Chapters 10-15 - The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (Also: The Painted Man)

 As I was typing my review of Section 2 in Wordpad or Notepad- whatever the program is called now a days, the program crashed and deleted 20 minutes worth of typing. I am not amused by it and should have used Word as a word processor to begin with.

I blew through Section 2 and got carried away with reading it. It is half the length of Section 1 which introduced us to the three main characters. The corelings take a back seat (briefly) as we get to Arlen and his master Cob. Miln has not seen the wards of the hamlets outside; and Cob claimed others in Miln would pay a fortune to access them. Arlen, wanting to share and increase knowledge overall got shot down with the reality of human greed- that money must be exchanged and secrets kept to stay in business.

Both arrive at a contract proposal to ward the Great Library of the Duke. In exchange for completing the work after the rough pieces are made by Cob, Arlen gets lifetime access to the library and Cob takes the money. The daughter of the head priest, Meri is talked into introducing herself to Arlen, who at first befriends her because of her knowledge and access to other materials. This will quickly change as both begin to form a romantic relationship.

Arlen begins to become a lot like Regan and Meri a lot like Elissa. The difference being that Elissa did not break up with Regan over Regan becoming a Messenger. Arlen wants to do it for the right reasons, to make humanity better and to help stop the coreling threat and somehow defeat the idea in his head that he failed to protect his mother and could have done so if he had the knowledge at the time.

With his job complete and Regan’s retirement at the birth of his new child, and having no one else to return to in Miln- Arlen sneaks out on his way to complete a contract for the Messenger’s Guild, despite not being a full blown Messenger yet. He escapes before Elissa and Meri can stop him so that Meri can apologize. She realizes her mistake and in her fit of emotions will go after him.

Leesha continues to learn as an apprentice under Bruna, now at the age of around 108 to 112 with Leesha being 20 years old. She is very attractive and a lot of the town debases themselves to carnal desire by cat-calling, copping feels and making her feel uncomfortable. A mistake- for she knows the secrets of the community and, as stated, she has seen almost everyone in the town naked. Bruna has softened during Leesha’s training.

A letter is delivered to Bruna requesting Leesha’s assistance in Angiers. A proposal is made to swap apprentices so that Leesha could learn more outside of the hamlet and so that the unnamed apprentice could gain tutelage under Bruna. The exchange is made, except Leesha has to travel the roads for a week or more with a lecherous Messenger that radiates danger.

Garred at this point is 7 feet tall, (Shaqueal O’Neal size) and if he grabbed you by the throat he could probably pop you like a pimple. He is still under the impression that Leesha is promised to him, and not the other way around in a mutual agreement. It is largely left unsaid that the vows of promising are null, void and more or less shot since they were broken. People believed he would turn into a huge dick- and a huge dick he became.

The poor woman. She absolutely deserves better. Her father, Erny finally got the hint years ago and then grew, then dropped a pair. He loves his daughter, and she him. He did what he needed to do as a parent and as a human being, and I respect that. From conversations he has with others he is definitely a good man and one of ‘the good ones’.

Leesha must suffer the Messenger and his protection for a week or more on the road. Instead of fighting a losing battle, or so she figures- she uses the situation to her advantage and ultimately prevents herself from becoming a rape victim. The Messenger can’t salute at attention. Banish a Russian from his kremlin- blow up the bologna sausage- you catch my drift. Of course Leesha had something to do with it. The life of a boy was in jeopardy in Angiers- and she decided that saving him was more important than stopping what she perceived as an inconvenience. That, my friends is a very strong and smart woman.

Rojer and his Master Arrick owe money to the landlord and are at risk of being kicked out. Rojer performs without his master and a license and manages, after an unfair cut of the pay when caught, to make enough to pay the rent for some time. Arrick is too busy lying unconscious and throwing up in his booze’en’puker of a home to do anything. When he can, he does perform with Rojer. We learn that Rojer is amazing with a fiddle as he earns the monicker ‘Rojer Halfgrip’ to prevent the crowd from taking his ‘deformity’ down a path where it did not need to go. That was smart of Arrick. What antics will they be involved in next? I couldn’t tell you.