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r/Fantasy•
psofimis

The Sarantine Mosaic(Spoilers)

OK I need a Gavriel Guy Kay expert here because my questions are very specific and about details that most of the readers will probably miss/pass or forget after a while.

  • What did Rustem notice in Gisel at Kasia's Wedding party in Shirin's home that made him gasp?

I know it probably had something to do with Gisel's seduction of Leontes a few pages later but still I'm not sure.

  • What exactly Leontes likes to do with a pillow? Stylliane mentions it a couple of times on Crispin and Leontes also does it with Gisel. Is it something weirder than I think?

  • I know that it's Gisel decision to sleep with him...

Knew what she was doing. Had no idea what it might achieve. Something in play, on the board, her body. Face to a pillow that second time, she cried out in the dark, in the night, for so many reasons.

...but in the end did she hurt her so much that we may consider the night as rape?

  • What happened to Elita(Alixana's Spy)? Why didn't she run away with her master in the end? I know that the Empress was a adventurous woman in her youth but wouldn't it be helpful to have a companion on the road after so many years in the palace? I think she stayed hidden for more than a year before she decided to go to Crispin so I can imagine it wasn't easy for her alone.

In any way it was an excellent story on par with "The Lions of Al-Rassan" which I find the best of Kay's work. I have only Fionavar series and River of Stars left from this exceptional author...

Ps: Sorry for my poor english..

Posted Jun 12, 2014, 12:54 PM UTC

145
ushox•

Fionavar is different. Not bad at all but different in its tone. Less poetic.

4
gemthing•

Yup, I felt the same way about Fionavar. I think if they had been my first exposure to Kay, I would have enjoyed them more, but reading them after Lions, Sarantine and Arbonne, they just felt......lacking. Like you said, less poetic. Perhaps less moments where I had to put down the book for a while to absorb all that happened.

1
psofimisOP•

Yes I know and I think I made a mistake by leaving them for the end but I am not going to pass them for sure. Guy Gavriel Kay never disappointed me and I'll certainly give a chance of his earliest work because that's all I ll have left from him when I finish River of Stars.....

1
shandorin•

  1. I think Rustem was just awed by Gisel's beauty and regal presence and yaddayadda. You know the stuff. I mean she WAS one of the most distinguished-looking women even in Sarantium.

  2. The quote in your next bullet might answer this one. "head to pillow" => from behind, or even in the butt, maybe.

  3. Again from your own quote: "Knew what she was doing". Hard to pin down that as a rape of any kind with that kind of an intro.

  4. I don't remember anything related to this from the book, but it might be that Aliana didn't want to push her new, rather bleak life on her trusted and probably even beloved former servant.

4
psofimisOP•
  1. I don't think it was that simple because Stylliane was right beside Gisel and he didn't act quite like that when he saw her even though she must have been the most impressive woman in there. I remember that he could see kinds of poisons when he was treating his Kings of Kings and I thought that Gisel after her easy seduction of honorable and rightful Leontes that she put something on her to make easier her job and that Rustem spotted this when he saw her. Gisel never mentioned something to point in that direction later from her PoV but I was surpriced by how easy a man like Leontes cheated his wife...

2,3) Yes thats what I thought also and even though it wasn't likely a rape I think it wasn't in the end a night to remember for a young and inexperienced girl like Gisel.

Thanks for your answers!

1