A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

  "Seven save us." The septon dabbed sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "A brigand, is he? And a big one. Ser, repent your evil ways, and the Mother will have mercy." The septon's pious plea was undercut when he farted. "Oh, dear. Forgive my wind, ser. That's what comes of beans and barley bread."

  "I am not a brigand," Dunk told the two of them, with all the dignity that he could muster.

  The Longinch was unmoved by the denial. "Do not presume upon my patience, ser...if you are a ser. Run back to your chicken tower and tell Ser Eustace to deliver up Ser Bennis Brownstench. If he spares us the trouble of winkling him out of Standfast, her ladyship might be more inclined to clemency."

  "I will speak with her ladyship about Ser Bennis and the trouble at the dam, and about the stealing of our water too."

  "Stealing?" said Ser Lucas. "Say that to our lady, and you'll be swimming in a sack before the sun has set. Are you quite certain that you wish to see her?"

  The only thing that Dunk was certain of was that he wanted to drive his fist through Lucas Inchfield's crooked yellow teeth. "I've told you what I want."

  "Oh, let him speak with her," the septon urged. "What harm could it do? Ser Duncan has had a long ride beneath this beastly sun, let the fellow have his say."

  Ser Lucas studied Dunk again. "Our septon is a godly man. Come. I will thank you to be brief." He strode across the yard, and Dunk was forced to hurry after him.

  The doors of the castle sept had opened, and worshippers were streaming down the steps. There were knights and squires, a dozen children, several old men, three septas in white robes and hoods... and one soft, fleshy lady of high birth, garbed in a gown of dark blue damask trimmed with Myrish lace, so long its hems were trailing in the dirt. Dunk judged her to be forty. Beneath a spun-silver net her auburn hair was piled high, but the reddest thing about her was her face.

  "My lady," Ser Lucas said, when they stood before her and her septas, "this hedge knight claims to bring a message from Ser Eustace Osgrey. Will you hear it?"

  "If you wish it, Ser Lucas." She peered at Dunk so hard that he could not help but recall Egg's talk of sorcery. I don't think this one bathes in blood to keep her beauty. The widow was stout and square, with an oddly pointed head that her hair could not quite conceal. Her nose was too big, and her mouth too small. She did have two eyes, he was relieved to see, but all thought of gallantry had abandoned Dunk by then. "Ser Eustace bid me talk with you concerning the recent trouble at your dam."

  She blinked. "The...dam, you say?"

  A crowd was gathering about them. Dunk could feel unfriendly eyes upon him. "The stream," he said, "the Chequy Water. Your ladyship built a dam across it..."

  "Oh, I am quite sure I haven't," she replied. "Why, I have been at my devotions all morning, ser."

  Dunk heard Ser Lucas chuckle. "I did not mean to say that your ladyship built the dam herself, only that...without that water, all our crops will die...the smallfolk have beans and barley in the fields, and melons..."

  "Truly? I am very fond of melons." Her small mouth made a happy bow. "What sort of melons are they?"

  Dunk glanced uneasily at the ring of faces, and felt his own face growing hot. Something is amiss here. Longinch is playing me for a fool. "M'lady, could we continue our discussion in some...more private place?"

  "A silver says the great oaf means to bed her!" someone japed, and a roar of laughter went up all around him. The lady cringed away, half in terror, and raised both hands to shield her face. One of the septas moved quickly to her side and put a protective arm around her shoulders.

  "And what is all this merriment?" The voice cut through the laughter, cool and firm. "Will no one share the jape? Ser knight, why are you troubling my good-sister?"

  It was the girl he had seen earlier at the archery butts. She had a quiver of arrows on one hip and held a longbow that was just as tall as she was, which wasn't very tall. If Dunk was shy an inch of seven feet, the archer was shy an inch of five. He could have spanned her waist with his two hands. Her red hair was bound up in a braid so long it brushed past her thighs, and she had a dimpled chin, a snub nose, and a light spray of freckles across her cheeks.

  "Forgive us, Lady Rohanne." The speaker was a pretty young lord with the Caswell centaur embroidered on his doublet. "This great oaf took the Lady Helicent for you."

  Dunk looked from one lady to the other. "You are the Red Widow?" he heard himself blurt out. "But you're too--"

  "Young?" The girl tossed her longbow to the lanky lad he'd seen her shooting with. "I am five-and-twenty, as it happens. Or was it small you meant to say?"

  "--pretty. It was pretty." Dunk did not know where that came from, but he was glad it came. He liked her nose, and the strawberry-blond color of her hair, and the small but well-shaped breasts beneath her leather jerkin. "I thought that you'd be...I mean...they said you were four times a widow, so..."

  "My first husband died when I was ten. He was twelve, my father's squire, ridden down upon the Redgrass Field. My husbands seldom linger long, I fear. The last died in the spring."

  That was what they always said of those who had perished during the Great Spring Sickness two years past. He died in the spring. Many tens of thousands had died in the spring, amongst them a wise old king and two young princes full of promise. "I...I am sorry for all your losses, m'lady." A gallantry, you lunk, give her a gallantry. "I want to say...your gown..."

  "Gown?" She glanced down at her boots and breeches, loose linen tunic and leather jerkin. "I wear no gown."

  "Your hair, I meant...it's soft and..."

  "And how would you know that, ser? If you had ever touched my hair, I should think that I might remember."

  "Not soft," Dunk said miserably. "Red, I meant to say. Your hair is very red."

  "Very red, ser? Oh, not as red as your face, I hope." She laughed, and the onlookers laughed with her.

  All but Ser Lucas Longinch. "My lady," he broke in, "this man is one of Standfast's sellswords. He was with Bennis of the Brown Shield when he attacked your diggers at the dam and carved up Wolmer's face. Old Osgrey sent him to treat with you."

  "He did, m'lady. I am called Ser Duncan the Tall."

  "Ser Duncan the Dim, more like," said a bearded knight who wore the threefold thunderbolt of Leygood. More guffaws sounded. Even Lady Helicent had recovered herself enough to give a chuckle.

  "Did the courtesy of Coldmoat die with my lord father?" the girl asked. No, not a girl, a woman grown. "How did Ser Duncan come to make such an error, I wonder?"

  Dunk gave Inchfield an evil look. "The fault was mine."

  "Was it?" The Red Widow looked Dunk over from his heels up to his head though her gaze lingered longest on his chest. "A tree and shooting star. I have never seen those arms before." She touched his tunic, tracing a limb of his elm tree with two fingers. "And painted, not sewn. The Dornish paint their silks, I've heard, but you look too big to be a Dornishman."

  "Not all Dornishmen are small, m'lady." Dunk could feel her fingers through the silk. Her hand was freckled too. I'll bet she's freckled all over. His mouth was oddly dry. "I spent a year in Dorne."

  "Do all the oaks grow so tall there?" she said, as her fingers traced a tree limb round his heart.

  "It's meant to be an elm, m'lady."

  "I shall remember." She drew her hand back, solemn. "The ward is too hot and dusty for a conversation. Septon, show Ser Duncan to my audience chamber."

  "It would be my great pleasure, good-sister."

  "Our guest will have a thirst. You may send for a flagon of wine as well."

  "Must I?" The fat man beamed. "Well, if it please you."

  "I will join you as soon as I have changed." Unhooking her belt and quiver, she handed them to her companion. "I'll want Maester Cerrick as well. Ser Lucas, go ask him to attend me."

  "I will bring him at once, my lady," said Lucas Longinch.

  The look she gave her castellan was cool. "No need. I know you have many duties to perform about the ca
stle. It will suffice if you send Maester Cerrick to my chambers."

  "M'lady," Dunk called after her. "My squire was made to wait by the gates. Might he join us as well?"

  "Your squire?" When she smiled, she looked a girl of five-and-ten, not a woman five-and-twenty. A pretty girl full of mischief and laughter. "If it please you, certainly."

  "Don't drink the wine, ser," Egg whispered to him, as they waited with the septon in her audience chamber. The stone floors were covered with sweet-smelling rushes, the walls hung with tapestries of tourney scenes and battles.

  Dunk snorted. "She has no need to poison me," he whispered back. "She thinks I'm some great lout with pease porridge between his ears."

  "As it happens, my good-sister likes pease porridge," said Septon Sefton, as he reappeared with a flagon of wine, a flagon of water, and three cups. "Yes, yes, I heard. I'm fat, not deaf." He filled two cups with wine and one with water. The third he gave to Egg, who gave it a long, dubious look and put it aside. The septon took no notice. "This is an Arbor vintage," he was telling Dunk. "Very fine, and the poison gives it a special piquancy." He winked at Egg. "I seldom touch the grape myself, but I have heard." He handed Dunk a cup.

  The wine was lush and sweet, but Dunk sipped it gingerly, and only after the septon had quaffed down half of his in three big, lip-smacking gulps. Egg crossed his arms and continued to ignore his water.

  "She does like pease porridge," the septon said, "and you as well, ser. I know my own good-sister. When I first saw you in the yard, I half hoped you were some suitor, come from King's Landing to seek my lady's hand."

  Dunk furrowed his brow. "How did you know I was from King's Landing, septon?"

  "Kingslanders have a certain way of speaking." The septon took a gulp of wine, sloshed it about his mouth, swallowed, and sighed with pleasure. "I have served there many years, attending our High Septon in the Great Sept of Baelor." He sighed. "You would not know the city since the spring. The fires changed it. A quarter of the houses gone, and another quarter empty. The rats are gone as well. That is the queerest thing. I never thought to see a city without rats."

  Dunk had heard that too. "Were you there during the Great Spring Sickness?"

  "Oh, indeed. A dreadful time, ser, dreadful. Strong men would wake healthy at the break of day and be dead by evenfall. So many died so quickly there was no time to bury them. They piled them in the Dragonpit instead, and when the corpses were ten feet deep, Lord Rivers commanded the pyromancers to burn them. The light of the fires shone through the windows, as it did of yore when living dragons still nested beneath the dome. By night you could see the glow all through the city, the dark green glow of wildfire. The color green still haunts me to this day. They say the spring was bad in Lannisport and worse in Oldtown, but in King's Landing it cut down four of ten. Neither young nor old were spared, nor rich nor poor, nor great nor humble. Our good High Septon was taken, the gods' own voice on earth, with a third of the Most Devout and near all our silent sisters. His Grace King Daeron, sweet Matarys and bold Valarr, the Hand...oh, it was a dreadful time. By the end, half the city was praying to the Stranger." He had another drink. "And where were you, ser?"

  "In Dorne," said Dunk.

  "Thank the Mother for her mercy, then." The Great Spring Sickness had never come to Dorne, perhaps because the Dornish had closed their borders and their ports, as had the Arryns of the Vale, who had also been spared. "All this talk of death is enough to put a man off wine, but cheer is hard to come by in such times as we are living. The drought endures, for all our prayers. The kingswood is one great tinder box, and fires rage there night and day. Bittersteel and the sons of Daemon Blackfyre are hatching plots in Tyrosh, and Dagon Greyjoy's krakens prowl the sunset sea like wolves, raiding as far south as the Arbor. They carried off half the wealth of Fair Isle, it's said, and a hundred women too. Lord Farman is repairing his defenses, though that strikes me as akin to the man who claps his pregnant daughter in a chastity belt when her belly's big as mine. Lord Bracken is dying slowly on the Trident, and his eldest son perished in the spring. That means Ser Otho must succeed. The Blackwoods will never stomach the Brute of Bracken as a neighbor. It will mean war."

  Dunk knew about the ancient enmity between the Blackwoods and the Brackens. "Won't their liege lord force a peace?"

  "Alas," said Septon Sefton, "Lord Tully is a boy of eight, surrounded by women. Riverrun will do little, and King Aerys will do less. Unless some maester writes a book about it, the whole matter may escape his royal notice. Lord Rivers is not like to let any Brackens in to see him. Pray recall, our Hand was born half-Blackwood. If he acts at all, it will be only to help his cousins bring the Brute to bay. The Mother marked Lord Rivers on the day that he was born, and Bittersteel marked him once again upon the Redgrass Field."

  Dunk knew he meant Bloodraven. Brynden Rivers was the Hand's true name. His mother had been a Blackwood, his father King Aegon the Fourth.

  The fat man drank his wine and rattled on. "As for Aerys, His Grace cares more for old scrolls and dusty prophecies than for lords and laws. He will not even bestir himself to sire an heir. Queen Aelinor prays daily at the Great Sept, beseeching the Mother Above to bless her with a child, yet she remains a maid. Aerys keeps his own apartments, and it is said that he would sooner take a book to bed than any woman." He filled his cup again. "Make no mistake, 'tis Lord Rivers who rules us, with his spells and spies. There is no one to oppose him. Prince Maekar sulks at Summerhall, nursing his grievances against his royal brother. Prince Rhaegel is as meek as he is mad, and his children are...well, children. Friends and favorites of Lord Rivers fill every office, the lords of the small council lick his hand, and this new Grand Maester is as steeped in sorcery as he is. The Red Keep is garrisoned by Raven's Teeth, and no man sees the king without his leave."

  Dunk shifted uncomfortably in his seat. How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes, and one. He hoped the King's Hand did not have a thousand ears and one as well. Some of what Septon Sefton was saying sounded treasonous. He glanced at Egg, to see how he was taking all of this. The boy was struggling with all his might to hold his tongue.

  The septon pushed himself to his feet. "My good-sister will be a while yet. As with all great ladies, the first ten gowns she tries will be found not to suit her mood. Will you take more wine?" Without waiting for an answer, he refilled both cups.

  "The lady I mistook," said Dunk, anxious to speak of something else, "is she your sister?"

  "We are all children of the Seven, ser, but apart from that...dear me, no. Lady Helicent was sister to Ser Rolland Uffering, Lady Rohanne's fourth husband, who died in the spring. My brother was his predecessor, Ser Simon Staunton, who had the great misfortune to choke upon a chicken bone. Coldmoat crawls with revenants, it must be said. The husbands die yet their kin remain, to drink my lady's wines and eat her sweetmeats, like a plague of plump pink locusts done up in silk and velvet." He wiped his mouth. "And yet she must wed again, and soon."

  "Must?" said Dunk.

  "Her lord father's will demands it. Lord Wyman wanted grandsons to carry on his line. When he sickened he tried to wed her to the Longinch, so he might die knowing that she had a strong man to protect her, but Rohanne refused to have him. His lordship took his vengeance in his will. If she remains unwed on the second anniversary of her father's passing, Coldmoat and its lands pass to his cousin Wendell. Perhaps you glimpsed him in the yard. A short man with a goiter on his neck, much given to flatulence. Though it is small of me to say so. I am cursed with excess wind myself. Be that as it may. Ser Wendell is grasping and stupid, but his lady wife is Lord Rowan's sister...and damnably fertile, that cannot be denied. She whelps as often as he farts. Their sons are quite as bad as he is, their daughters worse, and all of them have begun to count the days. Lord Rowan has upheld the will, so her ladyship has only till the next new moon."

  "Why has she waited so long?" Dunk wondered aloud.

  The septon shrugged. "If truth be tol
d, there has been a dearth of suitors. My good-sister is not hard to look upon, you will have noticed, and a stout castle and broad lands add to her charms. You would think that younger sons and landless knights would swarm about her ladyship like flies. You would be wrong. The four dead husbands make them wary, and there are those who will say that she is barren too...though never in her hearing unless they yearn to see the inside of a crow cage. She has carried two children to term, a boy and a girl, but neither lived to see a name day. Those few who are not put off by talk of poisonings and sorcery want no part of the Longinch. Lord Wyman charged him on his deathbed to protect his daughter from unworthy suitors, which he has taken to mean all suitors. Any man who means to have her hand would need to face his sword first." He finished his wine and set the cup aside. "That is not to say there has been no one. Cleyton Caswell and Simon Leygood have been the most persistent, though they seem more interested in her lands than in her person. Were I given to wagering, I should place my gold on Gerold Lannister. He has yet to put in an appearance, but they say he is golden-haired and quick of wit, and more than six feet tall..."

  "...and Lady Webber is much taken with his letters." The lady in question stood in the doorway, beside a homely young maester with a great, hooked nose. "You would lose your wager, good-brother. Gerold will never willingly forsake the pleasures of Lannisport and the splendor of Casterly Rock for some little lordship. He has more influence as Lord Tybolt's brother and advisor than he could ever hope for as my husband. As for the others, Ser Simon would need to sell off half my land to pay his debts and Ser Cleyton trembles like a leaf whenever the Longinch deigns to look his way. Besides, he is prettier than I am. And you, septon, have the biggest mouth in Westeros."

  "A large belly requires a large mouth," said Septon Sefton, utterly unabashed. "Else it soon becomes a small one."

  "Are you the Red Widow?" Egg asked, astonished. "I'm near as tall as you are!"