The View From The Zamok

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, V.

An earlier post, The Kazan, identified the Dennitzan capital city, Zorkagrad, on Lake Stoyan in the center of the Kazan and summarized the view from the Zamok in Zorkagrad so let us now take a closer look at that view:

Old Town has steep tile roofs and pastel-tinted half-timbered stucco;

the small city slopes down from Old Town;

twisting lanes become broad boulevards;

later generations have raised geometrical buildings in modern materials;

traffic flits;

ships crowd the docks and the bay;

glittering, deep blue Lake Stoyan stretches west beyond the horizon;

the sky is cloudless;

from a sun deck of the Zamok, Kossara sees cultivation along the shores, both green Terran and blue or purple native, widely spaced buildings and sunpower towers, the Lyubisha River flowing from the north and the Elena River, with barges and boats, flowing east;

the crater walls are below the horizon but she knows that they protect this "...chalice of warmth and fertility..." (p. 408) from "...glacier and desert..." (ibid.) 

She feels a breeze, smells flowers and hears the singing guslars that nest in the vines on the gray stone of the Zamok.

The Kazan

"...the Kazan, Cauldron, huge astrobleme on the continent Rodna, a bowl filled with woods, farmlands, rivers, at its middle Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad. Her father was voivode of Dubina Dolyina province, named for the gorge that the Lyubisha River had cut through the ringwall on its way south from the dying snows."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Domininc Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), p. 499.

The snows are dying because, although human beings had colonized Dennitza six hundred years ago during an Ice Age, there is currently a Great Spring, causing storms, floods, extinctions, ecological changes, migrations and rising sea levels. The Kazan is not far inland but sheltered by its walls from the northerly winds. Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich keeps a hunting lodge on the tundra far north of the Kazan.

In Zorkagrad, the executive center is the Zamok, a creeper-covered ancestral stone castle with turrets, battlements and banners above the steep tile roofs of Old Town and also above twisting lanes, broad boulevards and the docks on the Lake which stretches west over the horizon. The surrounding country has both Terran and native foliage. From the Zamok, both the Lyubisha River flowing from the north and the Elena flowing to the east are visible. The latter enters the ocean on the Obala, the east coast of Rodna.

Dennitza

The star Zoria is an F8 sun, a third again as luminous as Sol. The terrestroid planet Dennitza is half covered by ocean. Axial tilt and rotation period cause extreme weather and climate. Less than a million years ago, a shower of giant meteoroids caused an ice age. Now, sea levels rise in the Great Spring.

Terrestrial human beings colonized Dennitza about 2450. About 200 years later, Merseian immigrants arrived and in 3047 comprise 10% of the population. Their self-designation is "ychani," seekers. The human Dennitzan term, possibly contemptuous in origin, is "zmayi." Displaced by political conflicts at home, ychani provided labor for new Dennitzan industries. Able to endure cold better than humans, they mainly live on the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, the main continent in the northern hemisphere, where they specialize in fishing and pelagiculture. The legendary ychan hero Gwyth dared the storms and sea beasts of the Black Ocean.

In Dubina Dolyina province, Danilo Vymezal is both the voivode (hereditary aristocrat) and the nachalnik (governor chosen both by the Gospodar {planetary head of state} and by the popular assembly).
 
Cultural influences: Vymezal's bugle call is an immemorial Merseian war song; his wife sings an Eriau lullaby to their daughter, Kossara: Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv.

Religions: human Dennitzans, Orthochristians worshiping in St Clement's Cathedral, later canonize Kossara Vymezal, who has a large tomb on Founders' Hill. Some ychani of the Black Ocean remain pagans referring not to "the God" of Merseian religion but to Afherdi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds and Haawan who lairs on the reefs.  

Yovan Matavuly led the human pioneers who, like other emigrant groups at the time, wanted to preserve traditions, customs, language, race etc. They speak Serbic and Imperial Anglic while the ychani/zmayi speak archaic mutated Eriau. 

Dennitza, still in its ice age, has limited habitable areas. Mahovina turf and woodland duff are soft and springy. Evergreen equivalents are low and gnarled with blue-black plumes. Firebush burns spontaneously to ripen and scatter its seeds. There are no ornithoids but orliks are winged theroids. Flocks of yegyupka fly south; guslars trill; a horned bull leads a herd of yelen; riba caught from the Lyubisha River can be fried to eat. 

The original colonists, having to survive without sophisticated technology, developed a baronial clan system which persisted under industrialization. The Shkola, university and research center, preserved learning almost from the beginning of the colony. Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad are in the center of the Kazan, an astrobleme containing woods, farms and rivers, on Rodna. In Zorkagrad, the fountain before the Capitol in Constitution Square contains bronze statues of the hero Toman Obilich in combat with wild Vladimir. On a rock hill beyond the Square are the battlements of the Zamok or Castle, the executive center.

The Gospodar, elected out of the Miyatovich family by the plemichi, clan heads and barons, has supreme executive authority subject to Grand Court rulings on constitutionality. Court verdicts are reversible by the Shkoptsina, a Parliament with chambers for plemichi, commons and zmayi, although more than once in history a demonstration of zmayi has marched into the House of the Zmayi and been heard. One demonstration in 3047 carries the white star on blue standard of Yovan Matavuly and the red axe on gold of Gwyth. A militia, the Noradna Voyska, has been basic to Dennitzan society since the Troubles.

The nachalniki, i.e., heads of okruzhi (baronies or prefectures), are hereditary or elected by resident clans or appointed by the Gospodar depending on ancient usage. Towns and rural districts have elected councils. Ychani have preserved the Merseian organizational form, Vachs. For example, Ywod is Hand of the Vach Anochrin as well as steadcaptain of the fishing village of Nanteiwon on the Obala. Kyrwhedin is Hand of the Vach Mannoch, a member of the House of the Zmayi and moot-lord of the Obala steadcaptains. In this third capacity, he presides when the steadcaptains meet around a table made from timbers of Gwyth's ship in Council Hall at Novi Aferoch at the Elena River mouth.

Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich, having supported the Imperial usurper Hans Molitor, was rewarded with governorship of the Taurian Sector which faces the Merseian Rhoidunate. Ychani, not wanting Merseian rule, are loyal to Gospodar and Emperor. The Dennitzan poet Andrei Simich celebrated the deeds of the Founder and other ancestors but, in the absence of Simich, we must make do with a prose account of Bodin's raid into Merseian space.

Source: Anderson, Poul, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, London, 1978.

(For convenience, dates are as given in Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization but see here.)

Retirement In The Technic History

Where would you prefer to retire in the period of the Terran Empire?

Archopolis
Hermes
Imhotep
Daedalus
Avalon
Dennitza
Nyanza
somewhere else?

Flandry's and Kossara's plans for retirement on Dennitza had included:

a house in Dubina Dolyina;
an apartment in Zorkagrad;
many children;
xenological expeditions to other planetary systems;
staff Intelligence work;
investments;
enterprises;
she showing him an overlook in the Vysochina highlands;
he teaching her winetasting;
she reading aloud from Simich, he from Genji;
the opera in Zorkagrad;
dances at land festivals;
sailing across Lake Stoyan to a cafe under the flowering trees on Garlandmakers' Island;
taking the children to the zoo and merrypark.

Some of my friends would remark, "It sounds alright for those that can afford it!"

March Through Zorkagrad

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

While four hundred ychani, led by Ywod and enclosing Flandry and Kossara, march into Zorkagrad, Flandry asks why the suburb that they pass through is deserted. Kossara passes the question on:

"Untrained humans could not have conveyed information accurately in that wise; but soon she told Flandry from Ywod..." (pp. 553-554)

- that local citizens have taken a form of direct action called an ispravka.

We admire the ychani's ability to pass information accurately back along the ranks of a march. When large numbers of human beings gather together, there is always the potential for utter confusion. Of course, many large events are orderly because they are sufficiently well organized and because most people know in general terms what is supposed to be happening but any new informational input has to be announced through a PA system. There is no ability to pass information accurately from person to person.

Once, when a crowd had congregated and was setting off to march through a city center, one man took it up on himself to stand beside the starting point of the march repeatedly shouting, "He's not letting you through up there!" Who was not letting us through? A policeman? A march steward? Someone else? Where was he not letting us through to? As we proceeded, we were able to march unhindered along the intended route. What were we supposed to do? Stop marching to ask that guy to explain himself or just continue marching? We did the latter.

At a trade union conference, the General Secretary, in the chair, announced that there was a bomb alert and asked us to leave the building. While we were leaving, he said, "I can see some people at the back of the hall waving their arms as if to tell me that the alert is over but I have not yet been told this by building security so could people please continue to leave the building?" Almost immediately, he said, "I have now been told by building security that the alert is over. Could people please return to their seats?" Needless to say, I heeded the Secretary, not anyone taking it up on themselves to flap their arms from the back of the hall!

Wind In Zorkagrad

 

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

I have probably quoted all of these examples before. They show the wind accompanying Poul Anderson's characters through the narrative as if commenting on the action.

When the ychani march to the Dennitzan Parliament:

"A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a paled heaven." (XVII, p. 551)

Heaven pales as the crisis deepens.

When Flandry speculates about a Merseian agent meddling in Dennitzan affairs:

"The wind boomed between walls." (p. 555)

When Kossara Vymezal arrives unexpectedly to address the Shkoptsina (Parliament):

"A moan lifted out of the benched humans, as if the fall wind had made entry..." (p. 560)

This time, the wind outside is not heard but is present as a metaphor.

Finally, for now, when, after the attempted coup:

"Zorkagrad lay silent under bitter blue, as if killed..." (XVIII, p. 569)

- we are told that:

"Day broke windless and freezing cold." (ibid.)

What could be more appropriate than windlessness to accompany apparent death?

Empty Streets In Zorkagrad

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

From:

"...a parking lot at the edge of Zorkagrad..." (p/ 551)

- the four hundred ychani, concealing in their midst the cowled and cloaked Dominic Flandry and Kossara Vymezal, march through:

"...a new district of private homes and clustered condominium units..." (pp. 552-553)

- which is deserted apart from:

"An occasional militia squad..." (p. 553)

- because the residents have sought the protection of the inner city forcefield generators.

Older streets are also quiet because Dennitzan citizens:

"'...under discipline, often in their regular Voyska units...'" (p. 554)

- have confined Imperials in certain buildings as hostages for the release of the arrested Gospodar:

"'...and the good behavior of their Navy ships.'" (ibid.)

The good behavior of the Navy! I like the Khruaths (fully participative democracy) on Avalon and the ispravkai (citizens' direct action) on Dennitza. In fact, this ispravka traps a Merseian agent whom Flandry is then able to interrogate with crucial consequences.

Dennitza Revisited

I think that Dennitza is my favorite fictional planet in the Poul Anderson canon. See:

search result for The Kazan
In Zorkagrad Old Town
In Zorkagrad
Bodin's Prayers
Imaginative Multiverse
Protective Merseians
The Wind
Retirement In The Technic History
Log Cabin
Fast Action
Constitution Square
A Necessary Causal Link
Mesyatz
Dennitzan Cultural Blending
Kossara Vymezal
Six Dennitzan Heroes And One Saint
At The Moment Of Death
Dennitza And Ys: Their Contrasting Fates
Two Beginnings And Two Endings
Prayers
Conclusion
Flandry's Prayer II
Conclusion II
Kossara Vymezal In St Clement's Cathedral
Explicit Pathetic Fallacy
Dead Leaves
Inter-Species Politics 

Funeral

This evening, we watched a reshowing of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral. I am interested in the ways that society finds to mark the passing of people regarded as important. This practice will continue in future even if everything else changes: who is regarded as important and how their passing is marked. The practice is represented in Poul Anderson's Technic History when Kossara Vymezal lies in state in St Clement's Cathedral in Zorkagrad on Dennitza near the end of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. Probably every aspect of life, and death, is to be found somewhere in Anderson's works.

Christian funerals refer to a hereafter. How is it known that there is a hereafter? And, if there were one, how would any particular individual's destination be known? Skeptics attending funerals listen with respect and interest but remain skeptical. We are united by the accepted custom that everyone except a few sectarians attends weddings and funerals of friends and colleagues irrespective of denomination or tradition. When the Pope announced that it was OK for Catholics to attend family weddings etc in other churches, he merely acknowledged what anyone with any sense was already doing. Vox populi vox Dei.

Dominic Flandry effectively prays to his dead fiancee, Kossara, but does not think that he receives an answer. Mormon missionaries (scroll down) advised me to ask God for the truth about religious matters so I did. But I have to interpret whether I received an answer.

Fictional Universes II

Fictional universes contain not only persons but also places that take on a life of their own. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Virgilian System includes the planets, Dido and Aeneas. The latter, lighter and dryer than Earth, kind of like a Mars with a breathable atmosphere, would have been more suitable for colonization by the nearby Ythrians. However, human scientists, wanting to study the tripartite inhabitants of the even less hospitable Dido, established a base, which became a University, on Aeneas. The Rebel Worlds, set mainly on Dido, has one chapter set on Aeneas. Its sequel, The Day Of Their Return, is, except for a single early flashback, set entirely on the surface of Aeneas. 

Hermes, important as the home planet both of David Falkayn and of Sandra Tamarin, remains off-stage until it becomes a major setting in Mirkheim and is again visited in A Stone In Heaven.

Avalon, is shown at four different stages of development in three short stories and one novel. Its notable locations include the Weathermother mountain range and the cities of Gray and Centauri, the latter containing Livewell Street named after a local flower.

Dennitza appears only in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows where, however, it imparts a real sense of place to the Kazan, the Obala and Zorkagrad.

Returning again to another author in another medium and genre, Alan Moore fully exploits the connotations and implications of the familiar place name, "Gotham City," before bringing on stage its most notorious inhabitant.

More Merseians On Dennitza

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, IV.

"Day of Burning" and A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows are linked across several centuries. Life was hard on Merseia because the planet was modernizing and moving into space at the same time as it had to be protected from supernova radiation and there was a three-sided struggle for power between Vachs, Gethfennu and nations like the Republic of Lafdigu. Merseian immigrants were welcome on the human colony planet, Dennitza. Able to stand cold better than human beings, they do most of the fishing and pelagiculture, especially on the eastern seaboard of the main continent, Rodna. They are organized in Vachs and have their own House in the Shkoptsina, Parliament. Kossara remembers a gruff welcome at the campfire of great green hunters and is overcome by emotion. After Abrams' and Flandry's (fully justified) hostility to the Roidhunate, Anderson's account of inter-species harmony on Dennitza is welcome indeed. It is hard to choose but I think that Dennitza is my favourite planet in the Technic History. Its place names are resonant:

the Kazan

the Obala

Zorkagrad

I would not participate in Orthochristian prayers or sacraments but would meditate in a side chapel of St Clement's Cathedral. I would also learn how to recite Eriau prayers with Trohdwyr. Paganism encourages ritual observance but does not insist on credal assent.

In The Kazan

Apparently, "Kazan" means "Cauldron."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT p. 499.

The Kazan is a large astrobleme on the continent of Rodna on the planet, Dennitza. Lake Stoyan and the Dennitzan capital, Zorkagrad, are at the centre of the Kazan which is filled with woods, farms and rivers. The Dubina Dolyina province takes its name from a gorge cut through the Kazan ringwall by the Lyubisha River.

Danilo Vymezal is voivode of Dubina Dolyina. The Vymezal estate is on high ground, overlooking farm, forest and river. There is an outer gate, then a driveway through gardens and parks. The tile-roofed, half-timbered, brick manor has a rear court surrounded by servants' cottages, garages, sheds, stables, mews, workshops, bakery, brewery, armoury, recreation hall, school and chapel. Dennitzans have lived thus for centuries but now are under threat.

The voivode receives Flandry in the darkly wainscoted, heavily furnished, third storey Gray Chamber, decorated with rugs and drapes, which has a doubly thick door for confidentiality.

An Annotated Text

Nowadays, I can reread Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows while simultaneously consulting my own previous notes on its text, e.g.:

Dominic Hazeltine
spiral arm
Catalina
Mayor Palatine
niello
Trohdwyr
zmay
ychani
Gwyth
Zorkagrad
etc

The first three chapters of A Knight... make many references to earlier installments of the Technic History:

Persis d'Io in Ensign Flandry;
Fenross who was Flandry's superior in "Hunters of the Sky Cave" and "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Scotha in "Tiger By The Tail";
Princess Megan in "The Warriors from Nowhere";
Avalon in The People Of The Wind;
van Rijn on Diomedes in The Man Who Counts;
Manuel Argos in "The Star Plunderer";
Kheraskov from The Rebel Worlds;
Chunderban Desai from The Day Of Their Return;
the McCormac rebellion in The Rebel Worlds;
the potential Aenean jihad in The Day Of Their Return;
the Polesotechnic League becoming cartelized in Mirkheim -

- and, in a later chapter, a flashback scene is set on Talwin which was introduced in A Circus Of Hells.

But we are also told the sequels to some of the earlier events:

Persis' son by Flandry;
what happened after Emperor Josip, against whom McCormac had rebelled, died;
what happened in Sector Tauria after Flandry's rescue of Princess Megan;
what Chunderban Desai did after his spell on Aeneas;
what Flandry has been doing - taking it easy.

Thus, we are introduced to an entire new period in Imperial history with a new set of threats and also to the later phase of Flandry's career.

Old Town

Poul Anderson excels at raucous street scenes. In Old Town on Irumclaw:

native beehive-shaped adobes adapted for other life forms;

glimmering glowsigns above twisting streets and lanes;

noises including raucous music, a hundred languages, screams and bellows;

body odors, garbage, smoke, incense and dope;

human beings, native Irumclagians and several species of spacefarers;

an Irumclagian chanting in Anglic through a vocalizer to advertise a joyhouse offering sophisticated entertainment, gambling, food, drink, stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens, emphasizers and sex with seventeen species.

Decades later, Flandry's daughter surveys a multi-species market on Imhotep. See:

Imhotep
Market Places

And the overarching theme of all of Poul Anderson's fiction is Life.

For Old Town in Ys, see here.
For Zorkagrad Old Town, see here.
For an earlier post about Old Town on Irumclaw, see here.

Prayers Answered Or Unanswered

We have quoted Dominic Flandry's prayer to St. Kossara before but this time the context is different.

Flandry to his murdered fiancee as she lies in state in the Cathedral of St. Clement in Zorkagrad on Dennitza:

"He stooped closer. You believed you would know, Kossara. If you do, won't you help me believe too - believe that you still are?

"His sole answer was the priest's voice rising and falling through archaic words."

-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVIII, p. 577.

He does receive an answer: the priest's voice - but that does not affirm Kossara's survival.

Father Tomilav to Holy Andrei/St. Andrew:

"'Holy Andrei, grant me a sign.'

"The crude wooden image stirred. Lips curved in a smile, hand reached out in the gesture of benediction."

-The Merman's Children, Book Three, V, pp. 149-150.

The author of a fantasy novel is empowered to animate an icon. But when Tomilav asks Andrei to confirm that his daughter, Nada, is in Heaven:

"The carving never stirred." (p. 150)

This experience of Tomilav's is more akin to Flandry's.

In Zorkagrad

Streets are lined with mostly Terran trees - oak, elm, beech, maple.

A demonstration of Mersians/ychani/zmayi marches in battle formation, armed with knives, tridents, harpoons and guns. Formidable, indeed. Quiet and unexcited, unlike human demonstrators, they carry two banners:

the white star on blue of Yovan Matavuly, the human founder of the Dennitzan colony;

the red ax on gold of Gwyth, the ychan hero who dared the storms and sea beasts of the Black Ocean.

Merseians walk digitigrade. They pass:

private homes and condominiums unprotected by forcefields and vacated during the emergency;
militia squads patrolling to prevent looting;
older, higher, close-packed buildings on narrow uphill streets;
red tile roofs;
stucco walls;
tenements;
offices;
midget factories;
restaurants;
taverns;
amusements;
a bulbous-domed parish church;
a few big stores;
scores of tiny eccentric shops;
detouring groundcars.

A fighter craft passes low. Merseian marchers, unlike their human equivalents, are able to convey information accurately. The word is that the streets are quiet because direct action by Dennitzan citizens has rounded up Terrans and other Imperials into certain buildings in response to the arrest of the Gospodar. The Zamok/Castle/executive centre has denounced the action as illegal and deployed police but has not yet responded with force.

In several novels, including A Knight..., Anderson conveys the sense of "troubled times" extremely effectively.

No Wind

A Stone In Heaven, I.

After the noise and chaos, snow covers everything and:

"Suddenly there was no wind, as if that also had been seized and overwhelmed." (p. 11)

Wind is such an active force in Poul Anderson's descriptive passages that the suggestion that even it might be overwhelmed becomes significant! And, in fact, we recently encountered windlessness as an appropriate accompaniment of apparent death. See Wind In Zorkagrad.

Yewwl has been communicating long-distance with a human observer whom she knows as "Banner." On the tenth page of the text, we learn that "Banner" is Miriam Abrams whose name we might remember from Ensign Flandry. We should at least remember Miriam's father, Max Abrams. References to the planets Dayan and Terra soon establish that this novel is a volume of Poul Anderson's Technic History. The text had not told us that yet.

Chapter I ends as Miriam Abrams asks a colleague:

"'...have you ever perchance heard of Admiral Flandry?'" (p. 16)

Four Cathedrals

Poul Anderson rises to new heights when describing large religious buildings.

In a divergent timeline:

"...he spied Notre Dame. But it wasn't the cathedral he remembered. It seemed to cover nearly half the island, a mountain of soot-gray stone soaring up and up and up, tier upon tier, tower above tower, like a Christian ziggurat, till the topmost spires raked heaven a thousand feet aloft. What ambition had replaced the lovely Gothic with this?"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART SIX, 1980alpha A. D., p. 286.

In the city of Domkirk on the planet, Freehold: 

"...the bishop's seat was raised two centuries ago, in a style already ancient. It was all colored vitryl, panes that formed one enormous many-faceted jewel, so that by day the interior was nothing except radiances - and even by moonlight, the outside flashed and dim spectra played."
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 20.

In the Cathedral of St. Clement in the city of Zorkagrad on the planet, Dennitza:

"Evening sunlight slanted through windows and among columns, filtered to a domed ceiling, brought forth out of dusk, remote upon gold and blue, the Twelve Apostles and Christ Lord of All."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), XVIII, p. 576.

In the goetic timeline:

the Johannine Cathedral soars;
its flat, white walls go "...up and up and up..." (Operation Chaos, XXV, p. 181);
its roof climbs even further to "...the vast central cupola..." (p. 182);
a stained-glass Mandala fills half of the west wall;
the Eye of God fills half of the east wall;
the single tower leaps  "...into the stars." (ibid.)

Bodin's Prayers

"In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.
"Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of Zorkagrad peeled until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.
"Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well nigh buried the tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St Kossara. There did he often pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets, of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!
"And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.
"Amen."
- Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 605-606.

I have quoted this concluding passage of Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows in full first because of its beauty and secondly because it continues the line of thought of the previous two posts, Flandry's Prayer and Flandry's Prayer II. Like "Star Of The Sea" in Anderson's Time Patrol series, A Knight... ends with a prayer. Before that, we are told that Bodin prayed at St Kossara's tomb and that she brought peace through his valor. The intercession of saints is a specifically Orthodox and Catholic belief. Human Dennitzans are Orthochristians. I can agree at least that Bodin's valor was strengthened by his devotion to Kossara.

The first person to pray to St Kossara after her death had been her grieving fiance, the agnostic Dominic Flandry. Flandry goes his way, remembering Kossara, while her people go their way, praying to St Kossara.

Happy Endings?

This is the briefest survey and only of novels featuring Dominic Flandry.

Ensign Flandry: Flandry leaves his mentor's office, whistling.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows: Giving up on understanding Djana or indeed women, he saunters off to celebrate.

The Rebel Worlds: He consoles himself that at least Kathryn McCormac is happy but Didonians pity those beings who know that they cannot know oneness.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows: He will not stay on Dennitza because he has his own people but bells peal in Zorkagrad.

A Stone In Heaven: He and Miriam Abrams walk into autumn.

The Game Of Empire: He says that we do not know what the score of the game will be but, when he has offered to fund the activities of Diana and her friends, Axor smiles.

Ambiguities abound.