Turn 1: Harroway Town - Results
After Ser Orton had finished his meeting with Lord Roote, who was not named Harroway after all, you moved to one of the cheaper inns of the town. While the lord had promised to pay for your room and board, your master had not intended to unnecessarily take advantage of that generosity. You were certainly not complaining anyway. A roof that wasn't leaking and a warm meal a day was plenty already.
The next morning, over a bowl of plain porridge, you asked Ser Orton for more lessons on the duties of a page and informed him of your plans to start working to earn your own keep. Both of these ideas had his approval and things quickly settled into a routine.
In the evenings, after he was done with his own errands, Ser Orton was instructing you how to take care of his horse, whose name you finally learned was Barley, and how to properly maintain armor and weapons. You picked that up quickly and soon enough, he instead started lecturing you on the proper address of nobles and which houses existed in the Riverlands. Those lectures were significantly more boring, but from repetition, some of it began to stick after a few weeks.
In the mornings though, you were rising with the roosters crow to find day jobs at the docks. There were a few awkward questions at first, people assuming you were out to steal from them, but truthfully explaining that you were a refugee from Seaguard got you a chance to prove yourself. After a few days, most of the people looking for laborers knew you from sight at least and you managed to get some decent pay out of it.
Harroway Town was not Seagard, and the docks were much smaller, but there was still plenty of trade. At least at first. As the days went on though, fewer and fewer boats began to arrive, especially from the direction of the Blue Fork. You still managed to get a few decent days of work in, but had to rise ever earlier to arrive when there was still something available.
While that made it difficult to get enough money together for a decent set of traveling clothes, it made the other thing you had set out to do much easier. There was no shortage of workers and traders eager to complain about the state of things and from their stories, you slowly pieced together what was happening, even though you had not all that much context for the events further from the Riverlands.
On the same day as Seagard had been sacked, the same had happened to Lannisport in the Westerlands. The entire Lannister fleet had been put to the torch and there were persistent rumors that the Ironborn had tried to use some sort of sorcery to attack a keep called Casterly Rock, though ultimately had to give up these attempts. They had seized the Fair Isle since then and were raiding along the western coast of the Seven Kingdoms, all the way down to the Reach, with little to no opposition.
In the Riverlands, they had fully taken Seagard and had started portaging boats to the Blue Fork to start raiding along the rivers, which was why the traders were getting so few. They even went so far as to disguise themselves as Riverlanders to lure people into ambushes. There was also rumors that they had started to siege the Twins and attacked the town of Fairmarket.
If the stories could be trusted, they were clasping every man, woman and child they got hold of into irons and dragged them back to Seagard, though there were wild claims what happened afterwards. Most claimed they were just brought back to the Iron Isles as thralls, while a few insisted that Euron Greyjoy was performing blasphemous rites with the bodily fluids of virgins in the fields of the city.
One man, who claimed to have seen Seagard himself before escaping his captors, only spoke of some great construction project along the portage route involving cranes, prompting some other people to joke about spirit of Mad Aerys possessing the Ironborn to make him a canal after all.
All this you gathered and once you were fairly certain you had a decent idea of what could be believed, reported it to Ser Orton. The knight was first highly skeptical, not trusting 'the yapping of dock hands and fish wives', but as you kept going on, he admitted that most of what you had found out matched what he had heard from Lord Roote and the other knights he had been talking with. The story about the Ironborn constructing something he even deemed important enough to pass on to the lord.
A few days later, Ser Orton suddenly declared that today was a meat pie day, ushering you into a decent tavern and ordering pies and beer for the two of you. That was quite a break with the usually frugal meals you've had, but the knight did not elaborate on the reason. He didn't even seem in a very celebratory mood and you had rather halting conversation the whole time.
Half-way through your mug of beer, you've had enough. "What brought on the pies? Not that I'm not grateful, Ser, just surprised."
He waited a moment, his mouth working ever so slightly as if he tried to taste the words before speaking them. "Things have been moving and Lord Roote no longer requires my aid to prepare things. I will be leaving Harroway town by the morrow."
'I' he had said. Not 'we'. The beer suddenly tasted sour. "Have I not done well then?" you asked him, unable to keep the dejection out of your voice.
"Nothing of the sort," he replied at once in a somber tone. "All things considered, you'd make a fine squire, but not now. This is a war and it would be an unkindness to drag you into it."
"Leaving me here to fend for myself would not be much of a kindness either," you groused between two sips.
"You've done well for yourself," Ser Orton argued back while waving his hand at your new clothes. "You are scarcely recognizable as the scruffy boy I picked up last month. I'm sure you can find good work and do well for yourself. Far away from raiders and battlefields."
There was a brief lull in the conversation as the owner brought you your pies, though neither of you was ready to dig into them, no matter how tasty they smelled.
"Hasn't been much work lately," you replied after a while, eyes firmly on the pie. "Baring taking up Lord Rootes colors and a spear that is. It does not seem you will be able to keep me away from the fighting for long."
A deep sigh came from the knights lips, startling you to look at him. He looked hurt by your words. More sad than angry at least, but it still made you feel guilty. "I'm sorry, ser," you said after a moment, then grabbed your fork to distract yourself with the pie. It was delicious. A shame you couldn't enjoy it under better circumstances.
After a while, you heard Ser Orton dig in too and you both ate in silence for a bit until he had calmed down again. "No, there is no need to apologize. You are right. You have a bloody habit of that and it is just vexing for an old man like me."
"I thought you'd quickly lose the will to become a squire after learning that it was not as grand an adventure as the bards make it out to be," he continued while eating. "My hope was that you'd make some coin here and then decide that working for silver was better than polishing armor and learning what the sigil of House Butterwell looked like for nothing."
"Green, yellow, white waves," you replied without hesitation.
The knight laughed though. "Close enough."
Your head snapped up and you were ready to argue with him, which just make him laugh harder. You joined in with a small chuckle of your own after a bit. Bloody Butterwells and their stupid shield.
You ate a while longer in silence, the tension lesser, but far from gone. You had all but forced yourself on Ser Orton, and he had not been shy that he would have preferred to leave you somewhere safe and be on his way, yet being entirely on your own still was a daunting prospect. To say nothing about the hopes you had started to have.
"Don't misunderstand me, Arlan," he said after a while. "You'd make a fine squire. You are diligent and if you kept it up, you'd make a fine knight one day. But even if a squire is not supposed to fight, wars are messy things. Especially when fighting people like the Ironborn, who could not care less about matters of chivalry and honor."
He sighed again, though more in resignation than anything else. "It can't be helped, I suppose. At least if you stay with me, I can keep an eye on you. Lord Roote's men-at-arms would just throw you into the thick of it without a second thought."
"So, I'm your squire then? In truth?" You all but shouted, drawing a few eyes from the other guests.
"Page," Ser Orton replied firmly, "and I won't argue with you about this. During the Rebellion, they pressed squires into serving as outriders for a lack of good riders. I'll call you a squire once you can hold your own on a horse and with a lance, and not a day before."
"Page then," you agreed without hesitation.
"Once we are back at the inn, make sure everything is packed and ready for the morrow. We leave early," he ordered, before turning back to the rest of his pie.
"Where are we going?", you asked while doing the same.
The knight hesitated a bit, clicking his spoon against the dish as he thought. "I am still considering and since you are now my page, I might as well talk about it with you." He looked around a bit for eavesdroppers, then lowered his voice.
"King Robert is maddened with rage over what Baelon Greyjoy has done. Not even that he crowned himself a king, but torching two cities as a way of announcing it. Every banner in the Seven Kingdoms has been called against him and while the Reachers and the Royal Fleet are moving to the Westerlands, many of them will arrive here in the Riverlands."
"The king himself," he continued, "will gather the southern Crownlanders and some of the Stormlanders at Harrenhal, coming by boat up the Blackwater. The rest of the Crownlanders and the knights of the Vale are supposed to meet at Saltpans. Ned Stark is leading the Northmen to the Twins, though that will take a while. Lastly, Hoster Tully called the southern Riverlanders to gather at Riverrun."
"So, we are to join one of these hosts," you finished, mind racing through all the names of places and houses crammed into you over the last weeks to make sense of it. With some success. Probably. At least you understood why Ser Orton had groused that teaching this was easier with a proper map.
"Can't fight a war alone, now can we?" he joked with a smile. "While I loathe to bring it up, fighting a war is good opportunity for a knight like myself to gain riches and even titles. Plenty of plunder to be had if you are among the winners and lands to be doled out because they were seized from a traitor house or the owning line went extinct."
Ser Orton suddenly turned very serious, gesturing for you to look at his face. "Never forgot that knighthood is not about riches and titles. It is about duty and honor. We fight not for wealth and power, but for justice and the kings peace. Those who forget their oaths are often little better than the Ironborn."
You nodded solemnly. This was clearly something the old knight felt strongly about and while you certainly had both a manor and bag of gold coins in your dreams, it was probably a poor moment to admit as much.
After this, he settled back down. "The king has a reputation for being very generous, so I was thinking about joining his host. At the same time though, House Tully is far from poor and they will have fewer wandering knights flocking to their banner, so there is a better chance I can stand out from the masses. Of the host in Saltpans, I'm less sure. They will likely squabble over leadership since Lord Arryn will become regent in the kings absence, so that could go every which way."
"What is your opinion?" he finally prompted.
Where do you think you should go?
[] Harrenhal. Join the King Robert Baratheons host. (no travel risk)
[] Saltpans. Join the Valemen host. (low travel risk)
[] Riverrun. Join the host of Hoster Tully. (high medium travel risk)
AN: You left a fairly good impression on Ser Orton and the background rolls were fairly decent, so you got an early promotion from War Orphan I Drag Along to Page. You are also getting a glimpse here why going to the Twins would have been a spicy choice, as House Frey is not having a good time right now and reinforcements are far away yet.
