Royce Family and Fosterlings Before the City

[Horas]

House Royce makes its approach down the King's Road much as it did ten years before, with certain key differences. This time, they bring along their noble wards, each to be returned to their birth houses; some are reuniting with family for the first time in ten years. And where years previously the Royces travelled south with a gaggle of children, the riders are now mostly young men and women.

Lord Royce sits his horse in calm quiet, his engraved bronze cane balanced across the pommel of his saddle.

[Ser Harlan Stone]

Harlan rides in the back, his beard dotted with white. He rides beside the gifts that will be given to the new king, keeping a weather eye out for those with a light touch.

[Ser Donnel Royce]

From ahead of the column Donnel burst from the treeline and cantered his horse towards his father, reining in hard beside him. His breathing was heavy, his clothes dirty and his hair was full of leaves, hardly making him seem the Lord's son that he was. "Father! Father!" he called, "We just passed Rosby. Ty and I saw it. We're almost there!"

[Horas]

Bayard favors his youngest with a small smile. Old enough to be racing off by himself, young enough to still pursue everything with a youthful exuberance. "Then we are making good time." Though they traveled toward a somber occasion, the Lord Royce was not particularly troubled; he had not been close to the old king, who had been more of a fixture than a player in his twilight years. "Though Rosby is but a small holdfast, compared to the capital. King's Landing is a place to be experienced, for all its good and bad."

[Ser Donnel Royce]

He wrinkled his nose. "Damian says you can smell it before you see it. Is that true?"

[Ser Harlan Stone]

"The Castle could do with some work though!" Harlan called from the back "one of the easiest assaultable keeps in the kingdom, the Red Keep is. If I had my way, that place would need some serious work, why the portcullis alone deserves..." Harlan rambled on for a good while, talking of stonework, points of attack, and necessary defensible locations.

[Horas]

"It is certainly... pungent," Bayard says, his nose wrinkling slightly. "Dirty, not like the air at home. But it is very much alive; it never fails to be interesting, despite its filth. Even," Bayard waves a hand airily as his brother begins to drone on, "if it is not optimally defensible, as your Uncle is prone to telling us."

[Ser Donnel Royce]

Donnel rolled his eyes, having been subjected to many of his half-uncle's lectures on defense and defense related matters. "It's a shame Uncle Mac was trampled to death by those barnyard animals last year. He said he knew all the secret tunnels under the Red Keep like the back of his hand. They would have been a lot of fun to explore."

[Ser Harlan Stone]

"Prone? Have I said that before?" Harlan looked momentarily worried and rode up quickly to Bayards side "Bayard, I have disturbing news. I think, mayaps, we may be getting" he looked fearfully side to side "Old..." he whispers into his half-brothers ear. He pauses, then laughs raucously. "Memories first thing to go for me! But the secret tunnels! Ha! Mac was prone to lie and boast. I'm certain there are absolutely no tunnels underneath or in the Red Keep! I mean, who would even think of a thing? Those could be secret entry ways to attack from! Preposterous!"

[Horas]

"Dear gods, Harlan, I am only thirty five. I have my children to make me feel old without you adding to it." The words were sour, but the tone light; Bayard took little offense from such things. "But the tunnels are real enough. There are enough of the old accounts that reference them... escapes, assassinations. But I would be surprised if even the royals knew their full extent these days."

[Ser Harlan Stone]

Harlan waved his hands "pish posh. Simple myth. Men will not see if payed not to, and that's how these legends come about. Anyway, the structure couldn't hold up the bloody" he laughs "castle if was honeycombed with these these passages. The stone wouldn't allow it!"

[Ser Donnel Royce]

"If my father thinks they're real then they must be real." He said stubbornly, lifting his head into the air in defiance.

[Ser Harlan Stone]

"Well, I'll have to see it to believe it lad, and I've seen that castle inside out." Harlan stretched out his arms and punched the young man lightly on his shoulders "And if I see these so called "secret passages" well, I'll eat my boot'

[Horas]

"I put enough stock in them to keep private thoughts unvoiced within the Red Keep," Bayard says, "As should you. I would not be altogether surprised if their extent was exaggerated," he concedes, "But there is enough evidence to suggest some sort of passageways behind those walls."

[Marie]

Isabel Hightower, a maiden newly flowered, gazed around with wonder in her eyes. For years she had dreamed of seeing the Red Keep and now, at last, she was close to her destination. She didn't even care about the sombre occasion of the visit; she was too full of youthful high spirits. She was a pretty dark-haired girl with a body just developing the curves of womanhood. She wore a close-fitting tunic and jerkin over a skirt split to allow her to ride.

As she rode, Isabel wondered what it would be like to see the family she had not seen in years.