Reread of Prince of Nothing Trilogy

Book 2: The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

Part 2
The Second March
Chapter 13
Shigek

Welcome to Chapter Thirteen of my reread. Click here if you missed Chapter Twelve!

Men are forever pointing at others, which is why I always follow the knuckle and not the nail.

—ONTILLAS, ON THE FOLLY OF MEN

A day with no noon,

A year with no fall,

Love is forever new,

Or love is not at all.

—ANONYMOUS, “ODE TO THE LOSS OF LOSSES

My Thoughts

It’s true that humans like to cast blame on others especially when we’re at fault. The knuckle part confuses me. I keep pointing my fingers and my knuckles are in the same direction. So this analogy is partly eluding me, though the gist, appears, not to follow those that are accusing. What it’s point has to do with this chapter is also escaping me.

The second one is far more clear, dealing with all three of the POV’s we get. Esmenet and others are dealing with Achamian’s “death” at Iothiah. The poem encapsulates exactly what she is feeling. Then we have Proyas grappling with his love and affection for his teacher and giving it up for politics. And last, mad Cnaiür, dealing with two loves, his betrayal at Moënghus hands and his need to possess and protect Serwë. The love that drives him to give Kellhus what he wants.

Late Summer 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Shigek

Esmenet is woken out of a dream of swimming with Achamian by Kellhus. At first, she thinks it is Achamian, her thoughts still sleepy. She rolls over and sees Kellhus with a grave expression on her face.

“What—” she started, but paused to clear her throat. “What is it?”

“The Library of the Sareots,” he [Kellhus] said in a hollow voice. “It burns.”

She could only blink at the lamplight.

“The Scarlet Spires have destroyed it, Esmi.”

She turned, looking for Achamian.

Proyas is struck by the Xinemus’s desperation for Achamian as he meets with him two days after the news of Achamian’s abduction reached them. He orders Therishut’s to be found and arrest before riding to Iothiah to meet with Eleäzaras. But the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spire claimed they found a hidden group of Cishaurim. They lost two of their own in the fight. Proyas was skeptical, asking for their remains. Eleäzaras claims they are destroyed. He realizes it was futile. The Holy War would soon cross the Sempis and fight Skauras. They would need the Scarlet Spire. “The God demanded sacrifices.”

Xinemus demands Proyas use everything in his power to free Achamian. Proyas scoffs, asking what power does he have over the Scarlet Spire. Xinemus says a council, but Proyas asks what purpose it would serve.

“Purpose?” Xinemus repeated, obviously horrified. “What purpose would it serve?”

“Yes. It may be a hard question, but it’s honest.”

“Don’t you understand?” Xinemus exclaimed. “Achamian isn’t dead and gone! I’m not asking you to avenge him! They’ve taken him, Proyas. Even now, somewhere in Iothiah, they hold him. They ply him in ways you and I cannot imagine. The Scarlet Spires! The Scarlet Spires have Achamian!”

Proyas clings to his faith, using it to prop up his decision to abandon his friend. He tries to reason with him, but Xinemus grows angry, insulting Proyas, calling him ungrateful. He is wild with anger, demanding Proyas remember that Achamian was his teacher, the man who shaped his education. Proyas tries to get Xinemus to calm down, to remember Proyas’s rank, but Xinemus doesn’t care He will be heard.

“As inflexible as you are,” the Marshal grated, “You know how things work. Remember what you said on the Andiamine Heights? ‘The game is without beginning or end’ I’m not asking you to storm Eleäzaras’s compound, Proyas, I’m simply asking you to play the game! Make them think you’ll stop at nothing to see Akka safe, that you’re willing to declare open war against them if he should be killed. If they believe you’re willing to forsake anything, even Holy Shimeh, to recover Achamian, they will yield. They will yield!”

Proyas stood, retreated from his sword-trainer’s furious aspect. He did know how “these things” worked. He had threatened Eleäzaras with war.

He laughed bitterly.

Proyas asks Xinemus if he is mad, put an a sorcerer before his God. Xinemus is disgusted, saying Proyas still doesn’t understand. Proyas demands what there is to understand. Achamian is a blasphemer. Unclean. “If blasphemers kill blasphemers, then we’re saved oil and wood.” Xinemus flinches from those words and realizes Proyas will do nothing. Proyas order Xinemus to also do nothing. The Holy War prepares to cross the river.

“Then I resign as Marshal of Attrempus,” Xinemus declared in a stiff voice. “What is more, I repudiate you, your father, and my oath to House Nersei. No longer shall I call myself a Knight of Conriya.”

Proyas felt a numbness through his face and hands. This was impossible.

“Think about this, Zin,” he said breathlessly. “Everything… Your estates, your chattel, the sanctions of your caste… Everything you have, everything you are, will be forfeit.”

“No, Prosha,” he said, turning for the curtains. “It’s you who surrender everything.”

Then he was gone.

The reed wick of his oil lamp sputtered and fizzled. The gloom deepened.

It strikes Proyas then as he realizes Xinemus, the man he had leaned on through all the stress of the Holy War, was gone. And he realizes what he has done. How he has failed his old mentor. He almost grieves as he prays to the God, “I know you test me!”

“Two bodies, one warmth.” Esmenet reflects on Kellhus’s description of love as she watches Xinemus. He looks desperate, telling her he’s done what he could. But she pleads with him he has to do more. He tries to explain about the impending assault, and she understands.

He meant the issue of Drusas Achamian had been conveniently forgotten, as all intractable and embarrassing matters must be. How?How could now know Drusas Achamian, wander through his precincts, and then pull away, whisked like sheets across dry skin? Because they were men. Men were dry on the outside, and wet only within. They couldn’t commingle, weld their life to another in the ambiguity of fluids. Not truly.

Esmenet offers to sleep with Proyas as a bribe, but Xinemus tells her no. But she has to do something. Xinemus asks her why she isn’t staying with Kellhus and Serwë. Kellhus had moved his camp to Proyas after Xinemus renounced his rank. Esmenet had groveled to Kellhus to save Achamian, even trying to seduce him, but Kellhus has more than just Achamian to worry about, he has everyone.

The Holy War. The Holy War. Everything was about the fucking Holy War!

What about Achamian?

But Kellhus couldn’t cross Fate. He had a far greater whore to answer to…

She tells Xinemus she has to wait here so Achamian can find her if he returns. She kept his tent just where he had left it. Xinemus’s ex-soldiers treat her with respect, calling her the “sorcerer’s woman.” Xinemus doesn’t think it’s good. Iryssas, now in command, will march his soldiers. It could be dangerous. She says she’ll manage. He tells her to stay safe. And she asks him what he’s going to do. He tells her in a hopeless voice he’ll search. She says she’s coming with him, but instead he just gives her a dagger and tells her to be safe. Then she notices that Dinchases and Zenkappa wait in the distance. They join Xinemus as he rides away vanishing as she cries into her arms.

When she looked up, they were gone.

Helplessness. It women were hope’s oldest companions, it was due to helplessness. Certainly women often exercised dreadful power over a single heart, but the world between hearths belonged to men. And it was into this world that Achamian had disappeared: the cold darkness between firepits.

All she could do was wait… What grater anguish could there be than waiting? Nothing etched the shape of one’s impotence with more galling meticulousness than the blank passage of time. Moment after moment, some dull with disbelief, others taut with voiceless shrieks. Moment after gnashing moment. Bright with the flare of agonized questions: Where is he? What will I do without him? Dark with the exhaustion of hope. He’s dead. I am alone.

Days past as she waits. The Holy War packs up around her. She waits “alone in the midst of their absence.” The ground is scarred by their passage. She sits before Achamian’s tent and cries his name, saying it’s safe for him now. They all left. She makes her own “silent inquiries” without hope. She thinks of her dead daughter. She stares at the Sempis not sure if she will kill herself. Esmenet was a whore, and they know how to wait. And she keeps whispering the same thing.

It’s safe now, my love. Come out.

It’s is safe.

Cnaiür has spent his days since leaving the marshal’s camp with Proyas, either talking or following his orders as they prepare to fight Skauras again. He is preparing on the South Bank of the Sempis. Cnaiür recognizes Skauras’s cunning in how he abandoned the North Bank, knowing he couldn’t defend it. He burned all the boats but spared the granaries and orchard. Saubon thinks Skauras didn’t have time, but Cnaiür knows Skauras did it because seizing those food would slow the Holy War, giving him more time to prepare. The others, even Proyas who listened to much of Cnaiür’s advice, have trouble believing Skauras is a threat. Cnaiür asks Proyas if he thinks his victory is assured. Proyas does because “my God has willed it.”

“And Skauras? Would he not give much the same answer?”

Proyas’s eyebrows jumped up, then knitted into a frown. “But that’s not to the point, Scylvendi. How many thousands have we killed? How much terror have we struck into their hearts?”

“Too few thousands, and far, far too little terror.”

Cnaiür explains how his people tell stories to know the Nansur columns and read their lines, and how Conphas switching banners caused their defeat, “telling us a false story.” Proyas grows angry, saying he know how to read a battle line. Cnaiür asks what he saw on the Battleplain. Proyas doesn’t know, he couldn’t recognize most of the enemy units. Cnaiür recognized them all. Only two-thirds of the Kianene great houses fought, and several of those were token troops. After the Vulgar Holy War’s massacre, the Padirajah and many heathens were dismissive of the Holy War. But they won’t make that mistake. Every soldier rides to Shigek. “They will answer Holy War with Jihad.”

Proyas is won over and supports Cnaiür in the next meeting, but only Conphas agrees until captive Fanim confirm the Scylvendi’s predictions. Famed Fanim names approach. Everyone agreed, the Holy War had to cross the river as soon as possible.

“To think,” Proyas confided to him [Cnaiür] afterward, “that I thought you no more than an effective ruse to employ against the Emperor. Now you’re our general in all but name. You realize that?”

“I have said or offered nothing that Conphas himself could not say or offer.”

Proyas laughed. “Save trust, Scylvendi. Save Trust.”

Though Cnaiür grinned, these words cut him for some reasons. What did it matter, the trust of dogs and cattle?

Cnaiür eagerly throws himself into the preparations to assault the South Bank. He relishes it. He was bred for war. He scouts for the best landing spots and questions captives as preparations are made. He only saw Kellhus at Proyas’s councils. His days were the same, but not his nights. He never camps in the same spot. He often counts the Conryian fires “like an idiot child” because his father once told him that counting fires counts your enemies. He looks at the stars, wondering if they are his enemy. And he broods on Serwë and Kellhus. He repeats his reasons for abandoning her over and over, but can’t stop thinking of her, burning for her.

He remembered pretending to sleep while listening to her sob in the darkness. He remembered the remorse, as heavy as spring snow, pressing him breathless with its cold. What a fool he’d been! He thought of the apologies, of the desperate pleas that might soften her hatred, that might let her see. He thought of kissing the gentle swell of her belly. And he thought of Anissi, the first wife of his heart, slumbering in the flickering gloom of their faraway hearth, holding tight their daughter, Sanathi, as though sheltering her from the terror of womanhood.

And he thought of Proyas.

On the worse nights he hugged himself in the blackness of his tent, screaming and sobbing. He beat the earth with his fists, stabbed holes with his knife, then fucked them. He cursed the world. He cursed the heavens. He cursed Anasûrimbor Moënghus and his monstrous son.

He thought, So be it.

A good night for Cnaiür is heading into a Shigeki village, kicking in doors, killing anyone while screaming “Murder me and it stops!” It never does. “He would take what compensation he could.”

It took a week before he found the perfect spot for the landing. Of course, only Proyas and Conphas agreed, hating the marshy terrain which would hinder their horses. It will also hinder Fanim horses. At a council, Cnaiür explains his reasons, reminding that at Mengedda they learned the Kianene were faster, so they will always assemble first and attack before the Holy War is ready. However, they also learned their infantry is strong. And the Marsh isn’t deep and its passable for their soldiers. “As much as you pride your mounts, the Kianene pride theirs more.” They won’t dismount and fight. They will yield the marsh. Cnaiür predicts he will withdraw back to the fortress of Anwurat, ceding ground and horses. Gothyelk asks how Cnaiür can know. “Because Skauras is not a fool.” Conphas agrees while insulting Cnaiür at the same time.

Cnaiür imagined cutting his pampered throat.

This secures Cnaiür’s reputation, which enamors him with the Inrithi nobles. The Ainoni and their wives are the worse, propositioning him all the time, one even sneaking into his tent. He almost killed her.

Cnaiür ponders Skauras, knowing the man is fearless and a severe disciplinarian. He was organized and had the respect of men who outranked him, such as Fanayal the Padirajah’s son. The man is canny and mischievous. He realizes, thanks to Conphas’s stories, that Skauras would see the battle more as a demonstration, that after underestimating the Holy War at Mengedda, he would show them to be fools. This worries Cnaiür, and he tells Proyas. He wants the Scarlet Spire with the host. Proyas protests that Eleäzaras will resist, the Scarlet Spire wait for Shimeh where the Cishaurim gather.

Cnaiür scowled and spat. “Then we have the advantage!”

“The Scarlet Spires, I fear, conserve themselves for the Cishaurim.”

“They must accompany us,” Cnaiür insisted, “even if they remain hidden. There must be something you can offer.”

The Prince smiled mirthlessly. “Or someone,” he said with uncommon grief.

Cnaiür often inspects the preparation, the soldiers calling him “Scylvendi” as a title of respect and fame. He stares across the river, knowing Skauras prepares. Finally, it has come. Before dawn, the Holy war embarks on barges and rafts. Cnaiür crosses with Proyas, noting Xinemus’s absence which he finds strange. Kellhus is with them. Cnaiür has watched Kellhus yoke thousands with only his words, as he watched him yoke Serwë. He can’t bear to watch any longer.

Cnaiür had always known Kellhus’s capabilities, had always known the Holy War would yield to him. But knowing and witnessing were two different things. He cared nothing for the Inrithi. And yet, watching Kellhus’s lies spread like cancer across an old woman’s skin, he found himself fearing for them—fearing, even as he scored them! How they fell over themselves, fawning, wheedling, groveling. How they degraded themselves, youthful fools and inveterate warriors alike. Imploring looks and beseeching expressions. Oh, Kellhus… Oh, Kellhus… Staggering drunks! Unmanly ingrates! How easily they surrendered.

And none more so than Serwë. He watched her succumb, again and again. To see his hand drift deep between Dûnyain thighs…

Fickle, treacherous, whorish bitch! How many times must he strike her? How many times must he take her? How many times must he stare, dumbfounded by her beauty?

He watches the far bank, the Fanim scouts tracking them. The soldiers are nervous, and laughter and jokes breaks out until someone fell into the water, his armor dragging him down. That sobers him up while the watching Fanim now laugh and jeer.

Proyas joins Cnaiür at the prow, his “too-forward camaraderie” betraying his fear. He mentions how Cnaiür avoids Kellhus. Cnaiür snorts. Proyas reveals that Kellhus told him about their issues with Serwë. It gives Cnaiür the perfect explanation, a Dûnyain explanation, for his avoidance. Proyas asks what the Scylvendi believe, what are their Laws. He believes that Proyas’s ancestors killed his god and therefore bear a blood-guilt, so he worships vengeance. Proyas asks if that’s why is people are called the people of war.

“Yes. To war is to avenge.”

The proper answer. So why the throng of questions?

“to take back what has been taken,” Proyas said, his eyes at once troubled and bright. “Like our Holy War for Shimeh.”

“No,” Cnaiür replied. “To murder the taker.”

This answer alarms Proyas, reminding him who Cnaiür is. “I like you much better, Scylvendi, when I forget who you are.” Cnaiür doesn’t care. He’s already studying the bank as he reminds himself “I am of the People!”

As they enter the delta channels, Cnaiür wanders what Skauras is thinking as his scouts report. Had he anticipated the marsh landing, feared it? But only mosquitoes harass the flotilla. They spend the night on the barges. Cnaiür finds himself yearning for battle as his boredom mounts. The next day, the Holy War marches reaches the salt marshes, the men dragging the barges forward. Cnaiür is energized, hacking reeds with the others. They reach the bank and solid ground. Cnaiür scouts forward with Proyas and Kellhus. “As always, the Dûnyain’s presence made his heart itch, like the threat of a blow form unseen quarters.”

They step out of the marsh onto a pasture, Anwurat on the horizon. Skauras had yielded the ground as Cnaiür predicted. Ingiaban calls the Fanim fools. Cnaiür ignores that, not surprised to find the Dûnyain studying, knowing it was too easy.

The Holy Assembles and pitches camp for the night. The Inrithi sing, and he scoffs as they pray. “War for them wasn’t holy.” It was only a means to Shimeh. Darkness ends their revelry as they see the enemy campfires lighting up the horizon while drums beat. At council that night, Cnaiür is declared their battlemaster, Conphas storms out. Cnaiür accepts without word, conflicted. They even have a own banner stitched for him.

Later, Proyas finds him standing in the darkness staring at the fires. There are a lot. Proyas suddenly seems so young and frail, seeing their enemy’s numbers. Suddenly, Cnaiür realizes the “catastrophic dimensions” of the conflict. Nations, faiths, and races would be destroyed. He wonders how this young man, barely more than a boy, would fare. “He could be my son,” thinks Cnaiür who then promises to beat them. He feels guilty afterward, scoffing at reassuring an Inrithi, reminding himself he shouldn’t care about these people. He is Scylvendi. He stares at the sea, remembering being with his father at the shores of the Jorua Sea doing the same. He can’t remember what his father had said. He sets to sharpening his sword and isn’t shocked when Kellhus arrives.

Kellhus studies Cnaiür’s face and for the first time, he doesn’t care thinking, “I know you lie.” Kellhus asks if they’ll win. Cnaiür snorts, saying Kellhus is the Great Prophet being asked that question. Cnaiür then asks about Serwë.

“Serwë is well… Why do you avoid my question?”

Cnaiür sneered, turned back to his blade. “Why do you ask questions when you know the answer?”

Kellhus said nothing, but stood like something otherworldly against the darkness. The wind whipped smoke about him. The sea thundered and hissed.

“You think something has broken within me,” Cnaiür continued, drawing out his whetstone to the stars. “But you are wrong… You think I have become more erratic, more unpredictable, and therefore more a threat to your mission…”

He turned from his broadsword and matched the Dûnyain’s bottomless gaze.

“But you are wrong.”

Kellhus nods in agreement. Cnaiür doesn’t care. Then Kellhus says he must learn War during the battle. Cnaiür refuses. Kellhus promises to give him Serwë. Cnaiür drops his sword. He asks why he would want the Kellhus’s pregnant whore. She’s Cnaiür’s prize and pregnant with his child.

Why did he long for her so? She was a vain, shallow-witted waif—nothing more! Cnaiür had seen the way Kellhus used her, the way he dressed her. He’d heard the words he bid her speak. No tool was too small for a Dûnyain, no word too plain, no blink too brief. He’d utilized the chisel of her beauty, the hammer of her peach… Cnaiür had seen this!

So how could he contemplate…

All I have is war!

Cnaiür knows he is surrendering the last bit of use he has, that Kellhus will no longer need him. He will only have Kellhus’s word, and how can you trust the word of a Dûnyain? But he will have his prize. After worship, he will take “what compensation he can.”

My Thoughts

What a powerful way to start the chapter on the heels of the last. And Esmenet’s reaction, so human. She’s not understanding right away, she’s still half-asleep, and she’s turning to Achamian even though he’s not there. She’ll have to readjust to that fact.

This, right here, is why I love Xinemus. He doesn’t care about anything right now but saving his friend. Yes, guilt is propelling him, but Xinemus is the type of guy who would have done this anyways. And Proyas doesn’t want to come clean to Xinemus that he already tried his suggestion. That he failed to save Achamian. Instead, he hides behind his faith, pretending not to care, growing angry, saying careless words.

And Xinemus makes his choice. He let Achamian’s blasphemy drive a wedge in their friendship, the opening the at let all this happen. No longer. Xinemus is going to go save his friend no matter what. It’s a classic fantasy trope. And, of course, fails spectacularly.

Esmenet’s desperation is so clear. She’s in the bargaining stage of grief, willing to do anything to get Achamian back. And there’s Xinemus, giving her the same lame excuses as Proyas. He is doing what he can, but without his rank, he doesn’t have a lot of power.

It’s heartbreaking hearing tell Xinemus she can’t leave her camp. She still has hope he’ll return. She has to cling to that. She’s not done grieving. She hasn’t hit acceptance.

In other fantasy stories, Esmenet would have been accepted by Xinemus. She would have grabbed a spear and kicked-ass. Bootstrap Feminism is how Bakker has described this trope. This isn’t a power fantasy story. No one but Kellhus really kicks ass, and he is so alien, so inhuman, it’s not something you the reader can experience wish fulfillment through. Esmenet is an intelligent woman, but she doesn’t know how to fight. And, as we see, it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have made the difference. She would just have been used to hurt Achamian.

Bakker gets a lot of criticism for how women are treated. He’s just writing about human history and experience. Our species has survived and dominated by protecting women from danger, often through cruel means to keep them subservient, so they can be protected in a very tribal fashion. Warriors in this series will have no qualms rapping women of their enemy and then die protecting their own wives and mothers and sisters. This is very true to our own history. We are a very tribal species. It’s very easy for us to care about those in our tribe and hate those who aren’t.

Esmenet’s rumination on helplessness, on how women are powerful around the hearth but out in the wild, that’s where men have their power, is rooted in the self-same survival strategy our species employed. Protect the women because they have the eggs that produce the next generation. Eggs are scare, and sperm is abundant, so men can be sacrificed by the tribe to achieve this. Warfare stems from this principal. It is survival at its most brutal, where scores of young men are sent out to die while the women are kept behind safe to produce the next generation. It seems doubly cruel to us modern humans because we are moving out of this tribal mentality, technology allowing us to reach a point where we do not have to protect our women from the dangers of the world, but can allow them to join us, no longer forced to be protected. It’s a rather remarkable shift in outlook for our species that has come about in a very short amount of time.

Bakker’s description of her grief, of the endless moments of waiting and waiting, of her hope dieing, of almost bipolar mood swings from despondent blankness to manic shrieks, is poignant. He does a great jog of capturing it.

“It is safe now, my love. Come out.” Such sad, desperate, almost mad words. She is mired in grief, lost in it.

It’s been awhile since we had a good Cnaiür section. Listening to him explain to Proyas that believing your god will ensure your victory is not a good strategy. He needs to open his eyes to the reality that the Fanim are not beaten. They’ve retreated. They suffered a defeat, but that’s not the same thing by far. Especially not for a people that are used to retreating as a battle strategy. Their hit-and-run tactics are now being used in a strategic fashion. They hit the Inrithi and have run to a new possession to hit them with a new battle all over again. And they will keep retreating, whittling down the Inrithi, and destroy them. It’s not a philosophy the Inrithi, with their emphasis on heavy infantry and cavalry are familiar with. Bakker has a great grasp on tactics and strategy and how philosophy of your tactics influences the psychology of your troops.

Bakker is really driving home the Crusaders versus Muslim thread with Holy War versus Jihad line.

Conphas agreeing with Cnaiür should have been a warning sign to the other Great Names that the Scylvendi is right. Conphas hates Cnaiür, but the man knows both the Fanim and the war. Despite being an ass, I would listen to his opinion in these regards.

And I love how Bakker just drops all these Great Fanim names on us, peppering in the text the names we need to be on the watch for later on. They don’t really matter, but on subsequent rereads just seeing all his world-building play out with these minor characters is fascinating.

Cnaiür likes Proyas. He might not realize it, but that’s why his ultimate betrayal, knowing that the Holy War is being used, is why Proyas’s words about trust “cut him.” That despite trying to believe the Inrithi are just “dogs and cattle” it’s hard to maintain that belief while interacting with Proyas on a day-to-day basis. This, more than any other way, is how prejudices are broken. Telling someone not to be racist doesn’t work as well as just having that person interact with someone different, to work together, to “witness” their humanity.

Stars being enemies. Considering that the Inchoroi came from the stars, maybe.

Cnaiür going over his reasons for abandoning Serwë over and over is something we all do when we try to convince ourselves of something we know isn’t true. We lie to ourselves, and if we repeat that lie, we’ll often believe it. But he’s not. He can’t get Serwë out of his head. She is his proof of manhood, that he isn’t a “faggot” like his people believe. That he doesn’t desire Moënghus even after the man’s betrayal. He needs Serwë. She’s his wife’s proxy, the woman he does love, but not as much as he love/hates Moënghus.

Cnaiür definitely is crazy. Fucking the earth is not something sane men do. It’s like the earth is a proxy for Moënghus, and he’s just channeling all his anger and lust for the man into it, violating the soil. A good night for Cnaiür is attempting suicide by another. But he’s the breaker-of-men and none can put him out of his misery.

How it must eat Conphas up having to support Cnaiür in council because he knows the Scylvendi has found just what the Holy War needs. I love the terse fantasy of Cnaiür. A simple line, conveying how simple Cnaiür passions are. He wants to have Serwë’s love, wants to see Anissi, and really wants to hate-fuck Moënghus.

Those Ainoni quotes about wives peppered through the book give background to the persistence of the Ainoni women in pursuing Cnaiür.

And for politics, Proyas sacrifices Achamian. For the Holy War, he gives up the life of a man he, though he pretends otherwise, loves and respects.

I mentioned how prejudice is best erased by familiarity, note how Scylvendi is now a term of respect instead of a curse. Of course, it still annoys Cnaiür.

Cnaiür says he doesn’t care for the Inrithi, but he does. He sees himself in them, the youth seduced by Moënghus. It angers him because it’s happening all over again. Notice, in the midst of watching Serwë succumb we get this line: “To see his hand drift deep between Dûnyain thighs…” Not “her hand” but his. Cnaiür’s hand drifting deep between Moënghus’s thighs.

Cnaiür is giving Proyas the proper answers for his people, but he doesn’t quite believe them. He still questioning them. It makes him try even harder to be normal, to not be different. To follow the mountain passes of tradition instead of the trackless steppes.

Cnaiür is shocked he’s declared battlemaster. Notice he’s too conflicted to feel pride or embarrassment. There’s no anger here. He wants to be apart of these men, but his own prejudices, his own desire to be “of the People!” holds him back.

For a moment, Cnaiür lets himself belong with Proyas, feeling fatherly affection. We forget that Proyas is barely an adult, maybe twenty. He’s young. But then the guilt hits Cnaiür afterward for not being one of the people. He shouldn’t care. He keeps hardening himself, forcing himself to be this idealize Scylvendi, never realizing that the other men of his tribe probably think the same thing. Cnaiür is constantly acting and doesn’t realize so is everyone else, being whom they think the world expects them to be.

And now Kellhus springs his trap. He has baited it so well, first letting Cnaiür grow so attached to her, realizing that she is his symbol of being a proper Scylvendi, his prize he claimed in battle, the woman he lusts for (not Moënghus). He seduced her away, twisting the knife, forcing Cnaiür to only want her more, to want to protect her from Kellhus, violently at times. He beats her like he would a child, trying to get her to understand. And now, now he can have her. He can have his Prize. Kellhus has been very patient.

Worse, Cnaiür knows and still does it. He will take “what compensation he can,” enjoy her for as long as he can before Kellhus kills him. He knows this, he accepts it. At least it’ll be an end, he can die like one of the People.

Click here to continue on to Chapter Fourteen!