I would like to say I handled Lord Hoster Tully's amusement with dignity.
I did not.
I knelt there in the middle of his solar, staring up at the Lord of Riverrun like a rabbit that had just realized the hound chasing it could laugh. Damon, the treacherous bastard, had apparently told him everything. Not just that I had beaten him, but how I had beaten him.
With dirt.
And a liver shot.
There were few things in life more humiliating than discovering that your first introduction to one of the most powerful men in the Riverlands was as the grubby little savage who fought like a dishonorable goblin.
"My lord," I said carefully, because I had a strong instinct that there was no good answer to this situation, "in my defense, Ser Damon stopped paying attention."
Damon made a choking noise behind me.
Lord Hoster's smile widened. "Ser Damon, is it?"
I froze.
Right. Not a knight. Not yet. Just heir to House Vypren and very much capable of making my life difficult.
I turned my head just enough to glance at him and found Damon pinching the bridge of his nose as though he already regretted every choice that had led him here.
"My apologies," I said quickly. "I meant no offense."
"You've already thrown dirt in his face and stabbed him in the side," Hoster said dryly. "I think a missing title is the least of Damon's concerns."
Damon sighed. "My lord, if it please you, Talion is still adjusting."
"Oh, I can see that." Hoster gestured to a chair near the hearth. "Up, boy. You look like you're one stiff breeze away from toppling over."
I stood at once, trying not to wince. Unfortunately, the reminder of my ride to Riverrun arrived the moment I straightened. Every part of me from the waist down felt like it had been pounded flat by a blacksmith's hammer.
Hoster noticed.
"First long ride?"
"Yes, my lord."
"And?"
"Horses are demons sent by the Seven to test men for hidden sins."
That earned an actual laugh from him, low and genuine. Even Damon snorted.
"Sit," Hoster said. "If you fall over in my solar, I'll have to listen to my maester lecture me about overworking children."
I sat.
The chair was cushioned.
I nearly wept.
For a few moments Hoster said nothing. He simply watched me with those sharp, measuring eyes of his, as if weighing what sort of creature Damon had dragged in from the roadside. I did my best to sit straight and look respectable, which was difficult while wearing travel-stained clothes and trying not to fidget under the attention of a great lord.
At last Hoster folded his hands over the table before him.
"Damon tells me you're quick with a blade," he said.
"With a stick, my lord," I corrected before I could stop myself.
One of his brows rose.
I felt my soul trying to leave my body.
"Not that a blade would make much difference," I added quickly. "I mean—well—it would, obviously, because blades are sharper and more dangerous, and I have no wish to be stabbed, but what I meant was—"
"Talion," Damon said, in the strained tone of a man attempting not to laugh at my suffering.
I shut my mouth.
Hoster's expression had gone wonderfully blank in the way older men sometimes managed when they were deciding whether a child was amusing or simply defective.
"I see," he said at last. "And are you always this talkative?"
"No, my lord."
"That was a lie."
"Yes, my lord."
Hoster leaned back slightly. "Damon believes you have potential. He also believes, rather optimistically, that some of your rougher edges can be beaten out of you with training."
I glanced at Damon. "That sounds expensive for him."
Damon gave me a warning look.
Hoster, to my alarm, looked entertained again.
"I'll ask plainly," he said. "Do you understand what it is Damon is offering you?"
The humor drained from the room with that question. I sat a little straighter.
"Yes, my lord," I said quietly. "A place in House Vypren's service. Training. A chance to become a page, then maybe a squire, if I prove worthy of it."
"And beyond that?"
I hesitated.
What was the right answer here? The truthful one? The noble one? The one that didn't make me sound like an ambitious little upstart from an inn?
"A different life," I said finally.
Hoster studied me in silence.
"I was born smallfolk, my lord. I know what that means. I know what my life would be if I stayed at the inn. There's nothing shameful in it—it's honest work, and my parents have made a good life with it—but it's still a small life. Damon's offering me a chance at something larger than that." I swallowed, then forced myself to continue. "I'd be a fool not to see it."
"Larger," Hoster repeated. "A dangerous word."
I felt my stomach tighten.
He rose from his chair and moved toward the window, clasping his hands behind his back. Sunlight spilled across the floor around him, catching in the red-brown threads of his hair.
"Many men want larger lives," he said. "Most imagine glory when they say it. They think of bright armor, songs, victories in the lists, noble favor. They don't think of what lies beneath it."
His gaze remained fixed out the window.
"Knighthood is not a story, boy. It is duty. It is obedience. It is blood, often shed for quarrels that began in halls far grander than the ones you'll sleep in. It is watching friends die because a lord made the wrong choice. It is killing men who might have been decent had they been born under a different banner. It is kneeling when you'd rather stand, smiling when you'd rather spit, and holding to your vows when it would be easier not to."
He turned back to face me.
"If you enter noble service, you step into all of that. Not just the songs. Do you understand?"
I did.
Or at least, I understood enough to know he wasn't exaggerating.
This was Westeros. Men here died for pride, inheritance, vengeance, boredom, and the occasional misunderstanding. If I stayed near power, I stayed near danger. If I climbed, I would only be climbing onto a taller scaffold.
But what was the alternative?
Wait at the inn until war found us anyway?
Hide from the future and hope the Riverlands somehow avoided being set on fire when the story I half remembered finally lurched into motion?
No. If disaster was coming—and in Westeros it always was—I'd rather meet it with armor, training, and a place at someone's side than with a mop in my hand and nowhere to run.
"Yes, my lord," I said. "Or at least… I understand as much as a boy my age can."
That seemed to please him more than any bold declaration would have.
"An honest answer," Hoster said. "Good. Hold onto that habit. Honest men are rare enough."
Damon shifted beside me. "My lord, if I may—I had hoped to take Talion into Fairmarket within the week, once he's had time to wash and recover from the ride."
"Within the week?" I asked before thinking.
Both of them looked at me.
I coughed. "Not that I object, my lord. I was only surprised."
"You expected to remain here?" Damon asked.
"A little," I admitted. "I just got to Riverrun. I thought perhaps I'd have time to stare in wonder at expensive tapestries and accidentally offend at least three nobles before leaving."
Damon muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like there's still time.
Hoster's mouth twitched. "You'll see enough of Riverrun in years to come if you remain in good standing. For now, Fairmarket is likely the better place for you. Smaller household. Fewer opportunities to embarrass yourself before an audience."
That sounded suspiciously reasonable.
"Yes, my lord."
"Good." Hoster returned to his seat. "Then the matter is settled. Damon will take responsibility for your conduct, your training, and your service. You'll obey him in all things fitting your station, and if you prove troublesome I shall take great pleasure in reminding him that he chose you."
Damon sighed in the manner of a man being handed a difficult hound and told it had excellent potential.
I, on the other hand, was still stuck on one particular detail.
"My lord," I asked cautiously, "does this mean I'm truly accepted into House Vypren's service?"
Hoster blinked once, as if surprised by the question.
"Did you imagine I'd summoned you here to mock your horse bruises and send you back to the inn?"
I considered this. "It did cross my mind."
Damon made a strangled noise.
Hoster Tully laughed outright.
"Gods save us," he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. "Yes, boy. You're accepted. Try not to make me regret approving it."
The relief that hit me then was embarrassingly strong. I had known, logically, that Damon wouldn't have brought me all the way to Riverrun if the arrangement weren't serious, but some part of me had still feared this was all too fragile to trust. That one wrong word might send it collapsing down around my ears.
Instead, it was real.
I had done it.
Talion, son of an innkeeper and a former whore, had just been accepted into the service of a noble house with Lord Hoster Tully's blessing.
Gods.
If the boys back at the river could see me now, they'd never shut up about it.
Hoster rang a small bell on the table. A servant entered a moment later, bowed, and waited.
"See that Talion is given a bath, a meal, and somewhere to sleep," Hoster said. "And find something for him to wear that doesn't look as though it lost a war with the road."
I looked down at my tunic, offended on principle.
"It's not that bad."
"It's holding together through stubbornness and prayer," Damon said.
"I've seen corpses in better shape," Hoster added.
I stared at both of them in betrayal.
The servant, to his credit, kept his face perfectly straight.
Damon rested a hand on my shoulder and steered me gently toward the door. "Come on, Talion. Let's get you cleaned up before you start shedding road dust on Lord Tully's floor."
As we stepped out into the corridor, I glanced back once.
Hoster had already returned to the parchments on his desk, but I caught him watching us go with that same thoughtful expression he'd worn when I first entered. Not suspicious. Not unkind. Simply measuring.
I had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that Lord Hoster Tully saw far more than he let on.
The door shut behind us.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
"Well," I said, "that could have gone worse."
Damon looked down at me. "You called me 'Ser' three times, told Lord Tully horses were demonic, and implied you thought he might have summoned you for sport."
"Yes," I said. "And yet I live."
"For now."
I grinned up at him. "You know, if you're going to be responsible for me, you should try sounding more encouraging."
"I was considering prayer instead."
"Won't help. The gods and I are not on speaking terms."
Damon barked a laugh despite himself, and just like that some of the tension bled out of the moment.
He led me deeper into Riverrun's halls toward whatever room had been set aside for washing and rest, while servants and guards flowed around us in a steady current. I should have been exhausted—and I was—but beneath the soreness, the nerves, and the lingering humiliation of being known as the dirt-throwing child, something warmer had begun to settle in my chest.
Hope.
Dangerous thing, hope.
Still, as I followed Damon through the halls of Riverrun, accepted at last into House Vypren's service and one step further from the life I had been born into, I couldn't quite bring myself to fear it.
For the first time since dying, the future felt like something I might actually be able to seize with both hands.
Assuming, of course, that the horses didn't kill me first.