Flashman and the Throne of Swords

Chapter 6

by Technomad

We were hoodwinked, and weren't let speak until that evening. Even then, we were not allowed to speak to our guards. But we were close enough that I could whisper to Tyrion: "How far is it to Winterfell?" The dwarf had been down that road, and I needed to tap his expertise. I also cursed the fact that I wasn't more au fait with Westerosi geography. If Winterfell was close to the ocean, we could possibly overawe Lady Catelyn into releasing me by letting her see one of Her Majesty's ironclads off-shore, or possibly even unloading a few regiments of King Robert's troops. The local forces would almost certainly outnumber them, but by that time, most of King Robert's own household force had been re-equipped with Brown Bess, and could at least call themselves half-trained. And gunpowder's a powerful force-multiplier, at least against folk that don't have it.

Tyrion gave me a bitter smile. "This isn't the road to Winterfell!"

At that, I felt that cold feeling again, like an owl made of ice was trapped in my innards and trying to flap its way free. "It isn't? Then where are we going?" And, I asked myself, how would I be rescued if my guards didn't know where I was? Westeros was a huge place, easily the size of all of Europe. One lone Englishman could be lost there very easily.

Tyrion looked around warily; all our guards were otherwise occupied, so he leaned closer. "This is the road to the Vale of Arryn. Lady Catelyn's sister, Lysa, rules there, in the name of her young son, Robert Arryn."

Now, this was interesting. I remembered that the last King's Hand had been a "Jon Arryn." Was this some sort of relation? When I put the question to Tyrion, he nodded.

"Lady Lysa is the widow of the late Hand. After her husband's death, she took her son and fled to the Vale, fearing enemies. My father, and various other nobles, offered to foster young Lord Robert, but she'd have none of it.(1) The Vale, and the Eyrie castle in particular, is the only place she feels safe."

Just then, our guards started paying attention to us again, and I shut up. Tyrion had given me a lot to think about.

Once we'd crossed over into the hills, I noticed that our guards were tightening their scrutiny. They behaved like soldiers being sent into the Khyber Pass, and I wondered just what was going on. Tyrion had been working on some of the guards, and he was willing to share what he knew with me. He had quite taken to me; many folk do, God knows why.

"The Vale of Arryn isn't as pacified as most of Westeros, Ser Harry. There are tribes of wild men here, and they'll attack if they sense that we're weak or off-guard.(2) They're dangerous!"

The Vale of Arryn sounded more like Afghanistan the more I heard, and the more I heard, the less I liked it. For all that I'd friends among the Pathan, as well as the peoples to their north who were still fighting the Russians, (3) I could have lived the rest of my life perfectly happily never going near the uncomfortable, dangerous place again. And to be dragged into such a place as punishment for a crime I'd never even contemplated, much less committed…words fail me!

We were soon heading up, into what I found were called the Mountains of the Moon. That gave me a moment's bitter memory, of listening to Dick Burton telling me of his great quest to find the source of the Nile. I wished Dick were there. I felt very alone, among all the Westerosi. Even Lord Tyrion, companion in misfortune though he was, was not an Englishman.

They were no longer tying us up, and we'd had our hoodwinks removed after a few days, which had been an enormous relief. However, there was still no escape; the terrain was mountainous and the path we were on was the only safe route through, as far as I could see. It was perfect ambush country, I noted uneasily. My old Pathan friends would have been licking their lips.

And, sure enough, a few days later, there was an attack. A bunch of hairy barbarians came storming out of the wilderness, screaming and waving what were, even for a medieval hellhole such as Westeros, very primitive weapons. But there were enough of them to constitute a danger. We'd been in the process of butchering Lord Tyrion's horse, since we were short of food, and most of us weren't mounted, while the enemy mostly were.

Cursing the fate that had separated me from my Baby Dragoon, I yelled: "A sword! Give me a sword!" The enemy were mounted, and I knew that running was completely futile. I'd seen enough routs in my time (4) to know that fighting, however dangerous it might be, was much safer than trying to get away. Not that there was anywhere I could get to. I was thoroughly turned around, and if I'd left the path, I'd have been lost and alone in the mountains, without so much as a lucifer match to make a fire with, much less any idea of where to go.

Someone tossed me a sword. And not a second too soon, either; a howling madman in a fur cloak came shrieking at me, waving an old rusty sword. He swung, but I could tell he'd never been taught to use his weapon properly, and I parried his swing, thrusting up and through his body to send him howling off his horse. He was finished off by Tyrion, of all people. The dwarf had enough courage for any knight; he'd got an axe from somewhere, and was making good use of it.

In the chaos, I noticed that a singer who had come along "to make a song of this" was cowering under a log, screaming like a lost soul. (5) I would have joined him, but there just wasn't a chance. Wild men were everywhere, and I had to spin and leap and fight like five men just to stay alive. Everybody was being attacked, and nowhere was safe.

I noticed Lady Catelyn being menaced by a couple of those tribesmen. If I'd had a chance to think, I'd likely have let them have her; she was the author of all my misery and without her I'd not have been within a hundred miles of that cursed path. But, instead, I came charging to the rescue, with Tyrion, of all people, right beside me. I stabbed one of the enemy, and Tyrion took the other out with his axe, very efficiently, I must admit. Lady Catelyn looked at both of us, wild-eyed, and I turned around, putting her behind my back as I looked around for more enemies.

But they were all gone. The only tribesmen that were left were dead, along with some of our own folk. We set to, tending the wounded as best we could and getting ready to ride. The closest safe place was the Vale of Arryn itself, and after what we'd been through, it sounded like just the place I wanted to be. Rather to my surprise, Tyrion and I were not disarmed. Against the mountain clans, it seemed, flatland quarrels took second place.(6) Tyrion, I noticed, had also acquired a fine fur cloak that I'd last seen about the shoulders of one of the tribesmen. I'd have given a lot for that cloak myself, but saw no chance of getting it away from him.

We were riding near Lady Catelyn, and she was saying that she'd accused Lord Tyrion of attempting to murder her son because the assassin had been using a dagger that had belonged to Lord Tyrion. He asked her how he had been supposed to lose it; the dagger had been made of Valyrian steel and since the methods of making that had been lost centuries ago, even a small knife of the stuff was valuable. When she told him, he scoffed: "They said that I lost it, betting that Jaime would lose his joust? My lady, I may do a lot of things, but I never bet against my family!"

When we came into the Vale of Arryn myself, I was very glad to see it. By this time, I'd calmed down, and had remembered that not only was I completely innocent of wrongdoing, for once, but I was "Ser" Harry Flashman, second-in-charge at the embassy of Her Majesty in Kings Landing, and once Lady Lysa knew who I was, she'd be bound to have me released. More fool I.

The road to the Eyrie itself was difficult; the castle was built on a mountaintop so steep that I'd not have believed it had I not seen it for myself. There were several subsidiary castles on the road, and we would stop for the night at one, since trying to negotiate the path without light was dangerous at best. Up and up and up we went, until we finally came to a place where even the surest-footed mules (our horses had long since been left behind) could go no farther. I looked up at the castle, still a long ways above us, and then at the ladder-like arrangement set in the side of the mountain to climb up into it.

"Afraid, Ser Harry?" That was Catelyn Stark, damn her eyes. I gave her a look that would have left her dead if looks could kill, and set to climbing. It was a long, difficult climb, and I had to admire whoever had been brave, or mad, enough to go to the labour of building a castle on such an inaccessable pinnacle. It made the Abyssinian ambas I had seen look like nothing much.(7) Emperor Theodore would have been absolutely sea-green with envy if he could have seen it.

By the time I hauled myself up the last bit and into the castle proper, I was aching all over and wanting to collapse, groaning and whimpering. I could have done the climb easily in my younger years, but I was closing in on my fiftieth birthday, and at that time of life, one's joints and old injuries have ways of expressing their displeasure. Not to mention years of too much tuck and drink.

Tyrion rode up in the basket they kept for hoisting supplies up into the castle. The professional side of me wondered how well-found for food the Eyrie was. While it was impossible to storm, that did not mean that it was impossible to take. Hunger had decided many sieges in the past. And the Eyrie would be difficult to re-victual even under normal circumstances.

Lady Catelyn, of course, had ridden up in the same hoist they used for Tyrion, and was looking, relatively speaking, fresh as a daisy. She looked me up and down like I was something she wasn't sure was worth buying. "Well. I guess you'll have to do. Come along. My sister and her son are waiting for us." Since the guards were right there, there was nothing Tyrion or I could do but follow along in her wake like ducklings following their mother. As we walked along, I imagined all sorts of horrible fates befalling her. Boiling in oil was too good for her. Without her damnable interference, I'd have been safe and sound in Kings Landing, tucked up in bed with my lawful brainless beauty.

Lady Catelyn's sister, Lady Lysa, wasn't a patch on Lady Catelyn. About the only thing that marked them as sisters was their complexions, and the luxurious auburn hair they shared. For all my hatred of her, Lady Catelyn was an eminently beddable bundle, but her sister would have had a hard time getting male attention in a garrison that had been cut off and besieged and hadn't seen a white woman in over a year. Behind her, I noticed a sickly-looking child, but I paid him no mind at the time.

The sisters embraced, murmuring affectionately, before Lady Catelyn turned and said: "Sister, let me introduce you to Lord Tyrion Lannister, and Ser Harry Flashman, the envoy from Britain." Lady Lysa looked us up and down, wrinkling her nose, before giving her sister a look that promised future trouble.

I sensed an opportunity. Stepping forward, I made my best leg (not as good as usual, but I was still aching all over from the climb) and said: "A pleasure to meet you, my lady. Please allow me to assure you that I am innocent of any crime, and that if I am returned to Kings Landing at once, there will be no trouble with my Queen…" Just then, one of the guards stepped forward and grabbed me, slapping his hand over my mouth to silence me.

"You will remain silent, Englishman," said Lady Catelyn. She turned to her sister. "Do you have any of the sky cells vacant? A spell in them will soften these two up."

"Yes, Cat, I do have one available. We'll put them in and see how much lies they can remember to tell after a spell in there."

Lady Catelyn gave us a very crooked grin…she was damnably attractive with it too, blast her! "I do hope you enjoy your stay, my lord, Ser Harry," she purred mockingly as we were led away. "You'll find that the dungeons here at the Eyrie are the only ones from which prisoners may escape at will!"

Before we were out of earshot, I heard Lady Lysa shouting: "Cat, are you insane? What do you mean, dragging them here? Do you think I want trouble with the Lannisters?" I hoped it was a good omen; I was badly in need of one. At least, I'd been in enough dungeons and cells and the like to have a fair idea of what awaited me.

Or so I thought.

[1] Robert Arryn, Lord of the Vale, was a sickly child, and his mother may have honestly not felt that he was safe in another's hands. Since fosterage could also be very rough on the fostered boys, she may have had a point.

[2] The mountain clans were the remnants of the original aboriginal inhabitants of the area, who had been pushed into the inhospitable mountains by waves of invaders. By the time of Westeros' discovery by Britain, they were extremely poor and primitive, even by Westerosi standards.

[3] See Flashman, Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, and other writings in the Flashman Papers. Sir Harry had indeed spent a lot of time among the wild peoples of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and knew them well.

[4] Flashman's first military expedition had ended in a rout. See Flashman.

[5] This singer was almost certainly Marillion, whose songs provide a great deal of information to the student about events during this period.

[6] This was true; the mountain clans' hands were against all flatlanders equally at this time.

[7] An amba was an Ethiopian fortification or fortified town, built on a hill or tableland for better defence. Flashman had seen them in his time in Ethiopia.