Conflict of Honors – Chapter 1

Maidenstairs Plaza
Local Year 1002
Standard 1375

In which Moonhawk is dead, and has to find a new way to make a living.

Read immediately after “Moonphase”, this is pretty much just a coda, and there’s not a lot to add.

(Unless one starts in on the apparent inconsistencies between the timelines of the two accounts, which I’m trying not to.)

On reflection, I think it would probably work better, if one was prepared to bend one’s definition of chronological order a bit, to not read this immediately after “Moonphase”, and instead read it as a refresher of the lady’s situation immediately before embarking on the rest of Conflict of Honors.

…which of course means that I’ve worked myself around, by slow and careful stages, to the belief that the best way to read it is the way the authors presented it in the first place. How about that?

This chapter does add one important thing to the story: that, rather than hanging around in this city, or cloistering herself with the Silent Sisters (who reside at Caleitha, a town which was mentioned in passing in “Where the Goddess Sends”), the one who was called Moonhawk chooses to head off for the uncertain opportunities represented by a glow on the horizon. The cause of the glow is not named here, but subsequent chapters will show that her decision was to make for the spaceport and thence offworld.

(We still don’t know which city this is that the spaceport is attached to, by the way, unless this Maidenstairs is the same Maidenstairs as in “Moon’s Honor”, in which case this is Dyan City again. I’m not sure that’s a solid clue — for all we know, every Temple might have an area in front of it called Maidenstairs — but it seems plausible, since the two earlier Moonhawks were both from Dyan City as well.)


Tomorrow: “Fighting Chance”

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