beneath a rat's nest of sandy brown hair, and blond stubble crusted his chin. He rubbed his mouth, blinked at Dunk, and said, 'I dreamed of you.' His hand trembled as he pointed a finger. 'You stay away from me, do you hear? You stay well away.'
Dunk stared at him uncertainly. 'My lord?'
The innkeep leaned close. 'Never you mind that one, ser. All he does is drink and talk about his dreams. I'll see about that food.' She bustled off.
'Food?' The lordling made the word an obscenity. He staggered to his feet, one hand on the table to keep himself from falling. 'I'm going to be sick,' he announced. The front of his tunic was crusty red with old wine stains. 'I wanted a whore, but there's none to be found here. All gone to Ashford Meadow. Gods be good, I need some wine.' He lurched unsteadily from the common room, and Dunk heard him climbing steps, singing under his breath.
A sad creature, thought Dunk. But why did he think he knew me? He pondered that a moment over his ale.
The lamb was as good as any he had ever eaten, and the duck was even better, cooked with cherries and lemons and not near as greasy as most. The innkeep brought buttered pease as well, and oaten bread still hot from her oven. This is what it means to be a knight, he told himself as he sucked the last bit of meat off the bone. Good food, and ale whenever I want it, and no one to clout me in the head. He had a second tankard of ale with the meal, a third to wash it down, and a fourth because there was no one to tell him he couldn't, and when he was done he paid the woman with a silver stag and still got back a fistful of coppers.
It was full dark by the time Dunk emerged. His stomach was full and his purse was a little lighter, but he felt good as he walked to the stables. Ahead, he heard a horse whicker. 'Easy, lad,' a boy's voice said. Dunk quickened his step, frowning.
He found the stableboy mounted on Thunder and wearing the old man's armor. The hauberk was longer than he was, and he'd had to tilt the helm back on his bald head or else it would have covered his eyes. He looked utterly intent, and utterly absurd. Dunk stopped in the stable door and laughed.
The boy looked up, flushed, vaulted to the ground. 'My lord, I did not mean–'
'Thief,' Dunk said, trying to sound stern. 'Take off that armor, and be glad that Thunder didn't kick you in that fool head. He's a warhorse, not a boy's pony.'
The boy took off the helm and flung it to the straw. 'I could ride him as well as you,' he said, bold as you please.
'Close your mouth, I want none of your insolence. The hauberk too, take it off. What did you think you were doing?'
'How can I tell you, with my mouth closed?' The boy squirmed out of the chain mail and let it fall.
'You can open your mouth to answer,' said Dunk. 'Now pick up that mail, shake off the dirt, and put it back where you found it. And the halfhelm too. Did you feed the horses, as I told you? And rub down Sweetfoot?'
'Yes,' the boy said, as he shook straw from the mail. 'You're going to Ashford, aren't you? Take me with you, ser.'
The innkeep had warned him of this. 'And what might your mother say to that?'
'My mother?' The boy wrinkled up his face. 'My mother's dead, she wouldn't say anything.'
He was surprised. Wasn't the innkeep his mother? Perhaps he was only prenticed to her. Dunk's head was a little fuzzy from the ale. 'Are you an orphan boy?' he asked uncertainly.
'Are you?' the boy threw back.
'I was once,' Dunk admitted. Till the old man took me in.
'If you took me, I could squire for you.'
'I have no need of a squire,' he said.
'Every knight needs a squire,' the boy said. 'You look as though you need one more than most.'
Dunk raised a hand threateningly. 'And you look as though you need a clout in the ear, it seems to me. Fill me a sack of oats. I'm off for Ashford alone.'
If the boy was frightened, he hid it well. For a moment he stood there defiant, his arms crossed, but just as Dunk was about to give up on him the lad turned and went for the oats.
Dunk was relieved. A pity I couldn't… but he has a good life here at the inn, a better one than he'd have squiring for a hedge knight. Taking him would be no kindness.
He could still feel the lad's disappointment, though. As he mounted Sweetfoot and took up Thunder's lead; Dunk decided that a copper penny might cheer him. 'Here, lad, for your help.' He flipped the coin down at him with a smile, but the stableboy made no attempt to catch it. It fell in the dirt between his bare feet, and there he let it lie.
He'll scoop it up as soon as I am gone, Dunk told himself. He turned the palfrey and rode from the inn, leading the other two horses. The trees were bright with moonlight, and the sky was cloudless and speckled with stars. Yet as he headed down the road he could feel the stableboy watching his back, sullen and silent.
The shadows of the afternoon were growing long when Dunk reined up on the edge of broad Ashford Meadow. Three score pavilions had already risen on the grassy field. Some were small, some large; some square, some round; some of sailcloth, some of linen, some of silk; but all were brightly colored, with long banners streaming from their center poles, brighter than a field of wildflowers with rich reds and sunny yellows, countless shades of green and blue, deep blacks and greys and purples.
The old man had ridden with some of these knights; others Dunk knew from tales told in common rooms and round campfires. Though he had never learned the magic of reading or writing, the old man had been relentless when it came to teaching him heraldry, often drilling him as they rode. The nightingales belonged to Lord Caron of the Marches, as skilled with the high harp as he was with a lance. The crowned stag was for Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm. Dunk picked out the Tarly huntsman, House Dondarrion's purple lightning, the red apple of the Fossoways. There roared the lion of Lannister gold on crimson, and there the dark green sea turtle of the Estermonts swam across a pale green field. The brown tent beneath red stallion could only belong to Ser Otho Bracken, who was called the Brute of Bracken since slaying Lord Quentyn Blackwood three years past during a tourney at King's Landing. Dunk heard that Ser Otho struck so hard with the blunted longaxe that he stove in the visor of Lord Blackwood's helm and the face beneath it. He saw some Blackwood banners as well, on the west edge of the meadow, as distant from Ser Otho as they could be. Marbrand, Mallister, Cargyll, Westerling, Swann, Mullendore, Hightower, Florent, Frey, Penrose, Stokeworth, Daffy, Parren, Wylde; it seemed as though every lordly house of the west and south had sent a knight or three to Ashford to see the fair maid and brave the lists in her honor.
Yet however fine their pavilions were to look upon, he knew there was no place there for him. A threadbare wool cloak would be all the shelter he had tonight. While the lords and great knights dined on capons and suckling pigs, Dunk's supper would be a hard, stringy piece of salt beef. He knew full well that if he made his camp upon that gaudy field, he would need to suffer both silent scorn and open mockery. A few perhaps would treat him kindly, yet in a way that was almost worse.
A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword. I must earn my place in that company. If I fight well, some lord may take me into his household. I will ride in noble company then, and eat fresh meat every night in a castle hail, and raise my own pavilion at tourneys. But first I must do well. Reluctantly, he turned his back on the tourney grounds and led his horses into the trees.
On the outskirts of the great meadow a good half mile from town and castle he found a place where a bend in a brook had formed a deep pool. Reeds grew thick along its edge, and a tall leafy elm presided over all. The spring grass there was as green as any knight's banner and soft to the touch. It was a pretty spot, and no one had yet laid claim to it. This will be my pavilion, Dunk told himself, a pavilion roofed with leaves, greener even than the banners of the Tyrells and the Estermonts.
His horses came first. After they had been tended, he stripped and waded into the pool to wash away the dust of travel. 'A true knight is cleanly as well as godly,' the old man always said, insisting that they wash themselves head to heels every time the moon turned, whether they smelled sour or not. Now that he was a knight, Dunk vowed he would do the same.
He sat naked under the elm while he dried, enjoying the warmth of the spring air on his skin as he watched a dragonfly move lazily among the reeds. Why would they name it a dragonfly? he wondered. It looks nothing like a
