The Wind

We have commented on the wind. In Poul Anderson's fiction, the wind can figure in multi-sensory descriptions of natural scenery and in pathetic fallacies and sometimes becomes almost a chorus or a commentator on the characters' actions.

Here are more examples:

Understated Pathetic Fallacies

In Zorkagrad, after the defeat of an attempted coup, there is an early autumnal dusk, a smoldering sunset remnant above the lake, a blue-black dimness above the land, a few stars, city lights and:

"Wind mumbled at the panes."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, p. 563.

"Tonight the knowledge that there was no more Kossara reached him only like the wind, an endless voice beyond the windows."
-op. cit., XVII, pp. 563-564.

This wind mumbles and has a voice but what does it say? The dusk, dimness, sunset, stars and lights signify the end of a day, the death of Kossara and the defeat of the coup but do they prepare us for anything? Yes. Chives is about to bring Flandry the worst possible news after the murder of his fiancee. His own son was complicit in her murder. Flandry, the hero, continues to function in spite of everything.