S1┬ÀE2 ÔÇö Ashford Meadow
The hour retold
An hour that opens the world of the tourney like a fairground and quietly seeds it with everything that will later go wrong. Dunk pitches his camp beneath a great elm and walks the meadow ÔÇö merchants, hedge knights, a troupe of Dornish puppeteers, and a tall girl named Tanselle who paints a wooden dragon and works it on strings. She paints Dunk's battered shield for him: a shooting star above an elm, the first arms he can truly call his own, bought with the last of the coin that Steely Pate the armorer did not already take for a suit of steel that fits a man his size.
Against the smallfolk's bustle the blood of the dragon arrives in force, and the episode lets the audience feel the gap in rank that the whole story will test. Lord Ashford's sons, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Tybolt Lannister and the Young Prince Valarr hold the field as the fair maid's champions; the princes of the realm gather to watch ÔÇö Baelor Breakspear the Hand, his brother Maekar, and Maekar's sons Aerion the Bright Flame and Daeron the Drunken. Somewhere in the crowd is a fourth son nobody is looking for, minding Dunk's horses and dodging every question about where he came from, because the answer is standing thirty feet away in cloth-of-gold.
What happens
- Dunk pitches his camp beneath an elm and walks the meadow: banners, merchants, puppeteers ÔÇö and a Dornish girl named Tanselle painting a wooden dragon.
- Steely Pate the armorer takes Dunk's measure and most of his coin; the shield gets new paint from Tanselle's brush ÔÇö a shooting star above an elm.
- The champions take the field: Lord Ashford's two sons, Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Tybolt Lannister, and Prince Valarr Targaryen, the Young Prince.
- The princes of the realm arrive in force ÔÇö Baelor, Maekar and his sons: Aerion the Bright Flame, Daeron the Drunken, and somewhere unseen, a missing fourth son.
- Dunk learns his new squire dodges every question about where he came from ÔÇö and squires better than boys twice-trained.