On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, M J wrote: > >---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- >From: Mark A Mandel <mam at theworld.com> >Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 22:42:52 -0500 [snippitry] >>[K] "Well, I have seen her, if I am not mistaken. Was she not, some >>years ago, one of Her Majesty's maids of honor, and is she not now the >>Phoenix Heir?" >> >>Here, I nearly believe, we have an explicit and authoritative statement >>that Loudin is the Phoenix Heir, very shortly before Adron's Disaster >>and the Interregnum. >WHICH REMINDS ME! > >Is there at ANY point some hint of _Loudin_'s parentage? > >I could swear that I saw at some point a reference to Noima having >been delivered of a child. It's a throwaway line of Paarfi's [snippitry] >Could this child have been Loudin? While it's like Paarfi to say >something so potentially important and then never mention it again >because he's caught sight of something even shinier a few hours >later, this was PRETTY COOL even for a throwaway. > >And now I can't find it, even though I'm sure it was in FHYA >_somewhere_. > Booksearch rocks, baby! The name "Noima" occurs only a few times in FHYA, and in Chapter 6, Page 73 we find: It is certainly the case that, on some occasions, her Majesty the Consort, Noima, would accompany his Majesty into his bedchamber, and it is also the case that it is only Khaavren who knew how often this was done. Yet this is one subject upon which the Tiassa has never breathed a word, and so we are left to engage in unseemly speculation, or not. The fact that the Consort was delivered of a child must be held sufficient to our purposes. Hmm. For some reason, I was certain that Loudin was Noima's child, yet I see that the phrasing "now the Phoenix Heir", as does Khaavren's apparently distant awareness of her, strongly suggests that she was not the Heir before. However, it also occurs to me that Khaavren was indulging in a bit of polite irony with his phrasing, since it would have been rude to declaim, "You ninny, I've known Loudin since she was born, and I'm the one (besides her parents) who could best guess when she was conceived!"