The Bedel
In which Udari speaks.
I wonder which kompani Alosha and Silain will choose, if it comes down to it. Silain, as Droi mentions, has her own ties to the people of Surebleak, but she might feel that her duty takes her back to the ship. Alosha doesn’t appear conflicted and doesn’t have any particular ties that we know about.
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The Bedel
In which the Bedel receive long-awaited news.
Back around the time Maysl first entered the story, I spent a while speculating about how she and her parents were going to manage when the ship came to pick up the kompani. It appears that Droi has been assuming that the question wouldn’t arise, that the ship which was already late would not appear in her lifetime.
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In which three get with the program.
I mentioned the way the team had split up last time, but I only just now realised that it’s reflected in the chapter titles: they’re called “One”, “Two”, and “Three”, not just because they’re the first three chapters of the book, but also because that’s how many of the Six are in each chapter.
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In which Val Con has tea with his brother’s sister.
No more character reintroductions in this section, only consolidating and expanding on the threads from the previous two sections.
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Shaper’s Freehold
Surebleak
In which Yulie has visitors.
We get quite a bit of differentiation, in a short space of time, between the various members of the crew trying to break into the growing rooms. One of them is named Mort, which is a name we’ve seen before on Surebleak, attached to one of the muggers who left Rys dying on the doorstep of the Bedel back at the beginning of Necessity’s Child. I don’t think it’s the same Mort, though, because that one had a group of other ruffians he was usually seen in company with, and none of those names appears here. Also, he seems a bit smarter than that Mort.
With Rys getting training as a headman and Droi being reassured that she does have what it takes to be a luthia, if they do get together they’ll have between them the two roles needed to lead a kompani. I don’t know if that means Silain has foreseen them leading a kompani of the Bedel; it might just be that whatever group of companions they gather around them might benefit from including people with those skills.
Corner of Dudley Lane and Farley Avenue
In which Kareen and Kamele have made a discovery.
I do not think it’s just a coincidence that Kareen’s preferred seat faces the doorway, though I can see why Kamele would think so. They’re both scholars, but one of them grew up on a Safe World, and the other grew up in a family that habitually gets into situations where it’s valuable to have habits like always sitting where you can see the door.
I said earlier that getting involved in Kareen’s project gives Kamele a reason to stay on Surebleak that is her own and not just a case of having a relationship with someone who lives here. Droi, uncertain of her continued welcome among the Bedel, may find that it does the same for her.
Which, come to think of it, may be a good thing, because staying to be with Rys might not end up as an option if he’s going off to fight the Department. It would be one thing if the choice came upon her when Rys was right there and she could say, “I am staying here with Rys”, but it might happen that she has decide whether she wants to say, “I am staying here, where Rys isn’t and may never be again”.
Boss Nova’s House
Blair Road
In which there is a nice dinner followed by serious conversation.
I find it interesting that Kezzi’s triumph at school is reported by Syl Vor, and vice versa.
The phrase “something so trivial as an apparent breach of contract” has an edge to it, coming after Val Con’s lecture on the importance to Liadens of the making and keeping of contracts. One might suppose that in the general way, the Liaden attitude about self-reliance being what it is, a breach of contract would be resolved between the parties to the contract without bringing in any outsiders, so a breach of contract wouldn’t normally be taken to the Council of Clans unless it developed into a major situation. This is not the general case, however – for one thing, the Council of Clans is one of the parties to the contract in question.
The mention of Quin in this context makes me belatedly wonder whether his current project – which is, you will recall, to gain piloting experience by flying off somewhere for several weeks – was already planned, or if it was invented as a way to keep him out of reach of any more Balance-seekers while his family determined whether any more are to be expected.
Val Con’s aunt Mizel would be his mother’s sister Sinit, who was appointed Nadelm Mizel in Mouse and Dragon and presumably has succeeded to the Delm by now. (She also formed an alliance with yo’Lanna in that book, so that mention is another pointer.) Seeing her mentioned now as still in contact with Korval, with Aelliana’s return in prospect, makes me wonder how she is going to react to having her sister come back from the dead.
Riley’s Back Room
Fortunato’s Turf
In which Miri talks about the past, and Droi thinks about the future.
And one way in which things immediately become more interesting is that Rys’s role as leader of the freed Agents, with all its responsibilities and risks, has ceased to be merely hypothetical now that there is at least one freed Agent to lead.
It’s an interesting point about Droi perhaps not having a place on the ship of the Bedel when it returns. This chapter seems to be gesturing toward the possibility that she might by then discover that she has a place on Surebleak with Rys, which would not be quite the same as being left alone among gadje. The problem I see with this as a solution is that it revives the issue of the kompani needing to have a particular number of members at the end of chafurma, which was the necessity that drove Droi to start interacting with Rys in the first place: if both Rys and Droi leave, the kompani will be short, even if the kompani keeps their daughter, which I could see being a Balance demanded of them.
(Unless, it occurred to me as I composed the previous sentence, the newly freed Agents follow Rys’s path, and enough of them join the kompani to balance the loss. I’m suspicious of this idea, though: it seems a bit too neat, the kind of prediction that I’ve usually been wrong about before with Liaden novels.)
I was right about the nosy crews being connected; good to know my intuitions aren’t entirely off. Having some kind of underground-space-detecting technology explains how they knew where to look without necessarily knowing what was in the spaces they were looking for. The mention of an Insurance Committee suggests they might also be connected to the shakedowns Pat Rin has been dealing with. It says something about their ideas of neighbourliness (or at least of the behaviour of Bosses) that they assume they can nobble the Road Boss’s nearest neighbour without anybody noticing or caring.
It occurs to me that the kompani, who have been on Surebleak many generations “to learn what there was to know”, might well have learned things that would be relevant and useful to Kareen’s project, even if they weren’t interested in the social constructs of gadje particularly. Whether anybody in the story is likely to have this occur to them, and whether the Bedel would agree to share such knowledge, who knows?
The Bedel
In which Rys makes a discovery.
I’m not sure I have much to say about this chapter, since it speaks pretty well for itself.
One detail that’s left open for speculation is why the luthia gave Rys the task of seeing Kezzi off in the mornings at the same time as she began this course of education. Is it somehow part of the lesson, too? Did Silain foresee that it would be in the act of seeing Kezzi off that he’d come to his realisation about what is going on?
The Bedel
In which several projects are underway.
Silain-luthia demonstrates another Healer-type ability. It makes sense that the luthia would have such abilities, given her role looking after the wellbeing of the individuals that make up the kompani. It makes me wonder about her apprentice, though: I don’t recall Kezzi showing any obvious signs of potential in that direction. Except her vision of the future in Necessity’s Child, which isn’t strictly a Healer-type ability, and anyway happened under the influence of a dream the luthia gave her. And that raises the interesting possibility that the dreams of the Bedel can instil psychic abilities in people who might not otherwise have them.
Somehow it does not surprise me that Kareen’s landau has made the journey to Surebleak with her. I’m impressed by its apparent ability to handle Surebleak’s roads, though.
Kamele’s offer to assist Kareen’s research is significant, because it offers a path that might lead to her choosing to stay on Surebleak for the long term. She’s not the type to have thrown over her scholarly career to stay on Surebleak just because her family’s here – the less so because Theo’s mostly not here and Jen Sar may never be here again – but if there’s scholarship to be done here…