Book Review: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

 

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a book which compiles the 3 novella stories written by George R.R Martin that were released between 1998, 2003 and 2010 respectfully.  The three stories center around the adventures of a travelling hedge knight by the name of Ser Duncan and his bald-headed squire boy; Egg.  For the more astute fans of the world of Westeros, many will know the legend of Ser Duncan the Tall, the legendary member of the Kingsguard during the reign of Aegon Targaryen V who established a legacy which is still talked about well into the events of A Song of Ice and Fire.  These stories showcase the early roots of Ser Duncan on his journey as he gets into a collection of trials which require him to act with all the skills and knowledge at his disposal.

The first story, titled The Hedge Knight follows a young Dunk as he sets forth for the town of Ashford to take part in a tourney which he hopes will make him famous.  Along his way to the tourney, Dunk meets and begrudgingly inherits a young squire in the form of a bald-headed child by the name of Egg.  Unbeknownst to Dunk, Egg is no mere child, as he is in fact the Aegon Targaryen, son of King Maekar Targaryen.  After an unfortunate scuffle with Aerion Targaryen, Dunk is sentenced to trial by combat for the crime of assaulting a prince and is forced to a trial of seven.  Forced to recruit willing knights to fight alongside him, Dunk must fight for his very life against Prince Aerion and his allies if he is to walk away from the tourney with his head still intact.

As an introduction to the characters the series centers round, The Hedge Knight does a grand job showcasing the depth of both Duncan’s and Egg’s character by taking things gradually before turning the stakes up.  The setting and plot are well constructed too, as Martin does a good job balancing exposition with pacing the plot out consistently.  I did find it a bit hard to keep track of all the pivotal characters in this story, as the tourney is vast and there’s a lot of knights and lords named throughout the course of it. The ones that count though I was easily able to remember and it was fun to transition from the early world building into intricate and bloody combat encounters Dunk is placed in.

The second story, titled The Sworn Sword follows Dunk (Now known as Ser Duncan) and Egg as they pledge service to a lord in the Reach. Ser Eustace is a proud lord whose family history is tied behind the dark and bloody events of the Blackfyre Rebellion.  On a standard patrol, Ser Duncan and another sworn knight Ser Bennis the Brown discover a dam which has been erected that has stopped all water travelling down steam within the lands of Ser Eustace.  Discovering the dam is the work of a Lady Rohanne Webber of Coldmoat, Ser Duncan is tasked by Ser Eustace to seek terms with the Lady to avoid unnecessary bloodshed and remove the dam.  Along the way Duncan and Egg soon learn of the Ser Eustace’s ties to the Blackfyre Rebellion which brings up difficult conversations between the pair on Targaryen history.

I found myself liking this story to a moderate degree, I do think it pads itself along a bit too much at times.  There’s a lot of back and forth between locations with little of actual happenstance for the most of it.  What I did like about it however was again, it’s ability to showcase a strong yet complicated relationship Ser Duncan and Egg share on their journeys together.  Ser Duncan’s decision to pledge service to Ser Eustace ends up causing him more trouble than he anticipated and it plays as a good dive into his motivations and character throughout the course of the story.  The actual events of the plot themselves are not all that engaging for me though; it’s mostly the character work which kept this story working.

The third story is titled The Mystery Knight and it follows Ser Duncan and Egg as they are travelling north to Winterfell.  Along their way they come across a band of travelling knights who share news of a tourney being held by Lord Butterwell of Whitewalls in celebration of his wedding to a lady of house Frey.  The prize for this tourney is a dragon egg, which is highly coveted since the last of the dragons died out.  Joining the band of knights, Ser Duncan and Egg settle down to enjoy the weddings festivities the night before the tourney.  Despite the jovial atmosphere however, Ser Duncan soon stumbles into a treasonous plot which may see the very fate of Westeros changed forever if the wrong man wins the tourney.  Fighting against a conspiracy and a tourney of well-trained knights, Ser Duncan is pushed to the very limit when events soon put even his young squire in the crosshairs of treachery.

This was easily my favourite story of the three.  I loved how it was able to elaborately balance the relationship stuff between Duncan and Egg while putting them into a clearly high-stakes situation. It’s well paced too with how it slowly eases you into the festivities but then dangles a lot of clues in front of you to pick up.  Then when conspiracy begins to unravel you feel just as tense as Duncan does as he fights to keep up with everything while trying to piece it all together.  This was the sort of treacherous storytelling that I loved from A Song of Ice and Fire, so it was great to see Martin so seamlessly integrate it into this narrative.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys George R.R. Martin’s world of Westeros.  The way he’s able to construct a story while also easily defining the world around it is a skill set not many authors can tout, but Martin does it in superb fashion.  I think with this being a compilation of novellas, it’s easy to feel the lack of connection between the three stories but arguably that’s the point.  We’re not meant to get a constant window into the full timeline of these characters; we get just enough by seeing the grand stories they get involved in.