Gone with the Wind

The Golden Bowl Gate.

It took its name from a historical Countess of Starpike-Lady Erma Peake.

A legendary woman celebrated and remembered by the descendants of House Peake, Erma, the "Lady of the Golden Bowl," had opened many trade routes for Starpike, which knew little of commerce, and discovered numerous sources of wealth and income.

Unfortunately, after Whitegrove and Dunstonbury in the heartlands of the Reach were stripped away, Starpike, left with only its holdings in the Dornish Marches, had long been unable to make something out of nothing.

In recent years, Starpike's economic condition had gradually become difficult to describe.

Titus had never thought much of it.

He led the others through the Golden Bowl Gate, across the town, and all the way to the "inner ring" of the Main Keep area beneath the southern mountainside.

Before the Great Addison Gate on Starpike's northern side, Titus dismounted first, then approached the white horse with knightly courtesy to help his guest, Miss Alicent, out of the saddle.

Titus held her smoothly contoured waist and lowered Alicent safely to the ground.

This woman has at least a six-pack. Even Parker might not measure up.

Miss Alicent's cheeks flushed, lending her a delicate, radiant air, like a slender willow swaying in the breeze.

With golden hair, green eyes, fair skin, and red lips, she was probably no less beautiful than her namesake, Queen Alicent Hightower.

The latter was Viserys I's second wife, King Aegon II's mother, the queen dowager whose everyday choice of clothing colors had defined the term "Greens," and one of the key figures behind the Dance of the Dragons.

It was only because Westeros had no such expression that she escaped being branded a "beauty who brought disaster."

This Miss Alicent before him was certainly no ordinary woman either, daring to take such a name and having the courage to enter the tiger's den called "Starpike"...

Titus thought quite highly of her.

He had Parker, who had returned ahead of them and was waiting at the gate, take Alicent inside first. He even thoughtfully arranged for Bull's room to be close to hers... yes, to make it easier to watch them together.

Once the arrangements were made, Parker entered the study to report. The captain of the guards also brought along a centurion from the Pikemen Corps, dressed in a mail shirt.

The centurion was not especially large, but he stood straight, and his movements had a distinctive rhythm. He was lean and sharp as a blade.

His face, with its Salt Dornish features, wore a solemn expression. Tucked behind his waist was a strangely constructed weapon, half sword and half sickle. Like its owner, the blade gleamed cold and hard in the twilight from the study window.

Demon Blade Gino. The name passed through Titus's mind.

He was the finest of the Peake Army's five company commanders, currently its leading centurion, and had originally been a young pirate brought back from the Narrow Sea by Titus's ill-fated uncle.

From the moment he arrived at Starpike, he had taken to it like a fish to water. Starting as a lowly soldier, he had quickly demonstrated his outstanding abilities and risen steadily to become the First Centurion.

His background had been rather troubled too. Born in Myr, one of the nine Free Cities across the Narrow Sea, he had Rhoynar blood and had spent his childhood working on a wealthy man's estate outside Myr.

Later, the estate had been plundered by a small tribe of horsemen that had appeared from who knew where. Gino had unfortunately become a slave of this little khalasar and been sold to Volantis. Before the slave masters there could give him a tattoo, however, an old pirate captain from the Iron Islands had taken a liking to him...

Besides using a spear, his experiences in his youth had also taught him an Essosi style of arakh swordsmanship.

His bladework was fierce, and it was said that he wielded it no worse than a genuine Dothraki "screamer," hence the nickname.

Seeming to notice the puzzlement over why he had come, Centurion Gino spoke before Parker, his delivery stiff and precise:

"Among the people Captain Parker brought back to the castle, I recognized the fellow who supposedly calls himself 'Bull' as an old acquaintance. His real name is Oswin. He's Ironborn, and we served aboard the same ship."

The Ironborn were the native inhabitants of the Iron Islands in the Sunset Sea off the western coast of Westeros, particularly those who made their living by raiding at sea.

Gino concealed nothing, and Titus already knew about his youthful experiences at sea. He merely asked a series of puzzled questions:

"Oswin? Are you sure? He didn't see you, did he?"

Recalling the conversation over the feast at Nightsong, Longneck Who Survived Three Hangings had been distinctive enough to leave a deep impression on Titus.

"I'm sure. He didn't see me. When Captain Parker returned to report earlier, he passed on your instructions, my lord, so I was careful and only watched the newcomers from hiding... We were apprentices aboard the same pirate ship and got along well. I never expected..."

Gino also had his suspicions about his old companion changing his name and slipping into the castle, but he was the sort of man with loyalty engraved in his bones. Having discovered it, he would not conceal it from his lord.

He was thinking that, if Oswin's trouble was not too serious, he could still try to save him.

Titus had already suspected that the people involved in the Alicent incident might be the foreign bandits who had entered the Dornish Marches and were being hunted by Tyronn Lue of Nightsong.

Now, although his suspicions had been confirmed, and he also knew that the man had a record with the now-destroyed Kingswood Brotherhood, he could not feel happy about it at all.

Their performance had not gone wrong; they had simply lost because an acquaintance recognized a face.

All he could say was that Miss "Alicent" seemed rather unlucky.

"Leave them alone. Parker, proceed according to plan for now. Send men to the Golden Bowl Gate to prepare to receive Jack and the others. Gino, keep staying out of sight."

Seeing that their lord still wanted to keep playing, Captain Parker and Centurion Gino exchanged glances, then acknowledged his orders in turn.

That evening, still acting as captain of the guards, Titus arranged a tasty dinner for Alicent and her companion.

Afterward, using the excuses of being busy and needing to report the situation in the forest to the earl, he left Alicent's room early.

The world was growing ever more chaotic. Good knights like him were becoming rare...

Midnight.

Silence lay over Starpike, inside and out, as though it had fallen asleep.

Moonlight passed over the battlements and spilled across the flagstone square of the pale courtyard, casting long shadows from the statues of Urrathon the "Shieldbreaker" and Blaquay the "Siegebreaker."

"Alicent," her golden hair covered by a hood, gathered her cloak around herself. She carried a bow and arrows on her back, a white-scabbarded sword at her waist, and a small, gold-lacquered treasure chest in her hand, containing a full five hundred gold dragons.

Four accomplices followed her. Besides "Bull," who was as powerfully built as a wild ox, the other three were also "familiar faces"-the very bandits who had chased her through the woods that afternoon.

By some unknown means, they too had managed to slip into the Main Keep grounds. Now dressed as servants, they stared at the chest in her hand with expressions that said they had struck it rich.

The golden-haired beauty's expression was composed, displaying a steadiness and calm she had not shown Titus during the day. Though she carried a chest full of gold, her steps were as light as a cat's as she hugged the base of the wall and moved toward the Little Addison Gate northeast of the square.

Had Titus seen her, he would certainly have marveled from the bottom of his heart:

Woman, you're so good at imitating animals. You ought to practice Xingyi Boxing.

The kind where, in "the old ape hangs up the seal and looks back," the crucial point isn't hanging up the seal, but looking back...

A dong sounded from the bell tower outside the Main Keep, marking the hour:

The hour of the ghosts had passed; the hour of the owl had arrived.

The golden-haired woman, creeping along like a cat, instinctively stopped. Her right eye slowly swept across the silent, empty square.

Around them, there was only the rustling of banners in the wind. A faint fire still burned in the guards' barracks beneath the Little Addison Gate. Clearly, no one had noticed them.

A few dozen more steps would bring them to the gate.

After that, so long as they did not alert the gate guards and climbed carefully over the wall, there would be a way to get these gold dragons safely out of the town. Escaping herself would not be difficult either.

Yet something still felt wrong.

She had been sneaking along with her people for so long. Why had they not encountered even a single patrolling guard?

She was just about to switch her "viewpoint" and scout from the sky with her "other eye"...

Demon Blade Gino: