It’s the night before Jonathan’s birthday, and the whole Lower City is celebrating. Alanna (with Faithful) is there visiting George, and the thieves make fun of her for not drinking. Silly thieves, this is a Tamora Pierce book. You can only drink in Tamora Pierce books if you are a hilarious alcoholic!
George takes her up to his room and asks about her lessons with Duke Gareth, because he is still employing people at the Palace to watch her every move and for some reason that… isn’t creepy? I guess? Okay. Instead of being disturbed and annoyed, like a reasonable person, Alanna laughs it off and says George should start working as a spy in Tusaine. George, to her surprise, says he intends on doing just that, and warns her to conceal her source. He then gives her a package send to him from Thom, which contains a jewel-studded silver mail shirt for Jonathan’s birthday and a letter for her. In it Thom is his usual dickweed self and says that people have been making inquiries about the two of them in the City of the Gods. She asks George about it and he says that she has twice been followed into the Lower City by Palace men. They didn’t make it as far as the marketplace. I guess that’s one upside to having a known criminal hire thugs to follow you around.
George changes tack suddenly and asks her how old she is. When she replies that she’s nearly fifteen, he’s like, “Ohohoho, that is marrying age in the Lower City.” He is really vying for the Tortall’s Creepiest Bachelor award today, isn’t he? Alanna is suitably freaked out (FINALLY. GOD.) and is like “haha George, I’m not going to get married, please let go of me now!” George complies and briefly acts like less of a weirdo… until he walks her home and force-kisses her when her hands are full. She is, again, suitably freaked out and says she should have stabbed him, and he’s all “lol no.” When he leaves Alanna asks Faithful why he didn’t stop him. His reply?
I’m not here as a chaperone, the cat replied. Besides, I didn’t want to interrupt. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.
Wow. This did not bother me enough when I was eleven.
The next day there is a big ol’ Court ball for Jonathan’s birthday. Tortallans, man, any excuse for a party. Alanna, being the World’s Tiniest Buzzkill, is sulking on a windowsill when Gary finds her and tells her to come meet the new resident hottie. (Alanna’s automatic response: “I’m too young for girls.” jfc BE GAYER, ALANNA.) Said hottie is named Delia of Eldorne, and we can immediately tell she is an eeeeevil slut because she has dark hair and is wearing a low-cut green dress instead of the customary white/pastel palette of good, virginal court maidens.
Jonathan is clearly infatuated with her, and she is just as clearly interested in making Alanna uncomfortable/Jon jealous by dancing with our favourite redheaded pipsqueak. Alanna mentions that she feels “odd” whenever she compliments Jonathan, and Myles—who is, as usual, drunk—notices her jealousy. He tries to sympathise by telling her that some women like to break up male friendships. Jeez, if it wasn’t obvious that Myles knows about Alanna’s vagina issue this would sound so much like a kindly open-minded mentor giving his closeted homosexual protégé a pep talk.
The seasons turn, as they are wont to do, and the Tortallan winter is harsh as balls. Alanna, who hates the cold even more than she hates spiders, remembers the Great Southern Desert in the wistful longing way you remember the best sex of your life. Speaking of which: she also starts having the sexy thoughts about Jonathan. Specifically, about crawling into be with him to “warm up,” and by “warm up” we mean “get some hot prince-on-squire action.” The harsh winter means that Trebond is suffering, and Alanna gets some practice running a fief by sending food and warm clothing up north to relieve her people. Thom, the actual heir of Trebond, is presumably too busy casting spells and being a dick to bother with that kind of earthly nonsense.
The squires are sent out for an impromptu camping trip in January, and Alanna deals with her hatred of the cold by digging a little snow burrow and warming herself with her Gift. She takes Faithful with her—seriously? How are her training masters okay with this?—and the two of them chill (heh) for the night until Alanna is randomly attacked by a boar. When she stabs it it squeals and vanishes. Someone is definitely trying to kill her with magic, but Alanna refuses to tell anyone, because she has no proof. Damn, girl, there must be a spell someone can cast to trace this sort of shit—then again, these books were written prior to TPierce’s interest in procedural crime dramas, so maybe not. In any case, Alanna tells no one, because the Trebond knights are known for their intelligence.
So in addition to the cold, intrusive sexy thoughts, and murderous boar-illusions chasing her down in the forest, Alanna is all cranky about Delia of Eldorne, who is really hot-n-cold and gives Jonathan the boyband feelings.
No, not those.
That's more like it.
Sometimes they bone and sometimes she ignores him and it makes Jonathan impossible to live with. (He even writes poems. POEMS. I’d really love to read one of derpy ol’ Jon’s poems—I’m imagining something like “Delia, oh Delia, you make my young heart feel-ia.”) The situation is not improved by Delia trying to make Jonathan jealous by making Alanna pay special attention to her at parties. At one point Jonathan accuses Alanna of “using” Delia to make her masquerade more believable, which, trust me, dude, everyone just thinks she’s gay.
One of the few squires at Court who is not infatuated with Delia is Alex, AKA Duke Roger’s former squire. As a result Alanna starts hanging out with him more—probably the lack of poetry is a relief—and one day they decide to have a friendly duel. You know, see which of them is better at killing people with pointed sticks. Grand, that’ll end beautifully.
(Unrelated: Alanna refers to Alex as her “dark friend,” which both reminds me of The Wheel of Time and strikes me as a wee bit racist. Damn, Alanna.)
They duel in one of the practice rooms, and in a crazy twist that no one could have seen coming, Alex tries to kill the shit out of Alanna and ends up breaking her collarbone. The duel is stopped by Myles, which seems to snap Alex out of some kind of trance; he apologizes profusely to Alanna and then leaves. Myles says that Faithful dragged him from his chambers to the room in which Alex was trying to make Trebond kebab. Myles and Faithful are both like “yo he was trying to kill you, maybe you should do something about that?” And Alanna, true to form, is like, “I have no proof.”
Um, okay, maybe you don’t have proof that Alex was put into a trance by Duke Roger and sent to kill you, or whatever, but he broke your collarbone. And you have a witness (two if you count your talking cat, which maybe you shouldn’t because people might think you are on shrooms). You definitely have proof that Alex tried to kill you. Maybe you should, you know, do something about that?
Will Alanna keep being a dumbass? (Yes.) Will Jonathan keep channeling JC Chasez? (Yes.) Will more people try to kill our pigheaded heroine? (Is that even a question?) Find out next time in CHAPTER FOUR: A CRY OF WAR, OR, ALANNA GOES ON A ROAD TRIP AND GETS FORCE-KISSED BY GEORGE AGAIN, JESUS, GEORGE, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?
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