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your
name, ser?”
     
    “Ser Uthor Underleaf. The son of
no one of importance.” Underleafs garments were of good cloth, clean and well
cared for, but simply cut. A silver clasp in the shape of a snail fastened his
cloak. “If your lance is the equal of your tongue, Ser Glendon, you may even
give this big fellow here a contest.”
     
    Ser Glendon glanced at Dunk as
the wine was being poured. “If we meet, he’ll fall. I don’t care how big he
is.”
     
    Dunk watched a server fill his
wine cup. “I am better with a sword than with a lance,” he admitted, “and even
better with a battleaxe. Will there be a melee here?” His size and strength
would stand him in good stead in a melee, and he knew he could give as good as
he got. Jousting was another matter.
     
    “A melee? At a marriage?” Ser
Kyle sounded shocked. “That would be unseemly.”
     
    Ser Maynard gave a chuckle. “A
marriage is a melee, as any married man could tell you.”
     
    Ser Uthor chuckled. “There’s just
the joust, I fear, but besides the dragon’s egg, Lord Butterwell has promised
thirty golden dragons for the loser of the final tilt, and ten each for the
knights defeated in the round before.”
     
    Ten dragons is not so bad. Ten
dragons would buy a palfrey, so Dunk would not need to ride Thunder save in battle. Ten dragons would buy a
suit of plate for Egg, and a proper knight’s pavilion sewn with Dunk’s tree and
falling star. Ten dragons would mean roast goose and ham and pigeon pie.
     
    “There are ransoms to be had as
well, for those who win their matches,” Ser Uthor said as he hollowed out his
trencher, “and I have heard it rumored that some men place wagers on the tilts.
Lord Butterwell himself is not fond of taking risks, but amongst his guests are
some who wager heavily.”
     
    No sooner had he spoken than
Ambrose Butterwell made his entrance, to a fanfare of trumpets from the
minstrel’s gallery. Dunk shoved to his feet with the rest as Butterwell
escorted his new bride down a patterned Myrish carpet to the dais, arm in arm.
The girl was fifteen and freshly flowered, her lord husband fifty and freshly
widowed. She was pink and he was grey. Her bride’s cloak trailed behind her,
done in candy green and white and yellow. It looked so hot and heavy that Dunk
wondered how she could bear to wear it. Lord Butterwell looked hot and heavy
too, with his heavy jowls and thinning flaxen hair.
     
    The bride’s father followed close
behind her, hand in hand with his young son. Lord Frey of the Crossing was a
lean man elegant in blue and grey, his heir a chinless boy of four whose nose
was dripping snot. Lords Costayne and Risley came next, with their lady wives,
daughters of Lord Butterwell by his first wife. Frey’s daughters followed with
their own husbands. Then came Lord Gormon Peake; Lords Smallwood, and Shawney;
various lesser lords and landed knights. Amongst them Dunk glimpsed John the
Fiddler and Alyn Cockshaw. Lord Alyn looked to be in his cups, though the feast
had not yet properly begun.
     
    By the time all of them had
sauntered to the dais, the high table was as crowded as the benches. Lord
Butterwell and his bride sat on plump downy cushions in a double throne of
gilded oak. The rest planted themselves in tall chairs with fancifully carved
arms. On the wall behind them, two huge banners hung from the rafters: the twin
towers of Frey, blue on grey, and the green and white and yellow undy of the
Butterwells.
     
    It fell to Lord Frey to lead the
toasts. “The king!” he began simply. Ser Glendon held his wine cup out
above the water basin. Dunk clanked his cup against it, and against Ser Uthor’s
and the rest as well. They drank.
     
    “Lord Butterwell, our gracious
host,” Frey proclaimed
next. “May the Father grant him long life and many sons.”
     
    They drank again.
     
    “Lady Butterwell, the maiden
brick, my darling daughter. May the Mother make her fertile.” Frey gave the girl a smile. “I