THE WOODCUTTER'S MAN
It had been years since he had taken such a load on his back gladly. Even in the autumn of his life, such work was a wonder for his body, his joints would feel loose and supple and the work would make ale taste all the better. But that was a different season and another king.
In the snow he dragged the misshapen logs behind him every third step, keeping the sticks on his back level lest they raise all hell for him later. His thoughts turned to his little shack near the woodcutter's cottage, by the gods it was drafty but it kept the snow off a man's back. In his youth he once told his mother he would be a septon, but she knew, she must have known what his fate would truly hold. She did not smile.
But the gods had been good to him, his heart and mind and back were strong, even late into the winter of his years, far longer than a man could expect. In the path before him he caught sight of a tree with blood on the bark and recalled days when he would have been happy deer were about. But though now they did little more than get into what plants still grew for him, he still took pity on whatever animal would scratch itself against a tree until blood ran down the trunk.
As he neared, the blood became clearer. It was a handprint, a clear one at that. Had a man staggered away from some silent battle, some melee the singers would never tell? He often thought nine in ten parts of history were unknown. But he shook his head and thought better of it, deciding a man must have killed a wounded deer with a knife and bloodied the tree as he carried the body away.
What he saw in a small clearing was no deer. Six armed and armored men lie on the snow, more collecting atop their steel carapaces with the passing hour, the ground about them running red.
"Kill me…" a man choked. The elder set his load against a tree and knealt down beside the wounded man.
"Are you the last alive?" He asked, unsure of what to do.
"We killed him… got his arse seven times, he was bleeding, I tell you…" The man choked again and struggled to raise his arm. "If he's not dead, he's mad, but he's dead, I know it."
"I don't think I can move you. I'm sorry."
"Are you off- Duskendale… logs?"
"I'm going to Duskendale, yes. The woodcutter says the merchant expects me."
"Find Leek… If I live, I'll tell him… who sent me. Varys would make him … a rich man… a very powerful… to hear about it." At once the old man set off with his load again, and for an hour or so, felt lighter, swifter… but his age once more was reminded to him by the ache of his knees. All the same, his pace was well measured.
Hours passed and Duskendale came into view. His earliest memories were of the days his greatfather would see him, taking him on a knee and recalling to him the Sack of Duskendale, Criston Cole, and the still greater troubles that would follow. But all his life as a youth he had never seen the city, not once.
He approached the Dun Fort, passing a man on a donkey and the knights at the gate. They had little and less interest in an elderly soul dragging a woodcutter's goods into town, and their lack of attention paid him showed the old man just that. Leaving his wood behind the Seven Swords, where he could retrieve it later, he nearly passed Leek in the street, surrounded as he was by a small procession of knights. He kept pace with them, tired and feeling useless, until at last the man stopped in the center of town with an address.
"My men have brought me word of a matter of great interest." It was of no great interest to the townfolk, milling about as before. "There is talk of insurrection against our Lord of great justice, Randyll Tarly. Be it known to all men that Rufus Leek will not condone a second Defiance of Duskendale."He paused for effect, and a drunk could be heard laughing. "No fewer than two nights ago, our men at arms discovered what remained of a battle between what a survivor identified as our knights- and Queen's men." The crowd stared at the speaker, somewhat more interested.
He knew little of what had truly happened, but word had passed through the city on the occasion he visited that there had been news of the queen, and the news was quickly passed around.
"They were dishonorable men in the sight of our just lord- they bore three poisoned weapons between them." Any man loyal to Tarly ceased his activity and listened. "There was but one man of ours to live- the rest were chased through the wood and killed, without a trace of the bodies." At this, the woodcutter's man found doubt- one man- he could not have been the same man- unless Leek invented this one- or, possibly, there was another-
"No bodies?!" a man shouted from the crowd, interrupting his thoughts.
"The snow has fallen heavily, and it is like that the bodies have been buried beneath." The castellan answered, showing perhaps undue patience. "The Dun Fort asks for aught of worthwhile note to be brought at once."
"There was a second survivor!" The aged man raised, at last having his chance. Leek brought him forward immediately, and he moved in close to tell the castellan quietly.
"There was a man who lives yet- I passed him in the wood. He will confirm that it was the queen who sent him, should you send a maester for him." he confided. Thinking on it, it was not as well that the Duskendale knights had already identified the queen's men by their armor, but Leek may yet want one of them to tell it for true.
"The maester tends another man. I shall send a septon, and my morose tidings." Leek answered in an officious manner. It was odd for an unlettered man, but that was hardly a matter of great concern.
"What other man? How long does the maester of the Dun Fort take?" The crowd dispelled, interest lost. Leek turned, addressing the old man.
"As Castellan, I have done what I can about the matter. I do not concern myself with a man who would have attacked Duskendale." Attacked Duskendale- with five against the guard? "If you wish to pursue the matter, the learned man sees a local sellsword, who helped our men against the queen's wrath." A local sellsword- who? "He recovers at his room in the Seven Swords."
With Leek having promptly dismissed him, the woodsman's man found a welcome reception by the girl at the inn. He questioned it not, but due to the keeper personally instructing new hands, he guessed that the man must have lost workers recently.
"Where is the man recovering, good man?" he asked the keeper politely. Perhaps the maester tends to his wounds yet.
"He's in the same room as ever, as I'm told." He said as he pointed to the stairs." Watch yourself about him, the girl at front looked long at him." He's injured, one voice reminded him. You were young once, another admonished.
The aged hand took the stairs quietly, as though he approached some waiting beast. After all things, this man survived a battle with six armored queen's men, he thought.
"Good. Remember to move little." The maester offered as he closed the door behind himself.
"Are you able to take another man?" he asked the scholar, who smiled slightly.
"I have other work, you know." The words did not come to him that a knight's life hung in the balance, a man who could set right these wild claims about poisoned weapons and the queen's involvement and bodies that mysteriously disappeared.
He turned and looked at the room door behind him, ajar to reveal an armored man adorned with naught save a fullhelm, a steel masque to hide the face of a liar.
Catching up to the maester, words came to him quickly.
"You're going to help that man. Do you but know who this killer is? He couldn't get past the girl at the door, not for all the falsehood he's worth." The learned man did not laugh, but gave a slight smile.
"His name is Colt Tanner. He keeps to himself, and I ask little and less of men who keep to themselves. Ask aught a man here. Ever he works, silently and cautiously, all men say he hides something in that room of his."
"Why would you take the job if you know how dishonorable his life has been?" the woodcutter's man asked, face flush.
"I wanted ingress." He answered simply, walking away. "Fear not for the man in the snowy wood. The lord castellan has yet sent three men to recover him hence, if you have already been to him."
Maesters, thought he. What joke do they share between themselves?
There was naught for it, so he put aside the minds of the learned, and set about finding his pack, which was not far, Seven praised. Returning it to his back and taking up the logs once more, he found one-eyed Lorret, the man the woodcutter explained would take the logs and sticks.
"Your lot is a lucky one, elder." Lorret said when found, resting against a wall of his merchant's outpost. "With the advent winter, men in all places seek warm fires." He smiled, announcing a remark given and to be taken with a light heart. "As you age and die, you will see a little wealth at last, but perhaps not so much to afford a funeral pyre until spring."
The woodcutter's man thought little worse of Lorret, who jested oft. The man kept no score and expected none kept by other men. He was friendly, if rude, and if born to another father, he would be a fine lord in times of peace.
But the merchant's man was born to a father soon dead in the Greyjoy Rebellion, and had enjoyed little and less of peace.
Lorret helped him load the merchant's cart, taking care with the misshapen logs and keeping the faggots together atop them, binding the lot down with a length of cord, all that was necessary for a slow trip.
"You're no man to oft think, my passing acquaintance." joked the one-eyed man. "What troubles you?" he asked simply, the light heart not seen through his eyes.
"There's a man in this town all trust save I. He uses the name Colt Tanner."
"But he is not the sellsword you have never seen?"
"The girl who lives at the Seven Swords has seen him enough. He couldn't aside her suspicion in a fullhelm. Mark me, she's dead within a fortnight."
"I know naught of Colt Tanner apart from his job." he said after consideration "But should the girl know him near enough, ask her to see him out of his helmet, simply done."
"Seven save the men he killed, though, honest or no."
"But if he speaks for true, what choice had he? What man in reason duels six?" The old man knew not, and simply did not answer the question, conceding the point.
"The reason of the duel was not his, but we know nothing else about the reason. Perhaps he is a wanted man, one who flies the king's justice."
"And the Old Queen sends six men so far afield rather than a raven?" The woodsman's hired hand let the matter die. It was evident that Lorret had given it thought, and perhaps the man had right to kill the six knights, but masquerading as another man and feeding the castellan falsehood were dishonorable things, and such acts would be brought to light in a just realm.
And it was the lot of ever man with honor to make it so.
As he silently walked away from the merchant's man and the cart, he turned to hear the man call out to him.
"I see you more than thrice a moon's turn, but never do I ask who you are."
"No man names me aught. I am the woodcutter's man."
