Aw, yeah, shit’s about to get political up in here.
Alanna’s bumping along very happily—Prince’s squire, Goddess-chosen, magical cat, basically living the anime dream—when suddenly a metric fuckton of delegates from neighboring kingdom Tusaine show up to cramp her style. Apparently the king of Tusaine is considering retaking the Drell River Valley on the border between the two kingdoms, and King Roald hates war so much he is basically considering rolling over and taking it. Or, like, not taking it. Letting them do it. Whatever. As Jonathan’s squire, Alanna is in the thick of all the diplomatic fol-de-rol, which is why she happens to be at the party where one of the ambassador’s knights, Dain of Melor, pooh poohs Tortallan swordsmanship. “Fencing!” he sneers. “I’ve seen what you call ‘fencing.’ Back home we call it dancing!”
The Ambassador of Tusaine, Mikal, apologizes for Dain, but then ruins it by being all “lol you guys sure do suck wrt fencing tho.” Diplomacy is just really hard, okay? Everyone is very tense, and there’s this little moment in the background:
“Raoul, standing by the hearth, was shifting slowly into a fighting stance. His coal-black eyes were snapping with fury, and he gripped his sword hilt with a white-knucled hand… Frantically she signaled Douglass to look at his knight-master. Her friend hurried over to Raoul and shoved a wineglass into the big knight’s hand, talking softly and quickly. After a second’s hesitation, Raoul released his hilt with a sigh.”
Given Raoul’s later admission of a drinking problem in his youth, this tidbit is kind of awkward and sad. How do you stop Raoul from kicking up a stink? Get him drunk! A+ squire skills, Douglass.
Jonathan says that even Tortallan pages and squires know how to hold their own against a full knight, and proposes that Dain fence one to see for himself, volunteering Alanna. Dain blusters a bit about all the duels he’s been in and all the bandits he’s killed and how SHORT Alanna is before finally throwing in the towel and agreeing. They all retire to the fencing gallery, but not before Alanna turns to look at her good buddy Alex and notices a strange expression on his face—almost as though he's eager. Could that be important? Nah, he’s just Duke Roger’s former squire, it’s probably nothing.
Myles is freaked out about the fact that Alanna intends on dueling a man who’s a head taller than she is. Alanna points out, quite logically, that if she refused to fight people who were taller than her there would be no point in trying for her shield at all. Faithful advises her to let Dain be stupid and not to get herself killed. (Oh, yeah, this is how we’re told that Faithful can talk, by the way. It’s just kind of slipped in there. I guess once the Goddess herself shows up to give you costume jewelry a talking cat ain’t that big a deal.) Dain and Alanna stretch and bow, and the duel begins.
Dain is both taller and stronger than Alanna, and spends a lot of time taunting her in hopes that she’ll become unnerved and slip up. She doesn’t, instead watching his body language and movements for feints and openings. They both quickly become sweaty and gross, and Alanna tries to wipe her face while Dain recovers from a stumble, thereby giving him the opportunity to lunge at her arm. He gets first blood, and she’s prepared to sheath her sword since he’s won by the rules, but instead he starts trying to stab her in the chest. Sporting of him. Everyone’s yelling “foul!” like it’s a goddamn soccer game and Duke Gareth comes toward them with a sword to try to end it, but Alanna shakes her head to call him off. You don’t stop Alanna of Trebond from fighting a broski just because he’s trying to stab her in the chest, dude. She disarms Dain, careful not to slip in her own blood, and tells him that he was stupid and that she’s only not killing him because she’s a better knight than him. Okay, Alanna, 1) you are not a knight yet and 2) the dude may have tried to stab you in the chest, but before that? According to the rules of first blood, he WON. So you’ve basically proved both that Tusaine knights are better swordsmen than their Tortallan counterparts AND that Tortallan knights are too wussy to kill people. Good show.
Myles comes to Alanna’s room while she’s cleaning up after the duel and asks why she didn’t kill him. Her response:
“He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn’t have time to sleep.”
Snerk. Myles says that the Ambassador would have understood if she’d killed him, and Alanna says that just because he (Dain) behaved badly is no reason for her (Alanna) to behave badly. She then gets all teary and asks why Myles is picking on her. He hugs her and tells her she’s a good lad. It’s all very Degrassi.
In a very non-Degrassi scene not so very far away, Duke Roger is playing chess with himself and thinking about Alanna. It’s all very wanky and exposition-y, so let me sum up: the Duke expected Alanna to be easy to control but she’s not; he doesn’t understand why she and Jonathan came back from the Black City; he thinks a god is protecting Jonathan, and possibly Alanna too; and now it turns out that Alanna is ace at waving pointy sticks around, dayum. His conclusion: He has to find a natural-looking way to kill her before she waves a pointy stick at his face. And also Jonathan, the King, the Queen, and anyone else who might get in his way.
How many more duels will Alanna have to fight? Will the conflict with Tusaine escalate? Why is Duke Roger playing chess by himself, doesn’t he have any friends? Find out next time in CHAPTER THREE: THE PRINCE’S SQUIRE, OR, GEORGE GIVES AN UNEXPECTED PRESENT, JONATHAN HAS THE SEX, AND ALANNA IS NEARLY KILLED, AGAIN.
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