295 AC
They crossed the great green river at the twin castles. After a bit of bargaining and a short demonstration, the lord accepted Domeric's offer to pay the toll with song.
Much to her dismay, her blood had come. Oh, how she had hoped to give Domeric a son! The promise of it had lent additional spice to their lovemaking, but alas, not all battles could end in quick victory. She told herself there would be many babes, all with her ebon hair and his eyes of sharp steel. A long campaign lay ahead, it would seem.
Much to her delight, Mordaena discovered that one of Lord Walder Frey's sons was wed to a lady of Braavos!
"My husband Symond is cunning with figures," the Lady Betharios mentioned at the banquet board. "He calculates how much each mill and village owes the lord in tax, and so on." They chattered happily in Braavosi while Domeric played for half the castle. This night, just to please her, some of the ballads were in her own language. He sang a song of sadness, of parted lovers that touched her and Betharios both. The original singer had been a man named "Hoseh Hoseh," Domeric told her.
"My Domeric is as you see him," she replied. "Singer and warrior."
"My boy Alesander has a fair voice and can strum a lute, but there's little enough he can learn at the Twins, I fear. Symond is the seventh son, and Lord Walder would not spare the coin for a music master," she complained.
Now that she mentioned it, this hall was terribly crowded. Finding one's place while piled atop one another like bricks was no easy thing. Mordaena felt compassion for this woman and resolved to put her plight before Domeric that very night.
"You know, I do need a squire, actually. There's time enough to teach him music and arms while we're on the road," he agreed easily. They held each other in the dark, and tried again. It was always easier to sleep afterwards, she found.
The next morning, obtaining the old lord's consent was as easy as asking, and their party added a dark-haired boy. His mother, the Lady Betharios, was as dark as she was, and his father, Symond Frey, was dark as Westerosi went, with coal-black hair and broad shoulders. Domeric thought that a good sign for the boy's potential.
***
"No, no, you're just playing through the song by rote," Domeric chastised his new squire. They were following the Green Fork right now to avoid a swampy area at the headwaters of the Blue. The Dreadfort men accompanying Domeric were setting up camp while Domeric conducted a music class in the open air.
"I'm trying, Ser!" the boy declared in frustration.
Dom sighed. "You can play, but you don't understand what you're playing. It leads to small mistakes. It looks like we'll have to start with the fundamentals." He picked a single note on his wood harp. "That's do. Repeat after me: do, a deer, a female deer~"
Mordaena loved that song!
When they were done, her man continued his lecture. "That's the basic Valyrian scale. We'll practice it till it's instinctive. After that, it'll be interval training, then chord progressions, and you're going to have to learn to sing from your diaphragm."
"Dia-what?"
Domeric laughed. "It looks like we've got our work cut out for us, and I'm not just charged with making you a singer, but a knight as well. After this, we're training with wooden swords."
Alesander Frey groaned.
***
"Stranger's cock, what arms are those?" slurred a drunken guardsman as they crossed the wooden bridge over the Blue Fork. Fairmarket was a cluster of stone and timber buildings situated on the high ground beyond. The streets were cobbled, crowded, and mostly clean, with only the faintest whiff of horse shit coming off the water. In the distance she could see a frog banner flying from a rounded stone tower.
More than a few of the locals gave them strange looks as their column of horses strode into town, Bolton banner flying. Dom sent big-nosed Jack off to find a likely spot to set up their pink pavilion. Mordaena loved the color pink, the color of her lover's skin, as well as his banner and cloak. Idly, she wondered what color their children would be. Mayhaps some of both? That would please her best.
"I've been to Fairmarket before," young Alesander said. He was also learning to care for horses and armor, a critical knightly skill. Seeing how patient Domeric was with him made her want children all the more. He'd be a good father, truly.
"Oh? What can you tell me about the place?" Domeric asked. He dismounted from his palfrey and helped her do the same.
"My father has had me going over accounts since I learned my sums, Ser. The Twins ship a lot of their produce down the green fork, but some of it is carted here. You can find cheap grain, salt beef, salt pork, and metal. That's metal from the Iron Islands, not just iron, but tin, copper, lead, and other base metals, gets offloaded at Seaguard and carted over Hag's Mire on treacherous roads, ending up here. See all that smoke? There are half a hundred smithies and forges in these parts. It's all here, and cheaper than you can find elsewhere. Wine is dearer, but there's plenty of local brewers if you have a taste for ale. Ah, and they grow flax a bit further down the river, so there's some linen weaving. It's not good sheep country, though."
"That's damn impressive, Alesander," Dom praised the boy. He reached into the purse hanging from his saddle. "Here's a silver stag; go buy yourself something nice. I like a clever boy. Tonight, you're going to learn how to help me into my armor. I'm off to have a word with Lord Vyperen, or whoever is in charge. It seems we've arrived in plenty of time. The carpenters are still building the stands."
***
"The blunt axe, Al." Domeric held out his hand and mounted his largest horse, the chestnut destrier. It would serve for the melee, while he was saving his courser for the tils. His steel was plain and grey, but made to his measure. Over it he wore a pink surcoat with a flayed man embroidered all in red.
"Here, Ser."
"Good lad." He turned towards her, and Mordaena's heart raced. Being clad in steel and girded for battle made him look so terribly handsome she could hardly stand it. "Your favor, my lady?" he asked gently.
Her hands trembled as she tied some purple silk of Braavos onto his arm. This was the tradition of the Seven Kingdoms she liked the most. Every blow he struck would be in her name!
"You may watch the melee from the stands with Mordaena, Jack, and the boys." He tapped his heavy, iron-banded shield with the battle axe in salute. "Wish me luck!"
The poor boy peeked at her and instantly went red, hardly able to look directly. Honestly! Her gown was not so revealing as all that. Yes, it clung to her body and revealed the top of her bosom, but such was the fashion in her home. One would think his Braavosi mother would not have borne such a shy lad, but that was Westeros for you, queerly reserved about such things. It made him fun to tease. Just as he was edging away to sit with Domeric's soldiers, she took Alesander Frey in hand and made him sit by her.
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"My lady," he squeaked.
"You know your mother's tongue?" she asked.
"Aye," the squire answered in Braavosi.
"Excellent, we shall converse in privacy. Domeric wants you to watch him and take note of how he fights."
It proved a pleasant show indeed. Domeric had been practicing with his destrier, and it seemed the beast was catching on, carrying Domeric where he would go with only the slightest shift of hips. There was a score or more of knights and squires in the muddy field below. They had diverse sigils, including the twin towers of Frey, which she now recognized well. There were some others: horses, bats, and eagles, and a few who bore no arms at all. All were mounted and had at least a ringmail hauberk, and carried blunted weapons in their hands.
At the blast of a horn of brass, the men spurred on the mounts and joined battle.
"Now see here, Alesander, note how your master moves." They'd had a conversation in their bedroll last night, where her man explained the lessons he would have his squire learn this day. "Position is everything. Domeric moves where he might strike the foe, and moves away before he can be struck. Every man has a ring around them, an invisible ring of danger. You must dip your toe in that ring and dip out."
Her love was matching his action to her words, mastering his horse to dance in and out of range. He baited men into chasing him, weaving from foe to foe. They looked very much like dogs fighting, seeking to take a bite of unprotected haunches. Domeric's blunt axe bit harder. He ran a knight of bats a merry chase and right into his axe.
"There's another lesson for you, Alesander: hit them as they come. Their speed will add to their hurts."
Domeric rained down blows that shivered the shield of the knight of bats and dashed him from his horse with an overhead slash that rang upon his greathelm. Other men about them had their combats, and Domeric wisely stayed out of it, prudently picking foes alone. A knight of the horse proved more tenacious, furiously swinging his sword.
"Mark that. Sometimes blows can't be avoided entirely. See how Ser Domeric leans in his saddle? Moving away just as the blow lands? It spends the force and stings much less. Even when he's taking hits, it doesn't pain him half so much. Let not the ring of steel on steel deceive you."
Alesander had at last forgotten his shyness, listening to the lesson intently and cheering on his master with all his little lungs could manage. The Dreadfort men proved more reserved, but Mordaena could tell they were impressed. These men of the cold, wide North were not free with their emotions, but they felt them all the same. All men had hot blood in them, whatever they might say.
"You don't look like a lady of the North," a man said roughly in her ear. His breath stank of sour wine.
"I am from Braavos, Ser," she answered primly. He had a red beard, and there was a fish badge upon his doublet.
That seemed to confuse him. Was her accent not obvious? "I had not heard of Ser Domeric wedding a lady of Braavos. 'Tis passing strange, for all of Fairmarket has been talking of the Northern knight and his dark lady. Who are you?"
There was a terrible scream of man and horse as Domeric felled them both together. The field was already beginning to thin, she noticed. It saved her from having to answer this annoying man.
"Did you not hear me?" the man demanded after she looked back to the action. "I am Ser Edmure Tully, heir to Riverrun. I say again, who are you?"
"Ser? You mean you are a knight?"
"Aye."
"I had been told knights were warriors. Why do you not fight below?"
Her question seemed to shame him. "A melee is beneath the dignity of the heir to a great house. I shall enter the lists upon the morrow. I command you to answer: who are you?"
And who was he to command her? Even so, it seems he would not leave her alone so easily. Best to give him what he wanted. "I have the honor to be Mordaena Solel, of the free city of Braavos, and bound concubine to Ser Domeric Bolton," she replied. Surely he would have the sense to fear. Another man screamed like a girl as Domeric broke his arm and shoulder both.
The knight of fishes who thought himself above fighting narrowed his eyes. "Concubine? You mean whore." He drunkenly pawed at her, attempting to slip his hand inside her bodice.
Mordaena gave him a good hard slap, and he spilled the flagon of wine he'd been carrying all over the jumping fish, dyeing his doublet as purple as her dress, much to the laughter of all seated about them. It was fortunate for him that her love was occupied; otherwise this lout would already feed the crows.
The man looked positively outraged, but he couldn't fail to notice that big-nosed Jack and the others, even brave little Alesander, all had hands resting on their swords. This Edward, or whatever, stormed off and she thought little more of it.
Once the melee was reduced to three men, it became more hunt than battle, as Domeric pursued the last knights and cast them down. She clapped politely once he triumphed, as Mordaena always knew he would. These knights of the rivers were no match.
***
The next day, she was thrilled to see the knight of fishes astride a horse with a lance in his hand. He had the misfortune to enter the lists with Domeric on the other side of the field. This time, Alesander was down there as well, standing ready to hand his master fresh lances.
The trumpets blew, and both men charged. Domeric had promised to strike this one particularly hard after he had the story from her, and as always, he kept his promise.
Thunder seemed to shake the ground itself as her love drove the point of lance into the fish shield. The fish knight could not withstand it, and for half a moment he resembled a true fish leaping out of the water, flopping as he was flung off his saddle before landing violently, so violently in fact, that Mordaena saw his head bounce off the ground twice and then grow still.
Edward of the fishes did not rise, and some men had to carry him back to the lord's tower. They heard the next day, when Domeric was receiving his winnings, that he perished in the night. Domeric gave her a crown of beauty, but Mordaena Solel would sooner have had Ser Edmure Tully's scalp.