The old man set the shield aside. “Tell me.” He took a seat and indicated that they should do the same. As the brown knight launched into the tale, he sat listening intently, with his chin up and his shoulders back, as upright as a lance.
In his youth, Ser Eustace Osgrey must have been the very picture of chivalry, tall and broad and handsome. Time and grief had worked their will on him, but he was still unbent, a big-boned, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested man with features as strong and sharp as some old eagle. His close-cropped hair had gone white as milk, but the thick mustache that hid his mouth remained an ashy gray. His eyebrows were the same color, the eyes beneath a paler shade of gray, and full of sadness.
They seemed to grow sadder still when Bennis touched upon the dam. “That stream has been known as the Chequy Water for a thousand years or more,” the old knight said. “I caught fish there as a boy, and my sons all did the same. Alysanne liked to splash in the shallows on hot summer days like this.” Alysanne had been his daughter, who had perished in the spring. “It was on the banks of the Chequy Water that I kissed a girl for the first time. A cousin, she was, my uncle’s youngest daughter, of the Osgreys of Leafy Lake. They are all gone now, even her.” His mustache quivered. “This cannot be borne, sers. The woman will not have my water. She will not have my chequy water.”
“Dam’s built strong, m’lord,” Ser Bennis warned. “Too strong for me and Ser Dunk to pull down in an hour, even with the bald-head boy to help. We’ll need ropes and picks and axes, and a dozen men. And that’s just for the work, not for the fighting.”
Ser Eustace stared at the Little Lion’s shield.
Dunk cleared his throat. “M’lord, as to that, when we came upon the diggers, well…”
“ Dunk, don’t trouble m’lord with trifles,” said Bennis. “I taught one fool a lesson, that was all.”
Ser Eustace looked up sharply. “What sort of lesson?”
“With my sword, as it were. A little claret on his cheek, that’s all it were, m’lord.”
The old knight looked long at him. “That… that was ill considered, ser. The woman has a spider’s heart. She murdered three of her husbands. And all her brothers died in swaddling clothes. Five, there were. Or six, mayhaps, I don’t recall. They stood between her and the castle. She would whip the skin off any peasant who displeased her, I do not doubt, but for you to cut one… no, she will not suffer such an insult. Make no mistake. She will come for you, as she came for Lem.”
“Dake, m’lord,” Ser Bennis said. “Begging your lordly pardon, you knew him and I never did, but his name were Dake.”
“If it please m’lord, I could go to Goldengrove and tell Lord Rowan of this dam,” said Dunk. Rowan was the old knight’s liege lord. The Red Widow held her lands of him as well.
“Rowan? No, look for no help there. Lord Rowan’s sister wed Lord Wyman’s cousin Wendell, so he is kin to the Red Widow. Besides, he loves me not. Ser Duncan, on the morrow you must make the rounds of all my villages, and roust out every able-bodied man of fighting age. I am old, but I am not dead. The woman will soon find that the chequy lion still has claws!”
Two, Dunk thought glumly, and I am one of them.
Ser Eustace’s lands supported three small villages, none more than a handful of hovels, sheepfolds, and pigs. The largest boasted a thatched one-room sept with crude pictures of the Seven scratched upon the walls in charcoal. Mudge, a stoop-backed old swineherd who’d once been to Oldtown, led devotions there every seventh day. Twice a year a real septon came through to forgive sins in the Mother’s name. The smallfolk were glad of the forgiveness, but hated the septon’s visits all the same, since they were required to feed him.
They seemed no more pleased by the sight of Dunk and Egg. Dunk was known in the villages, if only as Ser Eustace’s new knight, but not so much as a cup of water was offered him. Most of the men were in the fields, so it was largely women and children who crept out of the hovels at their coming, along with a few grandfathers too infirm for work. Egg bore the Osgrey banner, the chequy lion green and gold, rampant upon its field of white. “We come from Standfast with Ser Eustace’s summons,” Dunk told the villagers. “Every able-bodied man between the ages of fifteen and fifty is commanded to assemble at the tower on the morrow.”
“Is it war?” asked one thin woman, with two children hiding behind her skirts and a babe sucking at her breast. “Is the black dragon come again?”
“There are no dragons in this, black or red,” Dunk told her. “This is between the chequy lion and the spiders. The Red Widow has taken your water.”
The woman nodded, though she looked askance when Egg took off his hat to fan his face. “That boy got no hair. He sick?”
“It’s shaved,” said Egg. He put the hat back on, turned Maester’s head, and rode off slowly.
The boy is in a prickly mood today. He had hardly said a word since they set out. Dunk gave Thunder a touch of the spur and soon caught the mule. “Are you angry that I did not take your part against Ser Bennis yesterday?” he asked his sullen squire, as they made for the next village. “I like the man no more than you, but he is a knight. You should speak to him with courtesy.”
“I’m your squire, not his,” the boy said. “He’s dirty and mean-mouthed, and he pinches me.”
If he had an inkling who you were, he’d piss himself before he laid a finger on you. “He used to pinch me, too.” Dunk had forgotten that, till Egg’s words brought it back. Ser Bennis and Ser Arlan had been among a party of knights hired by a Dornish merchant to see him safe from Lannisport to the Prince’s Pass. Dunk had been no older than Egg, though taller. He would pinch me under the arm so hard he’d leave a bruise. His fingers felt like iron pincers, but I never told Ser Arlan. One of the other knights had vanished near Stoney Sept, and it was bruited about that Bennis had gutted him in a quarrel. “If he pinches you again, tell me and I’ll end it. Till then, it does not cost you much to tend his horse.”
“Someone has to,” Egg agreed. “Bennis never brushes him. He never cleans his stall. He hasn’t even named him!”
“Some knights never name their horses,” Dunk told him. “That way, when they die in battle, the grief is not so hard to bear. There are always more horses to be had, but it’s hard to lose a faithful friend.” Or so the old man said, but he never took his own counsel. He named every horse he ever owned. So had Dunk. “We’ll see how many men turn up at the tower… but whether it’s five or fifty, you’ll need to do for them as well.”
Egg looked indignant. “I have to serve smallfolk?”
“Not serve. Help. We need to turn them into fighters.” If the Widow gives us time enough. “If the gods are good, a few will have done some soldiering before, but most will be green as summer grass, more used to holding hoes than spears. Even so, a day may come when our lives depend on them. How old were you when you first took up a sword?”
“I was little, ser. The sword was made from wood.”
“Common boys fight with wooden swords, too, only theirs are sticks and broken branches. Egg, these men may seem fools to you. They won’t know the proper names for bits of armor, or the arms of the great Houses, or which king it was who abolished the lord’s right to the first night… but treat them with respect all the same. You are a squire born of noble blood, but you are still a boy. Most of them will be men grown. A man has his pride, no matter how lowborn he may be. You would seem just as lost and stupid in their villages. And if you doubt that, go hoe a row and shear a sheep, and tell me the names of all the weeds and wildflowers in Wat’s Wood.”