#eolair

ok ok ... I actually lay awake over this :D I am sorry

Eolair says he is ~45 and Benigaris ~37 years old.

Maegwin says that Eolair is 42 years old.

Camaris says that Benigaris must be older than 40 years. He was alive before Camaris vanished, which is forty/two score years ago as expressed by several characters throughout the whole story and by Josua’s age.

So which version is the most likely I have come to wonder...

(because I am sick at home and have nothing to do -.-)

Eolair certainly knows his own age and that is 45. He might err about Benigaris’ age though and thus believe himself to be 8 years older than the other when the age gap is in fact not that much.

TBH I don’t see any possibility of ignoring all the evidence concerning Camaris’ “mental exile”. In the first chapters (first 1½ year of the story) it’s always “almost 2 score years/almost forty years”, then it changes to “two score years/forty years” in the year Isgrimnur happens to stumble into a certain inn in Kwanitupul. Several characters use this precise wording. Plus there is Dinivan telling Miriamele “I am nearing forty years–not much younger than your Uncle Josua”. So for Eolair to be correct about Benigaris’ age, everyone else would have to be vague (by ~ 3 years) about the years Camaris was missing and Dinivan would be incorrect about his own age and that of Josua.

I am sorry Maegwin, but she is definitely completely wrong, because there is no way she knows Eolair’s age better than he himself :D.

Conclusion:

Eolair is 45 but will let you know that he is in nice shape :D

Benigaris is ~41 and still mommy’s boy (fo Varellan! ^^)

Camaris is more than 70 years old and beats up people nicely.

Sources:

"Benigaris was taller than when he had last seen him, but the duke’s son had then been only seventeen or eighteen. Nearly two decades had passed, and Eolair was not displeased to see that despite his being a good eight years the elder, it was Benigaris who had thickened around the waist, not he." (The Dragonbone Chair - ch. 22, 'A Wind from the North')

"Eolair had seemed so young that day, slender and bright-eyed as a fox, nervous, but almost giddy with pride. Seemed young? He had been young: scarcely more than twenty-two years old, full of the suppressed laughter of anxious youth. (The Stone of Farewell - ch. 16, 'The Unhomed')

#569 “La esperanza es como la correa que ciñe el vientre del rey en su silla de montar: muy fina, pero..., si se parte, el mundo queda cabeza abajo”

For a moment the flush of Eolair's face, the colour on his high, thin cheekbones, reminded the older man of something he had seen once, years ago; a hunting figure glimpsed across fifty yards of snow. One of the white foxes, his father had called that one.

"He's a born intriguer himself, our Eolair. For all that poetry-talk I've heard him trot out for the ladies, he's hard as shield-steel underneath - a good ally for treacherous times."

Watching through the day as the moving light danced on its surface, or revealed patches of still sea as heavy and translucent as jade, Eolair frequently wished to sweep the courtiers from the way, send them tumbling and squeaking from the room so that nothing would obscure his view.

The duchess was exactly the kind of woman who made Eolair - no stranger to the company of the fairer sex - feel completely out of his depth.

He did not protect himself, but only stared at her. The tears that filled his eyes, she knew, were not from the blow - and it that moment it made her hate him all the more.

"Hope is like the belly-strap on a king's saddle - a slender thing, but if it snaps the world turns topside-down."

A quiet, childish fear of something that might hide in the dark and summon its prey with familiar voices struggled inside him. Bagba's Herd, what kind of man was he?

Eolair manfully took a few bites of fungus - it was not by chance that he was deemed the best court envoy is Osten Ard - and ostentatiously chewed and swallowed one of the leggy morsels, then settled down to rearranging his supper in a way that resembled eating.

"You will have my obedience, but there will be little love with it. You thought to act the queen, but instead you have proved yourself only a callow child after all."

Eolair hated falsity, yet he had been driven to master it in the loyal service of his king.

Suddenly he longed for the purity of battle. He knew it was a foolish craving, knew himself for a careful man who always preferred talking sensibly to fighting, but just now he craved simplicity.

Eolair, for all his easy speech and cleverness, had always felt that the best part of himself was hidden far beneath the surface.

"Anyone that can keep such a kind and open heart, in the midst of all this horror, is someone to be treasured."

The Sitha stepped back and allowed him to sit up; Eolair was obscurely grateful to be allowed to do it himself, even though it took him no little time to steady his shaking body.

Eolair's heart felt as though it would crack right through, like a flawed stone struck by a hammer. "I... I didn't know." Did he love her, too? Would it help to tell her he did, whether it was true or not?

His forebears had built the castle to watch over their bit of river valley. Now it had been attacked and defeated, and the current count had not even been at home. His servants and kin had been forced to make their way alone. I served my king, he told himself. What else could I do?

Brynioch preserve us, the count thought desperately, we do not belong in this. They will bolt in a moment if I do the wrong thing. Deliberately, he tugged his sword from its scabbard and showed it to his men, then held it high over his head for a moment before dropping it to his side. It was only a small show of bravery, but it was something.

"Your threats are empty! Do your worst! Our souls are our own."

"It is hard for the men to see this is for the good of Hernystir, let alone for the good of their villages and families. It is hard for me to see that, though I believe it."

It was a woman. He had been fighting a woman. He should not feel ashamed - she had almost killed him - but he did.

But Eolair did not want kindness and sense. He wanted to howl like a Frostmarch wolf.

"It has all been a cruel, cruel trick. It has all been for nothing, if you are dead."