“Well,” said Egg, “we could use my boot to get across.”

“We could,” said Dunk, “but we won’t.” Using the boot was dangerous. Word would spread. Word always spreads. His squire was not bald by chance. Egg had the purple eyes of old Valyria, and hair that shone like beaten gold and strands of silver woven together. He might as well wear a three-headed dragon as a brooch as let that hair grow out. These were perilous times in Westeros, and…well, it was best to take no chances. “Another word about your bloody boot, and I’ll clout you in the ear so hard you’ll fly across the lake.”

“I’d sooner swim, ser.” Egg swam well, and Dunk did not. The boy turned in the saddle. “Ser? Someone’s coming up the road behind us. Hear the horses?”

“I’m not deaf.” Dunk could see their dust as well. “A large party. And in haste.”

“Do you think they might be outlaws, ser?” Egg raised up in the stirrups, more eager than afraid. The boy was like that.

“Outlaws would be quieter. Only lords make so much noise.” Dunk rattled his sword hilt to loosen the blade in its scabbard. “Still, we’ll get off the road and let them pass. There are lords and lords.” It never hurt to be a little wary. The roads were not so safe as when Good King Daeron sat the Iron Throne.

He and Egg concealed themselves behind a thornbush. Dunk limiting his shield and slipped it onto his arm. It was an old thing, tall and heavy, kite-shaped, made of pine and rimmed with iron. He had bought it in Stoney Sept to replace the shield the Longinch had hacked to splinters when they fought. Dunk had not had time to have it painted with his elm and shooting star, so it still bore the arms of its last owner: a hanged man swinging grim and gray beneath a gallows tree. It was not a sigil that he would have chosen for himself, but the shield had come cheap.