THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN, CHAPTER ONE: THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN, OR, A TITLE THAT NEVER FAILS TO MAKE ME SNICKER LIKE A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD BOY

Who remembers The Horse and His Boy, that Narnia book that was set in the desert empire of Calormene?  The one about a Northern-born orphan who turned out to be a long-lost prince?  Man, that was my favourite book when I was a kid.  Then I grew up and realized that it was about how a bunch of nice rich white people are threatened by the mean, evil, Satan-worshipping brown people in the south (except for Aravis, and she’s only okay because she leaves Calormene and accepts Aslan into her heart, and by the way Aslan is Jesus for those of you who slept through that lecture).  And, well, I realized it was no longer my favourite.  

As an adult, I think I can say with confidence that The Woman Who Rides Like a Man is pretty racist.  It is not as bad as The Horse and His Boy because damn, Satan-worshipping, hard to top that.  But it is still pretty racist, and the depiction of the Bazhir is pretty cringe-worthy, and I think that recapping this is gonna be a long, awkward, potentially infuriating ride for all of us.  Let’s try to power through it.  Lioness Rampant is coming next, we all like that one, right?

At the end of In the Hand of the Goddess, Alanna and Coram were leaving Corus to bum around the Great Southern Desert, because Alanna is in fact that kid you knew in university who went to Europe for a year after graduating to “find herself.”   Months later, Alanna and Coram are still bumming around the Great Southern Desert.  Apparently she hasn’t found herself yet.  What she has found: raiders!  A bunch of hillmen (presumably dudes who live in the hills? it doesn’t really elaborate) are charging all up in their business, and Alanna and Coram need to fight them.  Worst vacation ever.

There is fighting, and Alanna gets into it with this one bulky dude with a weird-looking crystal sword.  Amidst the kerfuffle, he uses said sword to break Lightning, and Alanna just loses her shit and goes after him with an axe.  Luckily a few Bazhir riders show up at that very moment to shoot the hillmen, because that fight was getting boring.  Alanna looks at the crystal sword and has a vision of a pole and a crazy bro shouting nonsense.  So apparently she is still having visions sometimes.  Good to know.  She grabs the ember-stone and realizes that the crystal sword is full of orange fire.  She picks up Lightning, which is in two pieces, and turns to face the Bazhir.

The headman, a gentleman by the name of Halef Seif, tells her that they are of the tribe the Bloody Hawk and that she and Coram are trespassing.  Alanna tries to do the “in the name of the King” thing, but the Bloody Hawk are one of the (many) Bazhir tribes that do not recognize the King’s authority so it doesn’t really work.  He then says that he cannot think well of a king who is so weak that he uses women as warriors, and it all looks like it’s going to end in very bad things when one of the other riders recognizes her.

“She is the one!” he exclaimed.  “Halef, she is the Burning-Brightly One!”
“Speak on, Gammal,” Halef ordered.
The huge warrior was bowing as low to Alanna as his saddle would permit.  “Would you remember me?” he asked hopefully. “I was at the smallest west gate in the stone village that northerners call Persopolis.  It was six rainy seasons ago.  Your master, the Blue-Eyed One, bought my silence with a gold coin.”
Remembering, Alanna grinned.  “Of course!  And you spat on the coin and bit it.”
The big man looked at his chief.  “She is the one!  She came with the Blue-Eyed Prince, the Night One, and they freed us from the Black City!”

I am posting this exchange not only to illustrate how Alanna manages to avoid being summarily executed, but so y’all can see how cringe-worthy the Bazhir’s dialogue is.  They all sound like a mixture of Arabian Nights outtakes and Tonto.  Yeesh.

The Bloody Hawk shaman, a brosef named Akhnan Ibn Nazzir, objects, saying that the Night One and the Burning-Brightly One were taken into the sky in a chariot of fire.  Gamal objects, they start fighting, and Coram is really, really over it.  Halef Seif tells Alanna that she is welcome to stay with the Bloody Hawk for the night, and she accepts, because if she doesn’t she will likely get shot.

Alanna and Coram are taken to a guest tent and served by three young members of the tribe, Kara, Kourrem, and Ishak.  They are psyched about Alanna’s eyes and cat and general novelty, but also say that Akhnan Ibn Nazzir is sure that she will corrupt them.  Alanna and Coram can both tell that the shaman is going to make trouble for them; Alanna, ever the pragmatist, decides to take a nap until such time as she can do something about it.

When she wakes up, it’s nearly evening, and the village is oddly still.  Ishak, who is still kicking around, says that all of the adults in the tribe are communing with the Voice (on which more later).  He also asks if Alanna is a sorceress, saying that he himself has the Gift and wants to be trained.  Alanna, still a little freaked by the whole recent evil duke/magic doll/duel to the death thing, tells him that she knows “nothing of magic” and that the Gift “leads only to pain and death.”  She gets dressed in her fancy going-out chainmail while Faithful tells her that while she napped the shaman asked the three young people what she had of value.

She joins the Bloody Hawk at the fire, at which point Halef Seif says that there are two opinions as to what should be done with her: half of the tribe says she should be put to death for being Northern and uppity, while the other says she should be welcomed as a sacred guest.  Seif himself opines that she should be invited to single combat to prove herself.  The debate goes back and forth, with Alanna feeling impressed by the Bazhir’s dedication to free speech and expression.  They mention the mysterious Voice again, and Alanna’s as confused about it as Mark Wahlberg is by, like, the world.

Unsurprisingly, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir sides with the people saying she should be put to death.  He later switches to side with those who believe she should be tried in combat, saying that the gods will honour whoever kills her.  Alanna calls him on this and on his interest in her possessions, prompting Halef Seif to admit that one third of what she owns would go to the shaman in the event of her death.

They eventually vote on the issue, and single combat wins out.

Will Alanna win the respect of the Bloody Hawk?  What’s the deal with the orange fire and the crystal sword, that’s a Roger thing, right?  Why wasn’t this recap funny, are you sick or something? (Answer: yes.)  Find out next time in CHAPTER TWO: THE BLOODY HAWK, OR, ALANNA FIGHTS A DUDE, HAS A SWORD-RELATED TEMPER TANTRUM, AND MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.