Penric & Desdemona, Part 4
The Assassins of Thasalon
by Lois McMaster Bujold

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted November 12, 2023
Edits on July 12, 2024

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The only novel length story in this series (so far), The Assassins of Thasalon sees Penric traveling to Cedonia for the third time. The first was when he was working for a duke in Adria, tasked with recruiting General Adelis Arisaydia to defect and align with Adria. That didn't happen. Instead, Penric was able to help the general and his sister, Nikys, escape Cedonia and go to its neighber to the south, Orbas. Penric also stayed in Orbas, working through the Bastard's Temple in Vilnoc, and occasionally for Adelis's new superior, Duke Jurgo. The second time Pen traveled to Cedonia was to rescue Nikys' mother, held prisoner on the isle of Limnos. After that adventure, Pen and Nikys married, and they now have a daughter, with another child on the way.

Cedonia is still in political and military turmoil, with certain factions fearful of Adelis returning for revenge against those who had branded him a traitor. Others are anxious to get him to return to his old position, to right the wrongs corrupt officials had enabled. An assassin is sent south to kill Adelis, but luckily Pen is with him at the time and is able to fend off that attack, the assassin being the rider of an immature demon, hardly a match for Pen and Desdemona. That assassin was able to escape, but Pen suspected they would try again. They did, and Pen was able to capture her for interrogation. I won't go into what he learns from her, nor what she learns from him. Pen is able to maintain the fiction that Adelis is at his house recovering from the assassination attempt, then disguised as a book merchant Pen travels overland to Cedonia, while Adelis goes by boat, both headed for Thasalon. Pen had not yet been to Cedonia's capital city, although he came close twice, but it is necessary now to go into the belly of the beast and search for those who had directed the assassin.

Pen has another ally, a saint from another temple, whose task it will be to extract the demon from a rogue sorcerer, the one who had directed the assassin, and who had previously been involved in the deaths of at least three other rivals to the throne. Other allies are Tanar, the woman Adelis had courted before his departure from Cedonia, and her bodyguard Bosha, who had aided Pen and Nikys in the rescue of her mother. Tanar's mother, the Lady Xarre, is the head of a vast shipping empire, so her wealth and connections are also central to the endeavor. Even though a novel, this isn't that long, about twice the length of the average for the novellas. Bujold wastes no words here, no filler, everything propels the plot, revealing all the details Pen faces that must be overcome. He again impresses most of those he encounters, or in some cases baffles his adversaries. The rogue sorcerer's demon is also no match for Desdemona, nor a match for the saint who extracts the demon. No way to know yet if things will be better in Cedonia, but Adelis gets his old position back, a new coalition forms of the surviving regents, and Tanar gets her long awaited wish, marriage to Adelis. Not looking ahead to the next story yet, I only know this one ends with Pen returning to Vilnoc, where Nikys awaits, and their second child awaits its birth. With the aid of Desdemona's special Sight, Pen knows it is a boy, and that it is healthy.

EDIT, July 12, 2024: This page originally included comments on two novellas that followed, and now with a third recently published I decided to feature this novel on its own page, and create another for those three, which may or may not eventually be collected in another omnibus. See links below for all of the Penric pages.

Related Links:
Go back to the start of the series with Penric & Desdemona, Part 1
Continue with Part 2
Then Part 3
And now, three more novellas: Part 5
A list of all my Bujold reviews

 

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