"Martin, George R.R. - Song of Ice and Fire 06 Prequel - The Hedge Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

thought, or might be I could go to some city, to Jannisport or King's Landing, and join the City
Watch. Or else . . .
He had piled the old man's things under an oak. The cloth purse contained three silver stags,
nineteen copper pennies, and a chipped garnet; as with most hedge knights, the greatest part of
his worldly wealth had been tied up in his horses and weapons. Dunk now owned a chain-mail
hauberk that he had scoured the rust off a thousand times. An iron halfhelm with a broad nasal
and a dent on the left temple. A sword belt of cracked brown leather, and a longsword in a
wood-and-leather scabbard. A dagger, a razor, a whetstone. Greaves and gorget, an eight-foot
war lance of turned ash topped by a cruel iron point, and an oaken shield with a scarred metal
rim, bearing the sigil of Ser Arlan of Pennytree: a winged chalice, silver on brown.
Dunk looked at the shield, scooped up the sword belt, and looked at the shield again. The belt
was made for the old man's skinny hips. It would never do for him, no more than the hauberk
would. He tied the scabbard to a length of hempen rope, knotted it around his waist, and drew
the longsword.
The blade was straight and heavy, good castle-forged steel, the grip soft leather wrapped over
wood, the pommel a smooth polished black stone. Plain as it was, the sword felt good in his
hand, and Dunk knew how sharp it was, having worked it with whetstone and oilcloth many a
night before they went to sleep. It fits my grip as well as it ever fit his, he thought to himself, and
there is a tourney at Ashford Meadow.

Sweetfoot had an easier gait than old Chestnut, but Dunk was still sore and tired when he spied
the inn ahead, a tall daub-and-timber building beside a stream. The warm yellow light spilling
from its windows looked so inviting that he could not pass it by. I have three silvers, he told
himself, enough for a good meal and as much ale as I care to drink. As he dismounted, a naked
boy emerged dripping from the stream and began to dry himself on a roughspun brown cloak.
"Are you the stableboy?" Dunk asked him. The lad looked to be no more than eight or nine, a
pasty-faced skinny thing, his bare feet caked in mud up to the ankle. His hair was the queerest
thing about him. He had none.
"I'll want my palfrey rubbed down. And oats for all three. Can you tend to them?"
The boy looked at him brazenly. "I could. If I wanted."
Dunk frowned. "I'll have none of that. I am a knight, I'll have you know."
"You don't look to be a knight."
"Do all knights look the same?"
"No, but they don't look like you, either. Your sword belt's made of rope."
"So long as it holds my scabbard, it serves. Now see to my horses. You'll get a copper if you
do well, and a clout in the ear if you don't." He did not wait to see how the stableboy took that,
but turned away and shouldered through the door.
At this hour, he would have expected the inn to be crowded, but the common room was almost
empty. A young lordling in a fine damask mantle was passed out at one table, snoring softly into
a pool of spilled wine. Otherwise there was no one. Dunk looked around uncertainly until a
stout, short. whey-faced woman emerged from the kitchens and said, "Sit where you like. Is it
ale you want, or food?"
"Both." Dunk took a chair by the window, well away from the sleeping man.
"There's good lamb, roasted with a crust of herbs, and some ducks my son shot down. Which
will you have?"
He had not eaten at an inn in half a year or more. "Both."
The woman laughed. "Well, you're big enough for it." She drew a tankard of ale and brought it
to his table. "Will you be wanting a room for the night as well?"
"No." Dunk would have liked nothing better than a soft straw mattress and a roof above his
head, but he needed to be careful with his coin. The ground would serve. "Some food, some ale,