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 28: Crimsonthorn
NOTE: The following chapter summary comes from wot.fandom.com
Point of view: Elayne Trakand
Elayne is preparing for the day’s trek when Adeleas approaches, pulling Garenia Rosoinde by the arm. Garenia is a runaway from the tower with the name Zarya Alkaese and must be put back into novice white with strict novice discipline too. Then Kirstian Chalwin kneels and submits, admitting she ran away three hundred years ago, which makes her older than Adeleas. The Kin are ready to rebel over this treatment of their members, but finally Reanne and Alise agree the Aes Sedai are in charge. Nine days later Kirstian barges into Elayne’s room and telling her that Lan says she and Nynaeve must come at once and tell no one. Adeleas and Ispan have been murdered. Nynaeve checks the contents of the teapot and discovers it was laced with Crimsonthorn. Vandene enters and determines that Adeleas must have trusted whoever brought the tea so it was a member of the party traveling to Caemlyn.
Two more days brought the party to Caemlyn where Aiel loyal to Rand still guard the city. In the plaza before the Royal Palace, Elayne declares herself for the Lion Throne. Entering the palace, Elayne heads to the throne room and swears to honor her mother’s memory. Dyelin enters, promising a respite from favor seekers for a bit. Dyelin promises to support Elayne’s claim to the throne. Many of the other nobles have either made their own claim or may do so rather than support Elayne. Dyelin asks her what she intends to do about Rand and she replies make him her Warder.
Point of view: Daved Hanlon
Hanlon enters Caemlyn on instructions and goes to the house where he is to obey orders from Lady Shiaine Avarhin. Jaichim Carridin is bound, his mouth held open by a block of wood with a hole in the center. Shiaine pours brandy down his throat until he drowns since he failed badly in Ebou Dar. A woman bound the same way is released and begs and pleads that she will obey the will of the Great Master and Shiaine. Falion Bhoda is an Aes Sedai, but it makes no difference, she must obey. Shiaine promises Hanlon that he will get the chance to put his hands on a queen, which he looks forward to.
REACTION:
We have ourselves a murder mystery!
RIP Adeleas. The description of Vandene wailing in grief, privately, was gut-wrenching. Your siblings are the people who do life with you, start to finish. Your parents leave early. Your spouse arrives a little late. But brothers and sisters (hopefully) get to make nearly the entire ride by your side. That’s the norm and the expectation. It’s unnatural for that not to be the case, so it can be more painful in that respect when it doesn’t happen. In the case of sisters who are Aes Sedai, that’s a multi-century journey together. They were best friends in addition to literal sisters. They were even living and working together in their retirement when we met them back in The Great Hunt. We didn’t know these sisters well, but this is one of the more impactful deaths we’ve faced in this series to date.
Someone in the party is a Darkfriend. That much is obvious. Jordan also seems to narratively link (though maybe it’s a misdirect) the death of Adeleas with the immediately preceding discovery that Garenia and Kirstian were runaway novices. We also know that Adeleas was willing to take tea from whoever it was that killed both her and Ispan. AND we know that Ispan seems to have been the primary target based on the details of the killings.
The willingness to accept tea points to the murderer being one of the other Aes Sedai. So if we’re trying to link the little “discovery of runaways” with the murder that follows… the only Aes Sedai mentioned alongside the first narrative was Careane. We got a one line comment that Careane was a novice together with one of the Kin runaways for two years, so she should have recognized her immediately yet didn’t. (Maybe Adeleas asked Careane about that, which led to suspicion over Careane’s ability to lie – or alternatively maybe Careane became concerned that there was this suspicion and made sure it never was uttered aloud.)
Careane was also the Aes Sedai who let her face show *by accident* when the Aes Sedai first arrived at the Kin’s Farm, causing a panic the Lord of Chaos to rule. But if we suspect Careane, wouldn’t it have made sense for her to do something sooner? No… because only very recently did the two older women start their interrogations of Ispan. It might feel like a long time to the readers, but this is an “at the first opportunity” killing if it was one of the Aes Sedai. From a timeline standpoint, it’s just been a couple of weeks since they used the Bowl of the Winds. Careane only found out Ispan was a captive *immediately* before that, since Ispan was captured on the day that the Bowl was recovered.
What else does one of the Black being in this “Embassy to Ebou Dar / Bowl-Hunters” group mean? It strongly implies that she was placed there when they all set out – presumably by someone else who is Black in Salidar – to keep tabs and obstruct. We know Delana is Black, we have reason to be suspicious of Sheriam, and Halima is one of the Forsaken.
Further – we also know Moridin is aware of their group because he watched them leave. I don’t think he did this murder himself because why would he use the tea… but he could have ordered it done or even provided the crimsonthorn.
Anyway… I think Careane was the killer, almost exclusively because her name was mentioned in the section preceding the murder. It’s a pretty thin amount of evidence. We’ll see if additional evidence eventually points us in a new direction.
In the next POV section, we see Whitecloak Questioner / Darkfriend Carridin “a/k/a the man who calls himself Bors” murdered. I had higher expectations for Bors as an antagonist. We got such a long time spent with him during the Book 2 prologue that it seemed like he’d be a long term threat. Instead “Bors” turned into more of a cautionary tale about joining an evil cult. His family all paid for his sins, first, but then he was eventually killed, too. The striking thing here is that Carridin was competent. He was just in one impossible situation after another.
One of the other reasons I thought Bors would be a bigger deal, in the wider story, is that he got an Arthurian name. (see wiki) But maybe unlike Rand Arthur, e-Guinelvere, Morgase, Elayne, Lan(celot), T-igraine, etc., he wasn’t born with the name.
Either way, I have to think that being forcibly drowned via booze would be an awful way to die. He was a horrific person, but you almost feel a small amount of pity for him, at the end.
The last time we saw Hanlon, he was mentioned as being in the group of Cairhien and Tairen rebels (with Darlin, Caroline Damodred, Riatin, Fain, etc.) He apparently survived Padan Fain’s fog-monster attack on Rand. Now he’s apparently supposed to get close to Elayne. She’s his prize for success. It’s pretty clear what that means.
Faolain (the Aes Sedai who got away when Ispan was captured) is threatened with death, in the same manner that Carridan got it, but she gets a reprieve. I assume the Shadow just doesn’t have limitless One Power wielders, so they have to put up with more failure from that group.
Mili Skane / Lady Shiane is the Darkfriend in charge here in Caemlyn. She was in Ebou Dar with Carridin, but back then was more of a subordinate (she was a hired gun assassin.) We should remember her from Book 1, though, when she tried to kill Rand and Mat and failed.
In any case, Caemlyn is turning into a pretty dangerous place. This feels like set-up for book #9, but it gives Jordan a lot of potential plot threads to pull. I suspect her effort to claim the throne will be more difficult than it would have been if she’d just shown up to do her duty months ago, when Rand first asked.
What’s going to happen to end the book? No idea. We’re almost there and it feels like we’re spending most of our time setting up Book 9. That indicates to me that we might be getting something sudden and unexpected.
Excellent!
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