Chapter 83 - A Quarrel of His Own

Tomas caught them before they reached the horses, Jon's sword belt in one hand and the sheathed dagger in the other.

"You left these."

Jon let him fasten the belt while Arthur held his cloak clear of the injured arm. Beyond the tents a herald called for the next pair of knights.

"I can come," Tomas said, looking at Hal.

"Stay with Vaelor. Gawen's coming."

Tomas hesitated, then nodded. Jon touched his arm before turning away.

"Ride well. We'll come back."

Gawen lifted Hal before him. Jon needed Arthur's hand beneath his boot to mount, and held still until the pain in his shoulder eased. Robb and Theon joined them at the edge of the camp, with Martyn Cassel close behind.

People were still coming out to the tournament. A woman carried a stool upon her head; two apprentices ran past with half a loaf between them. A man called something about the melee and raised his cup. Jon rode on. Hal pointed when they reached the gate, but said nothing until Gawen turned the wrong way.

"Not there. Past the steps."

They passed a fish stall whose owner was sluicing blood from his board. Two men sat upon the steps beyond it. One rose when he saw Hal upon Gawen's horse. His companion caught his sleeve and spoke into his ear. The first man waited until the riders had passed before following.

At the next corner a butcher stepped out beneath a row of hanging carcasses. He was broad through the shoulders, with a cudgel tucked beneath his apron. Two drovers left their dice and came to stand behind him.

The follower stopped. A porter beneath a wicker hamper had to turn sideways between them; the butcher caught his strap and held him there.

"Other way, Cob. Not with my meat."

"It's for the cookshop."

"I know where it's for."

The porter backed away. Jon drew rein. The butcher had already turned to the man from the steps.

"You again. Did I not tell you?"

"I was paid to watch the boy."

"Then earn it where you were paid."

One drover laughed. The other kept watching the steps. This was familiar work to them. The hired man looked towards his companion, found him still seated, and went back with a muttered curse.

The butcher bowed when he saw Jon watching. Behind him the porter was taking the long way round, bent beneath his load. Jon could not tell whether he had just been protected or punished.

Arthur had seen it too. He brought his horse nearer.

"Keep going."

Jon did. Hal was looking ahead, his hands closed upon Gawen's pommel. Rilla came first.

The sept stood behind a little yard where washed clothes hung between the wall and a crooked pear tree. A girl with a tray of onions moved aside for the horses. Jon caught a glimpse of her watching from beneath her hair, then Septa Meriane came through the door.

"She is awake. The boy first."

Hal was down before Gawen could help him. Jon followed into a room smelling of vinegar and damp wool. Rilla lay beneath the window, her hair cut away above one ear. Blood had dried in the creases of her neck where the washing had missed it.

She turned towards Hal and winced. "Where have you been?"

"To get him. I brought him."

"I told you to stay here."

The boy bent over her. She caught the back of his torn jerkin and pulled him close, her fingers working into his hair. Jon drew a stool beside the bed. Hal sat when she tugged at him, keeping his face against her shoulder.

The maester waited until Rilla loosened her hold before examining the boy's swollen eye. Jon watched the man's hands.

"And her?"

"The bone does not seem broken. She answers clearly. She must rest, and I must be told if she grows confused or is sick again."

Rilla looked towards the passage. "Your man's arm wants seeing to. He won't leave the door."

"I'll have it done."

"He caught Pell coming over the counter. There was another at the back, over the sheds. We'd never have got out if—" She stopped to swallow. Hal lifted his head.

Jon bent nearer. "Pell wanted the pennies?"

"I offered him the till. He knocked it away. 'Should've taught your boy to keep quiet.'" Her hand tightened upon the boy's jerkin. "He kept on about the brewery. Said the knight hadn't forgot."

Jon looked at Hal. The boy was staring at the blanket.

"I thought two men would keep you safe," Jon said.

"They kept us alive."

Rilla waited while he found something to say, then spared him the trouble. "My sister's quilt was upstairs. Yellow patch by the edge. If it's only wet, I can dry it. And there's a little box beneath the bed."

He promised to have them looked for. She began describing the clasp upon the box, stopped, and pressed her lips together. Jon stayed until Meriane returned, then went out to find Wat.

Wat, one of the guards Jon had left with Rilla, tried to rise from the bench. Jon put a hand upon his good shoulder and called the maester. Wat kept explaining where the second attacker had come from while the sleeve was cut away. One guard had been at the front and one with Hal; the man had climbed over the sheds and come up behind them both.

"Tell Ser Androw when he comes," Jon said. "Every way in that you saw."

"Aye, my lord. I can still—"

"Stay with her. Let him stitch you first."

Wylla arrived while the wound was being washed, with fresh guards and Aries carrying clean clothes. Gawen had sent for her. She went straight to Rilla; Aries found Benn in the next room and took the clothes in with him. Across the yard Robb sat beside Will while Moll held a bowl for the little boy. Martyn stood near them. Theon had found a place to rest his leg beneath the pear tree.

Jon left two fresh men with the sept. Before he went he offered Rilla a room within the castle when she could be moved, and work on Dragonstone if she wished it later.

"I've neighbours here," she said. "People who owe me."

"The room is yours whether you sail or stay."

She agreed to the room. Hal looked from one to the other, listening, but she would say no more about the island.

Before the horses were brought round, a young gold cloak came through the gate with Ser Androw behind him. The watchman stepped aside for a woman carrying soiled bedding, but she stopped him. "Alyn. That old man above the chandler's—where did you take him?"

"His daughter's. She came for him."

"He hadn't any shoes."

"I've sent a lad back for them. Mind that sheet." He lifted a trailing corner clear of the mud and laid it upon her bundle. She shifted it against her hip and went on. The watchman pointed Androw towards Wat's bench.

"That's the man, ser. The other one's with the woman."

Androw took in the cut sleeve and the maester's needle. "I'll wait."

He came to Jon instead. There was soot upon the breast of his surcoat.

"The shop's burned through upstairs. This serjeant found me a man who helped carry water. He saw two of them go into the yard before the fire."

Jon looked at the gold cloak. Five-and-twenty, perhaps, with pale lashes and silver hair dirtied by smoke. He held his helmet beneath his arm. "Your name, serjeant?" Jon asked.

"Alyn Longwaters, my lord."

Longwaters. Jon knew where that name began: Princess Elaena, Alyn Velaryon, their bastard Jon Waters. A distant cousin stood before him in a dirty gold cloak. He kept the thought to himself.

"Kin to the gaoler?"

"My uncle Rennifer." Alyn glanced towards the lane. "The fellow wouldn't speak with everyone about. I took Ser Androw round behind the sheds."

"He knows you?" Jon asked.

"I got his boy home after a cart struck him last winter. He'll speak to me. I can go back when the maester's done here."

"I had more to ask him," Androw said. "He wanted to see to his own roof first."

Alyn nodded. "The sparks were falling on it. He won't have gone far."

Janos Slynt stopped at the gate with two watchmen. The men beside him stayed in the lane while the commander came into the yard.

"Longwaters. I sent you to the tournament road."

Alyn straightened. "There was a fire, Commander."

"Which is out." Slynt turned to Arthur and bowed. His bow to Jon was equally deep. "My lord. Allow me to congratulate you. His Grace could hardly have chosen better." He straightened with a smile, then glanced towards the sept door. "A bad business to trouble such a day. I'm told the woman will live."

"Because my men stayed with her." Jon nodded towards the bench. "My man Wat took a cut stopping one of them at the counter. Another came over the sheds."

Slynt looked at the guard for the first time.

"And Ser Androw is here to hear him. Good. I have men at the shop as well."

"Longwaters was helping me find the neighbours," Androw said.

"Then he has done his part. I need him where I put him."

"A moment, Commander," Alyn said. "Let me fetch the witness. He knows me."

Slynt's head turned slowly towards him.

"The king's guests are coming through the city gate by the hundred. Shall I tell them to wait while you visit your friends?"

Alyn's mouth closed. One of the watchmen outside shifted his spear to let a cart past, calling to the driver to mind the wall. Androw waited until the wheels had passed.

"I need a man the neighbours will talk to."

Slynt pointed to his men. "Those two will stay by the shop. Tell them which doors you want, ser. They'll keep people back while you ask your questions."

Androw looked at Alyn. The serjeant's eyes went to the watchman who had moved his spear, then to his companion by the wall. He put his helmet on and drew the strap tight beneath his chin. When he looked at Slynt again, his mouth was set.

"Go on, Longwaters. You've kept the gate waiting long enough."

Alyn bowed to Jon and Androw before leaving. Slynt followed, pausing to give his watchmen their orders. Neither man moved from the lane until he had finished.

Jon watched the silver head disappear beyond the wall. Longwaters had volunteered to go back; Slynt had sent him away. Jon had seen that look given to a captain before. He meant to speak to the serjeant again when his commander was elsewhere. "Will your man talk to them?" he asked Androw.

"I'll hear him myself, if he'll open his door again." The knight looked towards Wat. "This one first."

Jon told him what Rilla had said about Pell and Hal. Androw listened without interrupting, then asked whether she could bear another visit.

"Ask the maester," Jon said. "She needs rest. I've offered her a room in the castle when she can be moved."

"I'll tell Lord Arryn. He wants you, your brother and Greyjoy at the Tower after breakfast. Ask him about hearing the brewery prisoners with me."

"Then we'll be there."

Androw lowered his voice. "He hasn't changed his mind about another raid."

Jon looked towards Wat. The maester was drawing the thread through his arm; Wat watched the far wall.

"Wat serves me," Jon said. "I put him in that shop. They wounded him carrying out my orders. When you go after them, I will take part."

"Lord Arryn means to keep this in his own hands."

"Then let him command it. I'll bring men and answer to him. But I have a grievance of my own now, and I won't leave it to Slynt."

Androw glanced towards the gate through which the commander had gone. "You have cause to bring a grievance. That is not leave to muster men in the city."

Jon kept his voice low. "I'll put it before the Hand tomorrow. Tell him I will be there when those men are taken. Wat was standing where I told him to stand."

Androw studied him for a moment, then nodded. "I will tell him. Until then, no raid."

"I'm going back to the lists, ser."

The knight glanced towards the fresh guards at Rilla's door, then went to sit beside Wat.

Jon walked to the mouth of the lane with Arthur while the horses were being brought round. The butcher's drovers still held the corner. The men upon the steps had gone.

"That fellow was paid to watch Hal," Jon said. "The butcher's men needed no paying before they came out."

"You don't know what he pays them."

"I know they stayed when the other two went." Jon watched the porter return with his empty hamper. He spoke to the butcher this time before taking the shorter way. "And they decide who passes."

Jon meant to enter this city as king. He could not leave his food, messages and men dependent upon whoever held its corners then. Before he declared himself, he would need people here who could keep a door open after the banners passed.

"You have seen one corner."

"I mean to see more." Birds could show him streets and doors. They could not tell him why a man with a full load obeyed a butcher instead of delivering his meat. "The knight has enemies down here. I want to know what they want before one offers to help me."

Arthur moved aside for a woman leading a little boy from the sept's gate. "Begin with someone you know."

"Vhalar at the river. Marrec where he buys his goods."

"And tell Arryn."

"Tomorrow. I want answers from more than Slynt's men."

Gawen brought the horses. Wylla and Aries were coming with them to the lists; Hal stayed beside his aunt, and Will had made Robb promise to return. Jon let Arthur help him mount. Across the yard the girl with the onions lifted her tray, a torn yellow cuff falling over her hand.

She waited until the horses moved before she left the wall.

***

Jaime had not yet lowered his visor when Cersei saw the girl throw him a favour.

It fell short of his horse, a little twist of green silk caught upon the rail. The girl leaned so far forward that her companion caught her by the waist. Jaime smiled at them both. He left the silk where it was.

Cersei settled against her cushion. Below the royal canopy the benches were packed, and beyond them men pressed against the ropes whenever a rider came near. A gust lifted the edge of the silk above her, bringing the smell of horses up from the lists. She drew her skirts clear of the rail. There was space enough in the gallery, if Robert's companions would stop gathering round his chair; whenever he laughed, faces turned up from the crowd to find him.

Her brother rode a white horse beneath a cloth worked with golden lions. Sunlight ran along his armour as he turned before the gallery, and for a moment she could see his face as clearly as if he stood beside her: the green eyes, the mouth that made promises without speaking, the careless pleasure he took in being watched. He lifted his lance to the king. His gaze passed over Robert and found her, and she raised two fingers from the arm of her chair.

Across the lists, Ser Hobber Redwyne was having something done to his saddle. Men clustered about the chestnut's legs. Jaime waited with his lance upright while a groom caught the length of his white cloak and carried it away.

"He ought to keep it," Joffrey said.

"And have it caught beneath his horse?"

"It looks better."

That was true. White suited Jaime. It always had, even when she hated what it required of him. Joffrey leaned upon the rail, his hair bright beneath the canopy, and she drew him back by the shoulder. The wood had been scrubbed but not planed; a splinter had already caught her sleeve.

"Stand here. Your father cannot see you behind that post."

Robert could have seen him if he had cared to look. Instead he was shouting to Lord Tyrell about a wager. Mace Tyrell, who had done very little beyond eat during the war, was explaining how his son had held a lance almost before he could walk.

"Then he must have fallen over it a great deal," Tyrion said.

He had appeared at the side of her chair. Cersei had heard no approach, only the scrape of a servant moving a stool out of his way. He wore a handsome doublet which would have looked better on almost anyone else.

"There are seats behind us," she told him.

"So there are. All occupied by men taller than I am. A disappointing arrangement."

He set his cup upon the rail, precisely where she would have to see it.

"You have managed to see the bottom of that."

"Only once. I shall apply myself more diligently." Tyrion looked down at the field. "Hobber is taking his time. Do you suppose he hopes Jaime will grow old?"

She did not mean to laugh. The breath escaped before she could prevent it, and Tyrion heard. His smile made her regret it.

The groom ran clear. Hobber wheeled at his end of the lists, grapes purple upon his shield. Jaime shut his visor. Cersei knew the movement that followed. He would settle once, scarcely more than a shift of his hips, then become still while the horse moved beneath him. As a boy he had done it upon a pony too small for his legs. Their father had watched from a window, and she had watched her father's face. Jaime had always been beautiful. Even Tywin could not look at him without showing it.

The horses came together. Hobber's lance burst against Jaime's shield, but Jaime's point struck higher, turning the grapes sideways and sweeping the Redwyne from his saddle. He struck the earth upon one shoulder and rolled beneath the lowest rail as the chestnut ran on. Cersei rose with the rest of the gallery. She had meant to remain seated, but it no longer mattered; Jaime was bringing his horse round beneath the royal seats, lifting his empty hand, and Joffrey was shouting his name.

"A clean course," Barristan said behind the king.

"He might have given us two," Robert complained. "I had barely wet my mouth."

Her brother had beaten a knight in a single pass, and Robert complained that his wine had lasted longer. Cersei looked towards him. His beard was damp. A piece of bread clung to the embroidered stag upon his chest.

"You may ask Ser Hobber to mount again," she said.

"Gods, woman, let him find his teeth first."

The men about him laughed. Cersei sat. Jaime leaned from the saddle to speak to Hobber while his squire helped him to his feet.

The next knights took longer. Wylis Manderly's horse seemed large enough to carry both riders. His surcoat pulled tight across his middle when he raised his arm. Against him Garlan Tyrell wore green and gold, two roses upon his shield. Alerie, seated beside her husband, had already told Cersei twice how well he fought with a sword. She would sooner have heard how long the family meant to stay. Margaery sat beyond her mother, with Loras on her other side, his injured wrist resting upon a folded cloth. The boy tried to lift it when Garlan saluted them. Alerie caught his elbow.

"The other hand, Loras."

He flushed and obeyed.

"Will he ride?" Tommen asked.

"Not until he is older," Cersei said.

"But he has a horse."

"So has your sister."

Myrcella looked up at that. Tommen considered the answer, evidently found it unsatisfactory, and went to ask Tyrion instead.

Cersei watched her youngest son's golden head bend towards her brother's. Tyrion liked an audience that had not yet learnt to be ashamed of him.

Manderly's second lance scraped along Garlan's breastplate. The Tyrell recovered, but Mace's great hands closed upon the rail.

"He has him," Mace declared.

Olenna Tyrell peered past her son. "Which one, Mace? You are obscuring both."

He moved. Cersei took a little pleasure in that, although she would have preferred it if the old woman had stayed at Highgarden with her opinions.

Garlan won on the fourth course. Manderly came down heavily, bringing a groan from the northmen in the lower benches. His brother was already on the field before the herald could finish the victor's name. Garlan dismounted too. The fallen man sat up, accepted a cup, and began arguing with someone about the horse.

Margaery applauded. Then she bent towards her mother. "Has there been word?" The question was quiet, but Cersei had spent years hearing things said quietly.

"Not since they left," Alerie answered.

Renly, standing behind Loras, asked Barristan whether the messenger had reached Lord Arryn. The old knight nodded.

"His lordship has sent men."

"For the woman?" Margaery asked.

"For the men who hurt her."

There it was again. Ned Stark's bastard had been gone scarcely an hour, and they were still speaking of him. His rescue, his knighting, his poor beaten woman. Cersei had seen the injured boy when they led the horses through the camp. He had made a spectacle of his tears, clutching at Jon's hand while the other Stark boy hurried after them. Margaery had stood watching until the horses passed the tents.

She had watched rather closely when Jon knelt as well.

"Does the child belong to her?" Cersei asked.

Margaery turned. "Her nephew, Your Grace. His name is Hal."

"I was asking Ser Barristan."

The girl's hands came together in her lap. Alerie laid a finger upon one of them. Neither offered the apology Cersei had expected.

Barristan said that the woman had been taken to a sept and was alive when Jon left the field.

"The boy thought otherwise," Renly said. "You would have heard him if—"

"I heard him."

Robert leaned across the space between their chairs.

"What's this?"

Renly told him. Cersei watched her husband's pleasure drain away, then return in another form when he heard that Jon and Robb had gone together.

"Ned would have done the same."

Of course Ned would. Ned would have ridden faster, asked wiser questions, found time to comfort the woman and mend her roof. If Robert heard that a Stark had pissed against a wall, he would remember how straight Ned's stream had been.

"They have Ser Arthur with them," Cersei said. "I expect he knows what to do."

"And so will they, if they watch him." Robert beckoned to a page. "Tell Arryn I want to hear of it. Before he goes to bed. And bring Lord Black back here when he's done. I didn't have him knighted so he could miss his own men riding."

The page ran.

Robert kept his eyes upon the passage between the tents long after there was nothing to see there. She knew that look. Ned's name could bring it, or a song, or enough wine. She had been a queen beside him for years and still there were times when he seemed to be looking past her for a dead girl.

He had said Lyanna's name in their bed. He had never said hers in that voice.

Cersei reached for her cup and found it empty. The girl behind her was watching the riders. "Must I ask?" the queen said.

The girl started and poured too quickly. A drop struck the queen's wrist. Cersei held out her hand until a cloth was brought.

Below them, the men had cleared the broken lances. The herald called Ser Vaelor Scales.

"Another of Lord Black's?" Mace asked.

"His captain of horse," Renly said.

Scales wore black. Men beneath the gallery took up his name, though Cersei doubted half of them had known it that morning. She moved Tommen's abandoned cup out of her way.

Ser Hosteen Frey lowered his lance at the farther end. A woman behind Cersei began listing his brothers to another woman who had made the mistake of asking.

Hosteen's horse carried him wide after their first collision. Scales waited while the Frey's squire ran after him with a fresh lance.

"That one has served," Robert said.

"I should hope so," Cersei replied. "He is old enough."

On the next pass Hosteen went backwards over the saddle's cantle. Scales turned and waited until the Frey stood.

Joffrey was pleased by the fall.

"I would have struck him lower. Then he would have gone at once."

Tyrion's mouth opened. Cersei looked at him. "My son was speaking to me."

"Then I shall preserve my ignorance."

Joffrey heard the amusement, if not its cause. His face stiffened. Cersei drew him closer and told him to watch how the next pair held their shields.

The younger knight in black was less assured. His horse tossed its head when the crowd cheered him, and he had to use both hands on the reins before he could take his lance. The herald called him Ser Tomas Sableheart. At the other end stood a broad man whose blue-and-white checks were crossed by a black band and three golden eyes.

"Tallad," Tyrion said, before she could ask anyone else. "A knight with an appetite for other men's horses."

"Is he good?" Tommen asked.

"We are about to discover whether he is better than that one."

The first pass splintered Tomas's lance. He rode out with the broken length still in his hand, then bent to look down at his foot. His groom came running. Scales, now without his helm, crossed from the ropes and caught the horse's bridle.

There was a delay. Tomas pointed at something near his stirrup. Tallad raised his visor and waited. At last the marshal held up a hand, allowing time for a repair.

Men in the standing crowd began to whistle.

"They want another fall," Joffrey said.

"They have paid to see one," Tyrion answered.

"Then he should ride."

Tomas evidently thought so too. He waved his groom away before the man could buckle on a fresh stirrup leather. The broken strap and its dangling iron went with him. Scales said something that made the younger man look towards the royal gallery, then offered a final word and stepped back.

Cersei had ceased watching them. A goldsmith had appeared beside Petyr Baelish, carrying his grievance in a purse of rolled accounts. Robert's steward followed with the air of a man who had tried several other doors first.

"The prizes are provided for," the steward was telling the king.

"Then what the devil do you want?"

"The five hundred for your wager, Your Grace."

"Pay it."

"That was not among the purses."

Robert swore. Tommen looked up; Cersei sent him to Myrcella before he could repeat it.

Petyr drew the two men behind Cersei's chair. Robert was watching the field and calling for more wine.

"Master, you have supplied silver plate to the royal household before," he told the goldsmith. "I should be sorry to see a small difficulty interrupt such a profitable acquaintance."

"It has been profitable in promises, my lord. The plate is delivered."

"And shall be paid for. Bring the five hundred before the light goes, and I will give you first payment from the wine duties at the river. Your old account and this advance."

The goldsmith rubbed a ring with his thumb. "First payment?"

"Put your own clerk beside the collector. He may count with him."

"Twenty dragons for the trouble."

"Twelve."

They settled upon eighteen while Tomas took his next lance. Petyr sent the steward for a pen, and the goldsmith bowed himself away with a good deal more alacrity than he had arrived. Tyrion watched him go. "Father should have taught me to make cups."

"You have learnt enough about emptying them."

"At considerable expense to him. This fellow is paid to fill one."

Cersei turned back to the field. When Robert wanted money, Baelish found it. When she wanted goods already ordered, someone arrived to explain why she must wait.

The horses were gathering speed. Tomas's right boot hung without a stirrup. Cersei could see him pressing that leg hard against his mount. Tallad's lance caught his shield and turned him. His foot kicked out, searching for the support he had sent away; then the horse took another stride and the young knight slid sideways, struck the ground, and rolled.

The crowd roared. Joffrey laughed.

Tomas lay still long enough for Cersei to glance towards Scales. The captain had started forward, but stopped when the fallen man pushed himself onto one knee. Tomas tugged off his helm. Blood ran over his mouth.

Tallad rode back and dismounted.

"He should have waited," Joffrey said.

"Yes," she answered, before Tyrion could.

Joffrey looked satisfied. While men carried a damaged rail away, Lord Grandison approached Robert.

"Let your master of horse see the geldings I brought, Your Grace, before I send them home."

Tygett Lannister lifted his head. "He is to see the Lannisport horses tomorrow." Her uncle had been praising the dealer who supplied his own stables.

"Then let him see mine beside them," Grandison said. "I ask no favour in the price."

"Only the king's word to get them through the gate."

"Did yours come through without it?"

Robert laughed. "Bring both lots after breakfast. Let the man choose a horse for once instead of telling me which one I oughtn't ride."

Grandison bowed. Tygett beckoned to his man and spoke into his ear. Cersei hoped the king's master of horse had better judgment than his master.

Jon returned while the marshals were changing a damaged length of rail. Cersei saw Arthur first, his dark head above the people gathered at the gallery steps. Lord Guncer Sunglass had intercepted him with a boy at his side. A moment later Jon came into view, still in black, his left arm held close to his body. Robb followed with the Greyjoy boy and Martyn Cassel.

Robert called them up before they had finished bowing.

"Well?"

Jon stopped before the king. There was a dirty mark upon his clean cuff, and the swelling along his jaw had darkened.

"She's alive, Your Grace. The maester wants her kept quiet. Hal is with her."

"And the bastards who did it?"

"Gone. Ser Androw is at the sept, hearing my wounded guard."

Robert's face reddened. He looked for Arryn, though the Hand's chair had been empty for some time.

"In my own city. With half the bloody Watch out for my tournament."

"They were out here," Jon said.

It was an impertinent answer. Robert accepted it.

"I'll have Arryn's account before he sleeps." He studied the boy's face. "Come nearer. Gods, you two did hammer one another."

Robb smiled. Robert reached for his shoulder and thought better of it halfway through the movement.

"Sit. Both of you. There are enough men standing about doing nothing."

Servants hurried with chairs. A lord moved to make room for Ned's bastard, and the line of seats drew closer to Cersei's own; she had to gather her skirts again as a chair leg scraped past. Theon Greyjoy declined the place offered behind the others and took one beside Robb, lowering himself with a care that suggested he had found the limits of his own bravery. His presence was less offensive. At least he had been born to something.

Margaery asked after Hal. Jon answered her, quietly enough that Cersei heard only the maester's name and something about sleep. The girl's smile had gone. She listened without looking at her mother, then moved her cup to give Jon room upon the little table between the chairs.

Loras leaned forward. "I should have changed hands after the first blow."

Jon glanced at his bandaged wrist. "You would have had to throw your shield away."

"I would still have had a sword."

Jon shifted his own injured arm against his side. "I'd rather face you when you can use both hands."

Loras's mouth tightened. "You will."

"When we're mended."

The Tyrell boy looked at Jon's arm before giving a short nod.

Cersei set her cup upon the rail hard enough to spill a little wine. The bastard had had Arthur Dayne to teach him for years.

Gawen appeared at the lists in black, his shield held while a groom passed him a lance. Cersei had seen him at Jon's shoulder often enough to know the face. He looked older in armour, the lines beside his mouth deepened by the pressure of the helm. Below the gallery, a woman in a plain dark gown was being shown to the household benches. The little attendant who followed Jon everywhere had both hands upon the rail already. He waved so violently that the woman caught the back of his belt. Gawen saw them. He raised his lance towards that modest corner of the field.

"Who is she?" Cersei asked.

Tyrion followed her gaze. "Wylla. Lord Black's nurse."

"A knight's favour is easily won these days."

"Perhaps she knows something worth winning."

Cersei ignored him. Gawen's opponent had a black shield marked by a fork of purple lightning. The herald named Lord Beric Dondarrion. A red priest in the benches bawled encouragement that carried as far as the royal seats.

"Thoros," Robert said with satisfaction. "I wondered where he had got to."

Two courses left Beric mounted and Thoros calling a larger wager each time. Down at the household benches Wylla had stopped trying to restrain the boy; her hand was pressed flat upon the rail. Before the third course Gawen bent to hear something from Scales, taking his time while Beric's horse pawed the ground, impatient to be off.

The younger man's lance rose as they met. It struck Gawen's shield near the rim. Gawen's held long enough to drive Beric out of his seat.

Aries's cry rose above the others. Cersei saw Jon turn towards him with a smile that changed his face more than the knighting had. Wylla clapped once, then seemed to remember herself and caught the boy as he attempted to climb higher.

Beric was already standing. He pulled the helm from his red hair and looked up at the priest, who had fallen silent at last. Robert laughed.

"That will cost him. Serve him right for betting against a grey beard."

The successful knight rode to his people. Wylla reached over the rail and took his gauntleted hand. It was a brief touch, but he stayed beside her until the marshal called him away.

A nurse, with a knight waiting upon her. Cersei looked for Jaime among the tents. He was speaking to his armourer and did not look up.

Guncer Sunglass had followed Jon into the gallery. He waited through another course, then approached when the servants brought fresh wine, easing his second son, Matthos, past a page with a loaded tray. The boy kept a pace behind him.

"Your Grace." Guncer bowed to Cersei before addressing Jon. "Ser Jon, I wished to speak about a squire's place for Matthos."

Matthos looked from Jon to Arthur, then back again.

"If you have need of one, my lord," he said.

Jon turned his chair enough to face him. "You wish to ride with us?"

"Yes, my lord. I saw you in the melee. And Ser Arthur."

"He rides well," Guncer said. "I would have him among men who know something of war."

His gaze settled upon Arthur. He would have his boy beneath Dayne's eye, and make certain all Sweetport Sound heard of it.

"Gawen can see him in the yard," Jon said. "When the lists are finished."

"A young knight ought to have a squire of good birth."

Jon's gaze went briefly to the benches below.

"Aries serves me well as a page. Bring Matthos to the yard, my lord."

"Will Ser Arthur be there?" Guncer asked.

"Gawen will see him ride first. We haven't agreed that he is staying."

Guncer considered that. "I shall bring him."

Matthos looked happier with the invitation than his father did. He bowed to Jon, then to Arthur.

Tyrion was smiling again. "You see, sister? We have scarcely given him spurs and already fathers are bringing their sons."

"Some fathers are easily impressed."

"By gold, famous knights, a place at court. The customary failings."

Guncer had heard. His eyes moved to the lion upon Tyrion's breast. He bowed to Cersei once more and took Matthos away.

She waited until they were gone. "I should have thought Father had taught you when to hold your tongue."

"He tried often enough. I must be a disappointing pupil."

"In several respects."

For a moment Tyrion's smile held. Then he drank.

Robert, who had heard only the part that interested him, called Jon closer again.

"Squires, is it? You'll have half the kingdom asking, with Dayne there to beat sense into them." He looked towards Tommen. "There's a thought. I might give you that one when he's old enough."

Cersei's hand tightened upon the carved arm of her chair. Tommen looked up and came at once.

"Give me what?"

"A master. You'll need one if you're ever to be a knight. Lord Black can teach you to stay on that horse of yours."

"Would I go on his ship?"

"You would go where you were sent."

The boy looked at Jon, delighted. That was the worst of it. Cersei had given him a nameday celebration, clothes finer than most lords owned, sweetmeats he could not finish, and he lit up at the prospect of being sent away with Ned Stark's bastard.

"Tommen is a prince," she said.

Robert looked at her. "I had noticed."

"His household will be chosen with care."

"This one has a better teacher than most. Would you rather he learnt to ride from your dressmaker?"

A few men laughed. They stopped when she looked at them.

"He has a brother and cousins of his own blood. He need not be sent to an island to find company."

"I was sent to the Vale. Did me no harm."

Ned again. Even when Robert did not speak the name, it stood between them.

Tommen had gone to Jon's chair.

"Would I have to hold your shield?"

"Sometimes," Jon said. "Though first you'd have to learn to look after your own."

"I can."

"Then you can show me tomorrow."

Cersei rose. The movement drew more attention than she had intended, but she would not sit down again merely because men were watching. "He will be with his family tomorrow."

Jon looked up. His face gave her very little.

"As you wish, Your Grace."

There should have been embarrassment in it. There was only the courtesy due to her station.

Robert reached for his wine. "Seven hells, I said when he's older. You'd think I meant to pack him into a barrel tonight."

"I heard what you said."

She took Tommen's hand. His reluctance travelled up her arm as plainly as a spoken refusal.

"Come and sit beside me."

He obeyed, looking back once. She turned his face towards the lists with two fingers beneath his chin.

"Your uncle is riding."

Jaime was indeed coming forward, Jason Mallister at the farther end. The silver eagle shone upon the Mallister shield. Cersei watched her brother shut his visor, and wished that she could shut out the last few moments as easily.

Tyrion stood beside her chair. "A prince would lend the household distinction," he said softly.

"When you have earned your own spurs, you may advise me where my sons should earn theirs."

His fingers stopped upon the stem of his cup. She looked back at the field before he could answer. Jaime's lance broke. Mallister kept his seat, and the cheering swelled again. By the third pass her brother had won.

The fallen lord rose with help and went to his son, who had leapt the ropes to reach him. The Greyjoy boy watched from beside Robb, his face suddenly empty of amusement. Cersei remembered that quarrel well enough. It was pleasant, sometimes, to see that other families carried grievances they could not laugh away.

The gallery had grown hot. The breeze that lifted the canopy scarcely reached the chairs, and wine had dried sticky upon Cersei's fingers. She rubbed her thumb along one of them while servants passed with sliced pears, little salted cakes and wine cooled in wet cloths. Renly lifted his cloak from the stool beside Joffrey.

"Lady Margaery. You can see your brother's tent from here."

Alerie moved her skirts to let her daughter pass. Joffrey had laid a broken lance point across the stool; he put it on the rail when Margaery approached.

"Thank you, my prince."

He straightened as she sat. There had been room enough for her farther along, beside her mother, but Cersei let it pass. Margaery's gown was modest. She knew what a dressmaker charged to make costly silk hang with such becoming simplicity.

The girl looked from the lance point to the field.

"Will you ride when you're old enough?"

"Of course." Joffrey moved the splintered wood farther from her sleeve. "I could ride now. Father says I must wait."

"I hope I'm here to see you."

Her son smiled. It changed his face, softened the displeasure he had worn while Robert fussed over the Stark boys. He began telling her about the horse he meant to ride, one of the larger blacks in the royal stables. He had asked for it twice already. Now he spoke as though it were his.

Cersei would have corrected him if he had said it to Tommen. She took another piece of pear instead. The girl was looking at Joffrey as a prince ought to be looked at.

Margaery lifted her cup, found it empty and set it down without interrupting him. Joffrey noticed. He beckoned to a page, then stopped the boy as he bent over the prince's cup.

"Lady Margaery first."

"You are kind, my prince."

Joffrey waited until she had been served before holding out his own cup. Cersei smiled at him. He could be as gracious as any knight when someone took the trouble to please him.

Beyond Margaery, Alerie caught Renly's eye. He returned her smile, then went round the chairs to Robert. A cheer from the field made him wait before explaining that the ladies need not ride far into the Kingswood.

"An afternoon's sport. There will be plenty of time after the showing. Lord Tyrell has brought hawks."

"Fine ones," Mace said. "We could find a gentle bird for the prince. My daughter knows them all."

Joffrey looked up. "I don't need a gentle one."

"No?" Renly smiled. "You had better come and choose, then."

Margaery said nothing. Her hands rested in her lap, and she was still turned towards Joffrey. Cersei looked for Alerie and found her watching the two of them. The woman smiled when their eyes met.

"His falconer will choose his bird," Cersei said. "And I shall ride with my children."

Robert glanced at her in surprise.

"Then come. Bring a horse you won't complain of."

Renly bowed his agreement. He left his cloak over his own arm.

Mace began to speak of the game at Highgarden. Robert cut him short with a promise to hear about it after the tournament. The promise pleased the fool more than it should have.

Margaery turned from Joffrey to ask Jon whether the sept had room for the injured woman.

"For tonight," he answered.

"Mother has offered a litter. If she needs—"

"The queen's household will provide what is required," Cersei said.

The girl stopped.

Cersei beckoned to one of her women. "Send bread, meat for broth, and bedding to the sept where the woman lies. Good woollen blankets. Find out how many children are there."

Jon had risen. He thanked her. "My son and I should like to see them properly provided for," she told him.

Joffrey looked up from the lance point. Cersei held out her hand. He said something more to Margaery before coming to stand beside her.

"You will help distribute the gifts."

"Here?"

"When we receive them before the court. You will stand beside me."

She could see it: the prince in crimson, the children newly washed, their ragged clothes replaced by something fit to be seen. The story would reach the city before Jon's ships had left its quays. A rescue was well enough, but keeping children fed required a queen's generosity.

"Have them measured tonight," she told her woman. "I want their names, and to know which can be brought. Joffrey will present the gifts."

"Some are ill, Your Grace," Jon said.

"Then bring those who are not."

"Septa Meriane and the maester can tell us."

He said it as though she had asked him to select the guests at one of her suppers.

"Ask them. My woman will need an answer."

Alerie offered to send clothing as well. Renly said the Tyrell ladies could help receive the little ones.

"My women will manage," Cersei answered. "Lady Alerie may send what she wishes. They will see that it is used."

The older woman inclined her head. Margaery looked towards Jon, then turned back to Cersei.

"Then I shall ask your waiting woman where it should go, Your Grace."

Good. Let the girl bring her bundles to a waiting woman and ask where to put them.

Joffrey was still holding the lance point. "I could give the prizes too."

"You shall stand with your father when the champion is named."

This time she told Robert while he was eating. He grunted agreement and asked whether anyone had seen his wager paid. Petyr showed him a purse. The king smiled.

By the time eight riders remained, Cersei had sent the pears away and ordered fresh water for her hands. The grooms were raking loose sand into the hoof-cut furrows beside the tilt. A flag that had stood white that morning hung streaked with dust.

Yohn Royce had accounted for Harras Harlaw and Balon Swann. The bronze armour looked older than half the gallery, its dark runes plain when he passed beneath them. Waymar stood among the Vale men beside Harry Hardyng, who spoke close to his ear and received no answer; the Royce boy was watching his father. Tallad broke two lances against the old lord before losing his seat. Tomas Sableheart helped the fallen knight up, the blood washed from his own mouth.

The struggle between Bryce Caron and Scales took longer. By the time Caron put him out, both horses were sweating and the nightingales upon the victor's shield were almost lost beneath the marks of the lance points. Scales took the defeat well enough, though Jon had risen from his chair before his captain was fully on his feet.

"Sit, boy," Robert told him. "He's walked away. That's a better afternoon than some will have."

Gawen rode against Garlan next. Loras came to the rail beside his sister, keeping his bandaged wrist against his breast. "Watch when Garlan lowers his lance," he told her. "The other man has his shield set before he brings the point down."

Margaery leaned forward to see. On the first course Gawen's lance was level while Garlan's still slanted upwards; the Tyrell lowered it in the last few strides.

The nurse stood again. Cersei watched her hand close upon the boy's shoulder as the horses met. Gawen broke his lance and held his seat through two courses, but on the third Garlan caught him hard beneath the shoulder and turned him out of the saddle. He fell almost at the Tyrell's feet.

The gallant Garlan hauled his horse aside.

Cersei heard the intake of breath from the benches below. Gawen rolled clear, then lay upon his back while men ran to him. At last he raised one hand. The woman sat down abruptly. Jon remained standing until Gawen was helped from the field.

"Your captain has work to do," Robert said. "Two of his men out, and himself."

"Three of them rode well," Jon answered.

"Aye. Tell him that after you've told him what they did wrong."

Robb laughed. Jon smiled more reluctantly.

Jaime's next course drew Cersei back to the field. Lyn Corbray was leaner than her brother, his horse dark and quick beneath him. There was something hungry in the way he accepted his lance. She liked men who looked as though they expected to win. She liked them less when Jaime was the man they expected to beat.

Corbray struck him hard enough to snap his head backwards.

Cersei's fingers closed upon Tommen's sleeve. Her son glanced up, but she was watching Jaime. He reached the end of the lists, turned, and put his hand to the edge of his helm. The squire who ran to him was sent back for another lance.

"Good hit," Robert said.

She wanted to throw her cup at him. Jaime took Corbray on the next pass. The dark horse ran riderless to the end while her brother wheeled beneath the stands. This time Cersei remained seated. She would not have Tyrion see how much the first blow had frightened her. He had seen. For once he said nothing.

The last four were brought before the king. Robert chose Jaime against Garlan, grinning at Mace as though the arrangement were a favour. Royce would ride against Caron. Mace began to describe Garlan's victories. "I have been here all afternoon," Cersei told him.

His mouth closed.

Renly found that amusing. She could see it in his face. For the moment she allowed him his amusement.

Before the first course, Joffrey bent towards Margaery. "Your brother lowers his lance late. Watch. He waits until the other man has set his shield."

She glanced towards Loras, who had gone back to his mother, then gave Joffrey her attention again. "I shall, my prince."

Cersei smiled. He had remembered. Let Tyrion find fault with that.

Garlan held Jaime to a third course. By then the paint upon both shields was torn and scored. Loras was on his feet, and Alerie made no attempt to stop him. As the horses met again, Garlan's mount threw its head; his lance went wide, while Jaime's blow wrenched him sideways and left him a moment to clutch at the saddle before he fell.

Jaime had won.

Cersei rose with Joffrey, her own cry lost in the cheering. Garlan stood before his brother reached him, bent to say something, and put his hand upon Loras's shoulder. Margaery clapped for Jaime with a small, courteous smile. The girl was prettier when she forgot to arrange her face, Cersei thought, pleased to have noticed.

In the lower seats Prince Oberyn received a coin from his daughter. Obara surrendered it reluctantly, still looking after Garlan. The Dornish prince tucked it away. Apparently even a Martell could recognise Jaime's worth when there was money upon it.

Royce defeated Caron in three courses while Jaime rested. Caron needed the rail to stay upright afterwards; Robert sent him wine and grew impatient when it failed to clear him from the field. Cersei waited, watching the opening between the tents through which her brother would return. The herald swallowed and called Royce's name a second time for the far benches. His voice had grown hoarse.

When Jaime came out, his horse had been rubbed down and the lion cloth brushed free of dust, though it could not hide the animal's heaving flanks. Royce's mount was sweating too. Both men had ridden often, struck hard, and been struck in return. For the first time that afternoon Cersei wished there were fewer people to see. Her brother took a fresh shield, and Tyrion came to stand beside her.

Behind them, Robb Stark said, "A silver stag on Lord Yohn."

"On Jaime," Greyjoy answered at once.

"I hadn't asked you."

"You've found a wager all the same."

Cersei looked round. Greyjoy was smiling, but Stark had his eyes upon the bronze armour. He would learn.

The first collision brought a noise like a branch breaking beside her ear. Royce's point struck high upon Jaime's shield, driving its upper rim back towards his shoulder. Both lances burst. Jaime rocked in the saddle, his shield arm flung wide; Royce rode on almost upright, though a strip of painted leather had been torn from his shield.

"Again," Robert roared. They did not need his permission. The squires were already running.

Jaime asked for another lance after weighing the first in his hand. While the squire fetched it, he worked his arm through the shield straps again and drew the shield close against his side. Cersei could scarcely see the lion now, only the edge of its mane. His mouth had lost its smile. He had stopped trying to make this look easy.

Across the field Royce was ready.

Cersei had seen too many men killed to pretend this was safe. A blow could drive a splinter through a slit, a falling horse could break a neck. She pushed the thought away. Jaime knew how to fall. He knew more than the old lord in his old armour, whatever Robert might say about him.

Jaime took the fresh lance and lowered his visor. Even when the horses began to move, he kept the shield turned. She wanted him to cover himself.

Joffrey was shouting. Tommen was very quiet beside her.

Royce's point scraped across the narrowed lion and broke at its edge. Jaime's struck high, driving Royce against the rear of his saddle before it burst. The bronze lord fought for another stride, and fell. Jaime rode on.

Tyrion struck the rail with his cup.

Cersei was standing. She could not remember rising. Her brother rode to the end, threw aside the broken lance, and turned beneath a roar that seemed to shake the canopy. Royce's sons reached him. The old lord waved one away, accepted the other's arm, and stood with sand falling from his mail. Only then did Jaime lift his visor.

The herald called him champion.

Robert was on his feet as well. "Lannister! Come and take my gold before my steward hides it."

The laughter was warm. Let it be, Cersei thought. Let them look at Jaime, and remember whose name he bore.

Her brother dismounted and gave his helm to a squire before clasping Royce's hand. The old lord said something that made him laugh. When Jaime turned towards the gallery, a marshal brought the champion's purse upon a cushion, with the sealed warrant for the rest. Joffrey hurried to his father's side as she had told him.

Robert allowed the prince to hand over the purse.

"Well ridden, ser," Joffrey said.

Jaime bowed his head. "My thanks, my prince."

Joffrey's chin lifted.

Jaime looked along the gallery until he found Arthur Dayne. The older knight gave a small nod. Her brother's smile widened, and for a moment Cersei saw the boy who used to run up from the yard to tell her what his master-at-arms had said. She shifted in her chair. He had won. Surely he did not still need Dayne to tell him he had ridden well.

The wreath came last.

White and red roses had been bound around a slender circlet, with ribbons hanging from its back. A squire carried it upon a cushion. Jaime took it, and the gallery grew attentive in a different way. Cersei knew where every young woman was sitting: the Redwyne girl with her retrieved green silk, Margaery beside her mother, Betha Blackwood moving forward among the riverlords. There were older women too, some smiling at the foolishness of hoping and others not troubling to disguise it.

Jaime glanced towards Cersei.

Then he looked down.

Myrcella had come to the front with Tommen. She was watching the flowers, one hand resting upon the rail.

Jaime climbed the steps and went down on one knee before Myrcella. "Princess. May I?"

Myrcella looked at her mother.

Cersei touched the back of her head and drew her forward. "Your uncle has chosen you."

Jaime set the circlet carefully upon her hair. It was a little too large. He adjusted it with the same grave attention he might have given a crown of gold.

"My queen of love and beauty."

Myrcella's cheeks flushed. She caught one of the ribbons between her fingers.

The herald took up the words, proclaiming Princess Myrcella's name to the field. People began to cheer again. Tommen stared at his sister, then at Jaime, delighted that the flowers had come to them. Joffrey still held the empty cushion from the prize purse. He passed it to a servant.

"Thank you, Uncle," Myrcella said.

"You must let them see you."

She turned towards the rail. Cersei arranged the ribbons behind her and smoothed a strand of hair away from her cheek. The child had her colouring, her eyes, the same lovely shape to her face. In a few years there would be no girl in the realm to rival her.

Myrcella caught Tommen's sleeve and bent towards him.

"Smell them."

He put his nose against a white rose. The circlet slipped; Cersei caught it before it could fall, and Myrcella laughed.

"Keep your head up, sweetling. They are looking at you."

"Can he wear it afterwards?"

"Afterwards." Cersei settled the flowers more firmly. "Now turn this way."

Robert laughed and lifted his cup.

"Well chosen, Jaime."

For once he was right.

Cersei kept her hand upon Myrcella's shoulder while the girl acknowledged the cheering. Below them men were picking lance fragments out of the sand. Farther away, beyond the bright cloth and raised shields, lay the city with its burned shop and its hungry children. They could wait a little longer.

Jaime stood beside them, one glove removed. A raw patch showed across his knuckle. Cersei caught his bare hand before he could put the glove back on. "You took your time with Royce."

"He objected to falling."

She smiled. He was looking at her now.

***

By the time Jon reached his horse, his shoulder had stiffened again. He had sat through the final without noticing it. Now the pain caught when he reached for the saddle, and Arthur put a hand beneath his boot before he could try a second time.

"You might have warned me," his uncle said.

"I was watching Royce."

"I know."

Arthur passed him the reins. Across the camp Gawen had found a place beside Wylla's horse, walking slowly while she spoke to him. Aries carried the knight's gloves with an air of importance. Jon had seen Guncer looking at the boy. He would have to speak to Aries before someone else explained what a highborn squire was supposed to replace.

Beside the Vale horses Mychel introduced his father, Lord Horton Redfort. Redfort greeted Arthur, then offered Jon his hand. Mychel watched Robb approach.

"I was asking whether I might ride north with Domeric," he said.

"Domeric is going home. So are you," Horton told him. "You will sit with me when I hear the tenants. I have enough men to tell me how you use a sword."

Mychel's face fell. Harry began offering advice until Anya Waynwood called him to her horse.

"Come. We are keeping Lord Redfort from his supper."

"I meant to eat with—"

"You promised to sit beside me." She waited for his farewells. Mychel followed his father, still arguing for the journey.

Theon came up on Jon's left and held out his hand to Robb.

Robb dug a silver stag from his purse and tossed it across Jon's horse. Theon caught it against his chest.

"He nearly had him," Robb said.

"I'll spend the whole stag, if it's all the same to you."

Theon put the coin away.

The road had filled with people leaving the field. A man carrying three hired stools over his head shouted for room while his wife counted the coins in her apron. Behind them a boy dragged a length of broken lance. He had wrapped his sleeve around the splintered end, and refused to let another boy carry it.

At the gate the crowd pressed close enough for Jon to smell spilled ale upon someone's coat. Arthur moved between him and a cart whose wheel had caught upon the stones.

From the corner of his eye Jon saw a girl set down a tray of onions. He turned after they had passed. She was looking at him, a yellow cuff split from wrist to elbow. He had noticed that sleeve outside the sept. There might be no more in it than a child following a crowd that could afford to buy her goods, but she had not called to anyone. Varys had known where he went that morning.

Jon looked ahead again. He could not question every child who watched him. He could stop making it easy to learn where his people slept.

They climbed towards the Red Keep at a walk. The city was turning from the tournament to supper: shutters going up, smoke thickening above cookshops, women calling children indoors. A man at an upper window shouted that Jaime had won. Someone below asked whether Royce was dead.

"Walking when I left him," Arthur called back.

The man saluted with his cup.

Jaime found them as they crossed the yard.

He had changed out of his armour. The white cloak was back upon his shoulders, and he carried a small bundle of ribbons in one hand.

"Myrcella shed these on the stairs," he said when Robb looked. "Her Grace wishes every one recovered."

"She was pleased," Robb said.

"My sister or my niece?"

Robb hesitated. Jaime smiled and turned to Jon.

"I'll have a look at your showing hall tomorrow. After this morning, you could do with more than Marrec watching the doors."

"Marrec will take you through it."

"Early. I mean to watch the archery."

Jon agreed. Jaime tucked the ribbons inside his cloak.

"And your woman?"

"She'll be kept at the sept tonight. We're making a room ready here."

Jaime looked back across the yard towards the gate. "A room inside these walls is easier to guard than a shop."

"She had a living in the shop."

"Then she'd something to lose." He looked at Arthur. "We've heard that before."

His uncle nodded.

Jaime left them at the stair. Jon watched the white cloak pass beneath the arch towards the royal apartments, then followed his brother up.

The servants had pushed two tables together in Jon's rooms, leaving a narrow way between the benches and the wall. Cloaks lay over chair backs, still dusty from the field. The smell of roast beef made him realise how hungry he was, though the gravy had begun to congeal at the edges of the dish. A servant shifted a candle to make room for another plate while Wylla persuaded Gawen to sit where he would not have to turn his bruised side towards the door.

"Here. That chair has a back."

"So does this one."

"Then put yours against it."

He obeyed. She set a cushion behind him without asking again. Aries hurried to Jon and reached for the buckle of his sword belt. The boy's fingers were sticky. He looked at the buckle, then rubbed them hastily upon his breeches. "Cake?" Jon asked.

"Gawen brought some."

"For Wylla," Robb said.

Gawen looked up. Wylla continued arranging the plates, though a smile had appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"There was enough," she said.

"I saved a piece for Benn," Aries told her. "It's by my bed."

"Wrapped?"

"In my clean cloth." He looked towards the inner door. "The big piece. With the nuts on it."

"I'll take it when I go in the morning."

The boy nodded, then rubbed a missed patch of stickiness from his thumb. Jon let him take the belt. The dagger remained at his hip beneath his coat. It pressed against his thigh as he sat.

"Did you see the last course?" Aries asked.

"I saw you trying to climb over the rail."

"I wasn't going over. I couldn't see."

"I could see you." Gawen accepted the cup Wylla put beside him. "That was high enough."

The boy came to the table with them. When a servant began moving his place farther down, Jon stopped her. "Leave it there."

Aries sat beside him. "Lord Sunglass has asked whether his son can learn with the household," Jon told him while the meat was cut. "He'll come to the yard. You can show him where things are."

The boy looked down at his plate. "He'll know better than me."

"Not where I've left my gloves."

Aries's mouth moved. "You left them with your helm. I brought them."

"Good. I shall need them tomorrow."

Aries reached for the bread then, but stopped to look at Arthur. "I liked it when you made him a knight."

Arthur put down his cup. "So did I."

"You were smiling," Aries told Jon.

"I had wanted him to do it for a long time."

Saying it brought back the weight of the sword upon his shoulder, before Hal arrived and every pleasure of the morning seemed something he had taken while Rilla bled. He had earned the knighthood. He would not make himself ashamed of having wanted it.

Wylla reached past him for the bread. Her fingers rested briefly upon his good shoulder.

"I saw," she said.

Aries began eating. Jon watched him take a proper mouthful before asking Wylla about the sept.

She had gone back to the sept after Gawen's course. Rilla had kept down her broth. Hal was asleep beside her, and Benn had finally allowed Meriane to wash him and put him to bed. "Every time she shuts her eyes, Hal thinks she's gone," Wylla said. "She told him off at last. Said she couldn't sleep with him asking whether she was awake."

Jon could hear Rilla saying it. He hoped she would be well enough to say worse tomorrow.

"The queen's things came?"

"Bread, blankets, a mattress. Chicken enough for the little ones as well. Good stuff." Wylla glanced at him. "Her woman wanted measurements before she'd leave."

"Did she get them?"

"Some. Not Hal's. He'd only just settled, and she wanted him stood up against a wall."

Gawen stopped cutting his meat. "What did Meriane say?"

"That she'd send a shirt. The woman said it mightn't fit him properly. Meriane said then it would fit him like the one he'd got."

Theon laughed, then pressed a hand to his ribs.

Wylla did not laugh.

"She wants the names as well, Jon. To know who's being brought before the prince."

He set down his knife. At the gallery it had sounded like an order about clothes. In the sept it meant waking children and deciding whose name could safely travel through the queen's household.

"She'll have my answer tomorrow. Tell Meriane to let the maester say who is fit to go, then ask the children. The gifts can be received without everyone being paraded."

"Her woman said the queen would be displeased."

"Then let her be displeased with me."

Arthur looked at him. "Answer courteously."

"I will thank her for the gifts. They've done some good."

"Start with that."

Jon accepted the correction with a nod. He wanted the queen's food in the sept, and the queen's servants out of its bedrooms. Saying so would be easier than obtaining both.

Robb had been quiet. He began cutting a second portion of beef. "Will asked whether I was going away."

"What did you tell him?" Jon asked.

"That I'd come tomorrow. He wanted me to stay until he finished eating today. Every time I stood, he stopped."

Moll had made him sit again, he said. He described the way she drew the little boy's bowl close without making him feel someone meant to take it. He had watched her hands and waited until Will began eating before trying to leave.

"Betha asked after him when we got back," Theon said.

Robb's ears reddened.

"She said she would."

"And you remembered."

"I remembered Will."

Wylla handed Theon the gravy before he could improve upon that.

"Eat while it's warm."

It was scarcely warm, but he took it. Jon was grateful.

Vaelor arrived with Tomas and Alester before the plates were cleared. Tomas's swollen lip gave his face a lopsided appearance when he tried to smile. He held his helm beneath his arm, the broken stirrup leather threaded through its visor, while Alester carried the breastplate wrapped in Tomas's surcoat. A servant had to lift a dish from a bench before Alester could set it down.

"Ser Tallad is outside," Alester said. "About the ransom."

Jon had him brought in. The tall knight ducked beneath the lintel, thanked Wylla for a cup, and declined the place she offered until his business was done.

"Forty dragons for the horse and armour, my lord. The herald has my claim. I've left the horse with your grooms."

"The armour wants work," Vaelor said.

Tallad put down his cup and turned back the surcoat. He ran his thumb over the dent, then lifted the breastplate to examine the inside. "Your smith can beat that out. There's no split." He looked at Tomas. "Did it bruise you much?"

"Enough."

"It could have been worse. Good plate. The straps held, too." Tallad set it down carefully. "I'd have sold it easily."

"After paying to have it mended," Vaelor said.

Tomas was watching him. Jon set down the bread he had scarcely touched. "Thirty," he said. "Paid tonight."

Tallad rubbed the side of his cup. His boot had split near the toe and been sewn with coarse thread. "Thirty-two. The horse is worth twenty to a man who knows him."

Vaelor inclined his head. Perrin had come with the household money while they were eating. Jon called him from the outer room and had the sum counted upon the table. The knight checked it without embarrassment. Afterwards he accepted a plate.

"You should have let them mend it," he told Tomas.

"They were whistling."

"They whistle when they want ale too. Nobody falls off a horse to fetch it."

Tomas smiled despite his lip. Alester asked Tallad whom he served.

"No lord at present. I've no objection to service, if the wages come when they're due."

"Vaelor needs men who can teach riders," Jon said. "If you want to hear the terms, speak to him when you've finished your business here."

Tallad looked towards the captain. "How many boys?"

"Men as well," Vaelor said. "Some know horses. Some have served afoot. You'd earn the money."

The knight took a mouthful of beef and considered it. "I'd hear you."

They agreed to meet after the archery. Alester went out with Vaelor and Tallad, still asking the knight about his last service. Tomas stayed by the bench with the armour, uncertain, it seemed to Jon, whether to take it up or leave it there.

"I'll repay it," he said.

Jon had meant to watch him ride. He had come back too late. The broken leather still hung through the visor of Tomas's helm.

"Mend the saddle first." Jon pushed the bread towards him. "I won't leave you without a horse. But next time someone offers you time to make yourself safe, take it."

Tomas set the helm beside the breastplate. He pulled the broken leather free and held it in his lap as he sat, his thumb working at the torn edge.

Perrin was counting the remaining coin back into the chest when Marrec arrived with Vhalar. The sea captain leaned against the doorpost; Marrec came to take a piece of bread and heard that Jaime wanted him at the showing hall early tomorrow. "How early?"

"Before the rest of us find more work for you," Jon said.

Vhalar gave a short laugh. Jon turned towards him. "After I've heard the prisoners, I want a word with you about the yards by the river. I may need a man who knows them."

"Depends what you want him to do."

"I'll know more tomorrow."

The captain nodded. Wylla pushed Aries's cup clear of his elbow as he rubbed his eyes, then asked Marrec whether any of the women already aboard could help at the sept for a few days. Meriane had sent two sisters to another crowded house and was doing their work as well as her own.

"She had three men asking for boys today," Wylla said. "For apprentices, they said. One wouldn't tell her where his shop was. She sent him off."

"Do the other houses ask?" Jon said.

"Some do. Some are glad to have one less mouth. That's what she told me."

Marrec stopped chewing. "I'll ask the women. They'd need someone to mind their own little ones."

"Pay for that too," Jon said. "And find out what room we could make on the island, near the schools. A few children, with women to care for them."

Perrin had not yet closed the chest. "There are families still waiting for houses, my lord."

Jon had no house to offer. Across the table Wylla was breaking the crust from a piece of bread for Aries. "Meriane is still looking for kin," she said. "Laro asks every day."

"Then help her here first," Jon told Marrec. "Pay the women who can stay with them. No one is to promise a passage yet."

Perrin shut the chest. Vhalar left for his ship while Marrec asked Wylla where to send the women if he found any willing to help. Perrin carried the chest out himself.

The household thinned after that. Robb went to write to Ned, taking Theon with him to remember which blows he had actually seen and which he had merely felt. Gawen rose carefully when Wylla began gathering the plates. "Leave those," she told him.

"I can carry two plates."

"You can sit while I fetch your coat."

He sat. When she came back he caught her hand instead of reaching for the sleeve. "I'm glad you came."

"I thought you'd broken your neck."

"Only my pride."

She looked at the way he held himself. "That isn't where you're bruised."

He laughed, regretted it, and let her help him into the coat.

Aries was asleep against Jon's arm before the last of the plates went. Jon roused him gently. The boy insisted he could still help with the nightshirt. "Arthur will manage," Jon told him. "Go with Wylla."

"He doesn't know where—"

"I'll find it."

Aries looked at Arthur, unconvinced, but allowed Wylla to lead him away.

Jon began a letter to Ned, telling him of the knighthood. He wrote that Arthur had done it before the king, and read the sentence over with a pleasure he had scarcely had time to feel upon the field.

'There is nothing here to trouble you.'

He stopped. His left arm ached where Aries had slept against it. He could still see Hal gripping Rilla's jerkin, afraid to lift his face.

Jon drew a line through the reassurance. He would tell Ned what had happened, but he wanted the Hand's account before attempting the rest. He left the letter unsealed beside the ink.

Then he took the dagger from beneath his coat and laid it upon the table.

***

The chamber was quiet enough for Jon to hear the fire settling.

He had sent the servants away and drawn the bolt himself. Arthur stood by the table, looking at the dagger Jon had laid upon it. In the candlelight, the ripples in the steel seemed darker than they had upon the field.

"Something about Baelish?" his uncle asked.

"Perhaps nothing to do with him."

Jon turned the dragonbone hilt towards Arthur. The possibility of being wrong had kept it sheathed all evening. He remembered this blade in a child's bedchamber. He remembered it in other hands much later. Between those memories lay another image: a king beside a fire, showing his daughter words within the steel.

He had watched that story on a screen. This blade had weight.

"I think this may have belonged to Aegon," he said.

Arthur's eyes left the blade. "Which Aegon?"

"The Conqueror."

"Who told you that?"

"No one here."

Arthur held out his hand. Jon gave him the dagger. He examined the hilt first, then the blade, turning it towards the candle.

"No mark," Arthur said.

"There might be writing in the steel. If it's heated."

Arthur looked at him, then at the hearth. "You wish to put this in the fire?"

"Only the blade."

Jon fetched the tongs from beside the hearth. Arthur drew a stool close to the grate and moved the candle. "Sit, at least. Tell me what you mean to do."

Arthur wrapped a cloth around the hilt. Jon settled upon the stool and gripped the blade near its base with the tongs. He tested the purchase, then lowered the point into the heat above the coals, keeping the hilt beyond the edge of the grate. His right hand was steady. At first there was only steel, dark folds catching the red beneath them.

Arthur should have been dead. This world had already departed from the stories; the dagger might prove nothing.

The point warmed. Jon turned it slightly.

A line appeared near the centre of the blade. He leaned forward. The tongs shifted in his grip, lifting the dagger out of the heat, and for a moment the mark faded. His wrist began to ache.

"Hold it here," he told Arthur.

His uncle took the tongs and lowered the blade again. Another stroke brightened beside the first, then joined it. Jon leaned closer, trying to distinguish the marks from the dark folds of the steel.

Arthur did not move.

"Jon."

"I see it."

His mouth had gone dry. The fire snapped, and he flinched at a spark.

One word was clear now. He read it, lost his place among the ripples, and found it again.

"Blood."

Arthur turned his head. Jon could feel him watching, but kept his eyes upon the blade. He knew that word in High Valyrian; he could trace every stroke of it. His hand had closed upon the edge of the stool, and he loosened it finger by finger as more letters emerged towards the hilt. One faint stroke took longer to brighten. He waited for it, afraid of reading what he remembered into what he could actually see. From my blood. The words were following.

"What else?" Arthur asked.

Jon read the first line silently, then the next. When he tried to say them aloud, he had to begin twice.

"From my blood come the prince that was promised, and his will be the song of ice and fire."

Arthur kept the blade level above the coals. "Say it again."

Jon did, more quietly. He kept his eyes upon the letters until the heat made them water.

Arthur lifted the blade clear and laid it upon the bare hearthstone. Neither of them spoke while the writing dimmed. The chamber seemed darker once it had gone.

"Rhaegar spoke of a prince," Arthur said at last. "Of what was promised. He read things he would not put aside even when other duties called."

He knelt beside the hearth, looking at the dagger without touching it. A faint white scar crossed one knuckle. Jon watched the hand hover above the steel. "Did he know about this?"

"I do not know." Arthur's voice had roughened. "He did not show it to me."

He drew his hand back from the hearthstone and rested it upon his knee. "Once, on Dragonstone, I went to fetch him for supper. He had his harp across his knees and two books open on the floor. He asked me to wait while he found a passage. I stood there long enough to hear the servants clearing the table in the next room."

Arthur was still watching the dark folds of the steel. "I asked whether the books could wait until he had eaten. He laughed and said the dead had been waiting longer than we had. Then he found what he wanted, and stopped laughing."

"What was it?"

"He would not tell me. He asked that I have another candle brought, and told me to go to supper without him." Arthur rubbed a thumb across the scar upon his knuckle. "I was angry with him. Men were waiting to speak to him, men with matters that needed settling. I thought he was hiding among his books."

Jon pictured the abandoned harp, his father finding something he would not share with his friend.

Jon rose and fetched a clean sheet from the table. He wrote the words as he remembered their shapes, leaving spaces where he was uncertain of a stroke. His wrist ached, but he steadied it upon the wood and finished the line. "We should look again before the fire dies," he said. "I want this copied correctly."

Arthur brought the dagger back to the coals. When the letters returned, Jon corrected two marks. He read the inscription a second time from the steel, then from the page. The words were the same. Arthur laid the blade upon the hearthstone again, well clear of Jon's feet.

Jon thought of a harp, of a woman dead in a tower, of children he had never known. Rhaegar's son had been named Aegon. The words could have been laid upon that child as readily as upon Jon, and the child had died before he could understand them.

"They don't tell us who," he said.

"No."

"Or when. Or what was promised."

Jon kept the pen poised above the sheet. "What became of his books?"

"Some may still be on Dragonstone. Others were here. I cannot tell you what was kept after the war."

"When we return, help me look. You might recognise one, or the hand of a man who wrote to him. We can begin with what he left there."

Arthur glanced at the sheet. "And what will you tell anyone who asks why you want them?"

"That they're old books from my castle, and I wish to read them. I won't show this to anyone else." Jon set the pen beside the sheet and returned to the stool. "If Rhaegar knew something about these words, I want to know what it was before I let them tell me how to live."

His uncle looked up at him. "You knew there would be words."

"I thought there might."

"From a dream?"

Jon could tell him about the screen, his years before Winterfell, his children. He imagined Arthur listening for the boy he knew and finding a stranger.

"Not one of the dreams I've told you about."

Arthur waited.

"I recognised it when Robert gave it to me. I wasn't certain. That's why I wanted you here."

"You have not answered me."

"No." Jon made himself look up. "I know. I don't know how to give you the rest tonight."

His uncle sat back upon his heels. He unwound the cloth from the hilt, folded it and laid it beside the tongs. "I have kept your name from men I trusted with my life," Arthur said. "I should like you to remember that when you decide what may be entrusted to me."

"I do."

"Then do not send me away with something you think will satisfy me."

Jon shook his head. He reached for the cloth, then left it where Arthur had put it. "I asked you to stay."

Arthur looked at him for a long moment. Then he rose, drew a chair beside Jon's stool and sat. His knee touched the stool.

Outside the shutter, claws scraped against the sill. Jon heard a low, familiar croak. He turned his head, and Hugin called once more, impatient with the closed wood.

Arthur opened it. Hugin flew to the chair back, three white feathers flashing, and inspected the table for food. Jon broke a little from the bread beside the candle and held it out. Hugin took it with an offended delicacy, as though this made up for very little.

His uncle watched the bird swallow. "Was this how it began with him?" he asked. "Something you knew to try?"

"Not quite." Jon rubbed a crumb between his fingers. "Some of it frightened me before I understood what was happening."

Arthur looked down at the dagger. "Does this?"

"Yes."

He had wanted the blade kept away from Bran, out of Petyr's hands. Now the writing returned whenever he closed his eyes.

Arthur laid his hand upon the back of Jon's neck, warm and steady. He had done the same after the melee, when there had been people cheering and a sword to put upon his shoulder. Jon let his head bow beneath it.

They waited for the blade to cool. Hugin worked another crumb free from the plate, dropping half of it into the rushes. Jon checked that the ink had dried and folded the sheet with the writing inside. Arthur tested the steel before passing the dagger back to him. Jon sheathed it, then carried the folded page to the small chest beside his bed. Arthur remained by the fire while he turned the key.