Welcome to the Valdemar re-read! This week, we’re taking on chapters one and two of Arrows of the Queen, the first book in the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy. We’ll be meeting some major characters and taking an educational trip through Valdemar’s southern half. And although he’s been dead for a couple hundred years, we learn a surprising amount about Vanyel.
The Summary: Our first look at Valdemar is a long, hard stare at Talia Holderkin, carding wool and reading a book under a tree. Look! It’s me! Carding wool and actively reading are not activities that mesh well, in my limited experience with wool. You can’t turn pages while carding, and if you put the wool down it gets dirty. Talia seems to have read this book so many times she has it memorized. She has good taste—she’s reading about Vanyel, the historical hero whose saved Valdemar from certain destruction.
At a pivotal moment in the story, her stepmother calls her to the house to face her father and all of his wives. It’s her thirteenth birthday, and they want to know what kind of marriage she would like them to arrange for her. She can be a First Wife or an Underwife. Or, in a pinch, a nun. Being born in a creepy polygamist cult has major downsides.
Talia freaks out and flees to her secret cave to daydream about being rescued by a Herald and becoming a Herald herself. Talia has no idea how Heralds are chosen, so she’s shocked when a Companion appears. Talia stares deep into his eyes, and hears his voice in her head proclaiming her his Chosen . . . and then forgets about all of that, because the Companion tells her to. On the assumption that she’s returning a lost animal, Talia climbs onto the Companion’s back and plans to ask his Herald for a job scrubbing floors as a reward. Equipped only with a friendly horse, an unexciting career plan, and her sweet personality, Talia rides off for parts unknown.
Fascinating Valdemar Trivia: Talia is one of the Holderfolk who live near Valdemar’s southern border. In addition to being polygamous, they’re misogynistic and isolated and a lot of them are killed by raiders every Spring. Because of her origins, almost everything in the rest of Valdemar is new to Talia. She spends most of these chapters thinking about all the strange and different things she sees. Valdemaran society appears to be primarily agrarian and pre-industrial, but the roads are paved. There are LINE AND LINES of description of the mysterious hard surface covering the roads and the chiming sound of the Companion’s hooves on it. WHY? HOW? HOW DID THESE SIMPLE AGRARIAN PEOPLE PAVE THE ROADS? I vaguely recall that the answer is Vanyel, but it’s not in these first two chapters.
Vanyel is, though.
This is not a Vanyel book. This is a Talia book. Vanyel has a whole trilogy of his own, later. But Vanyel appears on page 6. His gentle lifemate, Bard Stefen, appears on page 7. Which is actually the third page of the text.
I don’t want to make too big a deal of a gay peripheral character. Vanyel wasn’t the first gay peripheral character in YA—there were gay dads, brothers, friends and teachers in young adult “problem novels” in the 70s and 80s. Nancy Garden’s 1982 novel, Annie on My Mind, is widely regarded as the first YA lesbian romance. But Vanyel was the first gay character I read about.
Arrows of the Queen was published in 1987, a year not remarkable for its tolerance. The AIDS crisis started years earlier, but unwillingness to address a “homosexual issue” meant that President Reagan was only just publicly acknowledging it for the first time. It was the year bullets were fired through Ryan White’s living room window. It was also a year of increasing acceptance—Barney Frank came out, and an estimated half a million people participated in the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Now, in 2014, it’s still hard for writers to include gay and lesbian characters in YA fiction. I can only imagine what it was like in 1987. Arrows of the Queen was Lackey’s first novel. An editor could have demanded that Vanyel be straight, or single, or not in the story. Making Vanyel who he was had consequences. Lackey took a stand on Vanyel.
Later, in his own books, Vanyel would face an anguished struggle to reveal himself to his family, but he didn’t have to come out to readers. Lackey was never ambiguous about his sexual orientation and she never hid it. Later, in his own books, Vanyel would face intolerance, but never from Heralds. Talia is going to take a little while to figure out what’s going on in her own story, but even she already knows that Heralds don’t do intolerance.
Tell me what you think in the comments, and tune in next week for chapters 3-5!
Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer teaches history and reads a lot.
I had forgotten until the reread that Lackey actually wrote this in omniscient third, which seems so odd now. Was that more in vogue at the time this was published? It strikes me as part of the…hmm…I want to say “newbie charm” of the early Valdemar books’ prose.
Really liked this series. Starts really slow though, can’t wait to get to the meatier stuff for commentary.
Thanks for doing it!
I’d not tread these before the alert last week that this reread was about to start. I’ve now read this first trilogy thanks to my Kindle and am working my way through all the ones I can borrow from the library.
Mainly I so wish I’d found these age about 12 or 13. I hate being 25 years too late to a series.
Except that Vanyel did face intolerance from heralds. Which led to an almost disasterous end. (Don’t want to get into too much detail here because spoilers.) That was one of the big changes that happened over the course of his trilogy, the slow change people around him becoming okay with who he was.
I loved these books when I was a teenager and still enjoy re-reading them. Go, Talia!
@@.-@ — was it from Heralds themselves, or from the Herald’s/Palace’s staff? Like… older, crochety dudes? There were fosterlings and warriors and royals and other types of people around. (I am trying not to spoil as well, but I am thinking of one specific character in particular who pretty much kicked off the whole spiral of HIGHLY self-destructive self-blame in Magic’s Pawn, and I seriously cannot for the life of me remember if he was an actual Herald or if he was a cleaner or an armorer or something. Lackey always has liked to keep the Heralds themselves Practically Perfect In Every Way. It was the point of Companions — a filtration system. And Tylendel was very clearly already out.)
I honestly can’t remember and am sincerely asking for clarification, as my books are not on the same continent with me at the present time.
@6: You may be thinking of the armsmaster, Jervis, who gave him his weapons training. This wasn’t at the palace, but while Vanyel was still living at home. Jervis wasn’t prejudiced against gays, and had served with them as a mercenary. However, Vanyel’s father Lord Withen, who guessed his son was gay, insisted that Jervis “make a man” of Vanyel, which involved a brutal training regime. Many years later he apologised to Vanyel for the mistakes he made while training him, and they became friends.
You might also be remembering how the Heralds blamed Vanyel for Tylendel’s death, and he telepathically heard them thinking this; after Vanyel tried to commit suicide, the Heralds realised that he had in fact loved Tylendel.
“You can’t turn pages while carding, and if you put the wool down it gets dirty. Talia seems to have read this book so many times she has it memorized.”
I reread this passage last night, 1. the pages are weighed down with stones and 2. it’s the new book she got from the pedlar and hasn’t read before.
I agree that carding and reading don’t seem to mesh, but I’ve only carded wool once so I’m not an expert!
Whether carding and reading at the same time is be possible would very much depend on your skill at each, as well as whether you wanted to to get to the next bit in the book as quickly as possible or to savour every word. Carding is one of those skills that doesn’t require conscious thought once you have learnt to do it, like knitting stocking stich or garter stich, you can feel if somethng needs attention otherwise youcan do it without looking at it. As for somewhere to put the carding down when turning pages, we know Talia has the basket she bought the wool and combs out in,this will be plenty large enough to rest the combs and half carded rolls in while she turns a page. The Holderkin have to teach their children to read and figure as that is the law, but that doesn’t mean they can read fast. I assumed Talia probably didn’t read that fast as she simply hadn’t been given the time to learn to and that she was savouring every word and sentence; we know she didn’t have many books (is three mentioned somewhere?) and that she tried to make new ones last as long as possible.
If this re-read goes on to the Vanyel series I’m sure we will discuss the reactions to Vanyel’s sexuality then, but my memory is that some Heralds are uncomfortable with homosexuality and that one of the reasons Savil isn’t is her experiences with the Hawkbrothers. I certainly disagree with the idea that Lackey presents the Heralds as near perfect, there is a lot of drama based on the fact they Heralds are not perfect including Heralds that like to gossip, that are prejudiced, that simply don’t communicate well with one another.
I’m remembering a particular individual whose thoughts Vanyel overheard when his Gifts had just been forcibly opened, who blamed him for Tylendel by saying/thinking that Vanyel had manipulated him like an alcoholic, equating T’s sexuality with addiction and immediately triggering V’s attempt to self-destruct in guilt. Was that a Herald? It may well have been, it’s been years for me (and in the interim I admit I grew to actively resent some of the black and white characterization that crept into the post-Lavan books, which was absent from the first books I loved).
“Later, in his own books, Vanyel would face an anguished struggle to reveal himself to his family, but he didn’t have to come out to readers. Lackey was never ambiguous about his sexual orientation and she never hid it.”
Huh. I had a memory that Stefen was described as female in this book. I must have been confusing Talia’s perspective – and associated feminine pronouns – with Stefen’s.
@11–That character is Herald Jaysen, and it’s made plain that he does have those prejudices. But it’s also made plain that he’s completely horrified by what his prejudices almost caused, and by the next book, he’s perfectly comfortable with Vanyel.
Fun fact, I started with the Vanyel books and thus was very confused by the talking horses business (a friend lent the books to me). But he was my first queer character in anything (if you except Sailor Moon, which I had to back then because isn’t censorship fun?). I never though about it the other way around, how he was actually introduced at the very beginning of the series, even if it’s through a history book.
Wow, definitely didn’t expect the first two chapters to get into cultural perceptions of gay minor characters in the 1980’s, bravo to you. Can’t wait to see what you make of Ylsa and Keren in later chapters.
re comment 4
Vanyel faced intolerance from heralds for who and what he was involved with and how and why he became a herald , NOT for his sexual identity
@15 – Thanks! And I promise it will come up again. In the process of writing this post, I did several days worth of research on LGBT characters in YA in the 1980s that ultimately didn’t make it into the post. Given the difficulties that stories with LGBT characters continue to face, I absolutely could not let Lackey’s decision to out Vanyel on page three pass without comment.
@12- Although I am rereading this for the someteenth time, I was also surprised to see Stefen as Vanyel’s lover so early in the book. I hunted down a first edition and double-checked. There is a random female Herald in that scene, but Stefen is clearly male. I guess you could misread the relationship implied by “gentle lifemate” but you would have to work pretty hard.
The answer to the question about the roads being paved isn’t necessarily Vanyel himself, but it is “magic did it”. There’s a comment much later in the book, when Talia’s in her Gift training class, about how true magic has mostly been forgotten, and how it’d be nice to be able to use it to build buildings and pave roads and stuff the way Mages did it years ago.
Oh my word I have just found this blog series and am going to read every single post. These books were my everything as an 11 year old, and I spent many hours rereading them and imagining who I’d be, had I had the good fortune to be born in Valdemar. My imaginary Companion even had a name (no, I’m not telling you what it was).
The way that Vanyel’s sexuality was treated left a big impression on me – I wanted to be his BFF, and to stroke his beautiful silky black hair and protect him from his enemies and just generally hang out and play music. Talia I admired but never loved in the same way, I don’t know why – maybe because she’s so dutiful? Perhaps on a reread I’d have more time for her.