Bonus Chapter
….
Robert leaned forward for a better look the moment he saw what sat inside the box.
The sword lay against red silk, its guard set with an emerald the size of a walnut.
The blade ran long and sharp, threaded with a faint blue light that seemed to flow from the guard all the way to the tip, giving the whole length of steel a quiet, shifting glow, something that looked equal parts strange and noble.
Every man in that hall, Robert included, couldn’t help but stare.
No one needed to lay hands on it to know they were looking at a blade worth talking about for years.
“This is…?”
Robert had been a fighting man himself once, and he knew good steel when he saw it.
He came down off the Iron Throne without thinking twice, already asking before his feet hit the floor.
“Azuresong, they call it,” Erwin said, that same easy confidence never leaving his face.
Barristan stepped in front of him on pure instinct, duty overriding everything else.
“Your Grace…”
Robert brushed past him without a glance, crossed the floor, and lifted the sword himself, running a hand along the flat of it.
“Fine blade.
A damned fine blade.
Valyrian steel, is it?”
Erwin shook his head, smiling.
“No, Your Grace.
Not Valyrian steel.
But sharp enough to cut through an ordinary sword all the same.”
“Is that so.” Robert’s grin widened, and he looked toward a nearby guard.
“Your sword.
Give it here.”
The man hurried forward and drew his blade.
Robert brought Azuresong down across it in one clean stroke.
Steel rang against steel, and the guard’s sword fell to the floor in two pieces.
Robert turned Azuresong over in his hands, checking the edge.
Not a mark on it, the faint glow still running along the blade same as before.
“Ha!
There’s a blade worth having!”
Erwin caught the moment while Robert’s mood still ran high.
“There’s a saying where I come from.
A fine sword belongs with a hero.
Hearing what I have of your own valor, Your Grace, I couldn’t think of a man more deserving of it.”
“Well said.
Well said indeed.”
A blade that cut through steel like that was more than enough to win Robert over on its own.
“There’s more,” Erwin said, and had the second, shorter box opened.
Robert’s eyes lit up again at the sight of it.
A shortsword lay inside, its guard set with a ruby bright enough to match the emerald before it, no less noble for its smaller size.
“This one’s called the Wellspring Blade.
Meant to speak to life without end.
I intend it as a name day gift for Prince Joffrey, and with it, my wish that House Baratheon rule the Seven Kingdoms long after every man in this hall is dust.”
“Good!
Good, good!” Robert could hardly contain himself, clapping Erwin on the shoulder like an old friend.
“You’ve pleased me well today.
Stay at the Keep once court’s finished.
I mean to throw you a proper feast, and welcome you to Westeros the right way.”
“The honor is entirely mine.” Erwin bowed again, letting his excitement show plainly.
Then he went on.
“There is one more gift, Your Grace…”
“Another?” Robert, already two gifts richer, followed Erwin’s gesture toward the heavy chest waiting behind him.
At Erwin’s signal, one of his men lifted the lid.
A ripple of surprise passed through the hall.
The chest sat packed full of gold coin.
Robert went still for a moment himself before crossing over and picking one up.
He’d already seen this make of coin, the same kind Jon had shown him the day before.
Word had already reached him that Erwin had gone back to the mint just yesterday and exchanged three thousand more of these.
By weight and purity, that came to something near four and a half thousand dragons.
“This is…?”
“Four thousand coin of the Holy Empire in this chest, Your Grace.
Four more chests wait outside, twenty thousand coin in all.
I wish to place the whole of it in your hands.”
Murmurs ran through the hall at that.
Robert spent freely enough himself, handing out purses of gold to tourney champions without thinking twice.
But no man had ever walked in and handed him this much coin without being asked.
No one showed that kind of generosity for nothing.
Robert’s smile thinned.
“What is it you want from me?”
Erwin let his expression turn earnest.
“As everyone knows, I’m only a second son, and in my younger years, I spent my days dreaming of becoming some great adventurer, the kind the songs sing about.
It wasn’t until I actually led a fleet across an ocean that I learned how little those songs tell you.”
“Everything since has taught me what my father tried to tell me long before I’d listen.
That a man builds something real with his feet on solid ground, not chasing dreams from one horizon to the next.
I’ve set those dreams aside.
I want to build something here, even if for now, my house is nothing more than myself.”
More than a few heads nodded along with that, though a scattered laugh or two broke the mood at poorly chosen moments.
Erwin pressed on.
“So I ask to remain in Westeros, and I ask Your Grace to accept my service and grant me your recognition.
I’d also ask that you knight me yourself.
The knighthood I hold was granted back home, and carries no weight under the laws of the Seven Kingdoms.”
Robert fell quiet for a moment at that, glancing up the steps at his Hand, the man who’d raised him.
Jon gave the smallest nod back.
Robert smiled and set the tip of Azuresong lightly against Erwin’s shoulder.
“Kneel, then, ser.”
…
Full refund, no questions asked.