Dunk rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at the rocks. "What should we do?"

"Fetch home the wines, and tell Ser Useless his stream's gone dry. The Standfast well still draws, he won't go thirsty".

"Don't call him Useless". Dunk was fond of the old knight. "You sleep beneath his roof, give him some respect".

"You respect him for the both o' us, Dunk", said Bennis. "I'll call him what I will".

The silvery gray planks creaked heavily as Dunk walked out onto the bridge, to frown down at the sand and stones below. A few small brown pools glistened amongst the rocks, he saw, none larger than his hand. "Dead fish, there and there, see?" The smell of them reminded him of the dead men at the crossroads.

"I see them, ser", said Egg.

Dunk hopped down to the streambed, squatted on his heels, and turned over a stone. Dry and warm on top, moist and muddy underneath. "The water can't have been gone long". Standing, he flicked the stone sidearm at the bank, where it crashed through a crumbling overhang in a puff of dry brown earth. "The soil's cracked along the banks, but soft and muddy in the middle. Those fish were alive yesterday".

"Dunk the lunk, Pennytree used to call you. I recall". Ser Bennis spat a wad of sourleaf onto the rocks. It glistened red and slimy in the sunlight. "Lunks shouldn't try and think, their heads is too bloody thick for such".

Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall. From Ser Arlan the words had been affectionate. He had been a kindly man, even in his scolding. In the mouth of Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield, they sounded different. "Ser Arlan's two years dead", Dunk said, "and I'm called Ser Duncan the Tall". He was sorely tempted to put his fist through the brown knight's face and smash those red and rotten teeth to splinters. Bennis of the Brown Shield might be a nasty piece of work, but Dunk had a good foot and a half on him, and four stone as well. He might be a lunk, but he was big. Sometimes it seemed as though he'd thumped his head on half the doors in Westeros, not to mention every beam in every inn from Dorne up to the Neck. Egg's brother Aemon had measured him in Oldtown and found he lacked an inch of seven feet, but that was half a year ago. He might have grown since. Growing was the one thing that Dunk did really well, the old man used to say.