Chapter 3 #4
That was true. The boy had a good sense of such things.
He should. He served two years as a page at King’s Landing.
Even so, Dunk was reluctant to take him into danger.
He had no notion what sort of welcome awaited him at Coldmoat.
If this Red Widow was as dangerous as they said, he could end up in a crow cage, like those two men they had seen upon the road.
“You will stay and help Bennis with the smallfolk,” he told Egg.
“And don’t give me that sullen look.” He kicked his breeches off and climbed into the tub of steaming water.
“Go on and get to sleep now, and let me have my bath. You’re not going, and that’s the end of it. ”
Egg was up and gone when Dunk awoke, with the light of the morning sun in his face.
Gods be good, how can it be so hot so soon?
He sat up and stretched, yawning, then climbed to his feet and stumbled sleepily down to the well, where he lit a fat tallow candle, splashed some cold water on his face, and dressed.
When he stepped out into the sunlight, Thunder was waiting by the stable, saddled and bridled. Egg was waiting too, with Maester, his mule.
The boy had put his boots on. For once he looked a proper squire, in a handsome doublet of green-and-gold checks and a pair of tight white woolen breeches. “The breeches were torn in the seat, but Sam Stoops’s wife sewed them up for me,” he announced.
“The clothes were Addam’s,” said Ser Eustace, as he led his own grey gelding from his stall.
A chequy lion adorned the frayed silk cloak that flowed from the old man’s shoulders.
“The doublet is a trifle musty from the trunk, but it should serve. A knight is more impressive with a squire in attendance, so I have decided that Egg should accompany you to Coldmoat.”
Outwitted by a boy of ten. Dunk looked at Egg and silently mouthed the words clout in the ear. The boy grinned.
“I have something for you as well, Ser Duncan. Come.” Ser Eustace produced a cloak and shook it out with a flourish.
It was white wool, bordered with squares of green satin and cloth-of-gold. A woolen cloak was the last thing he needed in such heat, but when Ser Eustace draped it about his shoulders, Dunk saw the pride on his face, and found himself unable to refuse. “Thank you, m’lord.”
“It suits you well. Would that I could give you more.” The old man’s mustache twitched.
“I sent Sam Stoops down into the cellar to search through my sons’ things, but Edwyn and Harrold were smaller men, thinner in the chest and much shorter in the leg.
None of what they left would fit you, sad to say. ”
“The cloak is enough, m’lord. I won’t shame it.”
“I do not doubt that.” He gave his horse a pat. “I thought I’d ride with you part of the way if you have no objection.”
“None, m’lord.”
Egg led them down the hill, sitting tall on Maester. “Must he wear that floppy straw hat?” Ser Eustace asked Dunk. “He looks a bit foolish, don’t you think?”
“Not so foolish as when his head is peeling, m’lord.
” Even at this hour, with the sun barely above the horizon, it was hot.
By afternoon the saddles will be hot enough to raise blisters.
Egg might look elegant in the dead boy’s finery, but he would be a boiled Egg by nightfall.
Dunk at least could change; he had his good tunic in his saddlebag and his old green one on his back.
“We’ll take the west way,” Ser Eustace announced.
“It is little used these past years but still the shortest way from Standfast to Coldmoat Castle.” The path took them around back of the hill, past the graves where the old knight had laid his wife and sons to rest in a thicket of blackberry bushes.
“They loved to pick the berries here, my boys. When they were little they would come to me with sticky faces and scratches on their arms, and I’d know just where they’d been.
” He smiled fondly. “Your Egg reminds me of my Addam. A brave boy, for one so young. Addam was trying to protect his wounded brother Harrold when the battle washed over them. A riverman with six acorns on his shield took his arm off with an axe.” His sad grey eyes found Dunk’s.
“This old master of yours, the knight of Pennytree…did he fight in the Blackfyre Rebellion?”
“He did, m’lord. Before he took me on.” Dunk had been no more than three or four at the time, running half-naked through the alleys of Flea Bottom, more animal than boy.
“Was he for the red dragon or the black?”
Red or black? was a dangerous question, even now.
Since the days of Aegon the Conqueror, the arms of House Targaryen had borne a three-headed dragon, red on black.
Daemon the Pretender had reversed those colors on his own banners, as many bastards did.
Ser Eustace is my liege lord, Dunk reminded himself.
He has a right to ask. “He fought beneath Lord Hayford’s banner, m’lord. ”
“Green fretty over gold, a green pale wavy?”
“It might be, m’lord. Egg would know.” The lad could recite the arms of half the knights in Westeros.
“Lord Hayford was a noted loyalist. King Daeron made him his Hand just before the battle. Butterwell had done such a dismal job that many questioned his loyalty, but Lord Hayford had been stalwart from the first.”
“Ser Arlan was beside him when he fell. A lord with three castles on his shield cut him down.”
“Many good men fell that day, on both sides. The grass was not red before the battle. Did your Ser Arlan tell you that?”
“Ser Arlan never liked to speak about the battle. His squire died there too. Roger of Pennytree was his name, Ser Arlan’s sister’s son.
” Even saying the name made Dunk feel vaguely guilty.
I stole his place. Only princes and great lords had the means to keep two squires.
If Aegon the Unworthy had given his sword to his heir Daeron instead of his bastard Daemon, there might never have been a Blackfyre Rebellion, and Roger of Pennytree might be alive today.
He would be a knight someplace, a truer knight than me.
I would have ended on the gallows, or been sent off to the Night’s Watch to walk the Wall until I died.
“A great battle is a terrible thing,” the old knight said, “but in the midst of blood and carnage, there is sometimes also beauty, beauty that could break your heart. I will never forget the way the sun looked when it set upon the Redgrass Field…ten thousand men had died, and the air was thick with moans and lamentations, but above us the sky turned gold and red and orange, so beautiful it made me weep to know that my sons would never see it.” He sighed.
“It was a closer thing than they would have you believe, these days. If not for Bloodraven…”
“I’d always heard that it was Baelor Breakspear who won the battle,” said Dunk. “Him and Prince Maekar.”
“The hammer and the anvil?” The old man’s mustache gave a twitch.
“The singers leave out much and more. Daemon was the Warrior himself that day. No man could stand before him. He broke Lord Arryn’s van to pieces and slew the Knight of Ninestars and Wild Wyl Waynwood before coming up against Ser Gwayne Corbray of the Kingsguard.
For near an hour they danced together on their horses, wheeling and circling and slashing as men died all around them.
It’s said that whenever Blackfyre and Lady Forlorn clashed, you could hear the sound for a league around.
It was half a song and half a scream, they say.
But when at last the Lady faltered, Blackfyre clove through Ser Gwayne’s helm and left him blind and bleeding.
“Daemon dismounted to see that his fallen foe was not trampled, and commanded Redtusk to carry him back to the maesters in the rear. And there was his mortal error, for the Raven’s Teeth had gained the top of Weeping Ridge, and Bloodraven saw his half brother’s royal standard three hundred yards away, and Daemon and his sons beneath it.
He slew Aegon first, the elder of the twins, for he knew that Daemon would never leave the boy while warmth lingered in his body, though white shafts fell like rain.
Nor did he, though seven arrows pierced him, driven as much by sorcery as by Bloodraven’s bow.
Young Aemon took up Blackfyre when the blade slipped from his dying father’s fingers, so Bloodraven slew him too, the younger of the twins.
Thus perished the black dragon and his sons.
“There was much and more afterward, I know. I saw a bit of it myself…the rebels running, Bittersteel turning the rout and leading his mad charge…his battle with Bloodraven, second only to the one Daemon fought with Gwayne Corbray…Prince Baelor’s hammerblow against the rebel rear, the Dornishmen all screaming as they filled the air with spears…
but at the end of the day, it made no matter. The war was done when Daemon died.
“So close a thing…if Daemon had ridden over Gwayne Corbray and left him to his fate, he might have broken Maekar’s left before Bloodraven could take the ridge.
The day would have belonged to the black dragons then, with the Hand slain and the road to King’s Landing open before them.
Daemon might have been sitting on the Iron Throne by the time Prince Baelor could come up with his stormlords and his Dornishmen.
“The singers can go on about their hammer and their anvil, ser, but it was the kinslayer who turned the tide with a white arrow and a black spell. He rules us now as well, make no mistake. King Aerys is his creature. It would not surprise me to learn that Bloodraven had ensorcelled His Grace, to bend him to his will. Small wonder we are cursed.” Ser Eustace shook his head, and lapsed into a brooding silence.
Dunk wondered how much Egg had overheard, but there was no way to ask him.
How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? he thought.