[center][h1]ARRON[/h1][/center]
[hr]
Arron and his freeriders had taken to practicing at arms in the early hours.  The Westerlanders amongst whom Qosaerys had made their camp had proved a curious lot.  They kept their distance, but the prying eyes and unsubtle whispers were less than welcoming. 

“I think they may mislike us,” Ulrick had observed, and as short and simple a statement as it was it did seem to capture it.  It was no mystery as to why.  Dorne had long been the Iron Throne’s stubborn enemy, a thorn in the foot of the Seven Kingdoms for nigh on two hundred years.  Yers had passed since House Martell had agreed to join the realm, but time passed had returned not one man from the dead.  Arron did not doubt he stood among men and women who had lost fathers and sons over the long and bloody history of the south.  To kill one foe was to make a dozen, it seemed.

Arron put it out of mind as best he could.  It was a grey morning, and Ryon was the only one among them who had risen for the occasion.  The White Hawk was a shadow of himself, it seemed, and as they traded thrusts with their spears, lethal heads removed, Arron found his sparring partner slow on his feet and slower at arms. Arron batted away Ryon’s efforts with easy blocks, his shield turning shaft away time and again. In sharp contrast, Ryon struggled to keep Arron at bay, gave a stride’s worth of ground each time Arron brought his spear to bear on him and then, when Arron relented and gave him space, he doubled over as if to vomit.

“Late night, was it?” Arron asked.  Ryon, seemingly unable to empty the contents of his stomach, settled for spitting a thick wad of phlegm instead. 

“It’s a tourney, no? I thought we were meant to have fun, eh?” Ryon answered, voice ragged and still bent over, but as Arron drew close, he sprung at him.  Quicker, but not nearly quick enough, and it was nothing Arron wasn’t expecting.  Arron knew better than to mistake the White Hawk for an honorable fighter. 

He batted the spear aside with his shield, this time with enough force to wrench it from Ryon’s hand.  Arron drove his own spear at him hard, his weight behind it.  Ryon caught it on his shield, but his footing was unsound, and the force was more than enough to drive him to the ground. He tumbled back and skidded in the grass, which had been made wet and slippery by the morning dew. 

“You,” Arron said, drawing over him and offering a hand to help him up, “are meant to stay sharp, like I ordered.”

“Seven hells, for what?” Ryon got to his feet, dusting himself off with his free hand.  That, Arron did not know. Qosaerys had given the order to him, and he’d given the order to his freeriders in turn, but Qosaerys kept tight lipped on their purpose here.  Arron hadn’t a notion as to what they might be staying sharp for, but after some months of observation he knew one thing to be true – Nycarro Qosaerys was not a man who took joy in staying sharp.  If Qosaerys felt the need for as much, Arron figured there must be a bloody serious need for it. He didn’t take it for a convincing argument, though, true or not.

“We are four Dornishmen in the midst of a thousand northerners who’ve known us as the enemy for nigh on two hundred years,” Arron tried instead.  “It might have been before our time, but I think it unlikely their thoughts on the matter have changed much in the past fifteen.  If one of them gets it in his head to settle a score, we best be sharp enough to settle it in our favor, no?  And if he brings a few friends, we all best be sharp enough to keep it even.”  Ryon nodded, seeming to see the sense of it. “We stay sharp,” Arron finished.  “All of us.”

“I take your meaning.”

“Good.  Back to your place.”  

Ryon took up his spear and they carried on, now with a bit more spirit in him.  Still, some good words on staying sharp wouldn’t do much to make him sharp now, and they called it early. Ryon stalked back to their tents, as unsteady from his new bruises as he was from the drink, and Arron collected his things. It was early morning still, and the Westerlanders were slow to rise.  There were but a few of them about, and none of them seemed to pay him much mind.  Save for one, that is. 

“Good morn, ser,” she greeted, approaching him as he took a long pull of water from his skin.  She wore a dress, light blue in color, long sleeved and hemmed just short enough so that it did not drag in the dewy grass. She was older than him, but not old, and her soft features and the tumble of dark, gently curling hair caught his eye.  He gave her a small nod in acknowledgment as he returned the skin to his belt, unsure of her and uncertain as to what he should say.  “My daughter finds you very handsome.”

He was doubly uncertain as to what he should say to that.  “You are kind,” he tried, the words coming out clumsy. “I think you flatter me twice.  I am not a knight.” 

“Is that so?  My lord husband brought twenty of his knights with us, but I think I would trade half of them for you and your friend.”

She was a noblewoman then. “Forgive me, my lady, I mistook you,” Arron said, bowing his head in an effort at respectful deference.  He was not a courtly man, but he caught his error quick enough and knew it proper to address it direct.  She laughed, a sweet sound. 

“You are too courteous,” she said.  “Do not worry of it. I took you for a knight and you took me for a woman.  Which I am, even if I have a title.  Jeyne Tarbeck, of Tarbeck Hall.”  She offered her hand to him, offered it up, as it were, as he stood quite tall over her now that they were close.

Arron took it, and, knowing not what she expected him to do with it, held it. “Arron Sand.  Of Dorne.”  He held her hand for another moment and then let it drop, entirely unsure as to how badly he was embarrassing himself in the process. In Dorne men might lock arms to greet each other, and it was proper to plant a kiss on a noblewoman’s hand if she offered it.  In Pentos you might kiss a woman’s hand with your lips, or you might purse your lips first before the kiss, or you might kiss her ring instead, all according to social customs he found especially confusing.   As to the customs of the Westerlands, on that front he was entirely ignorant. 

“As you may have guessed, my lady, I am not a man of court,” he attempted to excuse himself.

“Is that so, Arron Sand?  You do come here in the company of a courtly woman,” she said, looking to the Fowler banner.  “I understand you are Lady Jynessa’s man?”

“I am head of Lady Fowler’s sworn spears, my lady,” Arron lied, just as Qosaerys had instructed.

“So, you are mayhaps not a courtly man, but a leader and a protector?” 

“I suppose so.”

“Well, I think my daughter may have better taste than I expected,” Lady Jeyne said.  He made to say that she was flattering him, but she carried on, keeping the pace of their conversation brisk.  “I had the pleasure of making Lady Fowler’s acquaintance yesterday eve, as it happens.  She’s a lovely woman, very friendly.”

“She is,” Arron agreed.  He found Jynessa Fowler to be as cold and dismissive as she was beautiful, if he was honest, but he needn’t mention that.  “I’ve known her most my life, my lady.”

“Is that so?”

Arron scratched at his beard, thinking it over. “I’d say so, from my time at Skyreach. But I’ve known her brother longer,” he said, looking to the Fowler tents, in which direction his sparring partner had stalked off. “We were fostered together for a time there, and at Wyl.”

“Her brother?  That was your partner this morning?  I heard he has quite the reputation in Dorne.”

“The White Hawk of Skyreach, he’s called.  Or so he calls himself, anyway.”  She smirked at that.  “I can’t say I know a better man with a spear, or a man quicker to use one for that matter.”  
 
“The White Hawk?  That is quite a name.  I wouldn’t presume overmuch, but he seemed,” Lady Jeyne said, pausing as she seemed to search for the words, “a bit less than his reputation this morning, I thought.”  

“You are charitable, my lady.  I rather think you saw the man could barely stand,” Arron said with a grin.  A jape at Ryon’s expense was within the bounds of comfortable conversation for him.  And she laughed at it, light and polite, but an honest laugh still.  “He’s had better days, still.  He’s won ten duels in his time.  Half of them on behalf of Lady Jynessa, as it were.  Sleights against her honor and the sort.”  Sleights and less, really, and he’d killed a few of those men.  Another thing he needn’t mention. 

“Ten duels?” Lady Jeyne asked, impressed in earnest at that, Arron thought. “I was a fair maiden in my day, I like to think, but I can’t say I’ve had a single duel fought for my honor, let alone ten.”  

“Could be your knights are less gallant than my Dornishmen, my lady,” Arron suggested, “or it could be you didn’t give cause for men to challenge your honor five times over.”

“Oh, I am not so sure of that,” she said laughing.  “I am my father’s youngest daughter, Arron Sand.  If you ever have girls of your own, you’ll find the youngest are the most difficult by a league.”

“I’ll try for boys then, if I get to it.”  Another laugh, light and sweet. 

“I take it you are unwed, then?” she asked.  “No beautiful woman to duel for?”

“Only Lady Fowler, my lady.” And wasn’t that true enough?  When had he last been with a woman?  The only other woman he’d spoken more than a few words to in a month was Black Drazenka, Qosaerys’s Captain-Admiral, and she was harder than even the ironborn sellsails.  

“Well, she is quite a beautiful woman, don’t you think?” Lady Tarbeck suggested.

Another unexpected turn, but the conversation had been a list of unexpected turns, and another was no surprise.  “She is considered a great beauty in Dorne.”  He wasn’t sure whether he itched to leave the woman behind or to say more.  She was an easy partner in conversation, even as Arron struggled to keep his tongue appropriately gracious for her, and she had such an easy manner to her it was hard to think her nobility.  He was saying much, he knew, maybe too much, but when had he last had an unexpected conversation with a charming woman?  And an attractive one, no less.
  
“And what do you think?” the noblewoman pressed on.  “Is she?”

“Do I think Lady Fowler beautiful?”  Arron thought it would be inappropriate to say either way.  Call her beautiful but say it poorly and she might take it for a bastard’s wanton interest, but deny it and she’d think him either a liar or discourteous.  And to add to it, what she getting at here?  Like Ryon this morning, he found himself on entirely unsound footing.  

“I think,” Arron started, and he found some carefully picked words as he thought of Jynessa’s golden head of hair, “I am more partial to darker haired women.”  That seemed a way around it.  The best path forward for a man faced with two poor choices was to find a third, after all.

Lady Jeyne Tarbeck, who was particularly dark of hair and noticeably so, considered him now with eyebrows raised, and there seemed something new behind her smile.  Curiosity?  Surprise?  Surprised at his forwardness, he guessed, as he realized how she must have taken it.  That third choice may have been the worst of them, it seemed.  “If you don’t mind, Arron Sand,” she said, breaking what was to Arron a tense silence, “I think I’ll tell my daughter you prefer blondes.”

She stepped away then, holding his eyes for another moment more before turning entirely and walking toward the blue-and-silver pavilions of her house.  He hadn’t meant it that way, surely she knew that?  Still, as she walked away, he could not help but notice the shapely curve of her ass in that dress. 

[center]-[/center]

That evening, as he had each evening, he took his place in Lady Fowler’s tent.  It was another of Qosaerys’s unexplained orders.  Each of the Captain-General, Donnor Greyiron, Arron and Jynessa Fowler arrived at Jynessa’s tent at dusk, where they sat, talked a bit, drank more and, whenever Qosaerys decided, retired to their tents for the night. When he had asked, Qosaerys had evaded explaining himself.  “How can we call ourselves Brave Companions without indulging in some measure of companionship, eh?” had been his answer. It did not satisfy him, but Arron didn’t pry. 

Arron was early that night, as was typical, but not by much, and he pushed into the tent without thinking much of it.  He was first to arrive, as usual.  

Lady Fowler’s tent was the largest of the Companions’ encampment and well appointed. The tent itself was heavy canvas, treated to keep the rain out and warmth in during the cool autumn nights, and each side of square was adorned with hung tapestries, most of scenic landscapes and one bearing the sigil of House Fowler. There was a full canopied bed, which looked almost absurd inside the tent, a small but still full wardrobe and chests, and a round table of polished wood that could seat six.  Jynessa Fowler, if estranged from her lordly father, was certainly not estranged from her lordly father’s wealth. 

In the midst of the luxurious trappings, he found that he was not quite the first to arrive after all.  Jynessa herself stood there in the company of one her maids, unblinking and but only halfway in her evening dress.  He averted his eyes and turned about, but too late.

“Lady Jynessa. I will come back,” he said, trying – and obviously failing – to make nothing of it. 

“Don’t bother, I’m done.” Arron waited until her maid had shuffled past him and out the tent, just to be sure, and then turned.  He found her clothed and already pouring herself a glass of golden wine.  “Are you so unmanned at the sight of a woman’s body, Arron?” she asked as she poured a second glass.  “I fear for your wife, if you ever take one.” 

She handed him the cup. “Not by your body,” he said. “Unmanned by your brother, maybe.” She favored him with a thin smile at that. 

“I doubt it.  I heard you unmanned him this morning.”

“He woke unwell,” Arron offered the excuse up. 

“He woke still drunk, more like,” Jynessa retorted with a cool sharpness.  Arron didn’t deny it.  “I love my brother, but he is an arrogant fool.  I admit I had my reservations when Lord Wyl put him in your charge, but I’ve warmed to the idea.  He could use lessons in discipline and humility.  It seems to me you be you might be the man for it.”

Discipline maybe, but humility was as foreign as Pentos to Ryon Sand, in Arron’s view, and entirely beyond his ability to teach.  “I will do my best, my lady.”  What else could he promise?

He was saved from further talk, quite suddenly, by the entrance of Captain-General Nycarro Qosaerys.  He was colorfully dressed, as always, blue silk cape over his left shoulder and garbed in a blood red shirt.  Behind him loomed Donnor Greyiron, the grizzled ironborn dressed dourly as ever. 

“I see we have already started on the wine,” he greeted them.  “Is that the Arbor Gold?  Let’s have that all around, please, my lady.”  It was an instruction he carried out himself, and before long the four of them were sitting, drinking and hearing out Qosaerys’s war stories.  

That was how it went each night.  Arron was not much of a talker, Jynessa was cool and reserved, and Darron Greyiron had less interest in talk and more interest in sharpening his axe, which he did at each of these meetings.  And so Arron and Jynessa, and maybe Donnor, heard Qosaerys out as he spoke over the keen scraping of Greyiron’s whetstone, providing enough comment from time to time to keep it going, though the Captain-General needed little assistance there.  He seemed entirely unable to shut his mouth, in fact.  Qosaerys could talk a man’s ear off and keep him at least half-entertained the whole time. 

“Now, Tolhys, that was an entirely different affair,” he opined as Jynessa and Arron listened, each of them several cups in by then.  “I was not six months in the captain-general’s chair with the Maiden’s Men when we laid siege to that castle, and it was a hell of a task.  Tolhys is a damned fortress, walls forty feet high.  For every man you put inside you need a dozen to root him out, and Braghar had four hundred men in there.  We spent damn near a year outside the walls, and we launched so many stones over them we ran out.  We had to start bringing rocks in by ship to keep the siege going.”

He had been just about to continue when the tent flaps opened, and in stepped two men, each one cloaked and hooded, each one dripping from the light showers that had started earlier that evening.  Arron, drunk as shit, if he were being honest, searched for the hilt of his sword, and finding it absent, settled to rest a hand on his dagger instead.  He eased, though, as the hoods came down and Qosaerys stood to greet them.  Jynessa stood as well, and Arron after her, if unsteady in his haze, but he noticed the ironborn stayed seated, content to continue applying whetstone to edge. 

“Lord Tarbeck, at long last,” Qosaerys said in greeting, and Arron blinked.  Surely this was not the man whose wife upon whom he had earlier made an unintended advance.  “Please, I beg you join us.  We were just having a thrilling conversation about my exploits across the narrow sea” Qosaerys said, indicating one of the empty chairs with one of his airy waves. 

“Lord Tarbeck is my brother,” the older of the two men said, his voice like gravel.  He had a light scrap of beard that poorly hid a lopsided jaw, which Arron thought looked to have been broken once or thrice.  It gave the impression that he was biting down on something on the one side of his mouth, and the thicket of scars around it cut grooves in his beard, not to mention his face.  If he’d ever been a handsome man, he wasn’t now, Arron guessed.  “I am Ser Tarbeck, and this is my son, Axell.”  He made no move to sit. Neither did his son, Axell. 

“I beg your forgiveness, I am a long-standing stranger to Westerosi formalities and stylings. May I not just call you Josmyn?"

The broken jawed knight said nothing to that, instead fixing Arron with his glare.  “Who are these?”

“Ah, introductions, of course.  How rude of me,” Qosaerys corrected himself, unflagging in the face of someone so unreceptive to his manner.  “That one is Arron Sand, captain of the Brave Companions’ new Dornish contingent.”  Arron gave Tarbeck half a nod.  “The mean-looking chap with the axe is Donnor Greyiron, one of my sellsail captains.”  Donnor did not so much as look up. “And of course, this beautiful young woman is our host, Jynessa Fowler.”  She gave an appropriate curtsy to end it on a high note.  “They are my most trusted,” he said, rounding about and clapping Arron on the shoulder, “and loyal compatriots in arms.” 

Ser Tarbeck didn’t respond, but gave a nod to his son, who stepped out from the tent, seemingly to leave his father to whatever his business was with a sellsword company’s leadership.  Ser Tarbeck sat down then, and they followed suit.  Qosaerys poured the knight a glass of Arbor Gold from the crystal carafe at the center of the table and then shifted his chair around such that, broadly speaking, Ser Tarbeck sat on one side of the table, and the Brave Companions on the other. 

The knight, not lord, reached into his cloak and withdrew a small rectangular package. He placed it gently on the table before them and unwrapped it, revealing a stacked set of golden rectangles.  Ingots of gold, Arron realized, trying to keep his face from showing any sense of surprise or shock.  A small fortune had been set directly in front of him.  Tarbeck splayed them out before them, showing there to be six. 

“Three hundred dragons.  As agreed.”

None of them spoke.  Arron hadn’t the faintest idea what to say, and deferred, he presumed, to Qosaerys.  This didn’t seem Jynessa’s line of business and Donnor never said anything, after all.  “Ser Tarbeck,” Qosaerys took the lead, as expected, stroking his moustache pensively, “I do not mean to give you the impression of ingratitude, but when I say that the Brave Companions fight for gold, I fear I do not mean it quite this literally.”

Ser Tarbeck did not move a muscle in his face, but Arron felt there was a likelihood that he had, indeed, taken it as ungracious.  “Is my gold no good to you?”

“Oh no, of course not!  You mistake me, ser.  I merely mean to say that, as we continue our business relationship, we would appreciate it if future payments could be made in a form a bit more, what is the word for it?  Liquid?  It does wonders for a sellsword’s morale to be able to spend his hard earned wage, and I think it unlikely I could bring this,” Qosaerys said, lifting one of the ingots in hand as if to demonstrate the impracticability of it, “down to the brothel.  Make no mistake, though, we are settled up in terms of your advance on our services.”

“Good.  I will hear your report now.”  Clearly, this was not a man for talking. 

“Right, of course, of course.  Our report,” Qosaerys said, and, after spending some time with the man, Arron could well see that the Captain-General had as little a sense as to what report Ser Tarbeck was expecting as Arron did.  “We have much to discuss and more.  In the interest of keeping this conversation efficient, perhaps you could lead the discussion?  As we are in your employ and service, we would like to be sure we are focused first and most foremostly on your most pertinent interests.” 

Arron didn’t think the man so easily taken for a fool, but Tarbeck didn’t show it.  “Are the Dornish spears in place?”

“I would say they are, ser.  Lord Wyl has charged twenty of his knights to the Brave Companions, and, aside from the four that accompany me here today, they are currently engaged in the raising and readying of the spears at Wyl as we speak now.”  

The implacable man now showed some shadow of emotion.  His eyes narrowed, and he could see that he had taken to grinding his teeth as Qosaerys spoke.  Arron could tell that was not the answer Ser Tarbeck was expecting.  He thought it likely Qosaerys could see it as well, but the Captain-General did not let his smile flag in the face of it. 

“They are,” intoned Tarbeck, slowly, “engaged in raising the spears?”  Each word dripped anger, and Arron felt very aware of the dagger at his hip. 

“Quite so.”

“You were meant to bring two hundred Dornish spears to lie in wait until the appointed hour, at which time they would be put to very good and critically timed use,” Tarbeck growled, violence in his voice.  “This is more than unacceptable.”

If Qosaerys hadn’t expected this turn to the conversation, he did not show it.  He turned it back on Tarbeck with characteristic deftness, skipping not a beat as he took a draught of Arbor Gold down and sallied forth.  “Ser Tarbeck, I entreat you, I fully expected to arrive at the Port of Wyl with two hundred spears ready to be brought to bear on behalf of you and yours.  Unfortunately, I found instead that Lord Wyl had not even begun to prepare them, much to my shock and dismay.” 

This lie did not appear to mollify Tarbeck.  “So, the responsibility is not yours, but Lord Wyl’s?” 

“It is entirely Lord Wyl’s responsibility and fault,” Qosaerys agreed, seemingly more than happy to shift the blame to a party very much not present to defend himself.  “I am a leader of sellswords who finds himself entirely bereft of them.  You cannot believe there is a man or woman here this evening who takes greater umbrage with Lord Wyl’s failure in this matter than myself.” 

Ser Tarbeck appeared to take greater umbrage than Qosaerys, Arron thought, with both Lord Wyl and the Captain-General alike. “You have put us at a considerable disadvantage and even greater danger, sellsword,” he nearly spat, grinding his teeth even more violently than before.  

Qosaerys, with his usual flick of the wrist, waived the concern away. “If I may attempt to rehabilitate your view of our situation, I rather think that this inconvenience may be to our advantage.”

“And how could that possibly be?” 

“We are, all of us, deep behind what are very soon to be the lines of the enemy. To our east is Grandview, to our west Harvest Hall, Fawnton to the north and Blackhaven to the south.  That’s Grandison, Selmy, Cafferen and Dondarrion, if I know them rightly,” Qosaerys explained, and Arron raised his eyebrows at that. He didn’t think he could name them with that certainty.  “Then, closer still than all those, are the holdfasts and keeps held by landed knights sworn to each of those houses.  To put it mildly, we are surrounded, which, in my long experience as a soldier, is a rather poor place for any army.”

Tarbeck said nothing.  Qosaerys clapped Arron on the shoulder then.  “Ser Tarbeck, I ask that you consider thinking of my good Captain Arron’s men as not late to the party, but rather held in reserve, ready to be deployed by land or sea at your command to whichever theater suits you.  These are tremendously uncertain times, as you well know, and we must bend with the flow of the river.  To have that flexibility I offer you now is very much to your advantage.” 

There was a long silence as Tarbeck considered the Captain-General.  Whether he meant to stab him or agree with him, Arron couldn’t say.  Wordlessly, he gathered the ingots up and made to stand. 

“Ah,” Qosaerys interrupted him, and the knight froze, his face hardened as if to stone.  “I am afraid I must ask that you leave those with us.”

“You must be mad,” Tarbeck nearly snarled, “if you think I will pay you a groat before I see a thicket of Dornish spears in my service.”

Qosaerys offered his raised hands, palms turned upward as if to showcase his defenseless earnestness.  “I do not mean to be difficult, but I fear the nature of your payment was an advance, if I understood rightly.  As in to say, it is paid in advance of services provided.”

Tarbeck, now red in the face with anger, seemed about ready to burst.  He laid three of the ingots back down.  Qosaerys’s face twisted most apologetically.  “I must apologize, but I will need the full advance,” he said, emphasis on ‘full’.  “Lord Wyl was as forthcoming with his payment for our service as he was with his soldiers, I fear, and so I find myself quite behind on paying the boys.”  Lord Wyl had in fact paid quite handsomely and upfront, not that Arron had seen a silver stag of it. 

“This is a farce.” 

“Would that it were,” Qosaerys returned, and he gestured to Donnor. “Donnor is my numbers man,” he said, “and I invite you to take it up with him, but we have a pressing need for every dragon you placed on the table this evening, liquid or not.”  Donnor, who did not look like the sort of man to know what a number was, had stopped sharpening his axe, and now stared intently at Tarbeck, shaft held in a white knuckled grip.  Jynessa, who sat beside him, looked less than comfortable with his change in demeanor. 

Ser Josmyn Tarbeck all but slammed the ingots down on the table and stormed out of the tent.  

Qosaerys, unbothered, took another pull of Arbor Gold from his glass.  “I think that went rather well,” he said, and he took up one of the six golden slates and pressed it into Arron’s hand.  “For your valuable contribution this evening, you have my thanks and my gold.”

Arron, who had said nothing, took it from him.  Being generously compensated for doing nothing was the way the Brave Companions did business, after all, and he was feeling more and more like one of them every day.

[hider=Summary]
Arron Sand has a pleasant conversation with Lady Jeyne Tarbeck.  Later, Captain-General Nycarro Qosaerys, Arron and Jynessa Fowler meet with one Ser Josmyn Tarbeck, their employer, and are well compensated for failing to deliver two hundred Dornish spears to Summerhall.[/hider]