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Our story opens many years after the events of Swordspoint (Book 1) and many years before the events of The Fall of the Kings (Book 2). This time, in an effective change from the third-person viewpoint of previous books, we're in the first-person viewpoint of Katherine, the teenaged niece of Alec who is now known as the Mad Duke Tremontaine. Katherine's mother, who has long been estranged from her brother Alec, has fallen upon hard times. A shaky marriage and legal problems have reduced her to poverty. Fearing to lose her home and lands, she contacts her brother for help. Alec agrees to do so for a price: his sister must send Katherine to stay with him for a time. Katherine's mom doesn't trust him, but she's desperate enough to agree to this bargain. She salves her conscience by telling herself that maybe Alec is finally showing interest in his niece because he means to finance Katherine's debut in society so that she may find a good husband. Excited and a little worried, Katherine travels to Alec's sumptuous house on the Hill. He turns out to be rude, decadent, and mercurial. He pretends to forget her name, he kisses young men in front of her, and he's drunk and bitter and sarcastic. In short, he's recognizably the sociopath whom we came to know in Swordspoint. Except that now he seems to have real grief underlying his obnoxious behavior: his lover Richard St. Vier seems to be … missing. Not that Katherine knows about St. Vier. Though assertive and good-natured, she finds her uncle the source of all new problems with which to grapple. The first thing Alec does is to confiscate all of her gowns and proper clothing. From now on she will have to dress as a boy and take fencing lessons. Why? Supposedly because Alec could use yet one more swordsman to act as his bodyguard and to duel with other swordsmen on his behalf to settle obscure points of honor. In reality, though, it's because it amuses him. This seems incredibly cruel to say the least because swordsmen die all the time in duels fought for the decadent nobility. Katherine, a short and stocky girl, is not going to have the reach, strength, or weight of your average man. Plus, in this world, a girl only gets one chance to debut in society and make a favorable impression in order to catch a good husband. Katherine, of all people, needs a good match if she is to help herself and her family from ending up in the poorhouse. But Katherine is young, optimistic, and curious. She swallows her indignation, and sets about her lessons with a hot-tempered foreign instructor who pretends, somewhat unconvincingly, that he thinks she's a boy. She gets better at her sword lessons. She also learns much about society, including witnessing the disastrous engagement between an innocent young girl whom she would like to befriend and a ruthless nobleman who wants to use his connections to her family to further his political ambitions. Several subplots branch off from the intrigue at the heart of this novel. In the meantime, Katherine gets skilled enough that she needs a truly transcendent fencing instructor. Imagine her surprise when the Duke packs her off to his boarded-up estate in the countryside where she meets the enigmatic Richard St. Vier, the greatest swordsman of a generation. (It's heartbreaking and shocking when we realize what has happened to him.) As she trains with him, she comes to love him. On New Year's Eve, Alec unexpectedly shows up alone; to Katherine's displeasure, he has come to visit. She falls into a half-sleep (drugged by Alec so that he can have St. Vier to himself). He and St. Vier have their love-making (filtered through Katherine's uncomprehending viewpoint), and then argue. They do have a problem, and I can see St. Vier's side of it. Somewhat like an over-the-hill gunslinger, he'd risk his own safety if he joined Alec back in the city where everyone would want to challenge him. But I never really understood why Alec couldn't retire to the remote estate in order to be with St. Vier. Anyway, it's a remarkable scene that subtly conveys how much in love they are. You finally start to understand Alec's misery. From this point on, you come to know Alec, in all his complexities, more and more. You even come to like him. He and Katherine are vivid characters, outshining even the colorful characters in the previous books. Because of this, The Privilege of the Sword is the best book in the series. But fans of homoerotic fiction, like me here at ObsidianBookshelf.com, will have a special place in their hearts for Swordspoint. |
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