"Gold?" she said, when she felt the weight of it. "What is this, ser?" She turned it over in her hand. "A signet. Gold and onyx." Her green eyes narrowed as she studied the seal. "Where did you find this, ser?"
"In a boot. Wrapped in rags and stuffed up in the toe."
Lady Rohanne's fingers closed around it. She glanced at Egg and old Ser Eustace. "You took a great risk in showing me this ring, ser. But how does it avail us? If I should command my men to cross..."
"Well," said Dunk, "that would mean I'd have to fight."
"And die."
"Most like," he said, "and Egg would go back where he comes from, and tell what happened here."
"Not if he died as well."
"I don't think you'd kill a boy of ten," he said, hoping he was right. "Not this boy of ten, you wouldn't. You got three-and-thirty men there, like you said. Men talk. That fat one there especially. No matter how deep you dug the graves, the tale would out. And then, well...might be a spotted spider's bite can kill a lion, but a dragon is a different sort of beast."
"I would sooner be the dragon's friend." She tried the ring on her finger. It was too big even for her thumb. "Dragon or no, I must have Bennis of the Brown Shield."
"No."
"You are seven feet of stubborn."
"Less an inch."
She gave him back the ring. "I cannot return to Coldmoat empty-handed. They will say the Red Widow has lost her bite, that she was too weak to do justice, that she could not protect her smallfolk. You do not understand, ser."
"I might." Better than you know. "I remember once some little lord in the stormlands took Ser Arlan into service, to help him fight some other little lord. When I asked the old man what they were fighting over, he said, 'Nothing, lad. It's just some pissing contest.' "
Lady Rohanne gave him a shocked look but could sustain it no more than half a heartbeat before it turned into a grin. "I have heard a thousand empty courtesies in my time, but you are the first knight who ever said pissing in my presence." Her freckled face went somber. "Those pissing contests are how lords judge one another's strength, and woe to any man who shows his weakness. A woman must needs piss twice as hard, if she hopes to rule. And if that woman should happen to be small...Lord Stackhouse covets my Horseshoe Hills, Ser Clifford Conklyn has an old claim to Leafy Lake, those dismal Durwells live by stealing cattle...and beneath mine own roof I have the Longinch. Every day I wake wondering if this might be the day he marries me by force." Her hand curled tight around her braid, as hard as if it were a rope, and she was dangling over a precipice. "He wants to, I know. He holds back for fear of my wroth, just as Conklyn and Stackhouse and the Durwells tread carefully where the Red Widow is concerned. If any of them thought for a moment that I had turned weak and soft..."
Dunk put the ring back on his finger, and drew his dagger.
The widow's eyes went wide at the sight of naked steel. "What are you doing?" she said. "Have you lost your wits? There are a dozen crossbows trained on you."
"You wanted blood for blood." He laid the dagger against his cheek. "They told you wrong. It wasn't Bennis cut that digger, it was me." He pressed the edge of the steel into his face, slashed downward. When he shook the blood off the blade some spattered on her face. More freckles, he thought. "There, the Red Widow has her due. A cheek for a cheek."
"You are quite mad." The smoke had filled her eyes with tears. "If you were better born, I'd marry you."
"Aye, m'lady. And if pigs had wings and scales and breathed flame, they'd be as good as dragons." Dunk slid the knife back in its sheath. His face had begun to throb. The blood ran down his cheek and dripped onto his gorget. The smell made Thunder snort and paw the water. "Give me the men who burned the wood."
"No one burned the wood," she said, "but if some man of mine had done so, it must have been to please me. How could I give such a man to you?" She glanced back at her escort. "It would be best if Ser Eustace were just to withdraw his accusation."
"Those pigs will be breathing fire first, m'lady."
"In that case, I must assert my innocence before the eyes of gods and men. Tell Ser Eustace that I demand an apology...or a trial. The choice is his." She wheeled her horse about to ride back to her men.
The stream would be their battleground.
Septon Sefton waddled out and said a prayer, beseeching the Father Above to look down on these two men and judge them justly, asking the Warrior to lend his strength to the man whose cause was just and true, begging the Mother's mercy for the liar, that he might be forgiven for his sins. When the praying was over and done with, he turned to Ser Eustace Osgrey one last time. "Ser," he said, "I beg you once again, withdraw your accusation."
"I will not," the old man said, his mustache trembling.
The fat septon turned to Lady Rohanne. "Good-sister, if you did this thing, confess your guilt, and offer good Ser Eustace some restitution for his wood. Elsewise blood must flow."
"My champion will prove my innocence before the eyes of gods and men."
"Trial by battle is not the only way," said the septon, waist deep in the water. "Let us go to Goldengrove, I implore you both, and place the matter before Lord Rowan for his judgment."
"Never," said Ser Eustace. The Red Widow shook her head.
Ser Lucas Inchfield looked at Lady Rohanne, his face dark with fury. "You will marry me when this mummer's farce is done. As your lord father wished."
"My lord father never knew you as I do," she gave back.
Dunk went to one knee beside Egg and put the signet back in the boy's hand--four three-headed dragons, two and two, the arms of Maekar, Prince of Summerhall. "Back in the boot," he said, "but if it happens that I die, go to the nearest of your father's friends and have him take you back to Summerhall. Don't try to cross the whole Reach on your own. See you don't forget, or my ghost will come and clout you in the ear."
"Yes, ser," said Egg, "but I'd sooner you didn't die."
"It's too hot to die." Dunk donned his helm, and Egg helped him fasten it tightly to his gorget. The blood was sticky on his face though Ser Eustace had torn a piece off his cloak to help stop the gash from bleeding. He rose and went to Thunder. Most of the smoke had blown away, he saw as he swung up onto the saddle, but the sky was still dark. Clouds, he thought, dark clouds. It had been so long. Maybe it's an omen. But is it his omen, or mine? Dunk was no good with omens.
Across the stream, Ser Lucas had mounted up as well. His horse was a chestnut courser; a splendid animal, swift and strong, but not as large as Thunder. What the horse lacked in size he made up for in armor, though; he was clad in crinet, chanfron, and a coat of light chain. The Longinch himself wore black enameled plate and silvery ringmail. An onyx spider squatted malignantly atop his helmet, but his shield displayed his own arms: a bend sinister, chequy black and white, on a pale grey field. Dunk watched Ser Lucas hand it to a squire. He does not mean to use it. When another squire delivered him a poleaxe, he knew why. The axe was long and lethal, with a banded haft, a heavy head, and a wicked spike on its back, but it was a two-handed weapon. The Longinch would need to trust in his armor to protect him. I need to make him rue that choice.
His own shield was on his left arm, the shield Tanselle had painted with his elm and falling star. The old shield rhyme echoed in his head. Oak and iron, guard me well, or else I'm dead, and doomed to hell. He slid his longsword from its scabbard. The weight of it felt good in his hand.
He put his heels into Thunder's flanks and walked the big destrier down into the water. Across the stream, Ser Lucas did the same. Dunk pressed right, so as to present the Longinch with his left side, protected by his shield. That was not something Ser Lucas was willing to concede him. He turned his courser quickly, and they came together in a tumult of grey steel and green spray. Ser Lucas struck with his poleaxe. Dunk had to twist in the saddle to catch it on his shield. The force of it shot down his arm and jarred his teeth together. He swung his sword in answer, a sideways cut that took the other kni
ght beneath his upraised arm. Steel screamed on steel, and it was on.
The Longinch spurred his courser in a circle, trying to get around to Dunk's unprotected side, but Thunder wheeled to meet him, snapping at the other horse. Ser Lucas delivered one crashing blow after another, standing in his stirrups to get all his weight and strength behind the axehead. Dunk shifted his shield to catch each blow as it came. Half-crouched beneath its oak, he hacked at Inchfield's arms and side and legs, but his plate turned every stroke. Round they went, and round again, the water lapping at their legs. The Longinch attacked, and Dunk defended, watching for a weakness.
Finally he saw it. Every time Ser Lucas lifted his axe for another blow, a gap appeared beneath his arm. There was mail and leather there, and padding underneath, but no steel plate. Dunk kept his shield up, trying to time his attack. Soon. Soon. The axe crashed down, wrenched free, came up. Now! He slammed his spurs into Thunder, driving him closer, and thrust with his longsword, to drive his point through the opening.
But the gap vanished as quick as it had appeared. His swordpoint scraped a rondel, and Dunk, overextended, almost lost his seat. The axe descended with a crash, slanting off the iron rim of Dunk's shield, crunching against the side of his helm, and striking Thunder a glancing blow along the neck.
The destrier screamed and reared up on two legs, his eye rolling white in pain as the sharp, coppery smell of blood filled the air. He lashed out with his iron hooves just as Longinch was moving in. One caught Ser Lucas in the face, the other on a shoulder. Then the heavy warhorse came down atop his courser.
It all happened in a heartbeat. The two horses went down in a tangle, kicking and biting at each other, churning up the water and the mud below. Dunk tried to throw himself from the saddle, but one foot tangled in a stirrup. He fell face-first, sucking down one desperate gulp of air before the stream came rushing into the helm through the eyeslit. His foot was still caught up, and he felt a savage yank as Thunder's struggles almost pulled his leg out of its socket. Just as quickly he was free, turning, sinking. For a moment he flailed helplessly in the water. The world was blue and green and brown.
The weight of his armor pulled him down until his shoulder bumped the streambed. If that is down the other way is up. Dunk's steel-clad hands fumbled at the stones and sands, and somehow he gath ered his legs up under him and stood. He was reeling, dripping mud, with water pouring from the breath holes in his dinted helm, but he was standing. He sucked down air.
His battered shield still clung to his left arm, but his scabbard was empty and his sword was gone. There was blood inside his helm as well as water. When he tried to shift his weight, his ankle sent a lance of pain right up his leg. Both horses had struggled back to their feet, he saw. He turned his head, squinting one-eyed through a veil of blood, searching for his foe. Gone, he thought, he's drowned, or Thunder crushed his skull in.
Ser Lucas burst up out of the water right in front of him, sword in hand. He struck Dunk's neck a savage blow, and only the thickness of his gorget kept his head upon his shoulders. He had no blade to answer with, only his shield.
He gave ground, and the Longinch came after, screaming and slashing. Dunk's upraised arm took a numbing blow above the elbow. A cut to his hip made him grunt in pain. As he backed away, a rock turned beneath his foot, and he went down to one knee, chest high in the water. He got his shield up, but this time Ser Lucas struck so hard he split the thick oak right down the middle and drove the remnants back into Dunk's face. His ears were ringing and his mouth was full of blood, but somewhere far away he heard Egg screaming. "Get him, ser, get him, get him, he's right there!"
Dunk dove forward. Ser Lucas had wrenched his sword free for another cut. He slammed into him waist high and knocked him off his feet. The stream swallowed both of them again, but this time Dunk was ready. He kept one arm around the Longinch and forced him to the bottom. Bubbles came streaming out from behind Inchfield's battered, twisted visor, but still he fought. He found a rock at the bottom of the stream and began hammering at Dunk's head and hands. Dunk fumbled at his sword belt. Have I lost the dagger too? he wondered. No, there it was. His hand closed round the hilt and he wrenched it free, and drove it slowly through the churning water, through the iron rings and boiled leather beneath the arm of Lucas the Longinch, turning it as he pushed. Ser Lucas jerked and twisted, and the strength left him. Dunk shoved away and floated. His chest was on fire. A fish flashed past his face, long and white and slender. What's that? he wondered. What's that? What's that?
He woke in the wrong castle.
When his eyes opened, he did not know where he was. It was blessedly cool. The taste of blood was in his mouth and he had a cloth across his eyes, a heavy cloth fragrant with some unguent. It smelled of cloves, he thought.
Dunk groped at his face, pulled the cloth away. Above him torchlight played against a high ceiling. Ravens were walking on the rafters overhead, peering down with small black eyes and quorking at him. I am not blind, at least. He was in a maester's tower. The walls were lined with racks of herbs and potions in earthen jars and vessels of green glass. A long trestle table nearby was covered with parchments, books, and queer bronze instruments, all spattered with droppings from the ravens in the rafters. He could hear them muttering at one another.
He tried to sit. It proved a bad mistake. His head swam, and his left leg screamed in agony when he put the slightest weight upon it. His ankle was wrapped in linen, he saw, and there were linen strips around his chest and shoulders too.
"Be still." A face appeared above him, young and pinched, with dark brown eyes on either side of a hooked nose. Dunk knew that face. The man who owned it was all in grey, with a chain collar hanging loose about his neck, a maester's chain of many metals. Dunk grabbed him by the wrist. "Where...?"
"Coldmoat," said the maester. "You were too badly injured to return to Standfast, so Lady Rohanne commanded us to bring you here. Drink this." He raised a cup of...something...to Dunk's lips. The potion had a bitter taste, like vinegar, but at least it washed away the taste of blood.
Dunk made himself drink it all. Afterward he flexed the fingers of his sword hand, and then the other. At least my hands still work, and my arms. "What...what did I hurt?"
"What not?" The maester snorted. "A broken ankle, a sprained knee, a broken collarbone, bruising...your upper torso is largely green and yellow and your right arm is a purply black. I thought your skull was cracked as well, but it appears not. There is that gash in your face, ser. You will have a scar, I fear. Oh, and you had drowned by the time we pulled you from the water."
"Drowned?" said Dunk.
"I never suspected that one man could swallow so much water, not even a man as large as you, ser. Count yourself fortunate that I am ironborn. The priests of the Drowned God know how to drown a man and bring him back, and I have made a study of their beliefs and customs."
I drowned. Dunk tried to sit again, but the strength was not in him. I drowned in water that did not even come up to my neck. He laughed, then groaned in pain. "Ser Lucas?"
"Dead. Did you doubt it?"
No. Dunk doubted many things, but not that. He remembered how the strength had gone out of the Longinch's limbs, all at once. "Egg," he got out. "I want Egg."
"Hunger is a good sign," the maester said, "but it is sleep you need just now, not food."
Dunk shook his head, and regretted it at once. "Egg is my squire..."
"Is he? A brave lad, and stronger than he looks. He was the one to pull you from the stream. He helped us get that armor off you too, and rode with you in the wayn when we brought you here. He would not sleep himself, but sat by your side with your sword across his lap, in case someone tried to do you harm. He even suspected me, and insisted that I taste anything I meant to feed you. A queer child, but devoted."
"Where is he?"
"Ser Eustace asked the boy to attend him at the wedding feast. There was no one else on his side. It would have been discourteous for him to refuse." r />
"Wedding feast?" Dunk did not understand.
"You would not know, of course. Coldmoat and Standfast were reconciled after your battle. Lady Rohanne begged leave of old Ser Eustace to cross his land and visit Addam's grave, and he granted her that right. She knelt before the blackberries and began to weep, and he was so moved that he went to comfort her. They spent the whole night talking of young Addam and my lady's noble father. Lord Wyman and Ser Eustace were fast friends, until the Blackfyre Rebellion. His lordship and my lady were wed this morning, by our good Septon Sefton. Eustace Osgrey is the Lord of Coldmoat, and his chequy lion flies beside the Webber spider on every tower and wall."
Dunk's world was spinning slowly all around him. That potion. He's put me back to sleep. He closed his eyes and let all the pain drain out of him. He could hear the ravens quorking and screaming at each other, and the sound of his own breath, and something else as well...a softer sound, steady, heavy, somehow soothing. "What's that?" he murmured sleepily. "That sound...?"
"That?" The maester listened. "That's just rain."
He did not see her till the day they took their leave.
"This is folly, ser," Septon Sefton complained, as Dunk limped heavily across the yard, swinging his splinted foot and leaning on a crutch. "Maester Cerrick says you are not half-healed as yet, and this rain...you're like to catch a chill, if you do not drown again. At least wait for the rain to stop."
"That may be years." Dunk was grateful to the fat septon, who had visited him near every day...to pray for him, ostensibly, though more time seemed to be taken up with tales and gossip. He would miss his loose and lively tongue and cheerful company, but that changed nothing. "I need to go."