A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Created by: Ira Parker, George R. R. Martin
Based on: Tales of Dunk and Egg by George R. R. Martin (Season 1 adapts the first novella, “The Hedge Knight”)
Cast and characters: Peter Claffey (Ser Duncan the Tall / “Dunk”), Dexter Sol Ansell (Prince Aegon Targaryen / “Egg”), Daniel Ings (Ser Lyonel Baratheon), Shaun Thomas (Raymun Fossoway), Tanzyn Crawford (Tanselle), Danny Webb (Ser Arlan of Pennytree), Henry Ashton (Prince Daeron “The Drunken” Targaryen), Daniel Monks (Ser Manfred Dondarrion)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg) is a prequel that serves as a bridge between House of the Dragon and the original Game of Thrones series.
The series is set during an era of relative peace under Targaryen rule, following the death of the last dragons but decades before the fall of the dynasty. It follows the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, a young Targaryen prince (Aegon V) who is the brother of Maester Aemon (from Game of Thrones) and the great-great-grandfather of Daenerys Targaryen.
* * *
Season 1 – Episode 1
Episode title: The Hedge Knight
Original release date: January 18, 2026 (HBO)
Episode plot: Young knight Ser Duncan (“Dunk”) the Tall buries his dead master Ser Arlan of Pennytree, keeping his sword and three horses. After defecating outdoors, he prepares for a tourney. At an inn, he meets a bald young boy, forcibly convincing him to feed the horses. Dunk catches him playing on his horse, and finds they are both orphans; the boy asks to be his squire, but is refused. Ashford town’s steward, Plummer, directs Dunk to Ser Manfred Dondarrion, whom Arlan served, to qualify him for the tourney. Two whores say Manfred is sleeping, and make fun of Dunk as an impoverished “hedge knight”. Dunk runs into hostile apple-emblazoned Ser Steffon Fossoway and his cousin/squire Raymun. After a naked bath outdoors, Dunk re-encounters and befriends Raymun. Dunk dines and dances in wild Ser Lyonel Baratheon’s tent, wearing Baratheon’s stag crown a while, though Baratheon downplays Dunk’s tourney chances. Outside, Dunk finds Manfred, who refuses to vouch for him. Dunk encounters the boy, who calls himself Egg, and accepts him as squire, promising to treat him well. They sleep on the ground; Egg notices a shooting star, calling it good luck. Dunk asks if it is just for them.
* * *
The Small Pleasures of Being Nobody
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms strips the fantasy epic to its bones—and finds a beating heart.
The opening bars of Ramin Djawadi’s celebrated Game of Thrones theme have become, over the years, a kind of Pavlovian signal for a certain type of prestige television—the promise of palace intrigue, dragon fire, incest, and murder most foul, all served with a side of grim pseudo-medieval pageantry. So when those familiar swelling notes begin in the first moments of HBO’s new Westeros spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and are immediately cut short by a shot of a large, shambling man emptying his bowels in broad daylight, one can’t help but laugh. Whether the joke lands as a fond ribbing of franchise expectations or a more pointed commentary on what the Thrones universe ultimately became depends on your relationship to the original series. Either way, the message is unmistakable: this is something else entirely.
Peter Claffey plays Dunk, short for Duncan—or more fully, Ser Duncan the Tall, though that knighthood may be as dubious as the contents of his empty purse. When we meet him, he’s digging a grave for his mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree, a weathered old hedge knight who has died of a cold on some muddy back road of the Reach. The scene is staged with affecting simplicity: a gnarled tree, pouring rain, a hulking young man shoveling dirt and struggling to find the right words for a man who taught him everything he knows, which isn’t much. Claffey, a former rugby player standing six-foot-five, moves through the frame with the awkward grace of someone who has never quite figured out what to do with his own body, forever ducking under doorways and looming over tables where he doesn’t belong. His performance is a small marvel of physical comedy and unguarded feeling—he makes Dunk’s guilelessness seem not like stupidity but like a kind of moral luxury, the innocence of a man who has never had enough power to be corrupted by it.
The series, adapted by showrunner Ira Parker from George R.R. Martin’s 1998 novella of the same name, unfolds with a patience that borders on the meditative. The story is modest by design: Dunk wants to enter a tournament at Ashford Meadow, but he lacks the credentials to compete among the lords and heirs who have descended upon the grounds. Without a knight of recognized stature to vouch for him, he cannot join the lists. That’s it. That’s the central dramatic engine of the premiere. No dragons. No scheming for the Iron Throne. No one gets beheaded. The stakes, such as they are, concern whether a big, good-hearted nobody can convince the gatekeepers of aristocratic society to let him play their reindeer games.
And yet there is genuine tension in this narrative of low ambition, because Parker and director Owen Harris have found something more interesting than spectacle: they’ve found texture. The premiere takes its time in ways that contemporary television rarely permits, trusting the audience to find pleasure in character and detail rather than demanding constant narrative propulsion. The episode runs just forty minutes, nearly sitcom-length by streaming standards, and uses every one of them to establish a world rather than merely a plot. Ashford Meadow comes alive as a functioning medieval economy, an impromptu city of canvas and silk that springs up wherever the nobility gathers to watch men bash each other with lances. Prostitutes loiter in alleys, offering Dunk a blunt assessment of his station (“Like a knight, but sadder,” one observes of the hedge knight’s lot). A puppeteer named Tanselle, played with luminous presence by Tanzyn Crawford, stages an elaborate fire-breathing dragon show for the crowds, reciting a poem about honor and concealed truths that feels portentous without being heavy-handed. The tournament master, played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, delivers his bureaucratic verdicts while hocking phlegm into a spittoon and swatting at his unruly children. This is Westeros as lived experience rather than lore dump, and the texture is rich enough to chew.
The franchise’s usual grandeur has been replaced by something more akin to the ambling rhythm of a samurai film, or perhaps one of those Italian Westerns where the hero drifts into town with nothing but his wits and his horse. Composer Dan Romer, taking over from Djawadi, underscores the shift with a folksy, whistling score that owes more to Harold and Maude than to The Lord of the Rings. There are moments when the acoustic guitar plucking feels almost aggressively unepic, as if the production were daring the Thrones faithful to complain. But the gamble pays off. By the time Dunk finds himself awkwardly stuffing his face at a party in the tent of Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the notorious Laughing Storm, the lighter touch has earned its place.
Daniel Ings plays Lyonel with a dissolute charm that suggests George Clooney after too many flagons of Arbor gold, and his scenes with Claffey have a warmth that sneaks up on you. Lyonel is everything Dunk is not—wealthy, landed, charismatic, wearing an antlered crown like it’s a party hat—and he takes an immediate shine to the towering hedge knight who has wandered into his revelries with no invitation and half a pastry in his fist. When Dunk explains his presence with a single word (“Supper”), Lyonel roars with delight. The two spend the evening dancing and play-fighting over who can step on the other’s toes, and for a few minutes the series achieves something genuinely rare for this franchise: uncomplicated joy. Ings brings a boisterous, big-hearted energy that recalls the better Baratheons of the original series—the nickname “Laughing Storm” suits him perfectly—and his performance suggests depths the premiere only hints at. When he speaks frankly to Dunk about the unbridgeable gulf between their stations, there is sadness beneath the bonhomie. The joy, shadowed by Lyonel’s honest assessment of Dunk’s tournament chances (“You have no chance”), becomes all the more poignant for its brevity.
The other great discovery of the premiere is Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg, the bald, sharp-tongued urchin who attaches himself to Dunk against all resistance. Ansell plays the boy with a precocious self-possession that hints at hidden depths—his posh accent and brash manner stand in deliberate contrast to Dunk’s lower-class Irish vowels—and their dynamic crackles with the energy of a seasoned comedy duo. When Egg critiques Dunk’s armor (“Your belt is made of rope!”), Dunk threatens him with “a clout in the ear,” a phrase borrowed from his dead master. But the threat is empty, and we know it. A montage early in the episode shows us the repeated beatings Dunk endured from Ser Arlan, and Claffey’s performance makes clear that this is a cycle of violence Dunk has no intention of continuing. He may not be able to articulate why he refuses to strike the child, but the refusal speaks for itself.
This attention to moral texture is what elevates A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms above mere franchise content. The series takes seriously the question of what it means to be decent in a world designed to punish decency. When Dunk visits Ser Manfred Dondarrion, the dissolute lord whose father once employed Ser Arlan, hoping for the vouching that will save his tournament dreams, he is met with aristocratic contempt. Dondarrion has never heard of Arlan and doesn’t care to remember the common men who bled in his family’s service. “Be gone,” he says, and Dunk goes. Later, alone in his makeshift camp—no tent, no silk, just grass and stars—Dunk and Egg watch a shooting star cross the sky. The knights in their pavilions won’t have seen it, Egg points out. They’re staring at their ceilings. “So the luck is ours alone?” Dunk asks, and there is something almost holy in his wonder.
The premiere’s final image, of master and squire asleep under the open sky, is modest in every way that the Thrones franchise has trained us not to expect. No cliffhanger. No shocking death. Just two people who have found each other in a hard world, choosing to believe that a falling star might mean something. After years of prestige television convinced that bigger is better, that every season must raise the stakes until civilization itself hangs in the balance, there is genuine relief in a story that understands the radical appeal of smallness. Dunk just wants to be a knight, and not the sad kind. Egg just wants to see the world. These are not ambitions that will reshape the realm, but they are the ambitions that make a life worth living, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms seems to know the difference. The series may yet stumble—there are five episodes remaining in this first season, adapted from Martin’s slender source material, and many opportunities for the usual pitfalls—but for forty minutes, at least, it remembered why we tell stories about ordinary people doing their best. The luck, for now, is ours.
* * *
Transcript
Note for Students & Writers: This transcript is archived here for educational purposes, critical analysis, and screenwriting study. All rights belong to the original creators.
[rain falling]
[horse neighing]
[Dunk grunting]
[distant thunder rumbling]
[Dunk] [whispering] Hey.
[horse nickering]
[grunting]
[thunder rumbling]
[horse neighing]
[grunting]
[sighs]
[Dunk] I don’t know the right words. Ought to be a septon here. You were a true knight. You never beat me when I didn’t deserve it.
[shouting]
[Dunk] Fuck.
[grunting]
[Dunk] Except that time in Maidenpool.
[thunder rumbling]
[Dunk] It was the inn boy ate the widow woman’s pie. Not me. I told you.
[rooster crowing]
Why, you…
[grunting]
[Dunk] [sniffing] Doesn’t matter now.
[thunder rumbling]
[exhales sharply]
[Dunk] I’d leave your sword, but it… it would only rust in the ground. [sniffing] [sobbing] I wish you didn’t die, ser. [whimpering] I’ll take good care of the horses.
[distant sheep bleating]
[horse nickering]
[birdsong]
[Dunk] Eat like a king if I sold you three.
[horse neighing]
[Dunk] For a year or two. Then what?
[horse neighing]
[Dunk] That road ends in outlawry or beggary.
[wind whistling]
[Dunk] We could go to a city.
[horse nickering]
[Dunk] King’s Landing? Lannisport?
[horse huffing]
[Dunk] Could join the City Watch.
[horses snorting, nickering]
[Dunk] Stop raping, ser.
[horse neighing]
[Dunk] Fits my grip as well as it ever fit his.
[wind intensifying]
[Dunk] And there is a tourney at Ashford Meadow.
[♪ dramatic theme playing]
[wet splatting]
[relieving sighs]
[continues sighing]
[bird chirping]
[chirping continues]
[grunting]
[♪ melancholy music playing]
[horse nickering]
[dog barking]
[crows cawing]
[Dunk] Hello there. Are you the stableboy? I want the palfrey rubbed down. And oats for all three. You tend to them?
[Egg] I could, if I wanted.
[Dunk] None of that. See to the horses. You’ll get a copper if you do well, and a clout in the ear if not.
[liquid bubbling]
[door opens]
[pots clanging]
[innkeeper] Sit where you like.
[pots continue clanging]
[innkeeper] There’s good lamb roasted with a crust of herbs and some ducks my son shot down. Which will you have?
[Dunk] Both.
[innkeeper] [laughing] You’re big enough for it.
[chair scraping]
[clears throat]
[Dunk] How much farther to Ashford?
[innkeeper] Day’s ride. Is my boy seeing to your horses or has he run off again?
[Dunk] [sniffing] No, he’s there.
[innkeeper] Half the town’s gone down the tourney. Mine would, too, if I allowed it. [chuckles] I swear, I couldn’t tell you why. Knights are built the same as other men. And I never knew a joust to change the price of eggs. Bound for the tourney yourself?
[guest] I dreamed of you. Stay the fuck away from me. You hear?
[Dunk] My lord?
[blows forcefully]
[heavy footfall]
[stairs creaking]
[coins jingling]
[innkeeper] Never you mind that one, ser. I’ll see about your food.
[door closes]
[dog barking]
[horse whinnying]
[Egg] Hiya! Take that! Yah!
[horse neighing]
[vocalizing]
[Dunk] Oi!
[Egg] [gasps] My lord.
[Dunk] You thief!
[Egg] I… I did not mean to offend you.
[Dunk] Take that armor off you. Now! And be glad Thunder didn’t kick you in that fool head of yours. He’s a war horse, not a boy’s pony.
[Egg] I could ride him as well as you.
[horse huffing]
[Dunk] Close your insolent mouth. I… I’m a knight, I’ll have you know.
[Egg] You don’t look to be a knight.
[Dunk] What, all knights look the same, do they?
[Egg] No. But they don’t look like you either. Your belt’s made of rope.
[Dunk] So long as it holds my scabbard, it serves.
[Egg] Are you going to the tourney, then? Do you mean to enter the lists?
[Dunk] Yeah, I suppose I do.
[Egg] Take me with you, ser. Please.
[Dunk] And what might your mother say to that?
[Egg] Not much. She’s dead.
[Dunk] [scoffs] Is the innkeeper not your… You’re an orphan boy.
[Egg] Are you?
[Dunk] I was. Once. Till my ser took me in. Taught me arms and riding, and… and taught me everything, really. [chuckles softly] Best he could.
[horse nickering]
[Egg] If you could bring me to Ashford, I could squire for you, ser.
[Dunk] [sighs]
[Egg] And you can teach me best you can.
[Dunk] No, I have no need for a squire, lad.
[Egg] Every knight needs a squire. And you look like you need one more than most.
[Dunk] And you look like you need a good clout in the ear. Fill me a sack of oats. I’m off for Ashford. Alone. Look, lad, I promise you… you’re better off not squiring for the likes of me. For your help.
[coin pings]
[dog barking in distance]
[Dunk] [scoffs] Sulk all you wish. I know you’ll scoop it up as soon as I’m gone.
[horse nickering]
[♪ soft music playing]
[horse neighing]
[people chattering in distance]
[♪ inspiring music playing]
[people chattering]
♪
[Dunk] Sorry.
[soldier speaking indistinctly]
[woman] Piss off!
[soldiers laughing]
[Dunk] Beg pardon, men. I wish to speak to the master of the games.
[children grunting]
[head thuds]
[Dunk] Oh!
[children continue playing]
[Plummer] What do you want, man?
[child] Got you again!
[Dunk] I, uh, came for the tourney.
[Plummer] My lord’s tourney is a contest for knights. You a knight?
[girl] Hyah!
[Plummer] Oi! Psst! A knight with a name, mayhaps?
[Dunk] Uh, Dunk. Ser Dunk. I… I was squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree since I was a boy. He knighted me before he passed, with his own sword. That’s his penny there in the hilt.
[Plummer] Well, a sword it is for a certainty. But I’ve never heard of this Arlan of Pennytree. You were his squire, you say?
[Dunk] He always meant for me to be a knight one day… as he was.
[young Dunk] Am I to be a knight one day, ser? As you are?
[sheep bleating]
[spitting]
[Dunk] When he was dying, he called for his longsword and bade me kneel. Charged me to be a good knight.
[insect buzzing]
[Dunk] To defend the weak and the innocent. Serve the realm with all my might. And I swore that I would.
[Plummer] [snorting, hocking loudly] [spitting] Any knight can make a knight, it’s true. Were there witnesses to your dubbing?
[Dunk] Only a robin in a thorn tree. [chuckles]
[Plummer] This is Ashford town, lad. Know what comes to men here who pretend at sacred oaths?
[Dunk] I’m… I’m not…
[Plummer] We hang you naked by your hands and your feet… lower you down asshole first onto a sharpened point and fuck you dry. Call it the Ashford chair. So, I ask you again. Were there witnesses to your dubbing besides a fuckin’ songbird?
[Dunk] Well, the… see, it was raining. Uh…
[Plummer] I’m bullshitting you. [laughing]
[Dunk] [chuckles nervously]
[Plummer] “Ashford chair.” You take a boot to the head? This is the Reach, not the Riverlands.
[Dunk] “Ashford chair.” [chuckles]
[Plummer] Think we’re fending off some scourge of cottagers, scuttling about, entering tourneys? [snorting, hocking loudly] You’d need coin. [spitting] Armor. Horses. Men. Training, gods be good. Imagine the poor farmer charging down Lyonel Baratheon in the lists.
[Dunk] Mm, that would be…
[Plummer] A different sort of entertainment.
[Dunk] Mm. Well, I’m no farmer.
[Plummer] Yet you’ve come dressed as one. Look, man, my Lord Ashford fancies himself of great import. Gods know why. Well, that means I’m to ward off every landed knight and sellsword vying to challenge. You understand? There are princes about.
[Dunk] No, of course.
[swords clanging in distance]
[Plummer] Your late master. He’ll be known to the true knights here assembled?
[Dunk] There was a pavilion flying the banner of House Dondarrion.
[Plummer] Aye, Ser Manfred of that house.
[Dunk] Ser Arlan served his lord father in Dorne a few years past. Ser Manfred will remember us.
[Plummer] By scent alone, no doubt. If he’ll speak to your good honor, bring him here with you before the tourney begins on the morrow. Leave your escorts behind.
[insects buzzing]
[Dunk] As you say.
[Plummer] Aye. You are aware that those vanquished in tourney forfeit their arms, armor, and horse to the victors, and must ransom them back?
[Dunk] Aye.
[Plummer] And you have coin to pay such ransom?
[Dunk] Oh, gods, no. I… I mean, I won’t have need of coin.
[thud]
[Dunk] [groaning] Seven fu…
[horse neighing]
[♪ fiddle playing faintly]
[people chattering]
[chatter and laughter]
[Dunk] Mind those two. Good girl.
[horse nickering]
[chatter, laughter continue]
[Dunk] Uh, pardon, sers. I… I need speak with Ser Manfred.
[lordling]
[belching]
Good.
He’s napping, ser. Wake him for a stag.
[Dunk] I, uh… [clearing throat] I don’t… I don’t have a stag.
What kind of knight don’t got a stag?
[Red] It’s a hedge knight, ain’t it?
What?
[Red] It’s like a knight, but sadder.
[Dunk] No, I’m… I’m not sad…
[Red] He’s gotta sleep in the hedges ’cause no lord’ll have it.
Aw. That is sad. And Ser Manfred’s fucked its wife, too.
[Dunk] No, I… I don’t have a wife.
Oh! ‘Cause we’re used to husbands coming ’round.
[Red] Likes fucking wives, that one.
Near as much as he likes fucking us.
[Red] Told me he’s on a mission to turn the whole world red.
Well, we’re already red.
[Red] So we are.
[both laughing]
[Dunk] Well, um, when do you expect Ser Manfred to wake, then?
[Red] It might wanna try back at evenfall.
[Dunk] Evenfall.
[Red] Goodbye.
[Dunk] Yeah. [clearing throat] Arse.
[girls laughing]
[knights shouting]
[horse nickering]
[Dunk] Why’d she say that, huh? We’re not sad.
[horse neighing]
[Dunk] Certainly not rising-to-the-level-of-a-comment sad.
[horse nickering]
[Dunk] Besides, Ser Arlan always said that… a hedge knight was the truest kind of knight. When we win our first tilt, we’ll have the loser’s armor and horse, or his gold.
[horse nickering]
[knights shouting]
[Dunk] Won’t be sad then.
[grunting]
[horse neighing]
[Dunk] I know. Said if we did win. Look, it’s not a crime against the king to enjoy a nice thought for a trice.
[grunting]
[horse neighing]
[Ser Steffon Fossoway] Do not muck about with me, Raymun.
[Raymun Fossoway groaning]
[Steffon] You’re a good-for-nothing useless rat.
[grunting]
[Steffon] What are you gawping at, you blue-eyed cunt? That’s a longsword you wear?
[Dunk] Uh, yes, it is mine by right.
[Steffon] That’s an odd thing to say. I’m Ser Steffon Fossoway. Come try me. As you see, me cousin here is not ripe yet.
[Raymun] Do it, ser. I may not be ripe, but my cousin’s rotten to the core. Knock the seeds out of him.
[Steffon] Quiet!
[Dunk] I… I thank you, but I have matters to attend.
[Steffon] What, matters of the hedge, I have no doubt. [laughing] Fucking size of ya. Stupid bastard. Ser Grance!
[Dunk] Perhaps we should seek quieter accommodations.
[horse grunting]
[♪ joyful whistling music playing]
[insect buzzing]
[insects continue buzzing]
♪
[horses nickering]
[Dunk] [sniffing] Oh. Fuck.
[grunting]
[sniffing]
[people chattering]
[Red] He’s napping still.
[Dunk] Still?
[Red] Mm. On account of his gouty toes. One of life’s absurd little miseries, to be sure.
[Dunk sighs]
[Red] Makes for restless nights. The poor dear.
[Dunk] Right, absolutely. It’s just… [sighs] Well, it is of some urgency that I speak with him, so I may enter the lists on the morrow.
[Beony] What’s this?
[Red] It means the joust.
[Beony] Awful dangerous, that.
[Dunk] Yes, well, um…
[water pouring]
[Dunk] I’m not troubled with a wealth of options, am I? And if I mean to take service in a castle…
[Red] It must put its body at hazard for the pleasure of strangers.
[Daisy] Ain’t that our job?
[Beony] [gasps] Ah! Shut up! You’re meant to be dead.
[sighs]
[Beony] Find a safer trade, lad. You’ll be happier for it.
[Red] One whore to another.
[both laughing]
[Dunk] Must you mock me? I was only asking for a bit of help. I’ll try Ser Manfred back in the morning.
[Red] Sorry, lad.
[Beony] Aye. We don’t mean to mock you.
[Red] We see plenty of green boys every tourney.
[Beony] Mm. All with glory in their minds, but never in their hands.
[Dunk] Well, perhaps I will be different.
[Red] Be good to your body, knight. Last one you’re like to have.
[♪ lively strings playing]
[people chattering]
[Tanselle] Our brave hero forges on, leaving all he knows behind. A father and a friend, may seem the world unkind.
[distant cheering and applause]
[Tanselle] Fate has set his lonely path through corridors of chance. A boy from nothing risks it all, ignoring looks askance. Perhaps he’s only stupid…
[actor whooshing]
[Tanselle] …holding fast his mirror shield. Great honor his ambition, must keep a truth concealed. For if his humble shape is bared, a foul and fiery demise. Should the dragon discover none but a man in great disguise.
[dragon screeching]
[audience gasping]
[cheering and applause]
[cheering and applause continue]
[people chattering]
[fire whooshing]
[people cheering]
[Raymun] Halfman! Halfman!
[Dunk] Do I look like a half man to you?
[Raymun] Aye. Half man, half giant. Look, I’m sorry. I should not have urged you to try my cousin. He’d have broken your hand or a knee, if he could. He likes to batter men in the yard, you know, in case he meets them in the lists.
[Dunk] He did not break you.
[Raymun] [scoffs] I’m his blood. Though he is the senior branch of the apple tree, which he never ceases to remind me.
[Dunk] Will you and your cousin ride in the tourney?
[Raymun] He will. I would that I could, but I’m only a squire.
[Dunk] Fight well for a squire.
[Raymun] You have the look of a challenger. Whose shield do you mean to strike?
[Dunk] Makes no difference.
[Raymun] [laughing] That’s what you’re supposed to say.
[Dunk] Though it makes all the difference in the world.
[Raymun] [chuckles] You hungry?
[Dunk] Always.
[♪ mysterious, percussive music playing]
[people chattering]
[knights shouting indistinctly]
[music and chatter continue]
[knight laughing]
[Raymun] Lyonel Baratheon. The Laughing Storm, they call him.
[Dunk] I thought he’d be bigger.
[Lyonel] Four thousand years ago… Four thousand years…
[Dunk] Where are you going?
[Lyonel] …ago… cunts. I can’t hear myself. I’ve had a profound thought, if anyone would care to listen.
[room quiets]
[table banging]
[Lyonel Four thousand years ago, our ancestors gathered in that… [clearing throat] …big field outside to blood each other with sticks and have a little bit of gay fun. And they say it was this country’s first-ever joust. Well, I say… Uh, the fuck was I gonna say? [muttering] “First-ever joust…” Ah. Men could not have devised such a joy. So, who was it?
[sipping loudly]
[Lyonel] Huh? Who was it?
[person coughing]
[Lyonel Mm. [laughing] [sighs] Fuck it. A hundred gold to the man, beast, or god who sticks me best.
[all cheering]
[mugs pounding]
[Lyonel Now, eat your birds so we can dance!
[drums beating]
[guests chattering]
[♪ string music playing]
[guests shouting, cheering]
[music and shouting continue]
[clapping in rhythm]
[mouthing silently]
[music and clapping continue]
[Lyonel] [sighs] You ever been punched in the face before?
[Dunk] I beg… I beg your pardon, Ser Lyonel?
[Lyonel Big men get punched more than little men. Did you know that?
[Dunk] No, but… but I believe it.
[Lyonel That why you slouch? So you don’t get punched?
[Dunk] I… I don’t slouch.
[Lyonel Oh, you’ve been cowering all evening like a maiden on her wedding night. [chuckles]
[Dunk] I… I meant no disrespect, ser, honest. Where I grew up, you… you learn to go unnoticed, is all.
[Lyonel The seven above gave you tallness. So, be tall. Or I will name you a heretic and burn you. Drown you. Drop you off a tall pl… I don’t know. W-What do they do to heretics?
Burn them, my lord.
[Lyonel Fine.
[blade clatters]
[Lyonel What have you brought me?
[Dunk] Um… Uh, ser, I… [clearing throat] beggin’ your pardons. I… I didn’t realize.
[Lyonel You wish to curry my favor some. Yet you come with an empty hand. Lord Cafferen, the smug cunt in red…
[cheering, laughter]
[Lyonel …he is scarce to pay his rents. His people starve each winter, yet even he shinied up this… bauble from his family’s cellars, for he understands that all men, in their way, wish only for your help, or your head. You’ve come for my head, then.
[Dunk] W-What? No! No.
[Lyonel Then, why the fuck are you in my tent?
[Dunk] S-Supper.
[Lyonel laughing]
[laughter]
[Lyonel [chuckles] Alright. Actually makes sense.
[Dunk] Supper.
[Lyonel What is your name, man?
[Dunk] Dunk… Ser Dunk.
[Lyonel That’s ridiculous. [clearing throat] Do you like dancing?
[guests stomping rhythmically]
[Dunk] Doesn’t everyone?
[♪ upbeat music playing]
[chanting] Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
[chanting and music continue]
[Lyonel [exclaiming]
[stomping]
[Dunk grunting]
[shouting]
[guests cheering]
[♪ music continues playing]
[Lyonel laughing]
[Lyonel cheering and exclaiming]
[music ends abruptly]
[Lyonel The swells heaved. You could lick salt from the air. But I’d come to find what men do when they die at sea. So, drove I on into the storm. [laughing]
[Dunk] Weren’t you afraid?
[Lyonel Ahh. Within every man, there are many men. Mm. But that I had to do, Stormlanders had always done. And if they had done it, I could do it, too. Hm. You know, it’s best not to agonize.
[Dunk] Yeah, I… I agonize a lot.
[Lyonel] Mm.
[Dunk] Sometimes, I… I think I agonize too much, and I just end up agonizing over that. [chuckles]
[Lyonel] Mm.
[Dunk] And I’m quick and strong, sure.
[Lyonel] Sure.
[Dunk] But so are you.
[Lyonel] Sure.
[Dunk] Plus, you’ve trained sword and lance with the finest masters-at-arms in the realm. I mean… what chance do I have? Truly?
[Lyonel] Oh, you have no chance. [chuckles]
[Dunk sighs]
[Lyonel] But it’s a great honor to test oneself against a worthy foe.
[Dunk] No disrespect, ser.
[Lyonel] Mm.
[Dunk] That’s easy for you to say. You have a name, an inheritance. One loss, and I won’t be able to ransom back my own horse.
[Lyonel laughing]
[Dunk chuckles softly]
[both laughing]
[Lyonel] A knight without a horse is no knight at all.
[Dunk] Aye.
[Lyonel] Mm.
[mug scraping]
[Lyonel sipping loudly]
[Dunk] So, what should I do?
[Lyonel] I don’t know. I’m really quite drunk.
[Lyonel] [stomping, grunting] Okay. Thanks. [sighs]
[Dunk] [hiccuping] Sorry.
[Dunk sniffing] [sighs]
[guests chattering, laughing]
[Dunk coughs]
[couple laughing]
[Manfred Dondarrion chuckling]
[companions giggling]
[all giggling]
[Dunk] Ser Arlan of Pennytree. He… he served your Lord Father to hunt the Vulture King in the Red Mountains. I… I was only a boy, but…
I thought you said you were a Dornishman.
[Red] No, he said he’s hung like a Dornishman.
[Manfred] No, I said I’ve hung Dornishmen.
[Dunk] Perhaps we would speak on the morn.
[Manfred] I know your penny knight not. Nor you, brother. Be gone.
[chuckles]
[Dunk] But Ser Arlan took a wound in your father’s service. How could you have forgotten him?
[soldiers shouting]
[swords clanging]
[flesh squelching]
[screaming]
[Manfred] My lord father took 800 swords into those mountains. We’ve forgotten men who reaped much more than a wound.
[Dunk] Please, ser, I… I will not be allowed to challenge unless a knight or a lord will vouch for me.
[Manfred] And what is that to me?
[chuckling]
[insects chirring]
[cheering in distance]
[Dunk] You! What…
[horse nickering]
[Dunk] What are you doing?
[Egg] Cooking a fish. Do you want some?
[Dunk] No. I mean, how did you get here? Did you steal a horse?
[Egg] I rode in the back of a lamb cart.
[Dunk] [scoffs] Lamb cart. Well, you best find another one.
[Egg] You can’t make me go. I’d had enough of that inn.
[Dunk] Now, listen, I’ll have no more insolence from you, boy. I should throw you over my horse and take you home.
[Egg] You’d need to ride all the way to King’s Landing. You’d miss the tourney.
[Dunk] King’s Landing? You’re from Flea Bottom?
[Egg] No.
[Dunk] Aye. What are those doing there?
[Egg] I washed them. I made the fire, caught the fish, and groomed the horses. I would have raised your pavilion, but I couldn’t find one.
[Dunk] There’s my pavilion.
[Egg] That’s a tree.
[Dunk] Yes, and it’s all the pavilion a true knight needs. I’d sooner sleep under the stars than in some smoky tent.
[Egg] What if it rains?
[Dunk] The tree will shelter me.
[Egg] Trees leak.
[Dunk] [scoffs] So they do.
[Egg] What’s your name?
[Dunk] Dunk.
[Egg] Ser Dunk. That’s no name for a knight. Is it short for Duncan?
[Dunk] Yeah. [clearing throat] Yes. Uh, Ser Duncan of… [inhales sharply] Ser Duncan the Tall.
[Egg] Never heard of him.
[Dunk] Do you know every knight in the Seven Kingdoms, then?
[Egg] The good ones.
[Dunk] [scoffs] You got a name, thief?
[Egg] Egg.
[Dunk] Egg. Well, Egg, by rights, I should beat you bloody, send you on your way. But you look as though you don’t eat much. [sighs] And if you’ll swear to do as you’re told… I’ll let you serve me for the tourney. After that, well… we’ll see. I don’t have much, but if you prove worth your keep… you’ll have clothes on your back and food in your belly. The clothes might be rough-spun and the food, salt beef and salt fish, but you won’t go hungry. I promise not to beat you. Except when you deserve it.
[Egg] Yes, my lord.
[Dunk] “Ser.” I’m only a hedge knight.
[fire crackling]
[insects chirring]
[Egg] [sighs] A falling star brings luck to those who see it.
[Dunk] Go to sleep, boy.
[Egg] All the other knights are in their pavilions by now, staring up at silk instead of sky.
[Dunk] Do you want a clout in the ear? S-So, the luck is ours alone?
[♪ gentle music playing]
♪
