“Are you one of Lord Butterwell’s people?”
Quentyn draped Garwyn’s own cloak over the newcomer’s shoulders.
“Y-yes, my lord…” The newcomer looked no older than fifteen or sixteen, still a raw, gangly boy, wearing nothing but a pair of linen shorts, now soaked through.
“My lord Quentyn, you’ve really come back.”
The boy looked ready to burst into tears, as though the reckless youth who had just dived headfirst into the water and clambered up onto the Blue-Eyed Maiden had been nothing more than everyone’s shared imagination.
Robb, wary, moved to shield Quentyn behind him.
“No need to rush.
Take your time.”
Quentyn crouched patiently in front of the boy.
House Qoherys held a good name among the people of its own lands.
Old Lord Aenys had turned the infamous reputation of the “Wedding Guest” Gogen entirely around: letting the land recover, cutting taxes, slowly nursing back to life a domain torn apart by war.
It had cost the family a good deal of income, but it had also turned the people’s old loathing for the Wedding Guest into genuine devotion to this young lord who had returned from across the narrow sea.
Though the other lords still harbored some resentment toward House Qoherys, it at least allowed the family to slowly recover its strength.
He had also taken in Dowager Queen Rhaena during her own time of misfortune.
During her years living at Harrenhal, Dowager Queen Rhaena’s favorite thing to do had been offering travelers passing through a hot meal and a warm room for the night.
After her death, Quentyn’s father, the refined, soft-spoken but never less than warm-hearted Lord Daeron, had carried the same fine tradition forward.
So House Qoherys’s chronic shortage of coin wasn’t without its reasons…
But it brought its own rewards too.
Take this very moment: Quentyn hadn’t even reached his own lands yet, and already the common folk were bringing him news of their own accord.
The fisherman’s boy was the first.
Through the boy’s halting, disjointed account, Quentyn automatically filtered out the obvious exaggerations, a “twelve-foot iron monster tearing their lord apart,” “thousands of enemies,” and pieced together a rough picture of the fighting as a whole.
The brigand knights operating out of Milkwood had suddenly stirred to life.
At first, Lord Brynden Butterwell hadn’t thought much of it, but by the time the head of the knight of Milkwood, and another knight’s head besides, turned up impaled on spears, with rebels pouring out of the wood in numbers no one could count, it was already too late.
Lord Brynden had only enough time to gather a few dozen men, and was, unsurprisingly, routed completely, forced to flee back to Milkstone in disarray.
Fortunately, the rebels had no siege equipment.
Milkstone itself was safe, but the pastures and villages around it had suffered badly.
After the boy left, as the sun rose, an old fisherman who had once served as a soldier brought word of something else entirely.
House Strong had marched.
Quentyn knew this family very well, and not only from the memory carried over from his past life, of the scandalous affair between Harwin Strong and Rhaenyra Targaryen, and the brown-haired princes people would come to call “the Three Strongs.”
More than that, House Strong was House Qoherys’s most powerful bannerman house.
The blood of the First Men ran in their veins, and they were not only wealthy but had inherited the same proud, stubborn streak common to Riverlands nobility everywhere.
Lord Osmund Strong, together with his eldest son Leonor Strong, had ridden out to Lord Brynden’s aid with sixteen knights, an equal number of mounted squires, and three hundred foot, only to be beaten back by the rebels in Milkwood.
Having lost men and standing both, Lord Osmund could do nothing but camp along the shore of the God’s Eye, not daring to take one more step toward that stretch of woodland shielding the northern edge of the Butterwell lands.
More importantly, the fisherman brought a reliable count: the rebels numbered fewer than three hundred, and were poorly equipped besides.
In a way, Osmund Strong had proven something of a liability.
He’d likely just handed the rebels a decent haul of equipment to make up for it.
The sun sank slowly, and the outline of the God’s Eye now lay fully in view.
“My lord Quentyn, I’d suggest heading straight for Lord Osmund’s camp.”
Garwyn offered his strategy eagerly.
“Lord Osmund still has three hundred men under him.
Even after a small setback, that’s not likely to have hurt him too badly.
With you there to take command, the common folk nearby are sure to rally to your banner at once.
All you’d need is a single word, and the rebels would break and scatter in no time.”
Break and scatter in no time?
Quentyn found the thought almost amusing.
The great merchant before him seemed to have forgotten that the rebels were flying the Faith Militant’s own banner, a banner that, a few decades ago, had meant war sweeping across the entire land south of the Neck.
Now, that same banner might well draw the combined wrath of both the Starry Sept, the Faith’s own seat of power, and the Iron Throne itself. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
But before either of those blows ever landed, the rebels had already beaten House Strong’s army once.
“The wolf pack has already sown its fear.” Quentyn rejected Garwyn’s suggestion.
“Sheep don’t turn into hounds before the hunter’s put the hungry wolves down, Garwyn.”
What Quentyn didn’t say, of course, was that if he leaned on House Strong’s army to put down the rebellion and won, House Strong could just as easily claim it was their own army that had carried Harrenhal’s heir to victory.
And if he lost, the failure would fall squarely on him as the one in command.
House Strong, relying as it did on its old standing in the Riverlands, wealthy and descended from the First Men themselves, had a long habit of paying lip service to House Qoherys while doing as it pleased behind their backs.
And his own father, Daeron, was the kind of man anyone could push around…
And if he waited until reinforcements from the Iron Throne arrived, whether it was the old king, whose ability to still fight on dragonback Quentyn genuinely doubted, or Baelon, once he’d finished venting his fury elsewhere, that too would do no favors for Quentyn’s own standing as a liege lord.
What Quentyn felt most grateful for, just now, was that his grandfather and father had both left the family with a strong reputation among the common people.
What’s more, with the peace and prosperity King Jaehaerys had brought, folk with full bellies weren’t nearly so easy to stir into rebellion, and the Faith itself had no real interest in provoking the dragon kings.
So, for now, he only had to face fewer than three hundred men, not some snowballing juggernaut.
During the Faith Militant’s own wars, the Riverlands alone had seen tens of thousands rise beneath the rainbow banner and the seven-pointed star to declare war on the Iron Throne.
At least for now, he was confident he could win this fight.
For one moment, Quentyn almost thought it a good thing that House Strong had lost.
Beating a noble army would only make the rebels grow proud, careless even, and that was exactly the opening he needed.
The moon rose, and the Blue-Eyed Maiden entered the lake waters a good two hours ahead of schedule.
A thin mist forever hung over the God’s Eye.
Flocks of black swans strung themselves together like a necklace of black pearls, circling the pale, blood-red heart of the lake.
That was the Isle of Faces, one of the very few places south of the Neck where weirwoods still grew in any real number.
It was said the mysterious green men watched over it still.
Quentyn still remembered his grandmother telling him, when he was small, that before he was even born, green men from the Isle of Faces had come asking his father for grain, and his father had granted it without hesitation.
Every year since, the Isle of Faces had sent weirwood timber in return.
The moon climbed to its highest point.
Along the shore of the God’s Eye, a banner of red, green, and blue fluttered in the wind.
House Strong’s camp was simple enough, a single tent, foot soldiers either sitting on the bare ground or resting in the shade of the trees, a few large pots bubbling away with something inside.
Camp followers sat mending clothes outside the tents.
In this age, a camp’s whores served more than a single purpose.
Most of them, in fact, doubled as cooks and washerwomen as well, and more often than not, those roles simply blurred into one another as needed.
“We can’t keep going on like this!”
Leonor Strong threw back the tent flap and slammed his longsword down on the wooden table, startling the knights inside.
“Twice!
We’ve lost to that band of brigands twice now!”
He was sixteen this year, at exactly the age when pride mattered most, and he’d already suffered two crushing defeats in a row.
The first time, they’d barely entered Milkwood before walking straight into a rebel ambush, and only managed to pull back after losing two knights and more than twenty foot soldiers.
Then came today.
Leonor had personally led an attempt to break through Milkwood, and at first, it had genuinely gone well.
His knights punched a hole clean through the rebels’ weak infantry line, and House Strong’s own foot soldiers surged in behind them, sending the enemy fleeing in a rout.
That’s how it was supposed to go, anyway.
But the moment his own infantry had driven the enemy off, discipline collapsed entirely.
Everyone scrambled at once to loot the treasure and armor the rebels had left behind, and even the knights joined in.
And after that, there was no more “then.”
This defeat was even worse than the first.
Ser Alan of Whitewillow, Ser Harton of Oldwillow, and their squires were killed on the spot.
Ser Adam of Smallwillow had an arm torn off, and died screaming not long after they got him back to camp.
Leonor had left more than forty bodies behind before he managed to pull back to safety.
“My lord Leonor, none of us wanted this either.”
The one who spoke was Ser Black Tom of Latch Hamlet, a dark birthmark covering half his face, giving him a rather fearsome look. Get faster updates on g.com.
“But the rebels know this ground better than we do.
Seven hells, what in the world did that old cow Butterwell go and do?
A trap like that takes the very best of the old hunters to pull off.”
“Or maybe it’s the brigand knights who know the ground.” Lord Osmund quietly gestured for the whore behind him to slip out the back of the tent, hitching up his own breeches as he did.
“Leonor.
Where have you been off to?”
“Scouting.” Leonor said, somewhat put out, sinking back into his seat.
He composed himself and took a long swallow from a cup on the table.
“Cough, cough.” He choked on the barley ale, coughing hard, his face flushed red.
“Father, two victories have already made the rebels careless.
I saw two or three raiding parties heading toward Cowvale and Honeypot Village.
Their camp must be nearly empty right now.
We could…”
“Enough.” Lord Osmund sighed.
“I brought three hundred lads out here with me.
I’ve got two hundred and thirty-one left now.
If we lose again, the widows back home will tear Valianthead apart brick by brick.”
“So what do we do, then?” Leonor stood up.
“Just retreat, and let everyone see House Strong can’t even handle a few hundred rebels?”
“What’s the rush, my lord Leonor?” Ser Black Tom drawled.
“The ones who ought to be in a hurry are that old cow Butterwell, and Harrenhal’s own bookworm lord and his silver princess.”
“I doubt Harrenhal could even scrape together three hundred men right now.”
Ser Merry of Merryton Vale said with a snickering laugh, casting doubt on the whole affair.
“The bookworm lord will be lucky just to keep himself and his silver princess safe.
If you ask me, my lord Osmund, all we need to do is put on a decent show here.
The Faith’s own armed men causing trouble, real or not, His Grace is bound to send help.
And besides, the silver princess is still at Harrenhal, isn’t she?
His Grace has to look after his own sister.”
“That’s right.” Ser Black Tom nodded in complete agreement.
“All we have to do is hold this ground.
His Grace will see nothing more than that we stepped in for the House Qoherys bookworm and held his bannerman’s lands for him.”
“We haven’t actually held anything yet.” Leonor’s voice dropped lower.
“And besides, what if Harrenhal does send men?”
Even as he spoke, an image of a boy rose unbidden in Leonor’s mind.
Silver hair, violet eyes, handsome enough to make grown women jealous, and clever enough to put even the Conclave’s own archmaesters to shame.
That was Leonor’s greatest rival back at the Citadel, or rather, Quentyn had never once thought of him as a rival at all.
By the time Quentyn left with thirteen forged links, setting the record for the youngest chain ever completed at the Citadel, Leonor had only just finished forging his sixth, and had returned to Valianthead thoroughly humiliated.
What greeted Leonor upon his return was nothing but laughter from the assembled knights.
Even Lord Osmund himself hadn’t been able to hold back a laugh.
Send men?
Everyone knew Lord Daeron of Harrenhal was nothing more than a soft-spoken bookworm, and Princess Valera was only a woman, after all.
As for Quentyn Qoherys, what could a thirteen-year-old boy possibly do?
The Blue-Eyed Maiden put every oarsman to work, and before the sun rose, finally reached Harrenhal’s own docks.
By then, Harrenhal itself had already fallen into chaos.
“Maester Sven, tell Quentyn, whatever he does, not to come back!”
Lord Daeron watched the castle’s maester, Sven, finish writing the last word, and only then let out a long breath.