A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers is an appendix to Gideon the Ninth, released with the paperback edition on 14 July 2020. Credited to "the collected works of M. Bias," this sermon extemporizes on the nature of the bond between a necromancer and their cavalier, and the modern corruption of this bond including granting the title of cavalier to unskilled swordsmen and romantic relationships between necromancer and cavalier.
Background[]
The sermon of M. Bias serves as a reaction to modern Nine Houses' interpretation of the necromancer-cavalier bond as "romanticising an essentially military bondage" as reflected in Nine Houses popular culture, such as Be My Cavalier I-VII.
Sermon Contents[]
The Holiness of the Necromancer-Cavalier Bond[]
"We two groups share a symbiotic relationship. Those who hold the sword must hold it for the necromancer. Those who were born with thanergetic nervous systems ply their art only by the grace of the sword."
Bias asserts that the necromancer-cavalier bond is an "acknowledgement of the equality granted to us by God." The existence of the bond is representative of the difference of the people of the Nine Houses and proof of the devotion of and to their God. Necromancy makes the people of the system more like their God and the necromancer-cavalier bond binds the system's people as proof of that truth. In this, the bond is sacred.
The Social Cavalier[]
M. Bias touches on the distinction between Cohort cavaliers and "social cavaliers," who are assigned their position not by their dedication, training, and exemplary performance, but rather as a traditional position assigned to the premier necromancers of their Houses. He asserts that concern for the corruption of the label is outdated by thousands of years, and that "even Second House cavaliers primary most often begin their higher services as a lowly lieutenant."
One End as Martial[]
"One end is one Empire."
Bias offers the interpretation that the necromancer-cavalier bond is pure expression of art and devotion for each other, and thus an act of duty to God. He describes the bond as mutual love, trust, admiration, obedience, and the assumption of togetherness. According to M. Bias, the pair "do not have to enjoy each other's society," as long as they are wholly committed to their bond.
"Sword-Marriages"[]
A majority of his sermon focuses on "the invention of the fiction writer, or more likely, the pornographer" that portrays the necromancer-cavalier bond as romantic or sexual. Disparaging it as lewd and "traitorous to the ideals of the Necrolord Prime," he proceeds to outline several more commonly accepted practices for marriage among necromancers that are less taboo. Bias also admits that there is some tradition of spouses becoming cavaliers in Fifth House, but disdains it as a "stubborn holdover that is characteristically Fifth not to remove."
Pattern Marriages[]
Marriages between pairs of necromancers and cavaliers, out of fashion due to the inevitable complications as family lines blur.
Atrial Marriages[]
A pattern marriage of two necromancer-cavalier pairs, necromancer to necromancer and cavalier to cavalier. This marriage is more typically performed intra-House.
Ventrical Marriages[]
A pattern marriage of two necromancer-cavalier pairs, necromancer to others' cavalier and vice versa. This marriage is more typical of marriages with outsiders.
A Lyctoral Note on Cavaliers and Necromancers[]
A scrap of paper secretly kept safe on Sixth House:
"valancy says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can't stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks"