A Game of Thrones - Winter Chills | AGameOfThrones-WinterChills / The Trouble With Tournaments browse

Index | HomePage | GameLogs | HoldfastGameLogs | The Trouble with Tournaments

Godwyn looked up, brought to his senses by the sound of the alarm, and tried to determine what was going on.

Against the sunlight he saw the silhouette of a mounted man, a bloody mace dripping at his side.

Godwyn stood, watching the rider carefully, waiting for any sign of action on his part.

Evan Tamm manoeuvred his horse slightly - and Godwyn saw his face clearly as he gazed down at Godwyn and the broken body of Ser Herys at his feet. His expression was enigmatic as, for a long moment, he sat without moving on his horse.

Then, suddenly, he turned and rode swiftly away, breaking into a canter as he rode towards the keep.

Godwyn picked up his sword, sheathed his dagger, grabbed Herys by one boot and dragged him around the stands out to where he could see what was going on.

And he saw the tourney field resmbling the carnage of a battlefield.

Godwyn came walking from around the stands, bloody and dirt-stained, dragging Herys Bolton by one foot. Bolton's face was a bloody ruin, and he made whistling, gurgling noises as he attempted to breathe.

Godwyn stared at the carnage, his face blank, and then he called out, "Ser Anders! What do you need me to do?"

Corryn blanched when he saw the crumpled form of Herys. His eyes burned with a boiling rage, "What have you done? I needed him to find my daughter! She could be anywhere and he's the only one that knew. Gods save us, Godwyn! Did you think?"

Godwyn flushed, whether with anger or embarassment it was hard to say. But he did not answer before Corryn continued speaking.

He shook his head, remembering his duty to his current charge; Celia. "Anders," he said, his voice cracking with stress. "I'll get your sister to safety. But I beg you. Find my daughter before they kill her in retribution. Whatever I have will be yours. Just bring her back to me safe. If anyone can do this, it is you."

Corryn nodded to the man carrying Edlyn and continued on his path to Sewell's.

Ser Anders looked at Godwyn, and then at Ser Herys, dragging behind him. "You didn't kill him, then?" he said coldly. "If Ser Corryn needs him to talk, you'd better see if you can safe his life instead."

He sounded as though he was unconcerned what the eventual outcome would be.

"I didn't kill him," Godwyn answered. "Evan Tamm showed up and interrupted me, and then when he rode off I was calmer, and though we might want to question him. Or kill him more slowly, if he'd hurt your sister."

"Good," said Ser Anders. "Take him, then. Take him to the dungeon - and question him, if he can answer you. Find out what happened to the Lady Larissa. Keep him alive - if you can. I'm going to clear up the mess out there." He jerked his head towards the touney field.

"Aye," Godwyn answered. He looked out over the field, concern and anger on his face. "D@mn them," he said. He dropped Bolton's boot, leaned down and grabbed the man's tunic tight about his throat, and lifted him partially off the gound. Then he turned and headed for the keep, and the cell Evan Tamm had so recently occupied, dragging his prisoner behind him.

Ser Herys' condition was probably not improved by bumping down the dungeon steps, although, thanks to Godwyn's change of position, it was his heels rather than his head that took the beating. He seemed semi-conscious by the time they reached the deserted dungeon, and was groaning fitfully.

Godwyn lifted the injured man and tossed him onto a wooden table, not bothering to remove the dice and remnants of the guards' meal first. He lit more lanterns in the dark dungeon, so that he could see what he was about. Once that was done he went through the man's clothing quickly, removing anything that could be used as a weapon.

Then he took some heavy manacles and chained Bolton's feet together, ran the chain around and under the table, up the other side, and chained his hands to the other side.

He stared down at Bolton's ruined face for a moment, then liften a jug of stale wine, and poured it liberally over him.

"Time to wake," he said. "Time to pay for the dance you called."

Ser Herys groaned and his eyes opened. He gazed up at Godwyn blankly - then pulled at the straps. Finding them rigid, he let out an incoherent roar of anger.

Godwyn watched him with an emotionless face. "Limosa," he said. "Where is she?"

Ser Herys looked up at him, pain, anger and bewilderment clearly registering in his face.

"Wha'?" he managed. "Why sho' I know?"

"Because knowing that is the only thing that will keep you alive," Godwyn answered.

Ser Herys spat blood (and what seemed to be a tooth). There was a growing expression on his face - not of fear - but of comprehension - and fury.

"Bastard!" he snarled.

Oddly enough, the oath did not seem directed at Godwyn.

"He took her! Stole her away when we ... we ... were all ... " His anger and his injuries seemed to be rendering him incoherent.

Godwyn said placidly, patiently, with no show of emotion, "Explain it to me. I'm the stupid Hardy, remember. Make me understand."

"Idiot!" spat Ser Herys. "It was him who took her - the boy... the... the...

"Eryk Bolton! While all our backs were turned!"

"Uh huh," Godwyn replied. "You Boltons are always blaming each other. I'm pretty confused, so I'm not believing anything anymore just cause someone says it. Explain it all to me. Who is he really, and what this is all about? Why you really came, who Evan Tamm really is, all of it." He drew his knife. "Start talking now, and keep telling me things I don't know. I have no more patience, and there's no one here any more to keep me from you."

"They are my sons," said Ser Herys, "both of them. And unworthy of the name."

This did not come out all at once, or clearly - there was blood and broken teeth spat out along the with words. It seemed that Ser Herys was becoming weaker. "Erik Bolton ... my true son ... Evan Tamm ... betrayed me ... long ago. Defiant ... fancied himself ... in love ... defied me ... and ran away ... "

His words were slurring more now - he seemed to be at the point of losing consciousness.

Godwyn sighed. He picked up the water jug, stared in at the thick, crawling water left in it, and then with a shrug upended it on Herys' face. "Wake up," he demanded. "The one you call Eryk. Who is he, really?"

Ser Herys recovered consciousness with an oath and a splutter and then scowled at Godwyn with a deep and abiding hatred.

"He's my son. And I've no doubt he'll prove it by taking that b!tch who is claiming to be the Riverwolf''s daughter while she shags his Laughing Knives from White Harbour to the Wall."

Godwyn was silent for a moment, then he said, "My brother may want you alive, for political reasons. Corryn may want you alive, to question. And Anders may want you alive so he can take personal revenge for your injuring his sister. So I won't kill you."

He stepped to the right side of the table where Herys was fastened. "A tendon runs through the wrist," he said, sounding as though he was repeating a schoolroom lesson. "It is under great pressure, and if cut, will leap back into the arm. Once so cut, it cannot be repaired. Without it, a man has no strength in his hand, and cannot lift nor hold any object. He is a cripple."

With a single swift cut he sliced through the tendon in Herys' hand. "Now," he said, ignoring Herys' cry of pain, you have only one good hand, just as you did to my brother.

"It hardly seems fair, though, does it? After everything you have done?"

And he stepped around to the other side of the table, and sliced through the tendon on Herys' other hand.

The cry of pain became a scream as the second tendon was sliced through. As it died away, there was a sudden rattling of chains, and a pale, appalled face appeared at a dungeon window. Donnell - who was sentenced to the Wall for his part in Grunther's murder.

Ser Herys was drawing deep, ragged breaths now. He slowly turned his head to look at Godwyn. He seemed to pause, to draw his strength and energy together for one crucial effort

"You have made an enemy for your House this day, boy. An enemy whose anger is implacable and whose vengeance is terrible. My broken arms will wear gauntlets fashioned from the skins of Holdfast virgins, and my boots shall shall be capped with the skulls of Holdfast babes. Children yet unborn in the North will shudder in fear when they hear of the fate of the Hardies."

Godwyn let him make his threat without interruption, watching him with the quiet curiosity he would have given to a lesson from Maester Sewell. Then he said quietly, "Your son Eryk, the real one, was like you in at least one way. No one else had a right to vengeance, no one else had a right to honour, only what he wanted was important. It's as though no one else is real to you, only what you want from them matters. Are all you Boltons like that, I wonder? Some flaw when the gods made you?" He shrugged.

"For now, I am done with you. Come along, cripple."

And he went and opened a cell door, the same one that Evan Tamm had so recently inhabited. Then he released Herys' chains, laughing when the man attempted to fight for his freedom and easily manhandling the weak and wounded man into the cell.

Godwyn locked him in, and then went looking for guards to set on both Bolton and Donnell. "Always possible Tamm will come back for his man," he told them. "So be watchful, and give an alarm at the first sign of trouble."

Then he went to find Kenrith or Corryn, whichever he could find first, to tell them what he had learned from Herys.