Chapter 85 — Renly's Verification

Twenty white-cloaked guards waited in disciplined formation outside FireStorm's gate. At their head, Ser Alistair Florent dismounted before Arlan reached him, carrying himself with the same controlled reserve Arlan remembered from their earlier meeting.

After the formal greeting, a guard presented Renly's sealed order. Alistair was to establish what could be accepted without dispute and isolate what required Storm's End to judge. He read the last phrase aloud before returning the parchment to its case.

"I do not need another telling of the battle," he said. "I need the points on which two sworn houses cannot be allowed to judge themselves."

"The prisoners, records, captured stores, and ground are open to you," Arlan said. "Question my people last if that helps."

Alistair began without entering the hall. He rode to the spring with two Tauha prisoners, a septon from the nearest village, and the knight who had witnessed Lyman's ultimatum. The boundary stones bore old weathering beneath FireStorm's fresh white marks. Farmers on both sides placed the line in the same place, though they disagreed over whose cattle had fouled the lower pool in summer. Morton's accounts and the millers' wheels showed water reaching both channels, not seizure or failure.

He made the two prisoners choose the path. One led him to a ford FireStorm's map did not mark, where Tauha families had watered animals for years. The other pointed to a repaired bank and claimed Ashenblade men had moved it after the winter fight. Alistair cut through the turf with his dagger. Old roots crossed the packed earth beneath the repair, proving the bank had stood longer than either current quarrel. He recorded customary use at the ford and rejected the claim of a fresh diversion without accusing the prisoner of deliberate lying.

At the mill, Alistair had both wheels stopped and watched the channels refill. Silt slowed Tauha's branch; an Ashenblade laborer could clear it in half a day. The upper miller refused the offer because accepting aid might look like yielding ownership. Alistair ordered each village to supply two men when the joint survey began. The obstruction would be removed by hands from both sides or remain as evidence that pride, not water, kept the dispute alive.

The ultimatum itself required little argument. Lyman's seal was genuine. He had demanded exclusive use of the spring, three hundred gold dragons, and submission within three days. Men from four Tauha villages agreed that he marched after the deadline with one hundred and fifty armed men.

Alistair closed that part of his notebook. "The demand and crossing stand. I will not spend tomorrow proving them again."

At Blackstone Canyon he ignored the positions from which FireStorm had fought and examined the places where men had been allowed to stop. Torn white cloth still clung to two stakes. A wagon lay on one broken axle where Bor's barrier had failed. Blood marked both sides of the narrow lane Brienne had held open. Tauha prisoners identified the route without FireStorm officers present and disagreed only about how soon each man had trusted it.

The casualty and prisoner rolls matched the graves, infirmary entries, and living men: thirty-seven dead, one hundred and thirteen captured, and no FireStorm combat deaths. Two Ashenblade soldiers had been injured in the failed barrier and signal confusion. Alistair ordered the totals copied once and did not ask anyone to recite them again.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The disputed questions remained harder. Lyman had been captured alive and executed after Arlan's field judgment. The Caron agent taken with him had also died by Arlan's sentence. No direct order from Elton survived in either man's possession.

Rodrick laid out what did survive: Elton's lawful letter offering mediation and a private loan; seven-stag payment bundles carried by the agent; the Caron token beneath his false name; stable entries placing him with Lyman's column; matching marks on the new weapons; and separate accounts from men who had heard different parts of the spoken bargain. A Rainwood factor's payment book connected the silver to an intermediary already used by Nightsong, but no single witness could supply the whole design.

Alistair tested the objects by removing their story. He showed the remount token to a Nightsong hostler without naming where it had been found; the man identified the season's notch and the stable authorized to honor it. He placed three weapon sockets among seven ordinary pieces before an armorer, who selected the same three as work from a Caron store. Neither man knew Lyman's captains waited in the next room. Their identifications established origin, not Elton's order, and Alistair wrote the limit beneath each answer.

The prisoners were examined with equal care. He chose ten names from the roll, counted them in the yard, and compared injuries with the infirmary book. One cut had been entered on the wrong arm. Rodrick corrected the page in a different ink before the prisoner and guard. The error was small; hiding it would have made every accurate wound easier to challenge.

Alistair divided the witnesses before questioning them. One knew who delivered the steel but not why. Another had heard Lyman boast of recognition and land. A stable boy remembered the agent changing horses. Two captured captains knew only that Lyman expected Elton to protect Tauha afterward. Alistair kept each statement beside the object or payment it could explain; Elton might dismiss one witness, but not the pattern without accounting for the others.

"Support from men tied to Nightsong is established," Alistair said that evening. "Direction by Lord Elton is a judgment, not a fact written beneath his seal. My report will say both."

"It should."

Alistair studied him over the three closed cases. "You make that answer easier than your execution of the two men does."

"I know."

The knight asked for the complete prisoner roll, burial locations, seized-goods inventory, and the sentences imposed in FireStorm. He also ordered that no prisoner be moved beyond FireStorm until his inquiry ended. Arlan agreed, though it delayed work planned for Blackstone Creek and forced Morton to find another guarded yard.

The new yard displaced timber meant for winter roofs. Morton moved the stacks beneath oiled cloth, hired two extra cooks, and reduced kiln deliveries because carts now carried water to prisoners. Alistair entered those costs beside the value of captured goods. If FireStorm later claimed damages, the sum would grow from bread, guards, and lost work rather than whatever number victory made tempting.

On the third morning he allowed prisoner families to visit under the same rules Cade had established. Alistair spoke to them after they left the yard. Several hated Arlan; none claimed a husband or son had vanished after surrender. Their anger remained evidence of political cost, not evidence of a hidden killing.

By dusk, most of the battle had ceased to be a question. What remained could not be settled by counting weapons or pacing a road. It concerned authority, punishment, and what a victor was entitled to keep—and Alistair reserved those matters for the hall on the following morning.

That night he changed the guards on the evidence room without warning and compared the door seal with his sketch from noon. It remained whole. He then asked Morton for a meal ledger and found prisoner bread entered before household supper. Procedure had survived when no one knew he was watching.