Samwell
Gilly spent the evening looking over the various dresses in the townhouse they were quartered in.
"I'm not going to keep any," she said, "the people who live here will likely be back one day and they should find everything as it was." Sam murmured in agreement, lying on the bed with his eyes on the ceiling. Vaguely he could hear Little Sam giggling, likely hidden under the bed. His whole world was in the room with him and yet Sam's thoughts could not be further away from them. Over and over he saw the dragon crashing through the ceiling of the Red Keep, scales glittering like black opals and snorting smoke. Turning steel into sap. Sam swallowed, trying keep his thoughts settled. If that dragon had been at the Fist, he would have done for all the wights, the White Walkers, and the Others as well. Torches and pitfires might die in their presence, but this is something else. The black flame had surged with tremendous force from the mouth that loosed it, sure as a loosed arrow. Or more aptly, a scorpion bolt. Or a giant's thrown boulder. Even if it took longer to end an Other than their chattel, Sam didn't see how something could withstand such overwhelming force. There are two more as well, he reminded himself. Somewhere. Perhaps they're mixing it up with the dead right this moment. An odd feeling bubbled in Sam's chest, making his hands tremble over his chest. Perhaps this is what hope feels like. After so many years dreading the prospect of the Others, Sam found himself contemplating if even they had their limits. What had it taken to kill the dragons of the past? Another dragon, or a scorpion bolt in the eye. Or an entire chain of fire-mountains erupting at once. One trick I'm confident the Others will not play on us. Once more in his mind's eye a torrent of black flame surged out and iron screamed, bubbling in moments. If they can do that to iron, imagine what they can do to ice. Jon had been too preoccupied with Daenerys Targaryen to confer with after the throne room but on the way to the townhouse Sam heard lords great and small talking as soon as the pair were out of earshot.
"Seven save me, I never thought I'd see a lizard."
"I often thought about them when I was a lad, but I didn't imagine them so alive."
"Those red eyes…he was looking at us just the same as we were at him. There were thoughts going on in there…"
"Fucking terrifying."
"To think they were used in wars over the throne. The Field of Fire…who can say it was any sort of battle now?" Precisely, Same had thought. Only then did he realize Gilly's chatter had died. He looked to her and she was giving him the same reproachful look she always did when he tried to spare her discomfort or uncertainty.
"What's wrong?" he asked. Maybe she's got the dragon on the mind as well, passing it off for Little Sam's benefit.
"Sam, you're not the only one who can work out a dragon would do for the dead." There was fear in her eyes, but not the kind he saw on his family's face in the throne room. She understands what a boon the dragons may well be. If not a blessing.
"I didn't want to dwell on it and make you worry." Gilly's mouth tightened. "I've had a White Walker come grabbing at Little Sam. Talk isn't going to scare me."
"Well, obviously you know what them being here means. The other lords-"
"-haven't seen half of what we have. They'll come 'round when the dead men come. If not then, when the black fire lays them low." she said, picking Little Sam up. He beamed at the sight of Samwell.
"HA!" he laughed aloud, reaching eagerly. Smiling himself, Sam took the lad in his arms.
In the sitting room Sam found House Tarly proper eating fish for supper. Hardly surprising. There's naught else to eat in King's Landing but what Dragonstone's got coming in- or rather, what the man-fishes do. Despite their quite terrifying appearance, on closer examination the man-fishes didn't seem to do much more than wander around on the beach waiting for leave to go back to sea. They can come up, but that may be more accident than design. Surely, Sam figured, they could make quite a mess of things if they chose, but until lately he'd heard no more than fishing stories of such creatures. The Citadel's wisdom seems less wise by the day. Sam frowned. He wore no chain, yet he could close a wound well as any maester and write better than most of them as well. All the better to show the rest a lord who can put his own name to paper, he thought dryly. As well as one who isn't afraid of something greater than himself. The looks he got were mixed. His mother's smile was warm as ever he remembered and Talla seemed pleased enough to see him, but Dickon looked uncertain. Lord Randyll looked as sour as ever. Nice to see you too, Father. In front of father and son was a jug and two wooden cups, likely rougher fare than they drank out of at Horn Hill. Boo hoo, thought Samwell as he took not a cup but the tankard, face falling at the half-full weight. He emptied it in one long draught, setting it down afterward.
"Northmen like to drink." Sam said, shrugging at his family's astonished looked. I may have drunk more than I can hold, but better that than be too afraid to taste a sip. He turned to his brother. "Don't get drawn into a drinking contest at Winterfell, Dickon. It isn't worth waking up two days later with bloody knuckles, no shirt and a broken nose." He moved to the door. "If you want Heartsbane, it's in my room. Just know you're not going to kill an Other with it in anything remotely resembling a fair fight." Sam added without turning around. Stepping out into the night, Sam could hear what people remained to King's Landing go about their business. All this tumult among the lords and they couldn't care less. He wasn't altogether surprised to see other banners from the Reach hanging from balconies or out of windows of the other townhouses and inns on the street. No doubt we've split by realm a cleanly as on a map. The Seven Kingdoms only exist for the privileged. For the vast majority, it's just Westeros. He chuckled humorlessly at seeing the half-dozen buildings claimed by the red apple of Cider Hall and all its offshoots. House Fossoway can't piss itself without arguing who's in charge. I'll bet the man I found at Highgarden has already lost his house's support. He found himself making his way over to the larger of the inns flying the red-apple banner, hearing arguing inside as he thought he might. Before he could think, he found himself hammering on the door with a fist. At once it opened and he had to stop short of punching a Fossoway retainer squarely in the face. Sam stolidly shouldered past while the man spluttered, finding the Fossoways themselves red in the face and almost at blows in the sitting room while the hapless proprietor looked on. Taste of Glory, Sam thought. Foss' Folly, more like.
Hard to miss as he was, it took a few moments for them to realize someone had arrived. Gradually, silence fell.
"Don't let me interrupt you." he said, arms at his sides and hands again balled into fists. Several people made to come forward at once, prompting the fighting to start again but it stopped as soon as it began when they saw Sam's expression. This isn't going to work. No more Tyrells, no more throne and still they fight. Over Cider Hall just as they fight with the other lords over Highgarden. "It strikes me that certain matters must needs be resolved before we sail north." He thought for a moment. "The Dragonpit has room for everyone. We will fill it with the Lords of the Reach and settle affairs in stone, with no ambiguity." His words were calm, even disinterested, but Sam had to work hard to hide his anger. "If you lot could collect yourselves and proceed with even a modicum of dignity, I'd appreciate it." Not hard enough, he thought.
"Who, in particular? We can't agree on who-" one knight asked.
"Everybody." Sam replied. "Every single Fossoway there is to be found. Your green cousins, too. No one will claim absentia, nor abstention." He visited each other cluster of banners. Grapes, towers, horns-of-plenty and all the rest were invited to a council in the Dragonpit. I suppose they will make the wrong decision, as they most always seem to do. He saved the townhouse the Tarlys were quartered in for last. "The others are heading to the Dragonpit of all places. I suppose they want to puzzle out what problems remain somewhat in arrears." he told Lord Randyll. As he suspected, the man's mouth became a tight white line.
"Who summons us?"
"I don't know. Outside I saw people heading that way and was bright enough to inquire what was going on. If you want to present yourself as a candidate for Highgarden, you'd best get your family moving." Lord Randyll had his wife and children out of the house inside five minutes, off no doubt to bang his empty head against the wall. Wearily, Sam headed back upstairs, careful not to wake Gilly and Little Sam should they be asleep. He was half right, finding the lad dozing in a bundle of blankets while Gilly watched the lords and their retainers head for the Dragonpit.
"Where are they all going?" she asked at once.
"To pull their heads out of their asses and shove them up each other's." Sam replied, drawing a reactive giggle from Gilly before her look became reproachful again.
"Is it the red-apple people?"
"The red-apple people arguing who's reddest, and everyone in general over that castle we found them at." Gilly frowned.
"Apples are apples. Red, green, yellow, each will fill your belly full as the other."
"Tell them that." She was quiet for a little while.
"They'd not listen to me, Sam. But maybe they will to someone else."
"I don't think there is anyone else. It will have to be one of them."
"You should ask the old woman. Old Olenna. See what she says."
"Olenna Tyrell is more like to poke the bear than let him lie." Gilly nodded.
"Mhmm. Even if she doesn't want to go, she surely would for just that reason. She's got nothing to do but bother people. Let her, Sam."
With no little amount of trepidation, Sam paid a visit to the old woman. Her huge guardsmen were bleary-eyed and especially ornery but Olenna Redwyne herself seemed surprisingly hale given the late waking.
"Old people don't sleep, Samwell." she explained, waving a hand impatiently. "I had only to look out my window and see all manner of goings-on, what have I missed?"
"A council has been called in the Dragonpit, my lady. I suppose it's to sort out who among the Fossoways is Lord of Cider Hall and who among the Lords of the Reach is Lord of Highgarden proper." Her face fell slightly. I suppose it's the only acknowledgement House Tyrell will get. Another family in their place is the Reach's way of saying they're gone.
"Well, that's all well and good, but the Dragonpit is on the other side of the city and I'm near eighty."
"Aye, you're a decrepit old raisin but there's juice in you yet. Elsewise, you'd not had lived through all you have and all you've lost." Gilly said from behind Sam. To his absolute astonishment Olenna's wrinkled face brightened at her words.
"You're still a Redwyne of the Arbor. Your nephew will want to hear your counsel, if no one else will." Little Sam fussed in Gilly's arms, peering at Olenna in recognition and pointing with a sleepy smile. He does like to point at things. "Even if they wave your words away, everyone of high birth in the Reach will be there. An opportunity to show up and annoy all of them at once. Perhaps your last." Resolve creeped into the wizened face before him.
"The Queen of Thorns, they call me. I suppose I'd be a fool bigger than your father to miss giving them all a last good prick, eh?" she said, reaching to a nearby little table. On it was a small jug from which she poured a dark Arbor red.
"Your father's?" Sam asked.
"My grandfather's." Sam's eyebrows went up. I wonder how much a cask of that costs. "You can squeeze the wine from the grape, but you cannot squeeze the grape from the wine, he used to say." she seemed to be talking more to herself than them. "Ripe and Ready." She snorted humorlessly. To Sam's surprise, she filled another cup. "The last of the small lake's worth I took with me when I wed my dear daft Luthor." she explained, holding it out. "I never told anybody about it, drinking only when I had a child. The years passed and I started doing so too when a Redwyne I knew died. Eventually my children started having children of their own. That seemed more cause than any to tap into a cask. I got so drunk the night Margaery was born…" the ghost of a smile rose and set across her wrinkled mouth. "The day she died, too. The day they all did and left one old woman alone with naught but barrels to witness her grief." Sam was reminded irresistibly of Maester Aemon, giving voice to the past when he felt his many days at last were numbered. He took the cup from mildly shaking hand. "Ah, forgive me. That wretchedness started perhaps a year ago." Olenna sounded almost embarrassed.
"It's no trouble my lady, but I think we'll need another cup." She frowned.
"I thought you were intelligent, Samwell. Any fool could tell you that's a bad idea." Can she tell I've already had a half-tankard tonight?
"A headache's a headache, big or small." Her eyes flitted from Sam to Gilly and back.
"Headaches come and go, aye, Redwynes know this better than most. What we also know better than most is wine is perhaps the worst thing-" She stopped talking abruptly. Sam turned to Gilly himself and was startled to see her eyes wide and her mouth tight. "Oops." Olenna said, going red as a wine grape.
He felt numb all over, even as he helped the twin guardsmen find a carriage. Were it not for Erryk catching him once or twice, he'd have certainly fallen over. Is this how all men feel when they find out? Or am I still Sam the Craven, afraid of my own shadow? He found he didn't care one way or another, too preoccupied with trying to figure out Gilly's future to worry about being a coward. It won't matter if it's a boy or girl, Father thinks Little Sam is mine and he's no sooner to disfavoring Dickon than he was when he sent me to the Wall. That rather set Sam at ease. One more bastard isn't like to bother anyone. We'll be too busy fighting the Others when the time comes for anyone to whine about the Night's Watch vows. Still, he had broken them. Not bent, as he'd been doing near as long as he'd been in the Watch but broken them clean and for true. Olenna, astute as ever, noticed Sam struggling with himself.
"Vows are words and words are wind, Samwell Tarly." she said dismissively, peering expectantly out the carriage window. Arryk drove while Erryk clung to the rear rather deftly for a man so large, in Sam's opinion. On their arrival at the Dragonpit Sam was dismayed but not altogether surprised when he heard shouting coming from within. At least they won't wake the lords of other kingdoms, clucking chickens on full display for all to see, Sam thought. As he passed through the crumbling stone halls to the pit proper, he wondered at how far he'd come. Once, a fat boy's cruel father sent him off to die. He was still a jumble of nerves and half-realized thoughts when the voices snapped him from his reverie, as well as quite relieving him of the butterflies in his stomach. I ought be alone with Gilly and Little Sam just now, not wrangling chickens and wiping noses. Unlike before, Sam waste no time waiting for someone to notice or acknowledge him. Once Gilly and Olenna had their hands to their ears, Little Sam pressed to Gilly's chest, Sam put his borrowed trumpet to use. He kept at it until the shouting stopped and he wouldn't have to yell himself to be heard.
"Is this the measure of the Reach's power?" he asked, louder than he meant to. "A man without a thought in his head, a basket of spilled apples, some casks of wine? Had I known you lot would shame me so, I'd not have bothered going to Highgarden to rally you in the first place." No one spoke. No one moved. They know who I am, he thought. Everyone in the Reach had known about fierce Lord Randyll Tarly's bookish son. "Fruit and flowers it seems are only too fit to be your sigils. Towers too, to lock yourselves into and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist." All this because everyone here claims some blood or other in common with Garth Greenhand, a man who may well have not lived at all. Even if he had, he'd have more in common with Gilly than any lord from the Reach. "Have you at the very barest figured out who's going to lead the Fossoways?"
"That's the rub, Samwell." Paxter Redwyne said after a bit of silence, when it was clear Sam had no more words for them. "We have a lackwit, two babes and an old woman to say nothing of the hale men vying for Cider Hall." Sam rubbed his eyes. The wine catching up with him, delicious though it had been.
"Very well. The apples argue who is sweetest while the Others wait below for them to start dropping off the branch." He waved a hand and put them out of his mind. "What about Highgarden? Have you come to a consensus on that point?"
"Your father doesn't even know what consensus means, Samwell." Olenna said wryly from his side.
"Nominally, it would be the lord of that selfsame castle who calls his vassals to council. As it stands, we can't quite work out just who called this one in the first place." Baelor Hightower said.
"Samwell did, or are you as still and unthinking as your sigil?" Olenna said irritably.
"He was sick of waiting around for one of you to have the stones to put forth for Highgarden to his face so here we, putting all the burden on your clueless heads."
Those lords he claimed only to be relaying the message to looked at him.
"I arrived at Highgarden expecting you to be finishing up the petty politics. Instead I found you had yet to even start. We marched to the kingswood and every night's topic was Highgarden. Still no decision. It was my bright idea to tell Daenerys Targaryen a lord chosen by his peers would make you all happiest. Are we truly so unable to simply fucking pick someone that we must ask another to make the choice for us?" He decided to make no mention of the Others or the events at the Wall for as long as possible. They are like children. Talk too much of things above their heads and they go crosseyed and wander away. "It isn't the dragon's job to choose for us when by rights we ought choose ourselves. Our affairs are no more her concern than hers are ours."
"There are a hundred men here with more than little claim to Highgarden, Samwell-" Sam interrupted Paxter before he could finish.
"Then choose another way. Any way. If not by blood, choose by deed. But choose. Claiming kinship to Garth Greenhand won't stop the Others anyhow, my lords. It won't stop a nosebleed. I only hope this is a lesson you can learn even so late as now as opposed to later, on the field of battle." As he suspected, he saw no inklings of understanding, no comprehension in their highborn faces. Nor will I, he thought, until they see for themselves. "I suppose I can't hold it against you. I only learned myself by being made to fight well outside my weight- and I am fat, my lords." Though not so fat as I was. "I got knocked down more than once, by all manner of comers. In the north you'll have to take getting knocked down as well, my lords. The people, the animals, the cold… there are no harvest banquets that make for songs a hundred years down the line. No fruit on the banners, either. Direwolves and bears, angry giants and lizard-lions, among others, are fitting sigils for the northmen." More than one face grew pale. It's as if the dragon just landed in our midst again.
"I heard they have giants up there. Real ones, not Umbers." Desmera Redwyne's voice was silk against the sound of steel on steel.
"So far as I know, Lord Eddard Umber is the last of his house. There were giants in Mance Rayder's host, and if Jon Snow says they've taken up in the north proper, they have. They're not half so hostile as most wildlings, though. Leave their mammoths alone and they're content to let you south along, bugs underfoot." It became steadily harder to keep his eyes open, even in the midst of full conversation. Too much wine, he thought. "But you're harvesting before you've planted. Worry about your petty nonsense once we get up there if you like, just know that there's no such thing as a second chance. Forget your furs and you will freeze. Lose your horse, the wolves will have it down in minutes." He slowly turned, fighting to keep his balance. "Just pick a lord paramount and follow him, sure as he would follow the dragon." He didn't remember getting back into the carriage, but the hazy image of the roof stuck out even as he felt Gilly lean into him. Little Sam's sleepy burbling proved harder to shrug off than all the lords of the Reach shouting together, and Sam himself fell asleep then and there.
He woke to snoring so loud his first thought was of Grenn.
"Pyp, give him a kick." He muttered groggily, only realizing after a few head-clearing blinks that it was Olenna Redwyne snoring so. Maybe I'm still asleep, he thought, before the headache hit and the inside of the carriage spun madly. There was more than Olenna to hear though. He tensed at the sound of multiple pairs of feet walking around outside. Armored, Sam thought. Bracing for the coming pain he opened the carriage door, making Gilly murmur and turn away in protest. He blinked out the sunlight, yawning while the world came into focus. There were men everywhere, in every manner of armor and looking as if they'd come from a dozen different lands. Sellswords, Sam knew at once. But who had hired them, for what purpose, he could not begin to guess. Sam gingerly got out of the carriage, wincing from the pounding in his head more than what weak sunlight reached King's Landing. Does the snow ever stop? he wondered. It was winter, after all, but even so it was early for the snows to fall so often and so heavily this far south.
"Who are you?" someone barked at him suddenly. Sam was too distracted by the white sky to answer. "Oi! Over here!" He heard the snapping of fingers and looked down to see perhaps the ugliest man he'd ever seen looking at him sharply. The sellsword had the bearing of an officer and his armor was of finer make and keep, but nothing could hide the mask of scars a life of battle had made of his face. Nor the nubs it had of his ears.
"Fine, here you go." Sam said, and his fist flew out. He felt his knuckles find the man's jaw and the sellsword promptly flew backward into a dozen full sacks of grain. A faint groan sounded from the pile, the man feebly making to rise.
"Ugh…" he muttered, swaying a bit as he spat out what seemed a spoonful of blood. Staggering slightly, he brought his fists up. "Alright, young buck, let's at it." he grunted, trying to keep beady brown-black eyes on Sam.
"Hold there, Franklyn. No need to lose a few teeth over an honest misunderstanding." A portly man with greying hair and trundled over. "Ho, there. Our boisterous brown apple didn't mean you any harm, lad." he said to Sam, smiling genially. The word apple teased at his aching brain. "Harry Strickland." The odd man introduced himself. Evidently, he thought Sam should recognize his name because he turned pink when there was no forthcoming impression of recognition. "Captain-general of the Golden Company." Ah, now there's a name I recognize.
"Oh." Sam replied. "Uhh, splendid. We need all the swords we can get." Whatever response this Harry Strickland was expecting, that wasn't it.
"Just what do you think we're doing in Westeros?" Sam shrugged. "Taking the gold some lord or other owes you to support him in these turbulent times?"
"We're sellswords, not retainers."
"Then I haven't the first idea what you've abandoned the no-doubt lucrative fighting of the Free Cities and the Disputed Lands for to cross the Narrow Sea."
"Precisely because it's not been so lucrative. One day it was business as usual, Myr against Lys, Volantis against everyone- then Daenerys Targaryen turned all on its head when she burned slavery down sure as she did the slavers themselves."
"You're against Daenerys, then?"
"Not so much against her as for another. A more fitting claimant to the Iron Throne." To a bubbling molten pool, running across the throne room floor. Harry Strickland did not seem in a great rush to share just who had contracted the Golden Company though, no more than identity of this "claimant" who could apparently put themselves before her in the succession. Sam felt no great urge to regale the man of what had happened in the Red Keep in turn.
"Well, if you're looking for who's in charge-" Harry Strickland only looked more lost by the moment.
"You are a Reachman, yes? It was my understanding the Reach is ruled by House Tyrell." He looked over to the ugly man, still lying in the pile.
"The Tyrells are all dead, killed in the destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor. A vile ploy by Cersei Lannister, herself killed by Ser Jaime Lannister to prevent her sending the rest of King's Landing the same way." By then Harry Strickland had gone positively pale, looking so much like a shaken white frog that Sam had to look away to avoid laughing at the man. "I take it your benefactor is somewhat ignorant of the goings on in Westeros, so far removed as he's been." The so-called sellsword gaped like a fish plucked from a pond while his men looked on, faces differing in color as well as expression. What madman would nominate this creature to be captain-general of the most storied sellsword band in the world? Another man came through the throng, one the common swords seemed to have a deal more respect for than Harry Strickland. A Summer Islander, Sam saw. He is not so old as to normally have hair white as a cloud, though.
"I am Balaq, commander of the company's archers." Sam saw the goldenheart bow slung over his shoulder.
"Black Balaq, he's called proper." one of the men said. Funny, he looks Westerosi. A fair number of them do, actually, Sam thought on closer inspection. "Nothing is half so black as the queen's dragon. Not only in scale, but temper as well." he replied casually. That seemed to please Balaq, or at least he found it humorous. Wonder why they call him that. Imaginative lot, these sellswords.
Sam took it upon himself to wake the other lords of the Reach before they could rouse and find themselves the unwilling hosts of a company of sellswords. He played it off as just another nuisance rather than a crisis, shrugging in surly irritation whenever someone inquired as to just who'd flung the Golden Company at King's Landing.
"Who could afford the Golden Company's price, though? Free Cities pooling their gold to send them after Daenerys?" Lord Hightower asked from his bed. Perhaps he's smarter than I credited him at first, if only just.
"The Golden Company are paid to fight, not to kill. Sellswords, not assassins, my lord."
"A sellsword is an assassin, only louder and drunker." Hightower retorted grumpily, standing to dress. The other lords woke in much the same vein, with much grumbling and complaining but little true anger. It must be a relief, Sam pondered. The wars with each other have stopped, at least for the moment. The first night in a while spent under roofs and in beds for many of them as well. When he returned to the Tarly townhouse, Talla put the same question forth when she learned what had happened. He waited until Gilly and Little Sam were ushered upstairs by spry Lady Olenna before answering. Besides, Talla's smarter asleep than Lord Randyll and Dickon are put together and wide awake.
"The only person I can think of that the Golden Company would be willing to risk so much for is a Blackfyre claimant of some kind or other. Stingy on the details as the captain-general was, he did suggest his benefactor had a better claim than Daenerys. That doesn't exactly suggest Blackfyre to me."
"If they're professing to be a Targaryen, it has to be one of Prince Rhaegar's children. They would have a better claim than their aunt. But they were killed when King's Landing was sacked."
"So the story goes. Then again, dragons were dead and the Others a drunken northern myth. Madder things are happening by far than one endling having dodged death."
"It can't be Princess Rhaenys. Everyone recognized her when she and her baby brother were laid out before Robert on the throne." A days-old baby, though, that nobody outside the nursery must have gotten more than a passing glance at…
"Prince Aegon, then. Aegon, the Sixth of His Name, I suppose he accounts himself."
"Who sailed expecting to find a throne and a queen both waiting for him." He's like to be doubly disappointed, then. The issue of the throne has quite been settled, and she herself has gone on to Dragonstone with Jon. Daenerys did not strike Sam in the least like a maiden princess in a story, waiting to be rescued by some strapping hero. Wild creatures need no rescuing, least of all from each other.
