Character Note: Noemi

Illustration by CB Landsell

Noemi is an interesting character and one I love dearly. As with many secondary characters, she appeared out of necessity and stuck around, creating ways to wiggle into other characters’ story arcs—Dorilian’s in particular.

From the beginning of the series Dorilian’s relationships with men have diverged from those he has with women. Men, even friends, are people he expects he will need to keep in line. If they’re not people he can keep in line, they are positioned to be enemies. Women... are different. The earliest women in his life are protectors and confidants. They are also few. Only when he reaches adulthood will a few women become antagonists.

Noemi becomes a friend.

This illustration captures why Noemi is a friend. She’s positive, a breath of fresh air. Being Levyathan’s governess and a member of the Sordaneon household has made her secure and confident. She tells people—even Dorilian—what she thinks. And it turns out he likes that. She’s never false with him. And she actually likes him too.

SPOILERS. Reading beyond this point exposes you to spoilers for Sordaneon. If you've read the book, no problem! If you haven't, read at your own risk.

Background

Readers never learn Noemi’s full name or if she even had a surname. She appears early in Sordaneon, in the first chapter (though not named yet) and by halfway through the novel she has earned a speaking role.

How Noemi ended up with the Sordaneons is never directly addressed. When Levyathan was born—prematurely and without warning—Sebbord sent his soldiers to procure a wet nurse. In secret. The soldiers went to a poor neighborhood of mostly fisherfolk and came back with sixteen-year-old Noemi, who had just lost her child and was lactating. Her family was most likely paid for the loss of whatever earnings she provided.

Dorilian barely remembered departing Sordan, only that they followed a barracks road to the edge of the city. One of his grandfather’s men found a wet nurse among the wharf folk’s wives and daughters, a plump girl into whose wide brown eyes Dorilian peered for a long moment before he handed over his brother. The girl now cradled the babe to her breast.

Noemi never told her side of the story other than to say she was happy to have a child in her arms and that her new situation pleased her. Dorilian’s approval grew over time as he witnessed the growing bond between Noemi and her nursling. His own bond to Levyathan was profound and had Noemi been found wanting, she would have been dismissed. Instead, Noemi became a source of wellbeing for the baby and also Dorilian.

Levyathan needed to nurse for nearly three years, longer than most babies. He was a challenging child both physically and cognitively. Noemi loved him as her own and assisted in devising ways for Levyathan to interact with the world around him. Dorilian and Sebbord noticed her devotion and when Levyathan left infancy behind, they rewarded Noemi by keeping her as the boy’s governess—a position usually given to a woman of higher rank.

Position in the Sordaneon Family

Naturally bright and quick to learn, Noemi embraced her position. Levyathan was not the usual noble child. With Dorilian’s blessing and Sebbord’s great wealth, Noemi secured tutors that suited Levyathan’s needs. She arranged a household ordered around a challenged child: safe, nurturing, and emotionally secure. She also recognized which people to welcome into Levyathan’s life and which to keep at arm’s length.

Little wonder, then, that Noemi came to be regarded as family by the Sordaneons that mattered: Sebbord and Dorilian. Though Deben, Levyathan’s father, never recognized Noemi as other than a servant, Deben also knew better than to disrupt how Levyathan was being cared for. Deben washed his hands of his younger son—and everyone was content with that arrangement.

When Dorilian was sent to be educated at Permephedon—and Levyathan went with him—Noemi also traveled there to set up the princes’ household. Though Dorilian left abruptly after only a short stay, Noemi stayed on with Levyathan, who remained at Permephedon for nearly five years. Noemi met and claimed to have liked the wizard Marenthro, who worked with Levyathan on ways to navigate the physical world. Noemi took his advice on many matters, such as colors to use or assigning meaning to certain shapes. Levyathan was bright child, and she sat in on sessions with Sages and philosophers. She also engaged Levyathan in discussions of lessons. Her role was to provide a loving, secure environment and no one did this better than Noemi.

Noemi was present at Dorilian’s wedding to Daimonaeris. She knew Dorilian had been forced into the marriage and didn’t approve.

  Noemi laid her hand on his arm. “They were wrong, forcing you to it. Royal or not royal, I told the old Lord, turning up the heat but burns the bread. A woman should choose her own man, and she’ll choose one that’s willing. It’s better that way.”

I wouldn’t know. Nonetheless, Dorilian smiled at her attempt to counsel him. More true warmth was cast his way by earthy Noemi than he ever found in the gazes or smiles of other women he met. None of them ever seemed quite real. Not like Noemi, who really looked at him and saw him, whom he had subjected to tantrums and who had fought back, and who understood why he had done it.

Noemi knew Deben had threatened Levyathan to coerce Dorilian’s cooperation. She never forgave Deben. Deben, for his part, considered Noemi beneath his dignity to notice.

Marriage to Heran Albos

Providing care for Levyathan left Noemi with little free time. She would occasionally flirt with other household staff or some of the Sages but had little opportunity for developing close relationships. Even so, she was pretty and well-connected. Men found reasons to court her and eventually, when she was twenty-eight years old, Noemi accepted the courtship of Heran Albos, one of Dorilian’s staff.

Of well-born, though not noble, Staubaun blood, Heran’s family had been in service for two generations to Sebbord Teremareon. Heran found a position with Dorilian’s household during the future Hierarch’s years in Teremar. That the Albos family had originated in Mormantalorus raised few eyebrows: many such families had sought refuge in Teremar during the purity purges that had accompanied Mormantalorus seceding from the Triempery. Heran’s father and uncles had faithfully served in Teremar for decades. Heran himself had managed a portion of Dorilian’s household for many years.

Heran was handsome, wellborn, and amusing, all qualities Noemi admired. His attention and persistence won her heart. Much as she loved Levyathan, Noemi had always dreamed of having children and a family of her own. After obtaining Dorilian’s permission, as was proper, Noemi and Heran wed and set up their own household; she remained with Levyathan at Permephedon and Heran continued to work in Sordan but traveled nightly by Rill to be with her there. Dorilian promoted Heran to a steward and gave the couple an apartment in the Sordaneon Serat.

A year and a half later Noemi and Heran welcomed their daughter, Fahme.

Changes

Noemi’s situation changed drastically with the death of Levyathan during the Illumination at Sordan. Though she was for all practical purposes without a job, Dorilian did not remove her from his payroll. Within a month, to everyone’s surprise, Dorilian placed Noemi as nurse to the now pregnant Daimonaeris. The surprise was not that Noemi was the nurse... but that Daimonaeris was pregnant at all.

Ever observant of the royal family and its members, Noemi knew the child Daimonaeris carried was not Dorilian’s. She correctly surmised that Deben was the father—but she had suspicions about Nammuor, who lurked about too much for her liking. Dorilian, though, was determined to claim paternity and Noemi’s familiarity with both brothers led her to conclude that Levyathan, though dead, was somehow alive in the unborn baby, and that Dorilian knew this.

  “Your son?” Noemi snorted. “That child is no more yours than Fahme is!”

He shot her a stern look. They had gone over the child’s paternity at great length several months ago, including that he did not wish to be reminded of it.

“Have it as you will,” Noemi sighed. “None will ever hear it from me. Though what you tell me, that the young Lord never left this life and that he is now in the new child—well, that doesn’t rest easily with me. You shouldn’t have done it.”

Noemi remained family, accepted assignment as Daimonaeris’s nurse, and she and Heran continued to live at the Serat with their daughter Fahme.

How that turns out is wrapped up in the catastrophe that is the finale of Sordaneon.

Legacy

Noemi’s legacy is profound. She is part of one of the core themes of the Triempery series: that the fate of Leur’s Creation ultimately never rested with the godborn alone—it was always, from the beginning, tied with common folk.

Noemi might have seemed to be a small part of Dorilian’s life. Her physical presence was miniscule. She is not a POV character ever. Noemi’s role in the story, though, is massive. Though but a teen herself, she was a mother figure to seven-year-old Dorilian, who had just lost his mother. She was a sister, too—fearless and outspoken—to a boy and teen too many others feared and obeyed. She was a pretty girl admired by an adolescent trying to figure out his sexuality, a dark-haired, lower born girl who approved of him... setting a pattern that persisted into Dorilian’s adulthood. He flirted with her. He trusted her. Dorilian confided in Noemi, and he retained his liking for confiding in women largely because of this relationship. Along with this tendency, he also retained a subtle but persistent respect for the common born. Noemi wasn’t the only common born person to influence Dorilian Sordaneon, but she made an outsize impact.

Noemi’s fate and Dorilian’s were intertwined from the very first chapter.