The Sworn Sword — Dunk I
Two years on: Dunk and Egg serve old Ser Eustace Osgrey of Standfast as sworn swords through a drought that has burned the Reach brown. Riding home with the brown-shielded Ser Bennis, they find the Chequy Water dammed — the stream stolen by the Red Widow of Coldmoat.
The chapter retold
Two years on, and the register has changed from a tourney's color to a drought's brown. Dunk and Egg now serve old Ser Eustace Osgrey of Standfast as sworn swords, working for bed, board and a knight's fee through a summer that has burned the Reach to tinder. Riding home with the sour, brown-shielded Ser Bennis, they find the Chequy Water — Standfast's lifeline — dammed at the stroke of the Red Widow of Coldmoat, and the whole novella's conflict is set: a stream, a drought, and two proud old houses with more history than sense between them.
This movement: A Dry Summer
- Two years after Ashford: King Daeron and both of Baelor's sons are dead of the Great Spring Sickness; bookish Aerys wears the crown and the sorcerer Bloodraven rules from behind it.
- Drought bakes the Reach. Dunk and Egg serve old Ser Eustace Osgrey of Standfast, last of the chequy lions, for bed, board, and a knight's fee.
- The Chequy Water runs dry: the Red Widow of Coldmoat has dammed the stream — and Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield opens a digger's cheek to answer it.
- Standfast arms its plowmen. Dunk counts real knights on the other side and likes the sum not at all.