It’s time for another in our ongoing review series of K.J.
Parker’s serial novel, Two of Swords. We’re up to part fifteen now. It follows
on directly from part fourteen, which ended...explosively. An armed man had
burst in on our previous protagonist. To the surprise of probably no-one at
this point, that man is serving as our protagonist for this chapter – at least
mostly, more on that later. There’s a bit of politicking in this segment, and
some nice relationships - including some
spot on dialogue. The broader picture is at least partially affected, and the
readers get to see more of it, which is great. It’s also a section where things
get a bit bloody – I’m not sure anyone’s hands are clean by the close.
Our new protagonist is a Major in one or the other of the
Imperial armies, and has turned up in order to make off with the slightly
mysterious woman we caught up with in the last section. Parker manages to draw
us his character quickly, and then fill in the detail – a wry, tired man,
trying to do what he sees as a hard but necessary job under difficult
circumstances. That the job involves mangonels and kidnapping is neither here
nor there. It’s an attitude you see in a lot of Parker’s characters – people doing
the best job they can, even when the job is an awful one, their efforts to halt
the widening spread of chaos met with quite the reverse. Still, there’s layers
to the Major. We’re examining the gap between perception and reality, between
the three kinds of truth, again. He’s a man happy to claim he’d burn a library,
or organise a massacre to get what he needs – and says afterwards, feels afterward,
that he wouldn’t have done so. Whether he actually would is another matter, and
that ambiguity of character is a real high point of this part of the text.
Another is the Major’s relationship with one of his
subordinates, and with their newly acquired cargo. The latter is embodied in
tense, spiked dialogue. Each dances around the other, and there’s a sense that
at least one of them is looking to draw blood – emotional, if not physical. The contrast with the Major’s relationship to
his subordinate Captain is clear. There’s a less formal respectful dynamic
there, a sense of two people who’ve worked together for a long time. If not
banter, then there’s a sort of sly acknowledgment of who and where they are,
and the absurdity of their position. Parker manages to spin this friendship out
of passing remarks and stray thoughts, and lets the reader fill in the rest –
but it works.
Geographically, we spend rather a lot of time on the sea.
There’s a fair amount of boating, general seasickness, and so on. But there’s
also tours to Blemya – allowing the reader to catch up on events there since
the queen’s last appearance – and other areas, more mired in the ongoing
conflict. As usual, Parker pulls out some rich, imaginative prose that really
makes these locations come alive – the creaking claustrophobia of shipboard,
the elaborate grandeur of the Blemyan Great Hall, the quiet brooding of the
moorlands. It’s a world that’s close enough o our own to be familiar in a lot
of ways, and the narrative makes it come alive.
For the plot – well, as ever, no spoilers. But there’s
rather a lot of blood in this one. And we finally get a view of the purported
goals of the Lodge in the war. Or at least some of them. Of course, Two of
Swords has been full of misdirection and conflicting agenda’s so far, so it’s
possible they aren’t the whole truth. But still, it’s nice to get a sense of
the wider picture. The smaller story, of the Major’s journey with his captive
and his men, is pleasantly, intimately told, and a thoroughly enjoyable read; though
the sense that we’re entering the endgame hovers over the narrative, a brooding
stormcloud of promise.
At this stage, I suspect you know if you’re invested enough in
the series to keep reading it. I will say that this is one of the quieter
instalments (bloody parts aside), but one which looks like it could have a
strong impact on the larger story as the narrative ramps up – and that made it
well worth reading.
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