The Mystery Knight

position as well. His grey stallion was smaller than Thunder, but younger and more spirited. Ser Uthor wore green enamel plate and silvery chain mail. Streamers of green and grey silk flowed from his rounded bascinet, and his green shield bore a silver snail. Good armor and a good horse means a good ransom, if I unseat him.

A trumpet sounded.

Thunder started forward at a slow trot. Dunk swung his lance to the left and brought it down, so it angled across the horse’s head and the wooden barrier between him and his foe. His shield protected the left side of his body. He crouched forward, legs tightening as Thunder drove down the lists. We are one. Man, horse, lance, we are one beast of blood and wood and iron.

Ser Uthor was charging hard, clouds of dust kicking up from the hooves of his grey. With forty yards between them, Dunk spurred Thunder to a gallop and aimed the point of his lance squarely at the silver snail. The sullen sun, the dust, the heat, the castle, Lord Butterwell and his bride, the Fiddler and Ser Maynard, knights, squires, grooms, smallfolk, all vanished. Only the foe remained. The spurs again. Thunder broke into a run. The snail was rushing toward them, growing with every stride of the grey’s long legs…but ahead came Ser Uthor’s lance with its iron fist. My shield is strong; my shield will take the blow. Only the snail matters. Strike the snail, and the tilt is mine.

When ten yards remained between them, Ser Uthor shifted the point of his lance upward.

A crack rang in Dunk’s ears as his lance hit. He felt the impact in his arm and shoulder, but never saw the blow strike home. Uthor’s iron fist took him square between his eyes, with all the force of man and horse behind it.

* * *

Dunk woke upon his back, staring up at the arches of a barrel-vaulted ceiling. For a moment he did not know where he was, or how he had arrived there. Voices echoed in his head, and faces drifted past him — old Ser Arlan, Tanselle Too-Tall, Bennis of the Brown Shield, the Red Widow, Baelor Breakspear, Aerion the Bright Prince, mad sad Lady Vaith. Then all at once, the joust came back to him: the heat, the snail, the iron fist coming at his face. He groaned, and rolled onto one elbow. The movement set his skull to pounding like some monstrous war drum.

Both his eyes seemed to be working, at least. Nor could he feel a hole in his head, which was all to the good. He was in some cellar, he saw, with casks of wine and ale on every side. At least it is cool here, he thought, and drink is close at hand. The taste of blood was in his mouth. Dunk felt a stab of fear. If he had bitten off his tongue, he would be dumb as well as thick. “Good morrow,” he croaked, just to hear his voice. The words echoed off the ceiling. Dunk tried to push himself onto his feet, but the effort set the cellar spinning.

“Slowly, slowly,” said a quavery voice, close at hand. A stooped old man appeared beside the bed, clad in robes as grey as his long hair. About his neck was a maester’s chain of many metals. His face was aged and lined, with deep creases on either side of a great beak of a nose. “Be still, and let me see your eyes.” He peered in Dunk’s left eye, and then the right, holding them open between his thumb and forefinger.

“My head hurts.”

The maester snorted. “Be grateful it still rests upon your shoulders, ser. Here, this may help somewhat. Drink.”

Dunk made himself swallow every drop of the foul potion, and managed not to spit it out. The tourney,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Tell me. What’s happened?”

“The same foolishness that always happens in these affrays. Men have been knocking each other off horses with sticks. Lord Smallwood’s nephew broke his wrist and Ser Eden Risley’s leg was crushed beneath his horse, but no one has been killed thus far. Though I had my fears for you, ser.”

“Was I unhorsed?” His head still felt as though it were stuffed full of wool, else he would never have asked such a stupid question. Dunk regretted it the instant the words were out.

“With a crash that shook the highest ramparts. Those who had wagered good coin on you were most distraught, and your squire was beside himself. He would be sitting with you still if I had not chased him off. I need no children underfoot. I reminded him of his duty.”

Dunk found that he needed reminding himself. “What duty?”

“Your mount, ser. Your arms and armor.”

“Yes,” Dunk said, remembering. The boy was a good squire; he knew what was required of him. I have lost the old man’s sword and the armor that Steely Pate forged for me.

“Your fiddling friend was also asking after you. He told me you were to have the best of care. I threw him out as well.”

“How long have you been tending me?” Dunk flexed the fingers of his sword hand. All of them still seemed to work. Only my head’s hurt, and Ser Arlan used to say I never used that anyway. “Four hours, by the sundial.”

Four hours was not so bad. He had once heard tale of a knight struck so hard that he slept for forty years, and woke to find himself old and withered. “Do you know if Ser Uthor won his second tilt?” Maybe the Snail would win the tourney. It would take some sting from the defeat if Dunk could tell himself that he had lost to the best knight in the field.

“That one? Indeed he did. Against Ser Addam Frey, a cousin to the bride, and a promising young lance. Her Ladyship fainted when Ser Addam fell. She had to be helped back to her chambers.”

Dunk forced himself to his feet, reeling as he rose, but the maester helped to steady him. “Where are my clothes? I must go. I have to…I must…”

“If you cannot recall, it cannot be so very urgent.” The maester made an irritated motion. “I would suggest that you avoid rich foods, strong drink, and further blows between your eyes…but I learned long ago that knights are deaf to sense. Go, go. I have other fools to tend.”

* * *

Outside, Dunk glimpsed a hawk soaring in wide circles through the bright blue sky. He envied him. A few clouds were gathering to the east, dark as Dunk’s mood. As he found his way back to the tilting ground, the sun beat down on his head like a hammer on an anvil. The earth seemed to move beneath his feet…or it might just be that he was swaying. He had almost fallen twice climbing the cellar steps. I should have heeded Egg.

He made his slow way across the outer ward, around the fringes of the crowd. Out on the field, plump Lord Alyn Cockshaw was limping off between two squires, the latest conquest of young Glendon Ball. A third squire held his helm, its three proud feathers broken. “Ser John the Fiddler,” the herald cried. “Ser Franklyn of House Frey, a knight of the Twins, sworn to the Lord of the Crossing. Come forth and prove your valor.”

Dunk could only stand and watch as the Fiddler’s big black trotted onto the field in a swirl of blue silk and golden swords and fiddles. His breastplate was enameled blue as well, as were his poleyns, couter, greaves, and gorget. The ringmail underneath was gilded. Ser Franklyn rode a dapple grey with a flowing silver mane, to match the grey of his silks and the silver of his armor. On shield and surcoat and horse trappings he bore the twin towers of Frey. They charged and charged again. Dunk stood watching, but saw none of it. Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall, he chided himself. He had a snail upon his shield. How could you lose to a man with a snail upon his shield?

There was cheering all around him. When Dunk looked up, he saw that Franklyn Frey was down. The Fiddler had dismounted, to help his fallen foe back to his feet. He is one step closer to his dragon’s egg, Dunk thought, and where am I?

As he approached the postern gate, Dunk came upon the company of dwarfs from last night’s feast preparing to take their leave. They were hitching ponies to their wheeled wooden pig, and a second wayn of more conventional design. There were six of them, he saw, each smaller and more malformed than the last. A few might have been children, but they were all so short that it was hard to tell. In daylight, dressed in horsehide breeches and roughspun hooded cloaks, they seemed less jolly than they had in motley. “Good morrow to you,” Dunk said, to be courteous. “Are you for the road? There’s clouds to the east, could mean rain.”

The only answer that he got was a glare from the ugliest dwarf. Was he the one I pulled off Lady Butterwell last night? Up close, the little man smelled like a privy. One whiff was enough to make Dunk hasten his steps.

The walk across the Milk house seemed to take Dunk as long as it had once taken him and Egg to cross the