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Fledgling – Chapter 27

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Vashtara
Mauve Level
Stateroom

In which Kamele didn’t tell Jen Sar who Theo’s father wasn’t.

Here it is, laid out: Theo is the daughter of Kamele and Jen Sar, a choice Kamele made aside from tradition and even though she had no way of knowing, then, how long-standing her relationship with Jen Sar would prove to be. (And despite advice to the contrary from Ella; I wonder if that’s another element in Ella not getting on with Jen Sar.) And so Theo’s inherited from her father’s side, and is now at last properly growing into, the reactions that would make her an excellent pilot if that were a career path common for daughters of Delgado.

(And also, presumably, her ability to visualise numbers and movement, in her case by way of her lacework. I guess that’s a pilot thing, because Jen Sar had reason to think the lacework would be a useful suggestion, and Win Ton understood it when Theo told him about it. But I keep thinking that it reminds me of one particular pilot who had an especial ability to visualise numbers and movement, and wondering what it might mean that in this respect she most resembles Aelliana, who of all the people closely involved in Theo’s upbringing we can be confident didn’t donate any of Theo’s genes.)

Another reason why the idea of rearranging the flashback chapters wouldn’t have worked is this chapter, which is a mixture of present-day and flashback. Getting it into chronological order would have required breaking up individual chapters, an extreme which even at my worst I thought was going too far.

Fledgling – Chapter 19

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo makes use of her research.

So that wasn’t actually the first time Kamele mentioned the upcoming research trip to Theo. With regard to the concerns I mentioned last time, I actually find this the opposite of reassuring, because it means that the trip has been a topic of conversation for several days without Kamele ever once thinking to mention that Theo would be going too.

There’s an interesting narrative subtlety in this chapter: at the moment the intruder is detected, Professor Kiladi disappears from the narrative. Theo’s father exists, and takes appropriate actions, but the narrator declines to attribute those actions to the person named Jen Sar Kiladi. What with the middle section being narrated from the viewpoint of Theo, who regards him simply as “Father”, Jen Sar’s name doesn’t reappear until nearly the end of the chapter. (Readers familiar with the wider Liaden universe — a phrase I will need to find a good shorthand for if I keep using it — will know what name the narrator is not saying. Although I’m pretty sure that the person who provides the answer to Theo’s question about the ring is Aelliana again.)

In the course of writing out the previous paragraph, I’ve belatedly recognised a similar subtlety back in Chapter Twelve. In between Theo meeting up with her father and the conclusion of their conversation about what name she ought to be calling him by, the narrator avoids calling him by any name at all. (Indeed, the moment she decides to continue addressing him as “Father” is visible even before she gives voice to it, because the narrator resumes doing the same.)

Somehow, knowing the history of the Gallowglass Chair and of this particular incumbent, it did not surprise me that the staff of office is a sword cane. I wonder if that’s standard for every Chair endowed by the Gallowglass Foundation, or an individual improvisation. (I don’t for a moment consider the possibility that it might be a custom of this University: this is Delgado, after all. I expect Admin would be horrified if they had the slightest idea one of their professors was walking around with a bladed weapon.)

Fledgling – Chapter 16

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Retrospection on an Introduction
Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Kamele and Jen Sar took a step forward in their relationship.

The second of the full-chapter flashbacks, and it perhaps says something that I let the first one go by without remarking on how it fits into the idea of re-reading the series in chronological order. Which is, clearly, that a flashback chapter belongs where it’s been put by the author, because even if it’s describing chronologically-distant events, the remembering of those events is happening at this point in the story, and it matters to this story that it’s happening here. To have moved these chapters to before the beginning of the novel because that’s when the events-being-remembered happened would have been to do an injury to the story.

(If you were around for the planning stages of this re-read, you may recall that I lost sight of that at one point, when I was deep in the analytical “timeline-all-the-things” headspace that made a full-series chronological re-read possible. I want to take this opportunity to apologise for the mess that conversation was, and to express my gratitude for being talked down from doing anything then that I would have regretted when I found my way back to that other, wiser headspace which knows why a full-series re-read is worth doing.)

About Tra’sia, cha’leken!, the “expression of joy” that Jen Sar declined to translate: We have seen “tra’sia” before only as part of the phrase “tra’sia volecta”, a Liaden greeting for which we have not, to my recollection, ever been given a word-for-word translation. What we do know is that it’s Low Liaden, used for family and close friends; in High Liaden, one might instead say “Entranzia volecta”. We have not seen “cha’leken” before at all, though we have seen “cha’leket”, which is used to refer to a person for whom one feels a sibling’s affection; it might mean a person for whom one feels affection equally strong but of a different nature.

So, the full phrase might perhaps mean something approximately like, “Greetings, beloved!”, or perhaps, “This is a good thing, beloved” (if “tra’sia volecta” is something like “good morning” and “tra’sia” is more like “good” than “morning”). Another possibility is that it’s the Liaden equivalent of the “I see you, sister” that Priscilla gives Lina in Conflict of Honors.

And whatever it means, I have a strong suspicion that the reason Jen Sar was chagrined about it is that it was Aelliana who said it and not him.

Fledgling – Chapter 15

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University of Delgado
Faculty Residence Wall
Quadrant Eight, Building Two

In which Kamele and Jen Sar make plans for the future.

If Theo was unhappy about moving from the suburb to the Wall, how much less is she going to like leaving the planet entirely? Even if it does solve a lot of problems.

I don’t think Jen Sar is unhappy with the idea of looking after Theo, as far as his own preferences go. But there is also to be considered how it would look to outsiders, if Kamele left her daughter in the care of a man — and not only a man she doesn’t have an ongoing relationship with, as far as the world knows, but a man with whom she recently broke off a relationship — rather than, say, her close friend Ella. And particularly at this point in time, when she’s moving in deep political waters and any deviation from customary behaviour may become a weapon against her. And Kamele knows all this as well as he does, which is why, I think, he’s surprised at her even making the suggestion.

Fledgling – Chapter 12

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Cultural Genetics Program
Bjornson-Bellevale College of Arts and Sciences
University of Delgado

In which Theo has dinner with her father.

So, like I was saying, after that brief moment of peace and domestic harmony, comes… more peace and domestic harmony? Whatever storm this is the calm before must be really awful.

With Kartor getting a surname this chapter, all of Four Team Three are now equipped with names both fore- and sur-.

The uncharacteristic clumsiness of Theo’s father is definitely suggestive to a reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe; we saw his old teacher pull the same trick back in Scout’s Progress.

It also brings on an observation which I’m sure is influenced by me remembering things that haven’t happened yet, but I’m going to pass it on anyway: Theo was able to catch both the objects Professor Kiladi dropped without any difficulty. Conversely, every incident of her supposed clumsiness we’ve seen has involved colliding or tangling with a person — a trend reinforced by her self-description in chapter nine. This doesn’t mean that Theo isn’t the problem, since she’s still the common thread among the incidents, but it does suggest that the problem isn’t so much a lack of control of her own movements as a flaw in her understanding of the movements of others. Put her in the middle of a crowd of people and trouble is bound to follow, but give her an inanimate object moving according to the basic laws of physics, and she’s fine.

Fledgling – Chapter 7

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Retrospection on an Introduction
Chancellor’s Welcome Reception for the Gallowglass Chair
Lenzen Ballroom, Administration Tower Three
University of Delgado

In which Kamele met Jen Sar.

The Chancellor’s reception is one of a small number of scenes that appear in more than one place in the series, from more than one perspective. Comparing Kamele’s version here with Jen Sar’s version in Mouse and Dragon is an interesting exercise, for the things they see differently, and especially the things which are unexplained in one and matter-of-factly explained in the other. (It also, unfortunately, shows that nobody warned the copy-editor of the latter book what was going on; not everybody makes the transition from one version to the other with spelling intact.)

Fledgling – Chapter 5

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City of Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo goes shopping.

This is a quiet chapter in terms of what actually happens, but it introduces a lot of details that will crop up again later, especially during Theo’s bus trip.

Theo’s memories of her father in this chapter contain several call-backs to Scout’s Progress and Mouse and Dragon, with his ring and the toasted cheese sandwiches.

Mmmmm, toasted cheese sandwiches. I haven’t had a good toasted cheese sandwich in ages. I don’t seem to be able to find cheese that toasts well, lately.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 38

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In which Daav grieves.

Daav’s grief is very effectively conveyed in this chapter, to the point where I feel obliged to remain respectfully quiet and not intrude with my chatter.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 29

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In which Daav keeps himself busy with a day of consultations.

I’m not sure Daav’s explanation isn’t partly backward; he says that Mizel wouldn’t want to make an alliance with someone she blames for her son’s death, but I suspect on some level she’s chosen to forego an alliance with Korval so that she can blame Daav. There are other people who might be more fairly considered responsible for Ran Eld’s death, starting with Ran Eld himself, but they all have the disadvantage that Birin Caylon has to live with them every day; much more comforting to be able to blame someone who will shortly return to a distant orbit and remain out of sight and out of mind.

(“He was not the disrupter of the dance, but he was the only one of those new and uneasy things that they could dispose of without tearing still further the already riven fabric of their lives.”)

Incidentally, if Daav’s estimate of Mr dea’Gauss’s age is accurate, Mr dea’Gauss is about the same age as Lady Kareen and Luken bel’Tarda.

Mouse and Dragon – Chapter 26

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In which Aelliana attends her first gather, and sweeps all before her.

The guest list at yo’Lanna’s gather has a nice sense of history, being a mix of new people, people who were at Korval’s gather in chapter 26 of Scout’s Progress, and people who were at Etgora’s gather in “Choice of Weapons”. In the last category is Etgora Himself, the father of the young man whose enthusiasm Daav was obliged to dampen. (There’s also a reference to that event when Daav and the hostess are exchanging greetings.)

Less charmingly, there are also echoes of the other story set around that time: “The Beggar King”, in which pilots were mysteriously going missing, and Daav was not able to find those responsible, only oblige them to suspend their activities for a time. That time, it appears, has now passed, and pilots are going missing again.

The bond between Daav and Aelliana is developing, however slowly; Daav now possesses the ability to know without looking when Aelliana enters the room, the inverse of which Aelliana has had since the beginning of the novel.