Race of Scorpions: Flypaper Thoughts

• I began reading the third book in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series today.
• It is called Race of Scorpions.
• I'm in love.
• I didn't expect to be here this soon.
• My previous experience of Dunnett is slow bewitchment.
  
• I love (love love love) Dunnett's other series, the Lymond Chronicles.
• Francis Crawford of Lymond: so beautiful, so intelligent, so tortured.
• So (so so so SO) melodramatic. 
• I fell in love slowly over six books.
  
• Nicholas vander Poele: also beautiful, also intelligent, also tortured.
  
• Not yet as melodramatic. 
• Not yet.
• But I am already enchanted.
  
• The book opens with Nicholas grieving.
• The writing is so good it is unholy. 
• Aside from the gut-wrenching depiction of grief, there are the character descriptions.
  
• Meet, for instance, Anselm Adorne.
• 'He was now thirty-seven and a man of great comeliness, with a slender build which could yet carry off prizes at shooting and jousting; a clear brain which increased his wealth and brought him the confidence of the city, and an easy manner which made him both a good drinking companion and the happily married father of an increasing number of small children.'
• [Aside: they don't make 'em like they used to.]
• Scene change, from Nicholas, coping with grief and politics, to his adversaries in Anjou.
• They are having Witty Repartee At Court.
  
• Exhibit A: Jordan de Ribérac, father of Simon, to René, Duke of Anjou, about Simon: 'He has yet to master trade, monseigneur. I feel it will take a decade or two before he can successfully contemplate strategy.'
• BURN.
• Yes, Jordan is talking about his son.
• No, he is not a nice man.
•  Exhibit B: Jordan de Ribérac, catching the reader and René up on the events of books one and two:
• 'Nicholas vander Poele, he calls himself. An unfortunate youth with a talent for numbers. He married his employer, killed all his relatives, and made a great deal of money bringing Venetians and gold back from Trebizond.'
• Jordan ain't wrong.
  
• I might need to take back what I said about Nicholas and melodrama.
  
• Exhibit C: One page later, René and Jordan have moved on to pondering whether Simon should join the duke's side of the war over Naples:
  
• R: 'So I can hope for no practical help from that noble jouster, your son?' 
• J: 'From Simon? Whatever side he joined, it would lose.'
• Again: BURN.
• I hate Jordan from Multiple Events of Book One (which I shall not spoil) but he's also made me shout-cackle twice in three pages and I don't know what To Do.
  
• René of Anjou, on the other hand, is my New Favourite. 
• I actually know the author of a book about René of Anjou.
  
• Based on my limited knowledge of the history, Dunnett has René dead to rights.
• I demand more René of Anjou.
• Scene change: Nicholas, shit-stirring, near Naples.
  
• Tobias Beneventi, physician, one of Nicholas' (understandably wary) business partners, inquiring just what exactly he is up to: 'So what's the attraction? You enjoyed fighting the Turks and want more of it? Or are you passing, taper in hand, reactivating all your favourite fireworks?' 
• Melodrama ahoy!
  
• That's only the first sixty pages, friends.
• I'm in love.
• I'm in love.