The Divided Crown - Hardcover

Glass, Isabel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765307464 ISBN 13: 9780765307460

Verlag: Tor Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Lady Angarred Hashan married the Master of the College of Magicians, and retreated from the life of the Royal Court of Karededin, to manage their school and raise a family of their own. The reign of Queen Rodarren was calm and the Kingdom prospered.

But Rodarren died too soon, leaving her 14 year old son to rule. Young King Jerret, unprepared for his new responsibility, soon fell under the influence of an ambitious lord from the North, and the royal court became a place where Angarred and Mathewar were no longer welcome. So it is with surprise and concern that they received a summons from the King. And it is with horror that they discover that Lord Haru is not content to rule Karededin through Jerret, but intends to place one of his own sons on the throne instead, by war or assassination.

From the city of Pergodi, to the far Northern island kingdom of Ou, they will travel to discover the truth of how the Haru family has come to have such powerful magic, and to find a way to stop them.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Isabel Glass is the author of DAUGHTER OF EXILE (Tor, 2004). She lives in the San Francisco bay area.

Rezensionen

In the sequel to Daughter of Exile (2004), Glass provides new conundrums for Lady Angarred Hashan. The realm of Karededin had been peaceful and prosperous during the reign of Queen Rodarren, but the crown descended to her 14-year-old son upon her death. The spoiled lad has come under the influence of an ambitious lord who uses both wiles and dark sorcery to influence the king. Lady Angarred and her husband, Mathewar, master of the College of Magicians, are summoned to court. They discover that Lord Haru, though recently exiled, has left at court an ambitious daughter and assassins enspelled to destroy the king and his supporters. Despite the willful young monarch, Angarred and Mathewar must find out how to defeat Haru before the realm falls into chaos. Glass' narrative technique has improved since Daughter, but her characterization and plotting are still uneven. She pulls things together though, by the end of the novel, which is well and rather grimly written and hints of a possible third book. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In this undemanding sequel to Glass's The Daughter of Exile (2004), 14 years have passed since Lady Angarred Hashan married Mathewar, the Master of the College of Magicians. Queen Rodarren of Karededin has died and her young son, Jerret, is king. In the two short years since his ascension, the now 14-year-old king, under the sway of the evil lord Noldeth Haru, has managed to bring his country near bankruptcy and embroil it in a senseless, immoral invasion of neighboring Goss. When the boy-king summons Mathewar and Angarred to court, the couple are horrified by the presence of nearly mindless "Bound Folk," a sure sign of trouble. It's obvious to everyone but Jerret that Haru is behind all the mischief. Mathewar leaves Angarred to deal with the royal court while he journeys north in search of answers. Less-than-complex intrigue, a simple plot and characters who at times are as mindless as the Bound Folk add up to mildly agreeable fantasy lite.
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Chapter One

Work stopped at the port as the ship sailed into the harbor. Sailors, traders, and dock workers lingered nearby, pretending to be busy, and beyond them stood a looser circle of craftsmen and merchants and servants and nobility.

It was a deep-hulled trading ship returning home, flying King Jerret's command flag with his two-towered castle. The crew made the ship fast to the pier and began to unload the cargo, chests and boxes of nutmeg and oranges and jade from the south.

The crowd moved restlessly. Around them dock workers cursed and called out orders; seagulls squawked over fish. The passengers and horses began to disembark, walking carefully through the seawater and silver fish guts and broken packing crates that littered the quay. Finally, nearly at the end of the line, the people saw what they had been waiting for: the First Master of the College of Magicians and his wife the witch.

A murmur of dissatisfaction swept through the crowd. They looked so ordinary. Master Mathewar was not much more than average height for a man, though solidly built; he had blue-gray eyes and long, straight wheat-colored hair tied at the back. Folks said that he was the youngest man ever to be appointed First Master, but he was not young now. His face was brown with sun and white lines of age rayed out from his eyes.

His wife, Lady Angarred Hashan, stood nearly as tall as her husband, with darker blue eyes and a mass of red-gold hair that hung down her back. Both wore roughspun shirts and trousers and worn boots. They carried stained leather packs. Mathewar turned to Angarred and said something, and she laughed.

Fourteen years ago he had worked some magic to bring about the end to the War of All the Realms, though no one knew the full story. Folks told tales of his wife too, though these were even vaguer; they said that she knew strange magics, forest magics, enchantments that had never been seen within the walls of civilized cities and towns.

A delegation from the king moved forward to greet them, and here at last the crowd saw some of the splendor they had expected. The king's men were dressed in long gold and red cloaks; their surcoats had the king's double tower emblem on them, and a single green jewel glistened from the brooches at their throats.

They spoke to the couple awhile and indicated the horses they had brought for them. These were docile and dun-colored, another disappointment for the throng, which had expected snorting jet-black stallions, at least. The Master and his wife mounted and followed their guides.

The crowd watched them go. Later a few people swore they saw something as the couple left---a presence, some tangible power---but their friends and neighbors laughed and said the sun had gotten in their eyes.

Angarred, for her part, looked around her curiously as they rode through Karededin's capital city. She had not been to Pergodi for two years, since Queen Rodarren died. Rodarren's reign of nearly thirteen years had left the country prosperous and peaceful, and in the two years since her death it did not seem that Pergodi had changed much. People still thronged the streets, going about their business; carts rumbled over the cobblestones; folks shouted their wares at passersby; bells clanged as they tolled the hours.

Recently, though, she and Mathewar had received disturbing news from magicians who had visited the court. A man named Noldeth Haru, a minor courtier in Rodarren's time, was gaining influence over King Jerret, Rodarren's heir; the boy-king had granted Noldeth titles and land and castles, and seemed set to marry Noldeth's daughter. Then the magicians working for Jerret had returned to the College; they had been dismissed by the king, they said, but they seemed certain that Noldeth was behind the decision.

Angarred remembered Lord Noldeth from Rodarren's time. He had been a commoner then, in some minor capacity, officious and full of opinions, a man who never missed a chance to make himself seem more important than he was. She and Mathewar had planned to visit the capital some time after the College term ended, to see if the rumors were true and if Jerret needed their help. He was only fourteen, after all; he had been thrust into the kingship when his mother died.

In mid-Spring, when the students at the College left for home, they got a strange letter from Jerret, asking them to come to Pergodi and "witness an important ceremony." At the end of the letter, almost as an afterthought, Jerret wrote, "Oh, and I banished the Harus." By this time word had reached the College that the Harus had grown bolder, that there had been skirmishes and rebellions, and Angarred and Mathewar had become increasingly worried. It seemed too dangerous to bring their three children to the capital; they asked Atte, Mathewar's daughter from his first marriage, to look after them on her farm. With everyone taken care of, Angarred wrote to Jerret and told him they would come.

She didn't tell Mathewar her other reason for leaving. The College stood perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with the wild, tangled Forest of Tiranon at their backs; she needed to get away, to see someone other than students and masters and forest folk. She suspected Mathewar knew, though; they had been married fourteen years and could sometimes guess each other's thoughts.

Now they followed the king's men through several neighborhoods and over two of Pergodi's bridges. The houses around them grew larger and richer, made of copper and marble, tile and wrought iron.

Finally they rode up the hill to Pergodi Castle, a hulking place of towers and turrets and battlements. The castle had been built in levels against the hill, each ruler adding to what his predecessor had done, the stairs and corridors connecting them tacked on haphazardly. In some places domes or arches were cut in half by walls, as a king ignored an earlier building to push on with his own vision.

As the party came closer the sun began to set, darkening the road before them; the air grew colder. Men holding spears stood at the outer gates and nodded to them as they went through. Their eyes looked blank, like flat pools of water; something about them made Angarred shiver. She had seen the same dead stare on other folks in the city, but she had assumed they were drunkards or sattery addicts. She turned to Mathewar and he nodded slightly; he had seen the same thing, and it had disturbed him as well.

They rode through the courtyard, past a woman carrying a basket of squabbling chickens, and another woman with a bundle of laundry. More men came to take their horses, and some of these, too, had the dead eyes of the guards at the gates.

As they entered the castle a man came toward them, tall and lean, with gray close-cropped hair. Despite his age he walked firmly, his back straight. He wore a chain of office over the double tower emblem; his eyes were alert, thank the Godkings, and he was smiling. "Lady Angarred, Lord Mathewar," he said, bowing to each of them. "I'm Dobrennin Under-steward. The king has asked me to tell you that supper will be in an hour, in the Lesser Banquet Hall, and to show you to your apartment."

"That won't be necessary, thank you," Angarred said. "I remember where my rooms are." As a noblewoman, though a very unconventional one, she had an apartment in the castle.

"Of course, milady," the under-steward said. "I'll come get you for supper, then." He bowed again and left them.

Though she did not come often to Pergodi the castle servants had kept her apartment clean. She walked through the rooms, seeing their few pieces of furniture in the light from the western windows: a table, some chairs, a chest and a large bed. She decided not to unpack. Jerret's ceremony would probably not take long, and they would return to the College and their children in a few days.

An hour later, after they had washed off the journey's grime and changed into formal clothes, Mathewar and Angarred followed Dobrennin through double doors into the Lesser Banquet Hall. Despite its name the hall was a large room with a high hammer-beamed ceiling. A long table of deep red wood stood in the center, lit by candle-branches every few feet; it was so highly polished it seemed a mirror for the candles, which shone nearly as brightly upside down. A hearth-fire blazed along one entire wall, holding logs the size of small trees. The room smelled of roast meat, and the sweet herbs thrown on the fire.

In the dim light Angarred saw Jerret heading toward them. "Master Mathewar, Lady Angarred," Jerret said formally. "I'm pleased to see you."

He had the brown eyes and hair of both his parents. His hair was wild, shaggy, a few days past trimming. He looked far too young to be king, like a boy dressing up in his father's clothes.

"Hello, Jerret," Angarred said. "What is this ceremony you wrote us about?"

Something stirred deep within his eyes, like a terrified animal running for cover. He twisted the ring of his office around his finger. She saw to her dismay that he was afraid, though he tried to hide it. He looked around the room, as if making certain no one could overhear, and said, "I'll tell you later."

A woman came up and took Jerret's hand. She had long, lustrous black hair and blue eyes with thick black lashes. Her skin was very white; a blue vein stood at her temple, near the hairline.

Angarred felt a brief shock, as if she were seeing someone she'd thought was dead. This was Lady Iltarra Haru, Noldeth's daughter. Hadn't she been exiled with the rest of her family?

She forced herself to cover her confusion, to look straight at the woman and not glance at Mathewar. "Hello, Lady Iltarra," she said.

Iltarra wore a mesh of jewels in her hair and a rope of pearls at her neck; the pearls, like her skin, seemed translucent, like clouds touched by the sun. "Hello, Lady Angarred," she said. "We've missed you here at court. And you, Lord Mathewar."

Mathewar stirred. He wasn't a lord, and Iltarra certainly kn...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765307464
• ISBN 13: 9780765307460
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: PILOT CORPORATION OF EUROPE; https://www.pilotpen.de/; ; PAE DE LA CAILLE; ALLONZIER LA CAILLE; Frankreich