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It was the horses he met first.

The knight, still stinking of drink, hauled Dunk to his feet. "Thunder," he grunted, and Dunk, stupid, said, "What?" and looked up, like the saying of it might summon rain from clear blue sky. The knight gave him a cuff, though light — much harder and he'd have gone sprawling.

"Not that," he said, and spat once, then dragged Dunk over the stony hill. He could not keep his feet under him, and walked like it were he the one drunk. He kept having to lean on the knight, whose mail bit into his arms. He'd the thought that perhaps the knight only meant to move him out the road, less a burden to the next traveler. Then he felt a hot blast of air against his cheek and opened his eyes.

"This," the knight said, "is Thunder. That one, Chestnut. The white is Sweetfoot. You'll care for them once you're well."

"Care for them?"

"Brush them." The knight spat again. "Feed them, water them. Clean their shit, if we're someplace fancy. Keep that one from mounting Sweetfoot. Can't afford another bloody horse." He looked Dunk up and down. "Most like can't afford you."

Dunk, with great effort, straightened — then wobbled, and went down to one knee, the bad one, 'twas the leg which would not bear weight, and his empty belly and parched tongue only making it worse. The knight grunted and hauled him up again. "I can work," Dunk said. He'd no earthly idea what other work might be done. "I'm strong, I swear."

"You're sick as a dog. That leg wants for a maester."

Shamefully, Dunk felt his eyes grow hot. He'd not wept in all the days he'd followed the knight, nor wept any after Rafe. Now the tears flooded out. He could not stop them, not even when he knuckled vicious at both eyes. The knight chewed at his cheek, then sighed. When he sighed he sounded like one of his horses, as Dunk had heard when he'd dared to get close enough.

"'Tis a squire's duty to mind his master's things," he said. "You'll work your way up to aught else. Can you mend?"

"Mend?"

"Clothes."

"No, milord."

"'Milord.' Ha. You'll call me 'ser.' Ser Arlan, if any ask."

"Yes, ser."

"Can you read?"

"No, m—ser."

"Can't read," he said. "Can't sew, can't stand." Then sighed again. "What to do with you, boy." Then, groaning, got down on his knee. "Up," he said. Dunk stared. Ser Arlan jiggled his leg. "Up, boy, up. Up on t'horse. You've ridden a horse?"

"No, ser."

"Bah. Your foot, boy. Step up, then swing over and astride."

Dunk did as he was told. It was the light brown horse he was mounting, with a white blaze on its forehead, the one called Chestnut. He stood very still and patient while Dunk struggled to get his leg up. Ser Arlan had need to haul him by the seat of his breeches in the end. "Your hands here," he said, and put Dunk's hands on a bit of the saddle which stuck up. "Don't fall."

"No, ser," Dunk said.

"You've a name, boy?"

"Dunk, ser."

"Just Dunk?"

"Yes."

"Well." Ser Arlan rolled his shoulders 'til one of them popped. "Just Dunk of nowhere. Know any songs?"

"No, ser, sorry, ser."

"Hm. Can't read, can't mend, can't sing. Thick as a castle wall, you are." Then reached up and adjusted Dunk's hand on the saddle, gentler than he'd thought the knight capable. "We've a half-day still 'til Hayford. Don't fall, or you'll startle the horses."

"I won't, ser," he said, and marveled at the bigness of the creature, his soft brown fur, his big dark eyes.

Grief

It was Chestnut who became 'his' horse, inasmuch as the horses were his. Ser Arlan rode Sweetfoot, always — Thunder, the big brown, was yet too young to be ridden. Ser Arlan's old warhorse, Howler, had died in the Redgrass. She'd been named such because of the awful scream she made when charging. Thunder was called so for the sound of his hooves, and Sweetfoot for how gentle she was.

Chestnut, so far as Dunk could ken, was named for his color, for he'd no other redeeming qualities worth mentioning.

"Piss off," he muttered, but the horse did not. Back on his feet this past week, and no longer needing to cover his leg in a foul-smelling poultice, Ser Arlan had begun to give him tasks befitting a squire. Move this, at first, or lift that. Hold the horse's leg while Ser Arlan dug out a stone. When they rode through rocky places he hung their nosebags; sometimes he went out walking to find streams or ponds for them to drink from.

He'd liked the work for the horses. He wished ser'd let him back to it, but the old man had said he ought learn more than just fetching and ferrying. He'd said, "Make a fire, Dunk," and Dunk had said he'd not the knowing of it. Said Ser Arlan, "You take sticks, aye? Make of them a basket." Like a nest, he showed, and in the center, instead of the bright white pigeon eggs Dunk had sometimes seen in King's Landing, you put a snarl of tinder, which was dry leaves and dry grass and dry fur from the horses. This, the tinder, what he was meant to light with flint and steel.

"Piss off," Dunk said again. Chestnut lipped at his hair. He'd chew it if Dunk let him, and sometimes he did, just for the warmth of it. Though he'd no need of horses now: for some time he'd been striking flint to steel, and though there'd been sparks not a one had caught. He was beginning to feel hot 'round the eyes again, and his leg, though the maester who'd tended it said it were healed, was aching fiercely.

Twice more he struck the flint across the steel. There was a certain way of it, the old man had said. He'd shown, and Dunk had watched, but no matter how he put them no flame came from his hands. In Flea Bottom it'd always been Rafe who set the fires, should they need it. She, cleverer than he, had known some dexterous way of rubbing two bits of wood together to make a spark. He tried this also, frustrated with the flint; Chestnut bent his head down and took Dunk's stick from him.

"Hey!" he shouted; the horse minded him not. Chestnut was ten years old, more or less — like Dunk, two-or-three-and-ten more or less — but had a streak of mischief to him, as piss streaked down a leg. He took the stick and chewed it until it was frayed and wet and no good for naught. Dunk minded the horse more than the horse bothered with him; Chestnut had big teeth and a stronger leg than a boy. "You stupid horse," he said; his voice cracked in the middle. "He'll come back now, an' see I've not made a fire. If he sends me away it's your fault."

But it was no more Chestnut's fault than it was Thunder's or Sweetfoot's. Dunk stood there, sniffling miserably, until Chestnut dropped the stick. The game had ceased to amuse him, and so the horse went snuffling about Dunk's shoulders instead. Dunk had no treats to give him, and so leaned heavily against the big, warm side of the beast and pushed his snotty nose into the fur. Chestnut smelled like dust and grass and sweat; it had been a long summer, and was like to be yet longer.

"If Rafe were here," he whispered, "she'd slap me bloody. Who'm I to go about callin' myself a squire?"

But Rafe wasn't there, and never would be again. Not even the old man was there; he'd gone off on Sweetfoot to set up snares for rabbits. A hedge knight, he'd said, lived off the land when he could. Dunk had asked, like rats do? thinking of the clever things in Flea Bottom, grown fat and glossy. The ser had clouted him well for some perceived cheek. A hedge knight, he'd surmised, was a nobler creature than a rat.

“I miss her,” he said, and the tears came down in earnest. It, the first he’d said it aloud, felt like his chest were cracking in two, like some vengeful giant had reached down into his lungs and grabbed a fistful of flesh. He heard his own breathing like it were a wounded animal down the way. He’d the thought, quite foolish, who? Him, of course. There was no one else. Just him.

He wept a time. Pushed his face, red and besnotted, against the horse. Chestnut minded this none, as much as Chestnut minded Dunk telling him to get. ‘Twas how the old man found them when he returned: Dunk, red-eyed, bleary, the horse chewing at his cuffs.

“Boy,” sighed the knight. Looked over Dunk’s work with weather eye, then knelt in the dirt with a grunt. With one hand he picked up the stick that Chestnut had chewed. The other beckoned Dunk closer. “The flint and steel is easier. Who taught you this?”

“Rafe,” Dunk said. The tears, beginning now to dry, left sullenness in their absence.

“The girl?”

Dunk said nothing. Ser Arlan grunted.

“Shame,” he said. “Damn fucking shame.” Then picked up the other stick and pointed it at the fire. What ought have been a fire, were Dunk any use. “Come here, boy,” he said, and Dunk went. “If you’ve no flint and steel,” he said, “but you’ve a knife, or e’en a sharpish rock…”

Innocence

A year perhaps into his squiring, Dunk's ser bid him stop beside the road and said, "How old are you, boy?"

Dunk, who'd no more notion of this than he had the previous year, said, "I don't know, ser."

The old man looked at him closely. Oft in the morning he woke groaning and grumbling, complaining of aches in the joints — he was not a young man, Ser Arlan — but his eyes were still bright and keen. "Sixteen?" he said, thoughtful. "You've the height for it."

Dunk shrugged a shoulder, insouciant on the subject of age. The ser kept looking at him, though, like he expected an answer. Dunk's clumsy tongue fumbled for one to give him. "Maybe three-and-ten, ser," he tried, "or four-and-ten."

"Three-and-ten! Ha!" But looked at him closer, then, and nodded as if Dunk were speaking truths. "Aye, I can see it, now. You've still a little lad's face. But you're big enough to take on other jobs."

In the year past Dunk had grown some. Ser Arlan, who knew his horses better than he knew young boys, said that Chestnut's withers stood at five and a half feet; Dunk's head reached some span above them now, enough that he could look the stot in the eye. Dunk, brightening, rubbed the horse's fine soft ear between his fingers; Chestnut tolerated this as he tolerated everything. When he was not up to mischief he was more placid still than Sweetfoot, though Dunk, in private, thought him dull rather than gentle.

"Am I to help you at tourney?" he asked. Ser Arlan leaned over and spat.

"Tourneys," he said, derisive. "Nay, but you'll polish and hone my sword."

This, to Dunk, was of greater interest. He'd never seen a tourney; he saw the sword with its penny-hilt every day. "Yes, ser!" he said, and then they rode on a ways until the sun was starting to set.

It was Dunk's job to see to the horses: feed them, water them, brush them. Also, to make the fire and mend the clothing and polish ser's armor, which he hated, for it meant laying down a blanket and using a pouch full of sand to scrub the mail. Then he would pour the sand back into its pouch, and ser would clout him if he lost too much of it. This night, he did all chores eagerly, then, when he was done and ser was cutting salt beef into the cauldron for a stew, he sat and leaned forward and waited.

Ser Arlan barked a laugh. "It's a sword, boy," he said, "not the queen's tits." But he drew out the blade while the water boiled and laid it across Dunk's lap. He'd held it only once, the night that he crept into the old man's camp; it seemed a better fit for his hand, now.

"This is a weapon," ser said, "not a stick to be swung around. You mind the blade, you ken? It's sharp. Sharper once you've honed it." He showed Dunk the doing of it, how to lay the whetstone, that he had to wet it, what angle to hold the sword at. After, to wipe it dry and then rub a few drops of linseed oil into the blade. He explained the hows and the whys as he did, and Dunk listened with ravenous attention. When he'd finished all, ser said, "You ken it?" And Dunk said, "Yes," and, "Good," said Ser Arlan, "then you hone the thing. I need to take a shit."

The old man went off to take his promised shit, some ways out into the treeline where he'd have a bit of privacy. They were in the Riverlands now, where every other mile was a valley dipped into streams and rivers and lakes. Forests were precious hard to find; most oft they shat and pissed in hedges, or simply in front of each other. Dunk had asked if all hedge knights did so and had been clouted solidly for it. He was grateful, now, for the solitude. He held the sword in his lap and thought it looked near a holy thing.

"Someday," he said, as Chestnut came to bother him, "I'll be a knight, too. I'll have a sword like this. I'll call it something fancy and we'll cut down a hundred robbers, and...and maybe an evil noble."

Chestnut chewed at his hair. Dunk pushed his nose away, muttering, "Not now, Ches." Then he found a nice flat rock on which to lay the sword and got to work.

It was harder than he'd thought it'd be. The whetstone wanted to slip; the sword doubly so. His hands grew wet with water, his arms with sweat. The doing of it wanted more strength from muscles he'd not had cause to use in feeding and brushing horses. Thunder came over once to snuffle his tunic, then returned to cropping grass with singlemindedness. Sweetfoot rolled in the dirt to scratch her back. Only Chestnut stayed with him, budging and whuffing at his arm. "Stop," Dunk said. "Now's no time for your mischief." He thought he'd almost got it, the blade sharpened.

Chestnut, as annoyed as he, leaned down and bit Dunk's shoulder. His big teeth only nipped, but still it startled; Dunk yelped, and reached up both hands to bat at the horse. The sword and whetstone flung from him. He did not see their landing, but heard Chestnut's squeal — pain — and was on his feet in moments. He was fast enough, only just, to grab the stot's reins and hold them fast while Chestnut bucked and stamped and snorted. His big dark eyes were white now, rolling furiously.

"I'm sorry," Dunk cried, "I'm sorry! Let me see!" He nudged the sword away with his foot, and after some minutes Chestnut stopped his struggling. Dunk took his head by the cheek straps of his bridle and pushed their foreheads together. "Hush," he said, wretchedly, "hush, hush." The sound that Chestnut had made was too close to human for his liking.

"Boy!" came bellowed from the trees. "What's all the ruckus!"

He'd not even time to lie nor move the sword. Ser Arlan came out from the dimming light where the trees were thickest, still tying his laces. He took one look at the scene and said, "The horse is bleeding." Dunk, who'd not seen it, looked down where the old man pointed and saw it was true: a small gash had opened like a mouth, at the coronet of Chestnut's front right hoof. It grinned redly at him, and Dunk felt his eyes sting with tears.

"Oh, Chestnut," he said, and petted the horse's nose and ears and cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Ser Arlan grunted and came to look. "Not bad," he said. "It'll heal. Put some honey on it." Honey, ser said, was best for any small wound; the Seven had made it so sweet on account that bees could not commit sin. Dunk scrambled to do as bid while the old man picked up his sword.

While Dunk smeared honey 'pon Chestnut's foot the old man said, "'Tis a knight's duty to protect the innocent. There's none more innocent than horses. Some creatures are born knowing evil, like scorpions and spiders. A horse learns evil from men, but never kens it. You listening, boy?"

"Aye, ser, listening, ser."

"A man is a creature that chooses to be noble." With a rag Ser Arlan wiped the blade; the cloth came away spotted with red. "'Tis why swearing the vows is important. You choose to defend the innocent. Even from other men. Even from y'self."

"Yes, ser."

"Say it clearly then."

"We choose to protect the innocent, even from ourselves."

"Good lad. Here. I'll show you again." He beckoned, impatient. Dunk wiped his hands on his breeches, sticky with honey and blood; Chestnut nudged him with his nose. Forgiven, just like that.

Chivalry

A few times a year did Sweetfoot go into heat, and for one week out of three the horses lost their damn fool minds. Thunder especially, not gelded like Chestnut, became near-frantic with lust. It was bad enough this year that Ser Arlan determined to wash his hands of it. They took work with a merchant of Red Lake, nothing exciting, only minding livestock to and from Old Oak, which had a larger market. The benefit was that the merchant, possessed of house and lands and paddock, agreed to stable Sweetfoot during her heat. The old man would keep Thunder, strong enough now for riding, and Dunk, as always, had Chestnut.

"You're of that age," said ser, with contemplative air.

Dunk said, "What, ser?" He was watching the road for bandits. From Red Lake to Old Oak was a few days' gentle journey; they were as unlike to find robbers or cattle thieves as a pig was to grow wings and fly. Still, the coin would spend, and Sweetfoot spend her season unbothered.

"For women." This mystic proclamation went unexplained. Dunk, six-or-seven-and-ten, had met plenty of women over the years: milkmaids, laundresses, weavers, shepherdesses. Once, he'd met a sellsword who was also a woman, who'd bound her teats and went about as though a man. A confusing time, that, and the source of many a strange dream. Dunk thought he started to ken what the old man was getting at. Heat crawled from his ears down his cheeks.

"Dunno," he mumbled. Ser Arlan let out one big laugh, haw, like a donkey.

"You know what your cock's for, boy?"

"For pissing, ser?"

"Aye, and best you keep it that way. Don't go getting no girls with child."

Dunk had seen animals tupping. He knew lasses had cunts and lads had cocks and the two were meant to meet. He'd some trouble imagining all the bits in between, however — kissing, like, and hugging. Once, much younger, he and Rafe had practiced at kissing. It'd gone so poorly she'd knocked one of his teeth out and they'd never tried again. He thought he was not in much danger of so much as touching a girl, let alone siring a babe.

"Yes, ser," he said all the same. The rocking motion of Chestnut's swayback was threatening to set him to dozing. He shook his head to wakefulness. He'd robbers to look out for.

Old Oak was a largeish town, well-positioned 'tween Lannisport and Highgarden. What could not be delivered by sea was delivered instead along the Ocean Road, so there were many sights to see and things to do. Ser Arlan, relieved for the eve of cattle and in a jolly mood, bought a room at an inn and some space in their stables also. Dunk was to sleep with the horses, as he oft did; the room was for Ser Arlan and a lady.

"How's she not get with child?" Dunk asked. He knew well enough about whores from Flea Bottom. Ser Arlan sucked his teeth.

"Moon tea," he said. "Herblore." Dunk nodded like he understood. Perhaps when the whore came out later he would ask her what herbs she used. It might be a useful thing to carry, should he ever encounter a lady in need.

He did not mind the stables for sleeping: the horses were warm, the night quiet, the spring air fresh with blooms and growing grass. Thunder farted like the horns that'd herald the world's ending, but so also did Ser Arlan when he was in his cups. Of all the horses, Sweetfoot was nicest to sleep near, she being named quite aptly, but Chestnut was an old and boon companion at this point. In the straw beside the aging stot he laid out his bedroll and listened to the evening passing.

'Twas near the hour of the eel when he heard the laughter, and a woman's crying. Dunk, picking straw from his hair, rose to see what the fuss was; Chestnut did not even raise his head, though Thunder, dozing on foot, peered over the door of his stall. He'd a look like he were offended. "Not everything's about you," Dunk whispered, then crept out into the night, a tension in his shoulders.

The laughter was two men, stinking of wine, dressed in well-cut leather doublets and fine new breeches. The crying was not even a woman, but a girl who looked younger than Dunk, with dark curls and big dark eyes made all the blacker under the moonlight. She'd a bundle in her hands which the men were trying to jostle from her, hooting and whooping. "Please, milords," she was saying, over and over, "please, milords, please."

"Sell us some bread, girl!" one of the men said. "You'd sell it to half the men in Old Oak in the day, but not us?"

"Might be she means to sell something else," said the other, and so Dunk came up along him and punched him smartly in the side.

The man dropped the bundle; the other man shouted wordless anger. To the girl, Dunk said, "Go, go!" and then the two men were on him. He thought the girl must have run — he saw no sign of her in the scuffle — but mostly he thought of nothing. In the fight he was an animal, biting and clawing. A fist hit him in the cheek, twice in the face and then once in the back; a foot kicked at his bad leg, which ached still sometimes in rain, and he snarled like a wolf and sank his teeth into the limb. The man whose leg it was howled in pain.

"He's fucking mad!" he said, and the second man pulled Dunk off with a wrench. He spat his mouthful out as, in the dark, the two figures scrambled to run. Dunk watched them go until he could see no more — for the dark, and for his eye, which was swelling shut. Then he limped back to the stable, and in the straw he laid himself down and did not move 'til dawning.

When he woke, it was to Ser Arlan, swearing. "Father's fucking mercy, boy," he heard, and Dunk, pained, hauled his carcass up. His other eye was blacked as well, though not near so bad. Through the thin slits of his vision he saw the old man in the doorway.

"M'sorry, ser," he said, then pain caught up with him as it had not done last night. He leaned over and threw up his dinner, or what aught was left of it after a night. Chestnut, ever helpful, switched his tail, like Dunk were a fly. A hand spread 'cross the middle of his back as he heaved. When he was done, ser pushed a waterskin to him and he drank.

"Tell it true," he said, so Dunk told it true: the girl, her crying, the men, the fight. With a rag ser wiped at Dunk's face; blood had crusted around his mouth like a ring of poppies. The cragged and bearded jaw worked soundless for a moment, then all over Ser Arlan sighed. His fingers, now gnarled with aging, pushed Dunk's cheeks like he meant to mold clay.

"A knight is sworn to come to the aid of women," he said. Then he patted Dunk on the face — Dunk winced — and got creaking to his feet. "You did well, boy. Quite well."

That noon, as they were leaving, a boy not older than four came sprinting up. "Ser!" he shouted, "Ser!" And held up in his grubby fist a loaf of bread. "For you, ser!" Dunk, blushing, took it, and broke it into fourths as they rode. To the horses he gave the lion's share, while he and his ser took the rest. By the time they reached Red Lake there was nothing left but crumbs, and out in the paddock, her season ended, Sweetfoot came to greet them.

Justice

In Dorne 'twas hotter than hells, all seven, and Dunk was of the mind to up and leave. Yet out of the desert a vulture flew, and Lords Caron and Dondarrion meant to hunt it, for which they'd need of strong men. He and Ser Arlan, near when the call went out, had answered; now Dunk sweated through his tunic on the daily, and the horses fared no better. He patted Chestnut's neck in miserable sympathy.

"S'hot," he said. Chestnut huffed.

"Quit your achin'," said the ser. They rode at the front of the party with sellswords and other hedge knights. Lords Dondarrion and Caron rode at the back with their men. The air was frightfully still, and not even the movement of horses could stir the banners from their drooping: against the white-blue sky he sometimes caught a flash of purple lightning, of black songbird on yellow. The lords themselves he could not see, obscured by clouds of dust. Dunk hung his head and sighed.

"'Tis all well and good for you," he muttered. "You like the heat." Ser grunted in response. In his age he'd developed a gout of the fingers, and warmth did ease it some. Dunk, minding this, kept his complaints mostly unsaid, though the heat was nearly unbearable for both man and beast.

They rode a time longer, the sun beating down, until the lords called for camp to be made. The Vulture King, some bandit leader, had holed up in the hills — more fox than bird, thought Dunk, but the name the man had taken was of some offense to the king. Ser Arlan, no fan of the dragon house, nevertheless spoke fondly of its heir, against whom he'd tilted years ago. He told the story now, the low droning mutter of well-trod cadences luring Dunk into walking slumber as he dismounted, fed the horses, set up bedrolls. There were no trees to sleep beneath this high up in the Marches; their shelter was an oilskin stretched taut between two poles.

"And he asked me no ransom," ser said. Dunk made agreeable noises as he worked. The sweat dripped down his back, down the tip of his nose; he stripped his tunic off but it helped hardly any. As he worked a well-dressed man in Dondarrion livery came trotting by. He'd hair the color of oak leaves in the autumn, crowned with fire; his eyes skated over Dunk's arms, his chest, his waist. Dunk nodded to him, cordial; the man nodded back. He thought, a fine looking fellow. Wondered also, even vaguer, if he'd hair of the same color on his belly, his thighs, his stones. These thoughts he kept to himself, as the ones about heat and discomfort.

Said Ser Arlan, "A prince among men. The very soul of chivalry, he was." Dunk reached to help the old man down from the saddle. Sweetfoot, used to such, stood waiting. Her ears flicked back, forth, back — she turned her fine head towards Thunder and Chestnut, lipping idly at pale scrubby sage growing out from cracks in the thirsty hardpan. She, ever-patient, was always the last to be fed, the last to be watered, save for Dunk, who ate after Ser Arlan and no earlier.

Sometimes, though very rarely, he had the thought, what will I do when he's gone? He hated to think of it, so he, Dunk the lunk, chose not to, as he lifted his ser down by the back of his breeches, as he set up campfire and kettle for boiling salt beef and oats, as he tied the horses' reins 'round a short, squat bush. It was only when the work was done that he sat down, sweat clean through his braies and breeches and patterned all on his skin like glimmering stars. The red-headed Dondarrion man came by again; he lifted his brows as he looked Dunk up and down. Dunk, stupid with heat, pointed at himself, which made the man laugh.

"Boy." Ser's hoary finger poked his unprotected side. "Come and eat, before the beef's gone cold."

"I'd like it colder," he said. Felt the blush on the nape of his neck, as bad as the sun, when he turned his back to the man. His fault, perhaps, that he were thinking of men and women and stones and sweating and heat, instead of the things he ought think of: who was on the road, who in the hills, were any men set to watch. He ate his thin, too-hot gruel in silence, and so heard the whistling thunk, though did not see it. "Ser?" he said, but the old man was shaking his head. He'd his hands around his calf and was hissing through his teeth. Dunk had to shield his eyes from the bloom of the setting sun; resolving out of the light, the arrow stood out bloodied from the flesh.

"Ser!" he shouted, but a horn was raised and drowned him out. Dunk seized his ser 'neath the arms and dragged him clear; arrows littered down, thick white fletching like fallen snow. A man nearish to him took one to the throat; the ground drank up his blood as easy as water. Men were shouting, to arms, to arms! In his ear Ser Arlan wheezed and said, "The horses, Dunk."

A man was not a knight without horse or sword. Not ten feet by, Thunder reared and screamed. Whoever was in the hills was aiming for men and not horses, but the arrows were so numerous they blocked out light, and a horse, a bigger target, was harder to miss. Dunk knuckled at his eyes and drew in a hitching breath. "Yes, ser," he said, and left the old man there beneath the oilskin.

He ran out beneath the onslaught, still bare to the waist — twice he felt the strike and burn of an arrow, twice he shrugged off the pain and kept on moving. He did not bother to untie the reins, but drew his knife and cut them. "Get!" he shouted, and slapped Sweetfoot on the rump. "Go on, get!" Thunder, still young and wild, needed little encouragement; he took off at a gallop, and Sweetfoot followed. The only one to stay was slow old Chestnut, and Dunk could not tell if 'twere because the horse were deaf or only stupid. He'd no time to mind the beast, though, for men were springing out from scrub and scree above them in the hills. They were dressed in patchwork armor and near all as skinny as rails. He felt, a moment, sorry for them — there was surely not enough to eat up there in the rocks — then Ser Arlan shouted, "Sword, boy!" and Dunk turned to catch the blade as it was thrown.

He remembered not much after that: the flash of the sword, the clatter of steel, the thin, bright howl of the arrows. He had no armor, not even a shield; a dagger or two scored him on arm and shoulder. The blood ran down with the sweat, and all was so warm he could not tell which was which until it splatted on the parched ground. The blood, thicker, took slightly longer to be drunk.

Men came around him, swarming, and then he was among them, one of many. The knights charged in on horseback — he did not see the red-headed Dondarrion man with them — and once they'd closed the bandits turned to flee. Some were hunted down, as dogs, and put to sword in the hills, while others were dragged back kicking. Dunk fought on, mindless with it, until Ser Arlan shouted, "Boy!" Then he let the sword lower, tip to the bone-dry dirt, and heaved in gulps of dusty scorching air.

From beneath the oilskin, tenderly working the arrow out of ser's calf, Dunk watched the bandits be brought back for judgement. They were Dornishmen, mostly stony, though a few dark-haired sandy fellows among them. To a man they were thin and ragged, bright-eyed with hunger and spitting with anger. They swore and laughed and howled at the sky like dogs as one by one they were brought before the lords to face the king's justice.

"They're mad," Dunk said, though a madness he understood. Some nights, when the snares came up empty and they'd no more salt beef left, he would curl to the warmth of gentle Sweetfoot's side and remember an earlier starving. In the dark, head pillowed, aching, sometimes he dreamt Rafe yet lived.

"Aye," said Ser Arlan. For the first time in days he'd gone narrow and sharp as a blade; the pain, thought Dunk, made him look near ten years younger. "That they are. Though you'd go mad too, if you'd ordered to make nice with the men who killed your mothers' mothers."

"I don't know anything of it," Dunk said.

"Nay, nor should you. 'Tis king's business, that. All you've to know is they've broken laws, and now they face justice." The Dornishmen were lined up smartly, and led one by one to a block of the sort used to mount a horse. It was wood, when all else around was stone, and the sound of the sword as it swung down, over and over, was not unlike the chopping of lumber. Dunk, after the first head rolled astray, turned his own away. Was it justice, he wondered, to punish the hungry? Were he starving, for food or for coin or for kindness, and a man came up and told him aye, just follow me and question none and I'll set you right, was it his fault, then, or the man's? If he were led astray. If he swore himself to a dishonest lord.

"The horses, Dunk," said ser. Dunk swore once, shit, then got up on his feet.

Death

When they heard of the tourney at Ashford the old man's face lit up. "A tourney," he said, and sucked the inside of his cheek in thought. Ser Arlan was old, by then — older still, for he'd been old when Dunk was young — and his hair all white and grey, his beard patchy, his nails gone yellow and thick. His hands shook when he tried to trim them, and so Dunk, once a week, took the knife that had killed Rafe and did it for him, carving away slivers of nail, whittling the man down to proper shape. He did it for ser's toenails, also, as he did for the horses when their hooves grew too long, and trimmed his ser's hair, and cut his beard when Ser Arlan would let him. All these things he did, and he thought it good that the thing that had once done such violence was turned now to simpler use.

"You don't like tourneys, ser," said Dunk, and Ser Arlan said, "Nonsense, boy. A tourney's just the thing to breathe life back into these bones."

Ser Arlan had not competed in tourney for more than ten years, not once since Dunk had begun squiring. They visited, sometimes, for it was part of Dunk's training as a lad to see how the thing was done, but never once had ridden. He, some two-and-twenty now, or three-and-twenty, maybe, thought longingly of melees and favors and tilts, of a fair lady leaning down from her seat and tying her handkerchief to his lance. Being a champion would be just the thing, he thought, if only he were a knight.

Dunk sighed. Ser, hearing it, cuffed him on the back of the head. The blow held no more weight than a feather; Dunk towered over his ser, now, made worse by how hunched Ser Arlan stood, how crabbed and grey. "None of your cheek, boy," he said, then took to coughing, a wet and hacking thing. Three weeks before they'd caught out in the rain near Fawnton. They, huddled by the horses for warmth, had chewed salt beef — Ser Arlan, the larger chunk given — for it'd been too damp to start a fire. The cough had started next morn with the rising sun, and worsened in steps until this day. Sometimes, riding, ser fell asleep in the saddle. Sometimes, asleep, he muttered and sang and would not wake even when Dunk called to him.

The road to Ashford was a kindly one, through rolling green Reach meadows. 'Twas spring, the weather fine, nippy in morning and night, but the hours they rode were breezy and gentle enough. Sometimes a storm would rumble through, dampening them thoroughly; sometimes, when he woke, Dunk would lie a while and watch his ser's chest moving. Each year that passed the question grew more pressing: what to do when the old man was gone?

A week away from Ashford and Dunk asked the question, finally: "Ser," he said, and listened for the old man's grunt. "When am I to be a knight?"

Ser Arlan chewed this question with some gravity. His eyes were filmy, Dunk thought — he'd some things the maesters called cataracts, a closed door of the eye. A fellow in Oldtown with three links on his chain had explained it: first the greying, then the blurring, then the sight went dark. There'd come a day Ser Arlan would ride no more; a knight, Dunk thought, was no knight without a horse, and a seed of panic had hooked in him and set to rooting.

"When you're older," Ser Arlan said, then leaned over Sweetfoot's side and spat.

"How much older?" Dunk asked, sour.

"Mother grant you better manners, boy. On your eighteenth nameday, maybe. 'Tis tradition. Make a lad a man on his eighteenth."

Dunk said nothing. This was no new thing, though more and more common as the moons kept turning. Ser Arlan hacked and coughed, then spat again, a wad of phlegm. Thereafter his lungs sounded clearer, and he whistled as they rode.

The weather turned sour the further South they went: first to chill, then to mist, then to driving rain. A few days from the tourney the clouds boiled up like scum on the top of soup. They were thick clouds, dark and strange, and Dunk felt an evil omen from them; surely it was a sign they ought not continue. Ser Arlan, though, was insistent. "A tourney's just the thing," he said, and said it twice or thrice at a time, as if to remind himself. Beneath a thorn tree Dunk tied up the horses. Chestnut, old, stood placidly and cropped at grass and clover; Thunder laid himself down in the mud and rolled. Dunk shouted, "Hey! You lout!" but the stallion paid him no mind. He blew out a breath and scowled.

"It'll be ages brushing you," he told the beast. "Go stand in t'rain an' wash that off."

"Leave the horse be," said the old man. He was sitting beneath the thorn tree with a hunk of salt beef in hand. His fingers, all gnarled, were fiddling with his boot knife. Dunk hurried to his side to help; Sweetfoot came over with him, and blew her hot, grassy breath over Ser Arlan's hair. "Good girl," said the knight, softly, as Dunk took the knife from him. Dunk said, agreeing, "Best girl," and carved into the beef.

Ser Arlan had need of the food cut into small pieces. When it rained, or when 'twas no firewood, Dunk cut them even smaller; a few turns of the moon ago the ser had cracked a tooth in the night. Dunk had wanted to look at it, perhaps to prise the bloody root out as he'd seen done in Flea Bottom, but no man nor power of gods had been enough to convince his ser. Just leave it be, he'd said, and chewed now only on his left side, and took the smallest bites he ever could. He chewed such now, meditative, looking out into the rain while Sweetfoot lipped contentedly at his hair.

Dunk cleared his throat. The words were on his tongue. Maybe, maybe, might be good to knight me sooner, ser? Just in case. Just to be sure. He could not say them. In all the years they'd wandered it had only been them two, knight and squire, Dunk and Arlan. A hedge knight, ser had told him, was a lonely thing; they did not flock like starlings. A minor lord might have the coin for a single avowed man — if two showed up, well. Two knights was dangerous close to robbery, weren't it? If Ser Arlan were to knight him...what? They'd go on to Ashford together, for that only made sense, but after, after...

Well, he'd go on his way, would he not? A man grown. A knight. Alone.

Dunk cut himself a sliver of beef to gnaw on. The rain went on and on, and some time in the evening, not quite yet dusk, Sweetfoot sighed ponderously then came to lie beside him, to put her big, soft nose into his lap. She wanted for rubs to her belly and to her cheeks, the hardest to scratch; Dunk gave these to her idly, soaked to skin. They, the horses, gave off heat like bonfires, so Dunk took off his cloak and threw it 'round the old man's shoulders instead. Not twenty minutes past he'd been laughing and jesting; now he leaned back quietly against the tree. His mouth was open as he slept, and water dripped into it. Dunk pulled the cloak up higher to give him shelter.

In the privacy of his thoughts, where all stupid notions seemed possible, he tested out, Da, Father, Papa, and discarded them all. He'd no knowledge of what a father was, nor what such a man could give him. Perhaps there were fathers out there who knighted their sons sooner. Perhaps there were some who didn't, for fear of how time kept passing. It were a curious feeling, half-frozen in growing. Get up, the old man'd said, yet he felt some part of him still down there in the dirt.

Dunk the lunk, he thought unkindly, thick as a castle wall. Then turned himself into Sweetfoot's warm, damp side and slept.

It was the coughing roused him, in the dark hours of the morning. The rain, lightened to drizzling, made a soup of the mud 'neath the tree. He went from sleep to waking with a start, was up upon his knees and scrambling. "Ser," he said, "Ser Arlan," but the old man answered nothing. He hacked until he was wheezing — in the night he'd pulled the cloak from his face, and red was flecking his lips. Dunk said, "Ser, please, Arlan, please," and tried to hold the old man's head still, mindful of his neck. He coughed into Dunk's shoulder then, his whole thin body shaking.

Some time passed. Could not be more than a minute or two. Ser Arlan caught his breath and sucked it in, rasping. "Dunk," he said. "Dunk. Here." Then reached up and clasped his hand to the back of Dunk's neck. His skin, gone thin as paper, was cold with the rain, or perhaps just cold. The horses gathered 'round them, switching their sodden tails.

"M'here," Dunk said. His eyes had turned hot and stinging. "Ser, I can't. I can't." He was not ready, he thought. Just he, the horses, the road — no nails to trim but his own, no snoring body beside his in the dark. He held the old man to him, the both of them shaking. The breath that whuffed by his ear was iron-tinged.

"Good man." The words were soft. "Good...good man." Then sighed, the old knight, quiet-like, and nothing more.

Dunk waited for a time. Sweetfoot, impatient for pets, came near to beg; he pushed her away. "No," he muttered, "no." The man, the body, in his arms was unnatural still. The rain made every man and beast the same coldness; Dunk held, for a while, that perhaps his ser only slept.

An hour passed. Then two. The sun rose, the day dawning greyly; above him, in the new green growth of the thorn tree, a robin sang.

Catharsis

Dunk had been lying beneath the elm tree some odd hours when Lyonel found him. He, struggling up the hill upon a crutch, said loudly, "Cunt. You're a hard man to find," then set upon Dunk his maester, a wizened man who smelled of garlic and smoke. Dunk, tired, submitted to tender mercy, listening to Lyonel talk and talk and talk. It'd charmed him, not two days prior — now he thought near-constantly of the Trial, the prince, the wound. How still he'd been! How very still as Dunk had begged him up, ser, up.

With his one good eye he watched the clouds pass over, Lyonel a pleasant warmth beside him. Not too distant, Thunder and Chestnut snorted. He thought, now lads, be gentle, but the thought wisped away. He thought of Lyonel dancing atop a table, and that wisped away too.

"A wonderful tourney," said Lyonel. His hands, long-fingered, swept in elegant patterns as he spoke. The rings on them glinted. "Shame that it's all over. Home is...ah." He sucked his teeth. "Home is dreadfully dull." Then he turned onto his hip. Dunk saw him from the corner of his vision: the handsome face, the curls, the earring dangling. How he'd not lost it in the melee, Dunk knew not.

Lyonel put his hand on Dunk's thigh; the pain made him wince. The pressure gentled. Became a gliding stroke. "You could come with me," he said. "We'll hunt and hawk and...sail. Make merry." The words went in and out. Dunk stared up at the sky and thought of fathers. Thought of knights. Thought of wanting what he oughtn't. His hands were fists in the dirt, a fistful of earth, how he'd tossed the last handful down with the horses looking on. The man is dying, my lord. Aye, a man was always dying. It seemed he could not go three days without a man dying in his arms.

The maester went off, somewhere. Lyonel touched him again: his thigh, his arm, his shoulder. Dunk turned his head to look at him. Men dead, men dying, men wounded. Lyonel's eye was blacked, and when he stood it was unsteady on his crutch. "Oh, cunt," he groaned. "It's fine. You're fine. He's a fucking terrible maester." He hobbled to the stream. Took out his cock — Dunk, red-eared, looked upwards — and had a piss. "Come with me," Lyonel said. What was that tone, he wondered? "To Storm's End, and I'll love you like a brother. And if not, well. Fuck you. I'll hate you like a brother." He barked a laugh.

"S'a fine offer, Lyonel," Dunk said. Lyonel, not milord. What would Ser Arlan say? Reaching above his station, reaching for knighthood, reaching for princes. What right had he to reach for comfort when better men were dead? "I can't...I can't. All I do's bring pain to those around me."

There were other things said, then. Fuck him and fuck you, too. A terrible raw open feeling was upon him, that he could not tell if 'twere sorrow or simply anger. The sun shone behind Lyonel like a cloak; he, all gilded, said, "The gods don't favor a fraud."

"Then why—"

He'd not chance to finish. From the other side of the tree, where the horses grazed, a sound like a great war trumpet bugled. It went on for several seconds. Dunk turned to see what party was approaching, but the meadow below was empty. 'Twas only Thunder, staring pensively out afield.

"Father's fucking mercy," said Lyonel. He was staring at the horse with eyebrows near up to his hairline. "What are you feeding that thing?"

It was, Dunk thought, how a man properly determined could wind twine around a stone. Enough twine, enough pulling, enough time, and eventually the stone would break. He, the stone, broke: laughter cracked out of him in a rush. It was unlike any laughter he'd brayed before, huge whooping gasps that made his whole chest throb. Lyonel joined in with him, chuckling first, then cackling. He sounded as he'd done on the tourney field, flinging baubles to farmers. There'd been feeling in his chest then, also, a similar cracked-open rawness. Dunk thought, brothers, fathers, maids, lovers, Lyonel's hand splayed on his chest, Lyonel's breath wine-rich a ghost on his cheek, and, in thinking, began to weep.

"Oh," said Lyonel, and stopped laughing. Dunk could not. The sound coming out of him now was a frog's rough hiccough, and he'd no more control over it than he'd had of the laughter. Lyonel said again, "Oh," with different inflection, and then was beside him again, hissing under his breath, "Shit, fuck, ah, cunt, that hurts." He stuck his leg out in front of him, awkwardly. His hand he put on Dunk's shoulder, fluttering like a bird. "Don't weep," he said, sounding panicked. "I'm no use to men who weep."

Easier to tell the sun not to rise, a robin not to sing, a man not to die: Dunk wept and wept yet more, and Lyonel's hand moved from shoulder to cheek. "Dear," he said, "dear man," and Dunk opened his good eye and saw the crutch through the film of tears. Ah, he thought, deer, and gestured, hiccoughing again. When Lyonel looked he said, "Oh, you fucking jester," and then bent his head down like he meant to pray, but he was only pushing his forehead against Dunk's shoulder. If he was weeping also, Dunk could not hear nor see it. Tentatively, he put his arm around the man instead, and Lyonel leaned into him, heavily sighing.

"What a mess," he said to Dunk's shoulder. "What a fucking mess."

Dunk found his voice at last. "He'd have been a good king," he said, and Lyonel stiffened beside him. "An'...An' maybe Ser Hardyng an' Ser Beesbury would have been great knights. Were great knights. I just...That's four men what have died for me—"

"Four? What fourth?"

"Ser Arlan," Dunk said. "Of Pennytree. Taught me all I know. He passed not a sennight ago. An' I can't...what if it happened to you? The gods don't favor me, Lyonel. Might be they stopped taking the people I care for if they did."

"Care for," Lyonel echoed, cautiously. Dunk tipped his head back. Swallowed. The hand, still on his cheek, spasmed. Folded back into his hair, lank still with sweat, with blood. Lyonel's nails scratched gently at his scalp, the soft hollow behind his ear. Said Lyonel again, "Come with me," and pushed a whiskered kiss to Dunk's bruised cheek. "Forget the hunting. Or not. Do whatever you'd like, only come with me. I'll not ask you again, I do have some pride still. Duncan." His warm breath. His lashes, dipping — long enough that Dunk felt the stroke of them. His thumb found the hinge of Dunk's jaw. Dunk, thinking none, reached up to meet it, not-quite-touching. Reaching. He nearly laughed anew. Always reaching. Do I not deserve some mercy?

Get up, boy, said his ser. Get up.

"All right,” Dunk said, “for a time,” and took the offered hand.

Play

Spring, come with its rains, went tumbling into the third moon, a cavorting, careless creature. From Bronzegate to Storm’s End the ground grew so muddy that striking a tent seemed some madness; Lyonel ordered the caravan halt, looking out at the feckless weather. Dunk, used to such vagaries, tried to see as Lyonel did: the cooks, the grooms, the maids, the carts.

Oh, the carts, he thought, as Lyonel bellowed to be heeded. They’d set up camp just there, within the Kingswood, where trees offered at least some meager shelter. The Wendwater lapped against its banks; the rain was not so hard that the river flooded, so Dunk, at the urging of Egg, set up their own camp some yards away. “An adventure!” he called it, eager. He’d been less keen to learn that Dunk meant to take up with Lyonel, having spent so much effort badgering his father into submission. Yet any escape was good escape, and Egg was a good lad, a good squire. They’d left Ashford with the Prince’s blessing, if it could be called that: a grunt, a muttered oath, a signet ring which Dunk kept safely in his only spare pair of stockings.

“This will set us back another week,” said Lyonel, watching him pitch his camp. He’d not held with Dunk’s usual method of cloak and tree. Had magicked some extra tent from nowhere, so it seemed. Dunk was grateful, if only for the sake of the boy, though often in the night he remembered: Lyonel’s lips against his cheek, his hand in Dunk’s hair, the scrape of his nail against skin.

Lyonel, still staring at him, licked his bottom lip. Said, “That needn’t be a bad thing. There’s a freedom, isn’t there? To being on the road.”

He was staring at Dunk, quite fiercely. The tips of Dunk’s ears were hot. He, thinking of brothers, lovers, cocks and cunts and the things between, kissing and hugging and like, had nothing clever to say. Did not know the spellery of it, to tell a man he’d like to know what he carried ‘neath his clothes. Least of all how to tell a noble, an heir. That he’d reached this far already seemed a waking dream.

“Oh, aye,” said Dunk. He got the tent upright, then set Egg upon the river. “Don’t go too far,” he said. The boy nodded solemnly. “An’ don’t go into the water. You’re like to be carried away.”

“I won’t! Ser.”

“And don’t worry none if you don’t catch anything.”

Egg wrinkled his nose. “I’m a good fisherman, ser,” he said, and then was off. Lyonel, humming, watched him go, then laughed once, loudly, ha!

“Well,” he said, and limped up to clap a hand upon Dunk’s shoulder. Dunk, freezing, looked at it. The way the rain made Lyonel’s skin glisten. The thick dark hairs on his knuckles, at the turn of his wrist where his sleeve had ridden up. The hand was slowly drawn back. “Shall I see you tonight?” he asked, and Dunk swallowed. At supper, he thought, of course, at supper. Lyonel’s eyes were dark. In the light, in the morning, the sun made them gleam like amber; with rain sleeking his curls and his head tilted up they looked like holes straight back to his skull. The black eye of the Trial had long since faded; Lyonel still used the crutch, but less and less as the days went on. There’d been no lasting damage, thank the Seven.

“Tonight,” Dunk agreed. His heart was thick in his throat as Lyonel, smiling, patted his cheek.

Supper, of course, they took with the rest of the caravan: fish from the Wendwater, Egg’s own catch, conies and pheasants and mushrooms. All of it, put into stew, would feed an army of men for a day; they, some thirty-odd people, ate well, and Dunk was offered a second bowl, then a third, by Lyonel himself. His eyes glittered as he insisted. His smiling mouth, his neat beard, the threads of silver through it, through his hair, what it might be to kiss him, to kiss a man, Dunk had never kissed anyone, let alone a man. For three days he’d dreamed of it, kissing and touching, and woken already spent. Sure that Egg must think him mad, for how often he was washing his smalls.

There were no kisses to be had for supper, though, and after Lyonel clapped his shoulder, then went to gladhand his men. Dunk thought it must be done, then. ‘Twas only the meal after all.

In their little camp, far enough from the rest that the only sounds heard were the river, Egg said, “Ser, I’m glad you’re here with me.” Dunk tucked him ‘neath his bedroll and rubbed his bald head.

“Aye,” he said, “me, too.”

There were still things that wanted doing: the horses watered and brushed, the mending done, the washing. Some could wait for the morrow, but not all. Dunk, alone, took Thunder and Chestnut down to the banks of the river. The rain had stopped, an hour past, and the night sky peeked through the trees. He, looking up at the diamond light all studded through velvet, heard Lyonel’s approach before he saw it.

“Fucking trees,” said the man, “can’t see my own cunting feet. Where…ah.” He was holding a lantern, the clever Myrish sort, with glass panes instead of holed iron. When he saw Dunk he stopped and stared. The horses paid neither of them mind, but Dunk could not look away.

“I told myself,” said Lyonel, “you must give him time. He is grieving, he has been through all seven hells. He doesn’t need you panting after him like a dog.”

“What?” Dunk said. Lyonel took a step closer, and then another. He was limping, but he’d not his crutch beneath his arm. He’ll regret that come morning.

“Yet I thought, surely it has been enough. Four weeks on the road will cure a man of many ills of the heart. Tonight, then. What better time to ask? And imagine my disappointment when you did not come to me. That I find you out here, in the dark, doing…”

He trailed off, brows furrowed. Dunk, stupidly, said, “Watering the horses.” Lyonel came closer, closer still. He was close enough, then, for Dunk to hear him breathing, a bit too quick, and to see the way the lanternlight turned his eyes to fire. He was only wearing his nightclothes, Dunk saw. A linen shirt, down to his knees, and stockings and boots. Not even a cloak. His gut twisted, shamefully hot. He thought again of kissing.

“If I have erred,” said Lyonel, “if I have misread you…”

“Misread?”

“...if you desire me only as a friend and brother, tell me now and I will go.”

“Oh,” Dunk said. His head swam. His heart pounded. Thoughtless, he reached for the light and drew Lyonel near. He came readily, let Dunk move him, touch him: a hand on his shoulder, on his neck, his face. Dunk said again, “Oh,” and Lyonel echoed, mocking, “Oh.” He was smiling sharp as the waxing moon above them as Dunk leaned down to kiss it off him.

It was good, the kissing: wet, soft, hot. Lyonel’s whiskers tickled, but enjoyably so, and his mouth tasted faintly of stew and more strongly of mint, which he chewed in the evenings before he slept. Dunk let him do as he wished, to suck at his tongue, to lick at his lips, to put a hand back into his hair and tilt him gently. They swayed together, near-stumbled — Lyonel, chuckling, pushed him against a tree. Took Dunk’s hand in his, then drew it back, back. Rucking up the hem of his shirt, Mother help him, he was bare underneath. Dunk’s skin was afire, prickling along his thighs, his groin. He could feel the firm press of Lyonel’s manhood against him, the curve of his arse in Dunk’s hand.

“I have wanted this for bloody weeks,” Lyonel said. “When we get to Storm’s End I will have you properly, but for now I—” Then cut off, a yelp bleating out of him. Dunk had never heard a man make such a noise, more like to a startled dog than anything else.

Heat whuffed over the back of his hand; a prickle of fur, and then a casual nibble. In the dark he’d not seen the horses edging closer; Chestnut licked his fingers and Lyonel swatted blindly behind him.

“Chestnut,” Dunk said, reddening. “Away with you! Did the Mother give you no manners? You can’t sniff a man’s arse like that!”

“The fucking horses,” Lyonel was saying, peppered with so much swearing that Dunk thought, fleetingly, that he was glad Egg were asleep. Then Lyonel grabbed his arm and yanked.

“Where are we going?” Dunk asked. His head still swam with heat, with kisses, with the feel of Lyonel against him. The man himself said, “Away from your ill-mannered miscreants.”

“They’re good horses, Lyonel.”

For a moment Lyonel paused. Dunk squeezed the hand in his, just lightly, and in the moonlight dripping through the branches he saw: Lyonel’s smile, mirthful, and the lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes, and the way his whole face softened when he turned and looked at Dunk.

“Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Yes, they are at that.”