Simple Servant - Game of Thrones

Chapter Two

(289 AC)

Highgarden.

Nolan.

War arrived in the Seven Kingdoms when the Ironborn burned the Lannister fleet at anchor in a surprise attack on Lannisterport in the westerlands. Nolan wasn't worried about anyone in the fighting — King Robert had defeated the last of the Dragonlords; what could a bunch of reaving ingrates do to a man like that?

However, unlike him, Elinor was not lacking in her worry — one of her brothers, the squire to a knight in service to Lord Mace Tyrell, had left Highgarden with his charge a moon ago to join the king's forces. Nolan had tried reassuring her, but his friend's love for her brother was fierce, and she would only argue about the "what if" Garth was killed in the fighting. Men died at war, he knew, but for some strange reason, Nolan felt that her friend's brother would live.

To take her mind off it, Nolan had dragged her to the creek and told her about his day, what he was doing with Ser Vortimer and how good he was getting. They'd go riding through the fields, Dawn eager for a race and Dusk just happy to be around Elinor, and only after that did they tend to their apple tree, which was now a healthy seedling. And when the sky darkened, they'd return to the stables, Elinor would engulf him in a hug, and he'd watch her leave, then go to sleep in Dawn's stall, wrapped up in his dreams of living in a castle.

Only, this time, Elinor was with him in the castle.

"Wake up," a girlish voice whispered, shaking him from the dream. Nolan sat up quickly, his hand groping for his sword stick hidden in the hay-covered floor. "Don't you dare!"

He knew that scolding tone better than his own voice. "Huh?" Blinking, yawning, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Nolan finally saw Elinor sitting on her knees before him. In her hand was a lantern, whose flickering flame cast a warm light within the stall and made the eyes of the girl holding its prison glow. "Elinor? What are you—"

"Do you want to explore the castle?"

Nolan was already halfway out of the stable. "What are you waiting for?" Elinor giggled and hurried out after him, grabbing his hand on her way past and dragging him up the small hill to the castle.

A hundred lanterns hung from ornate sconces along the colonnades, and Nolan was in awe of the castle's splendour. Elinor snuck them through Highgarden, telling him when to stop and hide and when they should run from one end to the other end of this hall or that one. He hadn't felt so wicked in his life, and he could tell neither had Elinor because she giggled the whole time, then angrily hushed him as if he was to blame.

She showed him the castle sept, with its rows of stained-glass honouring Garth Greenhand and the Seven-Who-Are-One; it was the second most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, the first being the godswood. The world seemed different there... It was as if ancient magic twisted within every branch, and the large pool before the three entangled trees rippled gently.

The trees Nolan had read were called weirwoods. Their bark was white as bone, their leaves dark red, like a million bloodstained hands. Faces had been carved in the trunks of the great trees; their features — from left to right — were jubilation, melancholy, and anger, and their deep-cut eyes were red with dried sap and watching him as they approached.

A tingle ran down his spine, and the hair on his nape stood upright while gooseflesh pimpled his skin. Almost instinctually, Nolan went to his knees before the trees, his hands resting on his thighs. He swore the eyes moved to meet his. 'The Old Gods aren't as dead as people in the South believed,' Nolan thought, bowing his head. He was not overly pious, like most people born without parents to teach them their religion, but he felt it now.