Chương 57: The Battle of Mastford Bridge 7

The Baratheon stag and its retinue of banners flew atop a nearby hillock, positioned to observe the battlefield, and Steve began stalking towards it. As he passed the wooden barricades closest to the bridge, Robin left the archers behind them to join him, horse following behind him.

"Did you - are they ok?" the squire asked, brows drawn tight together.

"They're fine," Steve said.

"No injuries. Tell me about the message you were sent." Robin would have let out a sigh as worry and fear eased if not for his haste to keep up with Steve.

"Addam - Cafferen's squire - said his knightmaster had sent him with a message for you, that one of his men had heard some knights plotting to attack Naerys today while they were on rest. I got Scruffy and came quick as I could." Steve's frown grew as he considered it. There was likely some bit of propriety or scheming that had the warning passed through their squires, but if there was he didn't know enough to say.

"I know Cafferen has been a thorn, but I didn't want to risk it being true and not-""You did right," Steve said.

"Your judgement was sound. The knights are dead, but even if it had been a lie you would have made the right call."

"Then there were - how many?" Robin asked.

"Three. They caught Naerys with Betty and some others, but they weren't expecting them to fight back and now they're dead," Steve said. He couldn't help but imagine what might have been - did they mean to just kill them, or drag them off for whatever sick purpose? His stride quickened.

"Lyanna wasn't involved."

"Who did it?" Robin asked, anger colouring his voice now that the fear was passing.

"I'm about to find out," Steve said. They were closing in on the hillock now, and he found his hands curling into fists.

"And so are they." The gathered lords and knights had watched him approach, and as he reached them they found their mounts reacting to the scent of battle that lay heavy upon him. Trained for war they might have been, they still shied away as he reached them, requiring their riders to steady them.

"Robert," Steve said, as he came to a stop atop the hillock. His tone was perhaps less polite than it could have been.

"Lord Baratheon," he corrected himself. The nobles present didn't have time to do more than shift in slight consternation at the address before their lord responded.

"Lord America," he said, staring down at him with a gaze that wasn't wary, but was watchful all the same. His antlered helm was absent, as was his hammer, some squire likely minding them.

"Saw you took a break for once. Is all well?" Steve's nostrils flared as he clenched his jaw, the cold anger he had grasped tight still roused by the fight.

"No. All is not well. Three knights just tried to assault my - Naerys." His eyes flicked along the nobles present; he knew most, and Cafferen was there, but Samuel wasn't, likely still managing things at the camp.

"Shit," Robert said, the reaction unthinking. He coughed.

"What happened to them? The knights?"

"They died."

"Good," Robert said, scowling.

"Problem sorted then?" A man a short way down the line cleared his throat. He had a dark beard, and his blue shield had what looked like three brass pins or buckles on it.

"The worth of Lord America's word is of course clear, but might we know what transpired?" Robert held back a wince and looked to Steve, invitation to speak clear.

"I received a message from Lord Cafferen, during a lull between assaults," Steve said, and his words caused a stir, many men glancing at the lord named.

"The message said that my people were in danger. I left my second in command to hold the bridge, and the danger was dealt with. Now I'm here." Courtly manners and chivalry - the performance of it all threatened to see his lip curl and his patience fray. He could still hear men fighting and dying at the river, and he found his gaze pinned on Cafferen. The man knew things, and he would have answers. Had he not deliberately sought out calm, he might have done something inadvisable.

Robert grimaced, looking very much like he wanted to let out a sigh.

"I am pleased that you have brought this to me," he said, words lacking his usual unthinking charisma.

"Who witnessed the attack?"

"No one, besides my people," Steve said.

"The knights were waiting for them when they went to get more supplies for the medical tent." At his side, Robin shifted, adjusting the bow that hung from his shoulder.

"Who were these knights?" Robert asked.

"I don't know their names," Steve said.

"They were hedge knights." Something eased in the gathering.

"Well, as Lord Buckler said, we know the worth of your word," Robert said.

"I'm satisfied that justice has been done."

"I'm not," Steve said, and the ease that was beginning to settle on the lords evaporated. He swiped away a bead of blood trailing past the corner of his eye, but in doing so he could tell he'd only smeared it across his cheek.

"What would you have of me?" Robert asked him.

"Answers," Steve said, voice flat.

"Lord Cafferen had his squire rush a message to me through mine in the middle of battle. I want to know what he knows." The knights he had dealt with back at the Blueburn were far more than three, and he was not going to gamble Naerys' safety, nor anyone else's, on the chance that they were the only ones willing to pull what they had. This seemed to settle Robert, for all his lords were divided on it.

"Come on," he said with a grunt, "let's talk about this properly. Cafferen." He twitched at his reins, pulling his mount around, and his retinue found themselves shifting to make way. Steve followed the lord paramount, Cafferen nudged onwards by expectation, and the group moved away from the slope. When they reached what might be the middle of the small peak, Robert dismounted, and all present followed.

There was a flurry of activity from a nearby group of squires and servants that had been hidden from view, coming to retrieve horses and get them out of the way, and the once long yellow grass around them was stamped flat. When it was done, Robert stood with Cafferen and Steve in the middle of a circle of lords and knights.

"Let's hear it," Robert said, arms crossed and waiting.

"My lord. Lord America," Cafferen said, inclining his head to both in turn.

"This is a rather more public matter than I had hoped it would be."

"Why's that?" Steve asked, watching him closely. His temper was leashed now, the ardour of battle cooled now that the pleasantries were over and he could get answers.

"I don't like you," Cafferen said bluntly, resettling his helm under one arm.

"You don't follow our ways, and you don't understand the insult you give through your insistence on inserting yourself into matters that are another's to deal with." Steve said nothing, waiting and watching. Cafferen spread his arms slightly.

"However, you are a warrior possibly beyond any we have in this army, and we are at war. I would be a poor bannerman to Lord Baratheon if I ignored something that might impact your ability to fight with us." The man wasn't lying, but Steve had been misdirected by the likes of Nick and Natasha before. He would listen to his gut.

"You said one of your men had overheard the plot to attack my people," he said.

"I want to speak with your witness."

"I can send for him, but he is not close to hand," Cafferen warned.

"I'll wait." A glance to Robert received a short nod, and then Cafferen was speaking with his squire, the teen riding hard away from the river. They settled in to wait, an uncomfortable silence threatening to descend on the gathering. Few seemed to know how to handle it; one man covered in the viscera of battle staring near unblinkingly at one of their own after they had watched him crush an assault almost on his lonesome.

"Your lady is fine, isn't she?" Robert said, half to confirm and half to break the silence.

"I wouldn't be this calm if she wasn't," Steve said.

"Hate to see him angry," someone at the back whispered to the man next to him, almost too quiet to hear even for Steve.

"Good, good," Robert said, shifting his weight.

"These knights, did they bear any colours?"

"They weren't dressed for battle," Steve said, finally giving Cafferen a reprieve as he turned to face Robert.

"You are sure they were knights?" a man asked, lord of some middling holdfast near the Wendwater.

"Not common knaves?"

"I'm sure," Steve said, and when the man opened his mouth again he cut him off.

"I recognised them from the group of knights that my men stopped from stealing off with a group of women to gang rape." The look he sent Cafferen's way might well have been made from ice.

"Just one of those things I insist on inserting myself into, I guess." Cafferen grimaced, but said nothing, and the group around them absorbed this new information, interest piqued. Perhaps there was something more to this than a woman caught out where she ought not to be. Trumpets rang out across the river, drawing their attention. A new group was forming up to make an attempt on the bridge, heavily armoured infantry, though they weren't knights.

Leading them was a large man holding a large axe, the size difference between him and a normal man obvious even at a distance. Cafferen looked to Steve, then to Robert, and he wasn't the only one.

"Robin, I want the leader of that group dead before he reaches the bridge," Steve told his squire. There were several looks askance, but Robin didn't hesitate.

"Yes ser." Scruffy was mounted smoothly, and then he was riding for the river. The group shifted, as those who cared to watch moved to do so. As the enemy group closed in on the bridge, Robin was already there waiting, setting down some arrows on the end of the parapet. He would be shooting past the knights holding it, exposed if any foe cared to look, but the distant archers were shooting into the men holding the banks, and they had no time to spare for him even had they noticed.

The boy that had come in third at Harrenhal might have doubted himself, but Robin was no longer that boy. As his target approached, he drew and loosed his arrow, a second already on its way and a third strung before it hit. They were not needed, the first arrow hitting the large axeman right in the helm, the shaft splintering as it hit and driving through the eye slit. The man dropped, dead. Someone swore in amazement, but Steve just nodded. Robin had put the work in, and raw ability had been honed into talent.

The reed ring that he had retrieved after it bested him at Harrenhal has proven a fine challenge, but it had been overcome. Demoralised before it could even begin its assault, the group was repelled handily, and by the time Robin was trotting back to them, Keladry was giving the usual orders for the disposal of enemy corpses. If the bowyer's son from King's Landing was smirking before the group of nobles as he returned, none commented.

Steve realised there was probably some dick-measuring to be read from his order and Robin's actions, but frankly he didn't have time for it. Cafferen's squire was returning, and there was a man following him in well used plate. The witness was another hedge knight, and again Steve recognised him. He felt his head tilting forward, like a bull lowering its head to charge. This man had also been part of the group Walt had stopped, that day by the Blueburn.

At Cafferen's gesture, the hedge knight stepped through the circle of lords and knights, swallowing as he joined them in the middle, and he was not nearly so comfortable.

"My lords," he said, Adam's apple bobbing. He gave Steve one look, taking in the drying blood and bits of brain matter on him and immediately looked away. If not for the fear he wore plainly, some might have called him handsome.

"Lord America has questions for you. He wishes to hear for himself what you told me this morning, as we marched to battle," Cafferen said, voice even and reassuring. The knight's anxious gaze darted around the circle, from Cafferen to Robert to Steve and back, before he nodded jerkily.

"Right. Yes my lord." Steve stared at him, waiting.

"It were last night," the man began, speaking to Robert more than anyone, "that I heard it, I mean. I thought it nothing, just talk, but then this morn' I thought to myself 'what if it weren't', so I approached my lord Cafferen." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"What did you hear." Steve's words were an order more than a question.

"Just talk at first, honest, about how women's place isn't on the march," the man said, speaking quickly now.

"But then one started talking about how maybe they ought to show people that, what with their rest day today." He swallowed again.

"I told Lord Cafferen this morning." Robert frowned.

"I'm not hearing any names," Steve said idly. He began to rub his thumb over the back of his other gauntlet, metal scraping on metal and dried blood flaking off with it.

"Adrian Dan and Hobb," he said in a rush.

"Adrian, Dan, and Hobb," Steve mused. Around him, the circle was quiet, but still there was the distant clash of metal and pain.

"No house names? Not even a Storm?" The man shook his head.

"And you? What's your name?" Steve asked. The more casually Steve spoke, the more the man seemed to fear him.

"Jared."

"Jared," Steve said.

"You're telling me that three hedge knights, three men without any backing, decided that they were going to assault my people, my partner? They just decided that they were going to make an enemy out of me for no reason, for no gain? Is that what you're telling me?" Jared tried to swallow again, but his throat was dry. He managed a nod.

"I see," Steve said, looking away, considering.

"Brave of you though."

"What?" Jared asked, startled out of his silence.

"Brave of you," Steve repeated himself.

"Must have been hard to go against your pals like that, turning them in." Lords leaned in, eager, sensing blood. Robert's frown was slowly becoming something darker. Jared could only shake his head. Steve smiled, but there was nothing friendly about it.

"No, come on now, don't deny it. You were so chummy with them, after that little skirmish at Blueburn. You know, when you were all working together to take those women off to be raped." His tone was easy, a jarring contrast to the words he spoke.

"You didn't think I'd forgotten your face, did you?"

"I did not - I have never -" but he couldn't get the words out.

"I'm glad to see you turning over a new leaf," Steve told him as he leaned in, as if he was confiding something in just him, like they were standing alone.

"But given how we know you were all such good friends, how about you tell me who really put them up to this." The hedge knight broke.

"It were Ser Kemmet Swiftback, he put them up to it, he heard them same as I did, last-""Kemmet, son of Tymbal? That Swiftback?!" Cafferen interrupted, fury blooming on his face - but it was not directed at Jared. Jared nodded hurriedly.

"Aye my lord."

"He is a landed knight sworn to me," Cafferen said, incensed, eyes narrowed to slits.

"He has besmirched my name. I will have his confession, and recompense." Steve stared at the lord. The fury and shock was genuine, he could tell - but he had still interrupted Jared before he could reveal something. Last - what? Last night? And the name, it was not one he knew, but he could see how the pieces fit together, and his gut told him the face that came to mind was the right one. Cafferen was still speaking.

"My Lord Baratheon, I beg your leave to bring this man before you, so that the truth may out."

"Bring him to me," Robert said, voice low and hard. His fists were clenching, and while Cafferen's fury was loud, his own was quiet, and all the more dangerous for it. He glanced at Steve, and gave a short nod. Cafferen was already storming away, making for his horse, and men stepped aside for him.

"Kemmet. Who is he?" Steve asked of Robert.

"You crushed his hand, after the Battle at Blueburn," Robert told him. Steve didn't answer, his suspicion confirmed. Some people just didn't learn. Well, if the first lesson didn't take, he'd just give him another.

"You didn't tell Cafferen that his man put them up to it, did you," Steve said. Jared shook his head, clenching his jaw.

"If I did, and Swiftback found out…"

"He's going to find out now," Silveraxe remarked from the watchers. A nod was his answer, but Jared seemed to be mastering his fear, and Steve thought he knew why. It was much harder to take revenge on the man that sold you out when you were about to be dead, after all. There was no attack on the bridge as they waited this time, though the men pushing and defending on both sides were swapped out for fresh men, bodies left to be taken by the river or pulled back from the bank.

Eventually Cafferen returned, but he did not return alone. Lord Errol rode at his side, and a squad of six men came with them. Steve's gaze narrowed in on one of them, and he watched as they came to the top of the hillock. There was no wariness in Kemmet, as if he thought he was just another man chosen at random to escort Samuel to the command point. It was not until they dismounted that things changed.

"Disarm him," Lord Errol commanded of his men, eyebrows bristling with anger. Kemmet wasn't read in, but the others were. He hardly had time to register his surprise before his sword belt had been cut from him, his war pick and rondel knife plucked by quick hands, and then another had forced him to kneel with a kick to the back of his knee. He was dragged into the middle of the gathering before he could recover.

"What is the meaning of this?" Kemmet raged, struggling, before his mind caught up with him.

"Lord Cafferen? Lord Errol?" he asked. He looked past them.

"Lord Baratheon?" It was none of them who answered first, however.

"The men you sent after my people are dead," Steve said, tone easy, though his eyes told the truth of his feelings. Kemmet blinked, scarred and weathered face flicking from shock to dismay to confusion too fast for most to see.

"What?!"

"Your pals, Adrian, Dan, and Hobb," Steve said.

"They're dead."

"You admit to slaying good Stormland knights?" Kemmet asked, incredulous. He took the chance to glance quickly at their audience, watching for the reaction to his words.

"Oh, I didn't touch them," Steve said.

"My lady killed two. Some of my laundry women and my dog got the other." More than one person laughed, and Kemmet gaped at him, but only for a moment. He turned to his overlords.

"I demand an explanation."

"Kemmet Swiftback," Robert rumbled.

"You are accused of sending men to assault Lady Naerys Waters at a time that all honourable men were engaged in service against the enemy. What do you say?"" Lady - by whose accusation?" Kemmet demanded.

"Ser Jared of -" Robert paused for a moment, glancing at Cafferen.

"The Rainwood," Cafferen offered quickly.

"- and Lord America," Robert finished.

"I say they are liars," Kemmet said immediately. It did not have the response he might have hoped for. Someone snorted, and Robert's brows grew thunderous.

"Your words are noted," he said coldly.

"You believe a hedge knight and a fucking foreign savage over me?" Kemmet said. He tried to rise to his feet, only to be kept in place by the man behind him.

"I have been standing in defence of the camp all morning! When would I have had time to bother with some chit?" Robert looked to be a hair away from losing his temper, but Samuel stepped in first.

"The three slain knights are known to follow you, and you have offered nothing but bluster in your own defence," the old lord said.

"Have you anything of note to say?" Kemmet snarled, glaring at Cafferen, who met him with a glare of his own.

"I demand a tr-" he cut himself off, gaze jerking to Steve. For a moment, Steve was tempted. He had caught the man cold, twice, and if this was his behaviour while at war, surrounded by peers and superiors, he didn't want to think of how he treated those under his power in his home. But then he remembered a conversation with Robert about politics, and his gaze was drawn to Samuel. The old lord gave him a shallow nod, thankful.

"If you are to face anyone, it will be me," Cafferen was saying, speaking down to his sworn knight.

"No," Robert said.

"It won't be." He had mastered his temper, at least for the moment, but it only seemed to have made him more wroth with the man himself. Kemmet sagged, the fight going out of him.

"Drag him away, clap him in the stocks," Robert told the soldiers that had come with him.

"Strip him of his steel, and find his coin. It's all going to Lady Naerys."

"I would have him stripped of his land, also," Cafferen said.

"As a man sworn to you, that is your right," Robert told him. He glanced at Samuel, and the man nodded. At this, Kemmet stirred.

"The black, I'll take the black."

"No you won't," Robert told him, before Steve could do more than start to scowl. He jerked his head in silent command, and the unresisting Kemmet was dragged to the horse he had ridden in on, before being bound and thrown over its back. Steve watched as the disgraced knight was taken away, unsure of how to feel. Had he come across the man alone after discovering his part in things, he would have killed him where he stood. Two chances was more than enough.

But as it was, he was left unsatisfied, like he had been robbed of closure.

"Are you satisfied, Lord America?" Samuel asked him, formal and straight backed. Steve didn't have to look around to know the eyes of Robert's retinue were still on him.

"I am. I appreciate your judgement, Lord Baratheon." Robert grimaced, but he knew his part.

"For the services you have rendered me, it was only right that I hear you." Steve managed to incline his head, but he was suddenly very done with it all, the scent of blood thick in his nose. All he wanted to do was go to Naerys, but he still had a long day ahead of him. He turned back to the river, Robin following at his shoulder. X There were no more attacks on the bridge that day.

The Reachmen could not force the Stormlanders from their positions no matter their effort, and the day wore on, men fighting and dying over inches. Those on the bridge were left to watch, unable to impact the battle, and Steve found himself wishing for his bow. After their early attack that morning, the Reach was the first to quit the field, pulling back under a ragged shower of arrows, and the Stormlanders were happy to see them go.

All were eager to get back to camp, for all that a new piece of gossip was slowly starting to sweep through the army. Steve cared little for twisting gossip, however. Keladry had been left to Toby's care, having earned more than a few bruises in her time leading the defence of the bridge, and Robin had been sent to give Walt a proper accounting of the day's events, but he was on his way to take care of something he should have done immediately.

For all that the work of the day was done, the sun was still shining, and it was only mid-afternoon when Steve and Naerys rode out from camp together, ahorse Brooklyn and Swiftstride. The camp was beginning to liven up, but that was not something either of them were in the mood to be part of, and they left it behind, riding upstream. It did not take them long to notice their tail, but it was only Osric and his squad, trailing along well out of earshot and making no move to catch up.

Steve could already tell that any order to have them turn back would be politely refused, and so they rode on, searching for a spot he had found during the scouting to ensure there were no other crossings nearby. They found it a short while later, a deep, narrow point in the river with a dense growth of trees on either side. Naerys dismounted to lead her mount in, and Steve paused only long enough to make sure that his troops got the hint that they were not to join them, and then he was dismounting to follow.

When he reached the riverbank, he found Swiftstride tied off to a tree in reach of the water, and a pile of abandoned clothes next to him. Naerys was already in the water, enjoying the shaded swimming hole as she floated along on her back, eyes closed. The faint burbling of the river and the odd bit of birdsong was a soothing backdrop, and he mirrored her in stripping to his underclothes, before stepping into the water.

The water was cool, though not cold, not to him, and he went about scrubbing the lingering traces of battle from himself. He was rubbing his hands through his hair when he felt warm hands on his back, and then Naerys was holding him, her head resting between his shoulder blades. He stilled.

"I'm sorry." It was the first words they had spoken since he had asked her to follow him. Her breath was warm against his skin.

"You didn't put me in any danger I haven't always been in, Steve. You taught me everything I used to slit his throat."

"No. I'm sorry for leaving you after. I should have stayed with you." Naerys tightened her arms around his ribs.

"Maybe. But you had to get back to the bridge, and helping the others helped me too." The cloth of her breast band rubbed against his back.

"Are they ok?"

"It's not a new danger. I think it did Rowan and Florys well to see them killed," Naerys said.

"They were asking Betty about the training you offer."

"I hope they join," Steve said, keeping his voice quiet.

"If the girls hadn't been with you…"

"I am fine, Steve. I'm unhurt. The armour you bought me and the skills you taught me kept me alive." Hearing the words she had spoken earlier took him back to the terrible moment he had thought her dead, and his pulse quickened. She felt it, and pressed a kiss against his spine.

"When I thought they had hurt you - I haven't been that angry in a long time."

"I saw," she murmured. She hesitated, her touch on him stilling.

"Did you lose - was that how Peggy -?" Steve sighed.

"No, she didn't…I didn't lose her to battle. Not like that."

"The look on your face, I thought maybe you had," Naerys said.

"I've lost people to many things," Steve admitted.

"Battle, mistakes, time… it still terrifies me." She said nothing, but her hold on him loosened, one hand going to his shoulder to pull him around. Steve let himself be spun in place, coming face to face with his partner. There weren't many things he had been envious of Tony for, but his connection with Pepper had been one of them, and now that he had something a little like it for himself, he could tell he had been right to do so. Naerys took his face in her hands, and kissed him deeply.

He responded in kind as she supported herself by wrapping her legs around his hips, and his hands went to her pert rear, squeezing and kneading. She smiled into their kiss, before breaking it, looking down at him. Her hair was slicked back and wet, and as he watched a droplet of water ran down her neck and across her collarbone.

"I am fine," she told him again.

"You did not do anything you would regret. We are both safe, and once this battle is over, we will ride north. On the way, you will take a castle that has a bedroom with silk sheets, and we will finally have a night to ourselves and I will ride you like a prize stallion," she said firmly, leaving no room for argument. She gave a flex of her core, pressing herself into him and driving any foolish thoughts of doing so from his mind.

"That sounds like a good idea," Steve said, even as he teased at the knot at the back of her breast band. The quickening of her breath told him clearly that she would make no protest if he did more than that, but he had not gotten where he was by being weak willed, and they had both made their desires clear, in more ways than one. His hand went back to supporting her with a squeeze.

"Maybe you should be in charge."

"Oh Steve," she said, smirking down at him.

"When did you start thinking I wasn't already?" She stole another kiss, and there was no more talking for a time. By the time they left the river behind, the sky was beginning to turn orange, and their fingers were well and truly pruning. Naerys was first out, and he was happy to watch her go, but when it was his turn he couldn't help but wince, adjusting himself with care.

"What's wrong, Steve?" Naerys asked, the purple in her eyes darkening with mischief and false concern.

"Has the cold made you stiff?"

"Don't think I won't take you over my knee," he warned, and not for the first time, still drinking in the sight of her. She only raised her chin in challenge, untying her breast band with one hand, looking him dead in the eye as she let it fall free so she could wring it out.

"You keep making me promises, my lord." Steve couldn't help but swallow as he watched her tie it anew, unable to call a response to mind. Naerys was gracious in her victory, and they did not depart quite as quickly as they might have. The sky was well and truly cast in orange by the time they found their clothes once more and mounted their horses, but neither could call it anything but an afternoon well spent, spirits buoyed and understandings reaffirmed.

Osric and his squad kept their distance as they fell in behind them once more, heading back to the camp. The battle was not over, but the day soon would be.