Paksworld

About three days ago,  one of those ideas hit me that could be really good, sort of interesting, or not at all the right move.    It’s very spoiler-full, so here’s your first spoiler warning…if you don’t like spoilers, skip this post.

Still here?   Even so I’m going to give another spoiler warning, just in case you thought “Oh, she’s not really going to show us a spoiler.”

But I am, largely because of something two alpha readers said.

It starts here.  For those of you experienced in the Deed,  you’ll remember that the Count of Andressat, as seen by Paks in the campaign against Siniava, was a fussy older man, very proud of his ancestry and condescending to the Duke.   Her view of him, as a private in a mercenary company, was necessarily limited and shallow.

The Count of Andressat has always been dry, precise, punctilious; he was trained as a scholar and inherited after the death of an older brother.    However, he was also trained in leadership and governance, and to his credit his domain has always prospered, even when hard times came for others.   He’s hard-working, intelligent, honest, and though he can be severe (esp. if he feels his honor threatened) he’s not ever cruel.  He has brought up his children (he has both sons and daughters, and now grandchildren in early adulthood)  to have a sense of responsibility for those they rule, rigorous honesty, etc.  A good man, in other words, with a weakness (as have we all.)

On one point he has always been very stiff, and that’s bloodlines–first, that no member of the family, legitimate or not, be abandoned without good cause, and second, that gratitude is owed for family protection.   In K-I (final spoiler warning–here it comes),  readers find out that Burek, one of Arcolin’s new junior captains, is the Count’s illegitimate grandson, banished from Andressat for conduct unbecoming and ingratitude for the post he was offered.    But Burek is an honorable man, as readers see through his behavior in K-I.

In K-II,  the Count of Andressat is being heavily pressured by Alured the Black, now Duke of Immer, to become his vassal and (more importantly for the moment) to give Alured access to the Count’s archives,  where Alured hopes to find proof that he is the rightful king of all he surveys.   The Count refuses…he has been searching for the opposite reason, to disprove Alured’s claim, and has found materials that he knows will inflame Alured (while not proving his right) …and materials that prove his own vaunted ancestry is not what he always thought it was.    But he knows he can’t hold off Alured forever, not with his small army and the stranglehold that the Immerhoft Sea pirates (now more active again) have on his trade.

In disguise, then, he flees to the north, to tell the one person he thinks might raise an army and take on Alured, saving Aarenis (and his own realm.)    He does not get the aid he seeks, but does at least warn the north that Alured appears to have ambitions that span the continent and maybe beyond.  The journey takes much longer than he thought it would; he worries about what’s happening back home, and he hates the northern climate (it’s not just fussiness–he’s an old man by now and he’s never felt such cold or so much dampness.)   He knows Alured’s spies are after him–he’s been traveling incognito, but Alured’s had time to figure that out and send assassins on his trail.

In a last bid to get home safely, he’s with a squad of Phelani soldiers he’s hired, and Burek is their commander.   Everything goes well at first, but they’re attacked right on the northern border of Andressat itself.   The way it’s written now,  the ambush nearly succeeds–the Count  is unhurt, but one of the escort dies, and others, including Burek who has a badly injured arm, are wounded.    The Count has already seen that his bastard grandson is a good man and fine commander, and with his new understanding of his own family history he’s ready to give that up, and acknowledge Burek openly as part of the family.   He also tells his children the truth, and prepares them for the coming struggle…and two of them where he has hidden the papers that tell the truth about the Fall of Aare, papers that would inflame Alured’s ambitions without proving his right to have such ambitions.

All this seemed good when I first wrote it.   And the whole story arc has a lot of complications in it already–it’s not a simple forward run.    But I woke up the other day thinking “But what if Andressat did die in that ambush?”

He hasn’t yet explained anything to his children.   They don’t know about the hidden papers, though they would find them (they know about the hiding place, but not what’s in it right now.)     Which of his sons would really take over?   How firm would that one be in resisting Alured’s demands?    Would there be dissension among the sons?   And, for that matter, daughters?  The first book has a lot about Vonja (where Arcolin has a season’s contract) but not Cilwan, where one of the  Count’s daughters was married.   Would Burek’s father acknowledge him if the Count were dead?   Or blame him for the Count’s death and consider it revenge for the banishment?   How would Burek deal with the Count’s death–both as a professional failure and as a personal matter?   Andressat expanded after Siniava’s War–the Count laid claim to the South Marches, including Cha and Sibili and some of the ports like Confaer.  Would one or more sons want to make that a separate domain and, if so, how would that work?

The main plot impulsion is toward the final conclusion–unraveling the mystery of Aare’s fall and the restoration of “something.”    That will happen whether the Count of Andressat lives or dies at this particular time, but his survival or death will have long-lasting effects.

So muses the writer, as she has been musing for three days now.    (Not that I really want to rewrite the chapters involved, but should I?   And no, you don’t need to answer that.  This is just a window opening in the writer’s head so you can watch the gears clattering against one another, not yet meshed properly.)