** spoiler alert ** As it turns out I didn't enjoy this book that much at all. Its not quite that it was a bad book--Neumeier has a decided talent in telling a story from multiple third person viewpoints. We follow Leilis (a not quite keiso in Cloisonne House), Nemienne (a mage apprentice) and Taudde (a Kalches bardic sorcerer with decidedly mixed feelings about everything) as they weave around each other's stories.

And how they perceive others is very important. Nemienne is in awe of her master, the Mage of Lonne Ankennes, and views him as an absent-minded but patient teacher with some quirky mannerisms. To Leilis, he is odd and remote, constantly guarding his expressions. And to Taudde, he is deceptively powerful, calculating and intelligent playing a very deep game. Neumeier excelled at showing how their perceptions of the various people that intersected their lives affected the overall narrative.

My problem lay with the content itself. The story felt kind of jumbled at times, with so many plots within plots that I had trouble keeping track of who was on what side and was protecting who. Certainly Taudde spent the most time wavering from the blackmail scheme Ankennes and an ally devised, to his own personal vengeance and the longing he felt just to be free again. The jumping between narratives (which I think was as much to give diversity to the story as it was to give a well rounded view of the events leading up to the ending from all participants) got in the way.

This is also a very sedate book, even when there is action occurring. The story progresses at a fairly even (if disjointed) pace, with the reader able to perhaps cobble together the answer to the motivations of the conspirators earlier then any of the characters simply because we see things from so many sides. Nemienne's awe of Ankennes is diminished when in Taudde's view we know Ankennes is plotting against the throne. Taudde's desperate need to keep his secret intact is moot once we learn that Leilis knows (or rather figures it out).

The book also almost felt like Neumeier sat down and wrote three different stories--Nemienne's apprenticeship, Leilis' observations at Cloisonne House, and Taudde's fight for freedom--then wrote the underlying conspiracy that hinges them together, going back to the other three to weave in the details to make them cohere. I could very easily see this as a trilogy or quartet if Neumeier was given to being more wordy.