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 told, 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 goldenhaired 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 adviser 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!”
“Another boy made that same observation not half a year ago. I sent him to the rack to make him taller.”
When Lady Rohanne settled onto the high seat on the dais, she pulled her braid forward over her left shoulder. It was so long that the end of it lay coiled in her lap, like a sleeping cat. “Ser Duncan, I should not have teased you in the yard, when you were trying so hard to be gracious. It was only that you blushed so red… was there no girl to tease you, in the village where you grew so tall?”
“The village was King’s Landing.” He did not mention Flea Bottom. “There were girls, but…” The sort of teasing that went on in Flea Bottom sometimes involved cutting off a toe.
“I expect they were afraid to tease you.” Lady Rohanne stroked her braid. “No doubt they were frightened of your size. Do not think ill of Lady Helicent, I pray you. My good-sister is a simple creature, but she has no harm in her. For all her piety, she could not dress herself without her septas.”
“It was not her doing. The mistake was mine.”
“You lie most gallantly. I know it was Ser Lucas. He is a man of cruel humors, and you offended him on sight.”
“How?” Dunk said, puzzled. “I never did him any harm.”
She smiled a smile that made him wish she were plainer. “I saw you standing with him. You’re taller by a hand, or near enough. It has been a long while since Ser Lucas met anyone he could not look down on. How old are you, ser?”
“Near twenty, if it please m’lady.” Dunk liked the ring of twenty, though most like he was a year younger, maybe two. No one knew for certain, least of all him. He must have had a mother and a father like everybody else, but he’d never known them, not even their names, and no one in Flea Bottom had ever cared much when he’d been born, or to whom.
“Are you as strong as you appear?”
“How strong do I appear, m’lady?”
“Oh, strong enough to annoy Ser Lucas. He is my castellan, though not by choice. Like Coldmoat, he is a legacy of my father. Did you come to knighthood on some battlefield, Ser Duncan? Your speech suggests that you were not born of noble blood, if you will forgive my saying so.”
I was born of gutter blood. “A hedge knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree took me on to squire for him when I was just a boy. He taught me chivalry and the arts of war.”
“And this same Ser Arlan knighted you?”
Dunk shuffled his feet. One of his boots was half unlaced, he saw. “No one else was like to do it.”
“Where is Ser Arlan now?”
“He died.” He raised his eyes. He could lace his boot up later. “I buried him on a hillside.”
“Did he fall valiantly in battle?”
“There were rains. He caught a chill.”
“Old men are frail, I know. I learned that from my second husband. I was thirteen when we wed. He would have been five-and-fifty on his next name day, had he lived long enough to see it. When he was half a year in the ground, I gave him a little son, but the Stranger came for him as well. The septons said his father wanted him beside him. What do you think, ser?”
“Well,” Dunk said hesitantly, “that might be, m’lady.”
“Nonsense,” she said, “the boy was born too weak. Such a tiny thing. He scarce had strength enough to nurse. Still. The gods gave his father five-and-fifty years. You would think they might have granted more than three days to the son.”
“You would.” Dunk knew little and less about the gods. He went to sept sometimes, and prayed to the Warrior to lend strength to his arms, but elsewise he let the Seven be.
“I am sorry your Ser Arlan died,” she said, “and sorrier still that you took service with Ser Eustace. All old men are not the same, Ser Duncan. You would do well to go home to Pennytree.”
“I have no hom
e but where I swear my sword.” Dunk had never seen Pennytree; he couldn’t even say if it was in the Reach.
“Swear it here, then. The times are uncertain. I have need of knights. You look as though you have a healthy appetite, Ser Duncan. How many chickens can you eat? At Coldmoat you would have your fill of warm pink meat and sweet fruit tarts. Your squire looks in need of sustenance as well. He is so scrawny that all his hair has fallen out. We’ll have him share a cell with other boys of his own age. He’ll like that. My master-at-arms can train him in all the arts of war.”
“I train him,” said Dunk defensively.
“And who else? Bennis? Old Osgrey? The chickens?”
There had been days when Dunk had set Egg to chasing chickens. It helps make him quicker, he thought, but he knew that if he said it she would laugh. She was distracting him, with her snub nose and her freckles. Dunk had to remind himself of why Ser Eustace had sent him here. “My sword is sworn to my lord of Osgrey, m’lady,” he said, “and that’s the way it is.”
“So be it, ser. Let us speak of less pleasant matters.” Lady Rohanne gave her braid a tug. “We do not suffer attacks on Coldmoat or its people. So tell me why I should not have you sewn in a sack.”
“I came to parlay,” he reminded her, “and I have drunk your wine.” The taste still lingered in his mouth, rich and sweet. So far it had not poisoned him. Perhaps it was the wine that made him bold. “And you don’t have a sack big enough for me.”
To his relief, Egg’s jape made her smile. “I have several that are big enough for Bennis, though. Maester Cerrick says Wolmer’s face was sliced open almost to the bone.”
“Ser Bennis lost his temper with the man, m’lady. Ser Eustace sent me here to pay the blood price.”
“The blood price?” She laughed. “He is an old man, I know, but I had not realized that he was so old as that. Does he think we are living in the Age of Heroes, when a man’s life was reckoned to be worth no more than a sack of silver?”
“The digger was not killed, m’lady,” Dunk reminded her. “No one was killed that I saw. His face was cut, is all.”
Her fingers danced idly along her braid. “How much does Ser Eustace reckon Wolmer’s cheek to be worth, pray?”
“One silver stag. And three for you, m’lady.”
“Ser Eustace sets a niggard’s price upon my honor, though three silvers are better than three chickens, I grant you. He would do better to deliver Bennis up to me for chastisement.”
“Would this involve that sack you mentioned?”
“It might.” She coiled her braid around one hand. “Osgrey can keep his silver. Only blood can pay for blood.”
“Well,” said Dunk, “it may be as you say, m’lady, but why not send for that man that Bennis cut, and ask him if he’d sooner have a silver stag or Bennis in a sack?”
“Oh, he’d pick the silver, if he couldn’t have both. I don’t doubt that, ser. It is not his choice to make. This is about the lion and the spider now, not some peasant’s cheek. It is Bennis I want, and Bennis I shall have. No one rides onto my lands, does harm to one of mine, and escapes to laugh about it.”
“Your ladyship rode onto Standfast land, and did harm of one of Ser Eustace’s,” Dunk said, before he stopped to think about it.
“Did I?” She tugged her braid again. “If you mean the sheep-stealer, the man was notorious. I had twice complained to Osgrey, yet he did nothing. I do not ask thrice. The king’s law grants me the power of pit and gallows.”
It was Egg who answered her. “On your own lands,” the boy insisted. “The king’s law gives lords the power of pit and gallows on their own lands.”
“Clever boy,” she said. “If you know that much, you will also know that landed knights have no right to punish without their liege lord’s leave. Ser Eustace holds Standfast of Lord Rowan. Bennis broke the king’s peace when he drew blood, and must answer for it.” She looked to Dunk. “If Ser Eustace will deliver Bennis to me, I’ll slit his nose, and that will be the end of it. If I must come and take him, I make no such promise.”
Dunk had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I will tell him, but he won’t give up Ser Bennis.” He hesitated. “The dam was the cause of all the trouble. If your ladyship would consent to take it down—”
“Impossible,” declared the young maester by Lady Rohanne’s side. “Coldmoat supports twenty times as many smallfolk as does Standfast. Her ladyship has fields of wheat and corn and barley, all dying from the drought. She has half a dozen orchards, apples and apricots and three kinds of pears. She has cows about to calf, five hundred head of black-nosed sheep, and she breeds the finest horses in the Reach. We have a dozen mares about to foal.”
“Ser Eustace has sheep, too,” Dunk said. “He has melons in the fields, beans and barleycorn, and…”
“You were taking water for the moat !” Egg said loudly.
I was getting to the moat, Dunk thought.
“The moat is essential to Coldmoat’s defenses,” the maester insisted. “Do you suggest that Lady Rohanne leave herself open to attack, in such uncertain times as these?”
“Well,” Dunk said slowly, “a dry moat is still a moat. And m’lady has strong walls, with ample men to defend them.”
“Ser Duncan,” Lady Rohanne said, “I was ten years old when the black dragon rose. I begged my father not to put himself at risk, or at least to leave my husband. Who would protect me, if both my men were gone? So he took me up onto the ramparts, and pointed out Coldmoat’s strong points. ‘Keep them strong,’ he said, ‘and they will keep you safe. If you see to your defenses, no man may do you harm.’ The first thing he pointed at was the moat.” She stroked her cheek with the tail of her braid. “My first husband perished on the Redgrass Field. My father found me others, but the Stranger took them, too. I no longer trust in men, no matter how ample they may seem. I trust in stone and steel and water. I trust in moats, ser, and mine will not go dry.”
“What your father said, that’s well and good,” said Dunk, “but it doesn’t give you the right to take Osgrey water.”
She tugged her braid. “I suppose Ser Eustace told you that the stream was his.”
“For a thousand years,” said Dunk. “It’s named the Chequy Water. That’s plain.”
“So it is.” She tugged again; once, twice, thrice. “As the river is called the Mander, though the Manderlys were driven from its banks a thousand years ago. Highgarden is still Highgarden, though the last Gardener died on the Field of Fire. Casterly Rock teems with Lannisters, and nowhere a Casterly to be found. The world changes, ser. This Chequy Water rises in the Horseshoe Hills, which were wholly mine when last I looked. The water is mine as well. Maester Cerrick, show him.”
The maester descended from the dais. He could not have been much older than Dunk, but in his gray robes and chain collar he had an air of somber wisdom that belied his years. In his hands was an old parchment. “See for yourself, ser,” he said as he unrolled it, and offered it to Dunk. Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall. He felt his cheeks reddening again. Gingerly he took the parchment from the maester and scowled at the writing. Not a word of it was intelligible to him, but he knew the wax seal beneath the ornate signature; the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. The king’s seal. He was looking at a royal decree of some sort. Dunk moved his head from side to side so they would think that he was reading. “There’s a word here I can’t make out,” he muttered, after a moment. “Egg, come have a look, you have sharper eyes than me.”
The boy darted to his side. “Which word, ser?” Dunk pointed. “That one? Oh.” Egg read quickly, then raised his eyes to Dunk’s and gave a little nod.
It is her stream. She has a paper. Dunk felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach. The king’s own seal. “This… there must be some mistake. The old man’s sons died in service to the king, why would His Grace take his stream away?”
“If King Daeron had been a less forgiving man, he should have lost his hea
d as well.”
For half a heartbeat Dunk was lost. “What do you mean?”
“She means,” said Maester Cerrick, “that Ser Eustace Osgrey is a rebel and a traitor.”
“Ser Eustace chose the black dragon over the red, in the hope that a Blackfyre king might restore the lands and castles that the Osgreys had lost under the Targaryens,” Lady Rohanne said. “Chiefly he wanted Coldmoat. His sons paid for his treason with their life’s blood. When he brought their bones home and delivered his daughter to the king’s men for a hostage, his wife threw herself from the top of Standfast tower. Did Ser Eustace tell you that?” Her smile was sad. “No, I did not think so.”
“The black dragon.” You swore your sword to a traitor, lunk. You ate a traitor’s bread and slept beneath a rebel’s roof. “M’lady,” he said, groping, “the black dragon… that was fifteen years ago. This is now, and there’s a drought. Even if he was a rebel once, Ser Eustace still needs water.”
The Red Widow rose and smoothed her skirts. “He had best pray for rain, then.”
That was when Dunk recalled Osgrey’s parting words in the wood. “If you will not grant him a share of the water for his own sake, do it for his son.”
“His son?”
“Addam. He served here as your father’s page and squire.”
Lady Rohanne’s face was stone. “Come closer.”
He did not know what else to do, but to obey. The dais added a good foot to her height, yet even so Dunk towered over her. “Kneel,” she said. He did.