#Pawn in Frankincense

[linovadraws]

Making this made me realize that Jerott's thought process is definitely like "no it would be crazy if Lymond were down to kiss dudes and I wasn't his first choice", which is actually so funny.

Anyway, let's all see if I can manage to finish all eight pages of this, a task I have started and stopped three times in the last five years.

[faustandfurious]

Pawn in Frankincense spoiler

It was then that you remembered, thought Jerott Blyth suddenly, that Archie after all was a man in his fifties. And that Lymond was just twenty-six.

One of the many things I love about TLC is that Dunnett knows exactly what she’s doing by withholding Lymond’s age from the reader until the fourth book. We see him as the mastermind behind convoluted plans, we see him lead his company of mercenaries, we see him as a courtier, ambassador, always in charge, always in command of himself, always able to inspire unwavering loyalty in people around him, and only at his lowest point, defeated, exhausted, doped up on opium just to keep going, does she hit us with the additional sucker punch that he’s so incredibly young, far too young to be so tired, and Archie Abernethy, his loyal follower and friend, is. through the highlighted age difference, suddenly cast in a more paternal role. I’m also reminded of the ending of Ernst Toller’s autobiography, when he after having served as president of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and been imprisoned for five years, proclaims “I am thirty years old. My hair is graying. I am not tired.”

[softieghost]

Ok it's finally time for me to cry

[orangeshipper]

A moment of appreciation for that one time in The Lymond Chronicles where the reader is treated to a page, a whole, entire, actual page, of Lymond's pov...

Pawn in Frankincense spoilers:

What an absolute treat. (A treat tinged, as per Dear Dorothy, with acute emotional trauma...)

It says so much about Lymond's character and beliefs, I just struggle to find the words to articulate because he's so deliciously complicated.

This may be a massive stretch, but "if you were... who you were..." always recalls for me Philippa's words at Sevigny in CM, "or am I not who I am?"

And just one tiny comment on the children - the one thing that throws me is that there must be a full year between them? Oonagh's baby was born March, but Joleta travelled to England/Scotland the previous May, when already pregnant again (aborted) after the birth of her child at Zakynthos? I get myself in KNOTS figuring out the kids. I know, I know the ultimate point is Lymond's belief, that's what matters... It's tragic whichever way you look at it.

O mill, what hast thou ground...

[aspocko]

at the start of pawn in frankincense, the dame tells francis that he will see oonagh again, and the monkey's paw curls, but she also tells him something like: "your father's two sons will never meet again in this lifetime." obviously for people who've already read the series and understand the complex intricacies of the crawford family tree, this makes total sense that i will not reiterate further for the sake of anyone who hasn't finished the series yet. but... francis also hasn't finished the series yet. for all he knows, he's just been told that he'll never see richard again.

i have a lot of feelings about francis and richard and their complex and very deeply moving relationship. it's one of the things i love most about this book series. my heart ACHES for these brothers, and their scenes together are some of the most striking prose and storytelling out there. but imagine lymond going into the events of pawn convinced (maybe not fully convinced, but certainly his reunion with oonagh probably hits the point home a little further) that he'll never see his brother again. yes, he's already mired with guilt over oonagh and will and buccleuch robin and christian and everyone else who's suffered because of him, and surely the prospect of his own death doesn't really bother him all that much and will trouble him even less as the series goes on, but WOW. I imagine thinking he'll never see Richard again probably had a PROFOUND impact on his mindset.

dorothy dunnett is such a clever writer for dropping this bomb and then never calling back to it again. if you notice it, good for you, all the more you'll suffer for it. if you miss it, she's not going to spell it out for you. i just think its really neat!

[thecrenellations]

He spoke each poem through to the end, and beside Jerott, Marthe’s lips moved, following. Sometimes the hard-pressed voice, uplifted, made no sense of the words it spoke. Then when the violence died would come relief, and the voice would pick its way again. (Pawn in Frankincense)

have some slapdash Volos!

without poetry:

[sarcasmisfluffy]

So after taking a long break from it to decompress and finally finishing it I am curious to know thoughts on "Pawn in Frankincense".

I read there's some debate on which child is saved and I have my own thoughts but I want to know some consensus here in Tumblr land. This book was dark and very hard for me just thinking about how those children were treated and I am aware this is a turning point in the series.

[fclymond]

[unhelpfulfemme]

She was singing. He had never heard any expression of happiness from her before, much less this joyous uplifting of voice, light and free. He drowned it with his hammering, and when he stopped, it had halted, too.

Okay but the fucked up Jerott/Marthe bits are gripping me like nothing else this time. He drowns out her joyous self-expression with his hammering.

And Jerott is such a fascinating character in general because he's so... In love with love? While neglecting everyone else's humanity and treating them like dogshit. And he is just... Constantly on the verge of realizing it but never quite there.

Like, Francis prostitutes himself to the Aga among other things so Jerott can get medical care as soon as possible and Jerott is disgusted by him and treats him like shit over it.

And then the scene at the tekke where he is hurting Marthe, and recognizing it, and feeling bad over it, but still continuing on with it because he immediately gets distracted by how pretty she is. While at the same time telling himself that he's in love with her not Francis Marthe not Francis Marthe notFrancis... Truly the scene of all time.

Her light bones lying against him were part of him: the voice was the voice of his heart.

Look at this for Christ's sake. Nobody gives Shitty Person POV better than Dunnett - you can feel Jerott's relief that she's given in, his childish infatuation with the concept of being one more than with Marthe herself, and feel for him because you know enough about him to understand what the world looks like from his POV, even as you know that he's also drunkenly forcing a woman to dance, gripping her so hard that tears well up in her eyes, and that she's only dancing with him so that he'd stop doing that. You understand him even as you're judging him over it. Amazing.

[linovadraws]

I kept meaning to do art for @veliseraptor's fic gather frankincense so here you go!

[semicolonsandsimiles]

"Philippa said temperately, 'My mother thinks I'm with Lord Grey's wife in London. I was, but I got to Guisnes, and Mr. Guthrie took me to Nantes, and Mr. Blyth brought me here.'"

Three conversations on the way to Baden.

[softieghost]

Having a Lymond experience rn

[orangeshipper]

I neeeeed to talk about the final chapter of Pawn in Frankincense because, oh my.

It's SO painful, so raw and stark, but also SO beautiful and moving?? How do you combine those things so flawlessly?

If I screamed, you wouldn’t like it, Lymond had said. And because the anguish could now no longer be borne, and because he would not scream, he was using the uncontrollable voice, the trumpet of suffering and conduit of impossible sorrows. And he had dressed it, as a burning ship sets out her fragments of bunting, with the trappings of poetry. Agony spoke in the ringing, uneven voice, but decently transmuted into the words of the poets, flowing onwards and onwards, verse after verse, tongue after tongue.

(Pawn in Frankincense, ch 29, Volos)

I MEAN.

On the one hand, I'm wrecked by what's happening to Lymond, the trauma of everything he's been through and is suffering, the beauty of Marthe's care for him. On the other hand, I am wildly entertained by how Extra it is that Francis doesn't deal with withdrawal like a normal person, screaming, no... he screams POETRY.

And I'm remaining floored that, the more I read these books (this was my fourth read of PiF), the more I'm being hit in the face with how freaking stunning they are. I think I was so drained the first read through, and now I'm here like just... let me wallow in this beauty.

[leojurand]

one thing about the way dunnett wrote queer characters that i really love and that makes me wonder if she was friends with/consulted actual gay people when she created these characters is marthe's relationship with gender, which isn't a topic that is explored much in the series (we don't really get marthe's pov, except for a very short while in checkmate, so it makes sense), but the little bits we get about it are so fascinating to me.

but the part i really love is that, besides a couple of comments here and there about or by marthe herself, the way we know about marthe's complicated relationship with her gender is thanks to lymond being a huge cunt about it when talking to her:

‘Is that why you wish to come?’ said Francis Crawford. Flippant though his tone was, his eyes, Philippa noticed, had never dropped from the girl’s. ‘To prove your masculinity?’

he says this during their first conversation btw lol. he clocked her immediately... this is their twin brain connection to me (nevermind that they're not actually twins)

And Lymond, lifting his head, met Marthe’s gaze once more and said with gentle inflection, ‘And what a thing is an intelligent hermaphrodite bitch. I think we should get back. No one will try to leave yet. They’ll want to save the stuff in that room.’

‘You weren’t present at the interview between Marthe and Francis this morning. He called her one of nature’s bloody little hermaphrodites. Then he told her she was a mercenary bitch and could pay for it.’

idk why but i love that lymond says shit like this. i think he does it to spite her, of course, but for some reason i don't feel like he's trying to hurt her. in fact, even tho we never see the actual scene, i always thought he called marthe a one of nature's bloody hermaphrodites and a mercenary bitch with some respect and maybe even fondness?

i have no idea why these parts in particular make me appreciate dunnett's way of writing of her queer characters so much. maybe i'm just a big fan of mlm/wlw hostility. maybe it's because lymond and marthe's strange relationship is so important to me. either way hats off to dorothy!

[aspocko]

philippa somerville is so iconic in pawn in frankincense. she inserts herself into the narrative against everyone's wishes and then just destroys everyone one by one by not giving a single fuck and refusing to buy into anyone's bullshit.

gabriel asking philippa if it will horrify her so to be his concubine and shes just like "i mean sure it will suck the first few time but if you rape me four times a week for the rest of my life im pretty sure it'll become boring eventually"

marthe is bemoaning how no one came to rescue her and philippa's just like "girl, have you considered they didnt even know you were kidnapped? please be serious."

[thecrenellations]

“It’s easy to blame. What can you know of him?” Jerott said.

“All I know of myself. Too much. And nothing,” said Marthe.

Marthe and Francis, because I love them. The quote is from Pawn in Frankincense, but the drawing isn’t of any particular scene.