Melepomine Court
Alpraise City
Dayan, in the Irrobi System
In which Lomar Fasholt makes her move.
This, also, I read a few months ago and have been putting off because I didn’t know what to say about it. Apart from, obviously: Hurray! It’s good to see Lomar Fasholt again after all this time.
Continue reading
Frenzel
Chaliceworks Aggregations
In which Chaliceworks is more careful than brave.
A couple of interesting things in the reactions to Theo. One is the bit about her “tools”, which presumably means her lacework.
The other is the furore about her working for inner calm, which suggests (especially the bit where they doubt any man could have taught it to her) that it’s not any of the usual calming exercises used by pilots of all genders. The fact that she learned it from her father makes me suspect that it might be the one he learned from the wise woman Rockflower when he was a young scout. In that case, the reaction would be proportionate (and not unlike the reaction it got from the Healers when Daav used it at the end of Scout’s Progress).
There was a meeting between Shan and Lomar Fasholt in Conflict of Honors, set eight years before this. Shan saw trouble coming even then, and so did she – she was making plans to leave Swunaket when she could wrangle her business into a portable form, and he offered her his assistance when the time came. If his most recent information is that she’s still trading out of Swunaket Port, it would appear she never took him up on that offer.
Dayan
First Sunrise
In which Priscilla has speech with a sister.
Dayan, like Sintia, worships the Goddess; it does seem to be the same Goddess, with a common basis indicated by Priscilla’s expressions and gestures being recognised by the women she speaks to. Like Sintia, too, the priestesses of the Goddess are apparently the temporal as well as spiritual leaders, and possibly not handling it as gracefully as they might. In some ways it’s worse than Sintia; there are hints in some of the Moonhawk stories that men on Sintia are second-class citizens, but on Dayan their status doesn’t even reach that high. There are signs of hope: that Lomar Fasholt speaks with Shan as an equal says something, and that she considers it (and without any apparent doubt or hesitation) appropriate to secure her husband an education says something more. (And that echoes something in the Moonhawk story “The Wine of Memory”, come to think of it.)
Shan notes that Priscilla shows signs of her continued education in proper Liaden in her ability to produce an appropriate phrase; it also shows, I think, in the way she is able to put a name to the bow Shan offers Lomar Fasholt.
According to my notes, tomorrow’s schedule calls for doing the next three chapters in one go.
Shipyear 65
Tripday 171
Fourth Shift
16.00 hours
In which Gordy seeks a dragon to accompany his tree.
I think this chapter heading also has an error in it. Several other chapter headings have said 16.00 hours, and they’ve all said Third Shift.
Shan’s approach to teaching piloting reminds me somewhat of his uncle’s in Scout’s Progress (or vice versa, when I’m reading in publication order).