Bluefingers
also known as Havarseth
The Pahn Kahl steward of the Court of Gods and head of its scribes — and the architect of the Pahn Kahl insurgency working from inside the palace. He has spent years driving Hallandren and Idris toward war, planted his own countrymen in God King's priesthood robes, and engineered the kidnapping of Nanrovah's daughter and the murder of Blushweaver to bring the Lifeless Command phrases into his hands. STD:WB:Ch 54
The High Place steward who runs the Court of Gods day-to-day — head of the scribes, manager of the palace attendants. Named by Bebid as the man more likely than any priest to know what is really moving in the court behind the war debate, though reputedly stiff and hard to break. He himself has not yet appeared. STD:WB:Ch 5 superseded at STD:WB:Ch 54
Known facts
- head-scribe-and-stewardIntroduces himself by his given name Havarseth and the universal nickname Bluefingers — for the dark ink that stains his fingers — and explains that he is head scribe and steward to Susebron, manager of the palace attendants and overseer of every servant in the Court of Gods. He wears brown, not the blue and silver of the God King's direct service, a discrepancy Siri notes silently.STD:WB:Ch 6
- whispered-warningTook Siri aside at the bedchamber door and whispered, against the rules of his role, that she should watch herself because not all in the palace is as it seems.STD:WB:Ch 11
- pahn-kahl-not-tonesReveals to Siri that he is from Pahn Kahl — a people the Hallandren rule but who are not Hallandren themselves — and does not worship the Iridescent Tones. He can accept the God King as king without taking him for a god, which is why he serves as a palace steward and not a priest.STD:WB:Ch 15
- warns-of-listenersConfirms to Siri in the hallway outside her husband's bedchamber that the God King's priests do not watch — that would be sacrilege — but listen, with great care, from a doorway down the hall, and tells her in a hushed voice that she is in more danger from them than she knows.STD:WB:Ch 18
- warns-against-childBreaks his own caution in the corridor outside the bedchamber to warn Siri explicitly: she must not bear the God King a child. That, not the consummation itself, is the real danger — to her and to him both — and the palace is not what it appears to be. He will not explain further; he tells her to read the histories, and tells her that a stray word from her on the subject would mean his death.STD:WB:Ch 20
- pahn-kahl-loyalty-and-life-of-serviceBluefingers tells Siri that he rose to high steward over Susebron's household despite being Pahn Kahl in a Hallandren theocracy, and that he placed other Pahn Kahl into the brown-clad serving roles so they would not have to work the Edgli dye fields. He has cleaned Susebron's quarters since Susebron was a child and considers him not a god but a liege.STD:WB:Ch 34
- unaware-susebron-has-no-tongueSpeaking with Siri in the bath chamber, Bluefingers casually theorises that the last God King was coerced into giving up his Breaths aloud to his son — revealing that he does not know Susebron's tongue was cut and that no God King in the Court's memory has been able to speak a Command at all.STD:WB:Ch 34
- holds-all-four-lifeless-command-phrasesBy the time Bluefingers confronts Siri in the palace, his accomplices have extracted Lightsong's Command phrase under threat to Llarimar and changed it to a new one of their own choosing. With Blushweaver dead and the other two phrases already in their hands, the insurgents now hold every Command phrase for Hallandren's entire forty-thousand-strong Lifeless army.STD:WB:Ch 54
- plans-unstoppable-lifeless-marchBluefingers's plan, as he tells Siri outright, is to send the Lifeless army at Idris under orders to destroy everything they find, and then have his Command-phrase-holding accomplices poison themselves so that no one alive can call the army off. Without leadership, his reasoning runs, the Idrians will ambush, drag the war out, and bleed Hallandren for years.STD:WB:Ch 54
- plans-to-frame-idris-for-the-killingsTo make Hallandren commit to the war rather than recoil from it, Bluefingers intends to leave the corpses of Lightsong and Blushweaver in the Lifeless barracks among the bodies of Idrian mercenaries he hired from the slums, and the God King's body in the palace dungeons, so the city will read the night as a coordinated Idrian assassination.STD:WB:Ch 54
Events
- STD:WB:Ch 6 Walks into Siri's bath chamber with a ledger and a serving boy, dictates the schedule and the etiquette of the God King's bedchamber while she scrubs, brings in an Awakener palace healer to verify her chastity, and finally walks her in her blue and silver gown to the gold door of the conception room.
- STD:WB:Ch 8 Arrives in Siri's room mid-morning to check that the wedding-night bedsheets were burned, learns she has no idea what she is meant to do with her days, explains the Wedding Jubilation and her confinement to the court, lists out the available diversions, and bustles away again.
- STD:WB:Ch 11 Escorts Siri to the bedchamber door as on every previous night, but pauses long enough at the doorway to whisper a warning that not all in the palace is as it seems.
- STD:WB:Ch 15 Walks up to Siri's box with his ledger, dispenses theology and history as a Pahn Kahl outsider, and slips away when she tries to press him about his earlier warning.
- STD:WB:Ch 18 Waits with Siri in the corridor before her nightly visit, confirms in whispers that priests listen but do not watch, and slips away when she begs for help with a frightened look over his shoulder.
- STD:WB:Ch 20 Catches Siri in the corridor before her usual descent into the bedchamber and breaks his customary caution to warn her, in a hissed half-confession, against bearing the God King a child.
- STD:WB:Ch 27 Siri glimpses him in one of the palace rooms, hurries after, and finds him already vanished through another doorway — the same pattern he has been running on her for weeks.
- STD:WB:Ch 34 Walks into Siri's bath chamber over her embarrassment, has the Pahn Kahl serving women splash to cover the conversation, and agrees to the extraction bargain.
- STD:WB:Ch 54 Walks Siri and a captive Susebron up through the palace under Lifeless escort, finally answers her demands, lays out his entire Pahn Kahl independence plot, and has the God King dragged off to the dungeons to die.
- STD:WB:Ch 55 Steps from the doorway with Lifeless at his back, lets the priests be cut down, and walks past their bodies to collect Siri and Susebron.
- STD:WB:Ch 55 Marches Siri and Susebron up another stairwell, tells his accomplices to send the Lifeless on Idris, and lays out the rest of the frame-up for her.
- STD:WB:Ch 57 Leads her into the top-floor altar room and explains, knife in hand, the staging plan for an Idrian martyr.
- STD:WB:Ch 57 Explains plainly to her how Idrian mercenaries will be brought to *find* her on the altar and carry the story home, knowing it will be believed.
- STD:WB:Ch 57 Has his knife at Siri's chest when the God King arrives. Frozen by his first spoken Command, the dagger slipping from his fingers as an Awakened carpet hauls him away.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 5
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 6
- factThe God King
- factSusebron
- factBluefingers
- factCourt Assembly
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 7
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 8
- factThe God King's Palace
- factWedding Jubilation
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 11
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 15
- factSusebron
- factLight of Peace
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 16
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 18
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 20
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 24
- factSisirinah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 27
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 29
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 32
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 34
- factSisirinah
- factBluefingers
- factBluefingers
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 40
- factSisirinah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 47
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 54
- factPahn Kahl
- factBluefingers
- factBluefingers
- factBluefingers
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 55
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 57
- factSusebron
- factSusebron