How better to introduce a narrative than to imply that important events will happen but not to say what they will be? There might be a change of Emperor. Gratillonius will be sent on a secret mission.
"Wisewomen said [the weather] portended strange doings and great changes; druids generally stayed silent."
-II, pp. 31-32.
But one druid tells the High King:
"'The signs I have read, in stars and staves and secret pools, are signs of mighty deeds, of a world in travail with a new birth.'" (pp. 35-36)
The narrative pace is leisurely. These are the opening chapters of the first of four long volumes. We will forget these particular phrases but the sense of expectation will continue to permeate the text.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And THE LAST VIKING, in THE SIGN OF THE RAVEN, noted how, after the death of King Edward the Confessor in 1066, and the somewhat doubtfully accession of Harold Godwinson as king of
England, the appearance of Halley's Comet worried many. The superstitious, aware of how King Harold sat precariously on the throne, and of challenges from rival claimants in Norway and Normandy, feared there would be similarly drastic changes in England.
Ad astra! Sean
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