Gyselle
Gyselle awoke feeling hungry, thirsty, and utterly sore.
Ser Quentyn had not been gentle with her; his first words in the morning were a gruff reproach at using his cloak to wrap herself for warmth. She had begged his pardon, ignoring the pain from his cuff on her head, and sought to assemble her scattered clothing. She had also accepted his payment of five pennies without complaint.
Hulla had had a worse night than her. She sat by one of the campfires, disheveled and miserable. Her hands were full of copper coins, at least but she barely noticed them as they slipped through her fingers and landed in her lap.
We must make plans to escape. She will think of something.
Gyselle sat beside her companion, ignoring the men and their occasional jeers. "Have you eaten anything?"
Hulla did not answer. She shifted her body to sit another way, flinching with pain as she did so. When Gyselle reached out to touch her shoulder, Hulla angrily shook her off.
"Don't touch me." She said it quietly, but there was no mistaking her anger.
Gyselle was stunned. She could only sit there with her mouth open to speak. Hulla did not wait for her to recover.
"This is your fault!" Hulla murmured furiously. "What madness made you think to play them for fools?"
Gyselle felt as though she had been slapped in the face, "My fault? You wanted to travel at night!"
"Because we had to find shelter!" Hulla snapped, "Tumbleton was right bloody there, but oh no, you had to steal from that old bitch!"
Gyselle felt herself growing sick with shame. Arguing with Hulla was torturous for her; she always had an answer for anything Gyselle might say. Her defiance never lasted long, and she always found herself retreating and yielding to Hulla's arguments.
"She robbed us first," she mumbled.
"Tell that to the man who cuts off your hand for thievery!" Hulla snapped. "Though mayhaps men will pay more to fuck a stumpy whore. You might earn your keep for once!"
Gyselle felt like weeping. She had seen Hulla's temper before, and it was a savage thing to behold, and she had always been glad that she had never drawn its full ire. Now she was helpless before it.
What hurt most was Hulla's attack upon her skills. She had always been patient with her, understanding and encouraging.
She got up and walked away from the fire; the tears were welling up in her eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of Hulla or these men. She had long ago learned how to freeze herself until she could find somewhere quiet.
"Where are you going?"
She halted as a man approached her. He was one of the men who had taken Hulla the night before, and he gazed at her with unfriendly eyes.
"To piss," she answered.
The man regarded her for a moment, then grabbed her by the arm. He led her into the nearby grove of trees.
"Are you my escort now?" Gyselle asked, trying to sound stupid instead of mocking.
"I'm following orders. You're not to be allowed out of sight. Neither you nor the other one."
Gyselle felt a thrill of fear, "Are we prisoners? We have done nothing wrong!"
"You found us," came the curt answer, "and there are men who would reward you for betraying us. And take care how you carry yourself around us, wench. Earning Ser Quentyn's penny won't keep that pretty head on your shoulders if he smells treachery."
Gyselle shuddered. She felt his eyes upon her as she stepped down amongst some bushes and feigned a piss. Her unshed tears seemed to rest in her throat, making it difficult to breathe.
"Come on now! How long does it take you to piss?"
Fuming, Gyselle pretended to wipe herself before standing up again. "I was not aware that we were in a hurry."
The man reached over and clouted her over the head, "If I hear more of that lip, I'll knock a few more teeth out of that mouth. Now let's be off, we're riding to Penmore."
Gyselle groaned, both from the pain on the side of her head, and also from what the brute had said.
She and Hulla remained prisoners in all but name as the Blackfyre army continued on. Besides their profession, the men questioned them on what else they could do. The pay was meagre, but neither Gyselle nor Hulla protested. These were not men who would think twice about leaving two corpses in their wake.
For the first time, Gyselle was grateful for the lessons in cooking which Lunz had given her. Hulla had also taught her several tricks over the years that she'd lived under her wing. She assisted the few smallfolk which had accompanied the army, following their orders and ignoring their hostility. One respite was that she did not have to sleep amongst them, for she was bid to join Ser Quentyn every night.
Gyselle had heard stories of the knight called Fireball, one of the greatest knights in living memory. She had heard stories of his prowess even in the Starry Sept, for one of the girls she'd grown up alongside was Agnes Ball. Fireball had been born a second son, fostered at Starpike by the marcher lords known as House Peake. He was said to have been knighted at just 14 after winning a squire's tourney held by his family at their castle of Ironhill. From there, he had won tourney after tourney across the Reach until he'd been appointed master-at-arms by King Aegon IV. He had trained many young men, including the king's grandson, Baelor Breakspear, but that had not stopped him from turning against the red dragons in favour of the black.
She had not tried to win Quentyn over with sweet words and demureness; she had been too afraid and angry to put on such a performance for him that first night. He had taken her from behind, coating his cock in oil and pushing himself inside her without warning and preamble. His movements had been deliberate, controlled, and forceful. She cried out in pain several times until she realised that it was only encouraging him. She'd tried to keep silent, until he'd struck her backside.
"Go on, wench," he had snarled as he'd pushed himself inside her anus. "Scream if you like. Curse me if you dare. Or don't. I will do this all night without your help."
From then on, she gave full vent to her temper when he used her. She raged as he took her, insulting him with every foul word that she could think until he erupted inside of her. And much as it felt painful to her, she did at least feel relieved that there was no need for moon tea while she was his bed warmer.
As she had expected, other men were entranced by her. Most, like the whitebeard knight who wore a red archer on his clothes, assumed that she was Dornish, and for all Gyselle knew, they were correct to think that. Many hands touched her those first two days, and several of the men attempted to demand her services. She managed to avoid them one way or another, for most of these men were utter brutes by word and deed.
The worst of these brutes was a rugged sellsword named Eadric. On the second day since her capture, Gyselle needed to relieve herself. As always, she was escorted by a man, and this time it was Eadric. He had waited for her to squat amongst the bushes before drawing a dirk and placing the point just below her left eye.
"Give me a reason why I shouldn't blind you right now," he had hissed eagerly. His breath reeked of rotting teeth, but his cock smelled worse than that when he pulled it out and thrust it into her mouth.
She had done what she could, terrified and humiliated, sobbing with fear as the dirk's point nicked her skin. After he was done, she had tried to spit out as much of his seed as she could, even as he'd strolled off smugly.
Blinded by tears, Gyselle staggered back into the Blackfyre camp, oblivious to the everyone and everything until a powerful hand grabbed her.
"Where have you been?" Fireball was not a tall man, but he was one of the strongest men she had ever seen. His grip was iron, and his arms were thick as a bull's haunches.
Gyselle was afraid of Eadric, but she was more frightened of Quentyn Ball. The truth slipped from her trembling mouth in ragged whispers. But although Quentyn's face turned dark with anger, he released her without any punishment.
As he strode off in haste, Gyselle wandered off aimlessly, uncertain of where to go. She longed for Hulla, but she could not find her, nor did she know if Hulla would even speak to her. She might have dithered in this state forever if she did not hear the shouts, followed by a piercing scream.
Against her better judgment, she joined the throngs of men who rushed towards the noise. Many had already gathered, and their faces were pale with shock.
Eadric lay upon the ground, whimpering in a pitch that Gyselle had not thought him capable of reaching. Both his hands were clutching his groin as he writhed about in a growing pool of blood. Quentyn Ball stood over him. Eadric's dirk was in one of his hands, and - Gyselle felt an urge to vomit - his bloody manhood was clutched in the other.
"Behold," Quentyn bellowed as he contemptuously threw the cock and balls into a nearby fire. "I will geld any man who touches my woman without leave!" With that, he'd knelt beside Eadric and plunged the dirk into his wailing mouth, pinning him to the ground. He had choked to death on his own blood as Quentyn strode off. The hushed crowd parted ways for him without comment.
After that, nobody so much as looked at Gyselle the wrong way again. Some men looked upon her with loathing, as if Fireball had slain Eadric on her command. Most were coolly polite to her, but this only made Gyselle feel worse. Not only did she know that their civility was disengenuous, but it also drove a further wedge between her and those with whom she might have confided.
Hulla often worked nearby, when she wasn't being approached by knights or men-at-arms or servants. It took her days to recover from that first night, but she did not refuse the men who wanted her. Gyselle was filled with loathing for those men, but she knew that speaking up would not help her. Moreover, Hulla kept her distance from Gyselle, speaking only to her when necessary. Gyselle, for her part, forced herself to remain cool and reserved in those encounters, brooding for hours at a time.
When they had reached Penmore, the two women were still not on speaking terms. Gyselle did not know what was going on in Hulla's mind, and that only made her less willing to take the first step. Anger, guilt, uncertainty, and shame were so jumbled up inside of her that she could make no sense of it.
More than her stormier emotions, Gyselle felt miserable and afraid. She had not felt so alone since Oldtown. Years of growing up friendless and unloved in the Starry Sept, followed by months living on the streets as a penniless waif. She had shorn her hair and tried to pose as a boy, but that had not stopped men from using her. She'd often been too hungry to outrun them or fend them off. Hulla had found her reeling in the alleyway outside of a brothel, battered and bruised and bleeding.
Even at her lowest point, Gyselle had been reluctant to follow Hulla indoors on the promise of food. Hulla had stepped outside and picked her up bodily, and Gyselle had been too weak to do anything but sob. "I wasn't born to watch little girls die outside my door," Hulla had insisted.
After she'd eaten her first meal in She had never thought of Hulla as her mother, and Hulla had never claimed to be, but Gyselle had never once considered abandoning Hulla for anyone or anything.
One thing did arouse her curiosity, much as she tried to suppress it. As the Blackfyre commanders met with Lord Strickland, Gyselle followed a number of the knights to House Tart.
A stranger was at the bar. His curly hair was blond and so shaggy that he looked like some overgrown sheepdog.
"Pardon me," Gyselle murmured to the man, "but might you know of Ser Rickard Merzer?"
"Him? He sold the place to me," the blond man answered. "Him and that manservant of his, they took a quick price and rode off. Bugger me if I know where they are now."
Gyselle breathed a sigh of relief, even as she heard a man call out in a familiar voice.
"You!"
She turned and beheld Ser Ennis Dudley. Gods, no…
The young knight stared at her with surprise, and much to her dismay, a broad smile of relief quickly split his face nigh in two. "You came back!"
By evil fortune, one of the knights who had gone to House Tart was none other than Agramore Jayn, one of the men who had captured them. From the corner of her eye, Gyselle could see Ser Agramore look from her surprise and discomfort to Ennis' delight. He gave a snort of laughter.
"Beware of this one, Florian," he called out, mockingly referencing that timeless tale from the Age of Heroes. "Spy on this one and Fireball will make sure it's the last thing you do!"
Agramore's companions laughed as Ser Ennis' face fell. He looked from Ser Agramore to Gyselle, and walked out of the inn.
Gyselle wanted to grab Agramore's drink and splash him in the face with it, or break the tankard over his head. Strangely, she also had an urge to run after Ennis, though she did not understand the reason for this impulse, nor did she have the faintest idea of what she'd say to him if she did.
When the army, bolstered by Lord Strickland and most of his forces, finally departed from Penmore, Gyselle took one last look at House Tart. She was reminded of how she'd mused to Rick on the benefits of being a camp follower. Now the thought made her want to weep as she sat atop one of Quentyn Ball's spare horses. She had finally overcome her reluctance and tried to offer a horse to Hulla, but the only answer that she'd given was a flinty glare.
She received much the same reaction from Ser Ennis Dudley when the two of them crossed paths whilst the army was travelling down the Roseroad. She'd gone for a walk after Fireball had gone to bed after having his way with her, only to cross paths with Ennis, who'd come back from a scouting mission. He had looked at her with surprise as he led his horse back into camp, but then bulled his way past her when she opened her mouth to speak.
"Ser Ennis!"
The young knight ignored her, even when she began to trail after him and his mount.
"Please, Ser!" Gyselle cried out. She did not know why his anguish had such an impact upon her, but she was compelled to persist. She ran until she was within three paces of him and tailed him as he walked onwards.
"Leave me be," Ennis called out. Gyselle could sense that he was trying to sound angry, but the break in his voice betrayed his pain.
"I never asked for this, I swear it," Gyselle called. It was the closest that she dared come to repudiating Fireball, given the number of Blackfyre supporters were all around her.
Ennis stopped where he was going, and turned around. Sunlight reflected of his tear-stained cheeks. "You swear it?"
"Yes!" Gyselle felt foolish and exposed, standing out in the open like this, inviting anyone to look upon her and make their judgments, and she wished that Ennis would believe her.
Ennis folded his arms. "And who swears, if I may ask? Is it Hilda? Or is it Jenny?"
Gyselle paused. "That is not fair..."
"On that much we agree," Ennis remarked scathingly.
Gyselle knew that she should simply walk away and accept is scorn. But something in the way he looked at her, the way this rich young man thought his feelings so trampled... she found herself growing angry. Soon enough she was shouting at him.
"By what right are you so injured? I never promised myself to you! You knew me for a month!"
"You said that you loved me!" Ennis was shouting too. A few hangers-on began to laugh at the two of them.
Did I? She could not recall everything that she had said to Ennis; perhaps she had said it, perhaps not. She certainly could not recall if he had ever said those words to her. What does it matter if he did? Other men said as much to me, but they left me all the same.
"Did she also say you were the biggest she ever had?" Robin Horpe jeered. Several men laughed.
Only then did Ser Ennis register the audience which he had attracted. Fuming, he drew his sword and pointed it at Ser Robin. "Let's see how big your blade is!"
"What's all this, then?" The Tarly knight appeared amongst them, looking ill-tempered. "Have we nothing better to do than to pick quarrels amongst ourselves?"
Nothing more needed to be said. Ser Ennis sheathed his sword and stomped off, whilst Robin and the others scattered. Only Gyselle was left with the whitebeard, who now turned on her with loathing.
"You had best have a care, Penny Jenny," he observed darkly, "Fireball will tire of you, just as he always does." With that, he had turned away and left her as well.
Penny Jenny. The name filled her with disgust. It was an obvious moniker, one that any might have invented. And despite knowing that, Gyselle immediately thought of one person who might have done it.
She kept these suspicions to herself, for she knew that even if Hulla had not invented the jape, she had still paved the way for it by choosing the name "Jenny" on a whim. Why was she always the one to name me? Why didn't I ever come up with my own names when I had a moment? Why was I always so reliant upon her?
These questions had no easy answers, and she spent the next several days brooding on them as the army moved south-west. More reinforcements joined them from the Stormlands as they travelled. The Stricklands and Cafferens had brought a small army of supply wagons and beasts of burden to pull them. Their baggage trains also brought along hundreds of servants and other camp followers, a few of whom Gyselle recognised from her days in Penmore. She had not felt close to them before, and she certainly felt isolated from them now, since Quentyn insisted that she travel with his own troops. He had himself taken on a new squire; Heward Strickland was a sour-faced boy who worshipped Ser Quentyn and looked upon Gyselle with undisguised lust.
As the army stopped and started, changing direction for whatever reason, Gyselle became more familiar with the terrain from earlier travels. She recognised the Mander, as well as the Blue Byrn when they crossed it. As Fireball led half the army away to defend a narrow bridge over the Mander, Gyselle found it strange how she was kept so thoroughly at arm's length from even the sight of battle, apart from the corpses of men who had fallen in battle. A pile of them awaited her when she'd first approached the Blue Byrn, stripped naked so that the extent of their mortal wounds were on full display. The very memory of those corpses made her want to retch.
It was far worse when armies approached both bridges to attack the Blackfyres. Gyselle did her best to avoid it; the Stricklands and Cafferens had brought tents, and Quentyn had claimed one for himself, so Gyselle stayed inside it once the war trumpets sounded. But the tent did not prevent her from hearing the sounds of clanging metal, or the screams of men and horses. She plugged her ears against the cacophony, wondering what madness ever made her consider this path back in Penmore.
It seemed to go on for an eternity. That she was utterly alone only heightened her terror. She thought of the brothels in Oldtown, the cheap places she'd stayed in with Hulla. How terrible had those places been? How could I have ever been dissatisfied with them before? She wept to herself and awaited victory and defeat with equal dread.
At last, Ser Quentyn strode into his tent, covered in blood. After Heward had taken off his armour, he had not hesitated to take Gyselle for himself, with blood still on his hands and face. Her screams and curses were half in rage, half in fear, and he merely laughed aloud as he took her. The only consolation afforded to Gyselle was that he was mercifully quick.
"What a time to live!" He had left her slumped on the ground and moaning from the effort, even as he rose and strode back out of the tent whilst lacing up his breeches again.
When she had dressed, she limped out of the tent as well, ignoring the wide eyes of Heward as he cleaned his armour. She had acquired a purse of her own, and it was filled with copper coins. Pennies for Penny Jenny. Her own prior fortune, including Ennis' silver stag, was still in Hulla's possession, and she doubted that she would see any of it again. Spend it in health, Hulla, that is the last time you will ever touch a coin that I earn.
The army remained at the bridges for several more days, though Gyselle was uncertain of why. Unlike Ennis, Fireball was not one to loosen his tongue around her, and so she was forced to try and overhear the rumours which abounded amongst the servants. Blackfyre reinforcements were supposed to join them, some said. Others claimed that more Targaryen armies were on their way. A few of the newer arrivals asked Gyselle for information, but she had none to give.
That ignorance came to an end one night after Quentyn had finished with her, and he slumped beside her with a satisfied grunt.
"You had best sleep," he growled as he tossed her a heavily patched blanket which she'd been using for herself. "We have an early morning ahead of us."
Gyselle was too curious to keep silent. "Where are we going?"
For once, whether because of fatigue or the ale which he'd drunk at supper, Fireball decided to answer her. "Word is that Ironhill is under attack, and Daemon Blackfyre is besieged in the Riverlands. Lomas will stay here and rally more men, Lord Strickland's riding for the Riverlands, and I'm going to raze the rest of the Reach." With one final belch, he turned over and was soon snoring.
Gyselle pondered his answer in silence as she stepped out of the tent and found a soft patch of clover beside it. Even now, after all this time, she instinctively thought to tell Hulla of the news. As thoughts of Hulla often did, they left a bitter taste in Gyselle's mouth and tears in her eyes, so that she was crying herself to sleep.