"'As for my standing, I belong to the Vach Urdiolch and' - he stood up and touched his brow while he finished - 'it is my high honor that a brother of my late noble father is, in the glory of the God, Almighty Roidhun of Merseia, the Race, and all holdings, dominiums and subordinates of the Race.'
"Flandry scrambled to his feet and yanked Djana to hers. 'Salute!' he hissed in her ear, in Anglic. 'Like me! This chap's a nephew of their grand panjandrum!'"
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER TWELVE, pp. 281-282.
When three human beings are prisoners of kzinti:
"A new huge and ruddy-gold form entered. The guard saluted, sweeping claws before his face. Markham jumped up. 'For God's sake, stand,' he whispered. 'That's the captain.'"
-"Iron," 12, p. 87.
Flandry is alerted by the reference to the Roidhun, Markham by the guard's salute. Does Anderson invent the nature of the kzinti salute: claws before face?
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One thing I remembered from that bit quoted from A CIRCUS OF HELLS was that the reigning Roidhun might or might not be a figurehead, depending on circumstances. And that even the harshest, most dictatorial Protector regarded his Roidhun with some of the same awe as the lowliest "foot and tail" among his subjects.
Anderson might well have invented that Kzin salute. As a gesture appropriate for Kzinti.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I should have added that when Flandry went to meet Emperor Hans in a private office of the Coral Palace in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, he stood to full formal attention and saluted. The Emperor then bade him to be at ease and sit. My point being that humans too have salutes and gestures of respect.
Ad astra! Sean
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