Tag Archives: Gar Sad per’Etla

Balance of Trade – Chapter 33

Day 166
Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

In which Norn ven’Deelin considers her options.

Master ven’Deelin is decisive in moving to assist her foster son, not that I expected anything different from her by this point.

I am not sure I have correctly untangled that very long sentence which comes third in this chapter. It sounds like it has a story behind it, whatever it means.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 19

Day 108
Standard Year 1118

Tilene Docks

In which Jethri tries his hand at cargo.

We are reminded that Jethri is most comfortable on board ship, or failing that somewhere with a solid roof over his head, a fact which is going to become salient in another chapter or two.

I had completely forgotten the detailed description of Tilene’s city, possibly because it doesn’t end up being relevant to anything later on (unless I’ve forgotten that, too). Nice bit of worldbuilding, though.

This was one of my least favourite chapters on my first reading of this novel; I have a tendency to feel it very strongly when a sympathetic character makes a mistake. I had forgotten, or it hadn’t sunk in, that his teachers judge him to have done well, all things considered. And surely this is the best kind of mistake: one that can be learned from and will not be repeated on some future occasion where the consequences of a mistake might be much worse.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 17

Day 107
Standard Year 1118

Elthoria and Tilene

In which Jethri’s new status occasions some changes of schedule.

Norn ven’Deelin says, in word and in deed, that she trusts Jethri to behave honorably and do well, and not to make her regret claiming him as kin. I wonder how she’d have handled the situation if she didn’t trust him so well. (She wouldn’t have let the chel’Gaibins take him while he was under her protection, and perhaps she might have claimed him as kin anyway, seeing no other option – because I don’t think she’d have done that, even trusting Jethri as she does, if she’d seen another option – but perhaps she’d have arranged his schedule differently, kept him more out of the public eye, and let it be more in name than in fact.) On the other hand, perhaps this is a pointless question: if she didn’t already think well of him, he wouldn’t have been trading under her on Tilene and the situation would never have arisen.

The Master Trader’s concern over the unnamed practice lately surfaced on Tilene is ominous, especially once one starts wondering if it’s of a piece with the “climate changes” observed by her friend the Scout Captain on Kailipso.

Tan Sim’s family are seriously unpleasant people. Not that we hadn’t already been getting that impression, of course.