The Hedge Knight — Dunk VI
Ser Humfrey Hardyng unseats Aerion Brightflame fair and clean — and Aerion answers by driving his lance through the neck of Hardyng's horse, leaving the champion crushed and broken-legged beneath the carcass.
The chapter retold
The tilting turns from sport to warning. Ser Humfrey Hardyng unhorses Aerion Brightflame fairly and cleanly, and Aerion — unable to bear a fall — answers by driving his lance through the neck of Hardyng's horse, leaving a champion of the realm crushed and broken-legged beneath the dying animal. The chapter states the Bright Flame's whole character in a single act of spite: a prince who believes he is a dragon in a man's skin and treats every reverse as an insult to be repaid in blood. The meadow's holiday mood curdles, and the reader understands, well before Dunk does, that this is a man around whom people get badly hurt.
This movement: The Tourney
- The champions hold the field; the Laughing Storm's bellow rolls over the meadow; Prince Baelor watches everything and says little.
- Aerion Brightflame, unhorsed fair by Ser Humfrey Hardyng, kills the champion's horse with a deliberate lance and leaves him broken beneath it.
- By torchlight the Bright Flame finds the puppet show, decides a wooden dragon is treason, and breaks Tanselle's fingers.
- A hedge knight of no name beats a prince of the blood into the mud — and the stableboy's hood falls back on Aegon Targaryen's shaved head.