A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Read online

  “And by then some of the champions will have fallen, yes,” Raymun said. “Well, may the Warrior smile on you, ser.”

  “And you.” If he is only a squire, what business do I have being a knight? One of us is a fool. The silver in Dunk’s pouch clinked with every step, but he could lose it all in a heartbeat, he knew. Even the rules of this tourney worked against him, making it very unlikely that he would face a green or feeble foe.

  There were a dozen different forms a tourney might follow, according to the whim of the lord who hosted it. Some were mock battles between teams of knights, others wild melees where the glory went to the last fighter left standing. Where individual combats were the rule, pairings were sometimes determined by lot and sometimes by the master of the games.

  Lord Ashford was staging this tourney to celebrate his daughter’s thirteenth name day. The fair maid would sit by her father’s side as the reigning Queen of Love and Beauty. Five champions wearing her favors would defend her. All others must perforce be challengers, but any man who could defeat one of the champions would take his place and stand as a champion himself, until such time as another challenger unseated him. At the end of three days of jousting, the five who remained would determine whether the fair maid retained the crown of Love and Beauty, or whether another would wear it in her place.

  Dunk stared at the grassy lists and the empty chairs on the viewing stand and pondered his chances. One victory was all he needed; then he could name himself one of the champions of Ashford Meadow, if only for an hour. The old man had lived nigh on sixty years and had never been a champion. It is not too much to hope for, if the gods are good. He thought back on all the songs he had heard, songs of blind Symeon Star-Eyes and noble Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, Ser Ryam Redywne, and Florian the Fool. They had all won victories against foes far more terrible than any he would face. But they were great heroes, brave men of noble birth, except for Florian. And what am I? Dunk of Flea Bottom? Or Ser Duncan the Tall?

  He supposed he would learn the truth of that soon enough. He hefted the sack of armor and turned his feet toward the merchants’ stalls, in search of Steely Pate.

  Egg had worked manfully at the campsite. Dunk was pleased; he had been half-afraid his squire would run off again. “Did you get a good price for your palfrey?” the boy asked.

  “How did you know I’d sold her?”

  “You rode off and walked back, and if robbers had stolen her you’d be more angry than you are.”

  “I got enough for this.” Dunk took out his new armor to show the boy. “If you’re ever to be a knight, you’ll need to know good steel from bad. Look here, this is fine work. This mail is double-chain, each link bound to two others, see? It gives more protection than single chain. And the helm, Pate’s rounded the top, see how it curves? A sword or an axe will slide off, where they might bite through a flat-topped helm.” Dunk lowered the greathelm over his head. “How does it look?”

  “There’s no visor,” Egg pointed out.

  “There are air holes. Visors are points of weakness.” Steely Pate had said as much. “If you knew how many knights have taken an arrow in the eye as they lifted their visor for a suck o’ cool air, you’d never want one,” he’d told Dunk.

  “There’s no crest either,” said Egg. “It’s just plain.”

  Dunk lifted off the helm. “Plain is fine for the likes of me. See how bright the steel is? It will be your task to keep it that way. You know how to scour mail?”

  “In a barrel of sand,” said the boy, “but you don’t have a barrel. Did you buy a pavilion too, ser?”

  “I didn’t get that good a price.” The boy is too bold for his own good, I ought to beat that out of him. He knew he would not, though. He liked the boldness. He needed to be bolder himself. My squire is braver than I am, and more clever. “You did well here, Egg,” Dunk told him. “On the morrow, you’ll come with me. Have a look at the tourney grounds. We’ll buy oats for the horses and fresh bread for ourselves. Maybe a bit of cheese as well, they were selling good cheese at one of the stalls.”

  “I won’t need to go into the castle, will I?”

  “Why not? One day, I mean to live in a castle. I hope to win a place above the salt before I’m done.”

  The boy said nothing. Perhaps he fears to enter a lord’s hall, Dunk reflected. That’s no more than might be expected. He will grow out of it in time. He went back to admiring his armor and wondering how long he would wear it.

  Ser Manfred was a thin man with a sour look on his face. He wore a black surcoat slashed with the purple lightning of House Dondarrion, but Dunk would have remembered him anyway by his unruly mane of red-gold hair. “Ser Arlan served your lord father when he and Lord Caron burned the Vulture King out of the Red Mountains, ser,” he said from one knee. “I was only a boy then, but I squired for him. Ser Arlan of Pennytree.”

  Ser Manfred scowled. “No. I know him not. Nor you, boy.”

  Dunk showed him the old man’s shield. “This was his sigil, the winged chalice.”

  “My lord father took eight hundred knights and near four thousand foot into the mountains. I cannot be expected to remember every one of them, nor what shields they carried. It may be that you were with us, but…” Ser Manfred shrugged.

  Dunk was struck speechless for an instant. The old man took a wound in your father’s service, how can you have forgotten him? “They will not allow me to challenge unless some knight or lord will vouch for me.”

  “And what is that to me?” said Ser Manfred. “I have given you enough of my time, ser.”

  If he went back to the castle without Ser Manfred, he was lost. Dunk eyed the purple lightning embroidered across the black wool of Ser Manfred’s surcoat and said, “I remember your father telling the camp how your house got its sigil. One stormy night, as the first of your line bore a message across the Dornish Marches, an arrow killed his horse beneath him and spilled him on the ground. Two Dornishmen came out of the darkness in ringmail and crested helms. His sword had broken beneath him when he fell. When he saw that, he thought he was doomed. But as the Dornishmen closed to cut him down, lightning cracked from the sky. It was a bright, burning purple, and it split, striking the Dornishmen in their steel and killing them both where they stood. The message gave the Storm King victory over the Dornish, and in thanks he raised the messenger to lordship. He was the first Lord Dondarrion, so he took for his arms a forked purple lightning bolt, on a black field powdered with stars.”

  If Dunk thought the tale would impress Ser Manfred, he could not have been more wrong. “Every potboy and groom who has ever served my father hears that story soon or late. Knowing it does not make you a knight. Begone with you, ser.”

  It was with a leaden heart that Dunk returned to Ashford Castle, wondering what he might say so that Plummer would grant him the right of challenge. The steward was not in his turret chamber, however. A guard told him he might be found in the great hall. “Shall I wait here?” Dunk asked. “How long will he be?”

  “How should I know? Do what you please.”

  The great hall was not so great, as halls went, but Ashford was a small castle. Dunk entered through a side door and spied the steward at once. He was standing with Lord Ashford and a dozen other men at the top of the hall. He walked toward them, beneath a wall hung with wool tapestries of fruits and flowers.

  “—more concerned if they were your sons, I’ll wager,” an angry man was saying as Dunk approached. His straight hair and square-cut beard were so fair they seemed white in the dimness of the hall, but as he got closer he saw that they were in truth a pale silvery color touched with gold.

  “Daeron has done this before,” another replied. Plummer was standing so as to block Dunk’s view of the speaker. “You should never have commanded him to enter the lists. He belongs on a tourney field no more than Aerys does, or Rhaegel.”

  “By which you mean he’d sooner ride a whore than a horse,” the first man said. Thickl
y built and powerful, the prince—he was surely a prince—wore a leather brigantine covered with silver studs beneath a heavy black cloak trimmed with ermine. Pox scars marked his cheeks, only partly concealed by his silvery beard. “I do not need to be reminded of my son’s failings, brother. He has only eighteen years. He can change. He will change, gods be damned, or I swear I’ll see him dead.”

  “Don’t be an utter fool. Daeron is what he is, but he is still your blood and mine. I have no doubt Ser Roland will turn him up, and Aegon with him.”

  “When the tourney is over, perhaps.”

  “Aerion is here. He is a better lance than Daeron in any case, if it is the tourney that concerns you.” Dunk could see the speaker now. He was seated in the high seat, a sheaf of parchments in one hand, Lord Ashford hovering at his shoulder. Even seated, he looked to be a head taller than the other, to judge from the long, straight legs stretched out before him. His short-cropped hair was dark and peppered with grey, his strong jaw clean-shaven. His nose looked as though it had been broken more than once. Though he was dressed very plainly, in green doublet, brown mantle, and scuffed boots, there was a weight to him, a sense of power and certainty.

  It came to Dunk that he had walked in on something that he ought never have heard. I had best go and come back later, when they are done, he decided. But it was already too late. The prince with the silvery beard suddenly took note of him. “Who are you, and what do you mean by bursting in on us?” he demanded harshly.

  “He is the knight that our good steward was expecting,” the seated man said, smiling at Dunk in a way that suggested he had been aware of him all the time. “You and I are the intruders here, brother. Come closer, ser.”

  Dunk edged forward, uncertain what was expected of him. He looked at Plummer but got no help there. The pinch-faced steward who had been so forceful yesterday now stood silent, studying the stones of the floor. “My lords,” he said, “I asked Ser Manfred Dondarrion to vouch for me so I might enter the lists, but he refuses. He says he knows me not. Ser Arlan served him, though, I swear it. I have his sword and shield, I—”

  “A shield and a sword do not make a knight,” declared Lord Ashford, a big bald man with a round red face. “Plummer has spoken to me of you. Even if we accept that these arms belonged to this Ser Arlan of Pennytree, it may well be that you found him dead and stole them. Unless you have some better proof of what you say, some writing or—”

  “I remember Ser Arlan of Pennytree,” the man in the high seat said quietly. “He never won a tourney that I know, but he never shamed himself either. At King’s Landing sixteen years ago, he overthrew Lord Stokeworth and the Bastard of Harrenhal in the melee, and many years before at Lannisport he unhorsed the Grey Lion himself. The lion was not so grey then, to be sure.”

  “He told me about that, many a time,” said Dunk.

  The tall man studied him. “Then you will remember the Grey Lion’s true name, I have no doubt.”

  For a moment there was nothing in Dunk’s head at all. A thousand times the old man had told that tale, a thousand times, the lion, the lion, his name, his name, his name… He was near despair when suddenly it came. “Ser Damon Lannister!” he shouted. “The Grey Lion! He’s Lord of Casterly Rock now.”

  “So he is,” said the tall man pleasantly, “and he enters the lists on the morrow.” He rattled the sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “How can you possibly remember some insignificant hedge knight who chanced to unhorse Damon Lannister sixteen years ago?” said the prince with the silver beard, frowning.

  “I make it a practice to learn all I can of my foes.”

  “Why would you deign to joust with a hedge knight?”

  “It was nine years past, at Storm’s End. Lord Baratheon held a hastilude to celebrate the birth of a grandson. The lots made Ser Arlan my opponent in the first tilt. We broke four lances before I finally unhorsed him.”

  “Seven,” insisted Dunk, “and that was against the Prince of Dragonstone!” No sooner were the words out than he wanted them back. Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall, he could hear the old man chiding.

  “So it was.” The prince with the broken nose smiled gently. “Tales grow in the telling, I know. Do not think ill of your old master, but it was four lances only, I fear.”

  Dunk was grateful that the hall was dim; he knew his ears were red. “My lord.” No, that’s wrong too. “Your Grace.” He fell to his knees and lowered his head. “As you say, four, I meant no…I never…the old man, Ser Arlan, he used to say I was thick as a castle wall and slow as an aurochs.”

  “And strong as an aurochs, by the look of you,” said Baelor Breakspear. “No harm was done, ser. Rise.”

  Dunk got to his feet, wondering if he should keep his head down or if he was allowed to look a prince in the face. I am speaking with Baelor Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand of the King, and heir apparent to the Iron Throne of Aegon the Conqueror. What could a hedge knight dare say to such a person? “Y-you gave him back his horse and armor and took no ransom, I remember,” he stammered. “The old—Ser Arlan, he told me you were the soul of chivalry, and that one day the Seven Kingdoms would be safe in your hands.”

  “Not for many a year still, I pray,” Prince Baelor said.

  “No,” said Dunk, horrified. He almost said, I didn’t mean that the king should die, but stopped himself in time. “I am sorry, m’lord. Your Grace, I mean.”

  Belatedly he recalled that the stocky man with the silver beard had addressed Prince Baelor as brother. He is blood of the dragon as well, damn me for a fool. He could only be Prince Maekar, the youngest of King Daeron’s four sons. Prince Aerys was bookish and Prince Rhaegel mad, meek, and sickly. Neither was like to cross half the realm to attend a tourney, but Maekar was said to be a redoubtable warrior in his own right though ever in the shadow of his eldest brother.

  “You wish to enter the lists, is that it?” asked Prince Baelor. “That decision rests with the master of the games, but I see no reason to deny you.”

  The steward inclined his head. “As you say, my lord.”

  Dunk tried to stammer out thanks, but Prince Maekar cut him off. “Very well, ser, you are grateful. Now be off with you.”

  “You must forgive my noble brother, ser,” said Prince Baelor. “Two of his sons have gone astray on their way here, and he fears for them.”

  “The spring rains have swollen many of the streams,” said Dunk. “Perhaps the princes are only delayed.”

  “I did not come here to take counsel from a hedge knight,” Prince Maekar declared to his brother.

  “You may go, ser,” Prince Baelor told Dunk, not unkindly.

  “Yes, my lord.” He bowed and turned.

  But before he could get away, the prince called after him. “Ser. One thing more. You are not of Ser Arlan’s blood?”

  “Yes, m’lord. I mean, no. I’m not.”

  The prince nodded at the battered shield Dunk carried, and the winged chalice upon its face. “By law, only a trueborn son is entitled to inherit a knight’s arms. You must needs find a new device, ser, a sigil of your own.”

  “I will,” said Dunk. “Thank you again, Your Grace. I will fight bravely, you’ll see.” As brave as Baelor Breakspear, the old man would often say.

  The winesellers and sausage makers were doing a brisk trade, and whores walked brazenly amongst the stalls and pavilions. Some were pretty enough, one red-haired girl in particular. He could not help staring at her breasts, the way they moved under her loose shift as she sauntered past. He thought of the silver in his pouch. I could have her, if I liked. She’d like the clink of my coin well enough; I could take her back to my camp and have her, all night if I wanted. He had never lain with a woman, and for all he knew he might die in his first tilt. Tourneys could be dangerous…but whores could be dangerous too, the old man had warned him of that. She might rob me while I slept, and what would I do then? When the red-haired girl glanced back over her shoulder at him, Dunk shook his h
ead and walked away.

  He found Egg at the puppet show, sitting cross-legged on the ground with the hood of his cloak pulled all the way forward to hide his baldness. The boy had been afraid to enter the castle, which Dunk put down to equal parts shyness and shame. He does not think himself worthy to mingle with lords and ladies, let alone great princes. It had been the same with him when he was little. The world beyond Flea Bottom had seemed as frightening as it was exciting. Egg needs time, that’s all. For the present, it seemed kinder to give the lad a few coppers and let him enjoy himself amongst the stalls than to drag him along unwilling into the castle.

  This morning the puppeteers were doing the tale of Florian and Jonquil. The fat Dornishwoman was working Florian in his armor made of motley, while the tall girl held Jonquil’s strings. “You are no knight,” she was saying as the puppet’s mouth moved up and down. “I know you. You are Florian the Fool.”

  “I am, my lady,” the other puppet answered, kneeling. “As great a fool as ever lived, and as great a knight as well.”

  “A fool and a knight?” said Jonquil. “I have never heard of such a thing.”

  “Sweet lady,” said Florian, “all men are fools, and all men are knights, where women are concerned.”

  It was a good show, sad and sweet both, with a sprightly sword fight at the end, and a nicely painted giant. When it was over, the fat woman went amongst the crowd to collect coins while the girl packed away the puppets.

  Dunk collected Egg and went up to her.

  “M’lord?” she said, with a sideways glance and a half smile. She was a head shorter than he was, but still taller than any other girl he had ever seen.

  “That was good,” Egg enthused. “I like how you make them move, Jonquil and the dragon and all. I saw a puppet show last year, but they moved all jerky. Yours are more smooth.”