Tag Archives: Scout Headquarters

A Day at the Races

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In which Val Con scores a victory over a field of skimmers and an aunt.

Speaking of families of consequence, here is Korval again. Anne and Er Thom have died since we saw them last, and Shan is now First Speaker, holding the clan in trust for when Val Con becomes Delm — though Val Con seems no more eager to do that thing and to give up the Scouts than his father was. (One suspects he’s going to find it harder to put off once the “your father was Delm at your age” card enters play, but he has a few years up his sleeve yet before he reaches that age.) For that matter, Shan is not keen on being First Speaker, and looks forward to being able to hand it off to Nova and head out on the Dutiful Passage. (Presumably there’s an age restriction of some kind, else Nova would be First Speaker already; she’s clearly better suited for it temperamentally.) And in the mean time, Shan races skimmers, and Val Con spends time with bartenders…

This is a case where the right ordering of a story is unclear, not because it’s not certain when it takes place, but because it’s certainly taking place at the same time as another story. I chose to put “Shadow Partner” first, since most of that story takes place before this one begins (and this ends after that does, if only by a paragraph or two), but they would not do badly the other way round.

Tomorrow: “Certain Symmetry”

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 30

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In which there is dinner, dancing, distinction, and a difficult decision.

Aelliana’s speculation about Daav’s ringless finger reminds me that this is a parallel to Local Custom, where Er Thom also spent a significant portion going about without his ring of rank. Or perhaps not so much a parallel as a reflection, because in a way the situation here is a reverse: Er Thom’s lack of ring was a punishment, but Daav’s is more in the way of a much-needed vacation.

And when Aelliana asks him what he has around his neck, and he replies, “A chain”, it’s an obvious dodge into literal-mindedness — but it also works as an honest (perhaps more honest than he intended?) description of how he regards the delm’s ring.

I think I was a bit uncharitable toward Olwen sel’Iprith back in Local Custom. If Frad is any indication, all the members of Daav’s former team are very close, just not the kind of close that, say, Er Thom and Anne are. (Or, as we can confidently say after the happenings of this chapter, Daav and Aelliana.)

And here’s a fun thing I noticed for the first time on this re-read: the authors are ingeniously uninformative as regards the genders of Trilla’s and Frad’s chosen table partners. We learn that Frad’s companion is a redheaded Scout, and Trilla’s companions are both described as dancers, but do we get a single gendered pronoun between the three of them? We do not.

Scout’s Progress – Chapter 24

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In which Clonak tells Aelliana a story about Daav, and Korval responds promptly to an insult.

As usual I’m going to duck talking about how this chapter was emotionally affecting, and talk about something else instead, like how this chapter does some clever work of incluing and foreshadowing. For instance, the list at the beginning of the chapter of the people who have been entrusted with Daav’s private number does multiple duty by introducing the reader to Olwen and Frad, so that their names glide smoothly by in Clonak’s story later.

I even caught myself thinking that the last scene of this chapter did a remarkably good job of foreshadowing the end of Mouse and Dragon, considering that this was written so many years before that was, before I remembered that that end had already been established in another book that was in its turn published many years before this one.

Another interesting thing about the list of Daav’s near ones is that it includes, apart from Aelliana, his brother, and his former Scout teammates, one Fer Gun pen’Uldra, Daav’s father. One gets the impression that there are not many Liadens who know their out-Clan parent at all well, let alone remain so close as to include them in such an exclusive list. (The situation with Aelliana’s father illustrated in Chapter 9, where he has had no further contact with Mizel since the conclusion of contract and Aelliana doesn’t even know his name, seems more typical.) Is there a story there? If so, it’s one we haven’t been told yet; Daav’s father is mentioned only rarely, by name even more rarely, and as far as I recall has never made an in-person appearance.

A Choice of Weapons

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In which Daav yos’Phelium’s suitability to be Delm is tested.

Daav is having serious doubts about his fitness to be delm. I think, on the one hand, he’s not being fair to himself – he notices all the occasions when he slips, but not the occasions which also occur on which he does well (of which, there are instances where he specifically catches himself slipping and changes to a better course). And on the other hand, I think he’s holding himself up to an impossible standard; as he eventually realises, no Delm ever is always perfect.

I like Kesa del’Fordan. She is clearly a person of good melant’i, to the point that she outshines her brother for all that he’s twice her age.

I also like Daav’s description of Korval’s tendency to tallness: “the pickpocket who wishes to rob Korval must bring his own stepladder.”

Phoenix

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In which Bell the painter and Cyra the jeweler rise together from the wreckage.

This story is set in Standard Year 1293, a bit over a century since “Sweet Waters”, and nearing two centuries since Trade Secret. Things have moved on since Jethri’s time to the point that there are now Terrans living, and even legally owning property, on Liad, in Solcintra itself, though only in the Low Port and not with any entree into polite society. (And interacting with Liadens in ways other than owning property, by the evidence of the half-Terran Debbie.)

It is also far enough on that we’re beginning to approach the next clump of novels. This story introduces a character we will see again in a novel, as does each of remaining the stories between now and when we hit the beginning of Local Custom.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of Cyra’s Delm and his idea of appropriate punishment. It’s difficult to be certain when there’s only one viewpoint available; there may be mitigating circumstances available. Cyra does say that the clan is not rich, but that may be an attempt to give the benefit of the doubt, since she also comes about as close as a polite young lady might to outright accusing her Delm of being a penny-pincher. And while he clearly has concern about ensuring the continuance of the clan into a new generation of clanmembers, that’s not enough in itself to explain his treatment of Cyra; a clan that needs every child does not, if it’s being rational, wilfully deprive itself of one of the children it already has.

(And here is the kind of thing a person can find himself thinking about when contemplating information that appears in other stories than this: in another century, Liaden medical technology will include a method to easily erase facial scarring. I wonder if that technology already exists at the time of this story, which would offer the possibility that the delm intended Cyra’s disfigurement to last only as long as her exile. But if that was the delm’s thinking, does that actually make it any better?)

Naratha’s Shadow

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In which Naratha’s Discord is brought into balance.

There’s a recognizable similarity between the Voice of Naratha and the song-women Jela recalls seeing in action in chapter 2 of Crystal Soldier. The Voice’s account of Naratha’s victory over the Enemy, though, seems to be a different and more dramatic action than the one Jela witnessed. (The obvious temptation is to assume that the Enemy she speaks of is the same one as Jela fought, which would suggest that her story is an account of Naratha’s part in the Moment of the Question at the end of Crystal Dragon. It is not obvious, however, how the two accounts fit together.)

We never hear much, in these stories, about the Liaden religion, except that in times of emotional stress they speak of “gods”, plural, as the Master Healer does here. (I’m moved to note this by the observation that, by contrast, Montet sig’Norba speaks in terms of a single God when she’s talking to Naratha’s people near the end, presumably because that’s how the figures of speech run in the language she’s speaking at the time.)

Though the story itself does not carry a date, The Updated But Partial Liaden Universe Timeline sets it in SY 1123, a few years after Balance of Trade.