★★★★☆ Two seriously messed-up people

Paladin's Grace

T Kingfisher

Stephen is a seriously messed-up guy. He is, or was, a paladin of the Saint of Steel. He bore within him a soul connection to his god, the Saint of Steel, who would use him to do good. Three years ago Stephen's god died, and since then he has been an empty man. He, and all the paladins of the late Saint of Steel, worry that if they lose control of their passions, they will be taken by "the tide" and run berserk, killing and destroying. This is not idle worry. It has happened, although not recently.

Grace is a seriously messed-up woman, though she is arguably less messed up than Stephen. She grew up in an orphanage. She was, for all practical purposes, purchased by a master perfumer, who took advantage of her acute olfactory abilities without apparently feeling any obligation to treat her as a teacher should treat a student. He sold her to another perfumer who, in addition to taking advantage of her abilities, took advantage of her sexually. Eventually she fled this creep and set up on her own.

Stephen and Grace meet cute and get caught up in an intrigue that I won't spoil. As our old friend Will once wrote, "The course of true love never did run smooth," and it does not in this case. Aside from the aforementioned intrigue gumming things up, Grace and Stephen are seriously messed up and are not all that great at communicating their feelings. There is an unusual inversion to the miscommunication. We are all used to cliché stories in which women suffer because of men who are not in touch with their feelings. Our sympathy is usually with the woman in the cliché. This time, however, I felt that Grace was more at fault than Stephen, failing to really consider his inhibitions. I mean, honestly, "If I lose control I may go nuts and start killing people at random -- this has happened to me in the past," is a pretty damn cogent excuse for being a little cautious and clumsy.

I liked both Grace and Stephen, but, in case it's not obvious, I found Stephen a bit more sympathetic. T. Kingfisher abets that feeling by making Stephen's awkwardness funny. I particularly enjoyed a sequence where Stephen insists on accompanying Grace into the presence of royalty

“Where Miss Angelica goes, I go,” he said, in a voice so deep Grace could almost hear it through her boots.

“There is no need to fear that she’ll be attacked here,” said DuValier, forgetting himself enough to actually address the paladin.

“She might require a jar opened,” said Stephen, unruffled. “Or something heavy moved. My duty is clear.”

This is a good story with two sympathetic main characters that partakes of Kingfisher's customary skewed viewpoint and humor.

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