CINEMA PARADISO

     Petyr was not at the quintains, nor anywhere in the yard, but as she turned to go a woman’s voice called out. “Alayne!” cried Myranda Royce, from a carved stone bench beneath a beech tree, where she was seated between two men. She looked in need of rescue. Smiling, Alayne walked toward her friend.

     Myranda was wearing a grey woolen dress, a green hooded cloak, and a rather desperate look. On either side of her sat a knight. The one on her right had a grizzled beard, a bald head, and a belly that spilled over his swordbelt where his lap should have been. The one on her left was no more than eighteen, and skinny as a spear. His ginger-colored whiskers only partially served to disguise the angry red pimples that dotted his face.

     The bald knight wore a dark blue surcoat emblazoned with a huge pair of pink lips. The pimply-gingerlad countered with nine white seagulls on a field of brown, which marked him for a Shett of Gulltown. He was staring so intently at Myranda’s breasts that he hardly noticed Alayne until Myranda rose to hug her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you ” Randa whispered in her ear, before she turned to say, “Sers, may I present you the Lady Alayne Stone?”

     “The Lord Protector’s daughter,” the bald knight announced, all hearty gallantry. He rose ponderously. “And full as lovely as the tales told of her, I see.”

     Not to be outdone, the pimply knight hopped up and said,  “Ser Ossifer speaks truly, you are the most beautiful maid in all the Seven Kingdoms.” It might have been a sweeter courtesy had he not addressed it to her chest.

     “And have you seen all those maids yourself, ser?” Alayne asked him. “You are young to be so widely travelled.”

     He blushed, which only made his pimples look angrier.  “No, my lady.   I am from Gulltown.”

      And I am not, though Alayne was born there. She would need to be careful around this one. “I remember Gulltown fondly,” she told him, with a smile as vague as it was pleasant. To Myranda she said, “Do you know where my father’s gotten to, perchance?”

     “Let me take you to him, my lady.”

     “I do hope you will forgive me for depriving you of Lady Myranda’s company,” Alayne told the knights. She did not wait for a reply, but took the older girl arm-in-arm and drew her away from the bench. Only when they were out of earshot did she whisper,  “Do you really know where my father is?”

     “Of course not. Walk faster, my new suitors may be following.” Myranda made a face. “Ossifer Lipps is the dullest knight in the Vale, but Uther Shett aspires to his laurels. I am praying they fight a duel for my hand, and kill each other.”

     Alayne giggled. “Surely Lord Nestor would not seriously entertain a suit from such men.”

     “Oh, he might. My lord father is annoyed with me for killing my last husband and putting him to all this trouble.”

     “It was not your fault he died.”

     “There was no one else in the bed that I recall.”

     Alayne could not help but shutter. Myranda’s husband had died when he was making love with her. “Those Sistermen who came in yesterday were gallant,” she said, to change the subject. “If you don’t like Ser Ossifer or Ser Uther, marry one of them instead. I thought the youngest one was very handsome.”

     “The one in the sealskin cloak?” Randa said, incredulous.

     “One of his brothers, then.”

     Myranda rolled her eyes. “They’re from the Sisters. Did you ever know a Sisterman who could joust? They clean their swords with codfish oil and wash in tubs of cold seawater.”

     “Well,” Alayne said, “at least they’re clean.”

     “Some of them have webs between their toes. I’d sooner marry Lord Petyr. Then I’d be your mother. How little is his finger, I ask you?”

     Alayne did not dignify that question with an answer. “Lady Waynwood will be here soon, with her sons.”

     “Is that a promise or a threat?” Myranda said. “The first Lady Waynwood must have been a mare, I think. How else to explain why all the Waynwood men are horse-faced? If I were ever to wed a Waynwood, he would have to swear a vow to don his helm whenever he wished to fuck me, and keep the visor closed.” She gave Alayne a pinch on the arm. “My Harry will be with them, though. I notice that you left him out. I shall never forgive you for stealing him away from me. He’s the boy I want to marry.”

      “The betrothal was my father’s doing,”  Alayne protested, as she had a hundred times before.  She is only teasing, she told herself… but behind the japes, she could hear the hurt.

     Myranda stopped to gaze across the yard at the knights at their practice. “Now there’s the very sort of husband I need.”

     A few feet away, two knights were fighting with blunted practice swords. Their blades crashed together twice, then slipped past each other only to be blocked by upraised shields, but the bigger man gave ground at the impact. Alayne could not see the front of his shield from where she stood, but his attacker bore three ravens in flight, each clutching a red heart in its claws. Three hearts and three ravens.

     She knew right then how the fight would end.

     A few moments later and the big man sprawled dazed in the dust with his helm askew. When his squire undid the fastenings to bare his head, there was blood trickling down his scalp. If the swords had not been blunted, there would be brains as well. That last head blow had been so hard Alayne had winced in sympathy when it fell. Myranda Royce considered the victor thoughtfully.  “Do you think if I asked nicely Ser Lyn would kill my suitors for me?”

     “He might, for a plump bag of gold.” Ser Lyn Corbray was forever desperately short of coin, all the Vale knew that.

     “Alas, all I have is a plump pair of teats. Though with Ser Lyn, a plump sausage under my skirts would serve me better.”

     Alayne’s giggle drew Corbray’s attention. He handed his shield to his loutish squire, removed his helm and quilted coif.  “Ladies.” His long brown hair was plastered to his brow by sweat.

     “Well struck, Ser Lyn,” Alayne called out. “Though I fear you’ve knocked poor Ser Owen insensible.”

     Corbray glanced back to where his foe was being helped from the yard by his squire. “He had no sense to start with, or he should not have tried me.”

     There is truth in that, Alayne thought, but some demon of mischief was in her that morning, so she gave Ser Lyn a thrust of her own. Smiling sweetly, she said, “My lord father tells me your brother’s new wife is with child.”

     Corbray gave her a dark look. “Lyonel sends his regrets. He remains at Heart’s Home with his peddler’s daughter, watching her belly swell as if he were the first man who ever got a wench pregnant.”

     Oh, that’s an open wound, thought Alayne. Lyonel Corbray’s first wife had given him nothing but a frail, sickly babe who died in infancy, and during all those years Ser Lyn had remained his brother’s heir. When the poor woman finally died, however, Petyr Baelish had stepped in and brokered a new marriage for Lord Corbray. The second Lady Corbray was sixteen, the daughter of a wealthy Gulltown merchant, but she had come with an immense dowry, and men said she was a tall, strapping, healthy girl, with big breasts and good, wide hips. And fertile too, it seems.

     “We are all praying that the Mother grants Lady Corbray an easy labor and a healthy child,” said Myranda.

     Alayne could not help herself. She smiled and said, “My father is always pleased to be of service to one of Lord Robert’s leal bannermen. I’m sure he would be most delighted to help broker a marriage for you as well, Ser Lyn.”

     “How kind of him.” Corbray’s lips drew back in something that might have been meant as a smile, though it gave Alayne a chill. “But what need have I for heirs when I am landless and like to remain so, thanks to our Lord Protector?  No.  Tell your lord father I need none of his brood mares.”

     The venom in his voice was so thick that for a moment she almost forgot that Lyn Corbray was actually her father’s catspaw, bought and paid for. Or was he?  Perhaps, instead of being Petyr’s man pretending to be Petyr’s foe, he was actually his foe pretending to be his man pretending to be his foe.

     Just thinking about it was enough to make her head spin. Alayne turned abruptly from the yard… and bumped into a short, sharp-faced man with a brush of orange hair who had come up behind her.  His hand shot out and caught her arm before she could fall.   “My lady.  My pardons if I took you unawares.”

     “The fault was mine. I did not see you standing there.”

     “We mice are quiet creatures.” Ser Shadrich was so short that he might have been taken for a squire, but his face belonged to a much older man. She saw long leagues in the wrinkles at the corner of his mouth, old battles in the scar beneath his ear, and a hardness behind the eyes that no boy would ever have. This was a man grown. Even Randa overtopped him, though.

     “Will you be seeking wings?” the Royce girl said.

     “A mouse with wings would be a silly sight.”

     “Perhaps you will try the melee instead?” Alayne suggested.  The melee was an afterthought, a sop for all the brothers, uncles, fathers, and friends who had accompanied the competitors to the Gates of the Moon to see them win their silver wings, but there would be prizes for the champions, and a chance to win ransoms.

     “A good melee is all a hedge knight can hope for, unless he stumbles on a bag of dragons. And that’s not likely, is it?”

     “I suppose not. But now you must excuse us, ser, we need to find my lord father. “

     Horns sounded from atop the wall.  “Too late,” Myranda said. “They’re here.  We shall need to do the honors by ourselves.”  She grinned.   “Last one to the gate must marry Uther Shett.”

     They made a race of it, dashing headlong across the yard and past the stables, skirts flapping, whilst knights and serving men alike looked on, and pigs and chickens scattered before them. It was most unladylike, but Alayne sound found herself laughing. For just a little while, as she ran, she forget who she was, and where, and found herself remembering bright cold days at Winterfell, when she would race through Winterfell with her friend Jeyne Poole, with Arya running after them trying to keep up.