The Sworn Sword

livelier foe.

Not too well, was the answer. Only Treb was quick enough to get a spear past Dunk’s shield, and he only did it once. Dunk turned one clumsy lurching thrust after another, pushed their spears aside, and bulled in close. If his sword had been steel instead of pine, he would have slain each of them half a dozen times. “You’re dead once I get past your point,” he warned them, hammering at their legs and arms to drive the lesson home. Treb and Lem and Wet Wat soon learned how to give ground, at least. Big Rob dropped his spear and ran, and Bennis had to chase him down and drag him back in tears. The end of the afternoon saw the lot of them all bruised and battered, with fresh blisters rising on their callused hands from where they gripped the spears. Dunk bore no marks himself, but he was half drowned by sweat by the time Egg helped him peel his armor off.

As the sun was going down, Dunk marched their little company down into the cellar and forced them all to have a bath, even those who’d had one just last winter. Afterward Sam Stoops’ wife had bowls of stew for all, thick with carrots, onions, and barley. The men were bone tired, but to hear them talk every one would soon be twice as deadly as a Kingsguard knight. They could hardly wait to prove their valor. Ser Bennis egged them on by telling them of the joys of the soldier’s life; loot and women, chiefly. The two old hands agreed with him. Lem had brought back a knife and a pair of fine boots from the Blackfyre Rebellion, to hear him tell; the boots were too small for him to wear, but he had them hanging on his wall. And Pate could not say enough about some of the camp followers he’d known following the dragon.

Sam Stoops had set them up with eight straw pallets in the undercroft, so once their bellies were filled they all went off to sleep. Bennis lingered long enough to give Dunk a look of disgust. “Ser Useless should of fucked a few more peasant wenches while he still had a bit o’ sap left in them old sad balls o’ his,” he said. “If he’d sown himself a nice crop o’ bastard boys back then, might be we’d have some soldiers now.”

“They seem no worse than any other peasant levy.” Dunk had marched with a few such while squiring for Ser Arlan.

“Aye,” Ser Bennis said. “In a fortnight they might stand their own,’gainst some other lot o’ peasants. Knights, though?” He shook his head, and spat.

Standfast’s well was in the undercellar, in a dank chamber walled in stone and earth. It was there that Sam Stoops’ wife soaked and scrubbed and beat the clothes before carrying them up to the roof to dry. The big stone washtub was also used for baths. Bathing required drawing water from the well bucket by bucket, heating it over the hearth in a big iron kettle, emptying the kettle into the tub, then starting the whole process once again. It took four buckets to fill the kettle, and three kettles to fill the tub. By the time the last kettle was hot the water from the first had cooled to lukewarm. Ser Bennis had been heard to say that the whole thing was too much bloody bother, which was why he crawled with lice and fleas and smelled like a bad cheese.

Dunk at least had Egg to help him when he felt in dire need of a good wash, as he did tonight. The lad drew the water in a glum silence, and hardly spoke as it was heating. “Egg?” Dunk asked as the last kettle was coming to a boil. “Is aught amiss?” When Egg made no reply, he said, “Help me with the kettle.”

Together they wrestled it from hearth to tub, taking care not to splash themselves. “Ser,” the boy said, “what do you think Ser Eustace means to do?”

“Tear down the dam, and fight off the Widow’s men if they try to stop us.” He spoke loudly, so as to be heard above the splashing of the bathwater. Steam rose in a white curtain as they poured, bringing a flush to his face.

“Their shields are woven wood, ser. A lance could punch right through them, or a crossbow bolt.”

“We may find some bits of armor for them, when they’re ready.” That was the best they could hope for.

“They might be killed, ser. Wet Wat is still half a boy. Will Barleycorn is to be married the next time the septon comes. And Big Rob doesn’t even know his left foot from his right.”

Dunk let the empty kettle thump down onto the hard-packed earthen floor. “Roger of Pennytree was younger than Wet Wat when he died on the Redgrass Field. There were men in your father’s host who’d been just been married, too, and other men who’d never even kissed a girl. There were hundreds who didn’t know their left foot from their right, maybe thousands.”

“That was different,” Egg insisted. “That was war.”

“So is this. The same thing, only smaller.”

“Smaller and stupider, ser.”

“That’s not for you or me to say,” Dunk told him. “It’s their duty to go to war when Ser Eustace summons them… and to die, if need be.”

“Then we shouldn’t have named them, ser. It will only make the grief harder for us when they die.” He screwed up his face. “If we used my boot—”

“No.” Dunk stood on one leg to pull his own boot off.

“Yes, but my father—”

“No.” The second boot went the way of the first.

“We—”

“No.” Dunk pulled his sweat-stained tunic up over his head and tossed it at Egg. “Ask Sam Stoops’ wife to wash that for me.”

“I will, ser, but—”

“No, I said. Do you need a clout in the ear to help you hear better?” He unlaced his breeches. Underneath was only him; it was too hot for smallclothes. “It’s good that you’re concerned for Wat and Wat and Wat and the rest of them, but the boot is only meant for dire need.” How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes, and one. “What did your father tell you, when he sent you off to squire for me?”

“To keep my hair shaved or dyed, and tell no man my true name,” the boy said, with obvious reluctance.

Egg had served Dunk for a good year and a half, though some days it seemed like twenty. They had climbed the Prince’s Pass together and crossed the deep sands of Dorne, both red and white. A poleboat had taken them down the Greenblood to the Planky Town, where they took passage for Oldtown on the galleas White Lady. They had slept in stables, inns, and ditches, broken bread with holy brothers, whores, and mummers, and chased down a hundred puppet shows. Egg had kept Dunk’s horse groomed, his longsword sharp, his mail free of rust. He had been as good a companion as any man could wish for, and the hedge knight had come to think of him almost as a little brother.

He isn’t, though. This egg had been hatched of dragons, not of chickens. Egg might be a hedge knight’s squire, but Aegon of House Targaryen was the fourth and youngest son of Maekar, Prince of Summerhall, himself the fourth son of the late King Daeron the Good, the Second of His Name, who’d sat the Iron Throne for five-and-twenty years until the Great Spring Sickness took him off.

“So far as most folk are concerned, Aegon Targaryen went back to Summerhall with his brother Daeron after the tourney at Ashford Meadow,” Dunk reminded the boy. “Your father did not want it known that you were wandering the Seven Kingdoms with some hedge knight. So let’s hear no more about your boot.”

A look was all the answer that he got. Egg had big eyes, and somehow his shaven head made them look even larger. In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple. Valyrian eyes, thought Dunk. In Westeros, few but the blood of the dragon had eyes that color, or hair that shone like beaten gold and strands of silver woven all together.

When they’d been poling down the Greenblood, the orphan girls had made a game of rubbing Egg’s shaven head for luck. It made the boy blush redder than a pomegranate. “Girls are so stupid,” he would say. “The next one who touches me is going into the river.” Dunk had to tell him, “Then I’ll be touching you. I’ll give you such a clout in the ear you’ll be hearing bells for a moon’s turn.” That only goaded the boy to further insolence. “Better bells than stupid girls,” he insisted, but he never threw anyone into the river.

Dunk stepped into the tub and eased himself down until the water covered him up to his chin. It was still scalding hot on top, though cooler farther down. He clenched his teeth to keep from yelping. If he did the boy would laugh. Egg liked his bathwater scalding hot.

“Do you need more water boiled, ser?”

“This will serve.” Dunk rubbed at his arms and watched the dirt come off in long gray clouds. “Fetch me the soap. Oh, and the long-handled scrub brush, too.” Thinking about Egg’s hair had made him remember that his own was filthy. He took a deep breath and slid down beneath the water to give it a good soak. When he emerged again,