Chapter VI imparts more information about the Golin Palace. I focus on these details because Poul Anderson created them and because they are present as solid background information in the text even though we usually read right past them. Sidir again interviews Ponsario in the Moon Chamber but this time the room is bright with morning light, the open window lets in both mild air and traffic sounds that are described as "...cheery..." (p. 61) Inside the room, steaming coffee is described as "...delicious..." (ibid.) even before it has been drunk. Thus, the interview can be expected to go well and does despite some suspicion, then impatience, on Sidir's part toward Ponsario.
Later, leaving the Moon Chamber, Sidir enters a long, vaulted, dimly gas-lit hallway of polished granite and malachite with an arch to a circular staircase at its end. He ascends a worn, stone, candle-lit staircase in the Crow Tower to the landing before a large, comfortable, well maintained apartment where the Rogaviki prisoner, Donya, is accommodated. From here, she watches "'...town and birds.'" (p. 68)
"'This tower, clean sky everywhere around, is nearly like a hilltop far from any house. Already, I feel happier, prison though it be.'" (p. 70)
We remember a character in Ys who lived at the top of a tower and enjoyed the company of birds.
Near the beginning of Chapter VII, we learn that Casiru has hidden Josserek in a room with a screened balcony near Treasure Notch, a place name that we recognize from Josserek's journey in Chapter II.
Next, I suppose, we had better return to the narrative.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I wonder where that coffee was imported? Hawaii, maybe?
A bad mistake by Sidir. He should have kept his distance from Donya, letting his Intelligence officers interrogate the prisoner, focusing not only on what they learned, but how she affected them and how they reacted to her. Once they showed signs of being "addicted" to her, the safe thing to do was to kill Donya.
Ad astra! Sean
Every so often I have heard mention of "Jamaica Blue Mountain" coffee. Even if the cooler climate of the ice age meant that coffee could not be raised where it is now, then I would expect lower on the slopes of those mountains would be a good place to grow coffee.
Kaor, Jim!
I thought of Hawaii because those islands were probably among the territories ruled by the Killimaraichan thalassocracy, making the high quality coffee grown there a natural cash crop for export.
Ad astra! Sean
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