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Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Burning Candles: Edna St. Vincent Millay

For poetry lovers, we have a series of blogs, Poetry Lessons, guest-hosted by Emily R. Dunn of Writers Ink Books.  Visit our page on every 5th  (5th, 15th, and 25th) to see which poem has inspired a lesson in thinking and writing.  We'll also intersperse news about books. ~~ M. Lee Madder

Burning Candles“First Fig”

My candle burns at both ends

It will not last the night
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “First Fig” is a rich gem.  An unassuming jewel of four deceptively simple lines preceded by a clever title, the poem seems merely to celebrate the bravado and esprit of the bohemian lifestyle:  adventurous, blithe, and insouciant.

Closer examination reveals the poem is crafted with a diamond-cutter’s precision, sparkling with St. Vincent Millay’s talent.

Part of a collection entitled A Few Figs from Thistles and published in 1920, it heralded the Roaring Twenties.  In many ways, “First Fig” pronounces the prophet’s message for the decade.  In concept and execution, “First Fig” rewards deeper analysis with its treasured secrets.

At First Glance

A quick read finds a persona reveling in an unending carouse as the persona burns daylight and nightlife, as stated in line 1.  St. Vincent Millay employs the “brief candle” allusion to Macbeth’s famous speech by Shakespeare.  She burns her metaphor even more quickly than Macbeth did.

Like Macbeth, she may even see the end coming.  She remarks that her life “will not last the night”.  Yet she does not care what her gossiping “foes” or her worried “friends” will say.

Why doesn’t she care?  Her deeds provide “lovely light”.  So, now we ask about her deeds?  How do we find out?

Return to the first line.  How can a candle burn at both ends?  It has to be held horizontally and kept balanced to avoid burning the holder.  If candle = life, then how does a life “burn” at both ends?  It can only do so if the daytime hours are as fully utilized as the nighttime hours.

Like Emily Dickinson’s “labor and leisure, too,” (from “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, perhaps another poem St. Vincent Millay had in mind), we realize the persona is enjoying herself as equally as she is performing her laborious daytime duties.

A Closer Look

The structure reinforces the revelations of the extended metaphor.  The clear rhyme of lines 1 & 3 (“ends” to “friends”) and 2 & 4 (“night” & “light”) clues the reader that more is going on than simple rhyming lines.

The rhythm is primarily iambic, which is a traditional meter providing no additional information.  A stronger magnification is needed for this diamond.

The syllabication per line is a clearly cut facet, in sequence 7, 6, 8, and 6.  The persona clearly relishes her life which “burns at both ends”.  It is perfect to her, and 7 is symbolic of perfection.  Virtually everyone knows this.  Let’s go deeper.

The persona may not achieve what some would call a complete life (symbolized by the number of 10).  Friends and foes caution that her life may be cut short, a possible interpretation for line 3 with its 8 syllables.  The persona does not care.

That eight-syllable third line also lets us know that St. Vincent Millay is very careful with her word choice.  “Foes” could easily have been enemies;  that’s 10 syllables.  She wasn’t after 10 syllables, though.  She wanted to play out the alliterative f, and the 8 fit with the rapidly burning candle.

Just as she relishes life’s adventures, so may she relish the adventures of the after-existence, the exploration of the greatest mystery that we face ~ thus, the two lines of six syllables, a number of doubled mystery.  (I am “reading in” here, but it fits.)

Back to the Title

Since the metaphorical idea and the line structure mirror and reinforce each other, we need to chip away and polish off the title.  “First Fig” is an unusual choice.  Why not “Burning Bright” or “Single Candle” or “Candlewick”?

Could she make a metaphorical allusion with the title just as she does with the candle?  

Could it be a Biblical allusion to the fig leaves sewn together by Adam and Eve when they first recognize the shame of their nakedness?

Is it an art allusion to the classic fig leaf used to cover a male statue’s genitals?  Again, a cover for nakedness.

Is she picking off one leaf after another, revealing a shame others want her to feel but she has no trouble baring to the world?

That fits—but it doesn’t.  St. Vincent Millay says “first fig”, not “first fig leaf”.

A fig is a seed-filled fruit.  Its sweetness is an acquired taste.  And the tiny little seeds are potential that bring growth.

This also fits her poem:  The sweet-tasting events of her life, daytime and nighttime, are seeding her writing.  The events’ potential is birthed through each poem in the collection.

And this little gem is just the first in the collection.

The poem is also a self-referent allusion.  Her bohemian lifestyle is an acquired taste, delectable only to her.  Thistles are beautiful purple flowers on ugly, spiky stalks.  This fig, this “First Fig” taken from a thistle, may prick and seem ugly to others.  However, it provides the sustenance she desires (even as other people do not approve of such sustenance).

Summing Up

The burning candle is the obvious metaphor that dominates the first reading and points to the meaning, yet it is all three elements—metaphor, structure, and title—which reveal the theme.


Celebratory of a life that others condemn, “First Fig” speaks to the sparkling independence each individual seeks to craft from life.  Like a rough diamond or a thorned thistle, our existence must be polished or pruned of thorns.  We must peel away the layers of others’ expectations to reach the glittery heart or sweet fruit of what we desire.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Rock Allegory: Lady Fortuna & "Hotel California"

For poetry lovers, we have a series of blogs, Poetry Lessons, guest-hosted by Emily R. Dunn of Writers Ink Books.  Visit our page on every 5th  (5th, 15th, and 25th) to see which poem has inspired a lesson in thinking and writing.  We'll also intersperse news about books. ~~ M. Lee Madder

“O Fortuna” by Carl Orff seems a strange beginning to a post about the classic “Hotel California” by the Eagles.



Stranger things have happened.

To remind:  allegories are surface stories which have underlying meanings.

The persona in “Hotel California” seems to relate a surreal visit to a roadside hotel that turns ugly before it imprisons him.  However, through allegory, the song relates a pursuit for fame and fortune that cost more than the persona anticipated and did not wish to pay.

“O, Fortuna”

The lady who draws in the persona to Hotel California is Lady Fortuna, goddess of fame and fortune, luck and fate. 

Carl Orff (a rather uneasy German composer, seeking Fortuna with her sacrificial demands) does not consider this goddess benevolent.

Her world is lit by the moon, changeable in its monthly course: “statu variabilis / semper crescis / aut decresciss” (Orff).  In our pursuit of her, we must enter her realm.  She will first oppress her then soothe us.  She takes her whip of servitude to our naked backs, punishes us before she rewards us: (“mihi quoque niteris; / nunc per ludum / dorsum nudum / fero tui sceleris”).

When Fortuna grants what we have sought, we discover the additional monstrous price we must pay.  And we also discover that fame and fortune are empty achievements, material but not wonderful, a “monkey’s paw” of evil wrapped around good.  As Orff writes, life becomes “immanis / et inanis”.

Moving to the Eagles' classic "Hotel California" that shows their pursuit of fame and fortune and encounter with the lady at her hotel.


Let’s play 20 Questions.

1st Stanza & Chorus introduces the pursuit of fame.

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night.

People in pursuit of their dreams believe that their lives are deserts that they must drive through before they find where they want to be.
1        Pick three words in the first stanza that represent the persona’s blindness about where he is heading in his pursuit of fame.
2        What does the “shimmering light” represent?

There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
'This could be heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say

3        “She” is Lady Fortuna.  Why is she so attractive to people pursuing their dreams?
4        The “mission bell” tolls a warning.  In which line does the persona admit to hearing the warning?
5        How is the line for #4 a paradox?

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place / Such a lovely face.
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year / you can find it here

6        How does the famous Californian city that lures people seeking fame and fortune always have “plenty of room”?

Stanza 2 with Chorus

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends.
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
 7        What does Tiffany refer to?
8        Mercedes-Benz is the best engineered, mass-produced vehicle on the roads.  What is the point of the pun “Mercedes bends”?
9        From these two brand references, we know the persona is achieving success, enough that he can waste money.  Why are material possessions a waste?
10    What does the line “Some dance to remember, some dance to forget” mean? (Assuming that ‘dance’ is related to performing the job that is winning fame and fortune
So I called up the captain, “please bring me my wine”
He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.”
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say . . .
11    The wine represents the sweetness of the dream still before the persona.  Why has that “sweetness” left him?
To understand the reason that the sweetness left in 1969, you need to know about Woodstock, the Summer of Love, and the change in the music industry:  basically, the music corporations required musicians to “sell out” their purpose in order to make $$ while making music.  Musicians who didn’t buy into the industry’s model of success were shut out.  The persona feels that he had to abandon his simple dreams for something much more complicated and which twisted his original purpose.
12    “The voices [that] are calling from far away” have to do with the persona’s original dream.  Which line relates that he is stressed about the loss of that dream?
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place / Such a lovely face.
They livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise / Bring your alibis

13     Notice the two changes in the Chorus.  How is “living it up” a “nice surprise”?
14    Why does he warn people to “bring your alibis”?

 3rd Stanza

Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice
And she said, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”
And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast.
 15    Lady Fortuna tells them they are “prisoners . . . of [their] own device”, or as Orff says, “Sors salutis” and “semper in angaria” :: “Fate is against me” and I am “always enslaved” to her.   How is this devastating?
16    “The beast” is the juggernaut of the now-rolling success.  The master is what controls the success: the audience. How does an audience start controlling successful people?
17    Who has the “steely knives” to kill the “beast”?

 4th Stanza

 Last thing I remember, I was / Running for the door
I had to find the passage back / to the place I was before
“Relax,” said the night man, / “We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.”
 18. Why is the persona “running for the door” to find the “place [he] was before”?
19. The night man says that “we are programmed to receive . . . you can never leave”?
20. What does this line means:  “You can check-out any time you like”?

Answers

1.       Dark, colitis, dim (sight), distance, night
2.      The lights from an arcade promoting a performance.  The shimmering would be the action of the neon in the lights.
3.      Lady Fortuna is attractive because people believe that once they are rich / famous, they will have no worries.
4.      “This could be heaven or this could be hell”
5.      #4 contains a paradox because life can be both a heaven and a hell at the same time.
6.      People keep coming, expecting to succeed, only to fail and return, making room for more seekers.
7.      Tiffany is an extremely famous NYC jewelry store.  Highly successful, highly branded, over-priced:  you pay for the name.  Should we want to buy brands?  No.  We should go for quality that meets the $$ we pay.  However, materialism “twists” us to prefer the brand.
8.      The “bends” could refer to driving on a crooked road.  The persona does start out on a “dark desert highway”.  And the pursuit of fame and fortune requires some bend-y actions that we might abhor in honorable daylight.  Or it could be the “bends”, decompression sickness when deep divers come too quickly to the surface.  Rising fame could be making the persona sick as he considers everything he’s giving up and everything he’s hurting.  Nyah, I’ll sticking with the highway.
9.      Material possessions only temporarily feed our greed and gluttony.  They do not help the persona or others.  Without giving to others, the persona will never fill satisfied and will always seek more and more to fill his emptiness.  This is classic Platonism:  attempting to balance the mind, the body, and the soul through equally fulfilling events.
10.  This is the treadmill that the persona is on:  the beauty of the work he loves keeps him still performing but the grind of the work wears him down.
11.  The joy of his work has left.
12.  “Wake you up in the middle of the night”
13.  The persona has paid so much sweat and pain that he is surprised when he finally has the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that fame and fortune have finally brought to him.
14.  Alibis are only necessary when criminal activity has occurred and penalties will be adjudicated.  Has Fortuna led the persona into evil misbehavior?  Obviously.
15.  The evil and the pain are what the persona has brought upon himself in his selfish pursuit of the lady of fortune.  He is appalled at his choices, but he still cannot give up fame and fortune.
16.  For musicians, they are controlled because they must keep producing the same things that brought the original success.  For painters and writers and performers, they are also trapped, their creativity cast aside so that their work can continue to keep the audience happy.  If they do not produce what the audience wants—with just a tiny bit of change to seem “new”, the fickle audience will abandon them.
17.  It’s not the audience.  It is the trapped performers, who have come to hate the juggernaut wheel grinding them down and down.
18.  He can no longer accept everything he has sacrificed, all the pain and evil he has endured;  he wants to return to the time before fame and fortune.
19.  Success can never be abandoned.  Lady Fortuna’s hotel accepts people in, a small funnel that can endure the pain, laps up the evil in a blind acquiescence to the dream, and willingly abandons everything good about the dream in order to achieve wealth and fame.
20.  The only way to “check out” of Lady Fortuna’s hotel is death.

Summing Up & Coming Up

I enjoy the guitar solos and then the guitar duet at the end of “Hotel California”.  Most people with their “imp of the perverse (as EAPoe calls it) get focused on the lady and the wine and the beast and go no farther.

Understanding the darker elements of HCa doesn’t destroy my enjoyment of the song;  I just have to turn off the intellect and dance around to the guitars.  It is not a happy hotel to visit.
And in my own blindness on dark desert highways, I have often wanted fame and fortune for myself.

Next up, a lighter work, thank goodness.

Join us on the 25th of July for a lighter work than “Hotel California”.  I promise.


Well, it might be a little dark and a little snide.  ;) grn

~~Emily R. Dunn of Writers Ink Services, http://writersinkservi.com/

Saturday, July 1, 2017

In the Business of Promotion

One of my fellow writers at Writers Ink Books is finally publishing her first novel Weave a Wizardry Web this month.  Remi Black's epic fantasy series is called The Enclave.

Check out the promotion here.

http://writersinkbooks.com/remi-black-begins-epic-fantasy/


Chapter 1

Pearroc Ciele poured Fae power into the newly learned wizard spell.  Even as it flashed lightning bright, he recognized the weakness that shattered through the spell.
“If you are to pass yourself off as a wizard during the Trials, you must defend as a wizard would, not as a Fae would.”
He twisted his shoulders.  The aged man never missed a point when teaching wizardry.  He might be too weary to rise from the chair provided by the arena master, but his black eyes snapped onto a flaw and his quick mind decoded the reason for that flaw.  Fae spell contorted to look like wizardry:  most wizards would miss the foundation hidden by the swirling energies.  Pater Drakon never missed it.
Sine Pearroc’s springtime arrival, Drakon had trained him.  Pearroc had selected the aged man, one of the few clan leaders who supported Faeron.  A Blade sent in secret to the wizards by his queen the Maorketh Alaisa, he fumbled like a child at some lessons.  He didn’t regret his apprenticeship to the master wizard, but it was High Summer, and still he trained.
The old wizard had a point.  The Fae sparked power from the tangible element:  a flame for Fire, soil for Earth, and on to Air and Water.  Then they built the spell based on the power borrowed from the element.s  Wizards needed nothing to spark power;  it came from their essence.  Though Pearroc wielded wizard-shaped power, he still needed a tangible element to initiate his spells.  And as he fought to twist his spells to match to wizardry, he often dropped back to the easy Fae wielding.
The sudden clash of steel against steel jerked his head around.  Power sparked at his fingertips.
“Stand down,” the Drakon clan leader said.  “It’s a practice arena.  Are you expecting someone to assassinate me?”
Pearroc lowered his hands, but power still flashed at his fingertips.  “You are a clan patriarch and a council elder.  You have enemies because you so strongly support Faeron.  The Maorketh considers you a valuable ally.  And your comeis has not returned.”
“You do expected my assassination.”
Pearroc stopped scanning the balcony seats beside their box.  He dismissed the duelists in the practice ring.  “Are you surprised?”
“I am pleased that I am considered so valuable, even though my body is failing.”  Drakon grinned.  Light glittered in those black eyes.  “We aged are always pleased when we are valued.  I am not pleased you considered me worthy of assassination.”
“Your comeis is not—.”
“Huron Talenn will return in a few minutes.  He is on an errand for Faeron and for me.  How often can we combine two errands into one?  This time we can, for the person he needs to confer with is also the person I want you to meet.”  Drakon shifted on the uncushioned wooden seat.  “You, however, have a greater problem.  “Fae power skirrs through your spell.  I can clearly see it.  If I can see, others will.”
“It is a Fae defense,” Pearroc admitted, “but no wizard at the Trials will recognize it.  Few wizards of this generation have fought beside the Fae against a common enemy.”
“They will recognize it if they fought at the outposts, side by side with Fae against Frost Clime.”
Pearroc dipped his fingers into the pater’s glass, stealing the water in the wine to work another little spell.  He tossed the power in his hand, like a child’s ball, as he considered how to strip away the Fae glow that brightened the spell.  “The Maorketh herself built the glamour around me.  She decided my narrative :  My home is to border Faeron.  My parents hired Fae tutors when my powers manifested.  Enclave wizards would not come so far from Mont Nouris.  That training is the reason my spells have the Fae edge rather than orthodox Enclave training.”
“It’s still folly to reveal it.”  Drakon glanced again at the practice ring.  As a great wizard, he had no interest in sword-fighting, but the opponents in the arena still drew his attention.  And for that reason, they drew another look from Pearroc.  “Even if my fellow councilors do not know your spells are edged with Fae glow, their Fae comeis will know.”
“The comeis will not reveal it.  They are bound to clan leaders, yes, but their first loyalty is to the Maorketh Alaisa.  Your comeis will agree on this with me.”
“It is a mad plan:  a Fae masquerading as a wizard, to pass the Trials and become a voice in the Enclave.  I cannot believe your queen agreed to it.  I cannot believe I agreed to it.”
“Who else would have?”
“No one,” the aged man retorted, “more evidence of its madness.  And I see more and more difficulties as we near the Trials.  My fellow Sages may not see the Fae skirr, but the ArchClans might send a representative.  That representative could see the skirr.”
“It would take a puissant wizard.”
“Someone like Alstera, yes.”
Pearroc had met the ArchClans Letheina’s granddaughter.  Puissant, brilliant, and arrogant, Alstera wielded all four elements.  He’d heard rumors that she dabbled in the challenging fifth, the Chaos that few Fae could tap.  She would indeed see the skirr that fragmented his spells.
Chilling with a hint of autumn, a wind skirled around the ring and gusted through the balconies.  It disturbed only the few spectators.  Drakon, in his sheltered box, tucked his heavy cloak closer.
Pearroc conceded Drakon’s wisdom with a formal bow, a deeper one than Fae courtesy demanded.  “I will repress the Fae in my spells.  We have years invested in the Maorketh’s plan.  I will not cause its failure.”
The aged man’s eyes glittered.  Once more he looked at the practice ring.  “Forgive an old man’s worries.  The nearer your trial draws, the greater my concerns.  For your queen’s madness to succeed, we must enlist more aid than my orthodox training.  When you construct spells, your understanding is a Fae’s understanding of the spell’s foundations.  You need to consider a wizard’s basic understanding of the spell.”
Pearroc glanced at the duelists who kept drawing his mentor’s attention.  Then he scanned the other spectators of the sandy arena.  What aid is he planning?  “You train me more than adequately for the Trials.”
He laughed.  The sound turned into a cough he muffled in the wool of his cloak, and Pearroc thought again of the shorter lives of mortal men.  The clan’s healer had warned Drakon only yesterday against exertion.  Today he insisted on touring the entire arena before they came to his balcony box.
When the spasm passed, he leaned his head against the high chair-back and breathed.
“Do you know what you are doing with this?  The healer—.”
Those black, black eyes opened and bored into hi,.  “You have someone to meet.”  His eyes rolled to the sanded practice ring.  “There she is.”
The cane-wielding duelists had departed.  Five new people had entered, one of them a woman.
Pearroc huffed.  In his two months here, he’d discovered many city women affecting sword-play.  Disappointment colored his question.  “Another woman pretending to be a sword?”
“Not pretending.  She is.  Watch.”
As the new duelists prepared, he studied the woman.  Her youth had passed but not many years ago.  Her plaited dark hair looked stark against the white linen shirt.  Long legs were encased in deerskin, same as the men, and Pearroc admired their length and shape.  When she turned, he saw the patrician bones that sharpened her face.  Her swan’s neck would display rich jewels to advantage.  What was a noble doing at the common practice arena?
She said something that had three of the men chuckling.  He recognized two as house guards for the ArchClans Letheina.  The other two were Fae comeis bound to clan leaders.  One was Vatar Regnant, bound to Pater duCian.  The other—Pearroc looked closely—was the ArchClans’ comeis, Ruidri Talenn de Ysagrael, brother to Drakon’s comeis.  He was the one shedding belt and scabbard, as the woman shed her shoulder harness.  That pricked his interest more than her noble features.  Fae did not spar against human opponents.  Fae quickness proved too deadly.
They used edged steel, not wooden canes.  With a shocked inhalation, Pearroc turned completely toward the arena—and heard Drakon chuckle.
“Is she a fool?  Ruidri Talenn will take no pity on her.”
“Watch.”
The first flurry of blows rang into the seats.  Testing moves, strength and agility and skill.  Then Ruidri smiled and pressed an attack.
He expected her to miss a parry, to stumble as she gave ground, to drop onto the sand, bleeding from a dozen cuts of the Fae’s blade.
“He’ll kill her.  Or maim her.  A woman can’t match strength against a man.”
Her sword glinted with sunlight.  She met Ruidri’s sword, deflected it through a rapid pattern taught to every student of edged combat.  Ruidri’s grin widened.  Pearroc knew that grin, having crossed blades with the elder Fae years ago, before he left Faeron and crossed to the human world on the Maorketh’s orders.
The comeis changed the pattern.  This time the woman grinned.  Her defense didn’t depend on strength.  Her blade slid along Ruidri’s or deflected it.  Fae women learned these tricks.  But this woman was no student.  Her skill exceeded anything he’d see from humans.
Ruidri gave ground to her attack.  She didn’t step around the comeis;  she flowed around him.  Her blade was spell-quick.  It lacked the flashing energy that would have charged it in battle.  The Fae’s sword also remained energy-free.  He said something that had her laughing, the sound ringing across the clash of swords and the grunts of the cane-using duelists.
Their sparring changed again.  The comeis increased to Fae speed.  Pearroc held his breath, both fascinated and horrified.  The woman couldn’t match his quickness and gave ground.  Even so, she anticipated his thrusts.  The ones she couldn’t guard against, she melted away from.  The ones she didn’t deflect, she turned into throwing Ruidri off-step.
He fell back.  Lightning fast, she came after—only to stop on her toes when Vatar spoke.
Her chest heaved.  Sweat slicked her linen shirt while Ruidri merely gleamed with exertion.  He spoke again then held his hand up in a Fae-to-Fae salute.  And she returned it.
“Who is she?” Pearroc demanded.
“Impressive, isn’t she?  A pity they did not magic their blades.  I have heard that lightning crackles along the blades.  I have always wanted to see that.”
He didn’t look away from the woman.  “How is she possible?  A human with Fae-training in edged combat.  To support her sword with magic, that is another Fae skill.  How do I not know her?”
“For the past fifteen years she has commanded Chanerro Pass.”
“Who is she?”
“She is good, isn’t she?”  Drakon croaked the words then started coughing.
The woman heard and turned to look.  She located the box.  Eyes as black as Drakon’s stared up.  Ruidri Talenn and Vatar Regnant looked as well, then Ruidri Talenn spoke to her.  As Pearroc bent over his mentor, offering magic-infused water, he saw the woman shake her head.  Vatar Regnant stepped closer, adding comments of his own.
The magicked water eased the coughing spasm.  Drakon looked shrunken inside his voluminous cloak.
“Where is your comeis?  Huron Talenn should be here by now.”
“An errand, I told you.  Don’t press.  I can breathe again.”
“You shouldn’t be out, Pater.  The air is too chill.”
“Humor an old man a little longer.  Let me enjoy the last of High Summer.  I am dying, but I am not on my death bed.  Ha!  You didn’t protest.”
“Penthia said seven weeks, perhaps eight.”
“My own magic said that.  The body decays, not the mind.”
He straightened.  He gestured to the practice ring.  “Who is she?  Why do you point her out to me?”
“My daughter.  She should be clan leader after me.”
Fae trained to shield their emotions.  Pearroc hid his shock.  He had already embarrassed himself enough with surprise.  Drakon had no acknowledged children.  Magister Brandt was his nephew.  In a clan filled with his bloodline, he had no direct heir.  Pearroc glanced into the ring, but the two comeis and the woman had left.
“A wizard not in your house, not even in Tres Lucerna for years.  Clan leader after you?  Not possible, Lord Drakon.”
A clawed hand gripped the wool cloak.  “Not more impossible than a Fae passing the Wizard Trials,” he retorted.  “She is no stranger to the Enclave.  She is ArchClans Letheina’s daughter, Water and Air instead of our Fire.”
“The ArchClans has no love for Clan Drakon.”
Drakon laughed then wheezed, but the attack passed quickly.  “An understatement, Pearroc.  Camisse does not know that I am her father.”
“Lady Camisse?  Commander at Chanerro Pass?  Her power is—.”  He stopped before he offended.
“A wizard unworthy of the rank?”  The aged man admitted to the slur Pearroc had dammed.  “Rumors claimed she passed the Trials only because her mother was ArchClans.  They say she commands at Chanerro only because her mother pushed the posting.  But she redeemed herself there:  she keeps the wizards and the Fae working together.  All that is true.  Except that her mother helped her pass the Trials.  That was my doing.”
He gaped at his mentor.  “A clan leader cannot have weak power.”
“She doesn’t have weak power.  She has the puissance;  she can’t draw it up.  Not with the spells that she was taught.”
“Enclave teaching failed?”
Drakon didn’t answer.
And Pearroc understood the problem.  Puissant but unable to access her power.  Taught spells for Air and Water, her mother’s elements, while her basic element that would kindle all her spells might be Fire, her father’s element.  Her tutors misidentified her powers.  The ArchClans controlled all of her clan and reached fingers reaching into other clans.  She would not have accidentally misidentified the powers of her own child.  “You’re suggesting the ArchClans crippled her daughter’s power.”
“I suggest nothing.”  He spat onto the box’s rough planking.  “I say it.  At the Trials, Camisse only knew spells for the elements of her clan.  She struggled with those spells—but she can work them.  Without great puissance, that wouldn’t be possible.  The girl never learned Fire.  That is a deliberate choice by her tutors.  If she had learned Fire and wielded it with ease, her parentage would have been suspect.  My fellow councilors on the Trials banc agreed with me.  Perrault suspected shackles on her power.”
“You don’t know—.”
“I know Letheina.”  Venom rimed the words.  “It was a political move to lure me to her bed.  It was a political move to cripple her daughter’s power.  It was a political move to shuffle her off to the border and keep her there, out of sight and hopefully forgotten.  But Camisse is too successful in her command.  Now they have recalled her and sent Raigeis’ fool sons in her place.”
Pearroc stared at the practice ring, but he didn’t see or hear the sparring there.  The enmity between ArchClans and Drakon was known even in Faeron.  Was Camisse the reason it had sparked?  “The girl would have sparked fire when first she came into her power.  How could they hide that from her?”
“All that matters is that they crippled her, restricted who had access to her, built lies all around her, used her to raise her nephew and her niece, then all but exiled her.  I had hoped her time at the border would give her doubts.”
“If she can fight like that,” he mused aloud, “and edge her blade with magic—.”
“Exactly.  Pearroc, I want you to teach her to wield Fire.”
He jerked around.  His mentor nodded.  Knowing the difficulties, the old man still asked this of him.  “You are old in manipulation, Pater.  What happens if I refuse?”
“My daughter remains a crippled wizard.”
Pearroc winced.
“Brandt will succeed me.  His voice is not strong.  He will not stand against the ArchClans and her magister.  They oppose more ties between the Enclave and Faeron.  And your Maorketh’s mad plan to have a Fae be declared a wizard will be for naught.”
“You set a clever trap, Pater.”
‘Until three days ago I had no idea that Camisse would be recalled from the border.  She is the linchpin.”
“You had to have hoped.”
He smiled, a wicked twist that revealed his manipulations.
“You are as wily and ruthless as the dragons you are named for.”
“Experience gives me wiliness;  approaching death gives me ruthlessness.  This is necessity, Pearroc.  You must start training her soon.  Tomorrow is not soon enough.”
“What do you suggest?”
He snorted.  “I leave that to you.  If I am not mistaken, you will fulfill more than your queen’s mad command.  I saw the way you watched her.”
That comment embarrassed him.  He hid his emotions, his physical reactions, but the aged man understood Fae behaviors.  He didn’t look for the obvious and human signs.  He counted the minutes of Pearroc’s focus.  Saying “she is your daughter” did not disprove Drakon’s claim, so he added, “She is a sword.  Lethal beauty.”
“And death makes me ruthless.”
Pearroc stared at the ring, but he pictured Lady Camisse, turning her lithe body to counter Ruidri’s ringing sword.  “She is known for her support of Fae at Chanerro.  Do you think she will stand with the Fae against her mother?”
“The ArchClans argued against more Fae inside Enclave walls.  She argued against the bond with a comeis.  She argued against adding Fae warriors to the king’s forces.  She appointed Camisse to Chanerro Pass, probably hoping that experiment would fail—only to see her daughter regain outpost after outpost while Iscleft barely holds against Frost Clime.”
Pearroc arched an eyebrow.  “You tell me this, but I do not need to be convinced.  Lady Camisse is the one who must accept that she’s Fire and not Air and Water.”
The door to their balcony box opened.  “Pater Drakon,” a man said.
Without looking around, the aged man nodded.  “Enter Huron.  Bring the others.”
The comeis bonded to Drakon entered.  He bowed to the clan leader.  “Lord Drakon, Comeis Vatar Regnant would speak with Commander Camisse of Letheina House in your presence, a private consultation needing a Council witness.”
“I will be honored to oversee this consultation.  Please admit the commander and your fellow comeis.”

Huron Talenn retreated, leaving Pearroc to wonder what wiliness the Drakon patriarch had in play.