297 AC
The journey to the Dreadfort took longer than usual, a lot longer.
One of their carts broke an axle, and they had to send riders up and down the White Knife looking for a carpenter who could fix it. His Ser was less patient than usual because they had to leave Mordaena behind in Barrowton. There was no notion of danger, not with that flayed man on their banners, but chests of gold had to be guarded. They weren't fools.
Ser's father, the lord Roose, showed more emotion than Alesander Frey had ever seen when he saw the chests. Those ghost grey eyes, so similar to Ser Domeric's, went wide, and his voice carried further than was usual in the bailey of the Dreadfort.
"Well, I see the southern play fighting was no folly after all."
"We'd be fools not to take their money, Father," his Ser said. "That King Robert is just giving it all away. I've brought you back two thousand in the last year. Here's another ten."
There was a slight smile on the lord's face. "Whatever shall I do with it all, I wonder?"
Domeric shrugged. "You're the lord, not me."
Father and son's eyes met. "Aye, that's so. I had thought to bring you back so that the men might know their future lord. But if this is what your roaming might bring..." He trailed off.
"As I said, Father, we'd be fools not to take their money. I'm a good lance, and I mean to practice every day while Mordaena is pregnant, and when the babe is small."
"Your bastard is your own affair," Roose said dismissively. "We ought to speak of your trueborn sons."
"Then speak," Domeric said coldly. Insulting Mordaena was death for anyone else, Alesander knew.
Lord Roose smiled slightly. "The match with Sansa Stark is cut to pieces, as I'm sure you're aware. There are diverse options. Lord Manderly has a granddaughter, and Karstark a daughter, if you would have a Northern bride. But if your interests lie south..." He looked directly at Alesander, and it almost froze his blood. "Walder Frey suggested that one's sister. Does your squire please you?"
Al couldn't breathe! He...he...
"He does," Domeric answered. "I pass by the Twins often enough. Al's father and mother have a stake in the Bolton Bag trade. The match would make sense."
The pale lord's eyes glittered. "Bolton Bags. You've made our name great, my son." His tone was mocking, then grew serious. "My lady Bethany loves hers well, and I've heard tales that even Lady Stark does not disdain her own, whatever she might think of our house. Master Symond brought me my share of the profits a fortnight past. It was not ten thousand dragons, but substantial all the same. Tell me truly, does the queen carry one?"
"She does," Ser answered. "I gave her two, as a gift. A Prince of Dorne is guesting at Barrowton as we speak, for all his daughters are mad for them."
"Powerful friends you've made in the south," Roose whispered. He turned his back on them. "Do make sure to greet your mother before you depart."
***
Dornish girls were impossible! The fair one, that Tyene, was worst of all!
"Though I am a Sand, I should not object to a little Snow in me," she said to Ser, as brazen as you like.
Domeric gave her a dirty look. "Renounce your false gods, and I'll consider it."
She clutched the seven-pointed star hanging around her neck on a silver chain. "You ask too much of me, Ser!" She sounded absolutely devastated, but switched to Alesander as easily as changing horses on a long journey. "Mayhaps a ride on the river would set me right," she said wickedly.
"Don't tease the poor boy too much, Tyene, I know your blood is up from all the music," Prince Oberyn said from across the hall. He whispered something in Lady Dustin's ear that made her laugh.
Alesander had great difficulty finding his fingering on the lute after that, but Tyene left off, thank the Maiden. He never would say such in Ser's hearing, but Al needed all seven gods and the old ones too to keep his composure playing before this lot.
They dined that night on little lobsters, what Ser called "crawfish," boiled in Dornish spices. All the Dornish loved it, and the prince, and especially Lady Mordaena, who was great with child.
"Your babe will be half-Dornish if you eat any more of this spicy food!" Lady Nym teased. Nymeria Sand was a kinder sort, who never teased Al, and a great beauty in her own right. If only her sisters could be more like her.
"I don't mind," Mordaena replied happily. "In Braavos they say shellfish is good for mothers great with child. I haven't felt sick in ages, and Maester Glendon says the babe has a strong heartbeat."
Ser's lady glowed brightly, and every girl loved her. She held court with the Sand Snakes while Ser talked quietly with the Reeds, who were also visiting. He'd never seen Barrow Hall so crowded as this.
"Well?" demanded the bane of existence impatiently.
"Half a moment," Alesander replied. Ser was taking a break to eat with the guests, leaving Al all alone to play for everyone. Elia Sand didn't tease him, not exactly, not the way the older girls did, but she was troublesome in her own way.
They called Elia "Lady Lance," and the name was apt, Alesander had to admit. She sat a horse and broke a lance better than Al did himself, though he'd been squiring for Ser for over a year. Worst of all, she was a year younger than him. Every day she shamed him in the yard, riding at rings and tilting at quintains. The little spinning dummy never touched her, and she always broke her lance clean and square. Ser said Alesander was still a "work in progress," but how was he to catch up to the likes of Lady Lance?
Al was at a loss for what to play. Elia Sand's hard stare seemed to freeze him in place and empty his mind worse than Ser's creepy father.
"Do the one about the Seven Sandknights!" Domeric called.
That...that would serve. Ser's words seemed to steady him, and Alesander Frey found his fingering, strumming the first chord and centering himself. They'd practiced this one on the road, a special song Domeric wrote for their Dornish guests.
"Twas a village on the Greenblood that lacks even a name
Where seven knights of Dorne found their eternal fame
You may look in vain for gravestones, and you'll never see a one
But some time between the setting and the rising of the sun
You may hear a ghostly trumpet as the knights go riding by
You can hear the sound of hoofbeats rising in the sky~"
It was a song about a village in Dorne whose lord rode off to war and never returned. Bandits extorted the defenseless smallfolk, demanding more than they could pay, until seven hedge knights, all named Sand, stopped in the village and agreed to fight the bandits.
As Alesander worked his way through the verses, he noticed the conversations in the hall die off, one by one. Elia Sand, who looked at him like he was mud caked on her boots just this morning, looked at him with such softness that he might even call her pretty in his own mind, but never aloud. When he finished, she seemed almost a different person.
When "Lady Lance" noticed Al was looking back at her, she spat. "Hmph!" she scoffed. "Maybe you aren't so useless after all, Frey!"