
But Carillon needs all of the men he can get, so he's going to have to figure this out. And Duncan admits that he has faith in him.
I admit, Song's Duncan is growing on me too. Especially with lines like this:
I laughed shortly, with little humor in the sound. “Ever so solemn, Duncan. Is there no laughter in you? And do you not fear the Ihlini gods are stronger than your own?”
He did not smile. His eyes appraised me in their quiet, competent way, and I knew again the chafing of youth before an older, wiser man. “I will laugh again when I do not fear to lose my son because his eyes are yellow.”
Ouch.
And see, Ms. Roberson, how much better these characters are when they're not rapists?
So, here we get the start of a very interesting thread between Carillon and Duncan, when Carillon asks Duncan what he'd do as Mujhar. He notices a flicker in Duncan's eyes when he asks. Eventually Carillon will come to believe that Duncan is descended from the line that would have been Mujhar had the Homanans not taken over to begin with. It's an interesting dynamic.
Anyway, Duncan tells him to win back his throne. Carillon feels his crisis of confidence again and:
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned my face away from my hands and looked into Duncan’s eyes, so wise and sad and compassionate. Compassion, from him; for a man who wished to be his king. It made me small again.
Why couldn't we have this Duncan in Shapechangers? Why couldn't we have this Finn? Wouldn't seeing THIS Duncan and THIS Finn meet the heir to the monster that started the genocide have been so much more interesting than the mess we got?
I suppose I'm glad that Ms. Roberson improved overtime, but I'll always mourn the Shapechangers book that might have been.
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Date: 2020-07-14 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-15 06:51 am (UTC)