Biography:
Wooden Heart: [Warning – contains major spoilers.]
Patrick is one of the central narrative voices of Wooden Heart. Emanated in 3590, he assumed the identity of a festival exchange from the House of Fitzroy. He became a member of Tara’s retinue when she received the news that the 5th Matriarch had authorized her divorce from Tenzain Merkht of Volparnu, allowing her to assume the role of Siderian Empress. There was a hitch – even though she had become free of the Volparnian law forbidding women from inheritance, she now fell under a Siderian law, Section 23b of the Gender Balance Act, mandating that the emperor or empress must have a consort. After considering the options both personal and political, Tara settles on Patrick because it is politically expedient, and as a clear political expediency, it won’t enrage Clive. Patrick is horrified by the idea of a marriage of convenience, which Tara reads as an objection, and assures him that he needn’t be faithful to her. Patrick fudges, saying that he has been enamored his entire life of a lady who doesn’t notice him, but that he is dedicated to Tara’s service. In order for him to remain of Eirelantra with her, so far from Atlas’ roots on Dolparessa, it is necessary for him to consistently dose with Root Riot. He still tires easily, so he claims he is anemic.
The night before his wedding, Patrick is visited by Tara’s uncle, Cetin Urhu. Urhu has served as regent during Tara’s marriage on Volparnu. Her assumption of the throne results in a significant loss of power for him. He assumes that Patrick is a gold-digger, and makes a proposal which is half-deal, half-threat: Patrick is to encourage Tara’s substance abuse, acting out and violent rages, and to provide information to Urhu. If he does so, when public opinion forces her abdication, Urhu will make certain that Patrick is well-paid. If he refuses, Urhu will ruin Patrick’s career. As he leaves, Patrick bars the door, but when Urhu turns to face him, Ashtara reveals himself, demonstrating how easy it would be to kill Urhu without raising suspicion. The threat and the apparitions terrify Urhu enough that he remains subdued for years, until Christolea’s coup.
Patrick’s life becomes a rollercoaster of small joys and the pain of dealing with Tara’s relationship with Clive Rivers. Both Tommy and Lady Lorma encourage her to take Patrick seriously, but she is still too infatuated with Clive. During this time, Patrick mentors a young Cu’enashti, Ashpremma/Derek, who has chosen a minor member of Tara’s retinue. Whenever Tara is absent, Patrick maintains a double-life as Mickey, who obtains insider information from CenGov which Patrick is able to employ from his position of power. One night at a party, Tara flirts with Patrick in order to make Clive jealous, but she ends up drinking too much and seduces Patrick when they return to their chambers. Patrick confesses that she is the one he has always loved.
A few weeks later, Rivers visits Tara to request a political favor. Patrick leaves them to go to a bar, but when he returns, he discovers that Tara is in his quarters and Clive has left the station. Tara confesses that she is sick of Clive, and would like to make a real go at her marriage with Patrick.
Patrick and Tara live happily until the 5th Matriarch orders Tara to go to Earth, representing Skarsia at a conference of independent worlds. Patrick is afraid that it is an assassination attempt – either on the Matriarch’s part or a trap laid by CenGov – and urges Tara not to go. Tara says that she has already accepted and that Patrick must accompany her. He can’t – at this point, Ashtara is unable to travel out of the Domha’vei – and so Patrick attempts to persuade her to stay by citing the prophecy. Tara explodes, calls him an opportunist and exiles him in a fit of unthinking rage. It completely breaks Patrick, and Whirljack must save the situation.
After Ailann emanates as Archon, Tara requests that Patrick return as her consort. Ashtara allows her to watch the transformation from Ailann to Patrick. That night, she calls in her sleep for Ash for the first time. (This incident is recounted in “The Vision of Night Waking” at the end of The Poison Garden.)
From then on, he is her constant companion for a number of years, except when the Archon is needed or when there is a need for a new emanation. This is both out of Tara’s emotional preference, and because Patrick is so useful as a diplomat. When Tara is set up to be assassinated by a neoninja on a diplomatic ship on the edge of Ash’s range, he has no choice but to emanate as Patrick. Patrick tries to elude the assassin, but his emanation does not have the right skills, and he soon becomes physically exhausted. When the assassin gets the better of Tara in a fight, Patrick takes the only option available, grabbing the assassin’s fallen weapon and shooting. Thus Patrick becomes the first emanation to kill. The trauma causes Ashtara to grow a new branch, black and twisted – Cillian.
Patrick’s problem with “anemia” is solved by Owen, who learns how to maintain his emanation by drawing energy from the nearest crystal in the power grid instead of relying on proximity to Atlas. Cillian had already learned that Ashtara can project his energy-form through the power grid, riding it to destinations outside of Dolparessa without “flying” through Newtonian space, so Owen’s discovery makes it practical for all of Ash’s emanations to function anywhere within the Domha’vei.
When the media catch Tara with Cuinn after he wins the PG Prize, rumors about Tara’s infidelities begin to circulate, but Patrick publically brushes off the talk. The rumors are a convenient screen to hide Ashtara’s many emanations.
After the restoration of the Matriarchy, Cetin Urhu is jailed for his part in the conspiracy. Tara has the right to have him executed, but doesn’t have the heart to do it. Realizing that as long as Urhu lives, he is a threat, Patrick visits him in prison and suffocates him. From that point on, Ash uses Patrick, the most stable of the emanations, when he needs to murder in cold blood, but Patrick blacks out the experiences.
Tara asks Ash to marry her according to Cu’endhari law. This means that he must file a disclosure legally listing all of his emanations and turning their material wealth over to Tara. Patrick files the disclosure on the morning of the Nau’gsh Festival, but everyone is too preoccupied with the attack on Tasea – something which Cillian had arranged in advance.
Patrick is present on Eirelantra when it is attacked – he throws himself over the bomb. Because he is killed, Ash is forced to re-emanate on Dolparessa. Cillian analyzes the military aspects of situation, then emanates Patrick. Patrick is able to analyze all the political ramifications of the situation, but is unwilling to cause a risk to Tara in order to solve the problem, so Wynne is emanated to skew the probabilities.
Patrick is visited by a Tara from 400 years in the future. She warns him that a suicide bomber is about to fly his hovercar into the Atlas tree, destroying it. The attacker will be able to get through the security perimeter because he has no weapon but the fuel in the car. She tells Patrick that she has fulfilled her destiny to become the ruler of the galaxy, but that she is a brutal despot, killing everyone in her way because her compassion died with Ash. She pleads with him to save himself before she vanishes.
Patrick expects to get instructions to stop the bomber from the other emanations, but instead finds himself cut off, like Lorcan. He has been left to solve the problem on his own. He has seen a future where Tara is safe and has achieved her destiny – by that logic, he should allow himself to be destroyed in order to achieve the end goal of Ash’s priorities. Tara enters the room; Patrick sees in her eyes that she loves him, and that it gives his life an inherent value. He stops the assassination attempt.
Much later (in Eden Blues) Malachi says that since the future-Tara came from a timeline Ash didn’t predict, he didn’t trust himself to know whether she was on the path to the vision of Tara’s Destiny. Patrick, as the most perceptive and stable emanation, was chosen to determine whether Tara could become that vision if she took the direction of the future-Tara, and his choice indicated that Tara’s ability to love was crucial to her ability to evolve.
The assassin, Nikolai Farlow, is a Tasean who has lost his entire family in the war. He says that he will never forget the announcement by Admiral Whelan that Tasea was meant as a wedding gift for his wife. Tara rages at Farlow, but Patrick, and by extension, Ashtara, is stunned. The average Cu’enashti thinks no farther than the well-being of the Chosen. Ashtara now realizes that because Tara’s Destiny touches on the fate of Humanity, his own actions have equally far-reaching implications. The priorities he has lived by are not enough to guide him in this undertaking.
Ashtara begins a period of reflection, using the writing of an autobiography, first by Ailann, then Patrick, and a series of self-portraits by Driscoll. Patrick asks Tara to edit his writing – meaning that she can delete anything that she doesn’t like. She becomes furious with him, leaving him alone to finally puzzle it out – she doesn’t want him to leave out any part of his story because it’s who he is. Ashtara takes this as an approval of his act of self-analysis, unique for a Cu’enashti. Around this time, Jamey discovers that Atlas has two seedlings: one is Cillian’s, the other is Patrick’s.
Molly is captured. Tara wants to interrogate her, but all Molly wants to do is reveal the true nature of the Cu’enashti, which she perceives as monstrous. The emanations have been terrified of this moment, fearing that if Tara understands what Molly saw, she will reject them. Molly is able to use the crystals in the Staff of the Matriarch in order to augment her telepathic ability enough for Tara to see into the pleroma. Tara’s reaction is to begin beating Molly’s head against the wall. She is not at all upset by Ash’s true form. Patrick pleads with Tara to spare Molly’s life. Wooden Heart ends with Tara asking Molly the rhetorical question, “Which one [of us] is the most human?”
Eden Blues: Patrick recounts a rather long conversation with Tara immediately after the joining of Atlas and Goliath. Tara tells him that she accepts her destiny, wanting to be on equal footing to better understand Ash. The conversation turns to Daniel, and Tara realizes that had Patrick been emanated, Cetin Urhu’s men never would’ve succeeded – he would’ve killed them. Patrick denies this, but then mutters, “They would…have died.” Tara changes the subject, but Ash can tell that Tara approves. She says that Ash never bores her, but it’s good to have Patrick for a sense of consistency with all the new emanations.
Patrick’s scion emanates as Charles – he has chosen the tree surgeon Sir Kaman. Kaman is afraid that Patrick will be upset by this, but Charles points out that Patrick has never shown any interest in the sapling – he has been cared for by Jamey and Kaman. Kaman initially rejects Charles because he is already married to Lwrence, but they end up as a threesome. It is also clear that Kaman, although he realizes that the nau’gsh life-cycle can’t be compared to humans, is uncomfortable with the Charles emanation manifesting as a sixteen-year-old boy. While Constantine is on Dumati fighting General Panic, Charles foils an assassination attempt by taking a bullet meant for Tara. The trauma causes a second emanation, Raoul, a talented artist who appears to be in his thirties.
The Poison Garden: At the opening of the novel, Patrick is giving Tommy advice on writing – which generally consists of editing out the more pornographic passages. From numerous internal discussions, it becomes clear that Patrick uses his diplomatic skills as a moderator within the pleroma. At one point, the other emanations argue whether Patrick is Tara’s favorite, but Patrick modestly says he gets emanated so often because his skills are of use to her. Other than background commentary, Patrick does not contribute to the action of the main story.
In “The Prophecy of Rebirth,” Patrick encounters Johannon Deverre, who had been sent as a diplomat from Earth, on Rebirth Day of 3612. Johannon makes a strange bet with Patrick – despite his best effort to seduce her, Tara will remain faithful to Ash. Johannon’s prize will be a place in the inner circle of the Archonist Church, and in order to perform well, he requires a restoration of his youth. Patrick complies – he’s a bit jealous, a bit suspicious of Tara’s relationship with Johannon. Tara outmaneuvers both of them, recognizing the game from the beginning. She tells Patrick that Seth has permission to be jealous because it fits his idiom, but Patrick just looks like an idiot. Patrick agrees to make Johannon immortal and give him a position of power within the church in exchange for a vow of celibacy.
In “The Prophecy of Ripening,” Patrick’s realization that Whirljack has pollinated him provokes a sexual awakening. He is the first of the emanations to fully experience the potential of pollination eroticism (although Tarlach had previously discussed the idea in a journal article). During this experience, Tarlach realizes that Aran, Patrick’s brother branch on Goliath, also responds to Patrick’s arousal.
In “The Prophecy of Fear,” Patrick describes Ash’s encounter with an alien species in the Tucana Dwarf Galaxy to Thoughtful 45, who identifies it as one of the Great Dread.
The Perpetual Rose: Patrick, along with Lorcan and Dermot, joins Cillian’s literary circle. He emanates in order to control the publicity about the Denolin Turym and the Combine of Sentients. He is the first to meet Elma’ashra’s second emanation, Heavensent. Tara tries a new experiment, drinking juice from his apples while he’s emanated. It causes them to realize that the mothman is a virgin – that Cu’enashti in their usual form have no way to express their sexuality.
During Lens’ pollination, Patrick is able to imprint the Yggdrasil emanations with a healthy attitude towards pollen eroticism. When Tommy examines his spreadsheets, he reveals that Patrick has gotten laid more than any other emanation, a fact which doesn’t surprise Tara. Patrick’s trading card – a Gold Card, indicating that Tara is in love with him – is the most elaborate one of all.
The Portable Grove: Patrick recounts the story of what happened to Ellery after his part in the cross-pollination experiment. Apparently, Patrick got a piece of him too…
At the beginning of the third experiment, Tara catches Patrick acting suspiciously with a datapad. Much later, in the 13th experiment, she discovers what he was hiding – he has been reading Two of Jacks fanfic.
Patrick, along with Whirljack and Rand, is assigned to participate in experiment eight. At first, his involvement seems pointless since the point of the experiment is to cause Tara to fall in love with Rand. But Tara and Rand end up in a foursome with Patrick and the unified Jack, fulfilling Patrick’s longstanding fantasies about WJ. When Tara leaves the pleroma with Rand, Patrick employs some elaborate alchemy to get his pollen into one of Whirljack’s open blossoms. The result produces an apple with a record amount (823mg) of nau’gshtamine.
During experiment ten, Tarlach’s research finds that Patrick’s apples have the highest overall nau’gshtamine content, and the survey rates him as the most desirable emanation, with a perfect score. The survey also reveals that someone is secretly in love with Patrick. Quennel suspects Evan, but Lorcan is the one to figure out the truth – it’s Driscoll. Perversely, this starts an odd relationship between Lorcan and Driscoll. When Patrick emanates again, he asks for Tara’s advice – he doesn’t know how to handle the situation with Driscoll at all.
Patrick indicates that he is interested in cross-pollinating Rand – a mutual attraction. Tara assigns them to the sixth stress-test. When they go to the basement, Patrick discovers that the wine glasses and petit fours were all contaminated with potassium cyanide, which he converts to sugar. The emanations advance a drunken conspiracy theory that Rasputin was not killed by the poison because Patrick went back in time to alchemically neutralize it. Tommy interrupts this line of thought by deciding to move the party to a less morbid location.
During the seventh stress-test, Tara discovers how the desserts work when she eats a petit-four and Patrick comes to join her in bed.
Correspondence Chart Entries from The Portable Grove
| Denotation | Patrick Fitzroy (Latin: Patricius, noble; Anglo-Norman: son of the king, a name given to the illegitimate children of monarchs). |
| Numeration | 7th Emanation of Ashtara; 7th branch of Atlas; 63 in the correspondence chart. |
| Age | 35 |
| Hotness | 10/10 |
| Vital Statistics | 1.781 meters tall, cock size 16.51 cm when erect. |
| Description | Perfectly handsome. A fairy-tale prince. Blond hair cut short with a side part. He is fit, but musculature is part of the package and does not attract more attention than the whole. Impeccably tasteful dress. Often wears official ceremonial dress as part of his role as Prince Consort. |
| Skills | Professional diplomat. Charming, charismatic, a good negotiator. Reliable, kind, tactful. Goes into murderous fugues. |
| Sexual Prowess and Kinks | Very sexually expressive; discovered the pollination kink. |
| Average Duration of Play | 17 minutes, 54 seconds. |
| Totem Tree | Osmanthus fragrans, the sweet osmanthus or fragrant olive. |
| Fixed Star | Mira, the wonderful star (ο Cet). |
| Color |  |
| Esoteric Symbol | The Minchiate trump Il Granduca, the Grand Duke. |
| Function | Administrative stabilization. |
| Official Title | His Royal Highness Patrick Fitzroy, Prince Consort of Sideria. |
| His Prophecy | The charisma of poured champagne. |
| Dessert | Assortment of petit-fours with nau’gsh and vanilla fillings |
Persistence of Weeds Addendum
| Branch Growth Characteristics | Natural branch growth willed by Mickey; overhanging branch capable of living off-world. Used as a template for his half-brothers on Goliath, Aran and Dominic. |
| Nul-history | Pursued by Tommy when they were discovered by the Cu’enashti entity which would become Atlas. |
| Proto-conscious Root Concept | Charisma, designated Beloved. |
| Prime Number of Energy Resonance | 307 |
| From Self-Portraits Not-of-Me II: Baby Pictures by Driscoll Garrett |  |