Tag Archives: Mr pel’Kana (Trealla Fantrol)

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 34

In which Aelliana invents a solar system.

There’s a parallel going on here between the situations of Aelliana and Samiv. Neither of them is getting the care they ought to be able to expect from their own clans. Both of them have an opportunity to appeal to Daav for assistance, and impediments to grasping the opportunity. (It’s a sign probably of Samiv’s desperation as much as anything that she has actually taken that step — especially after her delm expressly forbade her to.)

I wonder… if Aelliana had also decided to turn to Daav, would she have ended up waiting in the same room as Samiv? What would they have talked about? Probably not, though; I expect when you have a house as big as Korval does, the standard routine is for the butler to leave each visitor waiting in a different room, and probably not even let them know there are other visitors unless instructed otherwise. (And anyway, if Aelliana had decided to turn to Daav, she’d have phoned instead of turning up on his doorstep, the location of which is still unknown to her.)

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 16

In which Daav offers Aelliana more than one kind of life support.

Although Delm Bindan says she’ll remember the lesson about sending word ahead, I’m not sure she’s learned the right lesson. I get the feeling that she thinks Daav deliberately kept her waiting to (the phrase is inevitable) teach her a lesson, and hasn’t realised that he genuinely wasn’t in a fit state to receive visitors. One wonders how restricted her life is, if she never relaxes at home at any time when visitors might come by.

This being a prequel, and a genre novel, we know that Daav would have made his immediate future much easier if he’d succumbed to the temptation to break off the contract with Bindan, but he hasn’t realised yet where his future lies. Nor should he have, at this point; his relationship with Aelliana is still at an early stage where it would be presumptuous for him to be making plans in that direction.

Though, speaking of the development of their relationship, the gift he gives her in this chapter is freighted with all kinds of significance, for all that it’s just a hair-tie. (And apart from the fact that he offers her, along with it, the determination to keep fighting past the first fall.) A few days ago, she probably wouldn’t have accepted it from him, a near-stranger — and not so long before that, she, the woman whose habit had been to hide from the world behind her hair, would have had no use for it.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 2

In which Anne seeks the delm’s instruction.

And this chapter re-introduces some of the familiar faces from Local Custom, along with two new complications:

First, Daav is going to be married, an event he’s been putting off for years and would have continued to put off if he had his preference. (I wonder if it makes sense to say that the delm has put his foot down, when it’s Daav’s foot. One thing I’ve noticed about Daav: the flipside of him preferring not to invoke the Delm when some other way to handle the situation exists is that when the Delm does put in an appearance he tends to be extremely strict, and perhaps even more so with Daav than with anyone else.)

Second, Anne discovers what has been hinted a few times but not explicitly stated until now: that Korval considers itself still bound by the contract that made Cantra and her heirs responsible for the safety of the passengers they brought to Liad. I don’t think anything much comes of it in this novel, apart from it further underlining the gap between a certain impoverished scholar and the man who might loosely be described as “the king of the world”, but it will be important later.

Along with Anne’s discovery, this chapter gives us another vague estimate of how long it’s been since Liad was settled. Anne, this time with a more solid knowledge of Korval’s history under her belt, calls it a thousand years, which Daav says is “near enough”.

Local Custom – Chapter 39

In which equitable solutions are found for a number of problems.

It’s interesting that Syntebra el’Kemin is apparently not averse to Luken’s attentions. I mean, I totally understand that she might feel more comfortable with him than with his sharper-witted relatives — but if she thought Er Thom old, what does that make Luken?

A thing I like about this chapter is how much warmth and care there is between (at least some of) the members of Clan Korval; between Er Thom and Daav, and between Daav and Luken. (And between Luken and nearly everybody?) I particularly love that, although Luken doesn’t fit in the Korval mould, Daav genuinely appreciates and respects him for who he is.

Local Custom – Chapter 25

In which Shan receives two visitors.

Our first appearance of Luken bel’Tarda, who is one of my favourite characters in the series. In a setting full of hotshot pilots and marksmen and wizards and master traders and witty banterers, it’s nice to know that it’s also possible for a person who is none of those things to be signficant just by being a thoroughly decent human being. (Though, that said, I note he’s achieved the rank of Master Merchant, which suggests that even if he’s not dazzlingly brilliant he’s not stupid either.)

We also get enough detail about Pat Rin’s situation to make it quite clear why the delm found it necessary to remove him from his mother’s care into Luken’s and why her attempts to win him back are unlikely to bear fruit. Whatever her good points may be, Lady Kareen’s obviously not going to be winning any awards for motherhood.

Anne’s estimate of Luken’s age puts him within a year or two of Daav’s sister and Er Thom’s brother. I wonder if it was just happenstance that all the Lines produced heirs around the same time, or if there was some co-ordination involved.

(The estimate of Pat Rin’s age, on the other hand – which is given from Petrella’s viewpoint, so it can’t be handwaved as unfamiliarity – disagrees with the dates in the Partial Timeline by a full three Standard Years. Which, come to think of it, is Shan’s age; I wonder if somebody got confused at some point between Pat Rin’s age when Shan was born and Pat Rin’s age when the two of them first met.)

This is also the chapter in which Olwen sel’Iprith gives Daav nubiath’a. Which goes to show that two Liadens touching each other’s faces like lifemates doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s where the relationship is going to end up – she touches his face again here, even as she’s saying goodbye. And I have occasionally wondered if Daav would have handled subsequent events differently if this hadn’t happened to him just now.

Local Custom – Chapter 17

In which Korval Sees Shan yos’Galan.

Hah. I wonder how much difference it would have made if Anne had been less careful of decorum and had kissed Er Thom like a lifemate in front of his kinsman and Delm. (Perhaps not so much, though; after all, Daav knows if anyone does that the significance of such gestures may be less depending on local custom. He and his current bedfriend are not careful of the face taboo, and only see how that will turn out.)

This chapter gives our first solid indication of how long it’s been since the great migration, though I could wish for it to be solider. Anne says that if the Tree is the same tree Jela had, it must be, she guesses, nine hundred years old. Older, says Er Thom, but it’s not clear whether that means Anne’s lowballed the distance from Jela’s time, or just that he’s acknowledging that the Tree had some years on it before ever it met Jela.

Local Custom – Chapter 7

In which Er Thom and Kareen each take thought for the good of the clan.

As Er Thom works on persuading Anne to come to Liad and meet his family, we start getting an idea of the politics at work. One gets the impression they’re not going to be as delighted to see her as he’s making out.

And speaking of seeing her, there’s another miscommunication in this chapter that’s going to significantly affect Anne’s understanding of the evolving situation. The distinction between being seen by the Delm and being Seen by the Delm is not nearly as clear in spoken Terran as it presumably is in Liaden.