The Hedge Knight ÔÇö Dunk III
Ashford Meadow: a hundred pavilions on the banks of the Cockleswhent. Dunk camps beneath a great elm, meets the Dornish puppeteers and the tall girl Tanselle, and watches her wooden dragon die to a wooden hero's lance.
The chapter retold
Ashford Meadow opens before them like a city grown overnight ÔÇö a hundred pavilions along the Cockleswhent, merchants and mummers and the fair maid's painted viewing stand. Dunk makes his camp beneath a great elm and meets the Dornish puppeteers, chief among them the tall girl Tanselle, who paints and works a wooden dragon on strings and lets a wooden hero's lance kill it to the crowd's delight. The chapter is the saga at its most inviting, all color and possibility ÔÇö and it quietly introduces the two things that will nearly cost Dunk his life: a puppet dragon, and a girl kind enough to paint a poor knight's shield.
This movement: The Road to Ashford
- Ser Arlan of Pennytree dies of a chill by the roseroad, and his towering squire buries him ÔÇö then takes his sword, his shield, and his calling.
- At a wayside inn Dunk acquires an ale, a plan, and a bald stableboy named Egg who will not be left behind.
- Ashford Meadow spreads before them: pavilions, puppeteers, merchants ÔÇö and a tourney with the fair maid of Ashford as its queen of love and beauty.
- Everything Dunk owns buys armor from Steely Pate; Tanselle's brush gives his shield its arms: elm and shooting star.