Starpike

Chief seat of proud House Peake of the three castles, who once held three and now hold one — a grievance Lord Gormon nurses like a fire.

The fuller tale

Starpike is the last of what was once three castles held by House Peake, and Lord Gormon Peake nurses the loss of the other two the way some men nurse an old wound that never sets right — with equal parts grief and appetite for restitution. His family bet on the black dragon in the First Blackfyre Rebellion and lost badly at Redgrass Field, and it is there, on that field forty years gone, that Lord Gormon himself struck down Roger, the squire of an unlanded hedge knight named Ser Arlan of Pennytree — a small cruelty that means nothing to Peake and everything, decades later, to the man who becomes Ser Arlan’s last squire’s master in turn.

By the time of the Mystery Knight, Lord Gormon has traded open rebellion for something quieter and more patient: he is one of the architects gathered at Whitewalls under Lord Butterwell’s roof, hoping a second throw of the Blackfyre dice might win back what Redgrass Field cost his house. Starpike’s three lost castles are the ledger entry that explains everything about the man — a lord for whom the crown’s peace is not stability but an unpaid debt, and who is willing to gamble a kingdom’s peace to collect it.

Born here

The fallen of this place — if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground — or none the maesters have set down.