[center][h1]ADDISON[/h1][/center]
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Addison dipped her foot in the shallow stream, and the cool water flowed over and between her outstretched toes. Jonquil, her tawny mare, stooped her head to take drink just upriver of her. She was a beautiful horse, Addison’s favorite of all her lord father’s steeds, a slender courser of three years with as sweet a temper as any creature on the Seven’s good earth. She spoke softly to the horse, resting her head to the nape of Jonquil’s neck. It was a quiet, still moment, broken only by the twittering of some bird or another in the trees above and the gentle bubbling of the brook she’d come upon in her riding. 

And then there was a shout.  

“Lady Addison!” the voice came loudly through the forested eaves behind her.  She turned around, hand straying to the small knife she kept to hip, and but a moment later her uncle had pushed through the brush atop his steed and came out onto the clear banks of the stream.  Florian, as his courser was named, brother to her own mount, wheeled about toward her.  Addison relaxed her grip on the knife’s hilt walked toward him as he approached ahorse.

“I am here, mine uncle,” Addison returned as his eyes found her.  “You needn’t worry, I have not met with any harm nor danger in your absence.” 

Robb smiled an easy smile. Her septon-uncle was her favorite among her relations, slow to anger and quick to give forgiveness or kindness. He scolded her but out of warm love, and he was good to keep a secret, something she could not say for her snake of a sister or her brat of a brother. “I am glad of that. Seven know I worry for your safety,” he said, as his horse led him past Addison and on to Jonquil. Florian sniffed and brushed at his sister’s neck, a sweet sight. 

“Seven know my father is the one who worries for my safety,” Addison returned with a sharp smile, turning to follow her uncle as Florian wandered where the horse pleased. Robb was slow to anger and also slow to concern, as it was. The Seven had blessed him with a cool head and a steady mind. “You have better sense than to wonder whether I have come to harm after but half a moment out of sight.”

“You are a better horseman than me, my lady,” Robb lied, “so I admit I did not fear overmuch. And that knife you bear, I would fear for any man who might cross blades with you, myself included.”   

She let her hand drop from the dagger’s hilt, a hint of embarrassment creeping into her cheeks. He smiled at her expense, she knew.  She was certainly not a better horseman than Robb Tarbeck, septon resident of Tarbeck Hall, and could certainly not cross any blade with him, long or short.  Before he was a septon he was a great knight, one of the finest of the realm, so they said. A Kingsguard to be, mayhaps, though Addison found that difficult to believe.  She was but a girl when Robb set down his lance and shield and did not recall much from those years, but she found it strange to reconcile the kindly septon who read to her from the Seven Pointed Star, the gentle man who listened to her confessions and woes, with the daring, dashing, violent knight the stories made him out to be.  

He still did look the part, though, tall and handsome as he was, like a knight from the stories she read as a girl. But that was not proper for her to say nor think, and she flushed but a bit at the thought. 

“I rather think you may be flattering me, mine uncle,” she said, wiping her wet foot in the soft grasses to dry.  

“Never. I have not yet met a woman more comfortable on horseback than you, my lady.”

“Save for my sister?” Addison asked.

“Save for your sister, true, but be fair to yourself. I do wonder if Alyx was fathered by a horse rather than my brother,” Robb japed with a flashing gin, and that brought a laugh from Addison, though the music of it had a bitter tinge.  Addison’s younger sister may as well have been born on a saddle, such was her talent at the reins, and Addison hated it so.  Addison loved horses, and to see Alyx take to Jonquil better than herself had made Addison wroth with envy.  It was not an admirable trait, and the years had softened her attitude toward her sister, but it just seemed so terribly unfair all the same. Still, though Robb loved them both, she knew, she took joy that he was not afraid to commiserate with her against Alyx.  

And as it were, Alyx did not like her overmuch either.  As the eldest daughter of House Tarbeck, Addison was the first expected to wed, and much and more had been made of her fair looks and womanly figure these past few years.  Addison thought her sister fair enough, but Alyx was more girl than woman, and the attention given Addison on the subject had become a sore spot between them.  Addison did not understand it.  To be a bargaining chip in her lord father’s politics, to be bought and fucked by some lordling or another to House Tarbeck’s advantage, it was not a thing she found flattering at all, and certainly nothing for Alyx to envy. 

“How much longer until Summerhall do you think?” she asked, looking to change the subject of their conversation.

“Hard to say, my lady,” Robb answered easily, dismounting as Florian stooped to drink alongside his sister, “but I think us close now.  It should be no more than a few days.  I reckon we could make it in a day or two if we rode ahead of the procession.” 

“I would not wish to rush the journey.” 

“No?  You mislike the thought of a touney?” Robb asked. “It’s been some years, but when I ran the tilts I could scarcely find a lady who did not love to be and be seen there.”

“You mean you could scarcely find a lady who did not love to be and be seen there with you?”

“I am sure there were a few among them who felt as much,” Robb said, warily almost, and he indicated the white brocade doublet he wore, “but circumstances are long changed since then.”  He always wore white these days, during his ministrations and outside them.  He did not wear the flowing robes of a septon, though, but rather the fashionable garb of court, and he still cut a good figure.  Alyx had told Addison that Robb had been a rake of a man in his day and had put many a young woman to the end of his lance before he took the white.  Addison had scolded her something harsh for that wanton gossip, but there was something titillating about it. 

“I am sure,” she said, intoning that she was not so sure at all, and she squeezed her drying foot back into her riding boot and made to mount up again. 

“You are entirely too bold, my lady,” Robb accused, and she hid a smirk. 

“I say it is one of the things I rather like most about myself.” 

The procession of House Tarbeck was heralded by a dozen fluttering blue-and-silver banners bearing the seven pointed star, and it stretched quite a distance on the road to Summerhall. Robb traveled light, as a septon should, he said. His possessions took up space in but part of a single carriage.  Addison wondered if he might not have been able to take all his possessions with him by horse if he so liked.  Her lord father, however, took a dozen carriages and wagons to transport them, family and servants alike, and her lord uncle, Josmyn Breakjaw, least liked of the brothers Tarbeck and ever a bitter, competitive sort, took another dozen. 

The Breakjaw’s two sons, each a few years older than her, were the first to greet them.  Axell and Arys were wheeling around each other on horse, trading blows with practice steels by the morning light.  Arys turned to give them a wave and a shout to meet them as they emerged from the wood, but as he did so, Axell took advantage of his lapse in attention and caught him under the shield with the flat of his blade.  It seemed the wind was knocked from Arys then, and the man was still sputtering curses as their bout took a sudden and more violent turn. 

“I hear they are to be knighted this tourney,” Addison spoke as they passed.  “Your brother the Breakjaw means to have Daemon Blackfyre anoint them himself, so I hear.  Pray tell, would you consider them great knights?” 

“I am sure they will both serve your lord father well and true, my lady,” Robb said. 

“That is not what I asked.”

“I rather think it is, my lady,” Robb answered.  “What does it mean to be a great knight?  To serve true and well, those are the qualities I would seek in my household knights if I were your father.”  He shifted in his saddle, looking over his shoulder to view the two young men all the same.  “But to your point, so as not to frustrate you, I find Arys promising, if too eager to hide behind his shield.  Axell is cunning and daring but,” he assessed, giving thought to the word, “unfocused. Even reckless, I may say.” 

“So you find one to be lacking for caution, and the other to be lacking for lack thereof?” Addison asked. “You seem a hard man to please, mine uncle.”

“Not at all, my lady, it is quite easy to have to too much of one or the other.”

They came then alongside her lady mother’s carriage, and Addison announced her presence with a call.  The Lady Tarbeck slid the window of the carriage door open and, finding the resultant window space to be insufficient to revel in the beautiful morning’s light, she pushed the carriage door open entirely and was content to ride with it flung clear. She stood, half hanging out of the carriage now with feet perched on the edge and a hand holding the topmost edge of the frame to keep her from tumbling out and under the wheels, thin, blue-silver nightgown fluttering in the light breeze and making a show of what was a comely body after bearing three children. Addison grimaced, wondering what might become of her body after a child or two.   

“My lady Jeyne,” Robb greeted her with a solemn nod. “I do fear for your safety at such a precarious angle.” 

“Oh come off it, Robb, you are always fearing for my safety,” she burst with laughter. “I am not so delicate even at my age that I cannot have a bit of fun, am I, dear daughter?” Addison shook her head in answer. “Tell me, Addison mine,” her mother said, reaching out to stroke her cheek as Addison drew close on Jonquil, “where is your sister? I have asked you time and again to help me make a proper lady of that girl and I do not see that she is benefitting from your tutelage at this time.”

“I’m sorry, mother, I have not seen her this morn, but we will find her,” Addison offered, looking to Robb, who nodded in agreement.  

“Oh, I daresay she’s slipped away to join the hunt with your lord father, hasn’t she?  I was quite content to sew a pillow in my youth,” the Lady Jeyne said, “but with that one it seems she can’t get enough of the blood and guts and gore.  Mother guide me, I know not where she gets it, Robb, I do swear.”  She pinched at her temples with her free hand, pausing in the midst of her stream of words.  Her mother was always like this – she spoke fast and eloquently and was so clever and likable.  Addison wished very much to be like her.  “Now that I speak of it, Robb, do you have any of that salt pork? Your brother did try to rouse me this morn but I would not have it, and I quite slept through this morning’s meal. I swear, I think I could eat Jonquil here if I wished it.”  She brushed the horse’s mane, and Jonquil gave a soft whinny, seemingly unconcerned about such a dire threat to her life. 

Robb, chuckling lightly, drew closer on Florian and passed a pouch to her. “There you are lady, all yours. Should I send for Sarella?” she asked, referring to her lady mother’s principal serving woman.

“No, don’t bother her, I can certainly wait until we stop midday.  Just needed something to tide me over.”  Lady Jeyne set her sights on Addison then.  “Now shoo, go find your sister and make a proper maiden out of her, would you?”

A burdensome request, in Addison’s view, but she would do her duty.