Caolin and Rosanda is another Alliance of Unity story. We’ve had a few of those in the different story arcs, and there will be some more. Marion and Kristoph, especially, but also New Lords of Time and Theta Sigma, are very much science fiction soap operas. Births, deaths and marriages are the perennial subjects of soap operas. They’re going to keep coming up again and again. So there is no point in anyone complaining about that. Just go with it.

This Alliance is different because it’s a Caretaker Alliance. No Panopticon, no Chancellery Guard, just a bower in the garden of Mount Lœng House for the wedding of the butler, Caolin, and his sweetheart, Rosanda.

The introduction of Rosanda, an independent young woman with her own career as a dressmaker, a craftswoman of her worker class, is, of course, to fill the gap left by Rika when she married Remonte and went off to Ventura to be an Ambassador’s wife. Rosanda isn’t a servant. She can, therefore, have a freer relationship with Marion than her maids or housekeeper. Expect stories featuring both women.

The figure at the back of the church waiting to disrupt the proceedings is something of a stock item in any wedding story. In literature, of course, it goes right back to Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester’s guilty secret. But this time the day isn’t spoilt. The Alliance goes ahead. The jealous rival is no trouble at all. Caolin and Rosanda are happily married. Life on the Lœngbærrow demesne continues happily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre