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Chapter Sixteen

Oberyn IV

King's Landing: June 3rd, 298 AC

"Janos Slynt, I, Lord Oberyn of House Nymeros Martell, Hand of the King to His Grace King Robert, First of His Name, Head of House Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Defender of the Faith and the Lord Protector of the Realm, hereby find you guilty of multiple counts of rape, accepting bribes, coercion, theft, and various other crimes against the King's Peace. You are hereby sentenced to die. The sentence will be carried out at sunset on the morrow."

Whispers flooded the court. Slynt looked enraged, but as he had been gagged earlier due to his continuous interruptions during the proceedings, he was unable to protest the sentence. Not that it would do any good to argue, as the evidence gathered, both in the form of documents and witnesses both high and lowborn, were irrefutable.

"Ser Jacelyn Bywater, step forward!" Oberyn went on. The Captain of the Mud Guard, who had been a key part of unrooting the proof of Slynt's crimes, came forward from his place in the audience and went down on one knee. "Many of those I have spoken to have spoken of your honour, dedication to your duty and incorruptibility," Oberyn stated. "And I have seen confirmation of that during the course of this investigation. As such, I would name you as the new Captain of the City Watch. Do you accept?"

"I do, milord," Ironhand agreed immediately. "You honour me with your trust. I give you my sincerest thanks for it."

"See to it that I am proven right," Oberyn instructed him. "Your first task is to find and root out all of those who have been breaking the King's Peace and misusing their office. Arrest them and replace them. Extra funds will be given to you to fulfil this duty."

He noticed Littlefinger twitch at that, but ignored it. Littlefinger would not be a problem soon enough. Soon he'd have enough proof to confirm that the man was embezzling from the Treasury, and he would lose his irritatingly smug head when Oberyn had it cut off. Oberyn could not deny that he looked forward to no longer having to put up with the man's constant commentary. It would hopefully lessen his headaches. Oberyn pitied Jon greatly, to have had to deal with the man for nine years.

"Milord, I must warn you that the Watch is already struggling to cope with the amount of problems brought to us due to the tourney," Ser Jacelyn said bluntly. "I will not have enough men to police the city if I arrest any of the other guards."

Oberyn nodded in understanding. "I will have forty of my men join the watch temporarily," he told the guardsman. "They will aid you until such time as the tourney is over and done with, and the Watch's numbers increased."

It would cut down his personal guard by half, but given the fact that his goodbrother had sent a hundred Northrons south to protect Aly and the children whilst they were in the capital, Oberyn was unconcerned.

He was thankful to Magnar Stark for it. They would never be on good terms, but Oberyn deeply appreciated that the man did not allow his (probably justified) anger towards Oberyn to affect his care for his nieces and nephews.

"Thank you, my Lord Hand," Ser Jacelyn bowed his head before rising and leaving quickly.

Oberyn rose from the Iron Throne, hiding a grimace. Sitting on it was complete torture. Oberyn had literal bruises from it. That was one thing he understood about Robert's aversion to holding court, even if he wished that the king would spend his time doing something useful instead of drinking himself to death with various whores on his lap.

"Court is now dismissed," Oberyn announced, heading for the door as the courtiers began to disperse, still whispering amongst one another. He saw Ser Loras Tyrell glaring resentfully at him, but ignored the young Knight of Flowers completely.

Ser Loras was clearly upset over his lover being dismissed from the Small Council, but Oberyn had had no other acceptable choice. If Renly thought lying with the younger Reachman was more important than doing his duty as Master of Laws, then he could use his new free time to do so. Oberyn had given the young Lord of Dragonstone a full moon to do something about the corruption in the City Watch, yet he had done absolutely nothing, not even reprimanded Slynt. As such, Oberyn had dismissed him with Robert's agreement (well, Robert had simply grunted and told him to do what he liked, so long as Robert was not bothered by it). Oberyn had, after some thought and discussion with Aly, written to Ser Brynden Tully requesting the man take up the newly-opened position, and the man had agreed. The Blackfish would arrive within the moon.

Oberyn had also sent a final letter to Stannis, warning him that he was to send a reply with a return date within the fortnight or else he would forfeit his position as Master of Ships. Given everything, Oberyn expected him not to respond. As such, he and Aly had discussed whom would take up the position. Oberyn had seriously considered asking for one of the Skystarks, Seastarks or Starstarks, or even a Manderly, to take up with the position, hoping it might placate his wife's homeland a bit. Aly had persuaded him not to, warning that her people would more likely be indignant than honoured. Only the heads of her kin's murderers would satisfy them, and that was the one area that Robert refused to allow Oberyn free rein.

Instead, Oberyn intended to ask Lord Monford Velaryon to take up the position. The Velaryons had long served in that position, and he hoped that it might soothe the loyalists' anger over their continued ostracization in Robert's court. Oberyn had had no idea how bad the divide was until he had come north to the capital. Not a single loyalist held a position in the Red Keep, only a few could be found about the place, mostly Reachmen (even the Crownlanders avoided Robert's court), and comments degrading the loyalist families were often and freely spoken.

Oberyn failed to understand why Jon had allowed such to occur, but he knew it needed to be dealt with, especially because, in spite of what he had said to Robert on the way to King's Landing, he was concerned that Viserys Targaryen might be attempting to regain the Iron Throne. Maybe if he could ease the continuing tension between the two sides, it would discourage the former loyalists from aiding the Dragon-in-Exile.

He rubbed at his temples as he walked, thoughts of the loyalists reminding of the discrepancies he and Aly had found in the Crown's accounts. Not only were they certain that Baelish was taking money from the Treasury to fill his own coffers, though they did not yet have enough proof to arrest him for it, but it appeared that loyalist Houses were being made to pay higher taxes than rebel ones. It was unacceptable, but Oberyn was yet to decide how to deal with it. The situation was so delicate, he worried that it would be set alight if he so much as prodded at it with a finger.

Thank the Gods for his wife. He'd never have managed any of this without her to lean on.

Ser Garris Sand had the door when Oberyn returned to the Tower of the Hand. "Summon Daemon to my chambers and have my horse saddled," Oberyn ordered him, probably a bit too brusquely.

He wanted to have Aly summoned as well, to see her and feel the comfort of her embrace, but he knew that she was busy visiting some more of her old contacts in the city. He had forbidden the children from leaving the castle grounds due to the recent rise in crime from the people traipsing to the city for the tourney. But though he refused to allow his children to leave the relative safety of the keep, he had reluctantly agreed to allow Aly to continue going out, so long as she brought a minimum of four guards as protection, took a carriage and was back before dark. He would have preferred to confine her to the safety of the keep also, especially given the babe growing within her, but she had successfully argued that her contacts were giving them great aid in their investigation. They couldn't afford to lose those sources, and the people were too wary to agree to speak to anybody save Aly. From the stories she had told them of their sufferings at the hands of the corrupt highborn, even though she refused to go into too many details for their sakes, Oberyn could understand their wariness, though it frustrated him greatly.

"As you say, my lord."

The stress of running the realm, trying to manage Robert ("trying to" being the key part of that) and the "Hand's Tourney" were driving him mad, Oberyn reflected as he climbed. He yearned for the comfort of Aly's arms in their bed at home, for the sounds of his children and wards running about the palace, for the scorching hot days and the freezing cold nights of Dorne.

He was so busy working, he barely got to see his family, let alone spend time with them, though at least his relationship with Lia had been somewhat mended since she'd admitted to overhearing his and Aly's argument on the anniversary of the Sack and Aly had soothed her. Lia was still distant, but it had improved. She was acknowledging his existence, at any rate.

Aly was worn out from her pregnancy and her own efforts, so she was usually already fast asleep when he returned to their bedchamber at night. When she was awake and they were alone, they discussed their work, which left neither of them in the mood to lie with one another.

He hadn't gone so long without bedding her since her difficult birth with the twins had made Caleotte and Tallhart ban them from lying with one another for six moons, back in 288.

In his chambers he stripped off his fancy court outer-robe down to a simple white lace-up shirt and a pair of breeches and then sat for a moment with the book while he waited for Daemon to arrive.

The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children, by Grand Maester Malleon. Pycelle had been right and truthful about the book at least; it was very tedious reading. Aly had even started using it to make Arron fall asleep without fussing so much.

Yet Jon had asked for it, and Oberyn felt certain that he'd had his reasons for it. There was something here, some truth buried in these brittle yellow pages, if only he could see it. But what truth was it that he needed to find? The tome was several decades old. Malleon had written it at the beginning of King Maekar's reign. Scarcely a man now alive had yet been born when Malleon had compiled his dusty lists of weddings, births, and deaths.

He and Aly had both gone through it a dozen times between them, yet neither of them could figure out what Jon had been searching for within its pages.

He opened to the section on House Lannister once more, and turned the pages slowly, hoping that this time something would leap out at him. Nothing did, though he absently noted that the marriage of Robert and Cersei was the third time their Houses had been joined. First had been the marriage of Orys Baratheon's great-granddaughter to the second son of the then-Lord of Casterly Rock, the founder of the Lannisters of Lannisport, whilst the second time had been some seventy years before, when Gowen Baratheon had wed Tya Lannister. Gowen and Tya's marriage had produced a single son who died in infancy, whilst Ellyn Baratheon and Jason Lannister had had three sons and two daughters who lived to adult, all dark-haired and blue eyed.

But that was all, and nothing about it seemed to leap out at Oberyn. He scowled in frustration, rubbing his temples again to ease the throbbing in them.

A sharp rap on the door heralded the arrival of Daemon Sand. He had once been Oberyn's squire, his first one in fact, and was one of the people he trusted most in the world. Oberyn closed Malleon's tome and bid him enter.

"I've promised the City Watch forty of my guard until the tourney is done," he informed him. "I rely on you to make the choice. Give Gerold the command, and make certain that the men understand that they are needed to stop fights, not start them. Tell them to help Ser Jacelyn find evidence of any corruption in the goldcloaks as well."

"Yes, my lord," Daemon agreed with a bow as Oberyn rose, opened a cedar chest and removed a light linen undertunic. "Did you find the stableboy?"

Through Aly's contacts, they had discovered that Lysa Arryn had ordered the majority of Jon's household back to the Vale with Elbert's consent, but four of them had remained behind for various reasons. Oberyn had sent Daemon to speak to all of them, and the stableboy was the last of the foursome. He had also written to Elbert, requesting his friend interrogate Jon's former servants and guards, but had yet to receive any reply.

It was very irritating, the way nearly everyone suddenly seemed to be ignoring his letters. It was as if becoming Hand of the King had driven respect for him down, not up. Well, given everything, he was not sure that he'd blame people for it if that were true. He felt even more like a failure than in his first few moons as ruler of Dorne, when he'd needed to ask Aly for help for everything, down to figuring out the correct and best way to calculate the taxes.

"The watchman, my lord," Daemon corrected him. "He vows that he will never touch another horse again."

"Good for him," Oberyn stated dryly, a part of him wondering what had caused the boy to make such a decision. It did not seem particularly important, however, so Oberyn pushed thoughts of it away. "What did he have to say?"

"He claims that he knew Lord Arryn well. Fast friends, they were." Daemon snorted. "According to him, the Hand always gave the lads a copper on their name days. The lord had a way with horses. Never rode his mounts too hard, and always brought them carrots and apples, so they were always happy to see him."

"Carrots and apples," Oberyn repeated flatly. "How good of him."

It sounded as if this boy would be even less use than the others. And he was the last of the four remaining members of Jon's household that Aly's contacts had turned up.

Daemon had spoken to each of them in turn. Ser Hugh, Jon's former squire who Robert had knighted after his death had been brusque and uninformative, and arrogant as only a new-made knight can be. If the Hand wished to talk to him, he should be pleased to receive him, but he would not be questioned by a mere captain of guards, especially not a bastard . . . even if said bastard captain was ten years older and a hundred times the swordsman.

The serving girl had at least been pleasant. She had said that Lord Jon had been reading more than was good for him, that he was troubled and melancholy, and unusually gruff with people.

The potboy, now a cordwainer, had never exchanged so much as a word with Lord Jon, but he was full of oddments of kitchen gossip: the lord had been quarrelling with the king, the lord only picked at his food, the lord had taken a great interest in the breeding of hunting hounds, the lord had visited a master armorer to commission a new suit of plate, wrought all in pale silver with a blue jasper falcon and a mother-of-pearl moon on the breast. The king's own brother had gone with him to help choose the design, the potboy had told Daemon. No, not Lord Renly, the other one, Lord Stannis.

"Did the watchman recall anything else of note?"

"The lad swears that the late Lord Jon was as strong as a man half his age. Often went riding with Lord Stannis, he says. His death was a great shock."

"Given he was poisoned, that it hardly a surprise to hear," Oberyn muttered, thinking of Daemon's report. Stannis again. He found the multiple mentions of Lord Stannis very odd. As far as he knew, Jon and Stannis had been cordial, but never friendly. And while Robert had been riding north to Sunspear, Stannis had removed himself and his family to Storm's End, his family's ancestral seat, and was refusing to return, even with the warning that he was about to lose his position on the council. Not to mention that their investigation, as far as Oberyn could figure, had begun when Stannis' youngest child was but a few moons' old.

Oberyn supposed that a great deal of men would not pay so much attention to their newborn daughter, unlike him. He had always found it difficult to pry himself (or Aly) away from his newest child for the best part of the first year after their birth, always worrying over the infant's naturally fragile health. Yet Aly had said that Stannis had been spending an unusually great amount (for him) amount of time with his children before suddenly starting to spend his time with Jon instead.

It was very suspicious behaviour.

"Where did they go on these rides?" Oberyn asked.

"The boy says that they visited a brothel."

"A brothel?" Oberyn repeated incredulously. "Jon Arryn, the Lord of the Eyrie and Hand of the King visited a brothel with Stannis Baratheon?"

He shook his head in disbelief, unable to wrap his mind around the thought. Robert's lusts were the subject of ribald drinking songs throughout the realm, but Stannis was a very different sort of man; a bare year younger than the king, yet utterly unlike him, stern, humourless, unforgiving, grim in his sense of duty. Oberyn could not picture him in a brothel. He had attended the man's wedding to Lady Catelyn, and the man had gone to his marital bed as if he were marching to war.

Nor could he imagine Jon in a whorehouse either. The man had never stepped foot in one even when Robert and Oberyn were lusty young boys. If he had wanted them retrieved, he would send some guards, and he had often lectured the pair of them on the potential consequences of such activities, though they had never listened, even after their bastard daughters were born.

Briefly, Oberyn wondered how little Mya Stone was doing. She had been such a sweet child, with her big blue eyes and dark curls, and Robert had doted on her. Yet he had said nothing of either Mya or his young natural son, Edric Storm, who was being fostered at Dragonstone, since they had reunited. It was another negative change in Robert since the war. He had been a wonderful father to Mya, to the point that Elia had complimented him on it, one of the few good things she had said of him (though Oberyn had failed to notice her lack of enthusiasm about Robert until far, far too late). Yet nowadays he was an indifferent father at best.

Then Oberyn tucked thoughts of Mya away with a mental note to ensure she and Edric were both being properly provided for as befit the natural and acknowledged children of a king and focused on Daemon, who was speaking again.

"The boy insists that 'tis true. The Hand took three guardsmen with him, and the boy says they were joking of it when he took their horses afterward."

"Which brothel?" Oberyn asked.

"The boy did not know. The guards would."

"A pity that Elbert allowed Lady Lysa to pack them all off to the Vale," Oberyn muttered. "The gods are doing their best to make our quest a difficult one, I tell you that Daemon. The guards, Maester Colemon, Lord Stannis . . . everyone who might actually know the truth of what happened to Jon is a thousand leagues away. I have written to Elbert asking for him to question the guards, but he has not sent a reply yet. I may need to send another raven. I want a report on the state of the Vale, anyway. I hope he settled those problems he was having with his lords. The last thing that the Crown needs is a civil war."

"Will you summon Lord Stannis back?"

"I have sent him seven letters already," Oberyn replied with a sigh. "And received no response. I begin to wonder if the birds are even reaching the place. I am wary of drawing attention by ordering his return until I have a better understanding of all of this."

The whole thing nagged at him. Why did Stannis leave? Had he played some part in Jon Arryn's murder? Or was he afraid of something? It disturbed Oberyn to picture what sort of things might frighten Stannis Baratheon, a man who had once held Storm's End for a year, surviving on rats and leather boots whilst the Reach's army feasted outside of his doors. The man was a cold, stoic man, and very dutiful. It was not a pleasant task, contemplating what might have driven him to abandon that duty.

"Bring me my tunic, if you would," he said. "The dark orange, with the gold sunbursts on it. I want this armorer to know who I am. It might make him more forthcoming."

Daemon went to the wardrobe. "Lord Renly is brother to Lord Stannis as well as the king," he pointed out.

"Yet it seems that he was not invited on these rides." Oberyn did not much like Renly, in spite of the man's friendly ways and easy smiles. He bore no grudge towards the man's bedroom habits, Oberyn himself had bedded several men in his own youth, but the man was too frivolous and self-absorbed for Oberyn to like him. He had probably earned the young man's undying enmity anyway, by dismissing him from his position.

Oberyn sighed and shook his head tiredly. "And the other task I set you?" he inquired softly, lowering his voice on instinct. In spite of the fact that he was investigating treason committed by the queen and/or her family, this somehow felt far more dangerous, and likely it was. He dreaded what would happen if somebody overheard them discussing it.

Aly had set Crystal to sniffing out any secret passages in the Tower on their first night. Oberyn had thought that she was being ridiculous, overly-fearful due to what happened to her family, at first. Then Crystal had discovered seven passages, four of them in the various bedrooms. There was evidence of a few of them being used in recent times, though by whom none of them knew. He had not doubted her knowledge on the Red Keep ever since.

Daemon's expression turned grim. On learning of the secret Ser Jaime had been hiding for so many years, Oberyn had hand-picked his seven of his most trusted men, sworn them to secrecy with multiple oaths to the Gods, Old and New alike, and entrusted them with the dangerous task of finding the wildfire caches. They were making steady but extremely slow progress with the whole thing, aided greatly by the fact that a member of the group was Rodrik Snow. He was one of the men who had come south as a guard for Aly on their marriage. Rodrik was the bastard son of an architect and a daughter of House Borrell from the Sisters and had used his knowledge to identify the most likely places in the city for the wildfire to be. So far, he had only been wrong once that Oberyn knew of.

"We have located four of the caches so far, using the maps of the city and Rodrik's knowledge of building from his father," his old squire informed him in an equally low tone. "But our progress is slow, as we do not dare allow anybody to realize what we are doing."

"Continue with the greatest of discretion then," Oberyn ordered grimly. "Take however long is necessary, but nobody can be allowed to learn of this." He was repeating himself for the Gods-knew-how-many time, but the importance of keeping the knowledge of the caches hidden could not be over-stated. Disturbing as it was, the chance that somebody might take advantage of the wildfire caches to eliminate their opponents and gain more power was strong.

Courtiers were mad with the desire for power and wealth, and it was quite possibly contagious. People seemed to get worse, steadily losing their morals, the longer they were in the blasted capital. Oberyn wanted to get his family away as quickly as possible, before any of them caught the disease of power-grabbing and stabbing each other in the back to climb the ladder of wealth and power. Or worse, before they were victims of others' desire for power.

'In the Game of Thrones, Oberyn,' Aly had said to him with a dark expression. 'You have only two possible endings: winning or dying. For the sake of our family, we must win.'

He had never been so grateful to anybody as he was to his goodbrother when Aly had informed him that Magnar Stark had made arrangements for a Northron ship to be docked at the nearest harbour, ready and waiting to flee the moment his family was aboard. The gods must have been smiling on him, because one of the passages even led right to the docks where the ship was. Stark had even delegated members of the Ice Guard to join Oberyn's household, to increase the protection on his family. It eased the weight on Oberyn's shoulders, knowing that, should things go sour, his wife and children would be safe.

Daemon held out the tunic, and Oberyn slid his hands through the armholes before his former squire did up the tunic and slung an orange cloak on over his shoulders. Then he clasped Oberyn's cloak at the throat with the Hand's badge of office. Oberyn was silent the entire time, musing over what he knew.

"The armourer lives above his shop, in a large house at the top of the Street of Steel," Daemon informed him. "Andrey knows the way, my lord."

Oberyn nodded. "The gods help this potboy if he's sent me off haring after shadows." It was a slim enough staff to lean on, but the Jon Arryn that Oberyn had known was not one to wear jewelled and silvered plate. He had always said that steel was steel; it was meant for protection, not for ornamentation. He might have changed his views, of course. He would certainly not have been the first man who came to look on things differently after a few years at court. But the change was marked enough to make Oberyn wonder.

"Is there any other service that I might perform for you, my lord?"

"I suppose that you had best begin visiting whorehouses," Oberyn smirked.

"A hard duty indeed, my lord." Daemon grinned. "But I shall force myself to do so for your sake. I am sure that the men will be glad to help. Alaric has made a fair start already."

"Just make sure that my wife does not hear about it," Oberyn warned with a grin that his old squire returned. "Or she will have you all skinned."

Oberyn's favourite horse, one of the unicorn cross-breeds bred with his old sand stallion, was saddled and waiting in the yard. Alester and Ryon fell in beside him on their own mounts as he rode Helios through the yard. As the Lord of Dorne passed beneath the King's Gate into the stink of the city, his orange cloak streaming from his shoulders, he saw eyes everywhere and kicked his horse into a trot. His guard followed.

He couldn't keep himself from looking around himself frequently as they made their way through the crowded city streets. Quentyn and Joss had left the castle early this morning to take up positions on the route they must take, and watch for anyone following them, but even so, Oberyn felt uncomfortable and tense. The shadow of the King's Spider and his little birds had him fretting worse than a maiden on her wedding night.

The Street of Steel began at the market square beside the Mud Gate. A mummer on stilts was striding through the throngs like some great insect, with a horde of barefoot children trailing behind him, hooting. Elsewhere, two ragged boys no older than Arron were duelling with sticks, to the loud encouragement of some and the furious curses of others. An old woman ended the contest by leaning out of her window and emptying a bucket of slops on the heads of the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside their wagons, bellowing out, "Apples, the best apples, cheap at twice the price," and "Blood melons, sweet as honey," and "Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here, here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here."

Recalling Aly's latest craving, Oberyn made a quick mental note to have a servant purchase some of the blood oranges available for her.

The Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. When a column of riders appeared from the west, the guardsmen sprang into action, shouting commands and moving the carts and foot traffic aside to let the knight enter with his escort.

The first rider through the gate carried a long black banner. The silk rippled in the wind like a living thing; across the fabric was blazoned a night sky slashed with purple lightning. Oberyn recognized it as the banner of House Dondarrion, a Marcher house.

"Make way for Lord Beric!" the rider shouted. "Make way for Lord Beric!" And close behind came the young lord himself, a dashing figure on a black courser, with red-gold hair and a black satin cloak dusted with stars.

"Here to fight in the Hand's tourney, my lord?" a guardsman called out to him.

"Here to win the Hand's tourney," Lord Beric shouted back as the crowd cheered.

Ignoring them, Oberyn turned off the square where the Street of Steel began and followed its winding path up a long hill, past blacksmiths working at open forges, freeriders haggling over mail shirts, and grizzled ironmongers selling old blades and razors from their wagons. The farther they climbed, the larger the buildings grew. The man they wanted was all the way at the top of the hill, in a huge house of timber and plaster whose upper stories loomed over the narrow street. The double doors showed a hunting scene carved from ebony and (to Oberyn's surprise) weirwood. A pair of stone statues stood sentry at the entrance, armoured in fanciful suits of polished red steel that transformed them into griffin and unicorn. Oberyn left his horse with Jacks and shouldered his way inside.

The slim young serving girl took quick note of Oberyn's badge and the sigil on his doublet, and the master came hurrying out, all smiles and bows.

"Wine for the King's Hand," he told the girl, gesturing Oberyn to a couch. "I am Tobho Mott, my lord, please, please, put yourself at ease."

He wore a black velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver thread and around his neck was a heavy silver chain with a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg dangling from it. "If you are in need of new arms for the Hand's tourney, you have come to the right shop."

Oberyn did not bother to correct him. At one point, he had taken part in every tourney he heard of, and built quite a good reputation for himself. But it had been years since that, and he had no intention of risking distressing his pregnant wife by participating in an event he had grown to hate. He could not think of tourneys without thinking of Harrenhal.

"My work is costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord," Mott stated as he filled two matching silver goblets. "But you will not find craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I promise you. Visit every forge in King's Landing if you like, and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shirt of mail; my work is art."

Oberyn sipped his wine silently and let the man go on.

The Knight of Flowers bought all his armour here, Tobho boasted, and many other high lords, and including Lord Renly, the king's own brother. Perhaps the Hand had seen Lord Renly's new armour, the green plate with the golden antlers? No other armorer in the city could get that deep a green; he knew the secret of putting colour in the steel itself, paint and enamel were the crutches of a journeyman. Or mayhaps the Hand wanted a blade? Tobho had learned to work Valyrian steel at the forges of Qohor as a boy. Only a man who knew the spells could take old weapons and forge them anew.

Oberyn had nearly laughed at that. The secret of creating and working Valyrian steel was long-lost, even to the Qorhorians. If he had not thought so before, then Oberyn would have known with that claim alone that the man's attempting to trick him.

"The sun is the sigil of House Martell, is it not?" Tobho said before proceeding without waiting for Oberyn to confirm it. "I could fashion a sun-shaped helm made of gold, so bright that people will be blinded by it in the dead of night," he vowed.

Oberyn smiled, picturing Aly's expression if he did buy such a thing. She would have Crystal rip his neck out for the waste of coin. Would gold even be effective as protection? "Did you make a falcon helm for Lord Arryn?" Oberyn inquired casually.

Tobho Mott paused a long moment and set aside his wine. "The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the king's brother. I regret to say, they did not honour me with their patronage."

Oberyn looked at the man evenly, saying nothing, waiting. Aly had taught him over the years that silence sometimes yielded more than questions, no matter how much he itched to demand answers. He sensed that it so it was this time.

"They asked to see the boy," the armourer explained, "so I took them back to the forge."

"The boy," Oberyn echoed. He had no clue as to whom the boy might be. "I should like to see the boy as well."

Tobho Mott gave him a cool, careful look. "As you wish, my lord," he said without any trace of his former friendliness, though he was not openly hostile either. He led Oberyn out of a rear door and across a narrow yard, back to the cavernous stone barn where the work was all being done. When the armourer opened the door, the blast of hot air that came through made even Oberyn, who was a Dornishman to the core and thus borne for heat, feel as though he were walking into a dragon's mouth. Inside, a forge blazed in each corner, and the air stank of smoke and sulphur. Journeymen armourers glanced up from their hammers and tongs just long enough to wipe the sweat from their brows, while bare-chested apprentice boys worked the bellows.

The master called over a tall lad a little older than Rickard was, his arms and chest corded with muscle and his hands worn from work. Looking at the apprentice, Oberyn was sent back in time to his youth in the Eyrie for a moment, before Mott's voice brought him back to the present.

"This is Lord Martell, the new Hand of the King," Mott told the lad as the boy looked at Oberyn through sullen blue eyes and pushed back sweat-soaked hair with his fingers. Thick hair, shaggy and unkempt and black as ink. The shadow of a new beard darkened his jaw. "This is Gendry, one of my apprentices. He's strong for his age, and he works hard. Show the Lord Hand that helmet you made, lad."

Almost shyly, the boy led them to his bench, and a steel helm shaped like a bull's head, with two great curving horns.

Oberyn turned the helm over in his hands. It was raw steel, unpolished but expertly shaped. "This is fine work," he complimented truthfully. "I would be pleased if you would let me buy it." Aly would not complain about money spent on something like this, given it was actually useful.

The boy snatched it out of his hands. "It's not for sale."

Mott looked horror-struck by the boy's refusal. "Boy, this is the King's Hand!" he barked at his apprentice. "If his lordship wants this helm, make him a gift of it. He honours you by asking."

"I made it for me," Gendry insisted stubbornly.

"A hundred pardons, my lord," his master said hurriedly to Oberyn, who was more concerned with studying the boy thoughtfully. The attitude was different enough, but there were similarities in that also. "The boy is crude as new steel, and like new steel would profit from some beating. That helm is journeyman's work at best. Forgive him and I promise that I will craft you a helm like none you have ever seen, and 'twill cost you not a copper, I swear it."

It was clear that the man had great affection for his apprentice, and Oberyn appreciated that.

"He's done nothing that requires my forgiveness," Oberyn said dismissively. "I can well understand why he would want to keep such an expertly-made piece. Gendry, when Lord Arryn came to see you, what did you talk about?"

"He asked me questions is all, m'lord."

"What sort of questions?"

Gendry shrugged. "How was I, and was I well treated, and if I liked the work, and stuff about my mother. Who she was and what she looked like and all."

"What did you tell him?" Oberyn pressed.

The boy shoved a fresh fall of black hair off his forehead. "She died when I was little. She had yellow hair, and sometimes she used to sing to me, I remember. She worked in an alehouse."

"Did Lord Stannis question you as well?"

"The bald one? No, not him. He never said no word, just glared at me, like I was some raper who done for his daughter."

"Mind your filthy tongue," the master snapped. "This is the King's own Hand." The boy lowered his eyes. "A smart boy, but stubborn. That helm . . . the others call him bull-headed, so he threw it in their teeth."

Oberyn touched the boy's head, fingering the thick black hair. "Look at me, Gendry." The apprentice lifted his face. Oberyn studied the shape of his jaw, the eyes like blue ice. Yes, he thought, it is most definitely so. Looking at him is like going back in time.

"Go back to your work, lad. I'm sorry to have bothered you." He walked back to the house with the master. "Who paid the boy's apprentice fee?" he asked lightly.

Mott looked fretful. "You saw the boy. Such a strong boy. Those hands of his, those hands were made for hammers. He had such promise, I took him on without a fee."

"The truth now," Oberyn urged. "The streets are full of strong boys. The day you take on an apprentice without a fee will be the day the Wall melts. Who paid for him?"

"A lord," the master revealed with great reluctance. "He gave no name, and wore no sigil on his coat. He paid in gold, twice the customary sum, and said he was paying once for the boy, and once for my silence."

"Describe him."

"He was stout, round of shoulder, not so tall as you. Brown beard, but there was a bit of red in it, I'll swear. He wore a rich cloak, that I do remember, heavy purple velvet worked with silver threads, but the hood shadowed his face and I never did see him clear." He hesitated a moment. "My lord, I want no trouble."

"None of us wants trouble, but I fear these are troubled times, Master Mott," Oberyn answered. "You know who the boy is."

"I am only an armourer, my lord. I know what I'm told."

"You know who the boy is," Oberyn repeated. "That is not a question."

"The boy is my apprentice," the master said. He looked Oberyn in the eye, stubborn as old iron. "Who he was before he came to me, that's none of my concern."

Oberyn nodded. He decided that he liked Tobho Mott, the master armourer who was so protective of the apprentice he had raised. "If the day ever comes when Gendry would rather wield a sword than forge one, send him to me. He has the look of a great warrior about him. Until then, you have my thanks, Master Mott, and my promise. Should I ever want a helm to blind people in the dead of night, this will be the first place I visit."

His guard was waiting outside with the horses. "Did you find anything, my lord?" Ryon asked as Oberyn mounted up.

"I did," Oberyn confirmed, wondering about the strangeness of it all. What had Jon Arryn and Stannis Baratheon wanted with a king's bastard, and why was it worth Jon's life?