The King of Winters

Chapter-141

Barristan

The king is dead, they told him, never knowing that Barristan had known that information about his sovereign the moment he had been brought out of the cells of Harrenhal with his arms still bound by chains.

"King Andrew drove his cold sword right through to his black heart," a guard in Stark livery declared as they sat around the fireplace by the roadside inn where they spent the night. They had ridden up north from King's Landing, tasked with helping the men bringing Barristan and other noble prisoners captured at the Battle of Trident from Harrenhal to King's Landing.

Barristan heard them from his place in the iron cage they'd put him in. The Stark men took five wagons out of Harrenhal, laden with supplies for the journey, but one of the wagons had been reserved for him: along with crates of radishes and apples and cabbages. As soon as they had Barristan out of his cell in Harrenhal, they had his arms fettered and thrown him into it. Teams of plow horses pulled the wagons, and the captain who led them had provided them horses for the other nobles who had the honor of being brought to King's Landing first along with Barristan. He would have preferred a real horse as well, but the Starks were too careful to take any chances, even with his arms and legs bound. And this new knight who'd come from King's Landing seemed to hold a deep hatred for him.

A light rain had begun falling from sky by the time they decided to stop to rest for the night. When one of the guards who had travelled with him from Harrenhal tried to open the cage and let Barristan out so that they could take cover in the inn, the captain had blocked him straight away.

"No," he had said in a gruff tone, glaring at Barristan through the holes of the cage. "He stays there."

The young guard complained, until he was cut off. "But my lord the rain-"

"Let him get soaked," he had said and left without giving Barristan a second look and that had been the end of it. Barristan did not recognize the bearded knight with the big grey shield, no more than any of them, but he could still see the contempt the man had for him.

While the others found shelter from the rain in the inn, Barristan and the unfortunate guards who'd been tasked with watching over him stayed out in the rain. The guards had managed to light up a fire and put up a tent over it to protect it from the rain and thankfully they had allowed Barristan's wagon to stay close to the fire as well. And that had served him well, as well as the warmth. He got to hear things that he might not have heard otherwise.

“And his evil red priest as well,” said an archer in Lord Frey’s livery. “The direwolf drank his blood after ripping apart his throat. He is a devil that one. The wolf, I mean, silent and pale as death itself. It's said that he ripped apart a dozen men in the battle.”

“Good, I say,” said another guard, a northman wearing the direwolf badge of the Starks. “Twas for the best. How many men died in Starfall because of them? They deserve it.”

“Still to be ripped apart by a wolf,” the Frey insisted. “It must have been grisly. May the Father judge them justly.”

“There would be no mercy for people like Rhaegar and his mad monster,” swore another northman. “No more than there would be for anyone else who stood by and watched him wrought his evil doings.”

Barristan sat silent through it all, letting the words wash over him. Rhaegar Targaryen was dead. My King. My sovereign and the man I had sworn to protect. He tried to bring the King's face to mind, not the man he had become by sitting the Iron Throne, but the prince who had once deposed his mad father from it and saved the realm. But his features kept turning into the King he had become. Barristan had always been the King's man. He had believed in Rhaegar Targaryen, like all his brothers had. When the Prince of Dragonstone finally took the throne they had told themselves that everything would be set to right, only for things to go from bad to worse soon enough. Yet through all that Barristan had stayed a loyal knight. He was the King’ s man still. Today, tomorrow, always, until my last breath. He was a Kingsguard and a Kingsguard served the King.