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Conflict of Honors – Chapter 45

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 181
Third Shift
14.00 hours

In which Shan receives the news from Sintia.

Have I mentioned that I have a lot of respect for Mr dea’Gauss?

It’s not mentioned here, but we know from “A Matter of Dreams” that the incident that led to Priscilla’s expulsion involved not only the saving of three lives but also the ending of one, under similar circumstances of defense-under-pressure as the death of Dagmar Collier. It’s possible that, when Priscilla gave herself up as a murderer Shan would no longer wish to be associated with, she had the earlier death on her mind as well as the recent one. A person might be able to persuade herself that one slaying was an aberration that might be discounted as long as it didn’t become a habit, but then to find herself doing it again…

There may not be a more appropriate time after this to make an observation about Priscilla’s name. In full it is Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza, following the form of a Spanish naming custom in which a person’s surname is in two parts, one inherited from each parent, and connected with “y” (which means “and”). In the Spanish tradition, the important part of the surname would be the first half, inherited from the father, and the short form of Priscilla’s name would be “Priscilla Delacroix” — but in fact, as we’ve seen more than once in this novel, the short form of her name is “Priscilla Mendoza”, giving precedence to her mother’s surname, which fits with the matriarchal nature of the society she hails from.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 1

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Maidenstairs Plaza
Local Year 1002
Standard 1375

In which Moonhawk is dead, and has to find a new way to make a living.

Read immediately after “Moonphase”, this is pretty much just a coda, and there’s not a lot to add.

(Unless one starts in on the apparent inconsistencies between the timelines of the two accounts, which I’m trying not to.)

On reflection, I think it would probably work better, if one was prepared to bend one’s definition of chronological order a bit, to not read this immediately after “Moonphase”, and instead read it as a refresher of the lady’s situation immediately before embarking on the rest of Conflict of Honors.

…which of course means that I’ve worked myself around, by slow and careful stages, to the belief that the best way to read it is the way the authors presented it in the first place. How about that?

This chapter does add one important thing to the story: that, rather than hanging around in this city, or cloistering herself with the Silent Sisters (who reside at Caleitha, a town which was mentioned in passing in “Where the Goddess Sends”), the one who was called Moonhawk chooses to head off for the uncertain opportunities represented by a glow on the horizon. The cause of the glow is not named here, but subsequent chapters will show that her decision was to make for the spaceport and thence offworld.

(We still don’t know which city this is that the spaceport is attached to, by the way, unless this Maidenstairs is the same Maidenstairs as in “Moon’s Honor”, in which case this is Dyan City again. I’m not sure that’s a solid clue — for all we know, every Temple might have an area in front of it called Maidenstairs — but it seems plausible, since the two earlier Moonhawks were both from Dyan City as well.)

Tomorrow: “Fighting Chance”

A Matter of Dreams

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In which a pilot dreams of Moonhawk.

After the thought I had (and expressed rather incoherently, I fear) yesterday, about the magics of this setting perhaps having technological underpinnings, it’s interesting to follow up immediately with a story in which (I hadn’t remembered) the macguffin is part of the technological underpinning of the witches of Sintia.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Sintia, and Moonhawk. Some things have changed: Sintia is now a technological society with its own spaceport and trade with other planets. (Fiona, our narrator, neglects to name the city that hosts the spaceport, presumably because as a Spacer she’s not much interested in local geography.) Some things are not as much changed as one might like: the representatives of the Temple are still, or again, having the same problem with their priorities that Lute called out Lady Rowan on in “Moon’s Honor”. The thing that they consider most important about the theft from the Temple is not the harm that might have been done, but the affront to the Temple’s self-importance.

There’s no Lute to call them out on it, however; this Moonhawk is still young, and does not appear to have met her Lute yet.

Nobody says it out loud — it would probably have been distinctly unwise to say it out loud — but I reckon that Cly Nelbern’s desire for an escort is less about physical protection than about entangling the pilots so that if she goes down, they go down too. And I reckon that Fiona has realised the same thing by the time she asks if Nelbern will be wanting an escort again to her second meeting.

The story is marked with the year 1375; on internal evidence, this has to be the year in which the main events of the story occurred, not the years-later time at which the narrator is telling the story. Fair enough, since that’s the same logic on which I’ve placed the story here in the chronological order.

Tomorrow: “Moonphase”