The Mystery Knight — Dunk VI

The Snail proves a tradesman of the tilt: he shows Dunk how the fall was made and offers to buy his services. Egg moves among the squires, hearing what boys hear — and Lord Peake watches everything with a hungry eye.

The chapter retold

Ser Uthor proves a tradesman of the lists, courteous enough to show Dunk exactly how the fall was engineered and businesslike enough to offer to buy his services outright. While Dunk weighs the insult, Egg does the real work of the chapter, moving among the squires and gathering the loose talk that boys let slip — and over all of it hangs Lord Gormon Peake's hungry, calculating eye. The chapter tightens the net quietly: everyone at Whitewalls wants something, several of them want it from Dunk, and the egg has not even gone missing yet.

This movement: The Mystery Knight

• The wedding tourney opens: Ser Glendon Ball, Fireball's furious son, unhorses all comers, while Dunk falls to the Snail's craft and a ransom he cannot pay.
• Ser Maynard Plumm drifts through the feast knowing more than any hedge knight should — including whose head is under Egg's hood.
• The dragon's egg vanishes in the night; the castle is sealed; and Glendon Ball is seized for the theft on no evidence but his father's name.
• Ser Alyn Cockshaw lures Dunk to a quiet well with hired steel — and goes down it himself, with Plumm's blade to help him.