Chapter X
King's Landing
The forges burned hot and the hammers rang like bells in the shop of Tobho Mott, master armourer. Outside on the Street of Steel, a cold rain was falling in curtains, splashing upon the slick cobblestones.
Inside the smithy, Gendry Waters paid no heed to the weather. The heat of the fires was on his face as he put the finishing touches on his finest work yet: A bascinet helmet which he had wrought into the shape of a bull's head. With great care he chiseled away at the visor of the helmet, giving it the facial features of a bull. His fellow apprentices and the journeymen smiths were busy at work at their own anvils and forges, but they kept glancing over to him and his helmet. He smiled at that. After all, it was the other apprentices that had inspired him to make this helmet.
It had begun a few weeks past in a quarrel over helmets with Tomas, an apprentice around the same age as Gendry.
"There's no better helmet than the barbute, you can see out of it, you can breathe in it, and it protects you," Tomas had said.
"You only like the barbute because it's just as ugly as you are. It's just a stupid metal pot. Any idiot can make a barbute, it takes skill to make a bascinet," Gendry had replied. He far preferred a bascinet with a full visor over a barbute.
And so the argument had went, on and on, for the rest of that day, until Master Mott and every other armourer in the smithy was sick of hearing it. Finally Tomas had called Gendry a "bull-headed bastard who can't even make the helmet he brags about," and that had made up Gendry's mind. He would make a bascinet helmet and he would make it in the shape of a bull's head, to stick Tomas' words down his throat.
At first the other apprentices had doubted him. Willem said he was wasting his time. Pepin thought that master Mott wouldn't allow Gendry to take on such an ambitious project. Little Arryk, the youngest of the apprentices, didn't think that Gendry could do it. He had shown them all wrong.
In his free hours in the evenings, Gendry had looked over the designs for bascinets in the books in Master Mott's study. He could read only a little, mostly he looked at the drawings and sketches. Tobho Mott had smiled at that, calling Gendry a "most diligent apprentice". The design he settled on was what his master called a "great bascinet", with an elongated visor which he could fashion into the shape of a bull's muzzle and nose.
He had begun by forging the helm itself. Hours of hammering in the forge, shaping and forming it, and quenching it in cold water to harden the steel. By the end he had a simple skullcap with two long cheekguards and an open face.
"That's your bascinet?" Tomas had sneered. Gendry said nothing, he just kept continued his work.
The horns had come next, two pieces of steel he curved so that they would deflect blows to the side instead of catching them on the head. These he welded onto the crest of the helmet.
Finally he set the visor upon it, attached by rotating pivots to the sides of the skullcap. Carefully he bored breathing holes through the flared nostrils and bared mouth of the bull's head. Slits he added in the fierce eyes of the bull, for vision.
When all was done, he held up the finished work. It caught the firelight and gleamed dully. The steel was unpolished and the craftsmanship was rough, but he was well-pleased by the results of his labour.
"A bull's head helmet?" said Master Mott. Gendry glanced over his shoulder and saw the master smith standing behind him, inspecting his work.
"Yes master," said Gendry, handing over the helmet. The armourer handled it carefully, feeling the steel, evaluating it with a critical eye.
"Well done lad," Tobho Mott said with a small smile.
"Tomas! Where's that barbute you were working on?" the master armourer called loudly over the sounds of the hammers.
Tomas dutifully brought over his work. It was a heavy steel barbute, with long cheek guards and a wide eye slit. Tobho Mott inspected this with the same care he had examined Gendry's helmet with.
"Put it on. Yours too Gendry," said Master Mott. Tomas donned his barbute and Gendry pulled his helmet over his head. It was confined and quiet within the bascinet, though not quite as stifling as he expected. A crowd of apprentices was beginning to gather.
"Now who can tell me why I always recommend a visored helmet for the men who buy our armour?" Tobho Mott asked them.
"Because you can charge a higher fee for it?" said Pepin. The master armourer smiled at that.
"Very good Pepin, but there's something else," he replied. He reached out and poked his fingers into Gendry's visor. Inside the helmet, the metal tapped lowly. Then he turned to Tomas and quickly jabbed his fingers into his eyes.
Tomas recoiled, swearing and cursing in pain, covering his face with his hands.
"That wouldn't have happened if you had added a visor you stupid ox," Master Mott explained. The apprentices laughed.
"Now you'll see all sorts of open-faced helmets out there and people choose them for all sorts of reasons, some good and bad, but when you're an armourer you're in the business of keeping knights alive. If your knight gets killed wearing something you forged for him, he won't exactly come back to seek your services again and he won't recommend you to others either. So have some foresight and add a visor you daft bastard," said Tobho Mott.
"Y-yes master Mott," said Tomas. He wrenched off his barbute and unhappily rubbed his eyes. Gendry smiled to himself behind his visor then removed his own helmet.
"Now back to work you lot!" the master said "The tourney is ending today so we're going to have a lot of repair jobs in the next day or two"
He paused and looked around the crowd of his apprentices and workers.
"Where's Arryk?" he asked. Silence. A nervous cough in the back. Tobho Mott sighed in exasperation.
"Where is my nephew?" he repeated more insistently.
"He went to the tourney!" blurted Willem. Gendry sighed. Willem could never keep a secret.
"The tourney? I expressly forbid it and he went to the tourney?" said Mott, the beginnings of anger in his words. The wordless looks on the faces of the apprentices were as good as a confession. Master Mott sighed.
"What will I do with that boy?" he said, rubbing his brow. Then he shook his head as if to himself and sent the rest of them back to work.
"All of you! Back to the forges!" bellowed Holman, the steely-haired journeyman smith who had been Master Mott's chief assistant and right-hand for as long as any of them could remember. He had fists like hammers, arms like steel bars and a voice that blustered and roared like a huge set of bellows.
As a "reward" for their good work on the helmets, Holman sent Gendry and Tomas out to the sheds behind the smithy to retrieve more coal and iron for the day's work. Each grabbed a wheelbarrow and ran across the small, rain-spattered courtyard that separated the smithy from the sheds. To their right and left loomed master Mott's house and their own dormitories, the upper storeys leaning over the courtyard and pouring rainwater from their eaves and shingled roofs. The cold rains sent a shiver down Gendry's neck as they matted his black hair to his head.
They loaded their wheelbarrows down with armfuls of wood, coal, iron, tools and other necessities for the smithy.
"Well done on that helmet," Tomas said with a grudging respect. Gendry looked at him and cracked a smile.
"And yours was fine work, even if you had your eyes put out," Gendry said. Tomas chuckled and gave him a good natured punch in the shoulder.
When they finished gathering what was needed, they made to wheel them back to the smithy again. Gendry grimaced as he looked out on the sheets of rain pouring down.
"I hope Arryk doesn't stay out long in this, it's not good for the little one," he said.
"Aye, he'll catch himself a cold he will, and then be sniveling to us for days about it," Tomas said. Despite the words there was an affection and worry for the boy in his voice. Little Arryk, bright eyed with his mop of blond hair, was a little brother to all of the older apprentices.
They trotted back across the courtyard through the rain and into the heat of the smithy. Just as they were unloading their wheelbarrows though, they heard the voice of their worries.
"Ee's dead! Ee's dead! Ee's dead!" yelled Arryk, suddenly dashing in from outside. His face was pale, his arms and legs were trembling from the cold. He was wearing only a thin tunic and pants, and both were soaked right through.
All work stopped when the lad ran in. Towering Holman pushed his way through the other smiths to Arryk's side.
"Back up! All of you back up! Give the poor lad some air!" he yelled "Willem! Go get some blankets and dry clothes!"
Gendry looked down over the shoulders of the other apprentices at Arryk. The boy was shivering dreadfully and he seemed so very small. His eyes were wild, he couldn't stop shaking.
"'Ee stabbed 'im, he did, I saw it! I saw it!" he said, half-ranting. He kept on repeating the phrase, looking around at all the others with wild eyes.
"Calmly now lad, who was stabbed?" asked Holman with a gentle voice. Willem returned with the blankets and Holman's huge hands wrapped them around the small boy.
"The King!" Arryk replied. Murmurs ran through the crowd. There was a jolt that ran down into Gendry's stomach and he leaned forward to listen more closely.
"I was at the tourney, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I wasn't supposed to, but I was," Arryk explained. He was breathing deeply, beginning to calm. Then the words came out all in one rush:
"They was all fighting out, all at once, and the King was there! He had a big hammer and he was hitting knights down! And then one knight came after him, he had a big red cat on his shield, and he knocked the King off his horse! And then the King knocked him off his horse! And he stabbed the King! I saw it! Everyone was screaming and there was a tall man shouting and the Queen was crying! I saw it!"
"Calm yourself little one, it's alright" Holman said sternly. Though Arryk was a lad of nearly eight, strong Holman lifted him as if he were a babe, taking the dry clothes that Willem had brought in his other hand. More murmurs were running through the crowd. To Gendry, it seemed as if the world was spinning. He wondered who would dare to strike a King.
"I'll take him to his uncle and get him settled. The rest of you: Back to work! We don't know nothing here, and it don't matter whether the King is alive or dead, you've still got work to do," said Holman, and then he carried little Arryk away.
"How can he expect us to keep working when we just heard a thing like that?" said Pepin as soon as Holman was out of earshot.
"But who would attack the King? And why?" said Gendry. He remembered he had seen the King once, riding off into the Kingswood with a spear in his hand and all his hunters and hounds behind him. He had been a fat man, yet in his broad shoulders and wild black hair and glinting blue eyes Gendry had seen something of the warrior he had once been. He remembered that the King had winked at him from his horse when he saw him staring from the street.
"I bet you it's that Lord Isildur. He's a sorcerer I hear, he doesn't ever age and that's unnatural I tell you," said Willem.
"That's not true, he ages just like anyone," said Gendry.
"How do you know? You don't know anything about them Gondorish," replied Willem.
"Common sense. They must have children just like anyone, so if they never aged then eventually there would be way more of them than of us, but there isn't, so they must age and die like anyone, even if it takes them a long time," said Gendry.
"You don't know nothing about the Gondorish, who knows what strange things they get up to?" said Willem. Gendry rolled his eyes.
"Well I tell you what I do know, if we don't get to work Holman will tan our hides, so we ought to get to it," he said.
The others agreed and they quickly went back to stoking the bellows, shoveling coal, or working on whatever project they had for the day. Yet even as Gendry worked until his arms ached, always in the back of his head he wondered about what had happened at that tourney and who would strike a blow against King Robert. Such a thing was treason of the highest degree.
"Concern yourself not with the affairs of high lords my lad, for they are proud and quick to anger. Honest work is better for you and me," Holman told him at the end of the day. But he couldn't help it, he had never heard of anyone even daring to think about attacking the King himself.
The next day, Gendry waited and listened for the coming of the criers even as he worked away in the forge yet none came. He had expected them to come to announce that the King lived or had died. The Red Keep sat broodingly, secretively, upon Aegon's Hill. The heavy rain gradually dwindled away into a persistent chilly drizzle, punctuated now and again by low rumbles of thunder from the iron-grey clouds. Despite the rain a deep silence had fallen over the city, as if every man, woman and child was waiting for word just as Gendry did. The morning steadily passed, and Gendry listened to the other apprentices whisper and wonder who could have struck down the King and why.
Rumours were swirling along the alleys and in the taverns of the city. Some said it was Gondorish treachery, others thought it was the Queen, others thought it was foreigners from across the narrow. Some said the King was dead, others that he was a cripple, and others still that was asleep and could not be awakened. As he listened to the talk, Gendry idly wondered why everyone seemed to know someone who knew these things for fact.
As the bells of Baelor's Sept rung out the first hour of the afternoon, they finally had word. The criers came forth from the Red Keep and on every street of the city they shouted the news:
"The King lives!" they yelled to the crowds "The King lives! The gods be praised, the King lives!"
But when the people asked who had committed the crime or what would be done or how bad the wound was, the criers would say no more than that the King was alive and recovering from his wound. Then they returned to the castle as if they expected the rumours to die in an afternoon.
The rumours did not die that day or the next, or the third. Gendry heard them. He heard them in the smithy while they worked. He heard them at the supper table. He heard them in the taverns and he heard them in the streets. Some thought that the Hand of the King was working sorceries on King Robert, others thought that the Queen was poisoning him, and some suspected the Queen's brother of some vile plot. The talk was inescapable.
Four days passed slowly after the criers announced that the King still lived. Gendry struck his hammer heavily upon the hot metal. It glowed with every blow, sparks flying. Pepin was on the bellows, thickly muscled arms beaded with sweat as he stoked the fires. The breastplate of one of the tourney knights was held in Gendry's tongs. The knight had taken one too many lances to the chest in the tourney and a long crack had opened up in the surface of the cuirass. Gendry was welding it shut and filling the crack with new steel before Holman would put the finishing touches upon it. Looking up from his work, Gendry glanced around the smithy. Holman wasn't at his forge as he usually was. He was over by the entrance, talking to someone. The man was cloaked, a hood pulled low over his face. They were both pointing towards Gendry and Pepin.
"Who do you suppose that is?" Gendry said to Pepin, voice loud to rise above the din of the smithy. The other apprentice shrugged.
"Man in need of an armourer I would think," Pepin replied.
"Shouldn't he be up talking to Master Mott?" said Gendry, but before Pepin could speak Holman was bellowing in their direction.
"Gendry! Get over here!" he yelled.
Gendry dutifully handed his hammer and tongs to the other apprentice and went over, wiping his hands on his apron. The cloaked man was tall, very tall, and his hood was pulled down so low that only a bit of his lower jaw could be seen. He didn't say a word to Gendry, he just stood there as if oblivious to the chilling rain.
"You're wanted up at Master Mott's house, off you go," said Holman, jerking his head towards the tall building that served as both the master's home and his shop's front.
"But why would-"
"Don't ask questions lad, when the master calls you just go," Holman snapped. He was not used to being questioned by apprentices.
"And don't forget to wipe your damn boots!" the journeyman yelled when Gendry was halfway across the courtyard.
Gendry wiped his boots on the lintels of the door before he stepped inside. A grey half-light filtered in to the broad hall from square windows. He looked around. The only sound he could hear was the steady noise of raindrops upon the roof.
"Up here lad, this way," said Master Mott. He looked up and saw his master standing at the top of the stairs. Master Mott was well dressed in one of his finer tunics, black with asilver hammer pins upon his right and left sleeves. This was puzzling, Gendry knew he usually only wore that to receive the richer patrons of the shop.
Tobho Mott led Gendry to a tall oaken door at the end of the hallway. Through a window he glimpsed the Street of Steel below, busy with people despite the rain. Somewhere in the distance, there was an echo of thunder.
Master Mott opened the door upon a room, a dining room but its small round table had been pushed into the corner. As Gendry entered he saw three men, cloaked just like the one in the courtyard, but their hoods were back and their heads were bare. He recognized the first immediately.
He was here with the Hand of the King too… Gendry thought as he met the glowering stare of Lord Stannis Baratheon. Stannis looked at the armourer's apprentice as if he were a callow boy that had done something to Lord Stannis' daughter.
Where Stannis was balding, the other man had long dark hair, with strands of grey beginning to show. He stood to the side of Stannis and his long solemn face betrayed nothing, no feeling, no thoughts. He simply stared at Gendry, coolly contemplating him.
It was the third man in the room, however, that transfixed Gendry. He sat in a high-backed wooden chair while the others stood to either side. Yet even sitting, Gendry could tell he was far taller than his companions. He might have been the tallest man Gendry had ever seen if he had been standing. There was something about him unlike the others; a lordliness of such power and presence that it could be felt simply by looking upon him. His hair was dark, but cut short and simple. It was the eyes though that caught Gendry and held him as if in a vice. Grey eyes set in a pale, stern face. Eyes that were bright but not youthful, ancient but not aged. Those eyes were as sharp as a blade and as deep as the sea. That gaze struck the apprentice and he felt it like a hammer blow to his chest.
"Here he is my lords, the boy you asked for," said Master Mott.
"Tell me you name," said the man with the grey eyes. His voice was deep, strong.
"Gendry Waters, milord," Gendry answered, staring at the floorboards intently. Already he was feeling uncomfortable.
"He may be a bastard but that's no concern of mine. He's a good lad, and he works hard," said Tobho Mott.
There was a moment of silence. The three men exchanged glances.
"Leave us," said Lord Stannis. Master Mott looked taken aback.
"Yes my lords," the master armourer said after a pause. He bowed his head and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Left alone with the three lords, Gendry felt abandoned somehow. He felt as if he was alone in a den of dragons.
"Have you guessed to whom you speak?" the man with the grey eyes asked. Gendry shook his head.
"You have declared your name, I shall tell you mine. I am Isildur Elendilion," he said. Gendry's breath caught in his throat, his heart raced. Isildur son of Elendil, the Hand of the King, was sitting in Master Mott's dining room. Quickly Gendry remembered his courtesies.
"Milord Hand," he said, stammering only a little, and bowing low.
"Lord Baratheon you have already met I am told," Isildur said. At this Stannis grunted an affirmative.
"And this is Lord Stark," he continued. Lord Stark nodded at Gendry as the apprentice glanced at him.
"I am at your service, milords," Gendry said, still staring intently at the floor boards.
"Show me your face," Isildur commanded. Unwillingly Gendry looked up and met those sharp grey eyes once more. They seemed to be searching for something.
"Lord Arryn was here before, was he not?" asked Isildur.
"Yes milord, he was, with Lord Baratheon," said Gendry.
"And what did Lord Arryn have to say when he came here?" inquired Lord Stark.
"Just questions is all milord. Asked me how I liked it here, if I was treated well, if I remember anything 'bout my mother," Gendry replied. He remembered the old Hand of the King. He had seemed a kindly man, though what he was doing asking questions to an armourer's apprentice Gendry could never tell.
"What do you remember about your mother? Do you recall who she was? What she looked like?" said Isildur. The question seemed to be of great importance to him and he stared searchingly into Gendry.
"Not much... She died when I was little. She was a tavern maid. Used to sing to me. I remember she had yellow hair," he said. The lords exchanged glances again. Stannis gave a small nod to the others, barely noticeable but Gendry saw it.
"And do you know who your father was?" asked Isildur, his voice not unkind.
"Some man I guess, like most of 'em," A hint of a smile passed over Lord Stark's face and Isildur chuckled at the remark.
"Well spoken. You may go Gendry, we would speak more to your master. Wait outside the door," the Hand of the King said.
Gendry bowed again and backed out of the room, glad to be away from the questions and the stares of the lords. Master Mott was waiting outside the door. He gave Gendry a questioning look, but before the apprentice could speak, Lord Isildur was calling Tobho Mott. The master armourer grimaced as he closed the door behind him.
He waited. It seemed like an eternity he waited in that hallway. On the other side of the heavy wooden door, the voices of his master and the lords were muffled. He tried to make out the words but couldn't. For a moment it seemed like they were speaking in raised voices, but that did not last and soon they spoke quietly again. There was another rumble of thunder.
The door opened. Master Mott stood with a look on his face as if he meant to apologize.
"Come in Gendry," said Lord Stark. Once again he stood before the three high lords and once again there was that feeling like he was alone, trapped, surrounded by a pack of wild dogs waiting to tear him to pieces.
"Do you enjoy your trade Gendry? Are you happy in this place?" asked Lord Isildur. He was sitting forward, staring intently at the apprentice.
"Yes milord, it's good work, I am very lucky to work for Master Mott," replied Gendry.
"He's one of my best apprentices, he's a good lad my lord," Tobho Mott said. His tone was strange. He seemed to almost be begging for something.
Lord Isildur sat in silence. His eyes flicked from Master Mott to Gendry and back.
"That is regrettable, but the hour grows late and we must do something," he said, more to the other lords than to Gendry and his master.
"Gendry, you do not work for Master Mott anymore. You shall be a man of the King's Host," Lord Isildur told them.
"W-what?" said Gendry, shocked. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
"My lord I must protest, he's my apprentice, I've had the lad since he was a child," Master Mott said, beginning to raise his voice. Lord Isildur gave him a hard look and Tobho Mott's objections died in his throat.
"The King's Host has need of armourer's apprentices as well Master Mott, as I'm sure you well know," said Lord Stark.
"But milord, why? Why me? What do you want?" said Gendry, forgetting his courtesy in the rush of confusion and emotion.
"Watch your tongue boy, this is the King's Hand you are speaking to," snapped Lord Stannis sharply.
"One day Gendry, when you are a man, much shall be explained to you. For now, gather your things and say farewell to your friends. After some time, Lord Stark's men will come to collect you. You are to tell no one that we were here or why you are leaving. In the Host, you are to do as you are told. Do you understand?" instructed Isildur.
"But-" Gendry said.
"Do you understand?" Isildur repeated, more sternly this time.
"Yes milord," said Gendry.
"That is good," the Hand of the King said. He stood up. He was one of the tallest men Gendry had ever seen, but he was not spindly or gangly. He was well-proportioned, his shoulders were broad and every move he made suggested great strength and a natural grace.
Isildur pulled his hood up over his head, and the other two lords did the same.
"Master Mott, you have my thanks for the good care you have taken of this boy. Apart from his uncourteous speech, he has grown tall and strong. You shall be well compensated in coin for this. I shall pray that Aule the Craftsman blesses you and your forge. May you ever find happiness in your labour, and I hope we shall meet again in better times," the Dunedain Lord said, smiling. Tobho Mott just nodded speechlessly.
Gesturing to his companions, Lord Isildur strode out of the room. Gendry heard their footsteps going down the stairs. The silence after they left was immense.
"Gendry," said Tobho Mott. The look on his face was stricken. He raised a hand and squeezed Gendry's shoulder.
"You've always been a good lad Gendry, a master couldn't ask for a better apprentice," he said weakly.
"Why are they doing this? What do they want with me?" Gendry asked.
"I don't know. When the high lords play their game of thrones, it's always folk like you or I that suffer in the end," Master Mott replied. He sighed as if very tired.
"Tell the others that I am sending you to the King's Host to work as an armourer, you'll make a good wage there," he said. Gendry didn't know what to say. He didn't want to leave. Master Mott's armoury had been all that he had known since he was small.
"Arryk won't understand," Gendry said.
"It will be hard on him. It will be hard on you. It will be hard on all of us. Such is life in this city," said Tobho Mott, and he muttered curses against lords and nobles.
Of all of them, Pepin and Willem understood the best, or thought they did.
"We're your friends Gendry, you can at least tell us what has happened," Pepin said to him, the evening of the next day.
They were in the dormitory. Gendry was sitting on his bed, putting his clothes and what money he had into his pack. Master Mott had gone out to a leatherworker and purchased the haversack for Gendry. He would not send his apprentice away with only his clothes on his back and what little he could carry.
"Master Mott said that I would make a good living as an armourer for the King's Host, and that he was sendin' me away to them, that's all," said Gendry. He badly wished to tell the others about the lords and what they had said, but he remembered the sternness of Isildur's words and that unbearable glance of his eyes, and always he held back.
"That's ballocks Gendry, who were those men in hoods?" asked Willem suspiciously.
"Smiths from the Host, looking for apprentices to help 'em with their work. They got a whole army's worth of weapons and armour to take care of now don't they?" Gendry said. Neither of them seem satisfied by the explanation.
"We ought to go with you, a man should have friends beside him if he's going away to war," said Pepin
"Master Mott doesn't want one of his apprentices to leave let alone three," said Gendry. He put on an irritated voice but he was glad for the concern.
"And there he ain't no war. We'll just be marching around scaring uppity lords into obeying the King, that's all," he added.
"Someone knifed the King, Gendry, who knows what's going on out in the Kingdoms?" said Willem.
In the end it was another four days before Lord Stark's men arrived. They came in the early hours of the morning, driving a cart down the Street of Steel. Two heavy-set carthorses pawed the cobbled road impatiently. The rain had stopped at last, but the sky was still a sullen grey which matched Gendry's mood. The cart was heaped with sacks and bags and a few wooden trunks. Two men sat at the reins. They were unshaved but their hair was cut short. Both were wearing tunics that had been dyed red, and cheaply dyed from the looks of it. A royal crowned stag was worked in black thread upon the breast of each tunic. Gendry noticed a short sword sheathed at the side of each man.
"You Gendry? The bastard armourer's 'prentice?" said one of the men, the older of the two by the grey in his beard.
"I am," said Gendry. He glanced behind him. Tobho Mott and little Arryk were standing by the door, beneath the carved knight statues that marked Master Mott's armoury. The young boy smiled sadly at Gendry.
"Right then, throw your bag up in the cart and fall in," the man said, pointing a thumb behind him. Gendry looked behind the cart. A loose column of men and boys, some so young they had no hair on their cheeks and others so old their hair was all grey, stood behind the cart. They looked back at Gendry with many eyes.
Keenly aware of the staring, Gendry threw his pack in the back of the cart. His bull's head helmet rattled inside the sack. Then he took a place near the rear of the gaggle. One of the men on the cart shook the reins, the other cracked a whip, and with a low groan and a clatter of wheels, the cart started away. Gendry and the others followed it on foot. He took one last look behind him and saw Arryk waving before they turned the corner and he lost sight of the shop.
The Street of Steel ran up Visenya's Hill, and at the top Gendry could see the Great Sept of Baelor looming above them with its seven towers. One of the bells was ringing out the morning. The loud tolling echoed across the city. As the cart clattered along the street, more men and boys came out to join them. They threw sacks and bags full of whatever they owned into the back of the cart and fell in with Gendry and the others.
At the top of Visenya's Hill, there was a broad paved square from which one could look out over the city. Miles of shingled and thatched roofs reached out in every direction, and in the distance Gendry could see the streets below, twisting and turning, cutting back and forth. The tang of sea air was drifting up from the bay.
From the center of that square, the Great Sept leapt up like a mountain rising from a grassy plain. Even from outside, the Great Sept made one feel like sinking to their knees to praise the gods. Gendry looked up over yards of masonry and stained glass, pillars and vaults and walls of immense thickness. Seven tall spires surrounded the sept, and elegant arches sprung from each spire to the central building. Seven doors were set in a circuit around the building. Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith, Stranger and Crone, each guarded their own door. All of this was surmounted by a huge dome, gleaming with gold, as rich and decorated as the High Septon's crystal crown. In front of the Great Sept, Baelor raised a stone hand in blessing. His marble eyes stared knowingly and benevolently at Gendry as they passed.
Down, down the hill they marched, along the Street of the Sisters, and across the city square, and then further along the same street. It ran straight between the Great Sept and the old Dragonpit. The pile of luggage in the back of the cart grew larger and larger, and the column of recruits behind it grew longer and longer.
"Oi, what's your name?" said one of the younger men who joined them. Gendry looked him over. He had sandy hair and a pock-marked face but his smile was friendly enough.
"Gendry, yours?" said Gendry, extending his hand.
"Edwin, Edwin Thatcher," the sandy-haired youth replied, taking Gendry's hand.
"What brings a thatcher to the Host?" asked Gendry.
"Me pa had seven boys already, ain't no place for me at home and I ain't about to take the black either. Honest pay and honest feed in the King's Host there is. How about you?" said Edwin.
"My master sent me to them, said I would be well paid for my skills. I'm an armourer's apprentice," said Gendry.
"Armourer's apprentice? Now that's a right proper trade, that is. Wish I had been born an armourer's boy instead of a thatcher. Hit away on the iron all day and charge them lords an arm and a leg for it," Edwin said.
"Say, does an armourer's apprentice need an assistant? I'd like that much better than being a pike-pusher," the thatcher asked.
"Armourer's apprentice's assistant? I don't think they'll go for that," Gendry laughed, and Edwin joined in.
"Nah, but was worth a try. I'm a deadshot with a stone though, I can hit a squirrel's eye from thirty paces I tell you, maybe that'll count for something," Edwin said.
The cart clattered up the slopes of Rhaenys' Hill. To their right ran the stinking slums and narrow alleys of Flea Bottom, filling the air with the stench of piss and shit and unwashed clothes. The din of the crowded streets was overwhelming. There was the sound of men arguing, children laughing, babies crying and women trying to calm them. Somewhere a man was shouting "Hot rats! Fresh hot rats!" above it all. Gendry blushed profusely as old whores, with flabby stomachs and straw-like hair, looked at him with hungry eyes.
They turned northwest then and put Flea Bottom to their backs, and headed over the shoulders of Rhaenys' Hill. As they drew nearer to the walls and to the opposite side of the hill, the poorer parts of the city fell away. Stately manses with high iron fences and fragrant gardens took their place. Gendry did not fail to notice that nobody joined their motley company in these parts of town. Soon they were at the walls, which stood tall and strong, massive and impregnable at the edge of the city. A gatehouse was set in that wall, and the Old Gate yawned out of it. Its formidable portcullis was raised and the heavy ironshod doors were flung wide open. Goldcloaks stood clustered around the gate, leaning upon their spears, watching those coming and going with bored eyes.
Hooves suddenly clashed loudly on the cobblestones.
"Make way!" yelled someone behind them.
The cart was pulled over to the side of a house and the recruits scrambled clear. A column of mounted men, armed and armoured all in steel, thundered up the road. They were riding hard. Their cloaks were all of crimson and a lion pennant floated above their heads. Gendry only got a glimpse at them before they were gone. He saw that the man leading the riders was armoured all in gold and gold was his hair and his face was grim. He rode like a man on an urgent errand.
The recruits stared after the horsemen curiously for a moment, until they disappeared in dust in the distance. The soldiers on the carts yelled at them to continue on.
It took them nearly half a day walking northwest from the city before they reached the camp. They walked over hills and across valleys, beside fields of grain and barley, down long dirt lanes lined with trees. The afternoon was dwindling away. Gendry's legs were sore and the soles of his feet were protesting. He supposed he would get used to marches.
Then, as they emerged from the trees into wide open fields of grass, they saw it. It was an unsightly as an open wound. A ditch had been dug in the earth, and on the inner slope of it rose a mound of earth, and atop of that a rough-hewn wooden palisade. Above the gates of that wall, a golden banner fluttered, bearing the royal stag sigil.
"Home sweet home my lovelies," said the grey-haired soldier, smiling with the few teeth he had.
The stench, even from a bowshot away, was overwhelming. It was every bit as bad as Flea Bottom but far more powerful. As they drew near, they heard the trumpeting of horns, men shouting commands, the din of smiths working, the bleating of sheep, all the sounds of an army encamped.
A narrow drawbridge crossed the ditch. At the end, near the gates, stood a guard. He wore a broad-brimmed helmet and carried a fierce looking halberd.
"Who goes there?" said the guard.
"It's me and Tom, up from the city. We're bringing threescore of fresh lads for the Marshal," said the grey-haired soldier.
"Aye I see that, in you go fellows, smartly now, the Marshal is out and about," the guard said, waving them through.
"Who's the Marshal?" asked Edwin as they walked through the gates. Gendry looked upwards. More guards were on the parapets of the wall. They wore the same kettle helmets, and carried heavy crossbows and halberds of their own.
"Don't know. Lord Stark I think," said Gendry.
"Who's Lord Stark?" asked Edwin.
"Don't know. Some high lord of somewhere I suppose," said Gendry.
A single dirt road ran up the camp from the gates, dividing it in two. On either side of the main road were long rows of tents and pavilions, many rougher shelters and lean-tos, and dozens of newly built wooden huts and halls. The noise was constant, the smell was constant. Everywhere there were soldiers, thousands and thousands of them. They wore tunics and gambesons, some undyed and others in the same cheap red as the soldiers on the cart. Many had the same sort of helmet as the guards on the walls, others iron skullcaps or half-helms with nasal bars. In broad squares they marched and drilled, yelling out responses to the screamed commands. Their pikes, as tall as trees, swayed like grass in the wind as they wheeled and reformed. They passed target ranges filled with the rattle of crossbows as men shot at the marks. There were stockades filled with cows and sheep and coops of chickens. Workshops were set up under open pavilions, and craftsmen hammered away on leather and steel. Gendry saw wives and even children, to his great surprise. The camp of the King's Host was like a ramshackle city unto itself.
At the centre of the vast camp, they came to a single broad square. The dirt was hard-packed, as if it had been walked upon by many feet. At one end there were pavilions, larger and of richer cloth than the others. In front of them stood three standards. One was of jet-black, and upon it a white tree and a field of seven stars and a silver crescent moon rising above it. On the other side, a grey direwolf ran upon a field of white. In the center, taller than either, the golden banner and black stag of the King.
The cart came to a halt before a raised wooden dais. The grey-haired soldier stood up and turned around.
"Right you lot, we're going to take the cart over the side of the square. Hengist, your master-at-arms, will take care of you now. Listen to him and then you can come get your things. Hengist, they're all yours," he said and nodded to a soldier standing by the side of the square. He was short and squat, with shoulders and a neck like an aurochs, and face like a toad, and a bald head that seemed as red as if he was out in the sun all day. He carried a short staff in his hand.
The moment the man on the cart finished talking, the air exploded with shouting.
"FORM UP YOU SHITEATING MAGGOTS! FORM UP! YOU WILL FORM A STRAIGHT FUCKING LINE BEFORE THE CAPTAIN ADDRESSES YOU!" screamed Hengist, his face turning a red to match his scalp. Before the others knew what was happening, the burly soldier was amongst them with his stick.
He never stopped screaming oaths. Nor did he stop swinging his stick. He dealt out bruises and welts with it, men and boys yelped with pain and Hengist only screamed louder and laid into them harder. Gendry shuffled back amongst the others, trying to line himself up shoulder to shoulder with them.
Edwin, however, was not so lucky. Before long he was the only one standing out of line.
The master-at-arms bore down upon him like an angry bull.
"Who in the Seven Hells do you think you are you little cunt?" Hengist bellowed.
"Er-" Edwin stammered, unsure of how to answer.
"What is your fucking name, boy?" the soldier demanded.
"Uh, Edwin Thatcher, ser," said Edwin nervously. Gendry tightened his fists.
"Do you think, Edwin fucking Thatcher, that a gods-forsaken thatcher's boy can stand out of line in front of the fucking Captain?" growled Hengist. When Edwin had no answer, Hengist drove a fist sharply into his gut. The blow looked like it could have felled an ox. The young lad dropped to his knees, crying out in pain. The master-at-arms raised his stick high.
"Leave him alone!" yelled Gendry. Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself stepping out of the line.
Hengist whirled on him and stormed over. He was shorter than Gendry but far broader and his every limb was corded with thick muscle. He thrust his face to within inches of Gendry's. His small eyes were burning with anger.
"And who in the hells are you?" he asked
"Gendry Waters," Gendry said.
"Well bastard, let this remind you to hold your fucking tongue around your betters," he replied.
With the suddenness of the wind, Hengist whirled his stick around his head and slammed it onto Gendry's shoulder. Pain shot down his arm and through his neck and back. It felt like tongues of flame beneath his skin. He cried out as he flinched away from the master-at-arms. There was a sharp crack of wood. When Gendry looked back up, he saw the man holding only half of his stick. The other half lay in the dirt. He had broken it in the fury of his blow.
"Give me another!" Hengist yelled, throwing away the broken half. A younger soldier, a servant or squire, ran up from the edge of the square, and brought another staff.
With more screaming and oaths and the occasional sharp blow, the men were formed into a rough block, five rows deep. Gendry found himself in the second row, looking up at the wooden dais as a tall man climbed its steps and turned to them. He furrowed his brows. It was Lord Isildur standing there. As he looked closer though, he realized this man was not the Hand of the King. He was slightly shorter, a bit more youthful in the face, but otherwise the resemblance was uncanny. Same short dark hair, same pale, stern face.
"I am Aratan Isildurion," the man said in a loud voice.
"I am a Captain of the Host. I have been charged by the Lord Marshal with your training. You have come to me as farmers, stableboys, bricklayers, bakers, fishermen, and potters. Wherever you have come from, whatever trade you learned, here you shall become soldiers,"
He looked at them like he was studying each and every man there. His gaze seemed to linger on Gendry as if he had seen him before.
"King Robert rules over Eight Kingdoms. He rules over eight great houses and hundreds of lesser ones. He rules over the lives of countless men from Dorne to the Wall, and what keeps brother from turning against brother? What keeps neighbour from fighting neighbour? What keeps the strong from preying on the weak? The King's Peace,"
In some distant drill square, a master-at-arms was screaming at men to stay in step.
"To defend that peace, to defend the King and his realm, that is our purpose. Whether you hail from the North or the South, East or the West, the cities or the villages, all of us share in that purpose."
A command had been bellowed. A hundred men filled the air with roaring as they leveled their pikes. In his mind's eye, Gendry could see the bristling hedgehog of steel points.
"Here you will put aside your past lives. Whether you were honest men or cowards and cravens, I care not. Here you are soldiers of the King,"
Aratan paused. He folded his hands behind his back and smiled slightly.
"From this day forward, you are servants of the Iron Throne. You are protectors of the Crown. You are the guardians of the King's Peace. You are men of the King's Host!"
His voice was powerful but fair to hear. As he listened, to his own surprise, Gendry found himself stirred by the words. The eyes of the others glittered as they looked on the Captain. He looked so tall, so strong, so assured. He spoke of duty and honour and service to the Throne and seemed to make it live for recruits who had come only for bread and coin. Their spirits raised at the sound of his voice and the shining of his eyes. Here was a captain that men would follow, even into the darkness of battle and war. And strangely, Gendry found himself feeling that he could follow this captain too.
Then Captain Aratan nodded to the master-at-arms, and as he descended the dais the spell was broken. Hengist strutted in front of them like a rooster in a farmyard.
"That's the Captain," he growled out "He's one of the damnedest best men in this whole fucking army and if any of you give him less than his due honour, I swear to all old and new gods I will kill you,"
Hengist barked a sharp command. They turned to the left. At another word, they marched off. The master-at-arms circled them like a sheepdog around a herd, biting at the legs of his charges. He swore and cursed them and screamed for them to walk in time with each other, and he struck those who did not stay in step. More than once, Gendry felt the sting of that stick. They filed past the cart and grabbed what little belongings they had brought.
They were marched down one of the side roads of the camp. More pavilions rose to their right and left, their walls rolled up so they were open on all sides. There were clerks there with inky fingers and long scrolls. Every name of each new man had to be taken down, and each man had to sign his name or make his mark. And slowly and carefully, the clerks explained to the men how much they would be paid for every month and what food would be allotted to them and the circumstances for drawing pay and so on and so on. It made Gendry's head hurt. He had never been fond of figures and sums.
They were marched on to the crude sheds that served as armouries for the camp. Gambesons they took there, and tunics with the black stag on their chests. Some were dyed the same cheap red as they had seen, others were undyed brown or grey or tan. They were given helmets too, and stout hobnailed leather boots that laced up to their shins. They were girt with short swords and daggers. Gendry looked over the sword in his hand. The blade was not much longer than a man's forearm, it was almost a longer dirk more than it was a short sword. It was heavy, doubled-edge, with a crude metal bar twisted into a figure eight to guard his hand. Old Holman used to call such short swords "cat-skinners". Gendry judged it that it was unsophisticated, rough work, made by a smith more interested in quantity rather than quality. Yet its edges were sharp and the steel was sound and there was something pleasing about the weight of the weapon.
The evening meal was served in a long, roughly built wooden hall that smelled heavily of cooking fires. There was a stew, not a fine meal but Gendry thought it certainly beat bowls of brown. With it the cooks served black bread and beer.
"You lads new?" a burly man asked Gendry as he and the other recruits sat down at the tables to eat. He had a piggish face and fists that looked like they could crush rocks.
"Aye, just up from King's Landing today," said Gendry. The man laughed.
"Oh Hengist is gonna have his fun with you, mark my words," he said with a yellowed grin.
Edwin sat down across from Gendry at the table. Their bowls of stew were steaming hot, and they both took long drinks from their mugs of beer.
"Thank you… For that business with the master," the thatcher's boy said awkwardly as he put his mug down.
"Don't mention it," said Gendry.
"You might have saved me, he was going to beat me dead I swear," replied Edwin.
"I said don't mention it," Gendry insisted with a smile.
"Your arm hurt?"
"Eh, it's not so bad. I've had worse," Gendry rubbed the place where Hengist had struck him. It was bruising already.
A tall, thin, gangly young man around Gendry's age walked up next to them. He had the smirk of someone who thought themselves clever.
"Mind if I join you kindly folk?" the youth asked, and then did before either of them could answer. His long brown hair brushed over black eyes.
"You certainly are a big fellow aren't you? We may as well have hitched you up to the cart on the way, the other horses wouldn't even have noticed," he said to Gendry.
"You always start telling jokes before you even know someone? You know if I was someone else I might want to knock your head in for saying something like that," Gendry replied.
"Ain't I lucky that you're you then? Of course I'm always lucky. Lucky Lann they call me,"
"Do they now?" said Gendry. He was already tiring of 'Lucky Lann'.
"That they do. Lucky at dice, lucky with coin, lucky with women," he flashed a grin.
"If you're so lucky what are you doing here then?" asked Edwin.
"I was lucky enough to bed a farmer's daughter back in my village, beautiful as a dream she was with great big tits and skin like cream. And then I was lucky enough to have a place to run to when her father ran me out of town for being lucky enough to put a baby in her belly," Lan said, still grinning. He laughed as if impregnating the girl with a bastard was just a joke. Gendry frowned at him.
"How about you fine sers? What brings you to this fellowship?"
"My name is Gendry, I'm an armourer's apprentice,"
"A fine honest trade, but you fine honest tradesmen are always so dull," said Lann.
"And I'm Edwin, Edwin Thatcher. Got no place at home so I'm here,"
"A man after my own heart," Lann flashed his grin again. "And how find you the soldier's life? Better or worse than you expected?"
"Perhaps both," said Gendry.
And so, amongst bricklayers and farmers and liars and thieves, Gendry began his time in the King's Host.