Prologue
With her back to the hearth, Kyra was warm. More than warm, truth be told. She was sweating beyond belief beneath her silk underclothes. Her
silk underclothes. Krya had asked her mother why she was wearing her good underclothes, considering during her bedding they would surely be ripped to threads.
“Oh, sweetheart. You're to be married to the son of the future Lord Paramount. You can replace this silk thrice over.”
Kyra understood. She was marrying into a soon-to-be wealthy family.
They weren't wealthy yet, though. Krya was all too familiar with that thought.
Lord Reyne, the Red Lion, Lord of Castamere, was rebelling against Lord Lannister, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, and Warden of the West.
The bride was quite proud that she had remembered all their proper titles, and Lord Reyne's nickname. Soon her father would be rebelling against Lord Lannister, too. That was the reason she was being wed to Rafford, Lord Reyne's second son. To secure her fathers swords in the rebellion.
She was quite proud she had worked that out, too.
Lord Reyne's first son, Kevan, had already been wed. Elsewise she might be marrying him instead. A part of her wished she was, too.
Looking out to where her sister danced with her brother, who was yet of age, Kyra couldn't help but glance at Keven dancing with his sister. They had both married Tarbecks, the bride knew. Reyne and Tarbeck once joined together, and today Reyne and Serrett join together.
Kyra wasn't sure, but she figured when a lion and a peacock wed, out comes a beautiful, fierce child. This child came in the form of swords.
And another child is to be made tonight, my guests will be sure to see to that.
The prospect of the bedding set buttflies aflight in her stomach. She was one-and-twenty, of course, but she was also a one-and-twenty maid. Kyra had done little more than kiss a boy in all her years.
Well, besides that once . . .
Looking to her left, she gazed upon her husbands empty chair. A sturdy, oak chair, a little bigger than her own. Her husband, Rafford, was with her brother and sister and her good-brother and good-sister, dancing his newly wed heart out.
First with her mother, and then her sister, and his own sister. No doubt he would have danced with her own mother, too, if she hadn't died several years ago. Kyra was still uncertain on how she had died, but that was a conversation for a different night.
She spotted Ser Harys dancing, too. Brave Ser Harys.
Decitful Ser Harys.
Kyra had heard of Ser Harys's many misdeeds from her father. A story here, a story there. She could never be certain which story was true, which story was overtold, and which story was completely fake. Her father had no love for Ser Harys, that was plain enough to see.
“Not much more than a knight with some land, that one,” her father had been known to say, quite often and quite louldly, as if having
ser in front of his name instead of
lord put him beneath them.
The truth was that Ser Harys could raise just about as many swords as her father could, if they were only accounting for their personal lands. Her father had other vassals besides Ser Harys, to be sure. Vassels who would be happy to defend their lord.
Happy to defend their lord, defeat Ser Harys, and mayhaps occupy an empty castle.
That would never happen as long as her father reigned in Silverhall. He would sooner see the castle granted to a different, more noble, more
content knight.
Kyra remembered the night Ser Harys had arrived in Silverhall uninivited and totally unexpected. Silverhall had just gotten a raven proposing she and Rafford wed. It would appear Ser Harys had already gotten a raven detailing the same proposal.
His raven also came with a reminder that his son was being tutored by Kevan Reyne, master-at-arms and heir to Castamere, the Red Lion's first son.
The Red Lion is a fierce, smart lord.
Kyra would have done the same, she concluded. It made sense, after all. Subtly threaten one lord- well, ser- and let him do the work of convcing another lord. It was Ser Harys who ensured Kyra and Rafford would be wed, there's no doubt of that.
Watching Ser Harys dance, distracted, her gaze was broken with the Red Lion pulling Rafford away from the dance floor.
No doubt to share what it is to be man, or to give advice for the bedding . . .
Yes, that must be it.
Kyra would have done the same, she concluded, quite proud of herself.
