Subject: (urth) Sieur Racho the randy

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 22:54:00 +0000

Right, and I wrote Sieur Racho was in Nessus over a span of months
because Severian first saw him in SHADOW ch. 6 in winter,
strolling around the Old Citadel, then the fiacre race in spring (ch.
18); that Racho was "whoring around" because Agia recognizes the
prostitute Racho was riding with (ch. 18); and that it seemed like
Racho was either low on the social ladder (or slumming) because the
Old Citadel is considered the dead side of the river, and Agia's area
ain't much better--the quality people live/stay further north, though
not necessarily as far north as the Sanguinary Field where Ava the
Pelerine postulant comes from.

Oh, here's where you saw that Cyriaca's husband is in Nessus: "she
was the wife of an armiger . . . who had gone to Nessus on some
business or other" (III, ch. 5).  And look, five paragraphs later,
Cyriaca says she first saw Severian at court a week ago, when her
husband charged one of their peons with theft.  So Severian, with his
fabled memory, saw her husband before he went to Nessus . . . or
maybe not.  Maybe the charge was read by a seneschal-as-proxy.

But it is true: high man from the province becomes low man at the
vast metropolis.  Probably can't even get in the door at the Archon's
Palace of Nessus.  Imagine the expression on Cyriaca's face when she,
in her guise as commonality seamstress, bumps into his lustiness at
Oldgate!  Will he pursue her back to the house/shop she shares with
Dorcas (another seamstress, Acts 9.36-43) and Ouen?

=mantis=

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