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Silver Tears of the Moon
Under the Moonlight
The horses were the first one to feel the disruption. Rain tossed her head straight up in the air and whinnied. Maester snorted. Dunk whispered to Thunder to soothe him in advance, just in time to better hear the roaring gallop echoing all the louder for the peace of night, the barely audible sounds of night birds and the soft murmur of the stream at their left. A silver moon cast a shimmering breath over the sleeping land. Who had chosen to gallop like mad instead?
"Stay here!" Dunk hissed in his squire's ear, holding him in place, because Egg, of course, wanted to follow and understand what was going on.
The answer came almost immediately when not far away from them, about a mile downstream, desperate women's shrieks echoed, drowned from time to time by men's shouts, curses, and the steely song of blades.
"We're going there!" Dunk yelled, only to see Egg already running towards the horses. He now cursed his own lack of curiosity. What had he been thinking that the riders were up to, galloping like this into the night? So soon after the end of the plague, the so called GReat Spring Sickness, the roads weren't completely safe yet.
"Hurry up, hurry up!" Egg didn't stop chanting all the way through and by the time they arrived, Dunk's knees must have left a permanent hollow into Thunder's flanks. But of course, being this big slowed the poor horse down significantly. Dunk the Lunk, his good intentions impeded by his sheer size.
"Stay close!" he roared because his squire was not waiting for him. Rain was much faster with such a light burden on her back.
Somewhat to his surprise, he didn't need to repeat and they were riding close together when they circumvented the little copse of bright green trees and saw what the branches had been hiding and the moon revealed, the uneven fight between two and six. One of the newcomers had seized a little girl and carrying her to his horse and another one was holding an older one, presumably her sister, back in place as the only two men in their group were prevented from running over to help. Another scream, and a woman ran straight for the copse, dragging a second girl along by the hand.
"Hehe," one of the men laughed out loud. "Hehe! Stay here, you traitor. Stay here. You couldn't escape us even you could fly…"
But no one bothered to go after her. After all, how far could she go afoot and burdened by the child's short legs? She kept running and when she found herself almost face to face with Dunk, she screamed. In the night, with those fearsome men behind her, he must have looked like a demon to her, or at least another attacker. He held her by the shoulders and shook her to make her stop screaming.
"Listen," he said. "Listen now! Take the child and hide in the trees. Do not let anyone find you. Leave the rest to me."
She stared at him empty-eyed but he had no time to wait for her to gather her wits about her, so he just pushed both her and the child towards the copse.
"What?" Egg demanded. "Are we going to watch now?"
The man carrying the other girl was having some trouble with it: as small as her face hinted that she was and with her arms pressed tightly against his, she nonetheless butted him with her head, squirmed against his chest, tossed herself this and that way, anything to hinder his progress. The slap that he delivered to her cheek echoed all over the water and Dunk's hand instinctively went to his own cheek. But the attacker was getting near his own horse already.
"I wish you good night, my lady, and a speedy journey," he said with sarcastic politeness. "As I deliver Lord Polander his future bride."
Dunk's stomach roiled.
"Mama!" the girl screamed.
"Stay here," Dunk said, inspired all of a sudden, and went on before the boy could protest. "Make the horses neigh and trot. Send them stampeding over there! Let them think that there is a whole army coming!"
A wide grin split the dirty face in two. "Yes, Ser," Egg said.
Dunk mounted Thunder once again. "Now!" he yelled. "Do it now!"
In the eyes of those who glimpsed his emerging from the seas, he looked like something borne out of a night's terror, dark, unshaved, his hair sticking in all directions because he had broken his last comb in it after a ten day delay in combing it and above all, so impossibly huge. Behind him, the mule and palfrey roared and ran in the copse as if the Stranger himself was out to get them. He charged straight for the melee, pushing the man carrying the girl down as he passed; with a shriek, the older girl ran forward and wrenched her sister free. Dunk saw them no more, he barged straight into the melee.
It wasn't his most dignified hour. He never even got to use his sword – the moonlight was not enough to see who he was not supposed to use and it was hard to fight a man afoot from horseback anyway. But it was an efficient job. As the men threw themselves away from his path, the attackers' advantage went somewhere under Thunder's hooves. He tried to make the horse trample one of them and to his amazement, the horse obeyed. War training never went fully away, it seemed. Even after ten or so years.
One of the woman's companions was the first one to scramble back to his feet and grab his sword and that, along with the new thud of Thunder's hooves, decided the outcome. Mere moments later, the three surviving men ran to where they had presumably left their horses, hurrying to get away from the army they believed coming.
"What did you do to them to make them go wild this way?" Dunk asked when his squire arrived.
Egg looked contrived. "You'd better not know, Ser. But for a few days, perhaps you should be the one taking care of them."
"This bad?" Dunk asked wearily but this time, he couldn't even threaten him with a clout in the ear. The boy had done what was needed.
"Are you well, Ser?"
The older girl had come near without being heard and Dunk gave her a look of surprise. "Yes, m'lady," he said. "Hale and hearty."
She nodded. "Good. I'm very obliged to you."
Dunk and Egg shared a look, only now realizing that she wasn't the girl they had thought her. She was much older. And almost a beauty, Dunk thought. Her hair was the shade of moon, the oval of her face just as pale. Of course, he could only see that because she had stayed a little away, looking up at him. The top of her head didn't even reach his chest. He was used to women being considerably shorter than him but this one was way, way too short. He had never seen such a small one. No wonder he had gotten confused.
"It was something that we couldn't not do, m'lady," he finally said, remembering too late Egg's lessons. He should have said that it had been his pleasure and that she wasn't this obliged to him at all… Too late.
She only nodded, bringing her hand to her face. He noticed the dark streak running down her cheek. Blood. He also noticed the fine skin that he supposed would be incredibly soft to the touch, the carefully shaped nails two of which had broken during her fight with the men. "What happened, my lady?" he finally asked. "What did they want of you?"
"My daughter," she said and this, coupled with what Dunk had overheard the abductor saying, almost made him sick.
She made a step backwards, giving him a calculating glance. Dunk shifted his way, painfully realizing just how unkempt he looked like. In the deceit of moonlight, her eyes looked indigo as they took him in.
"You're a hedge knight, aren't you?" she asked and without waiting for an answer, added, "Come on, join us at our fire. Both of you."
"You don't have a fire," Egg said and she smiled a little.
"But we'll make one."
"Better not," one of her men warned, coming near. "Who can be sure that they won't come back? My lady, they might realize that there isn't a whole host coming to get them. We'd better move, and fast. It's a long way ahead of us."
She sighed. "I guess you're right, Elfred. Go prepare the horses. I'm coming."
He walked away and she looked at her pair of unlikely rescuers. "I want to buy your services," she said, very business-like. "I'd like to have you as my escort as I travel to Riverrun to lay my grievances before the King."
"What grievances?" Egg asked but there was no time; before they knew it, they were in the saddles and on the road. And they still didn't know their new employer's name.
"Lady Malbrooke," Elfred told them the next day as they were tethering the horses. "Her husband died in the spring and his cousin has been scheming to appropriate their seat, Golden Stream, ever since. Unfortunately, my lady lost her son in that damned plague as well and she was never very popular there, so there were few who would support her. The damned man intended to wed her daughter, Lady Elsbet, and thus render all claims of hers null and void." He spat in the dust, disgusted.
"How old is she?" Dunk asked, sharing the sentiment. Whatever age the chestnut-haired girl with those wide eyes was, it was too young.
"Eleven," the man replied.
Like Egg, Dunk thought. "And not one of her father's bannermen did not think to protect her? The castellan? Anyone?"
"They all think Ser Polander is better than my lady's regency. They think ruling a House is a man's job."
I could show then a certain widow to disabuse them of this foolish notion, Dunk thought. "And she's going to beg for the King's justice?"
"They say Baelor Targaryen is a man who never leaves a wrong unmended." But there was some doubt to the broad grizzled man's words. "At least that's what my lady believes."
Egg bristled. "He is," he declared loudly. "He's the soul of chivalry indeed."
Elfric snorted. "And what would you know of this, boy?"
More than you think, Dunk thought and Thunder neighed as if in agreement.
"My lady places great trust in him and even more in the Queen Dowager who belongs to her own people. She lived at court once."
"Who, the Queen?" Dunk asked. "Of course she lived…"
"Not the Queen," Elfred replied, making sure that his weapons were in perfect state. "My lady. She lived in respect and glory there… and now she comes back as a beggar," he finished, his voice full of resentment. "Who would have thought? We had to sneak out from the castle into the dead of night as if we were brigands. That damned plague!"
Dunk nodded, surprised to find out that a highborn lady might need protection the very same way Tanselle had. His squire had already taught him much about the human side of the highest of highborn. They loved their children, they hated and longed for more than what they have despite having so much in the first place… What would he learn from this small woman and her little girls of the scared eyes?