As the head of House Peake, Titus knew this better than anyone.
House Manderly, which had left its homeland and established White Harbor, the fifth-largest city in Westeros, in the North, had originally borne the name Dustin.
The "bury" in Dunstonbury, House Peake's third castle, meant a burial grave.
Well, that held considerable commemorative significance for Lord Lorimar Peake.
Starpike had not only driven the Dustins out of the Reach and seized their castle and lands, but had even forced them to change their family name...
The two great houses that had once scorned House Gardener and effectively "ruled" south of the Mander River could be said to share a hatred as deep as the sea.
By now, "Dustin" had vanished into the vast sweep of history.
What had been reborn was "Manderly" of White Harbor.
Only their sigil remained unchanged: the uncommon image of a merman holding a black trident.
Had he worn a crown as well, Titus would probably have been reminded of Poseidon, the sea god of Greek mythology.
After the "third-generation" Lord Lorimar Peake, whose likeness was carved into Starpike's stone wall, drove House Manderly from the Reach, the family that had been beaten into changing its name was forced to wander for years.
Then, nine hundred years ago.
They finally won the appreciation and acceptance of House Stark, the rulers of the North, who granted them a new fief in the southeast of the North to begin again.
Beneath the heart tree at the Wolf's Den, the reborn House Manderly swore fealty to the reigning King in the North in the name of the Old and New Gods. To solve the Starks' problem of defending the White Knife River, they used the wealth they had brought with them to build a new town called "White Harbor" at its mouth.
Unexpectedly, by making use of favorable circumstances, White Harbor grew larger and larger, rising from a town to a city. Controlling the North's only city, House Manderly slowly rose in standing, gradually becoming the wealthiest house in the entire North.
Though they had lost the honorary title of "Great Captain of the Mander River," House Manderly found a blessing in misfortune, gaining the new titles of "Defender of the Dispossessed," "Shield of the Faith," and "Warden of the White Knife."
House Peake in the south had done no worse. After taking Dunstonbury, the house held three castles and grew greatly in strength.
Starpike itself possessed excellent recruits and assured military strength, Whitegrove could supply large numbers of laborers and food crops, and Dunstonbury brought monetary wealth and an important outlet to the sea.
Had the latter two not been stripped away, House Peake would still have ranked among the Reach's foremost noble houses, and the Tarlys of Horn Hill, fellow lords of the Dornish Marches, would only have been fit to follow their lead.
Whitegrove had been granted to the knightly House White.
Yet the original site of Dunstonbury, which had once intercepted House Gardener's trade revenues along the Mander River west of Highgarden, had been deliberately abandoned by Highgarden's new masters.
The Tyrells did not want another house competing with them on the Mander River.
Now Titus could find fresh cause for conflict with the knight of Whitegrove, but he would never again encounter a lord of Dunstonbury. That place had become a true grave for the Dustins...
With nothing else to do, Titus pointed out the surging waters of the Mander River and told tales of the past to Wenda, the most studious of his guards. Since she had come into conflict with the people of Whitegrove, she had all the more need to understand the tangled relationships among these houses.
Wenda was fairly comfortable serving in the earl's guard. She could see a different sort of quality in the young earl she served: he did not merely regard her as a woman, but treated her as a true warrior and a capable helper, and readily accepted, even liked, her unusual ability.
She found this immensely gratifying.
As an outsider, even in the Kingswood, Wenda could still catch ignorant fear and rejection of her kind in the eyes of the brotherhood leaders who only half understood her ability.
Likewise, Titus was very pleased with Wenda. Even setting aside Lady White Eagle's literacy, exceptional martial skills, and Skinchanger abilities, she was a competent, satisfactory guard whose attentiveness and sensitivity were beyond anything a rough fellow like Parker could match...
The Reach's delegation, all of whom had boarded the ships, consisted of nobles, knights, and large numbers of attendants and guards.
This large party of contestants would be led by Paxter Redwyne, Earl of the Arbor and nephew of Lady Olenna, the "Queen of Thorns," on the long journey to the Riverlands.
Lord Paxter was middle-aged, with sloping shoulders, a thin frame, and only a few tufts of orange hair on his balding head. He had married Mina Tyrell, making him both Duke Mace Tyrell's cousin and his brother-in-law.
The Tyrells, Hightowers, and Redwynes truly were a model of closely intertwined families.
Titus stood at the prow of the Tyrell pleasure barge.
He recalled the deputy leader Mace Tyrell had specifically mentioned earlier: Ser Timo Crane, Highgarden's master-at-arms.
When they had boarded just now, the deputy leader had even made a point of coming over to exchange pleasantries with him, attentive and courteous in his manner.
Whatever else might be said, House Tyrell truly did a fine job of keeping up appearances.
Could this be the continuation of the "steward kings'" bloodline?
As Titus thought of this wry joke about his liege's family, he felt that House Crane of Red Lake was rather interesting too. Silverwing, the adult dragon that had lost her rider, had once nested on a small island in the middle of Red Lake.
This family descended from "Rose of Red Lake," a daughter of Garth Greenhand, and its sigil was a flock of golden cranes on a blue field.
He vaguely remembered that the women of House Clyne who had inherited Rose's blood seemed to retain the Skinchanger ability to "turn into cranes." If true, that would be unique in the south.
Never mind that the regions south of the Neck had long since become Andalized; even in the North, Skinchangers were far scarcer than Beyond the Wall. By now, Skinchangers traveling through the south like Wenda were exceedingly rare, and the term had already become something belonging to characters in myths.
The Reach was vast and populous, with many myths passed down through it.
Just as the eastern Vale had been where the Andals first landed, the Reach had been the first stop for the earliest First Men to set foot in Westeros.
Their representative figure was the heroic leader who had led the first group of First Men across the Arm of Dorne and boldly ventured onto the western continent-Garth Greenhand... at least, that was how the maesters of the Citadel described him in their writings.
In more numerous legends, however, Garth Greenhand had been the High King of the First Men, as well as the first human to set foot on the continent of Westeros. Some even regarded him as the most ancient god.
Garth kept company with the western continent's native Children of the Forest and giants. He had green hands and green hair, the skin all over his body was green, and he even bore antlers like a stag's.
He gave people seeds and taught them how to sow, how to till the soil, how to tend grain, and how to harvest.
Wherever Greenhand went, the villages, farms, and orchards would brim with vigorous life.
He always carried a cloth sack filled with seeds, distributing them wherever he went. The sack seemed to hold the seeds of all the world's trees, grains, fruits, and flowers, an inexhaustible supply.
Garth could not only make the land fertile and productive, but would also "sow his seed" in many women.
With a touch, he could make barren women fertile again, and even some old women whose moonblood had ceased could give birth once more. Maidens matured before him, mothers conceived twins or even triplets under his blessing, and little girls became maidens with moonblood beneath his smile.
In short, he was quite miraculous.
Garth had many children, and all too many lords in the Reach could trace their bloodlines back to Greenhand.
His eldest son, Garth Gardener, was the ancestor of House Gardener, the former "Kings of the Reach."
Another who had a closer connection to Titus was one of his daughters, Florys "the Fox."
Florys bore three boys: Florent was her eldest, Peake her second, and Ball her youngest.
Florys "the Fox":
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