everyone knows about lune archenland. mining fortune in south america, wife dead in childbirth, attempted kidnapping of both his infant sons by political opponents.

attempted kidnapping of both. actual kidnapping of one.

there are a lot of things lune's involved in, but he gave up mining and picked up charity, and that's probably the reason. but everyone says that even he never expected to see cor again. his son corin was a coddled child, spoiled rotten -- and who wouldn't be, given the circumstances? -- but trained within an inch of his life in self-defense.

lune, instead of retiring quietly as a lot of people expected, put himself in the spotlight. for a while there, you couldn't open a newspaper or turn on a tv without hearing something about lune or his company or one of its subsidiaries. he went head to head with some of the greats in business: uther pendragon, lionel luthor, warren worthington, caspian and then miraz telmar, and walked away every time. not always successfully, but he never gave in, never lost his company, and his money grew and grew and grew. corin's going to inherit a hell of a lot, people said, if lune doesn't lose it all somewhere.

and then the calormen consortium started sniffing around.