276 AC arrived the same way most things did on the road, quietly, without announcement, one day becoming the next until enough of them had passed that you looked back and realized time had moved.
Alex was eight now.
The morning routine had not changed.
Up before Mikal.
Cold water on his face from whatever bucket or stream was nearest.
Running first, then sword work once his father was up and the light was good enough.
He was not good.
That was the honest assessment and he’d made peace with it.
Mikal told him plainly enough, not cruelly, just plainly, the way he did everything, that his footwork was still inconsistent and his right shoulder still dropped before a swing and his combinations were slow in a way that a patient opponent would eventually use against him.
“Again,” Mikal said one morning, after Alex had gone through the same combination for the sixth time and telegraphed it the same way six times in a row.
Alex reset his feet and went again.
“Shoulder.” He knew.
He’d known while he was doing it.
Knowing and fixing were apparently different problems.
“It keeps happening when I’m tired.” “Which is exactly when it matters most.” Mikal lowered his own practice sword.
“A man who fights perfectly when he’s fresh is useless.
You fight well when you’re tired or you don’t fight well.” Alex nodded and went again.
What he had, and what Mikal occasionally acknowledged with a sort of puzzled respect, was that he kept showing up.
Same time, same effort, no visible frustration when the same correction came back for the fourth week running.
Mikal had trained boys before and he’d mentioned once, almost to himself, that most of them were gone within two months.
Alex was not gone.
He wasn’t exceptional either.
He knew that clearly.
If a Kingsguard knight had watched him train he’d have been politely dismissed within the week.
He was passable in the way that consistent effort without natural talent produced passable.
That was what it was.
It was enough to keep going.
They’d attended two tourneys since Ivy Hall.
The first was a small affair outside a minor lord’s keep, thirty knights, modest prize money, the kind where everyone knew the result before it started.
The lord’s household knight won the joust.
His cousin won the melee.
Alex had placed a bet without telling his father.
Three coppers on the household knight at short but reliable odds.
He came back with nine and said nothing about it.
The second tourney was larger.
A proper regional event near Goldengrove, three days of competition.
Alex watched arrivals for two days before he went to Mikal in the evening.
“The knight with the grey palfrey,” Alex said.
“The one who came in yesterday morning.” Mikal looked up from his tack.
“Ser Aldric something.
From the Arbor.” “He’s been here before.
You can tell by how he set up camp, he knew where the good ground was without looking around first.” Alex paused.
“I think he places well in the joust.” Mikal was quiet for a moment.
“You’ve been watching the arrivals.” “Yes.” “Since when?” “Since the first tourney.” His father looked at him steadily.
Then he looked back at his tack.
“How much are you thinking.” “Whatever you’re comfortable losing.” Mikal put down the leather and looked at him again, this time with the expression Alex could never quite name.
“You’ve done this before.” It wasn’t a question.
Alex held his gaze.
“Once.” “And?” “Three coppers became nine.” Mikal was silent long enough that Alex started thinking about how to defend the decision.
Then his father picked up the tack again.
“I’ll put in a quarter silver.
On Ser Aldric.” He came back the next evening with enough coin to cover their lodging for six weeks.
He said nothing about it afterward except one short nod, like he was confirming something he’d already decided.
The three months near Oldtown had been something else.
Mikal had picked up steady escort work for a wool merchant running trips between their village and the city’s outer markets.
Dull work, reliable pay.
Alex had used the time differently.
He’d met Perrin at the village well.
Fourteen, apprenticed to an old retired maester who lived quietly outside the city with crates of books he’d never finished unpacking.
Perrin dropped something.
Alex picked it up.
A book.
Small, battered, soft from handling.
Alex had looked at it for a moment.
“Can you read this?” Perrin had taken it back with the slightly defensive air of someone who’d been asked an obvious question.
“Yes.” “Properly?
Not just words, actually read it.” “That’s what reading is.” Alex had looked at him.
“I want to learn.” Perrin had blinked.
“You don’t know how?” “Not well enough.” “How old are you?” “Eight.” Perrin seemed to consider whether this was his problem.
“I’m an apprentice.
I don’t have time to teach children their letters.” “I’m not asking you to teach me letters.
I already know some.” Alex paused.
“I’m asking you to help me get good enough to teach myself the rest.” Perrin had looked at him with the expression of someone who’d expected a simpler conversation.
“Why?” “Because books have things in them I want to know.” That, apparently, was the right answer for a maester’s apprentice.
Perrin had agreed, mostly in exchange for help carrying things for the old maester, who couldn’t manage heavy crates anymore.
The learning was slow.
Perrin wrote letters on a rough board with chalk.
Alex copied them until his hand remembered the shapes without needing reminders.
Then short words.
Then sentences.
“You’re doing it wrong again,” Perrin said one afternoon, watching Alex work through a passage in one of the maester’s simpler texts.
“Which part.” “You’re reading each word separately.
Like you’re counting them.” He leaned over and pointed.
“Read the whole line at once.
Let it land.” “I can’t yet.” “You can.
You’re just not trying to.” Alex tried.
It was better, actually.
Not fast, but smoother.
“How long did it take you?” Perrin shrugged.
“I grew up around books.
It’s different.” “How long for most people?” “Most people don’t learn at all.” Alex said nothing to that and kept reading.
By the end of the third month he could get through simple things slowly.
Posted notices, short letters, the easier passages in thin books.
He bought two story books from a market stall before they left the kind written for young readers with coin saved from small jobs.
He read them badly and kept going.
It was enough of a start to keep building from.