Welcome back to my re-read, recap, and reaction to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. This post will only have spoilers through the current chapter.
You can find my previous chapter recaps HERE.
Chapter 29: Memories of Saldaea
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Hadnan Kadere
Kadere is reflecting on his past and his current plans and orders. He received a cryptic note which appears to have been written by an Aiel, and probably a woman. He worries since he is following Lanfear‘s orders and it could be another Forsaken controlling whoever gave him the note. Isendre enters the wagon, still swathed in black robes as punishment for theft from the Aiel. She has been spending many nights in Natael‘s tents, trying to get information to pass to Lanfear. Kadere still wants her to find a way into Rand‘s bed, but she has not succeeded. She tried again that night and the Maidens shaved her head and whipped her with nettles so that she itches terribly. They told her they would make her wear the nettles the next time she tried.
She believes, incorrectly, that Aviendha is sharing Rand’s bed and tells Kadere. Kadere is sorry her spirit has broken, which means he must kill her since she is of no more use and might betray him. He uses a kerchief to strangle her, just as he killed his sister Teodora when she discovered he was a Darkfriend. He then sets about dismembering her corpse.
REACTION
In this very short chapter, we learn a few bits of general information that will no doubt matter in the near future.
- Lanfear is no longer posing as Keille, and as a result, she is using Kadere as her eyes and ears with Rand.
- Until now, Kadere did not know Aviendha is sleeping in Rand’s tent. This means that Lanfear will know that, too, when he gives her his next report.
- There is a Maiden in the camp who is also a Darkfriend.
Jordan has done a really subtle job setting up a dangerous situation for Rand without actually doing any of it overtly. If you’re reading closely, then you should know that Lanfear is about to be *furious.* If you’re not reading carefully, you’ve probably missed that setup. Rand – quite stupidly on his part – isn’t even thinking about how Lanfear will react if she finds out about his growing interest in Aviendha (or his existing interest in Elayne and Min.) I think he’s of the opinion that because she loves him, she’s not dangerous to him. Perhaps he should consider those he cares about.
He’ll learn. Somehow he forgot that she was a psychopathic mass murderer whose evil deeds became the stuff of legend, and bedtime stories for misbehaving children, for three thousand years after her imprisonment.
There’s a Darkfriend Maiden in the camp. There are not that many of them that we’ve met, and it stands to reason that she is one of those we have met.
If she wasn’t almost certainly a murderer many times over, I’d almost feel bad for Isendre. She is apparently astonishingly beautiful, and despite that, she was limited to being a sex worker spy whose last weeks were spent being beaten, humiliated, broken, and then murdered. Even before the recent bad turn, she was traveling with a bulky peddler and was something like his doted upon sex slave. She might have been able to parlay her beauty into something much better if she’d been wiser when she was younger.
How does someone like that end up a Darkfriend? It’s possible she was trafficked into it. Perhaps a Darkfriend in her life, when she was young, saw the “potential” in her good looks and nudged her into it – until she was in over her head with no way out. Alternatively, if she made the choice entirely on her own, she might have realized a very short-term gain that seemed out of reach (money, elevation of class status, etc.)
RIP Isendre.
It was interesting to be in Kadere’s head. He seems like middle management. His evil-doing just comes across like a guy doing a job. Even his thoughts about dismembering Isendre seemed very detached from his own humanity – like it’s not him, and not his idea, it’s just the job. His humanity is still in there, too – he still thinks fondly of his homeland, his sister (despite murdering her), etc., and he seems to be under no great illusion about where he stands. There’s nothing grandiose about him. He’s just trying to do his job well and move up the ranks. In some ways, this form of evil is more chilling than the mustache twirling, monologue-giving Ba’alzamon type of evil because it’s cold and composed. This is the kind of evil that could be hiding inside of someone next to you and you wouldn’t know it.
That said, Kadere runs in a rough crowd. I doubt things will work out well for him in the long run. He’s going to give Lanfear some unwanted news sometime soon.