Ridderen is the 14th book of this series and it is mostly about the sullen, lonely and very understandably sad Tristan, brother of Lene and son of Tancred and Jessica.
But as always, this series oftentimes, and mostly, focuses on the women and as such, it starts out with the overlooked and much ridiculed Hildegard, the wife of a nobleman and a current resident of the castle where Tristan works. In one night, he unknowingly gives invaluable help to both Hildegard and her terrified 13-year-old daughter, without knowing either of them or that they're related. But it becomes the start of a much, much bigger and scarier story that he could imagine.
Tangled up with the story of these two unhappy women and the tragedy that forever changes the lives of bth Hildegard and Marina - that's the daughter - and of Tristan as well, is the in some ways scarier and some ways less scary story of "Vogterne af den rette trone" and mosemændene (literally 'bog men', but I don't know if that's what you'd call them..)
And that's were Villemo, Dominic and now Ulvhedin comes in.
See, some time has passed since the previous book and Ulvhedin, though still pursued for his crimes, is essentially a good person. By unhappy chance - or happy chance, deeending on how you look at it - he has to flee, and Dominic and Villemo decide to accompany him to Denmark,, to Tristan and his ancestral home, Gabrielshus, which stands empty since all of his family have died - or so they think.
I love this part of the story. It's creepy, it's intelligent and I'm a sucker for stories that bring old folklore into it.
I thinik, I'd give this book 5 stars outright, if I didn't feel like it moves just too fast. Something is always happening and the pace is really high. Like many of the other books, the narrative is very telling and less showing, but I'd say that this book probably has, if not most, then definitely a lot of showing. And not just what happens, but also what the characters are feeling or thinking.
Honestly, this is one of my favourites in the series. I love Tristan so much. He's been hurt profoundly, his family are all dead and he's totally alone, or feels totally alone at least, until he meets Hildegard and Marina.
Speaking of which, I really love Marina's development. Even though she's mostly a side character, she is really important and she and Tristan find peace together, even though they're both pretty broken people. And that's just ... beautiful.
This book, man. This book. Like I said, it's not the characters or the plot that drags it down. It's the pace. But I can understand why it sometimes need to move a little fast, given the fact that it's only the 14th book out of a series of 47, I mean if we got all the stories in long detail, this series would not only be longer, but maybe also seem less approachable.
The end of this book also introduces most of the next generation, sort of by-the-by surprise, which is hardly a surprise given the fact that for the past 3 books we've followed Villemo (and Dominic's adventures, discovered Ulvhedin - whose parentage is revealed in this book and it just gets me every time) and now Tristan in Denmark. It's been 2 years since Villemo and Dominic set out to find Ulvhedin at the beginning of book 13, so it's not a surprise that a lot of things have happen in the mean time; people getting married, children being born. But it adds to my feeling of moving too quickly.
This book also marks the end of Isfolket living in Denmark, at least to my memory. As I only own the first 22 books, and due to it having been a while since I read the second half of the series, I can't with certainty say that it is definitively over, but for now it is. Not that they're all dead, they're just moving. And given the extreme sense of familial unity, or strong sense of and need for family at least, for Isfolket, it is hardly a surprise ... Though this series is still full of them.