The next morning, with their court “friends” added to the party, everyone sets out for Landreg.  There’s a brief, amusing interlude about how they’ll explain Zhegorz’s presence.  I’m not sure why “charity” and “he’s got weird magic and we’ve got weird magic; we’ll help him” aren’t good enough excuses.  Does Namorn frown on philanthropy?  Odd for a country that also has charity-funded asylums.

In any event, they decide to pretend he’s Sandry’s social secretary, and then the book meanders through several pages about their trip.  Usually when this book meanders, it’s because it’s taking a scenic route that’s worth seeing, but not in this case.

They get to Sandry’s lands and then keep riding, because she has huge tracts of land.  They come to a bridge that’s close to the castle, but Ambros says they have to ride down to a ford instead because the bridge needs repairs.  Sandry is incensed, because the village on the other side needs to use it in order to reach the main road to everywhere else in the country.

It’s at that point that Ambros is forced to admit that the place is in disrepair, because the empress keeps leveling taxes on them and there wasn’t enough to cover Sandry’s salary and everything that needs to be done.  (Her mother’s will was very clear that the salary had to paid every year, without fail, no matter what else is going on.)

Sandry is angry again, insisting that he should have either told her or foregone her salary, because she doesn’t need it, but apparently the penalties for stiffing your mistress are so severe in that country that he didn’t even ask. (The innuendos are out of control in this chapter.)

Although, Sandry is mostly angry at her mother for being selfish with the will and herself for not noticing that the place was running out of money. Yay for empathy and self-awareness!

Then they get to the village and we get a Very Special Episode about how demeaning and wrong it is to have everyone in town come bow to Sandry.  Jak and Fin even get a slight villain moment talking about how can’t let commoners go around disrespecting you.

…I hate to be on the side of the bad guys, but I am.  Now, hear me out.  I’m all for equality and respect and having everyone be on equal footing.  I actually like the messages of respect that the book is trying to get across.  HOWEVER, that’s not an attitude that goes hand-in-hand with a serf system.  The point at which commoners start to think of everyone as equal is the point where they say “fuck this popsicle stand” and stage a revolution.  Which is great!  Vive la révolution! 

The problem comes in the fact that these books seem to really like nobles.  There’s not any anti-imperialism vibe going on, no any hint that there should be.  There’s no indication of how unfair it is that a nobility system exists.  Everything that bad nobles do is blamed on them being bad, not on the system, which is how we get stuff like King Jon and Duke Verdis being gary stues and everyone and their grandmother (in the book) going on about how awesome they are.  It’s very much pro-monarch (as long as they’re good), but at the same time it tries to undermine the social mores which uphold the monarchy.

So if we’re coming at this from the view of “it’s okay that Sandry’s a noble,” then she’s wrong.  Everyone should come out and bow to her, not because she’s inherently deserving of a bow, but because that’s how you keep the system running.  And, in fact, the other nobles in the party even use that argument.  “This is how society works, don’t rock the boat.”  They don’t try to claim she’s owed a bow by being of bluer blood.  In the end, they intimidate her into giving up her protests by pointing out how the rest of the country would react if she suddenly started spreading egalitarianism.

But the heroes of the book, the authorial mouthpieces, still don’t like the matter, even if they let it go.  Tris even does magic to keep all the people out of the rain while they gather.

Which…kind of accidently makes Sandry look like the entitled one.  The other nobles at least are just trying to keep order, even if their methods for doing so are unfair.  But Sandry wants everyone to be peers…and then what, thinks they’ll continue to support her wealthy lifestyle out of the goodness of their hearts?  “I don’t need ceremonies for respect,” she says, but she implies that she does still deserve the respect of her rank.  You can chalk it up to naivety, but she comes off as far more entitled than anyone else in this scene, because she assumes that her being countess is something inherent to her and not something kept in place by force.

Then there’s a dustup when they get to the castle about maids and the fact that none of the girls have one.  Rizu has to come by and explain Downton Abbey to them.  (“No, people aren’t automatically beat down just because they’re servants; yes, they care about social standing just as much as we do; yes, they’re people and we know that and avoid pissing them off because they know where we sleep.”)  Seriously, where did Tris get the notion that servants are all cowering, miserly, spineless creatures with no self-esteem?  She didn’t have that attitude in previous books.  Hell, DAJA keeps hired help at her house in Emelan!  But this chapter is the Very Special Episode, it seems, so the characters will say whatever’s necessary to set up the conversation.

The conversation turns to Zhegorz.  Briar insists that they keep rooming together, because he noticed scars on the man’s wrists and says he should have company so he doesn’t try to suicide again.  Tris finally pulls Zhegorz aside and explains that the things he’s been seeing and hearing are actually real. 

And then…spontaneous scene change?  What was Zhegorz’s reaction to all that?

We switch to Sandry in the middle of the night, when a stranger in her room wakes her up.  Sandry is mostly upset that she might have hurt the woman before realizing that she was no threat.

This is Gudruny, and she came to ask a favor from Sandry, but she fell asleep while hiding in her room and thus the midnight audience. Gudruny tells the story of how her husband kidnapped her and forced her into marriage, then explains that it’s a custom in their country.  It’s…a very apt analogy for rape.  Well, I mean, it straight-up is rape, which actually gets said later in the book, so they’re not pussyfooting around that matter.  But the way in which it’s treated.  The “horse’s rump wedding” can also be used as a way to circumvent a bride’s family not giving consent, so there’s the parallel to people who say “yeah, but girls like to be dominated, she probably asked for it.”  After the fact, people say “she didn’t try hard enough to escape” or “she said yes in the end,” both of which are very common arguments with rape apologetics.  And, of course, it’s not at all unheard of for victims to be told to stay with their rapists, the way “wives” in this story are told they have to stay with their “husbands.” 

They even mention that Berenene was kidnapped twice with this intent, but she escaped.

“She said, when noblewomen came to her, that any woman foolish enough to be caught was a caged bird by nature, and must content herself with a keeper.”

Just try and tell me that’s not something a stodgy old senator would still say.

And if you want to get even more direct, there are of course places in the world still where rape victims are forced to marry their rapists in order to “save face.”

The only way Gudruny can be free of her “marriage” is to petition her liege, which is why she had to wait for Sandry to come instead of going to Ambros, sine he’s just a steward.  (Although, I’m sure Ambros would have written to her; can this not be done through mail?)

Sandry apologizes for her family’s neglect and says she’ll do the necessary divorce formalities in the morning, but for right now, it is still the middle of the night.