The Kingbreaker; A Dance with Dragons, ser Barristan and his squires

Ser Barristan Selmy just after having kinghted Tumco Lho, the best natural swordman he’s seen since Jaime Lannister

Before embarking on the dangerous mission of seizing king Hizdahr zo Loraq for the attempted murder of queen Daenerys, Ser Barristan Selmy desires to knight his squires, but at the same time he is worried that what he is about do to might bring dishonor to the boys, should they be knighted by him.
Because, at that time, he sees himself as a potentially dishonored knight.
Nonetheless, in the following pages, it is implied that he knighted Tumco Lho, Larraq the Lash and the Red Lamb; the best of the boys he was teaching to.

Reference excerpt from the book: The Kingbreaker; A Dance with Dragons

Tumco Lho. Black as maester’s ink he was, but fast and strong, the best natural swordsman Selmy had seen since Jaime Lannister.

Larraq as well. The Lash.

Ser Barristan did not approve of his fighting style, but there was no doubting his skills.

Larraq had years of work ahead of him before he mastered proper knightly weapons, sword and lance and mace, but he was deadly with his whip and trident.
The old knight had warned him that the whip would be useless against an armored foe … until he saw how Larraq used it, snapping it around the legs of his opponents to yank them off their feet. No knight as yet, but a fierce fighter.

Larraq and Tumco were his best.
After them the Lhazarene, the one the other boys called Red Lamb, though as yet that one was all ferocity and no technique.
Perhaps the brothers too, three lowborn Ghiscari enslaved to pay their father’s debts.

[…]

As he watched them at their drills, Ser Barristan pondered raising Tumco and Larraq to knighthood then and there, and mayhaps the Red Lamb too.

It required a knight to make a knight, and if something should go awry tonight, dawn might find him dead or in a dungeon. Who would dub his squires then?

On the other hand, a young knight’s repute derived at least in part from the honor of the man who conferred knighthood on him. It would do his lads no good at all if it was known that they were given their spurs by a traitor, and might well land them in the dungeon next to him.

They deserve better, Ser Barristan decided. Better a long life as a squire than a short one as a soiled knight.

As the afternoon melted into evening, he bid his charges to lay down their swords and shields and gather round.

He spoke to them about what it meant to be a knight.

“It is chivalry that makes a true knight, not a sword,” he said.

“Without honor, a knight is no more than a common killer. It is better to die with honor than to live without it.”

The boys looked at him strangely, he thought, but one day they would understand.

Tumco Lho and Ser Barristan Selmy. by Winter Design is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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