The Hedge Knight Read Online Free Page A

mounted. “You’re to stay here and put the camp in order. Make sure no other thieves come nosing about.”
     
    “Can I have a sword to run them off with?” Egg asked. He had blue eyes, Dunk saw, very dark, almost purple. His bald head made them seem huge, somehow.
     
    “No,” said Dunk. “A knife’s enough. And you had best be here when I come back, do you hear me? Rob me and run off and I’ll hunt you down, I swear I will. With dogs.”
     
    “You don’t have any dogs,” Egg pointed out.
     
    “I’ll get some,” said Dunk. “Just for you.” He turned Sweetfoot’s head toward the meadow and moved off at a brisk trot, hoping the threat would be enough to keep the boy honest. Save for the clothes on his back, the armor in his sack, and the horse beneath him, everything Dunk owned in the world was back at that camp. I am a great fool to trust the boy so far, but it is no more than the old man did for me, he reflected. The Mother must have sent him to me so that I could pay my debt.
     
    As he crossed the field, be heard the ring of hammers from the riverside, where carpenters were nailing together jousting barriers and raising a lofty viewing stand. A few new pavilions were going up as well, while the knights who had come earlier slept off last night’s revels or sat to break their fasts. Dunk could smell woodsmoke, and bacon as well.
     
    To the north of the meadow flowed the river Cockleswent, a vassal stream to the mighty Mander. Beyond the shallow ford lay town and castle. Dunk had seen many a market town during his journeys with the old man. This was prettier than most; the whitewashed houses with their thatched roofs had an inviting aspect to them. When he was smaller, he used to wonder what it would be like to live in such a place; to sleep every night with a roof over your head, and wake every morning with the same walls wrapped around you. It may be that soon I’ll know. Aye, and Egg too. It could happen. Stranger things happened every day.
     
    Ashford Castle was a stone structure built in the shape of a triangle, with round towers rising thirty feet tall at each point and thick crenellated walls running between. Orange banners flew from its battlements, displaying the white sun-and-chevron sigil of its lord. Men-at-arms in orange-and-white livery stood outside the gates with halberds, watching people come and go, seemingly more intent on joking with a pretty milkmaid than in keeping anyone out. Dunk reined up in front of the short, bearded man he took for their captain and asked for the master of the games.
     
    “It’s Plummer you want, he’s steward here. I’ll show you.”
     
    Inside the yard, a stableboy took Sweetfoot for him. Dunk slung Ser Arlan’s battered shield over a shoulder and followed the guards captain back of the stables to a turret built into an angle of the curtain wall. Steep stone steps led up to the wallwalk. “Come to enter your master’s name for the lists?” the captain asked as they climbed.
     
    “It’s my own name I’ll be putting in.”
     
    “Is it now?” Was the man smirking? Dunk was not certain. “That door there. I’ll leave you to it and get back to my post.”
     
    When Dunk pushed open the door, the steward was sitting at a trestle table, scratching on a piece of parchment with a quill. He had thinning grey hair and a narrow pinched face. “Yes?” he said, looking up. “What do you want, man?”
     
    Dunk pulled shut the door. “Are you Plummer the steward? I came for the tourney. To enter the lists.”
     
    Plummer pursed his lips. “My lord’s tourney is a contest for knights. Are you a knight?”
     
    He nodded, wondering if his ears were red.
     
    “A knight with a name, mayhaps?”
     
    “Dunk.” Why had he said that? “Ser Duncan. The Tall.”
     
    “And Where might you be from, Ser Duncan the Tall?”
     
    “Everyplace. I was squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree since I was five or six. This is his shield.” He showed it to the