In which Anne’s troubles are eased, but Er Thom’s may be just beginning.

I don’t recall what I thought the first time I read this and Daav showed up at the end of the chapter. Probably I had a fairly good idea of what the outcome would be, if not how it would be achieved, if only because this is a prequel. One thing I’m pretty sure of is that despite the suggestion offered in the epigraph, I never suspected Daav for a moment of planning to require a balance-price from Anne for depriving the clan of its son Er Thom. (If nothing else, that would be thoroughly unjust, since it was Er Thom’s own decision, with perhaps some assistance from his mother; Anne, as Daav knows full well, never asked or expected any such thing.)