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: The Festival of Birds
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Matrim Cauthon
Matrim Cauthon wakes to the sound of dice in his head and grumpily gets out of bed after a private debate on whether he should continue to sleep until the dice go away. Chasing Nerim off, he dresses himself while breakfasting on last night’s cheese and bread, and then checks on Olver who asks him dozens of questions about the day’s activities. Mat muses on why the dice have started up; he had no clue last time they did and he has no clue this time.
With Olver finally dressed they both enter the sitting room, to find Queen Tylin there. Mat covers his surprise and panics, placing Olver between himself and the Queen. He looks at the door he locked last night which is now standing wide open, while the Queen smiles at him in what seems to him a mocking smile. He babbles about the day’s plans, and then realizing he is babbling, shuts up and edges toward the door, with Olver kept protectively in place, like a shield.
Tylin responds by agreeing that Olver needs supervision, and then calls in Riselle, a servant already dressed for the day. Riselle sinks to her knees in front of the boy, dangling a mask just his size and invites him to join her at the festival. With such an invitation, Olver breaks away from Mat and accepts her invite, Mat naming him, silently, an ungrateful little lout. Before he can object the two are out the door.
Then, calling him such endearments as “my sweet” and “lambkin,” Tylin explains that she has a second key, waving it in front of his face for emphasis. Using one of the keys, she locks them both into the room, and then places both of them in her belt. He snaps, and angrily attempts to retrieve one of the keys, actually laying hands on her, muttering that he doesn’t have time for this. She whips out a dagger and places it beneath his chin in such a manner that he has to stand on his tip toes or face a cut.
Coldly, she instructs him to remove his hands, then tells him to place his hands at his sides, since he wants to play roughly. He pleads with her, demanding to know what she is going to do, going so far in his panic as calling her by her name, which is a dangerous thing to do in Ebou Dar without first obtaining permission from the woman. Tylin does not answer, but using the dagger as a kind of goad, backs him up until he hits the bedpost in his bedroom. He suddenly comes to the conclusion that Tylin may be attempting to seduce him, and protests weakly, but to no avail.
A considerable time later, it is obvious that she has had her way with him. He smokes his pipe furiously, naked except for the foxhead medallion on his chest and the silk scarf tied around his neck. She chastises him because she says that he enjoyed himself as much as she, and then jokingly suggests that her great pleasure must have come from him being ta’veren. Meanwhile she sheathes both the dagger and her marriage knife which was used during the festivities.
Mat protests that he is the one who is supposed to do the chasing, and then privately considers that she would be chaseable if she were a tavern maid and if she didn’t have a son who liked poking holes in people. Tylin laughs while informing him she left him a gift in the sitting room and admonishes him to eat well—he is going to need his strength.
Mat covers his eyes and attempts not to weep. When he uncovers them, she is gone.
He grumbles about how she peeled off his clothing with her knife as he walks around the room wrapped in one of the bedsheets. He dresses and then stuffs the clothes Tylin cut from him underneath the bed until he has a chance to dispose of them without Nerim finding out.
He checks the box where the room key is normally kept, and it is gone; he had expected as much. He ponders his options and finds that none of them are attractive and blames it all on the women in his life.
He finds Queen Tylin’s gift, wrapped in green, and placed on one of the tables in the sitting room. Inside is a festival mask, twenty gold crowns and a note that instructs him, “piglet”, to get his ear pierced and buy himself something nice. Very nearly weeping with frustration, he protests silently once again that he is supposed to do the chasing and then takes the mask, reasoning that it is worth the cost of the coat that Tylin cut off of him.
He meets Birgitte and Nalesean in the courtyard, both dressed for the festival and Birgitte wearing a revealing dress, a style in which Mat had never seen her. She explains that sometimes its fun to be looked at, and that the dress is both pretty and functional. She then asks what kept him, hoping out loud that it wasn’t to tickle a pretty girl. Mat hopes he isn’t blushing. He is about to answer when twenty men join them in the courtyard, decked for the festival, except for Beslan, the Queen’s son, who is twirling his mask instead of wearing it. Mat demands to know what he is doing there. Nalesean responds that Beslan intends to spend the festival with Mat, though it will be boring. Beslan refuses to believe that, saying that he never had as much fun as when he went drinking with Mat and Lady Elayne‘s Warder on Swovan Night, Mat thinking that he does not realize that the woman he is examining with satisfaction is that Warder. Birgitte actually smiles under the scrutiny.
Mat does not care; he just doesn’t want to spend the day with Beslan, partly because of his most recent bedtime experience, and the likelihood that when the Queen’s son finds out about it, he will use his sword to skewer Mat.
Mat tries to talk Beslan out of it, but gets nowhere, except to begin exciting the man’s ire. He, Birgitte, and Nalesean leave the palace, taking half a dozen “feathered fools” following, he muses, because of Birgitte’s attire.
Mat and she exchange banter about her behavior while Beslan was examining her. He muses that the world is strange when one woman is a drinking buddy—a friend—and the other chases him, whether he wills it or not.
They enter the Festival proper. Beslan explains that on cold days the festivals stray indoors. On hot days, it spills out into the streets. He also promises that the night will be much better than the day. As the daylight fades, Beslan is proved right, as inhibitions also fade.
Mat finds himself more and more amazed; he wants to shout sometimes, “put some clothes on!” but does not.
Part of the Festival is an object called a “setting”—large decorated carts with various persons dressed as casually as on their birthdays. They are remarkable to behold, and followers trail behind them, throwing coins and sometimes notes. Sometimes Mat’s party has to race to an alley keep from getting stampeded, waiting while the setting passes by.
At one of these waits, a man approaches—a beggar—and Beslan prevents Nalesean from donating because he is not wearing a brass ring signifying membership in the Beggars Guild. Mat protests and finds himself attacked by that beggar. Mat grabs him and throws him back into the crowd.
A second beggar attempts to push Birgitte out of the way in order to get to Mat, and is stabbed by her for his trouble. A third beggar approaches, and Mat attempts to warn Birgitte with a shout but fells him with his own knife, thrown sideways. And suddenly they are surrounded by beggars with knives and spiked clubs. A melee follows.
Mat and Birgitte fight back-to-back. One of the beggars mention “Old Cully” not liking this as the fight continues. Suddenly beggars assault the beggars who are assaulting Mat’s company. Beslan, covered with blood, nevertheless grins and encourages Mat to leave the premises and let “The Fellowship of Alms” finish the job, stating there was no honor in fighting beggars. Mat takes a moment to note the disarray the grinning company has been thrown into, all but Birgitte, who looks as neat as when they started out.
Mat growls at Beslan demanding to know if beggars in Ebou Dar go around attacking people. Beslan laughs and says it is because he is ta’veren. Mat bitterly muses that if his throat is slit, then he will not have to go back to the palace to be peeled like a pear.
The group stops at the Rose of Elbar to enjoy some bad tea. Mat’s companions begin to grow restive as the sun rises. They soon realize that they are not going to get so much as a kiss from Birgitte so they wander off in search of more exhilarating entertainment. Both Birgitte and Nalesean wander off on their own errands leaving Mat and Beslan alone. Beslan observes that he never expected to see a Warder dressed like that, taking Mat by surprise. Beslan then follows up with the observation, “I think you will be good for my Mother, Mat.” Mat spews bad tea on bystanders, but nothing more than glares come of it.
Mat asks what he means, and Beslan says, “that my mother chose you for her pretty.” Beslan then asks Mat why his face is so red, and if he is angry. Then he realizes that Mat is embarrassed and explains that Tylin is his mother, not his wife, and that she has always been too busy for a pretty prior to Mat’s appearance. When Mat stomps off, he asks where he is going and Mat says he needs to clear his head. Beslan observes that Mat is drinking tea, but Mat pays no attention. Instead he stomps off, incredulous that they both know. He shouts back at Nalesean’s query that “If I’m not back by tomorrow, tell them that they’ll have to find it for themselves!” His head is so madly spinning at the whole culture of this topsy-turvy city that he doesn’t realize the dice are still spinning in his head.
Point of view: Reanne Corly
Reanne watches Solain head toward the river, noting that some fellow follows. She accepts it, as Solain can handle men.
She wonders why the urge has grown so strong today. She spoke the order before she thought, and it had been something she could not retract until the proper time. At least those two fools, Elayne and Nynaeve, were not around and had not been for days, and there had been no need for taking dangerous chances.
All the while she keeps reassuring herself that “all will be well.”
She turns, and we learn that she is in a room with twelve others, who are Elders, but she is Eldest. She then tells them that they should consider moving all those wearing the belt to the farm for a while. She then muses that as Eldest there is no harm in behaving as Aes Sedai do.
REACTION:
This is one of the most controversial chapters in the entire series. Do we kind of witness Mat Cauthon being raped? Despite being clear that he was uninterested in a physical relationship with Queen Tylin, he was walked by her, on his tiptoes, with a knife to his neck, to a bed where it was clear he was expected to have sex with her. Jordan fades to black at this point and we find out more details in the aftermath – including that at some point the knife was removed from his neck and used to cut off his clothing before being stabbed into the bed post. We further learn that the sex that eventually happens is, uh, enthusiastic and long-lasting. Mat comments to himself that if she was a tavern girl, he might have been interested. AND at least some of his lack of interest relates to his knowledge of how stabby her son is, not a lack of attraction to the woman herself. Another part of his lack of interest is that he finds it “unnatural” to be pursued – particularly so aggressively. It’s implied that if Mat were the one chasing, he might have chosen to chase her.
This is just looking for a way to excuse Tylin, though. On the whole, I lean toward considering what happens here as rape. Mat didn’t want to do it. Just because he got into it, at the point of a knife, doesn’t change that. When they’re done… Mat stays covered in a sheet and feels like crying. That’s not remotely normal Mat behavior. He’s clearly struggling with how to process all of this. There would be zero debate about what happened here if the genders were swapped.
So if we’re keeping track… it’s likely that in the span of a few chapters, first Egwene (off the page by Halima under Compulsion) and now Mat have probably been raped. That’s *really* dark stuff. You don’t usually see that with multiple POV characters in a series that’s relatively YA-friendly. Oh, and Moghedien was raped by a super Myrddraal. That’s definitely not YA friendly. But Jordan hides it all behind implication and some “fade to black” writing trickery.
If Lord of the Rings is High Fantasy, and ASoIaF is Low Fantasy, I think The Wheel of Time – properly adapted – is Horror Fantasy.
The backdrop of this chapter is “The Festival of Birds” which is something like a New Orleans, Louisiana Mardis Gras with bird costumes and public indecency. Is it creepy that the Queen (in order to get Mat alone) arranged for a nearly naked serving woman to lure the 10(ish) year old Olver away in a scandalous costume? Yes. Yes it is.
Some cultures are better than others. I’m not a fan of Ebou Dar. That said… isn’t it fascinating that this place is a neighbor of the Whitecloaks’ former home base? Maybe the religious and zealous military order sprang into being (initially) as a well-intentioned reaction to local violence (dueling culture) and degeneracy.
Mat finally joins his friends, continues to be surprised that a woman (Birgitte) can be his actual friend – rather than someone to kiss or someone who is awful to him for no reason, and then they’re attacked by beggars. If we remember some earlier Darkfriend chapters, and of course we do, then we know that a higher up in their order is someone who appears to be homeless named “Old Cully.” He was mentioned by one of the beggars, so we know that’s what this attempt on Mat’s life is.
Nyn and Elayne were both attacked in broad daylight by people who were almost certainly Darkfriends. Now the same has happened to Mat. This city is crazy. I think I understand why everyone freaked out about the fact Nyn and Elayne wanted to come here.
As the chapter ends, Beslan – Tylin’s son – reveals the fact that he knows what his mother is up to with Mat and says he approves. This was the last straw for Mat, who decides to walk off alone following some random woman who is one of the Kin / Circle. Mat yells over his shoulder that he’s going to get the Bowl so given his luck, that seems likely.
The chapter ends with a Reanne Corly POV. This confirms to us that the woman Mat is following is one of the Kin. She also mentions feeling an inexplicable urge to do whatever it is, she just did, and that she’s felt that urge from sun up to sundown for a few days. That’s almost certainly Mat’s ta’veren nature tugging at her – though she doesn’t know it. Either way, she’s planning to pull their group out of Ebou Dar for a while and go to “the Farm.”
It would be hilarious if the Kin’s Farm was anything at all like Rand’s Farm, with the black coats and general sense of menace. Alas, that’s unlikely.
We’re closing in on the home stretch of the book. I suspect things will be picking up a lot of speed for here until the end.