97 pages • 3 hours read
Samantha ShannonThe Priory of the Orange Tree
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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Part 1, Chapters 17-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Stories of Old”
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “West”
Loth and Kit finally meet Donmata Marosa in her court several days after their arrival. The Donmata’s head is encased in an enormous “horned mask of iron” (184), and the atmosphere of her court is hostile. The only person who seems friendly is Lady Priessa, the Donmata’s chief lady-in-waiting. The Donmata tells Loth that she has not been invited to Sabran’s upcoming wedding. Loth is surprised to learn that Sabran is getting married, but he conceals his reaction. Loth asks the princess about the whereabouts of Wilstan Fynch, the ambassador to Yscalin and Sabran’s father, but she professes ignorance.
The Donmata then commands Priessa to dance with Loth. During the dance, Priessa slips a piece of parchment into Loth’s hand: The message asks Loth to later meet Priessa near the palace library. When Loth reaches the spot, he is surprised to find a different woman in Priessa’s robes. Her long black hair and topaz eyes give the woman away as the Donmata. The Donmata tells Loth she has no option but to meet him in secret, since Yscalin not only worships the Nameless One but is under forced Draconic rule. Her father, the king, is in thrall to Fýredel. Wilstan Fynch tried to help the Donmata break free of the wyrm’s spell but died in the process. Now, she says, Loth must do for her what Wilstan Fynch could not.
In Ascalon, Ead exchanges heated words with Combe. Ead’s mistrust of Combe deepens. Aubrecht, now engaged to Sabran, is on a visit to the palace with his retinue, which includes his two sisters. One evening, the conversation turns to Sabran’s banishment of Niclays Roos. Ead suspects Sabran asked Niclays to brew her the immortality potion to prolong the supposed protection of the Berethnet bloodline.
Later, Ead visits Sabran’s bedchamber, where the queen has spent most of her time since Fýredel’s attack. Sabran is worried that the 1,000 years of peace are up, as Fýredel told her, but Ead assures the queen that Fýredel is lying: “[W]yrms have forked tongues for duplicity” (200). Sabran also tells Ead about a recurring nightmare in which she visits a shaded bower in a forest, its entrance marked by purple sabra flowers. In the bower, she breaks a rock and blood oozes out, coating her. In other nightmares, she sees herself giving birth in great pain, the Nameless One waiting to eat her newborn child. Ead pacifies the agitated queen, leaving her in the company of Lady Arbella Glenn, her companion for the night.
Privately, Ead notes that what Sabran has described in her nightmare is the hidden realm of Kalyba, a sister of the Priory exiled for possessing unnatural magical powers. People of the West know Kalyba as the Lady of the Woods. The Lady of the Woods is no legend, but very much alive. Outside the bedchamber, Ead meets Roslain, who accuses Ead of currying favor with the Queen. Just then, they hear the sound of screams from Sabran’s chamber. When Ead reaches the chamber, she finds Arbella dead—possibly poisoned.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “East”
Niclays travels to Ginura—where he is to be placed under house arrest—by palanquin. Though the journey is uncomfortable, being away from Orisima begins to awaken Niclays’s long-dead curiosity. In Ginura, Niclays meets Doctor Eizaru Moyaka and his daughter, both anatomists. They invite Niclays to stay with them during his time in Ginura. Purumé, his daughter, is excited about a new medical invention called “firecloud,” a substance that works like an anesthetic and can be used in surgeries. However, Ginura has outlawed firecloud since pirates have been using it to drug and kidnap dragons.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “West”
The Donmata takes Loth through a labyrinth to meet her father, Lord Sigoso, whose wasted, comatose form shocks Loth. Sigoso has been infected with a form of Draconic sickness that lets Fýredel see what’s happening in Yscalin through his eyes. The Donmata has drugged Sigoso so Fýredel cannot access his mind for a brief while. In this window of lucidity, Sigoso confesses to Loth that he was behind the assassination of Queen Rosarian, Sabran’s mother. Because Rosarian rejected his advances, he had a mysterious “Cupbearer” plant a gown infused with basilisk venom in the queen’s wardrobe. When Rosarian put on the gown, the venom burned her flesh away. Loth realizes that when Sigoso planned Rosarian’s death, he was not under the influence of Fýredel, which means the old king is inherently evil.
Though Sigoso deserves to be punished, the people of Yscalin are blameless. The Donmata urges Loth to carry on the task she assigned to Wilstan Fynch. Months ago, Yscalin guards captured a woman called Jondu, who was carrying an iron box on her way to Lasia. When Fýredel saw her red cloak (indicating she was from the Priory) through Sigoso’s eyes, the wyrm had her tortured. The Donmata killed Jondu herself to spare her more agony. Before dying, Jondu handed the Donmata the iron box, urging her to take it to Chassar uq-Ispad (Ead’s foster father) at the Priory. The Donmata assigned this task to Fynch, who was killed by a wyverling on the way. Loth must now take the iron box to the Priory in Lasia.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “East”
Tané is exhausted from the water trials. Onren suggests this may be because Tané works continually without a break. Onren expresses her fear that she may not be chosen as a dragonrider since, unlike Turosa, she is not from a family of Miduchi. Tané harshly suggests that if Onren is not chosen, it will be because she did not work hard. Onren says that Tané needs a more balanced outlook on life, and the two friends reconcile.
The next morning, attendants bring Tané the deep blue watersilk robes of a Miduchi. Tané is overjoyed. Onren too is selected to be a dragonrider, as is Kanperu, another of Tané’s friends. The 12 new riders now have to pass before the water dragons, so each dragon can choose their rider. A great Lacustrine dragon chooses Tané.
Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary: “West”
Loth and Kit deliberately infect themselves with the dragon plague (from Sigoso) since only the infected can leave Cárscaro. The Donmata guides them to hidden caverns exiting the palace. She assures them that Chassar will be able to cure them of the plague. Once inside the caverns, Loth and Kit banter to distract themselves from the surrounding gloom. A sudden quake brings down a shower of rocks on the two friends, killing Kit.
Part 1, Chapter 22 Summary: “West”
Following the death of Arabella, the wedding of Sabran and Aubrecht is a somber affair. Aubrecht’s elder sister gives him away. Ead, Margret, and Linora prepare the royal bedchamber for the wedding night, checking it for signs of danger. Ead places a rose under Sabran’s pillow so that the queen will have pleasant dreams that night.
A nervous and sexually inexperienced Sabran summons Ead and her other ladies to her dressing room for advice about the wedding night. As per Inysh custom, the royal couple are supposed to consummate their marriage on the wedding night. The ladies advise Sabran to relax. Aubrecht and Sabran seclude themselves in the bedchamber while the ladies stay outside to guard them. They hear Aubrecht and Sabran have sex, and Ead concludes that “Sabran ha[s] done her duty” (247). The next morning, Sabran tells the ladies that she hopes she is already pregnant. Sabran kisses Ead on the cheek, thanking her for the rose. Sabran announces that Ead is now a “Lady of the Bedchamber” (249), part of her innermost circle. The announcement leaves Roslain stricken.
Part 1, Chapters 17-22 Analysis
This section introduces another monarchy in the form of the Southern kingdom of Yscalin. In a symbolic image, the princess of Yscalin appears with her head encased in a heavy throne of metal, as if to illustrate the burdens of the head that wears the crown. The motif of monarchs constrained or weighted down by their roles and responsibilities recurs in the text; Sabran is another example of someone caged by her royal status and the expectation that she marry and have an heir. However, the novel frames both Sabran and the Donmata as heroic figures rather than victims. It is their sense of responsibility to their subjects that binds them to their roles, as the Donmata shows when she urges Loth to help her save her people.
In many sections of the novel, a character acts as a stand-in for the reader, with the reader seeing things through their perspective. Earlier in Inys, this was Ead; in Yscalin, it is Loth. Both are outsiders to the respective region and therefore offer a more objective, detached perspective on its culture, history, and politics. Loth, a minor character until now, begins to emerge as a major character who drives the action forward. The sudden and tragic death of Kit solidifies Loth in this role, freeing him for missions ahead. It also mirrors the tragic nature of the real world, where death is arbitrary and may strike even the innocent and good.
In an example of plotting, the narrative introduces the motif of the “Cupbearer,” which will recur from now on. The mysterious Cupbearer is at the Inysh court, having planned Queen Rosarian’s murder with Sigoso; it can be deduced that this Cupbearer is also linked with the attacks on Sabran. Another instance of plotting is Sabran’s dream of Kalyba’s bower. This introduces Kalyba: a shadowy figure for now who will slowly emerge as a vital mover in the story’s plot.
In these chapters, it becomes clear that the idea that Sabran enjoys the worship of her people is shaky. Highly corrupt and divided, the Inysh court is a hotbed of intrigue and violence. The violence of the story’s world continues to emerge in Sigoso’s sadistic description of the murder of Rosarian: “[B]asilisk venom is so strong […] [e]ven bone yields before its bite” (218). Sigoso also uses coarse and sexist language for Rosarian, calling her “venereal slut” and “strumpet.” Importantly, Sigoso says these things as his real self, not in Fýredel’s voice; his evil is his own. Sigoso’s example shows that evil is not solely the provenance of an abstract, superhuman entity like the Nameless One, but rather exists within ordinary humans too. Defeating evil may therefore require defeating the evil within oneself.
Sigoso’s vocabulary also reflects the text’s use of idioms and innuendos. The author uses several examples of colloquial and bawdy vocabulary to make the language vivid and conversational and to give the text’s fantastical universe a lived-in feel. While Sigoso uses abusive words, the Donmata makes sexual innuendos about Sabran. She asks Loth if Aubrecht is worthy of “bedding your mistress” (186). She also suggests Sabran should be “opening her…country to Prince Aubrecht” (186), a remark with overtly sexual overtones. Meanwhile, characters continue to use expressions peculiar to their knowledge-systems and experience. Thus, Loth damns Sigoso to the “Womb of Fire” from which the Nameless One emerged (218), much as a real person brought up in the Christian tradition might damn someone to hell.
In terms of relationships, Ead and Sabran’s bond emerges stronger from Fýredel’s attack. Ead begins to admire Sabran’s courage, while Sabran begins to confide in Ead. Ead’s changing perspective informs the language she now uses to describe Sabran. For instance, Ead thinks of Sabran’s eyes as “two gemstones falling to the ground, shattering from within” (203). The growing intimacy and lyricism of Ead’s descriptions of Sabran show that their bond is slowly turning romantic.
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