Crime and punishment

A broken sword flew straight at Titus's face.

Without breaking stride, Titus tilted his head slightly, quite at ease, letting the sword skim past his shoulder.

Then he leisurely approached Maddy with his sword in hand, having slashed the man's left Achilles tendon during the chase.

As his injuries grew worse, Maddy felt increasing pain, and his strength quietly ebbed away.

He lost his balance and, utterly distraught, tripped over himself and fell.

He struggled to face the Earl of Starpike, still doing everything he could to save his life:

"Don't do this, Titus. I watched you grow up too... I'm willing to step down as Nightsong's master-at-arms. You trust Iomine, so give him the position! Spare me, and I'll leave the Dornish Marches immediately!"

Titus glanced back at the broken sword on the floor, then at Parker, Iomine, and the others fighting at the doorway. Seeing that they could still just about hold their own, he turned back to Maddy with a smile:

"Ser Maddy, you're an old hand at Nightsong... no, a respected elder. I've always respected you and never wanted things to come to this. But unless you die quickly, those men of yours won't behave."

Hearing that he still had some use, Maddy took the hint and hastily declared his loyalty. "I'll obey you! Lord Titus, I'll do whatever you say! I'll stop them. I'll make them stop..."

Titus said nothing more. He nodded and, half supporting, half dragging the heavy knight who could no longer fight, hauled him to the front.

"All of you, stop! Earl Titus is here, and so is Earl Bryce! What are you doing? Are you rebelling? Put down your weapons, every last one of you!"

Maddy, whose reason had once been consumed by greed, now shouted with unprecedented clarity to save himself as his life hung in the balance.

His men had still been trading clanging blows with Parker and the others, gradually pushing toward breaking through the reception hall's doors to rescue him. Now, hearing their master-at-arms's shouts clearly, they exchanged glances, weapons in hand, caught between advancing and retreating and somewhat at a loss.

They had no leader.

Tyronn Lue was imprisoned, Alston was down, and Ser Maddy knelt hunched on the floor, unable to stand at all, with a terrifying blade poised over his head.

In the end, the first to throw their swords to the floor were several guards inside the hall who had watched Maddy betray Tyronn Lue.

Once someone took the lead, the fighting could no longer continue. The silence shattered completely as metal clattered to the floor one weapon after another. Iomine and the others, who had been both helping Parker hold the doorway and worrying about the young earl's safety, breathed soft sighs of relief.

The outcome was settled.

As the greatest beneficiary of the affair, Bryce Caron was also the quickest to fall into step with Titus. Coming to his senses, he loudly guaranteed that only the chief culprits would be punished, and the rank-and-file guards would not be implicated.

Titus showed his approval of his new squire. The promise had an immediate effect.

The castle guards outside the hall stopped trying to force their way in, sharply easing the pressure on the Peake soldiers at the doors. With their hands now free, Parker and Bowen cautiously approached to join their earl.

"Ser Maddy, is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Titus raised his sword high, its sharp point aimed straight down at the trapezius muscle of the knight's left shoulder.

"Titus! You promised! If I helped you stop them, you'd spare me! You're the Earl of Starpike. You can't go back on your word!" Maddy cried urgently as Parker held him firmly down.

Titus tilted his head slightly and thought it over seriously, confirming that he had made no promises.

"Honestly, I preferred you defiant."

With a sigh, he kicked the broken sword on the floor far away. Under the tense gazes of everyone inside and outside the reception hall, he continued his movement like a Dayun heavy truck that, once moving, would never stop before meeting its quota and would never touch the brakes.

"Every weapon forged to attack me shall be destroyed, and every word that slanders me in judgment shall be condemned."

Titus gradually applied more force, driving the black Valyrian steel sword down inch by inch as though the steel pauldron were nothing-

A textbook Spartacus-style execution.

"Didn't you say I had no right? Your defeat was precisely what gave me the right to put you to death. Ser Maddy, I hereby sentence you to death. When you see Earl Baylan, please give him my regards."

By the time Titus finished speaking softly, more than half the blade had sunk into Maddy's shoulder, and his heart had long since been torn apart.

He drew the black sword from the faintly twitching body. With his heart broken, Ser Maddy could swagger no more. He collapsed to the floor, his eyes lifeless, as a pool of blood slowly spread beneath his large frame.

Holding the bloody sword, Titus tilted his head and gestured to Bryce Caron, who was still sheltered behind Dikembe and Hayes.

As though struck by sudden understanding, Bryce pushed aside the two guards before him. Ignoring even the words guard captain Iomine seemed about to say, he walked straight up to Titus.

He was about to kneel on one knee when Titus placed his free left hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

Bryce looked at Titus in confusion. The Earl of Starpike first had Bowen bring over Alston, who lay unable to rise.

Titus glanced at the sword at Bryce's waist and said with a smile:

"Since you personally said that only the chief culprits would be executed, you should punish the traitor yourself. If you want to become the true Earl of Nightsong and lord of the Dornish Marches, you must kill the boy within."

Looking at Titus's smiling face, Bryce felt an awe he had never known when the other boy served as his father's squire.

Facing Alston, who still clung to life, his eyes filled with an intense desire to live and a pleading look, he struggled for a while.

Unlike Maddy, who had merely said it, Alston really had watched Bryce grow up.

The expression on the face of Bryce, likewise a young earl, shifted several times before finally settling into ruthlessness. He drew his sword and gave Alston a quick death.

Only then did he return to Titus, whose smile had deepened, and kneel on one knee with his head bowed.

This time, Titus did not stop him.

The Earl of Starpike was very pleased with the result of his obedience test.

"Bryce of House Caron..."

Holding the black sword stained red with Maddy's heart's blood, he laid the red-and-black blade on the right shoulder of the man being knighted, the Earl of Nightsong:

"In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave."

The blade moved from Bryce's right shoulder to his left.

"In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just."

Back to the right shoulder.

"In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the weak and innocent."

Finally, back to the left shoulder.

"In the name of the Maiden, I charge you to protect all women... rise, Bryce."

A boy had knelt; a knight rose.

The Earl of Nightsong, a year younger than Titus, now had the standing and authority to take early control of his family's castle.

Nothing could better prove that he was an adult with sufficient ability than becoming a knight.

Within this clifftop castle, the traitors who had once followed Nightsong's master-at-arms and committed the crime of usurpation were brought to justice one after another, receiving the punishment they deserved.

Titus took no further deep part in Bryce and Iomine's interrogation of the sole remaining survivor, Tyronn Lue. After all, it involved House Caron's private family affairs.

But he could more or less guess that, with women and children having weaker resistance, Baylan's wife and youngest son might genuinely have fallen ill, while the earl's cause of death was clearly highly suspicious.

The details did not matter to him. With Maddy's death, the truth lay buried in that pool of blood.

He was not actually that elementary-school grim reaper, and he had already accomplished the purpose of his journey.

The Earl of Starpike had passed judgment and meted out punishment, done right by the old earl who had knighted him, and demonstrated his strength at Nightsong.

Bryce had served as his squire, even if only for a day.

Before everyone's eyes, he had saved Bryce and personally knighted him in proper succession, helping him into power and becoming a supporter and, to some extent, a backer of this young new lord of the Dornish Marches.

This was Titus's first step into the Stormlands.

The knighting ceremony: