The Hedge Knight — 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 — 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 — 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 — 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 — 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.