The Second Year
- Alanna sleeps for three days after saving Jonathan's life. Sounds about right.
- She manages to give most of the credit to Sir Myles in order to avoid scrutiny for the weird way her Gift worked.
- One morning, Alanna gets dressed only to find that her chest is jiggling a tad. She angrily gets some bandages from Coram in order to bind her newly developing breasts. Coram tries to tell her that she'll only be happy once she accepts who she is, but Alanna's too pissed off at biology to listen.
- Not being able to strip down and swim with the other boys in the summer is tough for Alanna; she loses her temper every time someone teases her about it, but no one really minds too much. The boys all like Alan, so they tell him to stop fussing about it so much.
- Duke Roger, Jonathan's cousin, finally arrives at court after a long absence. He's a charismatic stud, but for some reason he rubs Alanna the wrong way and she takes an instant dislike to him. Must be that female intuition, right??
- One of the first things Duke Roger does is interview each noble boy to see if they've got the Gift. During her interview, Alanna gets a terrible headache and feels nervous because it's like Duke Roger is grilling her.
- When she tells Coram about this, he says that he's heard rumors that Duke Roger can force others to follow his will. It didn't seem to work on Alanna, though…maybe she's protected by the gods?
- One day, Alanna gets a note from George saying that he thinks he found a good horse for her. Alanna doesn't know much about horse buying, so she asks Jonathan to come with her, since he's got more experience.
- When George and Jonathan meet, it's…interesting. George immediately knows who Jonathan is, but it takes Jonathan a little longer to catch on to George's identity.
- George shows Alanna a beautiful golden mare that she falls in love with immediately and names Moonlight. George only wants ten gold nobles for her—what a steal!
- Jonathan takes George aside and says that's nowhere near what the horse is worth, and offers to compensate him for the rest of the price. Aw.
- George accepts a sapphire ring as payment from Jonathan, and gives Jonathan a beautiful black horse as part of the deal. It seems like the King of Thieves and the Crown Prince are on their way to becoming friends. Double aw.
- Alanna and three other pages are soon given over to a gnarled old dude, Captain Sklaw, for sword training. (If the name fits, right?)
- Coram is to help; he teaches them to forge their own swords before they even begin to practice their fighting skills.
- Sklaw begins to train the pages with drills and exercises, and Alanna, being the smallest, always gets picked on. She's ordered to duel with another of the boys, and to her great humiliation, he kicks her butt.
- Alanna confesses to Coram about how ashamed she is that she's hopeless with a sword. He tells her that some people are naturals with a sword, and because she's not, she has to train harder and learn to become a natural.
- From this, Alanna has an idea: she borrows Coram's sword (which is almost bigger than she is) and begins to train privately with it. Way to be, Alanna.