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pangolin20Prologue (Part II) | Table of Contents | Chapter One (Part II)
NRSG: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to BattleAxe! Last time, we followed Ameld and Rivkah as one of them died and the other survived, which in both cases was tied in with pregnancies. This time, we see what this setting is exactly like.
Chapter One: The Tower of the Seneschal
Hmm, from the table of contents, I see that Douglass keeps this chapter naming scheme through a quite large part of the book, and the last trilogy uses it, too.
Oh, I see that Scales has managed to get a somewhat newer edition of this book; the only change worth nothing is that this edition has changed “steeping” to “seeping” in the prologue. I already thought that was wrong…
Regardless, we open on “Twenty-nine years later…”. Hmm, I think I ought to set up a calendar. Let me design this year as 1000. Then the prologue took place in the winter of 970-971, Ameld must have become pregnant in the spring of 970, she was born in 942, and Rivkah was born in 953. So, extrapolating their ages to the present day, they would be 58 and 47, respectively.
The chapter begins with a “speckled blue eagle” who floats in the sky “above the hopes and works of mankind.” Certainly a pleasant image to open on. Qua colouring, I must say that it seems far from impossible to me, especially if it is a very dark blue. The eagle has “a wingspan as wide as a man [is] tall”, which is certainly within range of the larger species, and they drift through the “air thermals rising off the vast inland plains of the kingdom of Achar.” Um, I see that “thermal”, in this sense, was first registered in 1933. This is also one of Douglass’s recurring problems. Below lies “Grail Lake”, which flows into the “River Nordra”, which then meanders into the “Sea of Tyrre”.
I think that “Sea of Tyrre” sounds suspiciously like “Tyrrhenian Sea”, especially with the area around it being somewhat based off the Mediterranean, so…
A Better Commando Name: 6
Ripping off Earth names does not make them any less rip-offs, Douglass. We are told that the lake is enormous (my rough guess gives a surface area of 5600 km2 , which would place as the 25th-largest lake on Earth, so that would work), and it is full of fish, so the eagle feeds well there.
But they also feed on “the refuse of the lake-side city of Carlon.” It is apparently ancient and pristine, and it has “pink and cream stone walls and gold and silver plated roofs”. It is also pretty because it has “tens of thousands of pennants and banners and flags fluttering in the wind.” Well, it looks like some kind of fairytale castle. Also, are the roofs actually plated with gold and silver? That seems ridiculously inconvenient to me, though it might just be a coating. And what are all the banners and such for? Is that just a custom of Carlon? I get the feeling that Douglass dropped this in for cool imagery, without thinking about the consequences…
Anyway, that aside, “the Carlonites [eat] and [shit] like every other creature in creation”, and there are enough “mice and rats” on the refuse outside the walls “to feed a thousand eagles and hawks.” I am not exactly sure what the point of this was, but whatever.
The eagle has already eaten earlier that morning, and they do not want to eat again. They drift on for a bit, “until the white-walled seven-sided Tower of the Seneschal [rises] one hundred paces (95 metres) into the air to greet the sun.” Not sure why this building would have seven sides; 6 or 8 would be more usual. Once there, the eagle flies to the north, “looking for a shady afternoon roost.” They are “old and wise”, and they know that they will probably need to go for “the shady eaves of some farmer’s barn in this most treeless of lands.”
While they fly, they “ponder[] the minds and ways of these men who fear[] trees so much that they’[ve] cut down most of the ancient forests once covering this land. It [is] the way of the Axe and the Plough.” And that way is, of course, obviously evil. I do hope that Douglass can give them some complexity.
We then cut to the Tower of the Seneschal, and if I recall correctly, we will never see the eagle again. In fact, let me count the number of distinct POV’s we will have over the course of this series…
Distinct POV’s: 6
Anyway, there is “Jayme, Brother-Leader of the Religious Brotherhood of the Seneschal, most senior mediator between the one god Artor the Ploughman and the hearts and souls of the Acharites”. What a massive title he has. I also cannot take “Artor the Ploughman” very seriously here, especially the “Artor” part. What would be wrong with using “Arthur”, Douglass?
A Better Commando Name: 7
I also have to warn in advance that this religion is apparently a kind of expy/caricature of Christianity, in ways that get quite offensive in the later books.
Regardless, Jayme is pacing across his “comfortable chamber” in the top of the tower. He says that “[t]he news grows more disturbing”, and his face “crinkl[es] into deep seams of worry.” We are then told that for years he has held off the position of Brother-Leader, but five years ago (so in 995) he gave in, and “accepted that Artor himself must want him to hold supreme office within the Seneschal”. Now he fears that it might be him who must lead Achar “through its greatest crisis in a thousand years.” Yes, good to know all this, but do we need to pause the conversation for this?
Jayme sighs and turns to look out the window. It is only “early DeadLeaf-month”, which we are helpfully told means it is “the first week of the first month of autumn”. Well, Douglass, I am quite certain that your audience can understand what “early September” means. Come to think of it, you might have done better putting the names of the months in front of the book. As for the date, I will go with 4 September. Anyway, regardless of the date, “the wind [has] turned icy several days before”, and the windows are shut against the cold. There is a fire in the “mottled green marble fireplace behind his desk”, and the light from the flames picks out “inlaid gold tracery” in the stone, and “silver, crystal and gold” on the mantel. Oooh, look at all this luxury! I am quite certain this is in part there to make us dislike them.
The ”younger of [Jayme’s] two assistants” steps forward, and they ask if Jayme believes the reports. We learn the assistant’s name is “Gilbert”, as Jayme turns to reassure him. He thinks that Gilbert “might yet prove to have a tendency toward alarm and panic.” He says that such a tendency might serve Gilbert well “over the coming months”. Well, good that Jayme can tell us what Gilbert is like when we have not had the chance to see for ourselves yet. Jayme says that it has been so many generations since “anyone has reliably spotted any of the Forbidden Ones”, that, for all they know, it might be “superstitious peasants frightened by rabbits gamboling at dusk.” Yes, Jayme is hateable, Douglass. Well done. I must also say that it would be wise to take such reports seriously exactly because they do not know how the Forbidden would manifest.
Gilbert rubs “his tonsured head” anxiously and looks at “Moryson, Jayme’s senior assistant and first adviser”. He says that so many of the reports come from their own brothers. Jayme resists the impulse to retort that most of the brothers in “the northern Retreat of Gorkentown, where many of these reports originate[]”, are barely other than superstitious peasants themselves. Looking at the map, I see that Gorkentown is indeed quite northerly, and it lies next to the Icescarp Alps. Jayme thinks that Gilbert is young, and he has never been far from “the glamor and cultivation of Carlon”, “or the pious and intellectual atmosphere of the Tower of the Seneschal”. I think that this could have been condensed somewhat…
Jayme says that he himself also fears there is some truth to the reports. There are also reports coming from “the small village of Smyrton, for to the north-east”, that need to be considered, too. Hmm, going by what we will see later, I have the feeling Douglass chose “Smyrton” to evoke “Smeartown”.
Jayme sighs again and sits down in his “comfortable chair at his desk.” He says that one of the benefits of being the Brother-Leader is the “physical comforts” of the physical office. Ah, I see there is a change between editions here: the (presumably) older edition has verb agreement with “comforts”, and the newer one with “one of the benefits”. I do like the newer one better. He says he is “not hypocritical enough” to pretend that his “aching joints” do not like the furniture in his room, and he does not pretend not to like the fine foods and “the invitations to the best houses in Carlon”, either. When he does not have to attend to his duties, he can read one of “thousands of leather-bound books”, or look at the “religious icons and portraits” that cover the wall. With his “bright blue eyes, still sharp after so many years spent seeking out the sins of the Acharites”, he looks at one very fine representation of Artor presenting humans with “The Plough”, “a gift that [has] enabled mankind to rise above the limits of barbarity and cultivate both land and mind.” Again, why do we care, Douglass? We are also in the middle of a conversation, by the way.
Cut to Moryson’s POV.
Distinct POV’s: 7
He is a “tall, lean man with a deeply furrowed brow”, and he regards Jayme with “fondness and respect”. They have known each other for decades, ever since they were appointed as the “Seneschal’s representatives to the royal court in their youth.” Later on, they moved into the royal household. Moryson thinks that was too many years ago, as he looks at Jayme’s hair and beard, “which [are] now completely white.” He says his “own thin brown hair” is speckled with grey.
He then tells us that when Jayme was accepted as Brother-Leader, “a post he [will] hold until his death”, his first request was for Moryson to join him as adviser. His second request, which upset many people at court and of the royalty, “was that his protégé, Axis, be appointed BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders, the elite military and crusading wing of the Seneschal.”
1) Yes, our ostensible protagonist is called Axis.
A Better Commando Name: 8
I do not think I have to explain further why this is such a bad idea.
2) While I do not mind “Battleaxe” as a title for the leader of the Axe-Wielders, I do mind the camel case here. It is not a personal name, after all, and we will be getting the camel case almost exclusively there. And it also does not help that the camel case is mostly a feature of StarDrifter’s people, so having it show up here makes quite little sense.
A Better Commando Name: 9
3) Also, “protégé” very much does not fit in here.
Well, however displeased “King Priam” might be with this, Jayme has sovereignty over the Axe-Wielders, and so Axis “[became] the youngest ever commander of the Axe-Wielders.” Because he just has to be outstanding in some way.
We go back to the present, after a full page of exposition, as Moryson prepares to give Jayme advice. He bows “with unfeigned respect” and tucks his hands in his sleeves. And why do we need to clarify that his respect is “unfeigned”? Because people actually respecting the Seneschal is so strange? It feels petty, in a way. Anyway, Moryson suggests that they review the evidence, and if they consider all the reports, they might come to see a pattern.
Jayme nods and waves his assistants into the chairs by his desk. We are told they have been made “generations ago” from “one of the ancient trees that had once dominated the landscape of Achar”. Then we get this:
Better that wood served man in this way than free-standing on land that could be put to the Plough. Thick stands of trees were always better cut down than left standing to offer shade and shelter to the demons of the Forbidden.
Yes, this is quite evil indeed, and it serves to make them quite hateable. Destroying an ecosystem like this, and declaring groups of people Forbidden are impossible to justify. I just hope we will get a little more depth to this… and also that forests are not presented as the only thing worth saving.
Jayme says that Moryson’s logic comforts him (as if it was so impressive), and so he asks Gilbert to sum up what has happened, as he was the one to have read all of the reports. We are told that neither Jayme nor Moryson likes Gilbert. They know it is an “unbrotherly sentiment”, but he is a “rather pretentious youth from a high-born Carlonite family”, and his “generally abrasive personality” is not helped by “a sickly complexion, thin shanks and sweaty palms”. As if he can do anything about that. Yes, I have the feeling that Douglass likes to dump on Gilbert. Despite this, he has “a razor-sharp mind” that can absorb all kinds of information and “correlate it into patterns” well before anyone else can. Not that we have seen this in action yet, but I will take Douglass’s word for it. He is also “unbelievably ambitious”, and Moryson and Jayme think it better to have him under the Brother-Leader’s watch.
Gilbert shuffles back into his seat “until his spine [is] ramrod straight against the back of the chair.” Moryson and Jayme smile at this, but they wait “attentively”. Gilbert explains that since “the unusually late thaw of this spring” (at this, the others grimace), they have received numerous reports of “unusual” activities from the “frontier regions of Achar”. Firstly from the brothers in Gorkentown, who report that the “commander of Gorkenfort” has lost many men during the winter. Then comes more exposition, as we are told that Gorkentown lies “two hundred leagues north”, it is clustered around Gorkenfort, it was built centuries ago by the monarchy “in Gorken Pass in northern Ichtar”, and it is the most vital link in Achar’s northern defences.
Looking at the map, I see that Ichtar is the northern province of Ichtar. Also, a league, in this world, is 4.5 miles, so the distance works out to 900 miles, or ~1450 kilometres. I hope I can use that for scale later…
Anyway. Jayme mutters that one should not expect to get everyone back after sending them on patrol under conditions such as this. Gilbert frowns at this, and says that an unusual number of people was lost. He exposits that the soldiers at Gorkenfort are among the best of Achar, and they are from “the Duke of Ichtar’s own home guard.” I have no idea why Gilbert is telling this to Jayme, other than that we need to know this for the plot. Gilbert names the duke as “Borneheld”, and the commander as “Lord Magariz” (which just fits in so nicely), and says that they do not expect to go through winter unscathed, but neither do they expect to lose more than 86 people. They both believe there may be something more than the winter going on. Yes, I would think that, too.
Moryson asks if Borneheld has seen any evidence for this himself, as according to him, Borneheld “seem[s] to have preferred fawning at the king’s feet to inspecting his northern garrison.” Cut to Gilbert’s POV.
A Better Commando Name: 10
He correctly thinks the others think him a “conceited fool”, but he does have “good” sources of information. He says that Borneheld returned to Ichtar during “Flower-month and Rose-month” (May and June). He spent some weeks at “Hsingard and Sigholt”, and then went to the north to talk to Magariz and see what was happening for himself.
Looking at the map (because we cannot be told what these places are, for some reason), those are two fortresses in the south of Ichtar. Regarding the name “Hsingard”, I think it an obvious rip-off of “Isengard”. After all, shifting the first letter one value ahead in the alphabet yields “Isingard”.
A Better Commando Name: 11
I almost should give this double points for just how clumsy the resulting name is. Anyway, Gilbert suggests that Moryson was too busy counting tithes to focus on the outside world. Jayme immediately calls out Gilbert’s name, and he hangs his head in apology. Moryson and Jayme look at each other, and we are told that Jayme will berate Gilbert much more strongly in private.
Gilbert asks to continue, and Jayme “angrily” indicates he may, while gripping his chair so tightly his fingers turn white.
Well, whatever it is that Gilbert has to say, it will have to wait until next time! See you then!
(no subject)
Sunday, 26 May 2024 18:19 (UTC)NRSG: Well, that was the joke, after all, since "Gorken" sounds like "Gherkin". And it is good to see you found it funny, at least.