Tag Archives: Paitor Gobelyn

Balance of Trade – Chapter 32

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Day 165
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri and, for a change, Miandra and Grig each have a long and incident-packed day.

Boy, and I thought last chapter was long.

This chapter opens with the first scene in which we’ve seen one of the twins without the other, and it apparently presages that their paths are going to be more distinct from here on in.

As part of that, we get an elaboration of the subtext about Healers and dramliz from Jethri’s first day here. Meicha is a Healer, and a good one, with the rare gift of being able to heal the body as well as the mind. Miandra is a dramliza, which puts her in an uncomfortable position since the people of Irikwae are prepared to accept Healers but abominate the dramliz; Miandra’s grandmother wants her to be safe but thinks the problem can be solved by Miandra restricting herself to being a Healer, a course of action which Miandra is finding increasingly untenable.

(I don’t remember now which comment thread it was, or in what context, that someone mentioned the anecdote about Korval Herself arguing for the survival of the dramliz on Liad, but anyhow this is the chapter where that appears.)

I find myself wondering whether the Healer who gave it as her professional opinion that Miandra couldn’t have held back the storm really believes that, or if she deliberately steered away from officially marking Miandra as a dramliza. (And if so, for whose comfort she did so.)

I like the bit comparing how Jethri expresses himself in Liaden and Terran, now that he’s fluent in both.

Over in Grig’s half of the chapter, he’s having a philosophical disagreement with his family. I wonder whether it’s Grig, or anyhow people who thought like him, whom Val Con and his contemporaries have to thank for their autodocs and suchlike.

Also, there is an unusual and interesting application of the word “brother”. If the byplay about “Arin’s youngest brother”, added to Iza’s insistence on Jethri being Arin’s son alone, means what I think it means, I’m not at all surprised that Iza’s still hacked off about it eighteen years after the event. (It also raises the question of what other ‘brothers’ Arin might have.) Grig’s thought about family resemblances in the elevator seems to suggest that the non-standard definition of “brother” might extend to him and Raisy as well.

(Reading that back, I realise I’ve done that thing again where I leave something out because it seems obvious to me. So, to be clear, the word I’m hearing in this conversation even though nobody says it is “clone”. The implication, as I read it, is that Jethri Gobelyn is a clone of Arin Gobelyn, and that Arin used Iza as a surrogate without her knowledge or consent. I also get the feeling, partly from the word “youngest”, that Arin Gobelyn was himself a clone, and that when his family talk about Arin in this chapter it’s not always Arin Gobelyn they’re referring to.)

I remember wondering, the first time I read this chapter, whether Grig’s Uncle was the same person as Dulsey’s Uncle, seeing as they had certain similarities in personality and interest, and then getting to the bit where Grig’s Uncle has a name, and thinking maybe they weren’t, at least until Dragon Ship came out. (By the time I got here, I’d forgotten that one of Dulsey’s associates was named Arin, or I’d have wondered about that, too.)

Right now, I’m not sure whether Uncle Yuri is the same man as The Uncle, though it seems he’s pursuing the same line of work. Perhaps he is The Uncle’s younger brother…

(I’ve compared the physical descriptions of the two Uncles, which was unhelpful to a point that seems almost suspicious. They have very little overlap in which details they focus on: only one mentions an eye color, only one says anything useful about hair color, and so on. The only details that coincide are that both are tall and lean, and many men are both of those. Grig, for one, as we were reminded a few pages earlier – and that makes me wonder, for the first time, whose younger brother he might be.)

Balance of Trade – Chapter 31

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Day 161
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri and Khat each have a long and incident-packed day.

Well now, this is a long chapter.

Khat’s day brings her to Banth, an inhospitable planet which a surprising number of Liadens seem to want to visit. And among them, the chel’Gaibin and her son, who reacts badly to encountering one of Jethri’s kin. I really like the sequence with Khat’s friend Keeson and his sister, which probably wasn’t strictly needful to the plot but adds a lot of texture to the story.

Jethri’s day, in between encounters with tailors and dancing instructors, takes him out to the vines, teaches him a few things about the local fauna, and leads to a possibly unwise bright idea involving the device Grig called a “weather maker”.

It’s been alluded to previously, but this is the first time the Code of Proper Conduct has been mentioned by its full title. Also mentioned is that it’s currently three volumes long, a state of affairs that I seem to recall does not maintain itself indefinitely.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 28

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Day 145
Standard Year 1118

Kinaveral

In which the Gobelyn family is not the market for Befores.

More types of Old Tech: “light-wands” and “duplicating units”, neither of which is ringing any particularly loud bells regarding the tech we saw in the prequel duology. Grig says the man looking for them is a fool, but it’s not clear whether he means “because he expects to find any” or “because he expects things to go well once he starts messing with one”. It could be the latter because Grig clearly knows more about Old Tech than he’s letting on. Another example of which is that he calls Jethri’s device a weather maker, which is not a thing Jethri knows about it.

(And if there’s one thing I’m really learning about from this re-read, it’s the authors’ technique of mentioning a thing in passing a chapter or two before it becomes important again.)

Is it just me, or is there something going on between Seeli and Grig?

Balance of Trade – Chapter 27

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Day 140
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which the twins give Jethri the benefit of their vast, sorrowful experience.

When the twins are telling Jethri about how much Pen Rel loves his vines, they tell a story about the “mother vine” that echoes the events of “Necessary Evils” and the scholar’s hearsay in Crystal Dragon. Where those were reports of contemporary events, though, now it is just a legend of “the old days, when such things were possible”.

That’s a connection I didn’t make the first time I read it, probably because I hadn’t read “Necessary Evils” yet. If memory serves, I read all the novels Meisha Merlin published before I read any of the short stories.

The other thing I didn’t realise the first time I read it was that Jethri’s confidence that it wasn’t within his power to match the twins’ devastation of the vines was a sign of trouble to come.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 26

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Day 140
Standard Year 1118

Kinaveral

In which someone wishes to trade for fractins.

Less a plot development than a hint that one might be forthcoming, this.

I wonder who this guy is, who apparently knows enough about Gobelyn’s Market to be aware of it as a possible avenue for trade in fractins, but doesn’t know enough to be aware that the trader has been dead and the avenue closed for years. I wondered for a moment if he approached Seeli because she’s Arin’s daughter, but I think it’s probably just that she’s listed on-port as Admin and primary contact since Iza shipped out. If he was solid enough on the details to know the names of Arin’s children, he ought to be aware that none of the remaining crew of the Market share Arin’s enthusiasm.

Seeli certainly doesn’t; from the aside about over-abundant nuisances I gather that she doesn’t even know about the distinction between counterfeit fractins and genuine, or else regards it as a distinction without a difference.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 25

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Day 140
Standard Year 1118

Tarnia’s Clanhouse
Irikwae

In which Lady Maarilex gets to know Jethri Gobelyn.

Jethri’s account confirms that Arin changed his name to Gobelyn when he married (from Tomas, which means Grig was a relative on top of being a trusted colleague). This sets me wondering again about the monogrammed box; if it’s his monogram, it must have been done after he married, but a velvet-lined jewel box doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a crewman on a ship like Gobelyn’s Market would go in for. Maybe it was a wedding present.

We see, again, that Jethri’s upbringing has taught him not to expect others to exert themselves on his account.

I am not, myself, surprised that Lady Maarilex wanted to hear Jethri’s account of how he met Master ven’Deelin. Certainly she has had Master ven’Deelin’s account, but Jethri’s telling is sure to differ in details, in what is emphasized, included, or left out, and from the differences she can learn more not only about the event but about the teller.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 24

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Day 139
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri is here to learn trade and mountains.

It’s interesting that Norn ven’Deelin speaks of this as “coming home”, and makes one wonder how she would characterize returning to the house of her own clan on Liad.

Meicha and Miandra have something going on: they’re able to pick Jethri’s emotions out of his head – but perhaps not yet able to not do it, given their reactions when Jethri starts panicking (and I wonder if Ren Lar was picking up on that when he suggested it was time to end the meal). “Healer Hall has taken an interest in them”. The Delm is firm that they are not, however, dramliz – but something about the way it’s said makes me wonder if that’s an objective judgement or if there’s a stigma being carefully avoided. (Also, I wonder what it is that tips Norn ven’Deelin off about them.)

The subject of Liadens considering it impolite to mop one’s face in public is one that we will return to in more detail at a later date.

I wonder if Flinx is named (not by the characters, obviously, but perhaps by the authors) after the protagonist of Alan Dean Foster’s series of young adult novels; I can see some similarities between that Flinx and our Jethri.

Master ven’Deelin’s mention of Korval in the parlor is the first time they’ve been mentioned since Crystal Dragon (and if memory serves it will be some time again before they’re next mentioned).

Jethri’s assessment of the parlor as “smallish – maybe the size of Master ven’Deelin’s office on Elthoria” shows that he’s made some adjustments in the time since he first saw that office: back then, he was struck by how large it was.

Incidentally, it’s been nearly exactly a relumma since then, which means that in depositing Jethri on Irikwae for two relumma, Master ven’Deelin is proposing that they will be apart for almost twice as long as the entire time they’ve known each other. I can see that being worrying even without the addition of a Spacer’s horror of being left stranded.

I have a feeling that when Master ven’Deelin remarks on how careful Jethri is of her honor, she’s very gently pulling his leg. He does genuinely want to avoid doing her disservice, and I’m sure she genuinely appreciates it, but she only really makes a point of it when he’s trying to invoke a desire to avoid shaming her to get out of doing something without straight out saying he doesn’t want to do it.

Which, as I said, doesn’t mean that they don’t genuinely care about each other, and I love the scenes in this chapter which show that care.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 22

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Day 125
Standard Year 1118

Modrid

In which Jethri and the master of Modrid Trade Hall make their opinions of each other very clear.

Jethri shows a couple of times in this chapter that he doesn’t expect the regard of others. As Master ven’Deelin notes, when the Hall Master refuses to accept him as Master ven’Deelin’s apprentice he’s more upset about the insult to her than the corresponding slighting of himself. And then he admits that it hadn’t occurred to him that his uncle might have genuinely considered that he had properly earned the right to hold the ten-year Combine key. Perhaps it comes of being the baby of a large family, with or without the addition of a parent who wants nothing to do with him. It’s something he’s going to have to work on; humility is well and good, but a trader is not going to get very far without a sense of his own consequence.

The historic tapestry of surpassing ugliness is an amusing detail.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 21

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Day 123
Standard Year 1118

Elthoria
Modrid Approach

In which Master ven’Deelin’s apprentice trades solo for the first time.

Did I say Jethri’s habit of nervously playing with his lucky fractin had disappeared? Not entirely, it turns out.

The partly-overheard conversation at the end of the chapter would sound quite portentous if I didn’t remember what it’s about.

Balance of Trade – Chapter 20

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Day 116
Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

In which Jethri opens his crate from home.

The dent in the B-crate has all kinds of interesting potential stories behind it, depending on just when it happened. If it happened on the way from Khat to Jethri, that’s one thing. If Khat just added her own few items to the crate Iza was already storing Jethri’s stuff in, and Iza put the dent in it herself at some point since Arin’s death, that’s another thing. If Iza was making use of one of Arin’s old crates, and it was already dented when he got it, that’s another thing again (and at this point a small voice in my head is muttering, speculatively, “Wildetoad Wildetoad Wildetoad…”). But no, it says some of the fastenings jammed when the crate was deformed, so it most likely happened since Khat packed it up.

There’s a paragraph in this chapter that speaks to some of the conversation that’s been going on in the comment threads: “Say what you would about Iza Gobelyn’s temper, and no question she was cold. Say it all – and when it was said, the fact remained that she was a canny and resourceful captain, who held the best good of the ship in her heart.” Gotta admit, though, we haven’t actually seen much of that side of her so far.

Jethri interprets the monogram on the signet ring box as “Arin Jethri Gobelyn”. If he’s correct to do so, does that mean that Arin was already a Gobelyn when he was still a commissioner, before he married Iza?

Another little puzzle: at the bottom of the fractin collection, a rack made of an unfamiliar metal; with Crystal Dragon fresh in memory, I wonder if it’s a data-case to go with the data-tiles. (Or perhaps just an attempt at re-creating a data-case, the way Nelirikk’s shibjela is not a real shib.)

All the focus on the fractin collection leads me to realise that Jethri’s lucky fractin hasn’t been making many appearances lately, and his old habit of playing with it when he was nervous has completely disappeared since he started protocol lessons.