Subject: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 43, Issue 2

From: Dan <autarch at vippn.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:55:34 +0000

At 09:00 PM 3/10/2008, you wrote:

>Some questions, which I think answer each other.
>Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I don't
>remember it.
>
>Who killed Valentin?
>
>The obvious suspect is Lesage, who seems to be the only
>person who really hated him.
>
>But how did Lesage know where to find him?  And, in a
>related vein, what did Ignacio do to win Lesage's trust?
>
>If the answers are what I think they are, this is really chilling.
>
>Peter

The buccaneers were laughing at Chris when he asked if they'd seen 
Valentin, because Lesage had recently offered them a reward for Valentin 
and they thought that was why Chris was looking for him too. It's clear 
Lesage found him first.

Lesage seemed to have the uncanny knack of being able to be in the right 
place at the right time, show up when it was profitable and be delayed when 
things went awry. In fact, the characters even discussed this at one point 
and were at a loss to figure it out. In a story where time travel is 
possible, this rises above the point of coincidence and is evidence that 
someone has pre-knowledge of events. Chris seems very wary of Lesage but 
says little about him, almost as if he doesn't have to or doesn't want to. 
I believe that Lesage was the visitor at the beginning, for whom Chris 
wrote the book. Chris was very paranoid about not messing with the timeline 
as Ignacio and realized that for things to turn out right for him, Lesage 
would have to go back as well. With Chris' manuscript, he would know what 
to do and where and when to show up or stay away.

Perhaps Lesage is Chris' son, doing the time travel thing to make sure 
things turn out the same to make sure he'll be born! That includes killing 
Valentin and betraying everyone at the end.

>Good questions; I'd love to hear your answers.
>
>Re: Ignacio and Lesage: What evidence is there to suggest that Lesage ever
>met "Ignacio?"

I don't believe there is any, other than what I speculated on above.

>As for Valentin - I don't know - I wonder if he killed himself? Chris
>suggests that possibility... Or perhaps Lesage revealed himself to Valentin
>as Chris and Valentin, seeing the truth, tried to kill his old tormentor?
>And then Chris kills Valentin in self-defense?

I don't think there was a large seperation in age between Chris and Lesage 
not to see a resemblence.

>Also - do we have any more thoughts on what caused Chris to go back in time
>in the first place?

At the point when the students become novices, they begin to travel back in 
time. I think this was a property of the Monastery. If you recall, other 
people also left abruptly, so they may have been doing the same thing.

>And what about that "Angel of Death" that Chr says he sees above one of
>the boats?
>-Matt

I believe that was after his second raping when he suffered severe head 
trauma and was wishing death on his tormentors. An homage to Latro, maybe?

Dan

---

From: stoneox17 at aol.com <stoneox17 at aol.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:41:31 +0000

Dan <autarch at vippn.com> wrote

> to do and where and when to show up or stay away.

Exactly.  Lesage seems to know too much for him not to have had inside
information from the future.  My assumption (and it wasn't my idea) is 
that
Ignacio has been feeding him this information.  Why?  So that 
everything can
happen exactly as it did before.

> people also left abruptly, so they may have been doing the same thing.

Now, that is an interesting idea.  I had assumed it was a one-time 
miracle.

> trauma and was wishing death on his tormentors. An homage to Latro, 
maybe?

I don't have any explanation for this.

--Peter

_______________________________________________
Urth Mailing List
To post, write urth at urth.net
Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net

---

From: Ashley Crill <ash_crill at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:47:20 +0000

> If the answers are what I think they are, this is really chilling.

Yea, I think its pretty obvious that Ignacio made a deal with Lesage, revealing to him the location of Valentin's cave and the location/date of Burt's treasure caravan.

What did Ignacio get in return, though? My brain is fuzzy right now, and I need to read the book again.

_________________________________________________________________
Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix".
http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20080315/7772781b/attachment.html

---

From: thalassocrat at nym.hush.com <thalassocrat at nym.hush.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:21:36 +0000

>Yea, I think its pretty obvious that Ignacio made a deal with 
>Lesage, revealing to him the location of Valentin's cave and the 
>location/date of Burt's treasure caravan.
>

My guess: Ignacio got a big share of the loot from Lesage's 
hijacking of Burt's expedition. Further, he was actually in charge, 
with Lesage fronting for him.