'Dearest Elinor…'
Alyn Ambrose sits, quill in hand, at a small table, alone at the center of a huge patio. From his seat, he can see out over the walls of Atranta, toward the vast green fields stretching out in every direction, not unlike his home in The Reach. Here, the serene horizon is only marred by plowed farmsteads, pockets of forest, and the dark line of the Blackwater Rush curving its way northwest in the distance.
The castle itself is the tallest shape in sight, rising up from the plains, a high, ivy-covered ring-wall surrounding a maze of animal pens, larders and silos with the castle itself at the heart. Its square, white stone walls are covered with the same ivy as the outer ring, dark green only starting to bare the scarlet tint of autumn. One large, round tower rises from the center, topped with a verdant green spire from which the banners of House Vance's southern branch fly - white tower on black quartered with a green dragon on white, a relic of deep-set resentment from the Dance of the Dragons, generations-past. Here, in the most fertile soil of the Riverlands, the Vances thrive on the late summer harvest, as-yet unspoiled by the Western raiders torching their kin further North. The closest the war has come thus far can be found in the ruined camp of Randyll Tarly's Army of the Reach, still smoldering on the riverbank, where a wayward wind chances to carry the stench of death over the castle walls from time to time. But for now, it remains peacefully nonintrusive.
Alyn takes a deep breath, savoring the cool, clean air and the feel of the sun on his bruised skin before turning down to the page before him. Dipping the quill in the ink pot, careful not to dribble spare drops across the page, he continues to write.
'I am glad to bear the news of my safe survival at the Battle on the Blackwater. Though I suffered some wounds at the hands of our enemy, they have treated me well here at Atranta, and I grow stronger every day. Ser Urrigon's wounds were more severe, but the maesters have not the strength to prevent him from rising from his bed and preparing to march once more.'
He pauses, gazing down at the gilded favor of his betrothed, Elinor Tyrell, lying beside the letter, sparkling in the sun. It had still been tucked away in Lord Tarly's belt when the septons had prepared his body for the burial awaiting it far south at Horn Hill. The quill shakes in his hand. This is the hardest part.
'As you will likely know by the time this reaches you, your lord cousin stands accused of high treason. I know in my heart that neither you nor your good father had any part in this conspiracy, but I fear for the hard sword of justice that will swing upon Highgarden when all these crimes are brought to light.'
After returning the favor, Urrigon had assured Alyn that there would be no shame in requesting his father set aside the betrothal. It would be no boon to marry a Tyrell, not once their treachery was exposed. And for a brief, anxious moment, he had considered it. But then he remembered the day they had been pledged to each other, standing by the fountain in her family's Oldtown manse, her long brown hair wreathed in yellow roses, her sun-kissed face smiling back at him without a trace of the sneers he had grown to expect lobbed at his own dusky skin, dark freckles and carrot-colored curls. And he knew he could never want anything else.
'I beg of you to see that your father and his father bend the knee to King Joffrey and renounce Lord Mace's crimes. I know that your heart is true, and will seek this justice be done. I long to see you again. When I ride back to The Reach, See Urrigon has vowed it will be as a knight. I shall waste no time in seeing we are wed, and yearn to begin the rest of our lives together once this darkness is cast aside. - still yours, Alyn'
With the final stroke of the pen, Alyn drops the quill back into the ink pot, looking up at the sun with a smile as it dries the ink, setting his words in place. Without looking, his hands now well adjusted to the familiar motion, he lifts up the favor, pinning it above his heart. From this day on, he vows, he will never lose it again.
The maester's chambers face east across the fields, the large windows of the rookery flooding them with light as Alyn steps in, the missive carefully held in his right hand. The study is cluttered, overflowing with the belongings of the maesters from both the western and southern armies, now joined together in healing the wounded and brokering a tentative peace. But the nervous young man currently hunched over a desk in his baggy robes and clattering chain, nearly buried in parchment, has been here all along - Atranta's own maester - Osric, if Alyn remembers correctly.
Stepping over a forgotten pile of bandages, he approaches the desk, unnoticed.
"Maester Osric?" He gently raises his voice, leaning forward and letting loose a sigh of relief when the man snaps his head around in response.
"Another letter?" Osric immediately marks the scroll in Alyn's hand, his teeth chattering anxiously as he talks. From the dark lines beneath his eyes, he does not seem to have slept since the night of the battle. "The ravens shall be run ragged, thank the gods you had some to spare in your camps."
The maester jerks to a round pot of green wax, scratching out a light to set it to melting. "Do you have your own seal?"
"Yes, sorry, it's right here," Alyn reaches for the velvet pouch on his belt holding the small seal that his father had gifted him when he rode away, carefully carved from oak and smoothed to a sheen. He holds it out expectantly as the still-warm wax hastens to give way.
Osric dips a long spoon, thickly caked with dried wax, into the pot, emerging with a fresh load. He carefully drops the dark, hot seal onto the fold of the missive in a near-perfect circle before pulling back with pride in his careful work as Alyn leans in, pressing the seal down with a satisfying thump.
"To where shall our birds carry your words, boy?" Osric acts as he carefully lifts the scroll and lays it with a pile of other missives, rolled and sealed and waiting to be tied to a raven's foot and sent on their way.
"The good lady Elinor Tyrell," Alyn answers. Osric shoots him a raised eyebrow, catching a glimpse of the gilded rose on his chest. "In Oldtown, under the care of the Lord Commander of the City Watch."
"Very well," Osric murmurs, scribbling down a note on the outside of the scroll. "May the crone guide all our birds safe to their homes."
Alyn bows his head reverently before turning to leave as the maester returns to his work. But as he steps back into the hall, he nearly collides with Dickon Tarly. The younger squire jolts back with a grunt, his surprise turning into an icy glare when he recognizes who has blocked his path.
"Dickon!" Alyn gasps, equally as shocked. "I beg your pardon!"
"It's Lord Tarly, now, boy," Dickon sneers. "And you'll receive no pardon from me." Alyn takes a quiet step back, quickly noticing the two guards lurking ominously behind the young lord and the missive clenched tightly in his fist. He can only imagine the words within - telling his sisters and mother that his father is dead.
"I'm sorry…" he stammers, trying to fight back violent memories from the night of the battle. Dickon was the last person he expected to see walking the halls of Atranta. And now here he his, chin cocked upward with a sense of defiant superiority reaching far beyond his present captivity.
"No you're not," Dickon growls, stepping closer. The guards flinch, but Alyn shakes his head, standing them down as he finds himself pressed back against the wall. "I wager you're proud of yourself now, eh? Got your first kill. Will the drunk fool knight you for that?"
"Dickon, I didn't mean…" Alyn forces his eyes to stay open, knowing that if he closes them, the sight of Claude Varner, mouth split by his broken spear, will be waiting for him. "We were in battle…"
"Do you think I'm a fool, Ambrose? I know what battle is. But you chose a side. The side my father knew you would. Because your blood is wrong." As Dickon spits out the last sentence, Alyn's mind suddenly snaps back into action, hitting like a bucket of cold water. Not noticing the change in the older boy's eyes, Dickon presses further. "It's only natural you'd bend the knee to a bastard king. You're practically a bastard yourself."
At that, Alyn lurches forward, seizing Dickon by the shoulders. In a flash, he's spun him around, forcing the young lord up against the wall.
"Remember whose word is letting you live, Lord Tarly," he hisses, feeling the blood rush of battle pounding in his chest again. "If you speak about me, or my mother, or our king in such a way again, I will see that you do not get a chance to do it thrice. You will bend the knee, or I will return to dispense the king's justice personally."
Alyn throws Dickon through the doorway into the maester's chambers, waving the guards away as he marches down the hall.
"This isn't over, Ambrose!" Dickon shouts after him, but he doesn't look back.
"Yes, it is."
Alyn finds Urrigon in the godswood, the huge knight reclining on a lounge, still heavily bruised and bandaged, leg in a splint, but spirits not in the least diminished, helped along by the frothy mug of ale dangling from his scabbed and scratched right hand. Across from him reclines Lord Rolland Crakehall, no less imposing out of his armor, but relaxed as he sinks into a heavily padded chair. Between them, the lord of the castle, Norbert Vance, gone blind in his old age, sits with his face tilted up towards the warmth of the sun like a gray-haired sunflower.
"Ah, my squire comes to wait upon me!" Urrigon's dirty smile flashes wide when he sees Alyn approach. "But not for much longer! The hero of the Blackwater will be a knight before he knows it!"
"Thank you, sir," Alyn bows quickly. In fact, Lord Crakehall had nearly knighted him on sight after the battle. But Urrigon had promised his mother he would be knighted in the Sept of Baelor when the time came, with his family there to watch. And so they waited.
"You look troubled, boy," Urrigon's brow furrows, eying him up and down.
"I saw Dickon in the halls," Alyn scowls, crossing his arms. "It would appear his father's death has only hardened his will against our king."
"Ha! Worry not about that brat!" Urrigon laughs, slapping his leg without thinking and grimacing at the wave of pain that follows. "He may talk loud now, but he saw what you can do! He's afraid of you, he is! Relax!" He offers a drink from his mug, but Alyn awkwardly declines. "Ah, yes. No stomach for ale. Get the boy some wine!"
Alyn tries to breathe out the tension from his clenched shoulders as a page hurries up with a fresh goblet of golden wine. He sips hesitantly on it, looking over towards the reclining lords for reassurance. Lord Vance, it appears, has fallen asleep. But Lord Crakehall smiles back at him.
"Urrigon is right. The young lord Tarly is just a boy, angry and afraid at the loss of his father and the responsibilities of his new title. He may scheme up childish fancies of vengeance in his dreams, but they are just that. Dreams. Ser Garlan has already bent the knee. The rest of the Reach will see reason soon enough."
"Thank you, my lord," Alyn finally allows himself to smile again, taking a seat on the lounge beside Urrigon. He lets himself slowly relax into the cushions.
"Spare the formalities for the war council, boy. We've bloodied our blades in battle together. You may call me Rolland." He sighs, scratching his tightly braided beard within its steel rings. He looks thoughtfully out at the leaves of the wood, rustling in the breeze. "No, the south will not trouble us further, I think. The true threat remains to the north."
"What is our plan?"
"We've received word that the Young Wolf has split his army. Half marches south, a few days off from us still. They anticipate battle. But I will meet them in peace. We will return with them to Stone Hedge, and I will call Lord Tywin to parlay. I pray that he will see reason and cease this folly. You were right. King Joffrey cannot suffer his family divided in the face of such treachery."
"But do you think Lord Stark will listen? I've heard he's terribly fierce."
"I can tell you for certain what he will want. The same thing Dickon Tarly wants. The same thing my own sons would demand were I to be struck down. Vengeance for his father."
North from Atranta, the earliest hues of autumn color are beginning to scar the leaves along the Red Fork, the river's smoothly rippling surface reflecting the gray sky, swaying branches, and three horses lapping up water as their riders make camp nearby.
Crouched by a pile of wood, his long black hair tied back to avoid catching spark, Ser Karyl Vance simmers in consternation as he struggles to light the kindling for the night's fire, confounded by the chilling northern breeze. He shoots a glare across the camp to his companions, Ser Marq Piper and Theon Greyjoy, who, having finished chopping wood for the fire, now won't stop talking.
"You won't sway me," Theon insists, lying shirtless in a bed of ferns, one foot floating idly in the water as he swats away gnats, "Barbara is the finest of them all. What good looks Lord Bracken had were given most to her and less to each sister that came after."
Marq, sitting beside him on a split stump, shakes his head. "Her face, perhaps, but she's flat as a board, on front and the back. Nothing to hold on to, or keep her warm. The night she spent with me she turned cold as ice."
"That sounds like a problem on your part, Piper. No woman in my bed would be falling cold, I can tell you that."
"Bah! Jeyne has more than enough bosom for the both of them combined."
"What good will they do me when I have to look at that face in the morning?"
"Karyl, what say you?" Marq yells towards the fire ring. "Who is the fairest?" Shaking his head in frustration, Karyl ignores the bickering, focused on his work. He strikes flint and stone again and again with growing fury.
At last, a spark leaps forth, catching the kindling at once. The fire bursts forth with a rush, rising up to wrap around the stacked logs with tall tongues of flame. Theon's head snaps around at the sound, caught off guard.
"Gods!" he laughs as he sees the blaze. "No wonder you've got a bloody dragon on your chest!"
"Karyl's always been good with the fire," Marq tosses another log into the ring, sending Karyl jumping back as sparks explode. "But the cooking had best be left to me!"
A rustling in the woods snaps all three men to attention. Theon and Marq jump to their feet and Karyl reaches for his sword, but the three horses that emerge from the brush are immediately recognized as their own scouts, led by Ser Walder Blanetree. Behind them, stumbling along with his hands bound by a rope in Ser Walder's hands, a haggard-looking man trips over roots as he steps into view.
"We found us a dinner guest running ragged in the woods, ser," Walder boasts proudly as the other scouts dismount, each grabbing one arm of the prisoner and dragging him forward to face Karyl. His robes and mail are muddy and torn, hair tangled and matted, face dirty and scratched; the captive looks half dead. But as the scouts bring him closer, Karyl recognizes him at once.
"Ser Addam!" He shouts, waving at the men to let him go. They step aside, and Addam's knees nearly buckle beneath him. But he catches himself, slowly looking up to recognize his captors.
"K…Karyl?" he stammers.
"You know this dog?" Theon swaggers forward, spitting on the ground at the captive's feet. "He looks like he's been rolling in shit."
"My goodbrother," Karyl glares. "Ser Addam Marbrand. When last we saw him, he was riding with the Mountain."
The mention of the Mountain immediately lights a fury in Theon, his eyes flushing with rage. Before Karyl can stop him, he lunges forward, grabbing Addam by the collar. "You're one of the Mountain's men, eh? Where in the Seven Hells is he?!"
"I… I don't know!" Addam chokes, tripping over his own feet as Theon tugs him forward, shouldering past Karyl to drag him towards the fire.
"Let's see how talkative you can be with a fire up your ass!"
"Theon, wait!" Karyl moves to stop them, but as the fire comes into view, Addam's eyes go wide in terror. Lashing out, he swings his arms wide, striking Karyl hard across the face.
"No, no! Not the fire!" Addam writhes violently, trying to pull away from them. Losing his patience, Theon suddenly releases his grip, letting the frantic knight drop to the ground with a dull thud. He kneels on top of him, planting his knee square in the center of Addam's chest.
"Start talking if you want to keep your teeth!" Theon pulls his fist back, ready to punch. But Karyl grabs his arm before he can swing.
"Stop! You won't get anything out of him that way!" Yanking Theon off their prone captive, he instead extends an open hand. Addam looks up at him warily. Slowly, he reaches up to grasp the waiting hand, letting Karyl pull him back up to his feet. "Come, ser. Let us get you water and clean clothes."
"Water? Clean clothes?" Theon sneers. "He's not our friend, Vance! This is one of the bastards that killed Lord Stark!"
"Lord Stark?" Addam freezes, pulling away from Karyl. Slowly, he turns back around to face Theon. The name creaks out of him like a rusted hinge not wanting to open. "Lord Stark?"
"That's right, Lord Stark. You lot bashed his head in and stole his body and his sword like a bunch of vultures. You're lucky I don't kill you right now! I'll leave that to Robb. I wager he'll feed you to his wolf!" Theon forces past Karyl, seizing Addam again. "Where's the Mountain?" he screams in the cowering man's face. "Where's Ice? What did you do with the body?"
"No!" Addam tears himself away, lashing out blindly. He turns to run, but finds Marq blocking his escape. Spinning back around, Theon is right behind him, red in the face, tearing a long dagger out of the holster on his belt. "No, you don't understand!"
"What don't I understand, goldenshit?" Theon snarls, lunging forward to hold the pointed tip of his knife a hair away from the knight's rapidly blinking eye. Addam's face twists, contorting in terror as his mouth shakes open, the words rushing out of him like a possessive demon from the Seven Hells.
"Lord Stark… We thought we killed him but we didn't! He's not dead! It's worse! It's so much worse!"
