52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark LawrencePrince of Thorns
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 22-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
Makin and Jorg drink ale in a tavern, laying out their plan. Makin has seen the Castle Red and thinks that to attack it would be suicide. A tavern prostitute named Sally tries to proposition them, but they keep talking. Makin says they would need a massive army and to lay siege for a year to have a chance. Jorg has the idea to sneak in and open a way in, and he asks Makin if that might work. Makin says the garrison is 900 seasoned veterans. Jorg grabs Sally by the throat and tells her that he will call her Katherine.
Chapter 23 Summary
Jorg is reading an ancient book, stolen from his father’s library, that propped between Sally’s thighs. He makes note of a passage saying that there’s a valley in the badlands below the Castle Red called the Gorge of Leucrota. From his childhood study of the classics, Jorg knows that in Ancient Greek a leucrota is a monster that speaks with a human voice to lure its prey and that was once human.
Opening another ancient book, Jorg can make little sense of it, since it is full of unfamiliar words like “neurotoxicology,” “carcinogen,” and “mutogen.” He is puzzling over the book when Makin knocks to tell him that the escort to the Forest Watch has arrived. Sally asks if Jorg is going to the Castle Red and asks him to say hello to all the “little red people” (175). Jorg asks about the garrison at the Castle Red again, and Makin says that they are all bright-red-skinned. Jorg connects this to a strange word in the book, “rosiosis,” and forms a plan.
Chapter 24 Summary
The escort is led by Captain Coddin, who has been reassigned. Jorg and Makin set out with some of the brothers for Rennat Forest.
At the forest, Jorg is taken to the Watch Master, Lord Vincent de Gren. Vincent treats Jorg flippantly, so Jorg leads him before a cliff and tells him to order one of his men to jump off it. The man refuses, and Jorg pitches Lord Vincent off the cliff. Jorg makes Coddin the new Watch Master.
Jorg sends the Forest Watch to Gelleth with Coddin to cut wood for siege weapons in the forests near the Castle Red. Jorg plans to spread the rumor that he is with the Forest Watch while he secretly goes to the Gorge of Leucrota.
Chapter 25 Summary
Jorg and Makin return to the Tall Castle and encounter Sageous. Sageous asks Jorg why he ran. Jorg denies that he did, but Sageous points out that Jorg has been gone for nearly four years. Jorg says that he left to kill someone, but when Sageous asks if he has accomplished this yet, he is confused, recognizing that most of his actions might have actually benefited Count Renar.
Jorg counters that he killed Marclos, Renar’s heir, and Sageous says that, as he came closer to Ancrath, Jorg came under Sageous’s protection and was no longer steered from afar. Sageous assures Jorg that he is not the one who has been controlling him. Jorg insists that he is not under anyone’s control. Sageous merely shrugs and walks away.
Chapter 26 Summary
Shaken by his encounter with Sageous, Jorg goes to attend mass, where Father Gomst is presiding. Gomst demands that the brothers leave, but Jorg tells him that Gomst will be joining them on their trip to Gelleth.
Jorg’s party is departing when Sageous comes across their path. Sageous offers his protection to Jorg, but Jorg refuses. Sageous asks Jorg why he thinks the ghost from the marsh fled from him. Jorg is unsure, and Sageous tells him that it was the mark left by the person controlling Jorg that scared the dead away.
The Nuban now comes forward and names Sageous the dream-witch who captured the brothers four years ago. Sageous’s sway evaporates, and Jorg threatens him.
The group travels through freezing rains to Gelleth, finally reaching the Gorge of the Leucrota. A sense of foreboding settles over the group, and they wait in anticipation of something terrible.
Chapters 22-26 Analysis
In these chapters, Jorg’s ruthless brutality is displayed in stakes much higher than pillaging on the road. His casual murder of Lord Vincent makes the Forest Watch afraid to disobey him while also allowing him to name Coddin the new Watch Master, a choice that will pay large dividends later.
Jorg also displays the uses of his excellent early education for the first time. He has referenced reading Greek and Roman authors before but merely as a diversion on the road. Now, for the first time, his knowledge of those two languages is fully used as he makes sense of the ancient tomes describing the contents and layout of the Castle Red.
Jorg’s attempts to make sense of the books also confirm for the reader that Jorg lives on Earth more than a millennium following a global holocaust. Though Jorg can only just puzzle it out, the reader understands that his world is the ruins created by a nuclear conflagration and that the Castle Red must have been a missile silo or other weapons storage facility long ago.
