The Mystery Knight ttodae-3 Read online

  The only answer that he got was a glare from the ugliest dwarf. Was he the one I pulled off Lady Butterwell last night? Up close, the little man smelled like a privy. One whiff was enough to make Dunk hasten his steps.

  The walk across the Milk house seemed to take Dunk as long as it had once taken him and Egg to cross the sands of Dorm. He kept a wall beside him, and from time to time he leaned on it. Every time he turned his head, the world would swim. A drink, he thought. I need a drink of water, or else I’m like to fall.

  A passing groom told him where to find the nearest well. It was there that he discovered Kyle the Cat, talking quietly with Maynard Plumm. Ser Kyle’s shoulders were slumped in dejection, but he looked up at Dunk’s approach. “Ser Duncan? We had heard that you were dead, or dying.”

  Dunk rubbed his temples. “I only wish I were.”

  “I know that feeling well.” Ser Kyle sighed. “Lord Caswell did not know me. When I told him how I carved his first sword, he stared at me as if I’d lost my wits. He said there was no place at Bitterbridge for knights as feeble as I had shown myself to be.” The Cat gave a bitter laugh. “He took my arms and armor, though. My mount as well. What will I do?”

  Dunk had no answer for him. Even a freerider required a horse to ride; sellswords must have swords to sell. “You will find another horse,” Dunk said, as he drew the bucket up. “The Seven Kingdoms are full of horses. You will find some other lord to arm you.” He cupped his hands, filled them with water, drank.

  “Some other lord. Aye. Do you know of one? I am not so young and strong as you. Nor so big. Big men are always in demand. Lord Butterwell likes his knights large, for one. Look at that Torn Heddle. Have you seen him joust? He has overthrown every man he’s faced. Fireball’s lad has done the same, though. The Fiddler as well. Would that He had been the one to unhorse me. He refuses to take ransoms. He wants no more than the dragon’s egg, he says…that, and the friendship of his fallen foes. The flower of Maynard Plumm gave a laugh. “The fiddle of chivalry, you mean. That boy is fiddling up a storm, and all of us would do well to be gone from here before it breaks.”

  “He takes no ransoms?” said Dunk. “A gallant gesture.”

  “Gallant gestures come easy when your purse is fat with gold,” said Ser Maynard. “There is a lesson here, if you have the sense to take it, Ser Duncan. It is not too late for you to go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  Ser Maynard shrugged. “Anywhere. Winterfell, Summerhall, Asshai by the Shadow. It makes no matter, so long as it’s not here. Take your horse and armor and slip out the postern gate. You won’t be missed. The Snail’s got his next tilt to think about, and the rest have eyes only for the jousting.”

  For half a heartbeat, Dunk was tempted. So long as he was armed and horsed, he would remain a knight of sorts. Without them, he was no more than a beggar. A big beggar, but a beggar all the same. But his arms and armor belonged to Ser Uthor now. So did Thunder. Better a beggar than a thief. He had been both in Flea Bottom, when he ran with Ferret, Rafe, and Pudding, but the old man had saved him from that life. He knew what Ser Arlan of Pennytree would have said to Plumm’s suggestions. Ser Arlan being dead, Dunk said it for him. “Even a hedge knight has his honor.”

  “Would you rather die with honor intact, or live with it besmirched? No, spare me, I know what you will say. Take your boy and flee, gallows knight. Before your arms become your destiny.” Dunk bristled. “How would you know my destiny? Did you have a dream, like John the Fiddler? What do you know of Egg?”

  “I know that eggs do well to stay out of frying pans,” said Plumm. “Whitewalls is not a healthy place for the boy.”

  “How did you fare in your own tilt, ser?” Dunk asked him.

  “Oh, I did not chance the lists. The omens had gone sour. Who do you imagine is going to claim the dragon’s egg, pray?”

  Not me, Dunk thought. “The Seven know. I don’t.”

  “Venture a guess, ser. You have two eyes.”

  He thought a moment. “The Fiddler?”

  “Very good. Would you care to explain your reasoning?”

  “I just…I have a feeling.” “So do I,” said Maynard Plumm. “A bad feeling, for any man or boy unwise enough to stand in our Fiddler’s way.”

  * * *

  Egg was brushing Thunder’s coat outside their tent, but his eyes were far away. The boy has taken my fall hard. “Enough,” Dunk called. “Any more and Thunder will be as bald as you.”

  “Ser?” Egg dropped the brush. “I knew no stupid snail could kill you, ser.” He threw his arms around him.

  Dunk swiped the boy’s floppy straw hat and put it on his own head. “The maester said you made off with my armor.”

  Egg snatched back his hat indignantly. “I’ve scoured your mail and polished your greaves, gorget, and breastplate, ser, but your helm is cracked and dinted where Ser Uthor’s coronal struck. You’ll need to have it hammered out by an armorer.”

  “Let Ser Uthor have it hammered out. It’s his now.”No horse, no sword, no armor. Perhaps those dwarfs would let me join their troupe. That would be a funny sight, six dwarfs pummeling a giant with pig bladders. “Thunder is his too. Come. We’ll take them to him and wish him well in the rest of his tilts.”

  “Now, ser? Aren’t you going to ransom Thunder?” “With what, lad? Pebbles and sheep pellets?” “I thought about that, ser. If you could borrow?

  Dunk cut him off. “No one will lend me that much coin, Egg. Why should they? What am I, but some great oaf who called himself a knight until some snail with a stick near stove his head in?”

  “Well,” said Egg, “you could have Rain, ser. I’ll go back to riding Maester. We’ll go to Summerhall. You can take service in my father’s household. His stables are full of horses. You could have a destrier and a palfrey too.”

  Egg meant well, but Dunk could not go cringing back to Summerhall. Not that way, penniless and beaten, seeking service without so much as a sword to offer. “Lad,” he said, “that’s good of you, but I want no crumbs from your lord father’s table, or from his stables neither. Might be it’s time we parted ways.” Dunk could always slink off to join the City Watch in Lannisport or Oldtown; they liked big men for that. I’ve bumped my bean on every beam in every inn from Lannisport to King’s Landing, might be it’s time my size earned me a bit of coin instead of just a lumpy head. But watchmen did not have squires. “I’ve taught you what I could, and that was little enough. You’ll do better with a proper master-at-arms to see to your training, some fierce old knight who knows which end of the lance to hold.”

  “I don’t want a proper master-at-arms,” Egg said. “I want you. What if I used my-”

  “No. None of that. I will not hear it. Go gather up my arms. We will present them to Ser Uthor with my compliments. Hard things only grow harder if you put them off.”

  Egg kicked the ground, his face as droopy as his big straw hat. “Aye, ser. As you say.”

  * * *

  From the outside, Ser Uthor’s tent was very plain: a large square box of chin-colored sailcloth staked to the ground with hempen ropes. A silver snail adorned the center pole above a long gray pennon, but that was the only decoration.

  “Wait here,” Dunk told Egg. The boy had hold of Thunder’s lead. The big brown destrier was laden with Dunk’s arms and armor, even to his new old shield. The Gallows Knight. What a dismal mystery knight I proved to be. “I won’t be long.” He ducked his head and stooped to shoulder through the flap.

  The tent’s exterior left him ill prepared for the comforts he found within. The ground beneath his feet was carpeted in woven Myrish rugs, rich with color. An ornate trestle table stood surrounded by camp chairs. The feather bed was covered with soft cushions, and an iron brazier burned perfumed incense.

  Ser Uthor sat at the table, a pile of gold and silver before him and a flagon of wine at his elbow, counting coins with his squire, a gawky fellow close in age to Dunk. From time to time the Snail would bite a coin, or s
et one aside. “I see I still have much to teach you, Will,” Dunk heard him say. “This coin has been clipped, t’other shaved. And this one?” A gold piece danced across his fingers. “Look at the coins before taking them. Here, tell me what you see.” The dragon spun through the air. Will tried to catch it, but it bounced off his fingers and fell to the ground. He had to get down on his knees to find it. When he did, he turned it over twice before saying, “This one’s good, m’lord. There’s a dragon on the one side and a king on t’other….“

  Underleaf glanced toward Dunk. “The Hanged Man. It is good to see you moving about, ser. I feared I’d killed you. Will you do me a kindness and instruct my squire as to the nature of dragons? Will, give Ser Duncan the coin.”

  Dunk had no choice but to take it. He unhorsed me, must he make me caper for him too? Frowning, he hefted the coin in his palm, examined both sides, tasted it. “Gold, not shaved or clipped. The weight feels right. I’d have taken it too, m’lord. What’s wrong with it?”

  “The king.”

  Dunk took a closer look. The face on the coin was young, clean-shaved, handsome. King Aerys was bearded on his coins, the same as old King Aegon. King Daeron, who’d come between them, had been clean-shaved, but this wasn’t him. The coin did not appear worn enough to be from before Aegon the Unworthy. Dunk scowled at the word beneath the head. Six letters. They looked the same as he had seen on other dragons. DAERON, the letters read, but Dunk knew the face of Daeron the Good, and this wasn’t him. When he looked again, he saw that something odd about the shape of the fourth letter, it wasn’t…“Daemon,” he blurted out. “It says Daemon. There never was any King Daemon, though, only-”

  “-the Pretender. Daemon Blackfyre struck his own coinage during his rebellion.”

  “It’s gold, though,” Will argued. “If it’s gold, it should be just as good as them other dragons, m’Iord.”

  The Snail clouted him along the side of the head. “Cretin. Aye, it’s gold. Rebel’s gold. Traitor’s gold. It’s treasonous to own such a coin, and twice as treasonous to pass it. I’ll need to have this melted down.” He hit the man again. “Get out of my sight. This good knight and I have matters to discuss.”

  Will wasted no time in scrambling from the tent. “Have a seat,” Ser Uthor said politely. “Will you take wine?” Here in his own tent, Underleaf seemed a different man than at the feast.

  A snail hides in his shell, Dunk remembered. “Thank you, no.” He flicked the gold coin back to Ser Uthor. Traitor’s gold. Blackfyre gold. Egg said this was a traitor’s tourney, but I would not listen. He owed the boy an apology.

  “Half a cup,” Underleaf insisted. “You sound in need of it.” He filled two cups with wine and handed one to Dunk. Out of his armor, he looked more a merchant than a knight. “You’ve come about the forfeit, I assume.”

  “Aye.” Dunk took the wine. Maybe it would help to stop his head from pounding. “I brought my horse, and my arms and armor. Take them, with my compliments.”

  Ser Uthor smiled. “And this is where I tell you that you rode a gallant course.”

  Dunk wondered if gallant was a chivalrous way of saying “clumsy.” “That is good of you to say, but-”

  “I think you misheard me, ser. Would it be too bold of me to ask how you came to knighthood, ser?”

  “Ser Arlan of Pennytree found me in Flea Bottom, chasing pigs. His old squire had been slain on the Redgrass Field, so he needed someone to tend his mount and clean his mail. He promised he would teach me sword and lance and how to ride a horse if I would come and serve him, so I did.”

  “A charming tale…though if I were you, I would leave out the part about the pigs. Pray, where is your Ser Arlan now?”

  “He died. I buried him.”

  “I see. Did you take him home to Pennytree?”

  “I didn’t know where it was.” Dunk had never seen the old man’s Pennytree. Ser Arlan seldom spoke of it, no more than Dunk was wont to speak of Flea Bottom. “I buried him on a hillside facing west, so he could see the sun go down.” The camp chair creaked alarmingly beneath his weight.

  Ser Uthor resumed his seat. “I have my own armor, and a better horse than yours. What do I want with some old done nag and a sack of dinted plate and rusty mail?”

  “Steely Pate made that armor,” Dunk said, with a touch of anger. “Egg has taken good care of it. There’s not a spot of rust on my mail, and the steel is good and strong.”

  “Strong and heavy,” Ser Uthor complained, “and too big for any man of normal size. You are uncommon large, Duncan the Tall. As for your horse, he is too old to ride and too stringy to eat.”

  “Thunder is not so young as he used to be,” Dunk admitted, “and my armor is large, as you say. You could sell it, though. In Lannisport and King’s Landing, there are plenty of smiths who will take it off your hands.” “For a tenth of what it’s worth, perhaps,” said Ser Uthor, “and only to melt down for the metal. No. It’s sweet silver I require, not old iron. The coin of the realm. Now, do you wish to ransom back your arms, or no?”

  Dunk turned the wine cup in his hands, frowning. It was solid silver, with a line of golden snails inlaid around the lip. The wine was gold as well, and heady on the tongue. “If wishes were fishes, aye, I’d pay. Gladly. Only-”

  “-you don’t have two stags to lock horns.”

  “If you would…would lend my horse and armor back to me, I could pay the ransom later. Once I found the coin.”

  The Snail looked amused. “Where would you find it, pray?”

  “I could take service with some lord, or…” It was hard to get the words out. They made him feel a beggar. “It might take a few years, but I would pay you. I swear it.”

  “On your honor as a knight?”

  Dunk flushed. “I could make my mark upon a parchment.”

  “A hedge knight’s scratch upon a scrap of paper?” Ser Uthor rolled his eyes. “Good to wipe my arse. No more.”

  “You are a hedge knight too.”

  “Now you insult me. I ride where I will and serve no man but myself, true…but it has been many a year since I last slept beneath a hedge. I find that inns are far more comfortable. I am a tourney knight, the best that you are ever like to meet.”

  “The best?” His arrogance made Dunk angry. “The Laughing Storm might not agree, ser. Nor Leo Longthorn, nor the Brute of Bracken. At Ashford Meadow, no one spoke of snails. Why is that, if you’re such a famous tourney champion?”

  “Have you heard me name myself a champion? That way lies renown. I would sooner have the pox. Thank you, but no. I shall win my next joust, aye, but in the final I shall fall. Butterwell has thirty dragons for the knight who comes second, that will suffice for me…along with some goodly ransoms and the proceeds of my wagers.” He gestured at the piles of silver stags and golden dragons on the table. “You seem a healthy fellow, and very large. Size will always impress the fools, though it means little and less in jousting. Will was able to get odds of three to one against me. Lord Shawney gave five to one, the fool.” He picked up a silver stag and set it to spinning with a flick of his long fingers. “The Old Ox will be the next to tumble. Then the Knight of the Pussywillows, if he survives that long. Sentiment being what it is, I should get fine odds against them both. The commons love their village heroes.”

  “Ser Glendon has hero’s blood,” Dunk blurted out.

  “Oh, I do hope so. Hero’s blood should be good for two to one. Whore’s blood draws poorer odds. Ser Glendon speaks about his purported sire at every opportunity, but have you noticed that he never makes mention of his mother? For good reason. He was born of a camp follower. Jenny, her name was. Penny Jenny, they called her, until the Redgrass Field. The night before the battle, she fucked so many men that thereafter she was known as Redgrass Jenny. Fireball had her before that, I don’t doubt, but so did a hundred other men. Our friend Glendon presumes quite a lot, it seems to me. He does not even have red hair.”

  Hero’s blood, thought Dunk. “He say
s he is a knight.”

  “Oh, that much is true. The boy and his sister grew up in a brothel, called the Pussywillows. After Penny Jenny died, the other whores took care of them and fed the lad the tale his mother had concocted, about him being Fireball’s seed. An old squire who lived nearby gave the boy his training, such that it was, in trade for ale and cunt, but being but a squire he could not knight the little bastard. Half a year ago, however, a party of knights chanced upon the brothel and a certain Ser Morgan Dunstable took a drunken fancy to Ser Glendon’s sister. As it happens, the sister was still a virgin and Dunstable did not have the price of her maidenhead. So a bargain was struck. Ser Morgan clubbed her brother a knight, right there in the Pussywillows in front of twenty witnesses, and afterwards little sister took him upstairs and let him pluck her flower. And there you are.”

  Any knight could make a knight. When he was squiring for Ser Arlan, Dunk had heard tales of other men who’d bought their knighthood with a kindness or a threat or a bag of silver coins, but never with a sister’s maiden-head. “That’s just a tale,” he heard himself say. “That can’t be true.”

  “I had it from Kirby Pimm, who claims that he was there, a witness to the knighting.” Ser Uthor shrugged. “Hero’s son, whore’s son, or both, when he faces me, the boy will fall.”

  “The lots may give you some other foe.”

  Ser Uthor arched an eyebrow. “Cosgrove is as fond of silver as the next man. I promise you, I shall draw the Old Ox next, then the boy. Would you care to wager on it?”

  “I have nothing left to wager.” Dunk did not know what distressed him more: learning that the Snail was bribing the master of the games to get the pairings he desired, or realizing the man had desired him. He stood. “I have said what I came to say. My horse and sword are yours, and all my armor.”