Lys, The Narrow Sea, second week, third moon of 294 AC
The steel shovel slammed into dry, hard-packed earth with a dull clang, its sharp edge digging inches deep despite the resistance. A booted foot came down on the back of the shovelhead and forced it all the way in before a push on the broad handle at the end of the haft used the shovel like a lever to break off a sizable lump of dry clay and gravel that was then thrown aside.
More clangs, more grunts of men joined the chorus as dozens of soldiers wielding dozens of shovels cut through the earth and the trench grew. Others operated lines of buckets to collect and remove the soil quickly, with groups further back setting down a palisade on the inner bank of the five foot deep, six foot wide trench, of mixing the removed earth with water, then pressing the watered clay against wooden stakes to form a crude layer of fire-proofing, or piling it up around the palisade's base to more firmly set the stakes when it dried. Unlike their usual practice of marching camp construction, this was supposed to be a more long-term defense that would serve until the fortresses' stone walls could be completed.
As the men worked under the late afternoon sun, there was lots of grumbling, cursing, and ribbing from just about anyone, though most kept it to a barely audible drone... until someone didn't. One of the younger men, not well practiced in the use of the shovel, swung down too hard, misjudged the distance and had the metal edge strike his boot instead of the ground. The steel failed to penetrate the boiled leather but the toes beneath still hurt and the mishap had come on the tail end of a long day of marching, fighting and digging.
"Fuck this!" the young man cursed loudly and slammed his shovel against the ground as hard as he could. The sturdy implement failed to break and that only angered the blond, beardless recruit further. "I joined this company for glory, not to dig in the mud," he added with a kick at the now fallen shovel.
"Liar!" another nearby man said. "Ya joined 'cause of the teats!" He laughed, muddy black hair flying wildly, and several others joined in. "Reckon about half of us did."
"And a fat lot of good that did you, Reznak," the younger man shot back snidely. "We're in the pleasure house capital of the world and there's not a whore to be seen within thirty miles of this cursed place."
"Yer dead wrong, son," a grizzled veteran countered with a chuckle. "There's near forty lasses in the scouts by now, half of them veterans from the Roses. You could try them, if you were brave enough." Whistling, catcalls and the occasional boast followed that statement, along with bets on what the complaining recruit's chances were.
"Those are as likely to stab ya as bed ya," someone else said with a grunt. "I'd rather be doin' the thrusting than being thrusted at, old man."
"What are you youngsters complaining about?" a sergeant with hair of silver on a lined, sun-burned face spoke up. "Glory? You know another company to have won battles at ten to one odds and lived to tell the tale? Arms? Maybe you missed all the new gear somehow?" He shook the shovel he'd been using. "Even our digging tools are steel. I've fought in companies where new recruits were armed with pointy sticks and had just one piece of armor if they were lucky." The old man spat. "And here you don't get sick, you don't go hungry, are paid in silver every day. Yesterday you were complaining about the Lady not knowing how to fight and when she gives you a well-deserved thrashing you just find something else to whine about. Ugrateful bunch of mewling quims, you are."
"We want to have fun," the blond recruit who'd first spoken up growled, face red and fists clenched. "Five bells a day we march, another five we train in the tiltyard, five more we dig and build. All in the one place in this island where there's nothing but rock, dry clay, and not a camp follower in sight."
"And what good will those camp followers do when you're marching through ruins and wastes in the Disputed Lands?" the silver-haired sergeant asked. "When we harried Bloodbeard's scum, we could march twice as fast as they could because we didn't have camp followers. We raided them again and again, slaughtered their warbands and scouts, then vanished into the night. During the siege, we didn't have to worry about useless fools getting in the way or extra mouths to feed. When sailing back, we managed to fit everyone in one ship and beat five other ships because we were soldiers, not a gaggle of boys playing at war." He scowled so terribly that the young recruit recoiled. "War is not fun. It is the business of learning to kill and doing so, not chasing a whore's skirts."
"Then what good is our pay, huh?" the younger man shot back. "Silver coin, bah! We'd have gotten more looting and raiding, but the Dread Company doesn't do any of that, do we? And what we do get paid we can't spend. Not in an old quarry in the middle of nowhere." There were some mutters of agreement, but far less than there had been only a day before. Far fewer complaints against the Captain were raised after her latest stunt.
"You will have saved enough to get land and a home of your own in but a few years, fool," the old sergeant snarled. "Or do you plan to fight and whore away your days forever?" He shook his head. "I swear, youth and health are wasted on the young."
Most of the soldiers there nodded in agreement with the old man, swore that the new recruits were idiots, or whispered of all they had gained since joining the Dread Company. Seeing that there was no support at all and few like-minded men, the blond recruit spoke no further. Quickly, everyone returned to fortifying their new base against threats to come.
At one remove from the argument, the spy realized that the plan to disrupt the new company had failed. The complaints and divisions were getting no traction, despite several genuine points having been made. He would have to find some other way to foster unrest; the sorceress had done too good a job in gaining the loyalty of many of her men through her magic and deep pockets. Maybe he should let tensions fester for another month and try again. No matter how well paid, fed, and equipped, sell-swords were still sell-swords. The lack of camp followers would soon make things worse for the Valyrian bitch and then he could move again.
In the waning light of the afternoon sun, nobody noticed a mass of feathers two feet across watching everything from the canopy of a nearby tree...
xxxx
"I thought I'd find you here, brooding, and lo, was I right," the tall, broad-shouldered knight with golden-brown hair and large, clever eyes of liquid gold said as he carefully approached the ship's prow.
"Done being the Greensick, brother?" the smaller, slightly older, darker-haired man said with a small smile. "Looking to achieve a new rank then? Perhaps the Galling?"
"I like to believe I stopped being an annoying little tyke a long time ago," the knight said in an almost wistful tone. "Yet ever do men think too highly of themselves. Thank you, brother, for helping to keep me humble."
"And now you are being insufferably Gallant," the older, smaller of the two said with a long-suffering sigh.
"While you are still brooding," the knight countered. "What is it that worries you, brother? I thought you would be overjoyed at the news. A chance to be whole after so many years..." Neither of them looked down at the cleverly articulated wooden splint helping the older brother walk, or the walking stick he occasionally had need of, but both of them were aware of its presence. Others may have become used to them after nearly a decade; the two never had.
"They say sorcery is a sword without a hilt," the older brother started, then sighed. "I have been considering who the anonymous 'they' might have been and their reasons for saying what they did... especially in light of whom we will soon be meeting. My research was..." he searched for the right word for a few seconds before settling, "...inconclusive."
"You think too much, Willas," his brother noted. "By all accounts, this sorceress is a comely young woman. Be your dashing, witty, charming self and you have nothing to worry about."
"Witty I'll grant you, but you were always the dashing one between us, Garlan." Willas tapped his splint with his walking stick. "And this here makes it hard to charm the ladies. Almost twenty namedays and do you see any ladies chasing after me? No, they are far too interested in you - or even Loras."
"Then they are either fools or fickle huntresses of coin," the younger brother asserted firmly. "The Captain tells me Seastrider will reach Lys upon the morrow. We will see then the character of this sorceress. Any worrying you do before is for naught, for what can you do to change things while standing on a ship's prow in the middle of the Narrow Sea? Accept this and relax. Lys is, I am told, the greatest resort man ever built after all."
"Stop trying to be wise, Garlan, that is my job," Willas told his younger brother. "Just go back to your swords, or whatever it is young knights do."
Garlan the Gallant laughed and walked off, leaving his older brother feeling a bit better about the future to come.
xxxx
Lys was every bit the paradise of stories. Sandy beaches, tropical trees, clean, stone-paved waterfronts that smelled of spice and perfumes, not the usual stench of cities. Palaces of granite and bronze, temples of marble and lapis lazuli, merchant houses and inns with windows of spun crystal and public baths with hot water. Then there were the people; even mere sell-swords were dressed in elegant silks and sported weapons of polished steel and bronze that in Westeros would be the sole remit of high nobility. In Lys the actual nobles wore threads of gold and silver and purple satin that could put even royals to shame, bore diamonds and rubies and amethysts that would beggar many a smaller House, and both men and women were beauties that rivalled most anyone across the Narrow Sea, with features that often leaned towards the golden and silver hair and blue, grey, and purple eyes of Old Valyria. More than any place the two brothers had ever seen, it was a place of beauty.
They were welcomed in one of the more expensive pleasure gardens thanks to the ample gold they had been given by their parents and for the first time in a good long while the Tyrell brothers had fun. The escorts - highly paid women as far above simple whores as Garlan was above a common brigand - could be as witty, charming and elegant as either of them, the food and wines were as good as any back in Highgarden, and the music and other entertainment was superior. Their baths left anything the two of them had ever seen before in the dust.
They spent the night, though Willas remained too worried to truly relax despite their environment. The following morning the two brothers set out with their escort of guards to find House Ormollen and the sorceress they had come to meet. The city, however, was far larger than Highgarden, more sprawling than even King's Landing, with many estates being as much as half a dozen miles beyond the walls proper. Not knowing where to go, they had to hire local guides to direct them through the meandering streets to their destination.
It was about two hours from the start of their search and half an hour after hiring the locals that Garlan noticed the streets were growing narrower, the buildings smaller. Alerie and Olenna Tyrell had raised no fools; House Ormollen was supposedly one of the wealthiest estates in the city. It could not possibly be located into one of the less cosmopolitan, quieter neighbourhoods. This was simply not how nobility or merchants did things. Something was wrong.
"Garlan," Willas called out and the younger knight looked at the small gathering of men apparently idling only a few houses away. His brother did not need to say anything more. With a short sign to their guards they turned around... only to find another group of apparent passers-by following their group less than a hundred yards back down the street. Over their "guides" protests, the Tyrell party took a side-street in an attempt to get away but whoever had prepared the ambush had done too good of a job; the alley was a dead end leading to a locked door.
"Willas, stay behind me," Garlan told his brother as he drew his sword along with their half a dozen guards. A moment later, twice their number in thugs came around both corners, pulling clubs, blades and nets from under their bulky clothing and packs...