"A baron's son from Hermes..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Three-Cornered Wheel" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 199-261 AT II, p. 212.
Baron, OK. Young Falkayn read some ancient, i.e., twentieth century, fiction in:
"...the library of Duke Robert..."
-Poul Anderson, Satan's World IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 329-598 AT XIV, p. 473.
A casual reader might assume, as I did, that Duke Robert was David's father. We probably do not remember that earlier reference to a "baron" and, in any case, do not necessarily expect full consistency in such background details between instalments of a long series. However:
"(Duke Robert was then old and childless. His niece Sandra was a natural choice for the electors, since not much else could be said for any of the other possible Tamarins.)"
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise of the Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT II, p. 56.
Thus, Duke Robert was not the head of the Falkayn family and president of their domain but the Hermetian head of state! The Falkayns must have visited the Tamarins often enough for young David to spend enough time in the Grand Duke's library to familiarize himself with a fictional character who had used the pseudonym, "Sebastian Tombs."
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Well, it would be natural for the reigning grand duke to often receive visiting domain presidents and their families. Many of them would be related to the Tamarins. So it would not be surprising for the young David Falkayn to sometimes browse in Duke Robert's library.
Ad astra! Sean
Note the origin of medieval titles like baron: that probably came from a word meaning "freeman, warrior, leader". Duke is from a Late Imperial Latin term meaning "military commander of a region" -- hence "Duke of the Saxon Shore" as a translation for the title of the Roman military commander charged with guarding Britain against Saxon pirates.
(By "Saxon", Romans meant more or less "German in a boat". Some of them came from as far away as Sweden.)
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