The Sworn Sword — Dunk VIII
The chequy lion rides to war with an army of five. At the Chequy Water the spider's column meets them — knights, crossbows, and the Longinch — and one wrong word from either bank will drown the marches in smallfolk blood.
The chapter retold
The chequy lion rides to war with an army of five, and at the Chequy Water it meets the spider's column — three-and-thirty knights, crossbowmen, and the Longinch at their head. The chapter is a study in how close a stupid quarrel can come to a massacre: one wrong word from either bank and the marches drown in smallfolk blood, plowmen against knights over a stream that means nothing to anyone by winter. Dunk stands in the middle of it, sworn to the weaker side, searching for the single thing that might keep it from becoming a slaughter.
This movement: The Chequy Water
- Two armies meet at a stolen stream: five men behind a chequy lion, thirty-three behind a spotted spider — and the marches a spark away from smallfolk slaughter.
- Dunk makes the quarrel single combat: himself against the Longinch, in the middle of the disputed water, before the eyes of gods, knights, and diggers.
- Steel in the stream: Dunk is cut, battered, and half-drowned — and Ser Lucas Inchfield is dead in the water at the end of it.
- Peace the old way: Ser Eustace weds Lady Rohanne, the stream flows to Standfast again — and the Red Widow settles a hedge knight's fee with a kiss and keeps a lock of his hair.