Vilanis

Vilanis is a young soldier in Navi’s company, introduced as short, red-haired, freckled, and perhaps too inexperienced to belong to a militia. The narrative repeatedly contrasts his unassuming appearance with his courage: he may not look like a conventional hero, yet he is willing to hurry toward danger for another person. His concern for Mabel, his easy sociability, and his eventual death give that contrast its full weight; kindness and bravery are present in him, but neither makes him invulnerable.

Identity and First Impressions

Vilanis first distinguishes himself by paying close attention to the conversation about what should be done with Mabel. When Navi’s commander hesitates over the risks of bringing a woman along to Turilessa, Vilanis leans across the table and prompts him to finish his thought. The commander explains that Behrooz, the king of Turilessa, is notorious for his appetite for women and excess, including a feast that once lasted thirty days. Vilanis responds to the duration of the feast with bright fascination. The moment establishes his curiosity and youthful naïveté without making him merely foolish: he listens closely, but the extraordinary detail catches his imagination.

When the commander turns the discussion into a vote, Vilanis takes a position distinct from Navi’s. Navi says Mabel should remain behind, while Vilanis argues that she should travel with them. The exchange shows him willing to disagree openly about a decision affecting someone vulnerable, even as the others weigh the dangers of taking her on the journey. The vote ends in a tie, and Sven’s objection to bringing a girl along leaves the question unresolved in practice. Vilanis’s view does not determine the company’s immediate course, but it identifies him early as someone inclined to include Mabel rather than leave her behind.

Concern for Mabel

After the company departs without Mabel, Navi decides that Vilanis is the best person to return to the tavern and look after her. He considers Sven too dangerous, the commander unsuited to the task, and Yelsew too careless; Vilanis, by contrast, is described as good and friendly. Vilanis turns back without waiting for further instruction. His assignment is practical, but it also confirms the trust others place in his temperament.

The return becomes a race against uncertainty. Vilanis drives his horse hard, urging it onward because he fears that any extra delay could end tragically, although neither he nor the others knows that Mabel is in danger. The narrative explicitly separates his courage from the outward appearance of a fearless knight: his riding lacks the posture associated with glory, but his willingness to go is real. He hopes that reaching Mabel will reassure him, yet he and Mabel take different routes and miss each other. His effort therefore expresses care without producing the reunion he wants; the scene gives his protective impulse urgency while leaving its immediate purpose frustrated.

Company and Companionship

Vilanis’s place among the soldiers is not defined only by duty. At a meal, the remaining seat puts Mabel between him and Sven, and the two men press close enough that she struggles to move comfortably. The arrangement places her beside both a tense rival and the friendly soldier who had earlier supported taking her along. Vilanis is small, but his presence is part of the crowding that makes the meal awkward; the scene does not turn his good nature into exemption from the ordinary discomforts of life in the company.

Later, at a gathering where Mabel is dancing, Vilanis quickly takes her from Yelsew and asks her to focus on him rather than compare his dancing with Yelsew’s. Mabel laughs at the comparison. The episode presents him as playful and eager for her attention, but it does not establish a deeper romantic attachment. He then dances with another woman, whose husband watches them closely. Vilanis’s ease among people gives these scenes a lighter register than the military decisions and danger elsewhere in his story.

His courtesy also appears in a more formal encounter with Soray. When she demands an apology after an accident, Navi does not need to instruct Vilanis to provide one. Vilanis immediately apologizes, bows humbly, and explains that he could not have avoided the accident even if he had known Soray was behind him. When Soray insists that he kneel, the passage records the demand and his apologetic response, underscoring how readily he accepts the obligation to address her grievance.

Courage and Death

Vilanis is later seen among the soldiers assembled as the princess of Tantam approaches. Navi tells the company that they will be responsible for her from the moment she enters the gates and that Navon depends on them. In the formation, Vilanis appears to Mabel as perhaps the smallest soldier in the regiment. His stature is a visible contrast to the responsibility placed on the group: the soldiers are being asked to risk their lives in the princess’s defense. Mabel’s glance moves among Yelsew, calm and nearly smiling; Sven, confident and unwavering; and Vilanis, whose size makes him seem especially exposed.

During the battle, Vilanis is struck and knocked down. A Navonian soldier who has trained with him helps bring down the enemy threatening him, but the fighting continues around them and another enemy kills Vilanis. The account describes violence recurring through the night as soldiers intervene for one another and are in turn attacked. Vilanis’s death belongs to that repeated exchange rather than to a heroic victory that would secure his survival. The narrative calls him an insignificant flower among rocks and suggests that his capacity for healing may go unrecognized; the image makes his gentleness seem small beside the battle without diminishing its importance.

His ending also sharpens the difference between appearance and worth that has accompanied him throughout the story. The rider who did not look like a fearless knight, the small soldier in formation, and the young man whose friendliness made him useful to Mabel all prove capable of courage. Yet the battle does not reward that courage with safety. Vilanis’s care, humility, and willingness to act remain part of what the narrative records, even as his death shows the human cost of a conflict in which one soldier’s intervention cannot stop the next attack.