Flight of the Heron read-along: Part V chapter 5 and Epilogue

[regshoe]

Better loved ye cannae be...

The final chapter.

I'm planning to do a sort of wrap-up post in a couple of days' time for any last thoughts, and to recommend some Flight of the Heron fic and some other books that may be of interest. I will say goodbye and thank you properly then!

Comments

[sanguinity]

It is a stunner of a chapter, from the beautifully scenic opening, to beautifully tragic ending. And I am exceedingly grateful (and on my first read, frankly stunned), that we were permitted such overtly romantic gestures between them: Keith carrying a lock of Ewen's hair over his heart, and the exchange of the ring.

A question I had: why is Keith so convinced that Ewen is alive and skulking near Ardroy? Didn't his guard officially put it about that Ewen is dead? That they found his body in the river? We know Archie wasn't convinced -- he came to Ardroy to confirm it for himself -- but apparently Ewen's guard did not feel moved to do the same due diligence themselves. So how did Keith hit upon his conviction that Ewen is alive and well, happily home at Ardroy?

[regshoe]

Grateful and stunned—yes, exactly. <3 The exchange of the ring is both a very romantic and a very Jacobite thing—of course ring exchanges also take place between both Ewen and Charles and Ewen and Alison in this book, and it also features in White Cockades by Edward Prime-Stevenson, which is (not to put too fine a point on it) historical RPF slash fic about Charles himself.

And, argh, the final line of the chapter, about the ring... my heart.

That's a good question! I assume Keith just didn't hear the bit of the story where Ewen was supposedly found dead—perhaps that was made up later, and Keith didn't have time to hear it before leaving for the coast?

[luzula]

A question I had: why is Keith so convinced that Ewen is alive and skulking near Ardroy? Didn't his guard officially put it about that Ewen is dead?

Good point! But I think I have the solution:
Keith: He had been hard put to it to conceal his exultation when, just before setting out from Fort Augustus for Moidart, he had heard of Ewen’s escape and disappearance

Archie: I heard how you escaped as you were being carried to Fort William, and I did not believe that it was your body which was found some days after in one of the pools of Spean. (You do not know, perhaps, that that is what has been given out at Fort Augustus.)

So Keith set off before the body was found. But I do wonder who gave out that it was Ewen's body? Did someone actually believe that, or was it a face-saving lie by someone who wanted to stop searching?

[sanguinity]

Or a career-saving lie from the officer-in-charge of the guard, who didn't want to be on the hook for losing a prisoner, perhaps.

Well, if the news of finding Ewen's alleged body never caught up to him, that's a simple enough solution. (And requires a fic of him hearing of Ewen's death while he patrols the coast!)

[regshoe]

Ooh, I'd like to read that fic! I wonder if believing Ewen was dead would change his reaction to seeing him?

[osprey_archer]

Oh God, if Keith heard that Ewen was dead and then saw him alive on the beach! That might be the only way to make the ending even more heart-wrenching than it is already...