Ser Arthur Dayne reined his horse aside and then wheeled it back to review the company as it marched into the small square where it was to be welcomed back to Volantis. As the Company of the Dragon tramped past, he couldn't help but feel a thrill of pride at the sight of them, one hundred and fifty knights and nine hundred heavy foot, spearmen and crossbowmen, marching proudly under the banner of the three-headed dragon. If only half of them were men of Westeros, that was only the more miraculous; that men who had never bent the knee to the Targaryens, who three months ago would have laughed in his face if he had commanded them to bend the knee, should now acknowledge Viserys Targaryen as their king.

Even better, the men were in high spirits. For the Essosi it was mere pride at an easy victory and a return to a city with good wine and good whores with a victory bonus in their pockets that was making them strut, but the Westerosi were even more changed. When they had marched out from the city they had done so correctly enough but there had been very little pride in the men who had suffered so many defeats and such an astonishing betrayal. But now they were returning from their first victory in a year; an easy victory perhaps but a triumph nonetheless, when set against the catastrophe of Tara and the escape from Myr. Arthur had not seen his men march with such pride since they had marched to the field of Tara, and the sight made his eyes prickle in a way that had nothing to do with the brightness of the day.

As they filed into the square a series of commands brought the lead banda to a halt, while the other two bandas marched off to either side to change the company's formation from column of march to line of battle before the reviewing stand. A final command brought nine hundred right feet stamping to attention, while one hundred and fifty lances swept down in salute and Ser Garin Uller, the standard-bearer of the company and the newest knight of the Kingsguard thanks to his daring in the field, dipped the banner to the Triarch; only he, Arthur, Barristan, and Donys knew that he was really saluting King Viserys, who stood at the Triarch's right hand, taller than Arthur remembered him with an almost unnaturally grave expression on his round child's face and Barristan standing behind him like an alabaster statue.

While the Triarch, a kettle-bellied man resplendent in embroidered velvet and gold brocade, began to pontificate on the company's recent victory against Mantarys, Arthur was already beginning to plan the next campaign the Volantenes would send them on. The signs, Donys had written to him, were unmistakable; the Triarchs meant to declare war on Qohor, taking advantage of the perceived distraction of the Braavosi towards the Disputed Lands to extend their dominion up the Rhoyne. Norvos, it seemed, did not figure into the Triarchs' plan, although why that might be Donys could not say.

In any case, Arthur decided as the Triarch continued to declaim at his king's soldiers, comparing them to the heroes of Old Valyria, a war up the Rhoyne, like any war, would take logistics and good troops. The logistics would be relatively easy, thanks to the abundance of river galleys, barges, and cargo boats that plied the River Rhoyne. The good troops, on the other hand, might prove troublesome. The citizen's militia Donys had written to him about seemed good enough for catching arrows that might hit someone important, but they wouldn't be able to match proper men-at-arms, much less the Unsullied that Qohor relied upon for the bulk of its fighting strength. The only fighters that Volantis had which might be able to do so were the tiger cloaks, the Golden Company, and the Company of the Dragon, and of those the tiger cloaks were unreliable thanks to their R'hllorist leanings and the Golden Company wasn't the only-somewhat-welcome-guest that the Company of the Dragon was but a proper, genuine sellsword company. If their contract was paid off tomorrow they would have no problem simply marching away, unlike the Company of the Dragon.

Arthur concealed his distaste with the ease of long practice as the Triarch began to reach the end of his oration. If the Triarchs meant for the Company of the Dragon to be ground to pieces in the blood-mill of war, then he would have to find ways to prevent it. Or at the very least, to keep the grinding to a minimum.

XXX

Mace Tyrell smiled beatifically as he surveyed the scene in the great hall of the Red Keep. Ordinarily he didn't like King's Landing (an uglier, rougher, and more malodorous city even than Oldtown, so unlike his beauteous and well-ordered Highgarden), but he could make an exception for an occasion such as this. For it was a bright-shining day, there was peace from Dorne to the Wall, the gods were in their heavens, the flower of the South and the pick of the North were gathered in the capital, and King Stannis and Queen Cersei's second-born child, only three months old, was being presented to the court.

Princess Joanna, she had been named; a lovely babe, all agreed, though how exactly this was decided Mace hadn't the foggiest idea. One baby looked much like another, to his eyes. But even if she had been born ugly, the important thing was that she had been born alive and healthy and Queen Cersei seemed none the worse for it.

Even better, King Stannis had declared a holiday in honor of his daughter's birth; the easiest way to soften the Grim Stag's heart, it seemed, was to give him another child. And this time, there were no rebellions in the offing to spoil the festivities. To be sure the news from the Iron Isles was vaguely troubling, but Mace was not unduly worried. Whatever else Balon Greyjoy might be, he was not an utter fool. Surely he would see that provoking a war against the might of the Seven Kingdoms, united under a monarch as vigorous as Stannis, could only lead to an early grave. Not that there weren't other ways to play the game of thrones, but the Ironborn had never had the patience for finesse.

For the most part the assembled nobility seemed to have caught the mood of jubilation and were reflecting it seven-fold. Even the usually sober Northmen were cheerful; Lord Bolton was smiling, which judging by rumor alone Mace would have judged impossible. The only man who seemed less than entirely content was, paradoxically, Tywin Lannister, whose habitually severe mien had softened but not to the point of smiling. The general agreement, judging by what Mace had heard, was that he was disappointed that his newest grandchild was a princess and not another prince to secure the succession. Mace, however, harbored a thought that it was the child's name more than it's gender that was the cause for the Old Lion's attitude; by all accounts Tywin had truly loved his late lady wife, and for his granddaughter to be named after her must have dredged up at least a few painful memories.

Mace snorted softly. Spoilsport, he mentally chided the lord of Casterly Rock. Don't you know that this is a celebration? Not that Mace strictly cared what Tywin thought at the moment, for his stock at court had ascended to new heights.

It had begun in the Red Viper Rebellion, when Mace had led his army into the Red Mountains. There had been no clashes to match the Battle of the Greenblood, thanks to the relative paucity of support for Oberyn among the Dornish marcher houses, but Stannis had publicly acknowledged that Mace's efforts, and those of Lord Tarly as his chief lieutenant, had kept Western Dorne from declaring for the rebel, and helped to contain the spread of the rebellion. Even better the casualties had been light; enough to show the depth of the Reach's commitment to the Baratheon dynasty, but not enough to cause unrest in the Reach. The only fly in the ointment had been the price that Oberyn had put on the head of Mace's son Willas. Even for a Dornishman, that had been beyond the pale. Mace had invaded Dorne as a move in the game of thrones; it hadn't been personal. Not until Randyll Tarly's guards had caught the Dornishman creeping into Willas' tent with a poisoned dagger.

Mace had gladly paid every golden stag of the price he had put on Oberyn's head in return, and done it in person even, to make it clear how greatly he esteemed men who did him such service. Of course it had been made easier by Ser Rickon Riverbend being the sort of man he was. In Mace's experience, and from what he had heard, most bastards who found themselves elevated to some rank went to the bad, either through dissolution facilitated by greater wealth or because they couldn't see past the chip on their shoulder. But Ser Rickon had seemed not to have been so moved, despite the magnitude of his elevation; indeed he seemed a fine knight and a pious, good-natured man, if a touch over-courteous.

And the Royal Order of the Sun had been a fascinating concept. It was unlikely that he would be able to establish a similar order in the Reach, but he certainly planned to learn what he could of it. He had already made up his mind to send Loras to serve a term under the Order's banner when he was ready to squire.

Mace shook his head and brought himself back to the present, allowing his smile to grow by a few more teeth as he did so. He had known his gift for the little princess would go over well.

There had been the predictable profusion of gold and silver and ivory rattles and toys from people of lesser imagination. Tywin had presented a masterfully worked and magnificently decorated little box from Qarth that played a simple musical tune on a series of trip-hammered strings by means of a pin-studded cylinder on a wound spring. Lord Captain Euron Greyjoy, Stannis' favorite watch-dog of the Narrow Sea, had sent a scale model of his ship, the Unspeakable, that was perfect down to the little wooden figures of the crew on the deck and could apparently float. Brandon Stark had sent a cunningly wrought silver pendant of a single, almost impossibly intricate snowflake on a silver chain for the princess to wear when she was of a proper age. All perfectly acceptable gifts for a princess of one of the most powerful lineages in the world. But they had forgotten that Stannis prized practicality above simple display. Mace had not.

House Tyrell's gift had been a selection of cuttings and seedlings from their personal gardens, carefully transported to the capital by a small company of gardeners to be replanted in the new gardens that had replaced the Dragonpit. Those gardens were to be a royal haven from the cares and troubles of governance, and a place where they could meet with their favorites and petitioners in less formal circumstances than might be allowable in the Red Keep. The Joanna Gardens, they were to be named, and both Stannis and Cersei were said to be determined that they were to be the finest gardens in Westeros.

Mace sipped his Arbor Gold appreciatively. A jealous man might think that such an ambition would be an insult to House Tyrell, but he was not so small-minded. And in this, as in all other things, he was happy to oblige Stannis to the best of his abilities.

XXX

The following is an excerpt from Flash for the Faith!, the second instalment in the Flash Papers by George Dand.

I wasn't too surprised to receive an invitation to the presentation of Princess Joanna; I was a certified hero of the realm after all, even if only half of my exploits were public knowledge and all of them were, in my opinion, vastly overinflated. For instance, I've dined out in Sunspear at least twice on the strength of being the Ser Harry Flash who slew the four Uller men at the Greenblood, when in reality I only managed to kill one of them, and that only by blind luck; it was my sergeant who killed the other three, but he died and I didn't, so I was the one who received the laurels.

But however unjustified my reputation might have been, I wasn't the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth in those years. Stannis was a bit of a sobersides, and when he was in a temper about something he could put the fear of the Stranger into a stone, much less me, but he knew a host's duty well enough, and what little he forgot, his wife didn't. I suppose being married to a Lannister has its benefits, even if Cersei always struck me as a bit of a cold fish. Face like a goddess of course, and the sort of body men would kill to see naked, but too haughty by half for my tastes. I can only imagine that it would put a fellow off his stride, to look a woman in the face when in the act and see her regarding him like an insect.

In any case once the fuss and bother of the official presentation of the royal infant was done with, Maryam and I promenaded around the great hall, gassing and being gassed at by the rest of the quality, and Maryam almost squealing with delight at the pomp and display of it all. I could almost see her thinking how splendid the hall at the family castle would look with some decoration and I felt a twinge of pity for our poor steward who would have to talk her out of commissioning a gilded chandelier or a forty-foot tapestry showing the Battle of the Greenblood.

I had just been cornered by Renly Baratheon, the baby of the Baratheon brothers, who was squeaking to be told about the Greenblood and the rest of the Dornish War when a Stormguard knight appeared at my elbow saying that Stannis was requesting my attendance on a private matter. Of course I couldn't just say, "Why thank you, old boy, but do tell His Grace that I am extremely busy entertaining his younger brother and do not wish to be disturbed," so I told Renly that I would have to regale him some other time, left Maryam with him, and followed the Stormguard to a small chamber at the back of the hall, behind the Throne, where we found His Grace, Lord Arryn, a wizened septon, and an older, heavyset gentleman wearing the Estermont arms. Stannis waved me up from my bow, dismissed the Stormguard, and got straight down to business, as was his way. "Tell me, Ser Harry," he demanded, fixing me with that stormy glower that was already famous through the Seven Kingdoms, "what do you know of heresy?"

That threw me. I attended Divine Office and did my bit to help my father support the village septon because it was expected of me, but that was as far as my involvement with the Faith went. If there was one thing I didn't want, it was the Seven taking a personal interest in my affairs. "Not much, Your Grace," I replied, using my best 'bluff-and-hearty' voice, the one that makes me sound twenty years older and much more wine-steeped than I actually am. "Don't have much truck with heretics, you see. Don't get many of them around my lands."

Stannis nodded. "Perhaps not," he said, "but our brother Robert's realm of Myr seems to have an infestation of them, according to the High Septon. It seems that the chief septon the Most Devout sent with the Sunset Company, one Jonothor by name, has broken with doctrine regarding," he drew a note out of his pocket, "the sole authority of the Seven, the exclusivity of salvation, the primacy of the Great Sept of Baelor, and a variety of other minor offenses." He pocketed the note. "The High Septon has already ordered this Jonothor's defrocking and excommunication, and commanded him to sail here to stand trial before the Most Devout. Jonothor, it appears, was willing to do so, but Robert prevented him, on the grounds that the government of the Faith in Myr was his prerogative and no one else's." A corner of Stannis's mouth twitched in a slight hint of a smile. "Judging by what reports we have received, Robert has declared that he finds no reason to prevent Jonothor from continuing in his duties as a septon and ordered him to continue in those duties, regardless of the High Septon's commands to the contrary. His Holiness, we are told, was wroth when the news reached him."

I only barely managed to restrain myself from whistling. I had known that Robert was a braw loon, to use the Northern phrase, but never in a hundred years would I have imagined that he would throw down the gauntlet to the Faith. The only king to do that had been Maegor, and things hadn't ended well for him. Even Aerys had never attempted to confront the Faith and he had been literally raving mad by the end, or so I had heard.

"Five days ago," Stannis continued, "we received a petition from His Holiness requesting that we employ every means within our power to bring Jonothor to justice and expunge his heresy, as is our duty under Jaehaerys's law. Now we are fully aware of our duties and obligations, especially to the Faith, but we wish to be certain that we are fully justified in exercising our power in this instance. It would be an ill thing if we were to put a man in peril of his life on groundless charges."

I blinked. "Your pardon, Your Grace, but aren't the charges sufficiently grounded already?" I asked. "I mean, if this Jonothor fellow has already been excommunicated then surely the Most Devout had evidence . . ."

"They did, but it was very poor evidence," said the wizened septon. "The septon they sent to investigate Jonothor's heresy made a terrible hash of his report; any good canon lawyer can poke a dozen holes in the first page alone. No, a proper investigation, starting from first principles, is called for."

"And it were better also that we think carefully before taking any irrevocable measures," Lord Arryn said, looking more like a grumpy old eagle than usual. "Robert holds this Jonothor in very high esteem, we are told. If Robert were to take it into his head that Jonothor was being persecuted to the point of death without cause, all for the sake of the High Septon's bile . . ." He shrugged. "The last time Robert lost someone he cared for, he abdicated the Iron Throne in order to pursue the feud. I doubt he would be able to do something as drastic in this case, but it would be best to take precautions. It is an ill thing when brother fights brother."

Stannis nodded. "Which is why we shall be dispatching a fact-finding mission to Myr, in order to determine for ourselves the nature, extent, and danger of Jonothor's heresy, if it exists, and divine the likely reaction if steps were taken to remove him to King's Landing for trial. Lord Estermont shall head the mission," the heavyset gentleman in the Estermont colors bowed, "and Septon Martyn shall lead the ecclesiastical investigation." As the wizened septon bowed, Stannis turned back to me. "Your part, Ser Harry, will be to investigate the sentiment among the chivalry and common soldiers of the Kingdom of Myr towards Jonothor, with a particular eye towards their likely reaction to his arrest and execution. Given the extent to which Robert's throne rests on his control of his army, it would be foolish to discount that army's sentiments on this matter."

That was probably true, but I really didn't like the direction this conversation had taken. "Me, Your Grace?" I half stammered, trying to make it sound like it was pleased surprise more than shock that was making my voice unsteady. "But I'm a knight, Your Grace, not a, a spy!"

"Spies work clandestinely," Stannis said inexorably. "There will be nothing clandestine about this mission. You will be operating as credentialed emissaries under my seal."

Lord Arryn nodded. "Of a certainty it will be far more overt than your service in Pentos," he chipped in. "No false titles or disguises this time, simply a knight asking questions of other knights out of duty to his king."

I was almost goggle-eyed by now and my heart was fairly in my shoes, but I knew better than to try and point out the dangers. A fellow like me would be expected to have no care for such things, which goes some way to explaining why so many knights find early graves. And Lord Arryn's mention of my Pentoshi service had fairly clinched the deal; the sort of daring fellow who could uncover an assassination plot almost single-handed (barring the involvement of a turncoat or two and a healthy dose of blind luck) wouldn't blink twice at a simple diplomatic mission to a friendly realm. Or at the very least, it would look damnably out of character if he did. So there was nothing for it but to click my heels, bow, and mutter something about humbly accepting this great trust and honor, etc. etc. etc. Gods, the things I've said and done.