Free The Sworn Sword by George R. R. Martin Page B

Duncan to my audience chamber.”
    “It would be my great pleasure, good-sister.”
    “Our guest will have a thirst. You may send for a flagon of wine as well.”
    “Must I?” The fat man beamed. “Well, if it please you.”
    “I will join you as soon as I have changed.” Unhooking her belt and quiver, she handed them to her companion. “I’ll want Maester Cerrick as well. Ser Lucas, go ask him to attend me.”
    “I will bring him at once, my lady,” said Lucas the Longinch.
    The look she gave her castellan was cool. “No need. I know you have many duties to perform about the castle. It will suffice if you send Maester Cerrick to my chambers.”
    “M’lady,” Dunk called after her. “My squire was made to wait by the gates. Might he join us as well?”
    “Your squire?” When she smiled, she looked a girl of five-and-ten, not a woman five-and-twenty. A pretty girl full of mischief and laughter. “If it please you, certainly.”
     
    “Don’t drink the wine, ser,” Egg whispered to him as they waited with the septon in her audience chamber. The stone floors were covered with sweet-smelling rushes, the walls hung with tapestries of tourney scenes and battles.
    Dunk snorted. “She has no need to poison me,” he whispered back. “She thinks I’m some great lout with pease porridge between his ears, you mean.”
    “As it happens, my good-sister likes pease porridge,” said Septon Sefton, as he reappeared with a flagon of wine, a flagon of water, and three cups. “Yes, yes, I heard. I’m fat, not deaf.” He filled two cups with wine and one with water. The third he gave to Egg, who gave it a long dubious look and put it aside. The septon took no notice. “This is an Arbor vintage,” he was telling Dunk. “Very fine, and the poison gives it a special piquance.” He winked at Egg. “I seldom touch the grape myself, but I have heard.” He handed Dunk a cup.
    The wine was lush and sweet, but Dunk sipped it gingerly, and only after the septon had quaffed down half of his in three big, lip-smacking gulps. Egg crossed his arms and continued to ignore his water.
    “She does like pease porridge,” the septon said, “and you as well, ser. I know my own good-sister. When I first saw you in the yard, I half hoped you were some suitor, come from King’s Landing to seek my lady’s hand.”
    Dunk furrowed his brow. “How did you know I was from King’s Landing, septon?”
    “Kingslanders have a certain way of speaking.” The septon took a gulp of wine, sloshed it about his mouth, swallowed, and sighed with pleasure. “I have served there many years, attending our High Septon in the Great Sept of Baelor.” He sighed. “You would not know the city since the spring. The fires changed it. A quarter of the houses gone, and another quarter empty. The rats are gone as well. That is the queerest thing. I never thought to see a city without rats.”
    Dunk had heard that, too. “Were you there during the Great Spring Sickness?”
    “Oh, indeed. A dreadful time, ser, dreadful. Strong men would wake healthy at the break of day and be dead by evenfall. So many died so quickly there was no time to bury them. They piled them in the Dragonpit instead, and when the corpses were ten feet deep, Lord Rivers commanded the pyromancers to burn them. The light of the fires shone through the windows, as it did of yore when living dragons still nested beneath the dome. By night you could see the glow all through the city, the dark green glow of wildfire. The color green still haunts me to this day. They say the spring was bad in Lannisport and worse in Oldtown, but in King’s Landing it cut down four of ten. Neither young nor old were spared, nor rich nor poor, nor great nor humble. Our good High Septon was taken, the gods’ own voice on earth, with a third of the Most Devout and near all our silent sisters. His Grace King Daeron, sweet Matarys and bold Valarr, the Hand . . . oh, it was a dreadful time. By the end, half