The King of Winters

Chapter 84

Argella

The day was damp and grey, a drizzle had begun to fall by the time they started their journey for the day. Behind uncle Renly's screen of scouts, her father's line of march stretched several miles. Her father rode with the van, always leading his men in battle. Argella would have given anything to travel with them in the frontlines, but her mother would have none of it. Instead she traveled in the main column with her mother, surrounded by plodding warhorses with steelclad men on their backs. Next came the baggage train, a procession of wayns laden with food, fodder, camp supplies, wedding gifts, and the wounded too weak to walk, under the watchful eye of Ser Aemon Estermont and his father's knights of Greenstone. Herds of sheep and goats and scrawny cattle trailed behind, and then a little tail of footsore camp followers. Even farther back was Ser Rolland Storm and the rearguard. There was no enemy in back of them for hundreds of leagues, but her father would take no chances.

Twenty-five thousand they were, twenty-five thousand who had been blooded in the Taking of Griffin's Roost, who had reddened their swords at Misty Wood and at the Battle of Howling Hill, at the Kingswood, at the Grassfield Keep, and all through the rolling plains of the eastern lands of the Reach. Aside from the modest force the Stormlanders left back to protect their lands, the lords of the Stormlands had all marched forth to war with her father with all their strength. Of those thirty thousand who had come answering her father's calls, more than five thousand had lost their lives in battles and raids. Those who had survived the battles still marched with them along with the prisoners and captives taken. Ahead awaited her father's next battle . . . and for me, a husband, a marital bed, and a long life occupied with birthing and rearing children. It was a cheerless prospect. But it was something that was expected of her despite how she hated it.

The drizzle that had sent them off that morning turned into a soft steady rain by midday, and continued well past nightfall. The next day the Stormlanders rode beneath the sun high in the sky, amidst the grey clouds while another drizzle greeted them. They rode with their hoods pulled up to keep the water from their eyes. It was not a heavy rain like it was in the Stormlands, where the downpour turn roads to mud and fields to quagmires, swelling the rivers and stripping the trees of their leaves, when the constant patter would made idle chatter more bother than it was worth. But here the rains were never as heavy as it was in her homeland, where the rains would often turn into howling gales.

"Gods, this rain," Lady Brienne complained as they rode. "It's taking a toll on our march."

"We are stronger than we seem, my lady," Argella told her. "We are used to these rains and storms. We thrive in them." Argella had grown fond of Lady Brienne throughout the march from the Stormlands to the lands in the Reach. The daughter of Lord Selwyn was tall and lean, taller even than her father and both her uncles, but she always dressed in plate and mail with the sun and crescent moon of House Tarth on shield and surcoat. Argella would have worn a fine suit of armour as well, if her mother not so damn against the idea. For now she was content with her hardened leather jerkin. By the Light of the Seven, that was queer garb for a lady, yet Lady Brienne seemed more comfortable, both as a warrior and as a woman, as much as Argella was comfortable with her bow and arrows.

Some of the men spoke about the battles they had fought and "I have fought beside the Lord Robert in every battle," Ser Dermot of Rainwood said cheerfully. "He has not lost one yet."

"Maybe the only commander to do so?" asked Aberdolf Strongbeard.

"I would say so," Ser Dermot said. He was one of heroes made at Howling Hill. The Hedge Knight had won a great fame for himself when he had cut down half a dozen knights and then capture another half, knights from both the Reach and the Crownlands.