The Sworn Sword ÔÇö 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 ÔÇö 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 ÔÇö Standfast's lifeline ÔÇö 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 ÔÇö 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.