by George R. R.
“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 set 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 saysDaemon. 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 says 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.”
The Snail steepled his fingers. “Perhaps there is another way. You are not entirely without your talents. You fall most splendidly.” Ser Uthor’s lips glistened when he smiled. “I will lend you back your steed and armor ... if you enter my service.”
“Service?” Dunk did not understand. “What sort of service? You have a squire. Do you need to garrison some castle?”
“I might, if I had a castle. If truth be told, I prefer a good inn. Castles cost too much to maintain. No, the service I would require of you is that you face me in a few more tourneys. Twenty should suffice. You can do that, surely? You shall have a tenth part of my winnings, and in future I promise to strike that broad chest of yours and not your head.”
“You’d have me travel about with you to be unhorsed?”
Ser Uthor chuckled pleasantly. “You are such a strapping specimen, no one will ever believe that some round-shouldered old man with a snail on his shield could put you down.” He rubbed his chin. “You need a new device yourself, by the way. That hanged man is grim enough, I grant you, but ... well, he’s hanging, isn’t he? Dead and defeated. Something fiercer is required. A bear’s head, mayhaps. A skull. Or three skulls, better still. A babe impaled upon a spear. And you should let your hair grow long and cultivate a beard, the wilder and more unkempt the better. There are more of these little tourneys than you know. With the odds I’d get, we’d win enough to buy a dragon’s egg before—”
“--it got about that I was hopeless? I lost my armor, not my honor. You’ll have Thunder and my arms, no more.”
“Pride ill becomes a beggar, ser. You could do much worse than ride with me. At the least I could teach you a thing or two of jousting, about which you are pig ignorant at present.”
“You’d make a fool of me.”
“I did that earlier. And even fools must eat.”
Dunk wanted to smash that smile off his face. “I see why you have a snail on your shield. You are no true knight.”
“Spoken like a true oaf. Are you so blind you cannot see your danger?” Ser Uthor put his cup aside. “Do you know why I struck you where I did, ser?” He got to his feet and touched Dunk lightly in the center of his chest. “A coronal placed here would have put you on the ground just as quickly. The head is a smaller target, the blow is more difficult to land ... though more likely to be mortal. I was paid to strike you there.”
“Paid?” Dunk backed away from him. “What do you mean?”
“Six dragons tendered in advance, four more promised when you died. A paltry sum for a knight’s life. Be thankful for that. Had more been offered, I might have put the point of my lance through your eye slit.”
Dunk felt dizzy again. Why would someone pay to have me killed? I’ve done no harm to any man at Whitewalls. Surely no one hated him that much but Egg’s brother Aerion, and the Bright Prince was in exile across the narrow sea. “Who paid you?”
“A serving man brought the gold at sunrise, not long after the master of the games nailed up the pairings. His face was hooded, and he did not speak his master’s name.”
“But why?” said Dunk.
“I did not ask.” Ser Uthor filled his cup again. “I think you have more enemies than you know, Ser Duncan. How not? There are some who would say you were the cause of all our woes.”
Dunk felt a cold hand on his heart. “Say what you mean.”
The Snail shrugged. “I may not have been at Ashford Meadow, but jousting is my bread and salt. I follow tourneys from afar as faithfully as the maesters follow stars. I know how a certain hedge knight became the cause of a Trial of Seven at Ashford Meadow, resulting in the death of Baelor Breakspear at his brother Maekar’s hand.” Ser Uthor seated himself and stretched his legs out. “Prince Baelor was well loved. The Bright Prince had friends as well, friends who will not have forgotten the cause of his exile. Think on my offer, ser. The snail may leave a trail of slime behind him, but a little slime will do a man no harm ... whilst if you dance with dragons, you must expect to burn.”
* * * *
The day seemed darker when Dunk stepped from the Snail’s tent. The clouds in the east had grown bigger and blacker, and the sun was sinking to the west, casting long shadows across the yard. Dunk found the squire Will inspecting Thunder’s feet.
“Where’s Egg?” he asked of him.
“The bald boy? How would I know? Run off somewhere.”
He could not bear to say farewell to Thunder, Dunk decided. He’ll be back at the tent with his books.
He wasn’t, though. The books were there, bundled neatly in a stack beside Egg’s bedroll, but of the boy there was no sign. Something was wrong here. Dunk could feel it. It was not like Egg to wander off without his leave.
A pair of grizzled m
en-at-arms were drinking barley beer outside a striped pavilion a few feet away. “... well, bugger that, once was enough for me,” one muttered. “The grass was green when the sun come up, aye ...” He broke off when other man gave him a nudge, and only then took note of Dunk. “Ser?”
“Have you seen my squire? Egg, he’s called.”
The man scratched at the grey stubble underneath one ear. “I remember him. Less hair than me, and a mouth three times his size. Some o’ the other lads shoved him about a bit, but that was last night. I’ve not seen him since, ser.”
“Scared him off,” said his companion.
Dunk gave that one a hard look. “If he comes back, tell him to wait for me here.” “Aye, ser. That we will.”
Might be he just went to watch the jousts. Dunk headed back toward the tilting grounds. As he passed the stables, he came on Ser Glendon Ball, brushing down a pretty sorrel charger. “Have you seen Egg?” he asked him.
