Chapter 53 — The Man Who Came to Serve

The three knights had been patient about it, and that was the part Brienne remembered most clearly. Not the laughter afterward, nor the women hiding smiles behind jeweled hands, nor even the sapphire they had wagered on which of them could coax a kiss from her first. The patience.

For days they had treated her as though everything she wanted might be possible, and they asked about sword work instead of gowns, and one praised the strength of her guard. Another told her she rode better than half the young men in his father's household, and they called her the Pearl of Tarth with straight faces and waited until she believed them. "Then they told everyone," Brienne said.

The campfire had burned to a red bed of coals, and the guards resting against the cave wall were careful not to look toward her, which was its own form of courtesy.

"One of them wanted the wager paid in front of the whole hall. The other two argued that no kiss had counted because I had not given one willingly; they thought that made it funnier."

Her fingers closed around the sword's grip. "I stopped believing men when they said pleasant things after that."

"Sensibly," Arlan said. Brienne looked up, perhaps expecting consolation and finding none.

Brienne asked, "You do not think I was foolish?"

"You believed people who deliberately worked to be believed; that makes them practiced liars. It does not make you stupid."

The answer seemed to trouble her more than blame would have, and she stared into the coals. "Lord Renly was different," she said. "At least once."

She told him of Storm's End, of a tournament and a crowd that laughed each time she entered the lists. Renly had watched her defeat men who had arrived expecting an amusing spectacle, and he had not praised her beauty or pretended not to notice what everyone else noticed, and he had simply said her swordplay was better than that of many knights.

One sentence had been enough to matter. "I thought if I won enough, they would have to accept me," Brienne said. "I wanted a place among his sworn swords; every man I beat gave the crowd another reason to hate me for beating him. In the end, I left with the same sword and more names for people to call me."

Arlan turned the heel of bread in his fingers. "Do you still want to be a knight?"

Her head came up immediately. Brienne answered, "Yes." There was no hesitation in it, and that mattered more than the bitterness that had preceded it.

Arlan asked, "Why?"

Brienne frowned. "Because the vows mean something; protect those who cannot protect themselves. Keep faith, speak truth. Do not abandon the people who trust you; a knight is supposed to be more than a man with armor and a title."

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Arlan said, "Most men with armor will be devastated to learn that."

This time she actually laughed, once, before covering it with a cough, and Arlan leaned back against the stone. "Then keep the oath you have already sworn." Her expression tightened again. "A title can be withheld," he continued. "A court can laugh; a lord can decide he dislikes the shape of the person carrying the sword. None of that changes whether you keep the oath."

Brienne said, "The oath without the title is not the same."

"No; the title has political weight. I am not pretending otherwise." He gestured toward the greatsword. "But you keep speaking as though the people who humiliated you own the definition of worth; they do not." Brienne's eyes shone in the low firelight.

"You cannot make them honor their vows. You can keep your own, and let the people you protect judge the difference."

She swallowed. "You make it sound simple."

"Keeping faith with people who despise you is harder."

Brienne looked down before the first tear escaped, wiped it away with the heel of her hand, and looked irritated that her face had betrayed her, and Arlan passed her the flask. "Drink. Your dignity will survive."

She drank enough warm ale to make the order less insulting. "You have a place at FireStorm," Arlan said. "And I have seen what you do with a sword. You need not prove that part to me again."

Her grip tightened around the flask. "And if I never become what the realm calls a knight?"

Arlan replied, "Then the realm will continue being wrong about something; it has practice."

The answer sat between them for a long time, and Brienne finally bowed her head, not deeply, and not as a supplicant. "I meant what I swore to you on the road," she said. "My sword is yours while you remain the man I swore it to."

"Good; I prefer retainers with conditions. Unconditional loyalty is how idiots acquire crowns."

Before dawn, Brienne slept for perhaps an hour with the greatsword within reach of her hand. Arlan did not comment on it; the guards had arranged themselves the same way around their own weapons. Before they broke camp, Arlan checked Brienne's bandage once more and made the guards eat before mounting, and the lesson of the previous days had been tedious and reliable: exhaustion created mistakes before enemies did.

At dawn they rode again.

Brienne was quieter, but not withdrawn, and she corrected one guard's route through a shale slope before his horse lost footing and pointed out fresh tracks where three deer had crossed the path during the night. The same vigilance that noble courts treated as unfeminine made her useful every mile they traveled.

The remaining road passed without ambush, and near midday the low stone walls of FireStorm appeared beneath a pale autumn sky, watchtower first, then the clustered roofs and the red sun device above the gate. A horn sounded from the wall, and men began shouting before the riders reached the last bend.

The sight of FireStorm changed something in the returning guards as well, and shoulders loosened. One man began listing everything he intended to eat once the kitchen saw him, and another reminded him that the kitchen contained exactly the same black bread they had carried on the road, and the argument lasted through the gate.

Morton was waiting outside the gate with half the village behind him, and relief transformed the old steward's face when he counted Arlan among the returning riders; curiosity replaced it when Brienne came into view. "My lord." Morton bowed, then looked at the blood on Brienne's armor and wisely asked no questions in front of the crowd. "It is good to have you home."

Arlan asked, "Any trouble?"

"No attack, no trade either." Morton fell into step beside him. "Nightsong's blockade still frightens the roads; the watch has remained doubled, the kiln and distillery guarded."

Arlan nodded. "And the village?"

"There is one matter." Morton lowered his voice. "A man arrived two days ago from Oldtown; he wears part of a maester's chain and says his name is Rodrick Blackblade."

Arlan glanced at him. "He says," Morton continued, "that he came to swear service to you."