"'This is no real home for me,' rustled from [Eochaid], like dead leaves blowing." (p. 337)
Dead leaves are becoming ubiquitous like the wind.
Rufinus joins Eochaid whose ship will join Niall's fleet. We begin to glimpse Rufinus' plan to eliminate Niall. Individual assassinations are preferable to mass slaughters but we have come to that time in the evening when I turn to other reading so we must leave Niall as he prepares to celebrate Beltene in the opening paragraph of Section 3. The story continues. The plot thickens. I even remember some of it from previous readings.
Niall reminds me of Harald Hardrada, the title character of Poul Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy: a tall man whose only activity is to seize wealth created by others. Harald's death in battle is recorded as having happened at a particular time and place in English history whereas the Andersons have considerable literary freedom when recounting the death of Niall. They will give him a good send-off.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Some assassinations have been catastrophic to the world. The most infamous example, in fairly recent history, being the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914. Tremendous events flowed from that crime!
Ad astra! Sean
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