In Prologue, Y minus 24, the sun sets and Peter Asmundesn proposes to Sandra Tamarin on a terrace of her ancestral mansion, Windy Rim. In Chapter II, the sun rises and Lady Sandra-Tamarin, waking up, reaches for Pete before remembering that he died in an accident four years previously. In Y minus 24, Sandra is probably about to become Grand Duchess of Hermes. In II, she is Grand Duchess, resident in the New Keep in Starfall.
In Y minus 24, Sandra says that she must curb the devil that is in her illegitimate son, Eric, from his father. Those who have read The Man Who Counts might remember that Sandra had been on Diomedes with Nicholas van Rijn and Eric Wace and might then deduce that Eric Tamarin is named after Eric Wace and that van Rijn is his father. Sandra confirms the second deduction in the following sentence.
After Peter Asmundesn's proposal:
"The breeze lulled, the tilirra chanted, the river laughed on its way to the sea." (p. 7)
Nature is appropriately peaceful. We hear the river's laughter as happy, not mocking.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I can see how Anderson chsoe "Eric" as the name of Sandra's son, so readers who had read THE MAN WHO COUNTS would, some of them, be reminded of Eric Wace. While I have no objection to that, now I wonder why she did not name the boy after a preceding Grand Duke of Hermes?
Ad astra! Sean
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