dragon. Not that Dunk had ever seen a dragon. The old man had, though. Dunk had heard the story half a hundred times, how Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King's Landing, and how they'd seen the last dragon there the year before it died. She'd been a green female, small and stunted, her wings withered. None of her eggs had ever hatched. 'Some say King Aegon poisoned her,' the old man would tell. 'The third Aegon that would be, not King Daeron's father, but the one they named Dragonbane, or Aegon the Unlucky. He was afraid of dragons, for he'd seen his uncle's beast devour his own mother. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler.'
The air began to cool as the sun dipped below the tops of the trees. When Dunk felt gooseflesh prickling his arms, he beat his tunic and breeches against the trunk of the elm to knock off the worst of the dirt, and donned them once again. On the morrow he could seek out the master of the games and enroll his name, but he had other matters he ought to look into tonight if he hoped to challenge.
He did not need to study his reflection in the water to know that he did not look much a knight, so he slung Ser Arlan's shield across his back to display the sigil. Hobbling the horses, Dunk left them to crop the thick green grass beneath the elm as he set out on foot for the tourney grounds.
In normal times the meadow served as a commons for the folk of Ashford town across the river, but now it was transformed. A second town had sprung up overnight, a town of silk instead of stone, larger and fairer than its elder sister. Dozens of merchants had erected their stalls along the edge of the field, selling felts and fruits, belts and boots, hides and hawks, earthenware, gemstones, pewterwork, spices, feathers, and all manner of other goods. Jugglers, puppeteers, and magicians wandered among the crowds plying their trades… as did the whores and cutpurses. Dunk kept a wary hand on his coin.
When he caught the smell of sausages sizzling over a smoky fire, his mouth began to water. He bought one with a copper from his pouch, and a horn of ale to wash it down. As he ate he watched a painted wooden knight battle a painted wooden dragon. The puppeteer who worked the dragon was good to watch too; a tall drink of water, with the olive skin and black hair of Dorne. She was slim as a lance with no breasts to speak of, but Dunk liked her face and the way her fingers made the dragon snap and slither at the end of its strings. He would have tossed the girl a copper if he'd had one to spare, but just now he needed every coin.
There were armorers among the merchants, as he had hoped. A Tyroshi with a forked blue beard was selling ornate helms, gorgeous fantastical things wrought in the shapes of birds and beasts and chased with gold and silver. Elsewhere he found a swordmaker hawking cheap steel blades, and another whose work was much finer, but it was not a sword he lacked.
The man he needed was all the way down at the end of the row, a shirt of fine chain mail and a pair of lobstered steel gauntlets displayed on the table before him. Dunk inspected them closely. 'You do good work,' he said.
'None better.' A stumpy man, the smith was no more than five feet tall, yet wide as Dunk about the chest and arms. He had a black beard, huge hands, and no trace of humility.
'I need armor for the tourney,' Dunk told him. 'A suit of good mail, with gorget, greaves, and greathelm.' The old man's halfhelm would fit his head, but he wanted more protection for his face than a nasal bar alone could provide.
The armorer looked him up and down. 'You're a big one, but I've armored bigger.' He came out from behind the table. 'Kneel, I want to measure those shoulders. Aye, and that thick neck o' yours.' Dunk knelt. The armorer laid a length of knotted rawhide along his shoulders, grunted, slipped it about his throat, grunted again. 'Lift your arm. No, the right.' He grunted a third time. 'Now you can stand.' The inside of a leg, the thickness of his calf, and the size of his waist elicited further grunts. 'I have some pieces in me wagon that might do for you,' the man said when he was done. 'Nothing prettied up with gold nor silver, mind you, just good steel, strong and plain. I make helms that look like helms, not winged pigs and queer foreign fruits, but mine will serve you better if you take a lance in the face.'
'That's all I want,' said Dunk. 'How much?'
'Eight hundred stags, for I'm feeling kindly.'
'Eight hundred?' It was more than he had expected. 'I… I could trade you some old armor, made for a smaller man… a halfhelm, a mail hauberk…'
'Steely Pate sells only his own work,' the man declared, 'but it might be I could make use of the metal. If it's not too rusted, I'll take it and armor you for six hundred.'
Dunk could beseech Pate to give him the armor on trust, but he knew what sort of answer that request would likely get. He had traveled with the old man long enough to learn that merchants were notoriously mistrustful of hedge knights, some of whom were little better than robbers. 'I'll give you two silvers now, and the armor and the rest of the coin on the morrow.'
The armorer studied him a moment. 'Two silvers buys you a day. After that, I sell me work to the next man.'
Dunk scooped the stags out of his pouch and placed them in the armorer's callused hand. 'You'll get it all. I mean to be a champion here.'
'Do you?' Pate bit one of the coins. 'And these others, I suppose they all came just to cheer you on?'
The moon was well up by the time he turned his steps back toward his elm. Behind him, Ashford Meadow was ablaze with torchlight. The sounds of song and laughter drifted across the grass, but his own mood was somber. He could think of only one way to raise the coin for his armor. And if he should be defeated… 'One victory is all I need,' he muttered aloud. 'That's not so much to hope for.'
Even so, the old man would never have hoped for it. Ser Arlan had not ridden a tilt since the day he had been unhorsed by the Prince of Dragonstone in a tourney at Storm's End, many years before. 'It is not every man who can boast that he broke seven lances against the finest knight in the Seven Kingdoms,' he would say. 'I could never hope to do better, so why should I try?'
Dunk had suspected that Ser Arlan's age had more to do with it than the Prince of Dragonstone did, but he never dared say as much. The old man had his pride, even at the last. I am quick and strong, he always said so, what was true for him need not be true for me, he told himself stubbornly.
He was moving through a patch of weed, chewing over his chances in his head, when he saw the flicker of firelight through the bushes. What is this? Dunk did not stop to think. Suddenly his sword was in his hand and he was crashing through the grass.
He burst out roaring and cursing, only to jerk to a sudden halt at the sight of the boy beside the campfire. 'You!' He lowered the sword. 'What are you doing here?'
'Cooking a fish,' said the bald boy. 'Do you want some?'
'I meant, how did you get here? Did you steal a horse?'
'I rode in the back of a cart, with a man who was bringing some lambs to the castle for my lord of Ashford's table.'
'Well, you'd best see if he's gone yet, or find another cart. I won't have you here.'
'You can't make me go,' the boy said, impertinent. 'I'd had enough of that inn.'
'I'll have no more insolence from you,' Dunk warned. 'I should throw you over my horse right now and take you home.'
'You'd need to ride all the way to King's Landing,' said the boy. 'You'd miss the tourney.'
King's Landing. For a moment Dunk wondered if he was being mocked, but the boy had no way. of knowing that he had been born in King's Landing as well. Another wretch from Flea Bottom, like as not, and who can blame him for wanting out of that place?
He felt foolish standing there with sword in hand over an eight-year-old orphan. He sheathed it, glowering so the boy would see that he would suffer no nonsense. I ought to give him a good beating at the least, he thought, but the child looked so pitiful he could not bring himself to hit him. He glanced around the camp. The fire was burning merrily within a neat circle of rocks. The horses had been brushed, and clothes were hanging from the elm, drying above the flames. 'What are those doing there?'
'I washed them,' the boy said. 'And I groomed the horses, made the fire, and caught this fish. I would have raised your pavilion, but I couldn't find one.'
'There's my pavilion.' Dunk swept a hand above his head, at the branches of the tall elm that loomed above
