It’s the Hand’s tourney
that’s the cause of all the trouble, my lords,” the
Commander of the City Watch complained to the king’s
council.
“The king’s tourney,” Ned corrected, wincing.
“I assure you, the Hand wants no part of it.”
“Call it what you will, my lord. Knights have been
arriving from all over the realm, and for every knight we get two
freeriders, three craftsmen, six men-at-arms, a dozen merchants,
two dozen whores, and more thieves than I dare guess. This cursed
heat had half the city in a fever to start, and now with all these
visitors . . . last night we had a drowning, a tavern riot, three
knife fights, a rape, two fires, robberies beyond count, and a
drunken horse race down the Street of the Sisters. The night before
a woman’s head was found in the Great Sept, floating in the
rainbow pool. No one seems to know how it got there or who it
belongs to.”
“How dreadful,” Varys said with a shudder.
Lord Renly Baratheon was less sympathetic. “If you cannot
keep the king’s peace, Janos, perhaps the City Watch should
be commanded by someone who can.”
Stout, jowly Janos Slynt puffed himself up like an angry frog,
his bald pate reddening. “Aegon the Dragon himself could not
keep the peace, Lord Renly. I need more men.”
“How many?” Ned asked, leaning forward. As ever,
Robert had not troubled himself to attend the council session, so
it fell to his Hand to speak for him.
“As many as can be gotten, Lord Hand.”
“Hire fifty new men,” Ned told him. “Lord
Baelish will see that you get the coin.”
“I will?” Littlefinger said.
“You will. You found forty thousand golden dragons for a
champion’s purse, surely you can scrape together a few
coppers to keep the king’s peace.” Ned turned back to
Janos Slynt. “I will also give you twenty good swords from my
own household guard, to serve with the Watch until the crowds have
left.”
“All thanks, Lord Hand,” Slynt said, bowing.
“I promise you, they shall be put to good use.”
When the Commander had taken his leave, Eddard Stark turned to
the rest of the council. “The sooner this folly is done with,
the better I shall like it.” As if the expense and trouble
were not irksome enough, all and sundry insisted on salting
Ned’s wound by calling it “the Hand’s
tourney,” as if he were the cause of it. And Robert honestly
seemed to think he should feel honored!
“The realm prospers from such events, my lord,”
Grand Maester Pycelle said. “They bring the great the chance
of glory, and the lowly a respite from their woes.”
“And put coins in many a pocket,” Littlefinger
added. “Every inn in the city is full, and the whores are
walking bowlegged and jingling with each step.”
Lord Renly laughed. “We’re fortunate my brother
Stannis is not with us. Remember the time he proposed to outlaw
brothels? The king asked him if perhaps he’d like to outlaw
eating, shitting, and breathing while he was at it. If truth be
told, I ofttimes wonder how Stannis ever got that ugly daughter of
his. He goes to his marriage bed like a man marching to a
battlefield, with a grim look in his eyes and a determination to do
his duty.”
Ned had not joined the laughter. “I wonder about your
brother Stannis as well. I wonder when he intends to end his visit
to Dragonstone and resume his seat on this council.”
“No doubt as soon as we’ve scourged all those whores
into the sea,” Littlefinger replied, provoking more
laughter.
“I have heard quite enough about whores for one
day,” Ned said, rising. “Until the morrow.”
Harwin had the door when Ned returned to the Tower of the
Hand. “Summon Jory to my chambers and tell your father to saddle
my horse,” Ned told him, too brusquely.
“As you say, my lord.”
The Red Keep and the “Hand’s tourney” were
chafing him raw, Ned reflected as he climbed. He yearned for the
comfort of Catelyn’s arms, for the sounds of Robb and Jon
crossing swords in the practice yard, for the cool days and cold
nights of the north.
In his chambers he stripped off his council silks and sat for a
moment with the book while he waited for Jory to arrive. The
Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms,
With Descliptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their
Children, by Grand Maester Malleon. Pycelle had spoken truly; it
made for ponderous reading. Yet Jon Arryn had asked for it, and Ned
felt certain he had reasons. There was something here, some truth
buried in these brittle yellow pages, if only he could see it. But
what? The tome was over a century old. Scarcely a man now alive had
yet been born when Malleon had compiled his dusty lists of
weddings, births, and deaths.
He opened to the section on House Lannister once more, and
turned the pages slowly, hoping against hope that something would
leap out at him. The Lannisters were an old family, tracing their
descent back to Lann the Clever, a trickster from the Age of Heroes
who was no doubt as legendary as Bran the Builder, though far more
beloved of singers and taletellers. In the songs, Lann was the
fellow who winkled the Casterlys out of Casterly Rock with no
weapon but his wits, and stole gold from the sun to brighten his
curly hair. Ned wished he were here now, to winkle the truth out of
this damnable book.
A sharp rap on the door heralded Jory Cassel. Ned closed
Malleon’s tome and bid him enter. “I’ve promised
the City Watch twenty of my guard until the tourney is done,”
he told him. “I rely on you to make the choice. Give Alyn the
command, and make certain the men understand that they are needed
to stop fights, not start them.” Rising, Ned opened a cedar
chest and removed a light linen undertunic. “Did you find the
stableboy?”
“The watchman, my lord,” Jory said. “He vows
he’ll never touch another horse.”
“What did he have to say?”
“He claims he knew Lord Arryn well. Fast friends, they
were.” Jory snorted. “The Hand always gave the lads a
copper on their name days, he says. Had a way with horses. Never
rode his mounts too hard, and brought them carrots and apples, so
they were always pleased to see him.”
“Carrots and apples,” Ned repeated. It sounded as if
this boy would be even less use than the others. And he was the
last of the four Littlefinger had turned up. Jory had spoken to
each of them in turn. Ser Hugh had been brusque and uninformative,
and arrogant as only a new-made knight can be. If the Hand wished
to talk to him, he should be pleased to receive him, but he would
not be questioned by a mere captain of guards . . . even if said
captain was ten years older and a hundred times the swordsman. The
serving girl had at least been pleasant. She said Lord Jon had been
reading more than was good for him, that he was troubled and
melancholy over his young son’s frailty, and gruff with his
lady wife. The potboy, now cordwainer, had never exchanged so much
as a word with Lord Jon, but he was full of oddments of kitchen
gossip: the lord had been quarreling with the king, the lord only
picked at his food, the lord was sending his boy to be fostered on
Dragonstone, the lord had taken a great interest in the breeding of
hunting hounds, the lord had visited a master armorer to commission
a new suit of plate, wrought all in pale silver with a blue jasper
falcon and a mother-of-pearl moon on the breast. The king’s
own brother had gone with him to help choose the design, the potboy
said. No, not Lord Renly, the other one, Lord Stannis.
“Did our watchman recall anything else of note?”
“The lad swears Lord Jon was as strong as a man half his
age. Often went riding with Lord Stannis, he says.” Stannis again, Ned thought. He found that curious. Jon Arryn and
he had been cordial, but never friendly. And while Robert had been
riding north to Winterfell, Stannis had removed himself to
Dragonstone, the Targaryen island fastness he had conquered in his
brother’s name. He had given no word as to when he might
return. “Where did they go on these rides?” Ned
asked.
“The boy says that they visited a brothel.”
“A brothel?” Ned said. “The Lord of the Eyrie
and Hand of the King visited a brothel with Stannis
Baratheon?” He shook his head, incredulous, wondering what
Lord Renly would make of this tidbit. Robert’s lusts were the
subject of ribald drinking songs throughout the realm, but Stannis
was a different sort of man; a bare year younger than the king, yet
utterly unlike him, stern, humorless, unforgiving, grim in his
sense of duty.
“The boy insists it’s true. The Hand took three
guardsmen with him, and the boy says they were joking of it when he
took their horses afterward.”
“Which brothel?” Ned asked.
“The boy did not know. The guards would.”
“A pity Lysa carried them off to the Vale,” Ned said
dryly. “The gods are doing their best to vex us. Lady Lysa,
Maester Colemon, Lord Stannis . . . everyone who might actually know
the truth of what happened to Jon Arryn is a thousand leagues
away.”
“Will you summon Lord Stannis back from
Dragonstone?”
“Not yet,” Ned said. “Not until I have a
better notion of what this is all about and where he stands.”
The matter nagged at him. Why did Stannis leave? Had he played some
part in Jon Arryn’s murder? Or was he afraid? Ned found it
hard to imagine what could frighten Stannis Baratheon, who had once
held Storm’s End through a year of siege, surviving on rats
and boot leather while the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne sat outside
with their hosts, banqueting in sight of his walls.
“Bring me my doublet, if you would. The grey, with the
direwolf sigil. I want this armorer to know who I am. It might make
him more forthcoming.”
Jory went to the wardrobe. “Lord Renly is brother to Lord
Stannis as well as the king.”
“Yet it seems that he was not invited on these
rides.” Ned was not sure what to make of Renly, with all his
friendly ways and easy smiles. A few days past, he had taken Ned
aside to show him an exquisite rose gold locklet. Inside was a
miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl
with doe’s eyes and a cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had
seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when
Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid
was Loras Tyrell’s sister Margaery, he’d confessed, but
there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. “No,”
Ned had told him, bemused. Could it be that Lord Renly, who looked
so like a young Robert, had conceived a passion for a girl he
fancied to be a young Lyanna? That struck him as more than passing
queer.
Jory held out the doublet, and Ned slid his hands through the
armholes. “Perhaps Lord Stannis will return for
Robert’s tourney,” he said as Jory laced the garment up
the back.
“That would be a stroke of fortune, my lord,” Jory
said.
Ned buckled on a longsword. “In other words, not bloody
likely.” His smile was grim.
Jory draped Ned’s cloak across his shoulders and clasped
it at the throat with the Hand’s badge of office. “The
armorer lives above his shop, in a large house at the top of the
Street of Steel. Alyn knows the way, my lord.”
Ned nodded. “The gods help this potboy if he’s sent
me off haring after shadows.” It was a slim enough staff to
lean on, but the Jon Arryn that Ned Stark had known was not one to
wear jeweled and silvered plate. Steel was steel; it was meant for
protection, not ornament. He might have changed his views, to be sure.
He would scarcely have been the first man who came to look on
things differently after a few years at court . . . but the change
was marked enough to make Ned wonder.
“Is there any other service I might perform?”
“I suppose you’d best begin visiting
whorehouses.”
“Hard duty, my lord.” Jory grinned. “The men
will be glad to help. Porther has made a fair start
already.”
Ned’s favorite horse was saddled and waiting in the yard.
Varly and Jacks fell in beside him as he rode through the yard.
Their steel caps and shirts of mail must have been sweltering, yet
they said no word of complaint. As Lord Eddard passed beneath the
King’s Gate into the stink of the city, his grey and white
cloak streaming from his shoulders, he saw eyes everywhere and
kicked his mount into a trot. His guard followed.
He looked behind him frequently as they made their way through
the crowded city streets. Tomard and Desmond had left the castle
early this morning to take up positions on the route they must
take, and watch for anyone following them, but even so, Ned was
uncertain. The shadow of the King’s Spider and his little
birds had him fretting like a maiden on her wedding night.
The Street of Steel began at the market square beside the River
Gate, as it was named on maps, or the Mud Gate, as it was commonly
called. A mummer on stilts was striding through the throngs like
some great insect, with a horde of barefoot children trailing
behind him, hooting. Elsewhere, two ragged boys no older than Bran
were dueling with sticks, to the loud encouragement of some and the
furious curses of others. An old woman ended the contest by leaning
out of her window and emptying a bucket of slops on the heads of
the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside
their wagons, bellowing out, “Apples, the best apples, cheap
at twice the price,” and “Blood melons, sweet as
honey,” and “Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here,
here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here.”
The Mud Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under
the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. When a
column of riders appeared from the west, the guardsmen sprang into
action, shouting commands and moving the carts and foot traffic
aside to let the knight enter with his escort. The first rider
through the gate carried a long black banner. The silk rippled in
the wind like a living thing; across the fabric was blazoned a
night sky slashed with purple lightning. “Make way for Lord
Beric!” the rider shouted. “Make way for Lord
Beric!” And close behind came the young lord himself, a
dashing figure on a black courser, with red-gold hair and a black
satin cloak dusted with stars. “Here to fight in the
Hand’s tourney, my lord?” a guardsman called out to
him. “Here to win the Hand’s tourney,” Lord Beric
shouted back as the crowd cheered.
Ned turned off the square where the Street of Steel began and
followed its winding path up a long hill, past blacksmiths working
at open forges, freeriders haggling over mail shirts, and grizzled
ironmongers selling old blades and razors from their wagons. The
farther they climbed, the larger the buildings grew. The man they
wanted was all the way at the top of the hill, in a huge house of
timber and plaster whose upper stories loomed over the narrow
street. The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and
weirwood. A pair of stone knights stood sentry at the entrance,
armored in fanciful suits of polished red steel that transformed
them into griffin and unicorn. Ned left his horse with Jacks and
shouldered his way inside.
The slim young serving girl took quick note of Ned’s badge
and the sigil on his doublet, and the master came hurrying out, all
smiles and bows. “Wine for the King’s Hand,” he
told the girl, gesturing Ned to a couch. “I am Tobho Mott, my
lord, please, please, put yourself at ease.” He wore a black
velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver
thread, Around his neck was a heavy silver chain and a sapphire as
large as a pigeon’s egg. “If you are in need of new
arms for the Hand’s tourney, you have come to the right
shop.” Ned did not bother to correct him. “My work is
costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord,” he said
as he filled two matching silver goblets. “You will not find
craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I
promise you. Visit every forge in King’s Landing if you like,
and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shirt
of mail; my work is art.”
Ned sipped his wine and let the man go on. The Knight of Flowers
bought all his armor here, Tobho boasted, and many high lords, the
ones who knew fine steel, and even Lord Renly, the king’s own
brother. Perhaps the Hand had seen Lord Renly’s new armor,
the green plate with the golden antlers? No other armorer in the
city could get that deep a green; he knew the secret of putting
color in the steel itself, paint and enamel were the crutches of a
journeyman. Or mayhaps the Hand wanted a blade? Tobho had learned
to work Valyrian steel at the forges of Qohor as a boy. Only a man
who knew the spells could take old weapons and forge them anew.
“The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark, is it not? I
could fashion a direwolf helm so real that children will run from
you in the street,” he vowed.
Ned smiled. “Did you make a falcon helm for Lord
Arryn?”
Tobho Mott paused a long moment and set aside his wine.
“The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the
king’s brother. I regret to say, they did not honor me with
their patronage.”
Ned looked at the man evenly, saying nothing, waiting. He had
found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than
questions. And so it was this time.
“They asked to see the boy,” the armorer said,
“so I took them back to the forge.”
“The boy,” Ned echoed. He had no notion who the boy
might be. “I should like to see the boy as well.”
Tobho Mott gave him a cool, careful look. “As you wish, my
lord,” he said with no trace of his former friendliness. He
led Ned out a rear door and across a narrow yard, back to the
cavernous stone barn where the work was done. When the armorer
opened the door, the blast of hot air that came through made Ned
feel as though he were walking into a dragon’s mouth. Inside,
a forge blazed in each corner, and the air stank of smoke and
sulfur. Journeymen armorers glanced up from their hammers and tongs
just long enough to wipe the sweat from their brows, while
bare-chested apprentice boys worked the bellows.
The master called over a tall lad about Robb’s age, his
arms and chest corded with muscle. “This is Lord Stark, the
new Hand of the King,” he told him as the boy looked at Ned
through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his
fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The
shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw. “This is Gendry.
Strong for his age, and he works hard. Show the Hand that helmet
you made, lad.” Almost shyly, the boy led them to his bench,
and a steel helm shaped like a bull’s head, with two great
curving horns.
Ned turned the helm over in his hands. It was raw steel,
unpolished but expertly shaped. “This is fine work. I would
be pleased if you would let me buy it.”
The boy snatched it out of his hands. “It’s not for
sale.”
Tobho Mott looked horror-struck. “Boy, this is the
King’s Hand. If his lordship wants this helm, make him a gift
of it. He honors you by asking.”
“I made it for me,” the boy said stubbornly.
“A hundred pardons, my lord,” his master said
hurriedly to Ned. “The boy is crude as new steel, and like
new steel would profit from some beating. That helm is
journeyman’s work at best. Forgive him and I promise I will
craft you a helm like none you have ever seen.”
“He’s done nothing that requires my forgiveness.
Gendry, when Lord Arryn came to see you, what did you talk
about?”
“He asked me questions is all, m’lord.”
“What sort of questions?”
The boy shrugged. “How was I, and was I well treated, and
if I liked the work, and stuff about my mother. Who she was and
what she looked like and all.”
“What did you tell him?” Ned asked.
The boy shoved a fresh fall of black hair off his forehead.
“She died when I was little. She had yellow hair, and
sometimes she used to sing to me, I remember. She worked in an
alehouse.”
“Did Lord Stannis question you as well?”
“The bald one? No, not him. He never said no word, just
glared at me, like I was some raper who done for his
daughter.”
“Mind your filthy tongue,” the master said.
“This is the King’s own Hand.” The boy lowered
his eyes. “A smart boy, but stubborn. That helm . . . the
others call him bullheaded, so he threw it in their
teeth.”
Ned touched the boy’s head, fingering the thick black
hair. “Look at me, Gendry.” The apprentice lifted his
face. Ned studied the shape of his jaw, the eyes like blue ice.
Yes, he thought, I see it. “Go back to your work, lad.
I’m sorry to have bothered you.” He walked back to the
house with the master. “Who paid the boy’s apprentice
fee?” he asked lightly.
Mott looked fretful. “You saw the boy. Such a strong boy.
Those hands of his, those hands were made for hammers. He had such
promise, I took him on without a fee.”
“The truth now,” Ned urged. “The streets are
full of strong boys. The day you take on an apprentice without a
fee will be the day the Wall comes down. Who paid for
him?”
“A lord,” the master said reluctantly. “He
gave no name, and wore no sigil on his coat. He paid in gold, twice
the customary sum, and said he was paying once for the boy, and
once for my silence.”
“Describe him.”
“He was stout, round of shoulder, not so tall as you.
Brown beard, but there was a bit of red in it, I’ll swear. He
wore a rich cloak, that I do remember, heavy purple velvet worked
with silver threads, but the hood shadowed his face and I never did
see him clear.” He hesitated a moment. “My lord, I want
no trouble.”
“None of us wants trouble, but I fear these are troubled
times, Master Mott,” Ned said. “You know who the boy
is.”
“I am only an armorer, my lord. I know what I’m
told.”
“You know who the boy is,” Ned repeated patiently.
“That is not a question.”
“The boy is my apprentice,” the master said. He
looked Ned in the eye, stubborn as old iron. “Who he was
before he came to me, that’s none of my concern.”
Ned nodded. He decided that he liked Tobho Mott, master armorer.
“If the day ever comes when Gendry would rather wield a sword
than forge one, send him to me. He has the look of a warrior. Until
then, you have my thanks, Master Mott, and my promise. Should I
ever want a helm to frighten children, this will be the first place
I visit.”
His guard was waiting outside with the horses. “Did you
find anything, my lord?” Jacks asked as Ned mounted up.
“I did,” Ned told him, wondering. What had Jon Arryn
wanted with a king’s bastard, and why was it worth his
life?
It’s the Hand’s tourney
that’s the cause of all the trouble, my lords,” the
Commander of the City Watch complained to the king’s
council.
“The king’s tourney,” Ned corrected, wincing.
“I assure you, the Hand wants no part of it.”
“Call it what you will, my lord. Knights have been
arriving from all over the realm, and for every knight we get two
freeriders, three craftsmen, six men-at-arms, a dozen merchants,
two dozen whores, and more thieves than I dare guess. This cursed
heat had half the city in a fever to start, and now with all these
visitors . . . last night we had a drowning, a tavern riot, three
knife fights, a rape, two fires, robberies beyond count, and a
drunken horse race down the Street of the Sisters. The night before
a woman’s head was found in the Great Sept, floating in the
rainbow pool. No one seems to know how it got there or who it
belongs to.”
“How dreadful,” Varys said with a shudder.
Lord Renly Baratheon was less sympathetic. “If you cannot
keep the king’s peace, Janos, perhaps the City Watch should
be commanded by someone who can.”
Stout, jowly Janos Slynt puffed himself up like an angry frog,
his bald pate reddening. “Aegon the Dragon himself could not
keep the peace, Lord Renly. I need more men.”
“How many?” Ned asked, leaning forward. As ever,
Robert had not troubled himself to attend the council session, so
it fell to his Hand to speak for him.
“As many as can be gotten, Lord Hand.”
“Hire fifty new men,” Ned told him. “Lord
Baelish will see that you get the coin.”
“I will?” Littlefinger said.
“You will. You found forty thousand golden dragons for a
champion’s purse, surely you can scrape together a few
coppers to keep the king’s peace.” Ned turned back to
Janos Slynt. “I will also give you twenty good swords from my
own household guard, to serve with the Watch until the crowds have
left.”
“All thanks, Lord Hand,” Slynt said, bowing.
“I promise you, they shall be put to good use.”
When the Commander had taken his leave, Eddard Stark turned to
the rest of the council. “The sooner this folly is done with,
the better I shall like it.” As if the expense and trouble
were not irksome enough, all and sundry insisted on salting
Ned’s wound by calling it “the Hand’s
tourney,” as if he were the cause of it. And Robert honestly
seemed to think he should feel honored!
“The realm prospers from such events, my lord,”
Grand Maester Pycelle said. “They bring the great the chance
of glory, and the lowly a respite from their woes.”
“And put coins in many a pocket,” Littlefinger
added. “Every inn in the city is full, and the whores are
walking bowlegged and jingling with each step.”
Lord Renly laughed. “We’re fortunate my brother
Stannis is not with us. Remember the time he proposed to outlaw
brothels? The king asked him if perhaps he’d like to outlaw
eating, shitting, and breathing while he was at it. If truth be
told, I ofttimes wonder how Stannis ever got that ugly daughter of
his. He goes to his marriage bed like a man marching to a
battlefield, with a grim look in his eyes and a determination to do
his duty.”
Ned had not joined the laughter. “I wonder about your
brother Stannis as well. I wonder when he intends to end his visit
to Dragonstone and resume his seat on this council.”
“No doubt as soon as we’ve scourged all those whores
into the sea,” Littlefinger replied, provoking more
laughter.
“I have heard quite enough about whores for one
day,” Ned said, rising. “Until the morrow.”
Harwin had the door when Ned returned to the Tower of the
Hand. “Summon Jory to my chambers and tell your father to saddle
my horse,” Ned told him, too brusquely.
“As you say, my lord.”
The Red Keep and the “Hand’s tourney” were
chafing him raw, Ned reflected as he climbed. He yearned for the
comfort of Catelyn’s arms, for the sounds of Robb and Jon
crossing swords in the practice yard, for the cool days and cold
nights of the north.
In his chambers he stripped off his council silks and sat for a
moment with the book while he waited for Jory to arrive. The
Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms,
With Descliptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their
Children, by Grand Maester Malleon. Pycelle had spoken truly; it
made for ponderous reading. Yet Jon Arryn had asked for it, and Ned
felt certain he had reasons. There was something here, some truth
buried in these brittle yellow pages, if only he could see it. But
what? The tome was over a century old. Scarcely a man now alive had
yet been born when Malleon had compiled his dusty lists of
weddings, births, and deaths.
He opened to the section on House Lannister once more, and
turned the pages slowly, hoping against hope that something would
leap out at him. The Lannisters were an old family, tracing their
descent back to Lann the Clever, a trickster from the Age of Heroes
who was no doubt as legendary as Bran the Builder, though far more
beloved of singers and taletellers. In the songs, Lann was the
fellow who winkled the Casterlys out of Casterly Rock with no
weapon but his wits, and stole gold from the sun to brighten his
curly hair. Ned wished he were here now, to winkle the truth out of
this damnable book.
A sharp rap on the door heralded Jory Cassel. Ned closed
Malleon’s tome and bid him enter. “I’ve promised
the City Watch twenty of my guard until the tourney is done,”
he told him. “I rely on you to make the choice. Give Alyn the
command, and make certain the men understand that they are needed
to stop fights, not start them.” Rising, Ned opened a cedar
chest and removed a light linen undertunic. “Did you find the
stableboy?”
“The watchman, my lord,” Jory said. “He vows
he’ll never touch another horse.”
“What did he have to say?”
“He claims he knew Lord Arryn well. Fast friends, they
were.” Jory snorted. “The Hand always gave the lads a
copper on their name days, he says. Had a way with horses. Never
rode his mounts too hard, and brought them carrots and apples, so
they were always pleased to see him.”
“Carrots and apples,” Ned repeated. It sounded as if
this boy would be even less use than the others. And he was the
last of the four Littlefinger had turned up. Jory had spoken to
each of them in turn. Ser Hugh had been brusque and uninformative,
and arrogant as only a new-made knight can be. If the Hand wished
to talk to him, he should be pleased to receive him, but he would
not be questioned by a mere captain of guards . . . even if said
captain was ten years older and a hundred times the swordsman. The
serving girl had at least been pleasant. She said Lord Jon had been
reading more than was good for him, that he was troubled and
melancholy over his young son’s frailty, and gruff with his
lady wife. The potboy, now cordwainer, had never exchanged so much
as a word with Lord Jon, but he was full of oddments of kitchen
gossip: the lord had been quarreling with the king, the lord only
picked at his food, the lord was sending his boy to be fostered on
Dragonstone, the lord had taken a great interest in the breeding of
hunting hounds, the lord had visited a master armorer to commission
a new suit of plate, wrought all in pale silver with a blue jasper
falcon and a mother-of-pearl moon on the breast. The king’s
own brother had gone with him to help choose the design, the potboy
said. No, not Lord Renly, the other one, Lord Stannis.
“Did our watchman recall anything else of note?”
“The lad swears Lord Jon was as strong as a man half his
age. Often went riding with Lord Stannis, he says.” Stannis again, Ned thought. He found that curious. Jon Arryn and
he had been cordial, but never friendly. And while Robert had been
riding north to Winterfell, Stannis had removed himself to
Dragonstone, the Targaryen island fastness he had conquered in his
brother’s name. He had given no word as to when he might
return. “Where did they go on these rides?” Ned
asked.
“The boy says that they visited a brothel.”
“A brothel?” Ned said. “The Lord of the Eyrie
and Hand of the King visited a brothel with Stannis
Baratheon?” He shook his head, incredulous, wondering what
Lord Renly would make of this tidbit. Robert’s lusts were the
subject of ribald drinking songs throughout the realm, but Stannis
was a different sort of man; a bare year younger than the king, yet
utterly unlike him, stern, humorless, unforgiving, grim in his
sense of duty.
“The boy insists it’s true. The Hand took three
guardsmen with him, and the boy says they were joking of it when he
took their horses afterward.”
“Which brothel?” Ned asked.
“The boy did not know. The guards would.”
“A pity Lysa carried them off to the Vale,” Ned said
dryly. “The gods are doing their best to vex us. Lady Lysa,
Maester Colemon, Lord Stannis . . . everyone who might actually know
the truth of what happened to Jon Arryn is a thousand leagues
away.”
“Will you summon Lord Stannis back from
Dragonstone?”
“Not yet,” Ned said. “Not until I have a
better notion of what this is all about and where he stands.”
The matter nagged at him. Why did Stannis leave? Had he played some
part in Jon Arryn’s murder? Or was he afraid? Ned found it
hard to imagine what could frighten Stannis Baratheon, who had once
held Storm’s End through a year of siege, surviving on rats
and boot leather while the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne sat outside
with their hosts, banqueting in sight of his walls.
“Bring me my doublet, if you would. The grey, with the
direwolf sigil. I want this armorer to know who I am. It might make
him more forthcoming.”
Jory went to the wardrobe. “Lord Renly is brother to Lord
Stannis as well as the king.”
“Yet it seems that he was not invited on these
rides.” Ned was not sure what to make of Renly, with all his
friendly ways and easy smiles. A few days past, he had taken Ned
aside to show him an exquisite rose gold locklet. Inside was a
miniature painted in the vivid Myrish style, of a lovely young girl
with doe’s eyes and a cascade of soft brown hair. Renly had
seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when
Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid
was Loras Tyrell’s sister Margaery, he’d confessed, but
there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. “No,”
Ned had told him, bemused. Could it be that Lord Renly, who looked
so like a young Robert, had conceived a passion for a girl he
fancied to be a young Lyanna? That struck him as more than passing
queer.
Jory held out the doublet, and Ned slid his hands through the
armholes. “Perhaps Lord Stannis will return for
Robert’s tourney,” he said as Jory laced the garment up
the back.
“That would be a stroke of fortune, my lord,” Jory
said.
Ned buckled on a longsword. “In other words, not bloody
likely.” His smile was grim.
Jory draped Ned’s cloak across his shoulders and clasped
it at the throat with the Hand’s badge of office. “The
armorer lives above his shop, in a large house at the top of the
Street of Steel. Alyn knows the way, my lord.”
Ned nodded. “The gods help this potboy if he’s sent
me off haring after shadows.” It was a slim enough staff to
lean on, but the Jon Arryn that Ned Stark had known was not one to
wear jeweled and silvered plate. Steel was steel; it was meant for
protection, not ornament. He might have changed his views, to be sure.
He would scarcely have been the first man who came to look on
things differently after a few years at court . . . but the change
was marked enough to make Ned wonder.
“Is there any other service I might perform?”
“I suppose you’d best begin visiting
whorehouses.”
“Hard duty, my lord.” Jory grinned. “The men
will be glad to help. Porther has made a fair start
already.”
Ned’s favorite horse was saddled and waiting in the yard.
Varly and Jacks fell in beside him as he rode through the yard.
Their steel caps and shirts of mail must have been sweltering, yet
they said no word of complaint. As Lord Eddard passed beneath the
King’s Gate into the stink of the city, his grey and white
cloak streaming from his shoulders, he saw eyes everywhere and
kicked his mount into a trot. His guard followed.
He looked behind him frequently as they made their way through
the crowded city streets. Tomard and Desmond had left the castle
early this morning to take up positions on the route they must
take, and watch for anyone following them, but even so, Ned was
uncertain. The shadow of the King’s Spider and his little
birds had him fretting like a maiden on her wedding night.
The Street of Steel began at the market square beside the River
Gate, as it was named on maps, or the Mud Gate, as it was commonly
called. A mummer on stilts was striding through the throngs like
some great insect, with a horde of barefoot children trailing
behind him, hooting. Elsewhere, two ragged boys no older than Bran
were dueling with sticks, to the loud encouragement of some and the
furious curses of others. An old woman ended the contest by leaning
out of her window and emptying a bucket of slops on the heads of
the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside
their wagons, bellowing out, “Apples, the best apples, cheap
at twice the price,” and “Blood melons, sweet as
honey,” and “Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here,
here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here.”
The Mud Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under
the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. When a
column of riders appeared from the west, the guardsmen sprang into
action, shouting commands and moving the carts and foot traffic
aside to let the knight enter with his escort. The first rider
through the gate carried a long black banner. The silk rippled in
the wind like a living thing; across the fabric was blazoned a
night sky slashed with purple lightning. “Make way for Lord
Beric!” the rider shouted. “Make way for Lord
Beric!” And close behind came the young lord himself, a
dashing figure on a black courser, with red-gold hair and a black
satin cloak dusted with stars. “Here to fight in the
Hand’s tourney, my lord?” a guardsman called out to
him. “Here to win the Hand’s tourney,” Lord Beric
shouted back as the crowd cheered.
Ned turned off the square where the Street of Steel began and
followed its winding path up a long hill, past blacksmiths working
at open forges, freeriders haggling over mail shirts, and grizzled
ironmongers selling old blades and razors from their wagons. The
farther they climbed, the larger the buildings grew. The man they
wanted was all the way at the top of the hill, in a huge house of
timber and plaster whose upper stories loomed over the narrow
street. The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and
weirwood. A pair of stone knights stood sentry at the entrance,
armored in fanciful suits of polished red steel that transformed
them into griffin and unicorn. Ned left his horse with Jacks and
shouldered his way inside.
The slim young serving girl took quick note of Ned’s badge
and the sigil on his doublet, and the master came hurrying out, all
smiles and bows. “Wine for the King’s Hand,” he
told the girl, gesturing Ned to a couch. “I am Tobho Mott, my
lord, please, please, put yourself at ease.” He wore a black
velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver
thread, Around his neck was a heavy silver chain and a sapphire as
large as a pigeon’s egg. “If you are in need of new
arms for the Hand’s tourney, you have come to the right
shop.” Ned did not bother to correct him. “My work is
costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord,” he said
as he filled two matching silver goblets. “You will not find
craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I
promise you. Visit every forge in King’s Landing if you like,
and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shirt
of mail; my work is art.”
Ned sipped his wine and let the man go on. The Knight of Flowers
bought all his armor here, Tobho boasted, and many high lords, the
ones who knew fine steel, and even Lord Renly, the king’s own
brother. Perhaps the Hand had seen Lord Renly’s new armor,
the green plate with the golden antlers? No other armorer in the
city could get that deep a green; he knew the secret of putting
color in the steel itself, paint and enamel were the crutches of a
journeyman. Or mayhaps the Hand wanted a blade? Tobho had learned
to work Valyrian steel at the forges of Qohor as a boy. Only a man
who knew the spells could take old weapons and forge them anew.
“The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark, is it not? I
could fashion a direwolf helm so real that children will run from
you in the street,” he vowed.
Ned smiled. “Did you make a falcon helm for Lord
Arryn?”
Tobho Mott paused a long moment and set aside his wine.
“The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the
king’s brother. I regret to say, they did not honor me with
their patronage.”
Ned looked at the man evenly, saying nothing, waiting. He had
found over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than
questions. And so it was this time.
“They asked to see the boy,” the armorer said,
“so I took them back to the forge.”
“The boy,” Ned echoed. He had no notion who the boy
might be. “I should like to see the boy as well.”
Tobho Mott gave him a cool, careful look. “As you wish, my
lord,” he said with no trace of his former friendliness. He
led Ned out a rear door and across a narrow yard, back to the
cavernous stone barn where the work was done. When the armorer
opened the door, the blast of hot air that came through made Ned
feel as though he were walking into a dragon’s mouth. Inside,
a forge blazed in each corner, and the air stank of smoke and
sulfur. Journeymen armorers glanced up from their hammers and tongs
just long enough to wipe the sweat from their brows, while
bare-chested apprentice boys worked the bellows.
The master called over a tall lad about Robb’s age, his
arms and chest corded with muscle. “This is Lord Stark, the
new Hand of the King,” he told him as the boy looked at Ned
through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his
fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The
shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw. “This is Gendry.
Strong for his age, and he works hard. Show the Hand that helmet
you made, lad.” Almost shyly, the boy led them to his bench,
and a steel helm shaped like a bull’s head, with two great
curving horns.
Ned turned the helm over in his hands. It was raw steel,
unpolished but expertly shaped. “This is fine work. I would
be pleased if you would let me buy it.”
The boy snatched it out of his hands. “It’s not for
sale.”
Tobho Mott looked horror-struck. “Boy, this is the
King’s Hand. If his lordship wants this helm, make him a gift
of it. He honors you by asking.”
“I made it for me,” the boy said stubbornly.
“A hundred pardons, my lord,” his master said
hurriedly to Ned. “The boy is crude as new steel, and like
new steel would profit from some beating. That helm is
journeyman’s work at best. Forgive him and I promise I will
craft you a helm like none you have ever seen.”
“He’s done nothing that requires my forgiveness.
Gendry, when Lord Arryn came to see you, what did you talk
about?”
“He asked me questions is all, m’lord.”
“What sort of questions?”
The boy shrugged. “How was I, and was I well treated, and
if I liked the work, and stuff about my mother. Who she was and
what she looked like and all.”
“What did you tell him?” Ned asked.
The boy shoved a fresh fall of black hair off his forehead.
“She died when I was little. She had yellow hair, and
sometimes she used to sing to me, I remember. She worked in an
alehouse.”
“Did Lord Stannis question you as well?”
“The bald one? No, not him. He never said no word, just
glared at me, like I was some raper who done for his
daughter.”
“Mind your filthy tongue,” the master said.
“This is the King’s own Hand.” The boy lowered
his eyes. “A smart boy, but stubborn. That helm . . . the
others call him bullheaded, so he threw it in their
teeth.”
Ned touched the boy’s head, fingering the thick black
hair. “Look at me, Gendry.” The apprentice lifted his
face. Ned studied the shape of his jaw, the eyes like blue ice.
Yes, he thought, I see it. “Go back to your work, lad.
I’m sorry to have bothered you.” He walked back to the
house with the master. “Who paid the boy’s apprentice
fee?” he asked lightly.
Mott looked fretful. “You saw the boy. Such a strong boy.
Those hands of his, those hands were made for hammers. He had such
promise, I took him on without a fee.”
“The truth now,” Ned urged. “The streets are
full of strong boys. The day you take on an apprentice without a
fee will be the day the Wall comes down. Who paid for
him?”
“A lord,” the master said reluctantly. “He
gave no name, and wore no sigil on his coat. He paid in gold, twice
the customary sum, and said he was paying once for the boy, and
once for my silence.”
“Describe him.”
“He was stout, round of shoulder, not so tall as you.
Brown beard, but there was a bit of red in it, I’ll swear. He
wore a rich cloak, that I do remember, heavy purple velvet worked
with silver threads, but the hood shadowed his face and I never did
see him clear.” He hesitated a moment. “My lord, I want
no trouble.”
“None of us wants trouble, but I fear these are troubled
times, Master Mott,” Ned said. “You know who the boy
is.”
“I am only an armorer, my lord. I know what I’m
told.”
“You know who the boy is,” Ned repeated patiently.
“That is not a question.”
“The boy is my apprentice,” the master said. He
looked Ned in the eye, stubborn as old iron. “Who he was
before he came to me, that’s none of my concern.”
Ned nodded. He decided that he liked Tobho Mott, master armorer.
“If the day ever comes when Gendry would rather wield a sword
than forge one, send him to me. He has the look of a warrior. Until
then, you have my thanks, Master Mott, and my promise. Should I
ever want a helm to frighten children, this will be the first place
I visit.”
His guard was waiting outside with the horses. “Did you
find anything, my lord?” Jacks asked as Ned mounted up.
“I did,” Ned told him, wondering. What had Jon Arryn
wanted with a king’s bastard, and why was it worth his
life?