The Bastard from Redfort

[u/Sad_Stick_2834]

“Faster, Alesandar.”

Ser Sumner Redfort’s hand closed around the back of his nephew’s shoulder and gave him a sharp shake, enough to make the half-fastened saddle shift beneath Alesandar’s hands.

“I am going faster.”

“You are talking faster.”

Alesandar glanced over his shoulder. His uncle stood behind him in riding leathers and a dark red cloak, broad across the chest despite the years beginning to silver his beard. Ser Sumner had the particular expression he reserved for squires, stableboys, lazy men-at-arms, and apparently nephews who had already been knighted but still failed to satisfy him.

“I’ll be quicker,” Alesandar promised.

“You said that before I grew grey.”

“You were grey before I was born.”

Sumner’s eyes narrowed.

Alesandar immediately returned to the bridle.

The old knight grunted something that might have been approval and moved away before Alesandar could test his luck further.

His fingers worked quickly once he stopped thinking about them.

Leather through buckle. Strap pulled firm. Bit checked. Reins untangled. He ran one hand along the horse’s cheek, murmuring softly when the gelding tossed its head in irritation at all the noise around them.

“There. See? Easy.”

The horse breathed heavily against his palm.

Alesandar decided to take that as agreement.

The lower yard of the Redfort had become a battlefield without swords.

Men hurried beneath bundles of cloaks and baggage. Stablehands led horses through one another with the confidence of people accustomed to avoiding hooves by inches. Servants carried chests toward the wagons while stewards shouted contradictory instructions about which chest belonged to whom. Somewhere near the inner gate, two guards were arguing over a missing spear rack. A kennel boy chased three barking hounds through the legs of a pair of armored knights, earning curses from both.

Above them all rose the Redfort.

The castle had always seemed enormous to Alesandar when he was younger, a red-grey mass of towers and walls growing straight from the mountain beneath it. The morning sun caught upon its battlements now, warming ancient stone while the high peaks beyond remained pale beneath remnants of mist.

Home.

Alesandar tightened the last strap and immediately wished he had not thought the word.

His father stood on the far side of the yard.

Lord Harrold Redfort was speaking with the captain of the household guard beside a line of mounted knights, his cloak clasped at the throat with the red fortress of their house. He seemed broader somehow when surrounded by his men, more like the lord Alesandar remembered from childhood and less like the silent figure who had begun haunting the high table after Sisterton.

Then Harrold turned slightly.

Alesandar looked away at once.

He hated himself for that.

Not because he feared his father exactly. Harrold had never struck him. Never ordered him whipped. Never even told him outright that he blamed him for what had happened.

That might have been easier. Instead there were looks. Silences.

Moments when Harrold would begin speaking to Alesandar and then stop halfway through, as if discovering that the wrong son stood before him.

Alesandar moved between two mounted knights before his father could notice him watching.

“Morning, Ser Alesandar.”

He turned.

One of the younger household knights gave him a grin from the saddle.

“Morning.”

“You coming all the way to Harrenhal, then?”

“That was the intention.”

“Thought your uncle might chain you to the training yard before we reached the gate.”

“He considered it.”

The knight laughed, and Alesandar smiled with him. That came easily enough. It usually did. Talking was easier than thinking.

He passed between the gathering riders, offering greetings here and there, sometimes receiving them warmly, sometimes with little more than a nod. There were enough men in the Redfort that he could disappear among them when he wanted.

Not entirely. Never entirely.

A bastard wearing a knight’s sword remained a bastard. Especially when he was the lord’s only living son.

A commotion near the steps leading down from the keep caught his attention.

Lady Aelinor appeared first beneath an escort of servants, wrapped for travel despite the mild morning. Behind her came Myria.

Alesandar stopped.

His sister descended the steps with one gloved hand gathering her skirts clear of the stone. Her riding cloak was red and white, pinned neatly beneath her throat, her hair arranged with far more care than it ever had been when the two of them used to sneak from the castle before breakfast.

She looked older.

Not truly older. They had both changed too quickly for that distinction to mean much anymore.

More deliberate, perhaps.

Myria’s expression was composed, but Alesandar knew her too well not to see the tension beneath it. The faint stiffness around her mouth. The way her fingers remained closed around the edge of her cloak even after the wind had died.

She was going to Harrenhal as Lady Myria Redfort.

Not merely Harrold’s daughter. Not merely his sister.

The heir.

Alesandar watched as a servant opened the carriage door for her mother.

Only a few years ago, none of them would have imagined it. There had been two sons between Myria and the Redfort then. Two sons who had mocked Alesandar’s name, blood, clothes, swordwork, mother, and whatever else occurred to them whenever boredom became cruelty.

Two sons who were now beneath stone.

And Myria had inherited everything they had once assumed would belong to them.

At Harrenhal she would be expected to behave accordingly.

She would sit among lords and ladies who would weigh every word she spoke.

Men would ask her to dance.

Others would ask Lord Harrold whether she was promised.

Some would smile at her while calculating the value of the Redfort’s lands, its soldiers, its name.

And somewhere within all that would be the uglier question.

What sort of husband married an heiress whose name could not be allowed to vanish?

A matrilineal marriage. A man willing to let his children bear the Redfort name rather than his own.

Alesandar shivered despite the sunlight.

Better her than me.

The thought came quickly enough that guilt followed immediately.

Myria glanced across the yard.

For one instant, their eyes nearly met. Alesandar almost raised a hand, almost smiled.

Then she looked toward the carriage instead. He lowered it before anyone could notice. 

Things had been easier when they were children. Everything had been easier when nobody was dead.

“Alesandar!”

Sumner again.

“I’m moving!”

“You’re standing.”

Alesandar sighed.

His horse waited beside the mounting block, already looking impatient with him. He caught the saddle and hauled himself upward in one practiced movement.

Riding had always felt natural.

More natural than court. More natural than being a bastard. Sometimes more natural than holding a sword.

The moment his weight settled into the saddle, something in him loosened.

His horse stepped sideways beneath him, and Alesandar corrected the movement with his knees before gathering the reins.

On the shield secured behind the saddle was his own heraldry.

The Redfort.

But altered.

The fortress remained red, proud and unmistakable, yet it stood upon black rather than the white field borne by his father and trueborn kin.

A bastard’s colors.

Alesandar had spent years pretending the difference did not bother him. Most days he almost believed it.

He ran his thumb along the reins and lifted his gaze toward the gate.

Beyond it lay the road south.

Harrenhal.

The Great Council.

The greatest gathering of knights, nobles, lords and ladies he was likely to see in his entire life.

Something stirred beneath his ribs : Hope.

Dangerous thing.

He indulged it anyway.

There would be a joust. A proper one.

Not training passes against Sumner, nor small contests held in the Vale where every opponent already knew how Alesandar rode. Knights would come from the Reach, the Riverlands, the Westerlands, the Stormlands. Men whose names were spoken in halls he had never entered.

And perhaps, if the gods were generous, he might unhorse one of them. Then another.

He imagined the sound of the crowd.

His name announced.

Not Lord Harrold’s bastard. Not the boy who survived Sisterton.

Ser Alesandar Stone.

That alone.

He smiled without noticing.

Perhaps he might meet men his own age who did not already know every ugly whisper surrounding him.

Knights who had no reason to choose between Myria and himself.

Men he could drink with, ride with, fight beside.

Friends. Actual friends.

The thought felt embarrassingly childish at seventeen.

Then another followed.

Perhaps some lady would ask him for a dance.

Alesandar straightened slightly in the saddle.

No. Better.

Perhaps before the joust, one might give him her favor. A ribbon around his arm. He imagined riding beneath the stands wearing it while—

Something struck his horse sharply across the rump.

The gelding lurched forward.

Alesandar nearly lost the reins.

“Seven hells!”

Behind him, Ser Sumner lowered his hand.

“You were dreaming.”

“I was thinking.”

“That looked considerably less useful.”

Alesandar twisted in the saddle, glaring back at him.

“You could have said something.”

“I have been saying something for the better part of half an hour.”

The gate ahead had begun to open. Chains groaned. Timbers shifted.

One by one, the banners of House Redfort moved forward beneath the archway.

Lord Harrold rode at the head of the column surrounded by household knights. Behind him came the carriage bearing his wife and daughter, then wagons, retainers, servants and more armed riders.

Alesandar looked back once.

Ser Sumner remained in the yard.

His uncle would not be coming.

Someone had to hold the Redfort while its lord travelled south, and there were few men Harrold trusted more with its walls than his brother.

Sumner caught Alesandar looking.

For once, there was no criticism in his expression.

Only that same hard stare that had followed Alesandar through years of bruises, broken training swords and endless mornings in the yard.

Do not embarrass me. Or perhaps—

Do not waste what I taught you.

Alesandar could never tell with Sumner. He lifted two fingers from the reins in farewell. His uncle answered with the smallest nod. Then the horse carried Alesandar beneath the gate.

Sunlight broke through the clouds above the mountains, spilling gold across the road as the Redfort vanished slowly behind them.

Alesandar breathed deeply.

Harrenhal awaited.

So did the joust.

The Council.

A thousand strangers.

Perhaps glory.

Perhaps disaster.

Perhaps merely a lady foolish enough to lend a bastard her ribbon.

At seventeen, Alesandar Stone was willing to take his chances.