Carliene Stark

II Chapter 82

Jorah

Hayford stood at the top of a narrow hill, smoke rising from every chimney as its occupants battled the growing cold. At the foot of a hill a small stream cut through the meadow, still flowing but with thin floes forming in its bends and corners, where the current calmed down enough to allow the ice to form. The castellan had made no objection to the tents beings set up on his lands. He knew better than to do so. He was just another old man, ruling over a struggling castle and watching the remnants of a broken House. The remaining Hayford heir was a girl, not even five years old. she would not take part in these conflicts. She and her household could only hope to be overlooked during the quarrels of the higher royals. 

And yet I could not take men attention off the buildings completely. It would be easy to hide armed men in those grey walls, or in the forest not far from it. I came to stand next to Tyrion Lannister, who had taken his own turn, w walking about the meadow and watching the men erect the tents. "I don't like this" I admitted to him, knowing he was someone I could openly talk to.

The short man gave a shrug. "Well we are about to meet with the only person who has wished me dead more times than my father" he agreed, oblivious that I had still been on the subject of location and not yet moved on to what came after. "So I can't say I am too happy about it either. But it is necessary" he insisted.

I looked up at the castle again. "Do you think your sister will plan anything?" I was slightly anxious for his answer.

He studied the tents, a few smaller ones to provide protection from the wind for the servants and armed men, while they had to wait and a much larger one being set up in the middle. It was so large that twenty men hand to work on it at the same time, fastening sports and setting up large wooden poles, before the fabric was pulled across it all by a few powerful dreys. "Not out here" he decided. "I don't think even Cersei would be so irrational" he sounded more hopeful than certain, which did not do much to ease my worry.

"She still wants you dead" I noted.

"And Daenerys probably wants my brother dead, so it all evens out in the end I think" he tried his best to sound amused, but I don't think any of us had the nerves for jokes that morning.

"I just hope you know what you are doing" I told him honestly.
He nodded. All amusement erased from his features. "You and me both"

The meeting was set for midday, although it was hard to tell when exactly that would be as the sky was draped in a ceaseless grey. The wind was restlessly pulling at our cloaks and the linen of the tents, but at least it was not snowing. 

When the Lannister host appeared on the Kingsroad to the south I made sure to finish my rounds of the camp quickly, before taking my place at the queens side. There were four of us. Ser Gerold Dayne, two dothraki bloodriders and myself. Still three men short of a proper queensguard. I only knew about four of Cersei Lannister's guard. Ser Balon Swann and the Kettleblack brothers. And most importantly Ser Gregor Clegane, who somehow had survived Oberyn Martel's poisoned spear. Even if the other three members were utterly incompetent, I feared my brother's and I would not stand long against them. Not when two of them were dothraki bloodriders, without any armour to protect them from the lethal great swords. I had begged Daenerys many times to appoint more men to her guard and replace her bloodriders, but she would have none of it. She refused to appoint any man she did not know or trust, no matte how skilled they were with a blade. It made me wonder why she had accepted Gerold Dayne so readily. I only hoped it had nothing to do with his age or handsome face.

Now fully erected, the main tent covered an octagonal space of thirty feet across. In the very middle, a shallow pit, spanning three feet had been dug and filled with coal and oils by the red priests. A bright fire warmed and light the inside of the tent, the few fumes it created escaping through a hole that had been left in the fabric of the roof. Chairs and benches had been placed for the attendees. Two groups that faced each other on either side of the pit and and two benches standing off slightly to the side, where the northern envoys would take their place.