IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER SIX: CAPTURED!, OR, KIDNAPPED! WAS ALREADY TAKEN SO WE WENT WITH THIS

Alanna wakes up after her dry-magic dirt nap to find the sun shining and her wounded arm (very poorly) bandaged by none other than the heir to the throne of Tortall.  Apparently he managed to weasel into her tent before anyone else to patch her up and ensure that no one else got an eyeful of gay squire boobage.

 
She has been asleep for three days, because in Tamora Pierce books no one ever passes out for a tidy half hour.  Alanna asks if they’ve found Jem Tanner and tells Jon that Thor was innocent.  Jon actually bellows “TREACHERY!”  This is one of the earlier onset signs of his transformation into Asshole Jon: random yelling.  Apparently the order given by King Roald not to retake the left bank still holds, and he’s even thinking of giving the Tusaine army the right bank to shut them up.  Alanna points out that if they give Tusaine the right bank they won’t stop until they regain the whole valley:

Jonathan nodded. “But no one can convince my father of that.  He takes being called ‘The Peacemaker’ very seriously.”
“He did establish peace after the Old King’s conquests,” Alanna said fairly.
“Yes, but this time he’s wrong!”  Jonathan growled.  He brooded for a few moments before smiling and taking her hand. [My God, growling and brooding in the same sentence, he’s practically Mr. Darcy.]  “Look at me.  You’re not awake five minutes and I’m burdening you with my problems.  Mithros, I’m glad you’re all right!”
Alanna squeezed his hand.  “Thank you for taking care of me, Jon.”
He reached over to brush a strand of hair away from her face.  Suddenly he was very close.  Alanna discovered she was afraid to breathe.  Carefully, almost timidly, Jonathan kissed her mouth.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

As luck would have it, Myles chooses that minute to blunder into the tent, barely giving them enough time to spring apart and do the Definitely Not Making Out Dance.  Jon is reading a book, Alanna is drinking from a water bottle, and both of their faces are colours that faces oughtn’t be.  Myles is, of course, sharp as a box of tacks, knows exactly what’s going on, and chooses to observe their discomfort with quiet satisfaction.  As do we all, Myles, as do we all.

Duke Roger (oh, yeah, remember him? I know we are all very sad about Thor’s tragic death, but Duke Roger = still a thing!) orders Alanna to stay away from fighting for a while so she doesn’t fall asleep for three days again.  She is pissy about this, and about the fact that Douglass is acting as Jonathan’s squire while she’s out of commission.  To vent her frustration she volunteers to do every-friggin’-thing in camp: working in the healers’ tents, assisting the resident blacksmiths, and acting as a sentry.  Duke Roger finds her at this one evening and decides to have a casual chat with her, despite Faithful trying to rip his face off.  (Faithful, you are the WORST FAMILIAR.)  After a few minutes of aimless chitchat (where’d you get your nails done, what are you taking in school, have you ever transcended space and time, etc), the Duke suddenly gets down to the nitty gritty:

“We are not friends, are we, Alan?”

This is the conversation that follows, slightly paraphrased:

ALANNA: No, I kind of hate you.
DUKE ROGER:  That’s a shame.  If you didn’t hate me so much I might not want to kill you so hard.
ALANNA: You’d still want to kill all my friends pretty hard, though.  Not so down with that.
DUKE ROGER: I see.  Well, I’m going to leave you alone in this suddenly rising fog now.  If you start feeling sleepy, don’t worry, it’s definitely not a spell I’ve brewed up to disable you so you can be kidnapped by the opposing side.  Goodnight!

Yeah.  Guess what happens.

The kidnappers take Alanna, but they forget Faithful, who is curled up tight and will not wake up.  The Tortallans assume that this is because magic, rather than because cat.

Duke Roger tells Jon & Co. that they cannot cross the river to rescue Alanna, as per the King’s strict no-crossies rule.  Jon is freaking out because what if they see the gay squire boobage?  He tries to mention this to Myles, who gently not-quite-says that he already knows about said boobage, dummy, and also have you gotten to second yet?  It is decided that at some point that evening Myles will be elsewhere in camp, and if Jon and his heroic buddies decide to go for a little trip, maaaaaaybe across the river… well, who can stop them?

Alanna eventually wakes up (presumably not three days later, but in a Tamora Pierce book it’s always iffy) in a wooden hut with two other prisoners, a pair of foot soldiers named Micah and Keel.  They are all chained up; Alanna tries to use magic to break her chains, but they’ve been spelled so the Gift doesn’t work on them.  A Tusaine captain comes into the room to tell Micah and Keel that they will be paid and released if they give information; when they ask what will happen to Alanna they are told that she will not be ransomed, because Duke Hilam (remember him? he’s the King of Tusaine’s dastardly brother!) wants to speak to her personally.  And by “speak to” he means “torture.”

Keel and Micah, of course, refuse to say anything, because all Tortallans are fucking noble as balls.  Once the captain leaves the three of them try to figure out how to get out of the hut; Alanna finally remembers that she has a set of lock picks hidden in her belt and sets them free.  (Her own chains, of course, are magicked to melt her lock picks when she tries the same thing on herself.  Gee, Alanna, it’s almost as if A POWERFUL SORCEROR WANTS YOU TO DIE.  But whatever, you have no proof.)  When they hear footsteps, Keel and Micah hide themselves on either side of the door, ready to use their chains as weapons—which actually turns out to be a bad move, as Duke Hilam has the Gift and likes to blast doors off their hinges instead of opening them like a normal person.  Keel and Micah are knocked unconscious, their daring escape plan ruined, and Alanna is left to face yet another good-looking, magically powerful duke who wants to kill her.  They’re a dime a dozen in the Eastern Lands, apparently.  Hilam is followed by—surprise!—Jem Tanner, who it turns out is actually Count Jemis, the King of Tusaine’s other brother.

Okay—so you’ve got a king, a duke, and a count, who are all brothers?  Like, legitimate brothers?  The Tusaine feudal system is fucked up.

The Duke kicks her a bit and threatens to cut out her tongue, and Alanna endures it because Micah and Keel have regained consciousness and she wants to give them time to escape.  And also because she’s in frickin’ chains and can’t fight back against a frickin’ evil duke.  Jemis asks if he can kill her, because “I could have killed Prince Jonathan that night if he hadn’t been there” (SPOONING ON HORSEBACK); Hilam says he needs to stab some information out of her first.  Alanna makes fun of him, which is always a wise choice when you’re tied up and held hostage by someone who intends to kill you.  Before her dumbassery can get her into deeper shit, however, Prince Jonathan and the cavalry show up to take Jemis and Hillam as hostages, thereby ending the war and keeping Alanna safe and un-tortured.

Yep.  That is actually how this chapter ends.  They sign peace treaties, the Tortallans get their fucking valley back, and everyone goes home by August.

Jesus, this book.

Do we have time for another pointless war before the end of the novel?  Will Alanna and Jon do more horseback spooning?  Is that SERIOUSLY the end of the Tortall-Tusaine conflict, seriously???  Find out next time in CHAPTER SEVEN: WINTER LESSONS, OR, ALANNA FEELS PRETTY, BONING ENSUES.

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER FIVE: BY THE RIVER DRELL, OR, JON IS GAY AGAIN, SOME FIGHTING OCCURS, AND ALANNA MINGLES WITH COMMON FOLK WHO DON’T WANT TO STICK IT IN HER

The Tortallan army arrives at the Falls camp and settles in just in time for dinner.  Dinner, for Alanna, is a plate of meat and beans.  I’m hoping the meat is actually chopped up hot dogs in tomato sauce.  Just like Mom used to make!  She sits with the foot soldiers instead of the knights and other squires, presumably because all that time she spends at the Dancing Dove has rendered her more comfortable kickin’ it with the simple peasantfolk than murmuring about wine vintages and poetry with her fellow aristocrats.  (That’s what classy people talk about, right?  Wine and crap?)  One of said relatable peons is a very large, very friendly gentleman named Thor.  Yes, Thor.  Like the Norse God/Marvel hero.  He saves Alanna when she nearly chokes on her wieners and beans, thus ensuring that they will be BFFFL.

All the assorted foot soldiers assume that Alanna is twelve, because she is short and that never stops being funny.  When she corrects them, some bro saunters out of the crowd like an obnoxious dick to obnoxiously point out that Alanna fought and won a duel against a full-grown Tusaine knight.  Obnoxious Bro’s name is Jem Tanner, and everyone reacts to him like he smells like an open sewer and makes jokes about the mentally disabled, so you (the reader) get that he is really super super obnoxious.  He then hints (obnoxiously) that Alanna might be a spy sent into their ranks by the Tusaine army.  Silly Jemnoxious, spies can’t be short.  Alanna yells at him and he melts obnoxiously back into the crowd.  Everyone now likes Alanna the most because she yelled at this bro, and Thor likes her the most the most, which I think I can confidently say means he will be dead within a few pages.

We get a quick description of how Alanna spends her time in the army: grooming horses, learning history lessons from Myles, drilling and eating with the foot soldiers.  It’s pretty dull, and pretty blatantly set up to make us have the feels when Thor inevitably dies.  Because, y’know, their deep beans and wieners bond and such.  Jemnoxious is still hanging around being a jerk in a vague sort of ineffectual way.  That is apparently not interesting enough for our stalwart heroine, who asks Duke Baird if she can help out in the healers’ tent to stave off boredom.  Hanging out there totally harshes her buzz because everyone is dying all over the place, and she uses up pretty much all of her Gift either healing people or doing the Angel of Mercy bit.  Jonathan finds her there, pretty much asleep on her feet.  He quite rightly decides that it is time for his exhausted squire to go to bed.  He quite wrongly decides that the best way to take his exhausted squire to bed is by spooning her on horseback in the moonlight while he whispers sweet nothings in her ear.  Faithful meets them in the dark and is all yo, don’t kill yourself in the healers’ tent, dumbass, and also everyone who is looking at you right now thinks you are Tortall's biggest mo.

Cue Jem Tanner, oozing out of the night to accuse Alanna of “gadding about.”  I don’t know what that means but I’ll assume it’s a reference to covert homosexual shenanigans.* Alanna yells at him—I know! Our delicate little chrysanthemum!—and he disappears to finish guard duty.  Remember that later, kids, it may be on the test.  Faithful then tells Alanna that if she plans on falling in love with the prince she ought to be more subtle about it.  Alanna, predictably, is like “lolwut?”  When she tries to go to bed later she ends up tossing and turning and eventually throws up because apparently being in the healers’ tent was super gross.  Jonathan finds her vomming up a storm and tells her that he threw up after his first skirmish.  He then  tells her not to let the men know because it “wouldn’t do to let them think we’re sissies, would it?”

Bro, you just romantically dry-humped your male-presenting squire on the back of a goddamn horse.  Do you really think a little Technicolor yawn is going to make a difference?

Two nights later—yes, two nights, as in two nights since the scene in which Jon and Alanna played Ambiguously Gay Horseback Knifey-Spoony, AKA That Was Actually So Irrelevant, Tamora Pierce, I Can’t Even, Where Is Your Editor—Alanna is looking for Big Thor, because apparently his spear broke and Alanna’s got a new one for him.  She stole it from a dead dude.  Sweet girl, that Alanna.  Instead of finding Big Thor (who, coincidentally, was supposed to be on guard duty with Jemnoxious, because the Tortallan army only has two guards at a time, ever), she finds soldiers from Tusaine.  Surprise! The opposing army is crossing the river, and our favourite Mr. Tanner is nowhere in sight.

Maybe they killed him for being too obnoxious.

There is a battle, and it is as inevitably dull as all battle scenes in all fantasy literature ever.**Alanna kills some bros and saves Jonathan’s life, and then the enemy retreats for no apparent reason, and if that all sounds kind of wishy-washy and anti-climatic, you’ve probably read this book.

Once it's all over, Alanna decides to search for Thor on the battlefield, using her special purple tracking magic.  (Oh, yeah, apparently magic ain’t just for healing and killing demons anymore.)  She finds Thor, who has been violently blinded and says that Jem Tanner betrayed the Tortallans by knocking him out and then… I dunno, inviting the Tusaine army over to their side of the river?  Maybe for tea or something?  Whatever, the point is, Jemnoxious is a bad bad man and Thor is going to die from blindsies.  Alanna uses her magic to help ease his way into the afterlife so he doesn’t feel any pain, but forgets that she’s recently been using it to track the dude she just mercy-killed and starts to faint.  She sees a vision of the Black God reaching out to her and is like “sup bro, if I’m dying right now I don’t actually care because I’m hella tired and I just had to put the dude who was my best friend for ten seconds to sleep like an elderly poodle.”

Aaaaand then the chapter ends.  CLIFFHANGER.

Is Alanna seriously going to die?  (Nope, too much book left.)  Does anyone mention her and Jon’s awkward horse-spooning?  (Not to their faces, I’d wager.)  Is Jemnoxious really as obnoxious as all that?  (Dude, he has “noxious” right in his name.  RIGHT in there!)  Find out next time in CHAPTER SIX: CAPTURED!, OR, KIDNAPPED! WAS ALREADY TAKEN SO WE WENT WITH THIS

* Please note: This is untrue.  I know what “gadding about” means.  I just always assume covert homosexual shenanigans.

** Sometimes I think about the fact that I hate battle scenes and gushy descriptions of clothing and fucking HORSES OH MY GOD and wonder what the hell I’m doing in this genre.  Then I remember it has dragons in it and I feel better.  True story.