"Yes my lord, I am Ezra Hagen, you really cannot argue on that."
"Well I'm afraid that I am not sure."
"How can you not be sure? Its pretty bloody obvious. You met with me last night, you greeted me and we talked and now you can't remember that?"
"Well do you have any proof, any verification?"
"AAghhh" I just yelled, how could this be his defence, trying to pretend I wasn't who I said I was. That was the Lord of Highgarden's great plan to save his daughter, from the wicked savage of the north. I would have had more respect for him if he tried to kill me. Punched me, or stabbed me, or even poisoned me, it would of showed that he had a love for his family and the will to defend it. But his great willful defence was to pretend I didn't exist. I was deeply disappointed. I had been imagining plots and counter plots and how I would thwart them all. But this was it all there was, was this fat little man telling me I didn't exist, finally I had to go fetch his mother to knock some sense into him, I left her to it. After departing his solar in a blaze of anger, I gathered my men in the a courtyard and had them elect a leader, who would lead them should I ever be absent. They chose a man called Bartholmew Grasper, average to look at apart from his oily hair and well groomed beard, a rarity on Skagos, he had some pretty immediate ideas on things, such as a guard of at least five men, at all times. I agreed with reluctance as this was a hostile castle. . I instructed them to sell what food they had lugged across the country each man keeping whatever money he made. As they moved off in groups of three and four I headed strait to the training grounds, I had to work at fighting with my left hand because my right was currently out of commission and no Skagosi will ever follow a man who cannot defend himself. Before entering the courtyard I watched Garlan the Gallant smash four men to pieces at once. It was quite the sight, him with a round shield and longsword brutally cleaving his way through his opponents, he was not particularly quick, but he was strong and very precise finding the joints in his opponents armour, or sliding in just under their shield. His shield bore two golden roses twining about each other, in acknowledgement of his place as a second son. As I slipped into the sunlight he glanced up and smiled, the delighted pure and happy smile of a child. I don't mean that he looked childish six feet of bearded muscle. I mean that there was nothing reserved or held back in his expression it was all said. "Come spar with me."
"If you promise not to brake me." I said as I tugged my spear loose with my left hand and held it leading with my left, my right loosely grasping just above the butt. There was no more said, as he came lumbering lightly towards me, blade raising above his head. I didn't wait for it to come down, I moved in fast and struck his raised sword trying to off balance him or nock his weapon away, which I probably would have if I were his size or he mine. As it was, him which probably over a hundred pounds on me, he took a step back and shrugged his blade back into place. It went downhill from there. He came at slow and steady jabbing, hacking and slashing, it was like trying to stop a giant on a rampage. Every time I found an opening his shield shot up to catch my spear point. Finally I lost patients and ducked under one of his careful measured almost lazy blows, and tried to smack him in the back of the head. He ducked under and I over balanced before I know it I was flat on my back and he held my spear in his shield hand. "Your very good, if a little impatient. You may not like to hear it but you remind me of my younger brother, Loras. His fighting style is much like yours. Fast, and rather savage but effective."
"Im nothing like him. You may not like to hear it" I said mocking his earlier wording "But your little brother is a little shit. Always trying to catch me in a mistake. To prove that I am an uncultured savage unworthy of his darling sisters hand. One day soon or in a few years I am going to snap and drive a dagger through his skull. What say you Garlan of the house Tyrell."
"That you two will always be fighting until you recognize your similarities as thoroughly as you have recognized your differences. If you gain my brothers trust he will be your loyal friend until his death. If you raise his ire he will hunt you through all of the seven hells. Choose wether you want a loyal friend or a tireless enemy."
"Every man needs an enemy, what's the fun of life without one?"
"Just be sure that you don't amass to many enemies to soon. You have many years to find more later."
"Another round?"
"My pleasure."
We trained for the rest of the morning with me being soundly beaten but getting a better feel for fighting left handed. After visiting the baths to cool off I ventured into the famous library of Highgarden. The building and shelves were beautiful. The tower that housed the library was tall and graceful reaching to the sky in the pursuit of knowledge. At least that is what the builders had been thinking. Inside the rooms were too narrow and the library rather disjointed. The best part of it was the wall facing the door on the first floor. It was a mural depicting the rise of the Gardener kings. It was done entirely in deep dark heavy wood, which at one point had been painted but had long since had the paint rubbed off by hands running along the intricate figures who looked ready to step off the wall and greet you. There was Garth the first standing in the highgarden of Highgarden looking out across his lands. This was the largest of the scenes, but around the border there were some ruder scenes most of which had Garth spreading fertility to the lands and women he met, by fertility I mean children. Whomever had carved this had not shied away from his Kings nature. Garth was famous for fucking other mens wives and claiming later that he had simply blessed them. The small folk still believe that. Up on the last three floors of said tower was where Willas Tyrell had made his offices, for what he used them for I didn't know, as he lived in the larger keep with his wife and children. Still he was there when I arrived the oldest Tyrell who had been crippled by the Red Viper, nearly two decade ago, when they were both boys. Willas had grown since then. He would be a much finer lord than his lord father, because he had steel in him but was also a generally caring man raising generation of the finest hunting beasts in the south of Westeros. I think of all the Tyrells Willas was my favourite, he had a sense of humour complicated enough to trip up even me, and was seeming kind for the sake of it, something I had never managed. He was also helping me with the courtly requirements of the south. Which is why I was here today, for courtesy lessons. "NO you can't just tilt your head to the side and move on, you have to greet a lady with grace, bow, and depending on her shrewdness and temper kiss her knuckles. Then say how positively ravishing she looks and ask where she bought the material for her dress. Complementing children never hurts either….. what are you doing?" This was Willa's latest attempt to impress on me how to greet a lady at a formal event, I had just attempted a bow which had stunned him into silence. "You bend at the waist not the knees. Here let me show you." He lurched out of his padded chair and did a remarkably graceful bow, with one hand at his back and the other conducting a confusing series of flourishes. "Skagosi do not bow at the waist, we bow at the knee."
"Why? The rest of the continent does it by the waist?" "When a Skagosi bows at the waist he is presenting the back of his neck to be executed, we bend at the knee deeper depending on inferiority." He snorted in amusement before returning to his chair, and seemed to be trying to find out how to fraise his next sentence. "If you bow like that which is really a curtsy you will be mocked in every castle south of the wall,… It will have negative affect on your abilities to be taken seriously." "That is fine, I will bring these doubters of my seriousness back to ground with a show of blood."
"A performance? a duel?"
"Ill slit someones throat and prove my seriousness."
"You Skagosi are truly mad, almost in a good way but not quite." He ran a tired hand over tired eyes and said "Come back tomorrow, I will try to think of a solution to your bowing problem, and don't slit anyones throat that will fill people with a desire to fill you full of holes."
The day after wasn't much better, I simply could not bow without losing any and all respect my men had towards me. I left riding often to try and clear my head, most of the time I would see Lady Maergary's party at one point or another, but I sill had a sense that she was angry with me for my past deception so I never approached her. Spending more and more time with Rayne trying to slip into his skin, nothing happened although if I placed my had on his coat my senses would sharpen, showing the world in a new very interesting perspective, with new colours and almost visible smells. The entire Tyrell family seemed politely indisposed to the wedding, spending all of their time distracting me from it, and trying to occupy me with training or lessons or even hatred; Loras had been coming around when Garlan was training with me and seemed to have no other purpose than to encourage me to ram a spear into his eye. Soon I would crack and I might just… do something…. involving blood and bodily harm to a certain golden rose. My return to Kings landing was fast approaching, not that the tyrells would know that, I had just over a week. Eight days to be precise to at least convince the Tyrells to formally betroth Margaery to me. I spent the remainder of the day trying to hack my way to a better solution with spear, short sword, dagger and padded fists, nothing turned up any results what so ever. Apart from sore muscles
Sorry for the late chapter I broke out the kobo and have been reading in the time I usually reserve for writing.