The Mystery Knight

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 says Daemon. 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.”