Vaulting down the stairs Angstrom's gut started to rumble. He hadn't eaten anything since last night, a bowl of brown with Nestor when they were on patrol, and the smells wafting through the barracks were intoxicating. He wondered if it was some kind of special occasion. It had to be for the cooks to bring the fancy foods out of the larder. While he was tempted to sprint straight into the Great Hall he saw that the evening's duty roster had been posted and stopped to check his orders. Angstrom Pyke: Pisswater Bend to Pigrun Alley. "Oh Lovely. Flea Bottom. Again." He said to no one in particular. Sighing, he turned and headed into the Great Hall.
In truth the Great Hall was not all that great. A man could stride from one end to the other in thirty paces and there were no hearths in the hall, just a single fire pit in the middle of the room. There wasn't even a dais for the officers to sit on. Thankfully this kept the more pompous officers away at the Dragon's Gate barracks, a much larger structure that had been constructed when the Targaryen dragons still dwelt in the massive Dragon Pit. Some years after all the dragons had died the Targaryen's decided it made no sense to house the entirety of the watch in a single place, so they had the Cobbler's Square barracks constructed to house a quarter of the Watch. This way the Gold Cloaks had less ground to cover should a problem arise in the western half of the city.
Tonight the Great Hall was filled to bursting. The four trestle tables, arranged in a square around the roaring fire pit, were packed with his brothers, laughing and drinking. Ang was worried about finding a seat when he heard a familiar voice call out. "Over here Angstrom you twice damned whoreson!" Waving him over was Ser Jacelyn Bywater, the knight's iron hand gesturing Ang to a table. Ser Jacelyn was a tall man with a jaw like an anvil and black hair peppered with grey. The old knight had been the man who had drilled Ang when he was a new recruit, a day he still remembered with a smile.
There he'd been, standing in a line with the other fresh Gold Cloaks as Ser Jacelyn surveyed them. Slowly he'd paced up and down, up and down, until finally he stopped right in front of Ang and gave him a hard look from head to toe. Given how no one ever really noticed him this had given Ang a considerable shock. "You! Boy! What's your name?" Their faces just inches apart. "Ang. Er, Angstrom Ser. Angstrom Pyke." The knight's eyes narrowed at that. "Pyke is it? You some Greyjoy bastard? Is that it!?" Ang looked down at his feet, then back up, trying to keep from slouching. "Er no, ser. My father was a Harlaw. Or, well, maybe a Botley. No one's really sure. It's actually sort of a funny story, you see my mother…" Something smashed him in the jaw so hard that he stumbled. He could taste blood in his mouth. "Funny? You vicious sons of whores don't know the first damn thing about funny. You think this is funny do you!?" Ser Jacelyn shoved his iron fist into Angstrom's face, the replacement for the one he lost during the Siege of Pyke where he'd earned his knighthood. Ser Jacelyn went to strike him again and he flinched.
"Oh seven hells." The knight said before looking to the sky and offering up his arms. "Why Father? What have I done to be given so harsh a judgment? A whole kingdom full of ruthless killers and you see fit to send me the one Ironborn that's a bumbling coward!?"Angstrom spit the blood out of his mouth and straightened his back, trying his best to seem taller than he truly was. "I'm not a coward!" Ser Jacelyn pressed back in on him. "What was that?" The old knight asked. Ang leaned close and into Ser Jacelyn's ear whispered "I said, I'm not a coward." The man stepped back, looked up and down the line, and then whipped his iron hand around at Angstrom's face once more. This time he didn't flinch. "We'll see." But this time there was a smile in Ser Jacelyn's eyes.
As he sat down at the table he exchanged pleasantries with Ronnel, Bryce, and Albie but what truly had his attention was the mass of food in front of him. Venison stew with onions and carrots, a grilled trout stuffed with olives, mushroom soup mixed with cream, fresh bread with raisins baked in, and all the ale a man could ask for. "Where in the seven hells did all this come from?" Ang asked shoveling stew and bread into his mouth. "Well, here's how it is," Albie said leaning in, "the Lord Hand gave us coin to hire fifty new Watchmen right? So that's what we did. Only someone had them ousted just a few days after, used the Hand's own men to keep the peace instead." Albie was a brown haired man a few years older than Ang with a pockmarked face. He took a quaff of ale and continued. "Someone let slip to Bryce what was what, that a whole fortnights worth of wages for fifty men was getting moved from the Red Keep to the Dragon's Gate barracks. Soooooo…well you can figure it out."
Angstrom lowered the bowl he was gulping soup out of and pondered it a moment, then shook his head. "Oh come on Ang, really?" Bryce asked rolling his eyes. He was Ser Jacelyn's age, brown of eye with blond hair cropped close to his scalp. "We nicked it Ang! Albie and me!" Ronnel said nudging him in the ribs with his elbow. The boy was younger than he but taller, with red hair and freckles. "You lot stole from the Watch?" Ang asked incredulously. "No boy. We stole from Slynt." It was the first time Ser Jacelyn had looked up from his mug of ale, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. The five men howled with laughter, pounding their mugs on the table.
"Ah yes, our brave Commander Janos Slynt. I'm beginning to fear he doesn't like me." Ang said as their laughter finally died. "The only men Slynt likes, besides himself, are lickspittles, cowards, and our brothers whose wages he collects. Why in seven hells would he like you?" There was venom in Ser Jacelyn's voice Ang rarely heard. The knight took the Watch seriously, as it was meant to be taken, and he hated Slynt with a passion. "I saw where you're patrolling tonight, who you're with. You be careful. Not going to be enough men down in Flea Bottom tonight. Slynt want's the Lords up on the Street of Silk feeling safe. You'll have to deal with all the freeriders and hedge knights here for the Hand's Tourney, and Nestor is Slynt's creature make no mistake."
"I'll be careful, don't worry." And with that Angstrom left his friends, gathered his spear and a helm, and started the walk to Flea Bottom.
