The Priory of the Orange Tree

In this section, characters continue to make crucial journeys, introducing new settings and images. In the text, journeys often serve as metaphors for change and evolution, with characters learning more about themselves or others at the end of their travel. The journeys also help readers visualize the geography of the world, whether it is the deserts on the way to Lasia or the isolation of craggy Feather Island.

The most significant journey is Ead’s return to the Priory. As with Loth and Aralaq, Ead is helped by a noble creature: Parspa, the hawiz. The term “hawiz” is Arabic for “able” or “active.” This and other names indicate that the South draws on the real-world Middle East and Africa (“Yedanya,” for example, evokes the sub-Saharan Bantu languages), though concepts like the Priory are unique to the novel.

Ead’s return to the Priory should be happy, but it ends in her realization that the order of the sisters can be as obdurate and closed-minded as the world outside. Mita’s attitude shows Ead that even someone as supposedly enlightened as the prioress can have great flaws. Mita’s tendency to prioritize the South above the larger world satirizes the nation-first approach of the contemporary world broadly and developed nations in particular. Such a narrow-minded approach may serve nations in the short term, but since the entire world is connected, it leads to global unrest and suffering eventually. Mita may think the wyrms are a problem for the West, but the truth is that they will eventually consume the entire world if not stopped in time.

Ead’s visit to the Priory highlights crucial differences in belief between the South and the West. As the reader will already know, the Priory believes Cleolind arrived at its site while fighting the Nameless One in the Lasian basin; here, she found an orange tree that healed her and gave her magical powers. While the Inysh consider Galian the model of chivalry and courage, there is a waterfall in the Lasian basin called the Wail of Galian, referencing Galian’s cowardice. However, the views of the Priory are also one-sided. They paint Galian as a villain who deceived Cleolind and robbed her of the glory she was due without considering that there may be more to Galian’s story or exploring the gaps in their own knowledge. For instance, it is still unknown what happened to Cleolind during the lost years or whom Galian married if Cleolind instead went to Inys.

The chapters set in the Priory depict life in the hidden society. The existence of the Priory is so much of a secret that any unauthorized person who learns of it can never leave its walls. The sisters of the Priory do sometimes take lovers and have children, though the role of the fathers is unclear; Ead’s own biological father does not feature in the novel, though her mother, Zāla uq-Nāra, is described (the Priory does include men like Chassar, who may look after children while the sisters train and fight).

These chapters also introduce the Priory’s most elite, wyrm-slaying order of sisters—the Red Damsels, roughly analogous in status to the Miduchi in the East. The mention of the Red Damsels connects to previous clues in the narrative, such as the red cloak that Jondu wore. If Jondu was a Red Damsel, her robes angered Fýredel because he knew they signified her job as a slayer. This kind of plotting is informally referred to as “planting Easter eggs”—details whose full import emerges later.

The significance of the name of the Priory is also explained. In real-world usage, a priory refers to a monastery. In Galian’s time, knights used to say their vows in priories. Galian had intended to found the first priory in the South, but a defiant Cleolind decided to “found a priory of a different kind […] and no craven knight [should] soil its garden” (422). Cleolind’s disdain for knights is reasonable, given that Galian offered Lasia help only on the condition of Cleolind’s hand in marriage and the region’s conversion to his beliefs, contradicting the very idea of the gallant, pure-souled knight.

The opening of the iron box shows Ead’s intellect and resourcefulness; Ead is often able to put together pieces of a puzzle in the text in a way that furthers the plot. The scene also builds on the motif of magical objects with the introduction of the celestial jewels. Another important revelation is the scroll from Neporo—an actor unmentioned in both the South and West’s accounts of binding the Nameless One. Significantly, Neporo is from the East, implying that it took the powers of West, East, and South to bind the Nameless One. The different worlds of the text might have been more closely linked in the past than most characters assume. In addition, since Neporo was Queen of Komoridu and since Komoridu is the island the Golden Empress is chasing, this revelation begins to braid together the different storylines of the novel as the action builds up to the climax.

Just as the Priory serves as a world-building device in the South, so does Feather Island in the East. Like Japan (Seiiki’s real-world counterpart), Feather Island is frequently rocked by “earthshakes.” It is also where the bones of the Great Kwiriki lie; it is always shrouded in mist because “a dragon continued to attract water long after its death” (408). Water and dragons are prominent motifs in this section, illustrating their importance in the East. The ontological basis of the dragon mythology of the East is also spelled out: Because dragons of the East are associated with water, which “nourished flesh and earth and asked for nothing in return” (409), they will “always triumph over the fire breathers” (409). Further, Feather Island provides the literal and metaphysical space for Tané to reflect on the past, thus marking a crucial point in her journey as a character.

The perils of chasing immortality become clearer during Nayimathun’s encounter with Niclays in the hold of the Pursuit. The meeting is notable for the stark contrast between Niclays at his most craven and Nayimathun in all her noble glory. Even though Nayimathun is physically bound, it is clear that Niclays is a prisoner of his own psyche. As Nayimathun remarks: “[T]he one who wears the chains is a thousand times greater than the one who wields them” (451). The mutilation of Nayimathun marks a new low point for Niclays; it remains to be seen if he will sink any lower or, shaken by his transgression, turn over a new leaf.

At the moment, Niclays sees nothing wrong with chasing immortality because he believes humans are meant to be perfected. Niclays’s beliefs reflect his understanding of alchemy: the science of purification and transformation. He also thinks it is hypocritical of dragons to begrudge humans immortality since they themselves enjoy being treated as gods. However, Nayimathun believes humans are “not meant to live for eternity” precisely because they chase immortality at any cost (452); dragons don’t desire eternal life but simply possess it.