A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

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      “Well met, Ser Duncan,” answered the bigger of the white knights. “I am Ser Roland Crakehall, and this is my Sworn Brother, Ser Donnel of Duskendale.”

      The seven champions of the Kingsguard were the most puissant warriors in all the Seven Kingdoms, saving only perhaps the crown prince, Baelor Breakspear himself. “Have you come to enter the lists?” Dunk asked anxiously.

      “It would not be fitting for us to ride against those we are sworn to protect,” answered Ser Donnel, red of hair and beard.

      “Prince Valarr has the honor to be one of Lady Ashford’s champions,” explained Ser Roland, “and two of his cousins mean to challenge. The rest of us have come only to watch.”

      Relieved, Dunk thanked the white knights for their kindness and rode out through the castle gates before another prince should think to accost him. Three princelings, he pondered as he turned the palfrey toward the streets of Ashford town. Valarr was the eldest son of Prince Baelor, second in line to the Iron Throne, but Dunk did not know how much of his father’s fabled prowess with lance and sword he might have inherited. About the other Targaryen princes he knew even less. What will I do if I have to ride against a prince? Will I even be allowed to challenge one so highborn? He did not know the answer. The old man had often said he was thick as a castle wall, and just now he felt it.

      Henly liked the look of Sweetfoot well enough until he heard Dunk wanted to sell her. Then all the stableman could see in her were faults. He offered three hundred silvers. Dunk said he must have three thousand. After much arguing and cursing, they settled at seven hundred fifty silver stags. That was a deal closer to Henly’s starting price than to Dunk’s, which made him feel the loser in the tilt, but the stableman would go no higher, so in the end he had no choice but to yield. A second argument began when Dunk declared that the price did not include the saddle, and Henly insisted that it had.

      Finally it was all settled. As Henly left to fetch his coin, Dunk stroked Sweetfoot’s mane and told her to be brave. “If I win, I’ll come back and buy you again, I promise.” He had no doubt that all the palfrey’s flaws would vanish in the intervening days, and she would be worth twice what she was today.

      The stableman gave him three gold pieces and the rest in silver. Dunk bit one of the gold coins and smiled. He had never tasted gold before, nor handled it. “Dragons,” men called the coins, since they were stamped with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen on one side. The other bore the likeness of the king. Two of the coins Henly gave him had King Daeron’s face; the third was older, well worn, and showed a different man. His name was there under his head, but Dunk could not read the letters. Gold had been shaved off its edges too, he saw. He pointed this out to Henly, and loudly. The stableman grumbled, but handed over another few silvers and a fistful of coppers to make up the weight. Dunk handed a few of the coppers right back, and nodded at Sweetfoot. “That’s for her,” he said. “See that she has some oats tonight. Aye, and an apple too.”

      With the shield on his arm and the sack of old armor slung over his shoulder, Dunk set out on foot through the sunny streets of Ashford town. The heft of all that coin in his pouch made him feel queer; almost giddy on one hand and anxious on the other. The old man had never trusted him with more than a coin or two at a time. He could live a year on this much money. And what will I do when it’s gone, sell Thunder? That road ended in beggary or outlawry. This chance will never come again, I must risk all.

      By the time he splashed back across the ford to the south bank of the Cockleswent, the morning was almost done and the tourney grounds had come to life once more. The winesellers and sausage makers were doing a brisk trade, a dancing bear was shuffling along to his master’s playing as a singer sang “The Bear, the Bear, and the Maiden Fair,” jugglers were juggling, and the puppeteers were just finishing another fight.

      Dunk stopped to watch the wooden dragon slain. When the puppet knight cut its head off and the red sawdust spilled out onto the grass, he laughed aloud and threw the girl two coppers. “One for last night,” he called. She caught the coins in the air and threw him back a smile as sweet as any he had ever seen.

      Is it me she smiles at, or the coins? Dunk had never been with a girl, and they made him nervous. Once, three years past, when the old man’s purse was full after half a year in the service of blind Lord Florent, he’d told Dunk the time had come to take him to a brothel and make him a man. He’d been drunk, though, and when he was sober he did not remember. Dunk had been too embarrassed to remind him. He was not certain he wanted a whore anyway. If he could not have a highborn maiden like a proper knight, he wanted one who at least liked him more than his silver.

      “Will you drink a horn of ale?” he asked the puppet girl as she was scooping the sawdust blood back into her dragon. “With me, I mean? Or a sausage? I had a sausage last night, it was good. They’re made with pork, I think.”

      “I thank you, m’lord, but we have another show.” The girl rose and ran off to the fierce fat Dornishwoman who worked the puppet knight while Dunk stood there feeling stupid. He liked the way she ran, though. A pretty girl, and tall. I would not have to kneel to kiss that one. He knew how to kiss. A tavern girl had showed him one night in Lannisport, a year ago, but she’d been so short she had to sit on the table to reach his lips. The memory made his ears burn. What a great fool he was. It was jousting he should be thinking about, not kissing.

      Lord Ashford’s carpenters were whitewashing the waist-high wooden barriers that would separate the jousters. Dunk watched them work a while. There were five lanes, arrayed north to south so none of the competitors would ride with the sun in his eyes. A three-tiered viewing stand had been raised on the eastern side of the lists, with an orange canopy to shield the lords and ladies from rain and sun. Most would sit on benches, but four high-backed chairs had been erected in the center of the platform, for Lord Ashford, the fair maid, and the visiting princes.

      On the eastern verge of the meadow, a quintain had been set up and a dozen knights were tilting at it, sending the pole arm spinning every time they struck the splintered shield suspended from one end. Dunk watched the Brute of Bracken take his turn, then Lord Caron of the Marches. I do not have as good a seat as any of them, he thought uneasily.

      Elsewhere, men were training afoot, going at each other with wooden swords while their squires stood shouting ribald advice. Dunk watched a stocky youth try to hold off a muscular knight who seemed lithe and quick as a mountain cat. Both had the red apple of the Fossoways painted on their shields, but the younger man’s was soon hacked and chipped to pieces. “Here’s an apple that’s not ripe СКАЧАТЬ