Lyn Corbray prided himself on having a strong stomach. Well, if you wanted to be a knight you had to be able to ignore the smell of freshly-spilled blood and the even worse smell of perforated bowels. Nor could you let the sight of what lay under a man's skin put you off your stride. Not if you wanted to keep your own guts where they belonged, anyway. There was a reason that knights, and other men-at-arms, tended to a certain hard-edged indifference to carnage.
That being said, there were certain things that could make even the staunchest stomach rebel. For instance, the scene that Lyn and his half-company had found while on patrol.
It wasn't the scale of the massacre that was making veteran knights hurriedly dismount and bend over; as far as Lyn could tell, there were thirteen or fourteen corpses clustered in the little swale and no more. Nor was it the fact that they had all, quite obviously, died extremely violent deaths; men who had fought at Tara, the Siege of Myr, the Great Raid, and Narrow Run were no strangers to the forms that violent death took. Even the smell wasn't as bad as any of those battles; fourteen corpses just didn't compare to several thousand, even after a day and a half in the slightly damp heat of the Disputed Lands in high summer.
But even a man who had been disemboweled was still more or less in one piece. The people who had been killed here in this nameless little depression in the grasslands along the border had not just been killed, but savaged, so that of the thirteen or fourteen dead bodies, not one of them was intact. Lyn swallowed his gorge with some difficulty and turned to Ser Joren Potts, who had been posted to his company a month after the war as part of Stark and Tully's reorganization of the army. The fresh-faced younger knight was almost as cold-blooded as Lyn himself was sometimes, but he had soft spots still. Lyn could tell.
"Runaway slaves, I imagine," he said, forcing his voice to remain level; it would not do for his men to see him undone. One of the pillars on which their esteem of him rested, after all, was his ability to keep his countenance even under such conditions as these.
Joren nodded jerkily. "Some of them are still wearing collars," he said woodenly, gesturing at one corpse that had kept its head. "Tyroshi patrol must have followed them over the border, caught up to them."
Lyn gave his own nod. "They fought back though," he said, gesturing at a severed arm lying near his charger's left fore-hoof. "See there, the cuts along the forearm and the broken nails? Whoever that belonged to went hand-to-hand against someone with a weapon. That must have made them angry."
"And they vented that anger on their victims," Joren finished, staring fixedly at the beheaded corpse of a woman; Lyn followed his gaze and hurriedly looked away. He knew himself to be a hard man, but the ruin between that corpse's legs was not something that he needed in his memories. Joren signed himself with the seven-pointed star, his hand shaking. "Father have mercy, Mother have mercy," he said, his voice starting to tremble. "I thought I knew what the slavers were like after the coast, but this . . ."
"Was probably the work of an exile banda," Lyn said, interrupting Joren before he began to babble. "Sellswords might have committed the rape, but not the dismemberment; their pay isn't based on how many pieces they cut their victims into and cutting people apart like this is hard to do, both for the muscles and the mind. If anything, they would have cut off their heads to take them back and show that their work was done." Lyn shook his head. "This wasn't done by professionals; this is amateur's work." As Lyn spoke a vulture began to glide downwards towards the pile of bodies, and was shot out of the sky by an archer who proceeded to march over to the avian's carcass and retrieve his arrow with rather more force than was strictly necessary, casting aspersions on the vulture's parentage, diet, and sexual preferences as he did so.
Joren gulped noisily, twice, and then visibly mastered himself. "I'll organize a party of archers to dig a grave for these people," he said hoarsely. "We don't have a septon with us, but we can spare them from the scavengers at least."
Lyn nodded. "Make it so, on my authority," he said in his command voice; he didn't hold much with sentiment, but there was something to be said for not giving the predators around here a free supper. The Disputed Lands had been long-settled, but along the borders the population had been kept relatively light by the wars, with the result that the borderlands were rich with game, and the predators who fed both on them and the corpses that the wars left behind. The wolves here were not as large as they were in the Vale, Lyn would swear, but he had never seen wolves with less fear of men. "In the meanwhile, I will be writing a report to King Robert. He must know of this."
XXX
The four Tyroshi captains were well pleased with themselves as they sat in the private room of the Pied Merlin, the finest tavern and boardinghouse on the Myrish waterfront. They had taken a gamble on being the first Tyroshi merchants to breach the unofficial embargo that had been placed upon the Kingdom of Myr by the Archon and the Lyseni conclave, and so far that gamble was paying off handsomely. They had received permission to trade from Lord Captain of the Port Franlan, their cargoes were all safely warehoused, and they were already receiving handsome offers for their dyes, pear brandy, and mechanical devices and curios. They had, they agreed over bowls of rich seafood stew and glasses of quite good wine, done well to remember that, despite the war and the grudges it had spawned, business was business.
Of course, they still had to take precautions. Ordinarily they would have eaten in the common room to spare their purses the expense of a private room, but they had received enough black looks from the populace to decide to keep out of sight as much as possible. Even a tavern with a repute as good as the Pied Merlin produced drunkards and men flown with drink were far more prone to violence than men in full possession of their reason. But all in all, they had been pleasantly surprised; far from the seething cesspool of the unchained rabble barely held in check by Andal slayers that Rumor had portrayed, Myr city was almost as busy and vibrant as it had been before the siege and sack. The rules of the great game of trade had changed of course, but it seemed that there was still room for sensible and rational men of business to make a living, or even a fortune.
Their good humor was put to a sudden end when the door slammed open and six heavily armored men, two belted knights and four men-at-arms, strode in. One of the captains stood from his chair and blustered a demand for an explanation, only to have one of the men-at-arms put his hands on his shoulders and drive him back down onto his chair so hard that his buttocks were bruised. The other three captains, seeing their fellow thusly manhandled, remained in their seats and kept their hands in plain view, carefully not reaching for their eating knives. Whatever this was, they thought among themselves, it was surely something that could be settled without any bloodshed. They were in a public place after all, and the Kingdom of Myr prided itself on the strength of its laws.
These hopes were substantially deflated by the arrival of a seventh man in heavy armor, whose white surcoat with its grey direwolf sigil was pinned at the shoulder with a brooch in the shape of a clenched gauntlet. There were stories about Lord Eddard Stark, and the liberties that King Robert allowed his Fist.
"By order of His Grace King Robert," Lord Stark proclaimed in a terribly final voice, "you men are under arrest."
"On what grounds?" the captain who had tried to stand demanded to know as he tried to sit as lightly as possible.
"On the grounds that nine days ago, fourteen citizens of this kingdom were massacred by a Tyroshi cavalry patrol," Lord Stark replied, fixing each of the captains with his iron-eyed glower. "His Grace has already sent to Tyrosh demanding that the guilty ones be handed over to face the Crown's justice. In the meantime, you and your men will be lodged in the Palace of Justice as guests of His Grace. In order to pay for your maintenance, your cargos will be impounded and sold at public auction; any monies not so used by the time of your release will be disbursed to you."
The three elder captains looked at each other and shrugged. On the face of it, it wasn't the worst proposition in the world. At least there was a chance for them to make some money out of this sudden misfortune; their goods were not being seized as much as held in trust, when looked at from a certain point of view. More importantly, it seemed they weren't to be killed out of hand. The presence of the King's Fist was as good an indication as any that they were being viewed as enemies of the Kingdom of Myr, but apparently the sword was merely being loosened in its scabbard, not drawn and swung.
"The hell you say!" the fourth and youngest of the captains suddenly blurted out, surging half to his feet before the man-at-arms standing behind him drove him back down into his seat. "This is barefaced theft!" he spluttered, heedless of the gauntlets holding his shoulders. "Is your king so craven he must send his dog to do his stealing for him?!"
"Damn it, Laziros, shut up!" said one of the other three captains, who turned to Lord Stark. "I apologize for my brother-in-law, Lord Stark. He is too easily angered."
"Evidently," Lord Stark said calmly. "Your apology is accepted. And your dinners are paid for; I shall make arrangements with the keeper. Now, gentles, if you will come with us, we have a carriage waiting for you."
Laziros opened his mouth again, only shutting it after his brother-in-law seized his wrist in an iron grip and joined the other two captains in glaring him into deflating. Slowly the four captains stood from their chairs, allowing their captors to take the swordbelts that they had hung on the backs of their chairs, and followed Lord Stark through the busily murmuring common room out to the carriage.
XXX
The Archon of Tyrosh kept his expression carefully neutral as the herald finished reading out the demand from King Robert. One of the burdens of being a ruler, of any stripe, was that one was more or less barred from showing strong emotion in public, in order to maintain the dignity of one's office.
His councilors had fewer such inhibitions. No sooner had the Archon waved the herald out of the room than Councilor Varoros slammed his fist on the table. "By the gods, the impertinence," the white-haired old battler spat, his lined face a picture of barely-restrained anger. "That an upjumped, beer-swilling barbarian whoremonger should speak to men such as us as if we were slaves, to bend over on command."
"He might simply be posturing," said Councilor Jaqaquo. "I have dealt with Andals in positions of power before and every one of them was simply enamored of theatrics."
"You don't carve out a kingdom at the sword's edge by theatrics," replied Councilor Stallar, before turning towards the Archon. "My lord, I fear that we must take King Robert at his word," he said earnestly. "And unless we are entirely ready to accept the wager of battle, we should give serious consideration to meeting his demands."
Varoros glared at his fellow councilor. "Have you lost your balls?" he demanded bluntly. "Or are you that eager to bare your arse to the barbarians? My lord," he went on, turning to the Archon as Stallar purpled in rage, "throw their herald out, I beg you. Or better yet, send him back to the barbarians in a coffin. We are not bound to follow the conventions of diplomacy when dealing with people who break them so readily."
"Are you finally losing your wits along with the last of your teeth?" Councilor Innennos spat. "The Andals hate us already. If we kill a herald under flag of truce, then they will sow this city with salt."
"Assuming that they take the city at all," Varoros snapped. "I have more faith in our army and our fleet than to consider that a possibility."
Stallar was on the verge of exploding into fury when the Archon, having made up his mind, raised his hand, stilling all conversation. Even Varoros sat back in his chair. "Gentlemen," the Archon began, "we find ourselves in a quandary. On the one hand we are threatened with the loss of our lives and our property, which we must by no means risk lightly. We each of us have a duty to our sons and grandsons to leave them a patrimony as great as that which our fathers and grandfathers gave to us. On the other hand, we are threatened with the loss of our honor, which is the greater danger. We know well, gentlemen, what the Kingdom of Myr intends to do to us, in the fullness of time. Is there any man here who truly believes, in his heart of hearts, that to yield to the barbarians will do more than whet their appetites for ever more of our lifeblood?"
Every man around the table shook their heads. They had heard the reports of their spies in the Kingdom of Myr, especially those who managed to listen in on the conversations of the Kingdom's infernal Legion. They made for chilling reading. Even worse had been the stories of the Sack of Myr, and especially the barbarities that had taken place in the Palace of Order. There were families, the Archon knew, who had sworn to either die fighting or else commit collective suicide in order to forestall being victimized as the Myrish had been.
The Archon shook his own head. "Beyond even the loss of our honor," he continued, "is the loss of the fear our slaves have for us that would result from a surrender to the barbarians. I pray, gentlemen, that none of us here are so foolish as to believe that our slaves obey our commands out of love for us. No, if they obey it is because they fear, and rightly, the punishments our law prescribes for a rebellious slave. But if we once give them cause to doubt our firmness and our courage, then that doubt will be as a spray of embers cast upon damp tinder. The majority may extinguish themselves and never take hold, but some few will find a dry place, and the tinder will begin to smolder. And we will be forced to run from ember to ember, stamping them out one by one as the smoke rises, all the while praying that we never miss even one, lest the whole pile of tinder burst into flame beneath our feet."
The Archon swept his councilors with a steely gaze. "Therefore," he said, "we are not only well-advised, but compelled to defy King Robert's demand, and pray that it is the bluff it appears to be. It is true, that our defiance may provoke a war that will destroy us. But if we bend the knee to his demands, then we will have traded a quick and clean death by the sword for a slow and inglorious end, wasting away like a pox victim, until we die, raving and impotent, overwhelmed by corruption." The Archon raised a clenched fist. "If we must fall, gentlemen," he said, his voice building, "then let us fall like men!"
The councilors, their bickering swept aside by having their choices laid out for them so starkly, thumped the table in the traditional symbol of agreement and acclamation.
The defiance of the Tyroshi reached Myr a sennight later and sparked an immediate response. The ravens flew that very evening, summoning the Royal Army to its assembly areas. For the third time in as many years, war had come to the Disputed Lands.
- Chasing Dragons: The Sunset Company Reexamined by Maester Hendricus, published 1539 AC