Garrett grew up hating most of his family. He was the third son of Gyreld Polmont, a newly made lord and the most deceitful of the Lannister bannermen. Gyreld was both eager to please and insincere, an odd combination. He was contemptuous and brutal to those he thought his inferiors, and fawning and servile to those above his own stature. Lord Polmont was awarded his own land and even a holdfast in the westerlands which formerly belonged to a minor lord who lost his head in the sacking of King's Landing at the tail end of Robert's Rebellion.
In a vain attempt to please his new master, Polmont named his first two sons after famous dead Lannisters. The eldest was Tytos, the next was Damon. Unfortunately for the new-made lord, Tywin was not a sentimental man and had no great love for the ascendants of his own house, least of all his own father. Once Gyreld learned of this, he gave up this line of deference and named his third son Garret, which was the name of Gyreld's own dead father.
Lord Polmont upheld cunning as an inviolable virtue. Before earning his lordship, Gyreld made a name for himself as a scout and a spy. More than once he had snuck into an enemy stronghold disguised as a beggar, and when most of its inhabitants were at morning prayers in the sept, he would sabotage the portcullis and drawbridge, making it impossible for it to be raised and allowing a large force of his allies to storm the fortification with ease.
It was deeds such as this that made him noteworthy, and after fighting well in Lord Tywin's taking of King's Landing—and once a few Lannister bannermen had perished or otherwise debased themselves in acts of cowardice, Gyreld and a few others were raised to the ranks of nobility. He took the place of the young and heirless Lord Osric Serrett—who was shot in the eye with an arrow while bravely storming the Red Keep—and was rewarded with the castle of Silverhill and the lands surrounding it in the westerlands. This was fortuitous for Gyreld as, despite the fact that Lannister lands were famous for gold, Silverhill was so named after the numerous silver mines dotting the hilly landscape, practically all of which now fell under Polmont jurisdiction.
The stronghold of Silverhill itself was in actuality made up of two hills. On the larger hill was a keep surrounded by stone walls. On the smaller was a compact castle with mud and earth walls and stone towers, the small folk living within these walls. This fortress of two parts was surrounded by a moat in the shape of a figure of eight. An attacker would have to pass through the smaller hill before they could reach the keep on the larger hill. It would be a formidable fortress to take. So much for the new Polmont home.
Upon being raised to lordship, Gyreld took the sigil of a white barn owl in flight, wings extended, on a field of black. Taking some words was not necessary for a house so inconsequential, but Gyreld did it anyway. In reference to the night operations that had made him famous, and befitting of his sigil, he took the words 'The Sternest Goodnight". The following story concerns Gyreld Polmont's youngest son.
Garrett Polmont was born after the sacking of King's Landing, after the death of the Mad King and Robert's usurpation. This is to say, he lived in a time of peace and had never known war. His father had no time for his youngest son, preferring to hawk and hunt by day and whore by night. Like his king, he had been at his best in the time of rebellion and seemed to waste away in times of harmony.
Garrett's mother had died in birthing him. This troubled his father little, who had no great love for anyone except himself and those who were superior to him—at least, that was his pretence. This did trouble, however, Damon, who was older than Garrett by three years and could remember their mother quite clearly. Damon treated Garrett terribly for being responsible for their mother's passing away. This was only part of the reason he gave for bullying his younger brother, but in reality it was merely the excuse he gave. Damon had inherited all of his father's spite and duplicity, and used it to torment his little brother who was naive and trusting.
Their oldest brother, Tytos, was already a man grown and had been sent to be a ward of Kevan Lannister at Casterly Rock, the son of his namesake. What few memories Garrett had of his eldest brother were of the perfect knight, gallant and honest, but it was likely these were exaggerated by brotherly affection and nostalgia.
Garrett was not permitted to play with the children of the smallfolk of Silverhill, so his childhood was a lonely one. Fortunately, the holdfast had a small library, and it was there that Garrett discovered his great infatuation: legends and fables. When the Polmont family moved into Silverhill, the middle child, Damon, was already used to the life of a commoner and had no interest in learning to read or write or any of the subjects the resident maester could have taught him, and Gyreld saw no use for them either and didn't enforce education on either of his boys. Garrett, however, actually wanted to learn and found the illuminated pages and flowing script fascinating. The maester, whose name was Atticus, taught Garrett the histories of the seven kingdoms, the names, words and sigils of each of them, as well as arithmetic and languages. But it was not long until Garrett was reading for pleasure.
Because of his aptitude for learning, it might have been expected of Garrett to become a maester himself, but tales of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and Florian the Fool convinced the boy that he was destined to become a gallant knight like those in the stories, and indeed like his eldest brother.
Early in his days at Silverhill he started to notice the stark contrast between the way the people around him, both noble and commoner, behaved at Silverhill and the way those in his beloved stories acted.
One day in the library, he looked up from a volume detailing the tale of Symeon Star-Eyes and asked Atticus, "Did my brother Tytos ever kill any dragons or rescue any damsels?"
"What do you mean?" said the maester. Most of Atticus' attention was on the bookshelves. He was sorting some new volumes into their proper places.
"In the stories, it's a knight's duty to defend the poor and the weak, lay low violent beasts and protect maidens in danger. Did Tytos ever do anything like that?"
Atticus said, "Garrett, you must know, most of those knights you read about—Symeon Star-Eyes, Florian the Fool—probably never existed."
Garrett looked a little crestfallen. "What about Aemon the Dragonknight? He must have existed. He was a Targaryen."
"Yes he existed," pronounced Maester Atticus, "and by all accounts he was a great and noble knight, but understand, young master, that what you read in those stories is a romanticised view of real war, and real war is no adventure."
Atticus, being a maester, had never known life as a soldier, but it was rare to find somebody who had lived through Robert's Rebellion who had not tasted the horrors of war in some form or another. Being a skilled healer, he had worked as a medic during the Battle of the Trident on the usurper's side and had seen his fair share of the terrible things men could do to each other with sharpened steel. Nonetheless, he was most proud of the silver link in his chain.
What the maester had said to Garrett made little sense to him. He knew the stories were popular, and if that was the case then most people must believe that heroes like Prince Aemon were worth emulating. Garrett imagined that many knights, his brother for example, would try to be like the great knights in the fables.
"When I am a knight I will fight for King Robert or Lord Tywin. If I distinguish myself I could join the kingsguard."
Maester Atticus looked sceptical. "A noble aspiration, but your brother Tytos is already a knight, and if things continue on the path they are already on, Master Damon will become a knight too. You are the first of the Polmonts who has learned to read, and read well. It might be prudent for you to become a maester yourself."
Garrett would have none of it. "Anyone can become a maester, but it is much harder to become a knight unless you are already a noble. Compared to other bannermen, my father became a lord only recently. I won't throw away this rare chance to become a true knight."
Atticus gave him a plaintive look but said nothing. If he did become a knight he would learn a fast and hard lesson that fables did not depict reality. Having said that, his beloved legends did contain good moral lessons. That was why people loved them. They depicted life as it should be, not as it really was.
"If you do become a knight," Atticus began, "you'll no doubt find that war will change you, as it does with nearly everybody—perhaps even for the worse. But you should remember the lessons taught in your legends. In war, noble principles are easy to forget."
Garrett thought he understood what the maester was telling him, but at this stage had no frame of reference with which to appreciate the harsh realities of the world outside the small holdfast of Silverhill. The young boy went back to reading about Symeon Star-Eyes and Maester Atticus continued sorting the bookshelves.
Damon Polmont forced his younger brother into the soft mud of Silverhill's bailey for the third time. It had been kneaded into mush by the feet of men-at-arms, the horses, as well as the heavy downpour of the previous night.
"Get up, little craven", Damon barked. "Get up or I'll find myself a weapon with an edge and show you what damage a real sword can do."
The sludge sucked wetly at Garrett's hands as he forced himself back onto his feet. He picked up his sword again.
Damon could've sparred with someone of his size and skill level, but he preferred practicing with someone he knew he could beat—and easily at that. Garret was three years his junior, and Damon himself was already a squire. They couldn't be any less evenly matched. Nonetheless, Garrett, despite his bruised face and aching torso, refused to back down, something which infuriated his older brother.
This morning, Lord Gyreld was out hunting with a large retinue, which meant that in the near empty courtyard, on Silverhill's main fortification, Damon's orders were the last word.
Very few of Silverhill's inhabitants had lived there prior to Gyreld Polmont's assumption to power. The Castellan Rodger and Maester Atticus were exceptions to this rule. The majority had served their lord since before the rebellion, and none of them were what Garrett would call gallant. In Maester Atticus' view, though he would never voice this opinion, they were scum.
"Try and hit me this time" came Damon's voice again, his freckled face stretched into a grin, both hands grasping his wooden training sword. "Do you think I'm going to go easy on you because you're younger? I'll be a knight in a few years. Being a knight means keeping weaklings in their place. That means you."
The onlookers had no qualms about watching a child get battered by one much older. 'It was the way of the world', they said, 'for the strong to pray on the weak'.
Tywin Lannister promoted Gyreld Polmont because he didn't let principles get in the way of carrying out orders—those who did were useless when ordered to carry out more underhanded tasks—so Gyreld looked for the same sort of qualities when choosing his own followers.
Garrett was standing now, grasping his training sword. He was stained with mud from top to toe. The younger boy took two careful steps forward, as did the older, and Damon swung with vehemence. Garrett parried, and there was a dull smack as wood met wood. The boy felt the reverberation shake his arms.
The onlookers laughed and jeered at Garrett and shouted their encouragement for Damon. The older boy pressed his attack, driving Garrett backward. Garrett had been standing on an especially slippery patch, and had learned through error not to tread too heavily, but Damon was brash, and just as he was preparing for a strike that would break his little brother's defence, he stepped onto an area where Garrett had previously fallen. One foot slid quickly forward, the other stayed in place, resulting in his legs splitting comically which made the bystanders roar with laughter. Damon tried to lift his sunken foot out of the squelching mud but lost his balance, falling sideways. As his torso hit the mud for the first time there was an even louder roar of laughter, and all of a sudden Damon was as filthy as Garrett. The younger boy could not suppress a smile.
He watched his brother furiously struggling to gain a footing and found himself considering what Prince Aemon would have done. The boy offered a gloved hand to the writhing figure, only to have it slapped away. Damon managed to find his feet himself, and in his anger he rapidly drew out a short knife he had sheathed at his belt.
"You little shit", he snapped, advancing carefully across the slush this time. The laughing stopped, and was replaced by the sound of hoofbeats which Damon, in his fury, did not heed. One section of the crowd surrounding the two boys parted and the destrier-mounted Gyreld Polmont knocked Damon roughly to the ground with the butt of his boar spear. The lord's hunting party now filled the bailey and Gyreld himself dismounted, handing the reins to a groom who had been watching the two boys sparring.
Gyreld was a spare man, and tall, with angular features. Undulating black locks hung either side of his face and his beard was rough and scraggly. He did not look like a lord.
"Stupid boy", he spat. His middle son was lying flat in the mud. Gyreld used the end of his spear again to strike the dagger out of his son's hand.
It seemed the lord was angry for more than just Damon's misbehaviour. Perhaps the hunt hadn't gone well, Garrett thought.
"If I or any of my men catch you waving bare steel around again, at your brother or anyone who isn't your enemy, I'll do to you what the Boltons do to their prisoners. Do you know what that means?"
Damon nodded vigourously. He most certainly did.
"Who was directing this sparring lesson?" Gyreld asked angrily, searching the crowd with his eyes.
A worried looking armourer raised his hand. "Rodger charged me with it while you were hunting, Lord." Rodger was Silverhill's castellan and had been with his lord for the past few hours.
To Rodger, Gyreld ordered never to give the armourer charge of his sons again. To two of his men-at-arms he ordered the armourer to be locked in the smaller hill's pillory for an hour, in full view of Silverhill's smallfolk.
Without even sparing Garrett a look, Gyreld left them then. The boy watched him leave and only noticed then that his father was limping. There was a nasty laceration on his leg, just above his knee. The lord called for Maester Atticus and the two of them headed towards his workroom. The maester offered to support his lord but Gyreld brusquely refused—the man was far too proud.
Garrett turned to a man-at-arms stepping down from his saddle. "What happened to father?" he asked.
"Milord Polmont was charged by a boar. Massive brute he was, and fast. He burst out of a thicket, charged him and gored his leg something terrible, then made his escape before any of us could so much as thrust our spears at him. There's always next time I suppose."
So that was why, thought Garrett. He felt fortunate his father hadn't turned on him as well as Damon.
Garrett stripped himself of his gloves, his felt boots, and the padded vest he had been wearing, and then his soiled tunic and trousers. Silverhill being a small and relatively unpopulated holdfast, there was only one, albeit large, bath in the keep. Damon took his bath first, so Garrett had to make do with water that was lukewarm and clouded with dirt.
Garrett and Damon slept in the same chamber in the keep, below their father's solar. Their beds were side by side, separated only by a small table supporting a candelabra, each of whose candles had already gone out. Damon was lying in bed, turned toward the wall, his back to Garrett. He blamed his brother for making him look like a fool instead of the mud. Garrett mounted his bed and lay down as silently as he could. As always, he drifted off into a deep sleep quite quickly.
The next day, Garrett did his best to avoid his irate older brother. He took refuge in Maester Atticus' dwelling and atelier. The maester let him feed the ravens and try to teach them to repeat things.
"Say Garrett."
The raven regarded the boy with a cocked head and a beady little eye.
"Garrett", he persisted.
"Corn", said the raven. "Corn, corn."
Garrett was certain he didn't have the knack for teaching ravens to talk. He let the bird peck a few kernels out of his cupped hand and then returned it to its cage.
"You have to keep at it. Besides, not all ravens have the aptitude to speak."
"Maybe that raven was just stupid, then."
"Maybe. Master Garrett, come away from the cages and let me show you something."
The boy followed the man and both descended down a floor to the atelier. Garrett had passed this way on his way up to the rookery. The room was crowded with odd shaped bottles and beakers, a large circular lens on a hinge stooping over a plant cutting on a small stage, charts of the night sky, sheets of mathematical formulas which mystified Garrett, and jars of dried medicinal leaves and jars of preserved amphibians.
But then Garrett noticed something new at the back of the room. He was surprised he had overlooked it upon entering the building. Spread out on a large table was what could only be the supine form of a man wrapped in sackcloth. Atticus approached it and drew the cover off with a flourish. Garrett didn't know what response the maester was expecting, but he reacted with immediate disgust.
Lying on the table was the naked and pallid cadaver of a relatively young man. His torso was lined with bruises and shallow scratches, but looking at his head and neck revealed to Garrett how he must have died. There was a large laceration in the side of his face. His cheek was shredded, exposing a line of yellowed, broken teeth and red gums. Whatever blade had struck him had passed right through his cheek and out of his mouth. What killed him, however, was a similar gash along his jugular, most likely with the same weapon which tore apart his face. It must have made quite a mess at the time, but the body had been cleaned.
"I had this corpse intercepted on its way to Oldtown", said Atticus. "I thought you might be interested to learn about the functions of the body."
"I told you I didn't want to become a maester", exclaimed Garrett with mingled disgust and outrage. "I have no interest in anatomy."
"Perhaps not", rejoined Atticus, "but if you're going to be a knight one day you must get used to the brutal things men do to each other in war. I assure you, you will see much more gruesome sights on the battlefield than this fellow.
"Nonetheless, I never said he was meant solely for you. Anatomy was my specialty when I studied at Oldtown. I earned the silver link in my chain long before any other pupil of my age. I never understood their squeamishness.
"This fellow met his end not far from here at a tavern on the road between King's Landing and Casterly Rock. He's a fortunate find, really. Young male bodies are hard to come by in times of peace; most families would rather have their dead buried than donated to a maester's study."
"How did he die?" asked Garrett.
"The yeoman I paid to bring him here told me he was killed by none other than Gregor Clegane."
"The mountain that rides?"
"The same."
Atticus continued. "As you may know, a tourney is being hosted at King's Landing to celebrate the naming of Eddard Stark as Hand of the King. Apparently Clegane was unhorsed by some highborn puppy, then slaughtered his own stallion in anger. Directly afterwards, he darted back home along the Gold Road, stopping briefly at a tavern, raping brutally the owner's young daughter. When the girl's brother tried to intervene, Clegane drove his lance through the boy's face and the knight's followers finished him off. I had this story from the commoner who sent me the body.
"Nasty man that Clegane. An absolute brute."
Atticus looked up suddenly with an expression of worry, remembering that the mountain was, like Lord Polmont, a Lannister bannerman. "Don't tell your father I said that."
"I won't" said Garrett. "Clegane is no true knight."
"Indeed not."
A flurry of wingbeats could be heard from the floor above, along with the particular cawing sound the ravens were wont to make whenever they were joined by another of their number. Atticus and Garrett mounted the steps to the rookery where they found a raven with a folded message tied to its leg had alighted on the windowsill.
Atticus untied the message with deft fingers while Garrett opened a cage door and gently settled the newcomer into his new home.
"It's from Lord Tywin", said Atticus with surprise. The master scanned it quickly. "I must read this to your father."