Lord Benton cast his gaze around the small yet serviceable dining hall of Castle Swampstone. His eyes moved slowly, resting momentarily here and there, watching and noting the presence of each man, woman, and child. To his right was the empty seat that his brother, Alec, would occupy upon his return from his latest venture. In his stead, though not in his chair, was old Tobias, the castellan and acting seneschal, whose shaggy gray hair sat in tufts above his ears but nowhere else on his head. For what it mattered, Tobias was also acting maester for House Straasa, though the rookery had lain empty many a year. No matter; the Straasa eyes and ears were keen, and intelligence was shared among most of the neighbors like a fine wine, and the skills Tobias possessed were more suited to setting a broken bone or drawing out the poison of a festering wound than dealing with birds anyhow. Tobias was enjoying a cooled, golden Arbor vintage with his lizard eggs, a rare delicacy in House Straasa.
Benton himself had lost his taste for wine years past, with the passing of Conrad. Yet, to maintain appearances, he would send Alec to bid on some cask or another of Redwyne draff here or there. Rarely would a cask be breached, however. To his left sat Lady Delayne, fair glowing with an unabashed glee, punctuated by what he knew to be relief: her youngest son had returned at long last. She raised her own glass of Arbor Gold to her lips and sipped merrily, her pretty eyes glowing at Ser Vaughan’s tale of mastering his horses at the appearance of a lizard-lion. Vaughan had become a man, and an anointed knight, during his time away. One day, soon, Benton would seek to inquire after his son’s experiences far to the south in Dorne. For now, more urgent matters were at hand.
Benton’s gaze shifted to the empty seat beside his brother’s, where his eldest living child should have been. He knew that Dayne had been humiliated on the field of battle, but could not understand his son’s absence. It disappointed Benton deeply to know that once more a significant piece of information would be missed by Dayne as he brooded. Soon enough, the lad would need to learn to put the needs of House Straasa before his own. He was certain the boy – nay! He could not think of his eldest, who was past his majority by two years now, as a mere boy any longer – that Dayne was at the books once more, and it galled him more than a little. It was time for Dayne to accept his role as heir, damn his scholaraly tendencies! After all, Benton at the least knew all too well what it meant that the morning chills did not leave his bones readily. Tucking his ire away for the time being, he turned his attention to the remaining few who had joined them for breakfast.
Down the table some few seats was Samnys the Tyrosh, who had come into the service of House Straasa in a time of quite obvious need. Still, in spite of need, Samnys had proved to be a competent and even at times valued Master-at-arms. He was staunch in his dedication, though there had been so few younglings who had really needed much weapons tutelage at Castle Swampstone. His arrival two years prior had all but caught Benton completely off his guard. That had been the doing of his brother, Ser Alec. He was a Ser, damn his hide! Mayhap it mattered naught to Alec, but it mattered to House Straasa, and Lord Benton was hard-pressed to understand the trifles around his brother’s reluctance at his title. Still, as Alec was his arms and legs, so too was he Benton’s eyes and ears in the realm, a role which his younger brother had taken on with nobility long missing from the Straasa lines.
Benton’s eyes rested on young Anton Snow, then. Nobility, Alec? Ah, but even he had had a taste of wenches over the years. Yet none of his well-distributed seed had ever come to fruition. None that had been fruit worth acknowledging, at any rate! It was but a minor point of contention between him and his beloved brother, still one that any who knew them understood to be a subject not easily breached. Straasa men were known for their intense stubbornness, after all.
His eyes turned to his present-at-table son, Vaughan. He had been well suited to the fighting that his elder brother had shown markedly little interest in when they were but children. It came as no surprise that all had fallen as it had in the practice yard just an hour gone – fair for the anointed and poorly for the would-be scholar. He was glad that his wife had remained at the castle, seeing to the preparations of the relatively elaborate breakfast that was now laid out on the table. His Lady would have grieved to see her sons at such odds with one another.
Benton was suddenly deeply grateful that their fourth child had been born a girl; only her dowry was Benton’s concern. His eyes darted to Amalinde, sitting as ever at the side of the rather odd Tabin Reed. Tabin was feeding bits of salt-cured meats to the owl perched on the back of his chair. It had been a while since the Lady Delayne had grown accustomed to the presence of a “filthy beast” at table with the folk of the house (no mind that the hounds were ever skulking between chairs, begging bits of bone or bacon.) Benton did not have the slightest illusion that it had been at Amalinde’s own ingenious pleas that had eventually swayed Lannie, in spite of all Benton’s efforts to impress her with his own worldliness and acceptance. The alliance of the Reeds was nothing to scoff at, to be sure, and yet it saddened even his rather sagacious heart to know that the likely future did not include a dashing youth with a frog spear, net, and head worn backwards for her charms. Surely, if a suitable dowry could be made for her, an even more potent alliance could be forged.
And there was the matter of Dayne’s own betrothal. Could he yet break such news to his heir, what with the recent arrival of his younger, recently anointed knight of a brother? Sometimes he envied his wife her damnable ability to be uncomplicated in the face of potential monstrosity.
“Ah, Benton,” he mused in his own head, “would that it ever mattered to anyone save your old, foolish self!”
