So I’m rereading Squire by Tamora Pierce and I just got to the part where Kel shows Raoul her expensive ass swords and explains about her mysterious benefactor. For the first time it occurs to me that there’s no way Raoul doesn’t immediately know it’s Alanna. He’s not stupid. He’s been her friend since they were pages. It’s implied that he discussed taking Kel as his squire with her by the fact that Alanna passes on that Kel is “taken care of” to Neal when she’s offering to take Neal as her squire. There’s no way that when Raoul hears somebody has been anonymously showering Kel with incredibly thoughtful and costly gifts he doesn’t immediately think of the scary redhead who’s been pissed off for years at being forbidden from openly helping Kel by the fucking patriarchy and wouldn’t know how to do things by halves if the Goddess herself begged her to be subtle.
But I don’t think he knew about the gifts ahead of time. He put two and two together the moment Kel told him about her benefactor, but it’s not like Alanna had reason to randomly keep him informed about the extravagant way she’s been secretly making up for being barred from Kel’s presence. In my head Raoul is dying inside, barely keeping his realization from Kel, and then next time he meets up with Alanna away from Kel’s POV…
Raoul: “You gave her weapons from Raven Armory?!”
Alanna: “What, they make good swords.”
Raoul: “Yeah and they’re priced to match!”
Alanna: “With all the shit Wyldon was putting her through she deserved a nice sword.”
Raoul: “There’s nice and then there’s RAVEN FUCKING ARMORY nice. Don’t you have kids and an entire holding to feed?”
Alanna: “Look I tried to get her an ancient magical relic from a long dead civilization of immortals like I had at her age, but it turns out those are hard to come by.”
