Gate of Horn, Book of Silk
Page 18
Commentary: it seems that Babbie’s dreamform is human because he admires Horn and Silkhorn so much he would like to be human himself. His dreamform spectacles probably correct his vision. (Silkhorn wears glasses, too.)
Bacherozzolo [bah-keh-ROH-zoh-loh] name of a place or feature (hills, a river) near Soldo (VII, chap. 17, 249).
Italian: maggot, caterpillar, worm, grub.
Badour “the Urth guard who leaves his post to take Incanto, Hide, Jahlee, Mora, and others to his officer” (VI, list; VI, chap. 22, 331; VI, chap. 23, 340). Later on he beats Jahlee (340) because she bit him on the neck at sexual climax (VI, chap. 24, 357).
Literature: the similarly named Badoura is the heroine of the Arabian Nights tale “Amours of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura.” Because of the amorous nature, this might be significant.
Onomastics: a French surname, probably from Badoux. But there is also the Occitan word badou, meaning “stupid”; and the Muslim name Baddour meaning “brave” (from Persian).
Arabic: role; seeds; initiated.
Commentary: at long last we have the reason why the guard of the necropolis was not at his post in the opening pages of The Book of the New Sun.
Bahar “one of the Rajan’s ministers” (V, list). The name “should mean he is fat” (V, chap. 12, 288). “He was one of those who forced me to come here” (V, chap. 12, 309), that is, Bahar is a member of Hari Mau’s expedition to the Long Sun Whorl. He is part of the retreat when the war with Han is going badly (V, chap. 12, 287).
Hindi: a word meaning “jut.”
Bala “Sinew’s wife” (VI, list). Met at home (VI, chap. 24, 363), she has yellow hair (371). She is the reason why Sinew broke with his father Horn.
She was born in Qarya on Green, her mother being one of the refugee women taken in by the colony (or captured in raids by the men). Her sons are Shauk (age 3) and Karn (age 2). When Silkhorn sees her, she is broader than Horn remembers (363).
Onomastics: Hindu name meaning “girl, a young girl.”
Commentary: the children seem to be too old to be Sinew’s by blood, since he has only been on Green for a year or two when Silkhorn visits.
bale Silkhorn finds a bale of paper among the bandits’ loot, and so begins writing the third volume of his narrative (VII, chap. 1, 13). A bale is either five reams (2,500 sheets) or 5,000 sheets. See MEASUREMENT TABLE.
baletiger creature of Blue (V, chap. 7, 189). The tracks found in the snow around the tethered horse by the Vanished People’s altar might be those of a bale tiger (VI, chap. 19, 286). Incanto and Hide meet this predator at Fava’s grave (293) and work out a hunting arrangement of mutual benefit. The baletiger drives the prey toward Hide, who shoots them. Then the baletiger carries their portion to the camp, where Incanto tells him to put it down and go away (chap. 20, 311).
Commentary: the Barsoomian lion of Edgar Rice Burroughs has ten legs and is called banth.
bandits Silkhorn, Hide, and Jahlee are robbed by nine bandits north of Dorp (VII, chap. 3, 74). Jahlee slips her bonds the moment the bandits leave (VII, chap. 1, 20). They pursue the bandits and kill them all. Silkhorn beats one to death with his staff; Hide shoots at others (22). A wounded bandit, probably the last one, says they can take whatever they want if they will only spare him. Silkhorn rashly promises. In any event, Jahlee drains him to death (VII, chap. 4, 55).
The bandit loot includes a bale of paper (VII, chap. 1, 13), wine (21), and some jewelry, including the coral necklace Silkhorn later gives to Vadsig (VII, chap. 5, 100).
Barsat “a woodcutter of Gaon” (V, list). He had seen a group of Vanished People on three occasions and felt they were not friendly (V, chap. 9, 212). Silkhorn wishes he still had the ring Seawrack gave to Horn, “if only to help me with Barsat” (V, chap. 10, 253). At the Vanished People’s house, Barsat says the house is happy now—presumably since Silkhorn is there. It then gives Silkhorn a silver chalice (V, chap. 11, 265). Later Windcloud says he gave the cup.
Hindi: rain.
Battle of Blanko this decisive engagement in the Soldo-Blanko War takes place near Jahlee’s abandoned farm, a day’s ride on horseback from Blanko (VII, chap. 21, 320), or two days’ march. It is at the last plowlands before the mountains.
When the war begins, Incanto’s initial strategy is to buy out the mercenaries at the saddle of the hills and sow confusion among Soldo’s allies with false letters to Novella Citta and Olmo. When the time for the Battle of Blanko comes, he uses more trickery. Blanko’s force at that point is made up of old men, women, and boys. There are a few mercenaries, being Inclito’s rear guard, but most of the horde (50 to 100 troopers) had retreated to Blanko. Incanto cultivates a look of ridiculous weakness, but he has sandbag walls and a ditch for defense, and fireworks to cause confusion, while hidden in the grainfields are trip-ropes and pairs of boars tethered together.
But he also has three pieces of artillery hidden: one in a haystack, one in a barn, and the third in the woods. All of them are sighted on the area behind the line of infantry (264).
At the battle, Inclito is at the sandbag walls in the center. Incanto is at the hedgerow near the fireworks station, at Blanko’s right flank (VI, chap. 17, 260). Sfido has the left flank.
Soldo’s Dragoons take the bait and sweep towards Incanto’s seemingly weak section while the infantry comes down from the hills to the north. The trap works effectively, demolishing the cavalry and scattering the infantry.
Beled “a costal town on Blue settled by people from Trivigaunte” (V, list). It is mentioned by Wijzer, who makes it sound as though it is near to New Viron, presumably the first port on the way to Dorp (V, chap. 4, 113). It is to the north (114), and as such, it seems to be the town that Horn skipped on his voyage up the coast: “That plan [of avoiding towns] held only until I had passed the first” (V, chap. 5, 128). Later, however, it is said to be south of New Viron (VII, chap. 10, 207).
The pirates Horn encounters are almost certainly from Beled. (See PIRATES.)
Arabic: a word meaning “countryside,” also used for village, town, district, or country.
Bello, Colonel “an officer in the horde of Blanko” (VI, list). One of the two men Incanto chooses to witness the negotiations with the mercenaries of the saddle in the hills (VI, chap. 12, 184). The other is Vivo.
Italian: beautiful, handsome.
Beroep “a householder of Dorp, Aanvagen’s husband” (VII, list; VII, chap. 5, 101). He is a portly man (100).
Later on in New Viron, Silkhorn says he feels sorry for Beroep, which puzzles Hoof (VII, chap. 16, 339). This comes after Silkhorn has a “strange dream” of talking with Scylla on the ceiling, which he tells to Hoof. Since Scylla might have figured into Aanvagen’s “strange dream,” this seems to imply that Beroep’s wife is possessed by Scylla. Backing up further, Aanvagen casually mentions Scylla in her conversation with Silkhorn (VII, chap. 5, 94). Immediately after this, Silkhorn has a dream of Mora, Fava, and Scylla, while Aanvagen has a dream of Mora and Fava (VII, chap. 5, 102). Silkhorn says in Aanvagen’s dream there is an indication of Molpe in the presence of the children (103).
Or perhaps, unrelated to Aanvagen, it could mean that Beroep has suffered mishap at sea.
Dutch: profession.
Bison, Caldé “Maytera Mint’s husband, presently caldé of Viron” (VII, list; VII, chap. 10, 194). (See entry in LS Half.)
Zoology: the shaggy-maned, short-horned bovine animal of western North America.
Blanko “a town on Blue founded by colonists from Grandecitta” (VI, list). It is located northwest of Gaon, on a river that is probably a tributary of the Nadi. In high contrast to Gaon’s tropical weather, Blanko has substantial snowfall in winter.
The town has “no proper augurs” (VI, chap. 5, 99). “In Blanko they teach that when men and women die, the Outsider or some other god sends his servants to enlist their spirits” (VII, chap. 9, 187).
Blanko’s government seems to be a democracy, with the Corpo, but they are leaning toward maki
ng Inclito their strongman against the Duko of Soldo. This could be more like an elected president or more like a hereditary aristocrat, and it arises from the fact that democracies are usually weak toward neighboring dictators.
Blanko has a building for the Corpo, a sewer, and a failed sewer that becomes a makeshift jail. The abandoned farmhouse that Jahlee takes as her own for a while is located a daylong ride on horseback from Blanko (VI, chap. 21, 320), to the north.
Blanko’s money is the cardbit, a little square of silver (VI, chap. 5, 74).
Blanko fought Heleno ten years ago (VI, chap. 2, 45). Poliso was allied to Heleno at that time (48).
Esperanto: white. Other towns with Esperanto names are Heleno and Poliso.
Blazingstar “a New Vironese merchant” (V, list). A woman with a trading company and two farms, she visits at the start of the series as one of the group of five that sends Horn on his mission, the others being Eschar, Gyrfalcon, Marrow, and Remora (V, chap. 1, 21). She was perhaps on the same lander as Gyrfalcon (21), and she left the Long Sun Whorl sixteen years ago (24). Sinew refers to her as “that witchy lady” (35). She becomes caldé after Gyrfalcon (VII, Afterword).
Botany: purple wildflower. Also known as gayfeather, which is a name used in The Book of the Long Sun.
blind man in the sewers Horn meets this enigmatic character in the sewer below the inhumi city and tries to figure out who he might be—if he could be Auk (VI, chap. 4, 64). The blind man leads him to the blockage. After Horn has cleared all he can, the man tries to kill him, but then the corpse-dam collapses and they are swept away by the resulting flood.
Commentary: the blind man cannot be Auk, since Auk is later a prisoner of Sinew.
Blood “a crime lord of Viron, now dead” (V, list; chap. 4, 97). (See entry in LS Half.)
Anatomy: in medieval times the sanguinary humor of the body. See MUCOR.
Blue “the better of the two habitable planets of the Short Sun System” (V, list). Blue is a world very much like Earth. It has a day presumably around 24 hours long, and its year is likewise assumed to be about 365 days. Blue occupies an Earth-like orbit around the Short Sun, and there is some question as to whether Green has an inner orbit (like our Venus) or an outer orbit (like our Mars).
The life forms of Blue have double limbs compared to their counterparts on Earth. So the Neighbors have four legs and four arms; the hus and leatherskin have eight legs; the white fishcatchers have four wings; etc.
Animals
• Baletiger
• Bluebilly—a fish (V, chap. 10, 252).
• Breakbull
• Crabbit—a sea creature (I, chap. 13, 329).
• Elephant—has eight legs and two trunks (I, chap. 12, 301).
• Felwolf
• Flat island creature—see THING ON THE GREEN PLAIN.
• Fourgoat
• Hus
• Jellystar—perhaps a cross between a jellyfish and a starfish (I, chap. 13, 314).
• Leatherskin
• Nittimonk
• Rainbow-frog
• Rockwren
• Shambass
• Shearbear
• Snowcat
• Two-hands spider—rat-catcher (I, chap. 13, 321).
• Wallower
• Waterhorse
• White fishcatchers—stork-like birds (VII, chap. 11, 232).
• White trout (VI, chap. 22, 327).
Plants
• Blue cup-o’-scents—flower (VII, chap. 17, 340).
• Flintwood (I, chap. 9, 214).
• Floatflowers (VII, chap. 13, 274).
• Gem wood (VI, chap. 14, 214).
• Incense willow (I, chap. 2, 63).
• Scythe grass (I, chap. 9, 226).
• Seaspume—aromatic plant (VII, chap. 20, 400).
• Singing oak (VI, chap. 14, 214).
• Snowbirch
• Sparkle—a fruit that one peels before eating (VII, chap. 17, 341).
Commentary: there are a number of details about Blue that point toward Barsoom, the seminal vision of Mars put forth by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Barsoom is famous for multi-limbed native life forms, with the green Martians having six limbs, and most Martian animals having ten limbs (the banth and the calot), eight limbs (the thoat), or six (the sorak and the white ape).
Book of Horn Silkhorn’s title for The Book of the Short Sun (V, chap. 1, 41).
Book of the Long Sun Horn and Nettle’s great literary work. Copied by hand, by Nettle and sometimes by others (V, chap. 2, 50), it is nearly a thousand pages long (VII, chap. 12, 251). Perhaps the best copy is the one Horn gives to Marble. This unabridged version seems to have Chenille drawing a picture of Silk in colored chalk (V, chap. 2, 50). This is only alluded to in our version of The Book of the Long Sun, when Chervil describes a fresh drawing in chalk and charcoal on a fence, and Silk says he will talk to the female artist about it (II, chap. 6, 162).
More details of its composition emerge in the course of The Book of the Short Sun. For example, the kite maker is identified as a direct source for details involving the scheme to bring down a Flier. The following is a non-exhaustive list, given in order of appearance:
• “Chenille’s description of the way in which the heads of taluses are made” (V, chap. 2, 52).
• “From what Auk and Chenille had told Nettle and me, Pas’s daughter Scylla was willful, violent, and vindictive” (V, chap. 2, 59).
• “I heard from her own lips how Chenille had wandered naked through the tunnels” (V, chap. 6, 156).
• “Chenille once told Nettle about a man, a starving convict, named Gelada” (V, chap. 9, 201).
• “Hare had joined General Mint after Blood died, and had told them about the eagle and the old kite maker’s praying to Molpe for a wind” (VII, chap. 1, 18).
• “When Nettle and I wrote our few pages about Blood . . . there was nothing left to do but write it down as we had heard it from Silk and Hyacinth and the old man who had built the kite” (VII, chap. 6, 117).
• “Chenille told my wife a good deal about it [the episode when Scylla had spoken through her and said that Pas was called Typhon on Urth] not long after” (VII, chap. 6, 133).
This information, rearranged into Long Sun volume order and table format:
Book of the Short Sun a three volume work that is a sequel to The Book of the Long Sun. The first volume alternates chapters telling of Horn setting out from Lizard at the beginning of the story, and the Rajan’s ruling of Gaon somewhere at the middle of the story. The second volume alternates between Horn’s experience on Green and Incanto’s adventures in Blanko. These volumes are authored by Silkhorn.
The third volume follows the same pattern, alternating between Silkhorn’s strange time on the Long Sun Whorl and Silkhorn’s weird journeys from Dorp to New Viron, but the authorship is quite different. The Long Sun Whorl material was written by Daisy, Hide, and Vadsig (hereafter referred to as the “DHV text”); Hoof wrote two chapters about visiting the Red Sun Whorl; and Daisy wrote the wedding chapter as well as the final part of the Afterword. So Silkhorn wrote less than half of the text in the final volume.
Silkhorn is really Silk writing about Horn, a mirror image of Horn writing about Silk.
The DHV text is written by a group of people who have never been to the Long Sun Whorl. It seems like pastiche, and in fact it must be, a reworking of material and details from The Book of the Long Sun.
Book of Silk “Horn and Nettle’s great literary work, also called The Book of the Long Sun” (V, list).
breakbull a creature of the Shadelow continent on Blue (V, chap. 11, 274). On his way back to camp after his momentous meeting with the Neighbors, Horn chances upon a breakbull and kills it. This impresses He-pen-sheep very much.
The breakbull head, standing on its muzzle, is nearly as tall as He-pen-sheep’s son, and the spread of its horns is greater than Horn’s outstretched arms (280–81).
Bricco “a small child cared
for by Fava” (VI, list). In Fava’s story “The Washed Child,” the three-year-old boy was going to be drowned by his mother in a mountain stream. Fava rescued him and they called him “Bricco” because he had been so black when they got him (VI, chap. 2, 41).
Italian: brick; jug; summit.
Brother “a small boy living with his sister in a forest northwest of Gaon” (V, list; V, chap. 16, 378).
Bruna “a docile mule belonging to Inclito” (VI, list; VI, chap. 10, 175).
Onomastics: a Germanic name meaning “brown,” but also “armor” and “shining.”
Bush “a tavern in Pajarocu” (V, list). The foreigners waiting to board the lander have a meeting at this place to decide the fate of the man whose wife had been bitten by an inhumu while he was away from their boat, drinking at the tavern (V, chap. 14, 353). Sinew expects he will be whipped (356).
Bushdog a young man of New Viron, in the group who raped and murdered Lily (“The Night Chough”).