So, bros! Were you aware that bullying is wrong? If not, Tamora Pierce is here to teach you a lesson. Namely, that bullying is not highly recommended. Which is a lesson I’m sure no Tamora Pierce fans ever learned firsthand.
Remember that kid with the Nick Carter hair and bad teeth? Alanna does, and so she isn’t surprised when he corners her in the stables and tells her to clean up his horse. He leaves without waiting to see if she’ll actually do it; Stefan the hostler watches her and tells her that he’ll have to tell Duke Gareth that Ralon didn’t take care of his horse, which will get him into trouble and inevitably lead to Alanna’s teeth getting kicked in. She says she knows and leaves, leading Stefan to conclude that Alanna is brave, but stupid. Ralon ends up getting a month of punishment stable duties, which is beautifully fitting. Alanna’s friends speculate on what could have happened and Alanna’s like LOL DUNNO WASN’T THERE NO CLUE. Good job derailing their suspicion, brosef.
She expects Ralon to take revenge, and so he does. First he tries to strip her naked and throw her into a lake, which is a big HELL NO due to the whole crouching tiger, hidden vagina issue. Luckily her friends attempt to drown him. Which is a totally proportionate response! He then pinches her in the Great Hall and makes her drop a tray, which prompts Myles to have a little (non-drunk) talk with her about how bullying is wrong. Or, rather, deliver a one-sided monologue about how the Code of Chivalry is too hard on the young’uns, while Alanna stares at him and wonders if he’s been into the brandy after all. She tells him that she plans on fighting back (good luck, kid, you’re like two feet tall), because otherwise he will continue to pinch her and try to get her naked. Myles is like “well, if you have to hit, hit low.” That’s the Tortallan zero tolerance policy: kick ‘em in the balls.
Ralon finds her the next day and, as predicted, beats the shit out of her, even though she does manage to get a direct blow to the testicles first. She tells Coram that she fell down, and he’s like, “shyeah, and I’m the Emperor of Carthak.” He goes to get her a steak, and she has a pity party about how a real boy would never have been beaten up. Which makes no sense, because Ralon clearly targets younger, smaller dudes to rough up. What the fuck, Derpyhooves. Her motley crew show up and are shocked by the fact that she seems to have been run through a meat processor and vow to avenge their wee Alan, although they also vow to make sure he doesn’t know about it in case he hits them in the testicles too. Gary goes to talk to Stefan, who tells him what happened and says that George will make sure that Ralon never comes back from the city with a full purse again.
He also mentions that George collects ears. Presumably they are pinned to a corkboard and displayed in the common room of the Dancing Dove.
Raoul beats Ralon up, and Ralon tells Duke Gareth. This is against the page’s moral code or something, so everyone starts leaving the room when he enters. Ralon retaliates by breaking Alanna’s arm, because everyone reacts appropriately in Tortall. Alanna is sent to Duke Gareth, who is basically like “JUST FUCKING PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE OR SOMETHING JESUS.”
And then Raoul beats up Ralon again. Because that worked real well the first time.
Time passes, Alanna practices wrestling and boxing, and after her splint is taken off in mid-October she takes a midnight ride to the Dancing Dove. She is greeted by a redhead with huge cans.
This turns out to be Rispah, George’s cousin. She takes him to George, who is carousing with drunkards, like you do, and who is weirdly distant when he sees Alanna. He says he hears she’s been having problems with Ralon; when she says that that’s why she came into the city he takes her upstairs, still acting weird and awkward. He asks if she wants him to make sure Ralon suffers some kind of “accident”; Alanna gets all huffy and nearly leaves because how could he think that of her? No, Alanna just wants to learn how to effectively beat him to a pulp, that’s all. Because the commoners, they know the dirty kind of fighting. George calms down and starts teaching her to go for the eyes.
After a few weeks of lessons George buys her a beer (JESUS GEORGE SHE IS ELEVEN WHAT THE FUCK) and is all “so you ready to do some punchin’ yet?” She is, so she drinks her beer (ELEVEN. ELEVEN!) and the next night she calls Ralon out on the practice courts, calling him a liar, a sneak, a coward, and a bully, and also a lizard and a weasel and assorted other things. He freaks out and starts swinging, but she swings faster, and ends up breaking his nose. He starts crying like a chump, and she tells him that if he ever touches her again she’ll kill him. He whines for a bit, then leaves Court like a little bitty baby. And that’s the end of Ralon of Malven… or is it??? (Ha, just kidding, it is.) (Unless it’s not!) (No, it is.) (Maybe???)
Myles comes to see her afterwards, telling her that Coram and her friends are bragging about her totally creaming Ralon’s punk ass. She tells him that she threw up afterwards, admitting that she hated administering such a gloriously thorough beating and that she feels like she is as bad as he was. Myles responds with what basically works out to “bro, he broke your arm.” And then Alanna has this weird internalized misogyny freakout:
No matter what Myles said, she had used fancy tricks to beat Ralon, that was all. She was still a girl masquerading as a boy, and sometimes she doubted that she would ever believe herself to be as good as the stupidest, clumsiest male.
Oh, God, where to even start with this. First of all, WHAT. Second of all, you are an eleven-year-old who just successfully beat up a fifteen-year-old. That’s like an elementary school kid beating up a high schooler (or incredibly precocious college student). Third of all, those “fancy tricks” involved sticking your thumb in his eye and stepping on his foot, it’s not like you whipped out a blackjack. Fourth, SERIOUSLY WHAT.
Anyway, Jonathan comes in and is like “you’re not a bully because he started it and also is like ten feet taller than you, so shut up.” And then they have the first of many Tender, Ambiguously Gay Moments.
Suddenly Alanna felt a lot better. “Thanks, Highness.” She grinned. “Thanks a lot.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “You may have noticed my friends call me Jonathan, or Jon.”
Alanna looked up at him, not sure what was going on. “And am I your friend, Highness?”
“I do believe you are,” he told her quietly. “I’d like you to be.” He offered her his hand.
She took it. “Then I am—Jonathan.”
Those two dudes would get so teased at my middle school, just sayin’.
Who will provide the necessary conflict now that Ralon is gone? Will Alanna and Jon continue to act like boyfriends? Does George owning an ear collection technically make him a sociopath? Find out next time in CHAPTER FOUR: DEATH IN THE PALACE, OR, IN WHICH EVERYBODY GETS SICK AS BALLS AND UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE DIE.
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