Surebleak

In which Korval goes visiting.

Kamele has a come a long way in her understanding of risk and safety since we first met her.

I had wondered, when a new name was casually dropped in Chapter 1, whether there’d been some turnover in Lady Kareen’s staff roster, but Amiz and Esil are both familiar from the original list of staff members Kareen acquired when she set up her house in the City.

More to the point, perhaps, we find out that the new name, Tassi, is not a staff member but a guest in the house. Introduced by Silain of the Bedel, which is interesting, particularly since her physical description doesn’t seem to fit with her being one of the Bedel herself.

The description of her attitude and actions, now, does seem to fit with something, which is the attitude and actions of the unnamed woman featured in the prologue. Who was coming to Surebleak with the intention of getting in touch with her brother’s people, which I said at the time could mean the Bedel but didn’t seem likely. Then again, this chapter has devoted some considerable time to making sure we have it clear in our heads that a person may have a brother who is of the Bedel without being of the Bedel himself…

The comment about “the things you don’t know about the people you know” feels to me like it might be a Theme.