Chapter 69: Ch 59 Find The Mole...Chapter Text
It was the time just before evening... when the bright red sun was almost horizontal to the eyes and was slowly sinking into the sea of earth.
Normally this would be the time when all the sellswords would finish up with their evening training and wind down their muscles before dragging their heavily exhausted bodies towards dinner.
But today it was different...
Today, not only had the commander called off their usual evening training, but he had also commanded the cooks to give the men their dinner very early, and even though the food was the usual spread, it still felt like a feast to sellswords as it was perhaps the first time in forever that the men didn't have to work so hard for their food and they even had the spare energy to taste their food and talk to each other.
So safe to say that the atmosphere inside the camp at the moment was almost... festive.
This meant that when the commander ordered about a hundred-something sellswords to gather in the training grounds for a meeting... none complained and all of them were very happy to oblige.
"H-Hey, Terrek, do you know why the commander called all of us here for..." one of the new recruits asked his only friend nervously as they, along with all the sellswords who had been called by the commander, began slowly converging towards the huge bonfire in the middle of the training ground.
"Don't know, lad. But if I had to guess... then I think it's probably to talk about that attack on the Gallant Men..."
"You think so..."
"Of course, otherwise why would he only call the important people of the company..."
"Important people?"
"Yes, look around you. Almost everyone you see around here has some kind of a position or a responsibility of some kind in addition to being a fighter..."
"Really..."
"Yes. Look! See them! They are the only five blacksmiths in our company—and them! They are all the unit leader who leads our fighters in battle, and that man—he is the one in charge of our supplies and he..."
"But then... why am I here? I-I am just a new recruit who joined just a month ago... I am not one of the higher-ups..." asked the young boy, with distinct Essosi looks, nervously.
"So what if you're new? Aren't you the one who is in charge of our horses, so of course, you would—"
"What in charge of the horses!! Don't fill the kid's head, Terrek," an unpleasant voice suddenly interrupted them from behind, "He is just a guy our commander took pity on and just gave him the duty of washing the horses, that's all. Humph!!"
"Oh, Daryn... the commander called you too, huh," said Terrek with a disappointed look on his face.
"Of course, he did," Daryn replied pompously, "Because, unlike some people," he said while giving a nasty glare towards the young Essosi boy, "I am someone who has got the noble blood of—"
"Yes, Yes, you have the blood of the Ryswells of North in you. You should just write it on your forehead, instead of telling it to every person you see," Terrek scoffed at Daryn before turning back to the timid boy, "Karr, he is Daryn, the one in charge of handing out our salaries or as everyone calls him, The Sleeping Piggy... you know because you can always find him either pigging out or sleeping," he ridiculed to the immediate burst of laughter from the surrounding sellswords.
"You!!" Daryn immediately went red at the dastard name that he hated more than anything in the world. But just when an angry Daryn was about to lunge and a fight was about to start, they were interrupted.
"Enough!!" barked one of the grim older sellswords with white hair and white beard making everyone there flinch, "Get going now, Don't make the commander wait," he said in a low gravely tone and the sellswords immediately nodded like docile puppies.
"Y-Yes!!"
Except for that short conflict, nothing else happened and everyone slowly gravitated towards the centre where the almost hundred-something sellswords huddled against each other with a huge bonfire in the middle.
Standing close to the fire were five people, two of them were the most well-known people in the company, the Commander and the Second in Command, and standing right behind the commander was his son, Bran, who had recently gone missing. And the last two were newcomers, who had joined them a week ago. No one knew anything about them except for the gossip circulating that one of them was the son of a Stark from the North.
"Is it time, Jon?" Gared asked in a low tone that disappeared under the chatter of the sellswords.
"Hmm..." Jon took a cursory look around at the gathered sellswords, and after checking with the thin list in his hands replied with a nod, "...Yes, all of them are here so you can begin now."
Gared grunted his assent before taking a few steps forward to stand in front of the fire.
"MEN!!" he bellowed with the full might of his lungs, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" the effect was almost immediate as the whole crowd of gossiping sellswords came to complete silence instantly.
Gared took a slow methodical look around the crowd, and only when he saw that every single eye was on him was he satisfied and began to speak up.
"My friends, most of you know that I am not one for long speeches and that If I try using flowery words, it would make your skin crawl..." a smattering of laughter burst out from here and there, "so I'll get straight to the point. I have gathered all of you out here today for one thing and one thing only... to clean all the filth out of our company," Gared said, his abruptly turning so dark that it sent a shiver through the crowd, "once and for all,"
The atmosphere in the training ground instantly changed at those words as the mood of the gathering went from light and festive to anxious and tense as the sellswords began to wonder what their commander was talking about.
"Some of you are newcomers who have only been with the company for a few months, while others have been with us since before they could swing a sword, some of you I have watched grow up, while others have watched me grow up," he said while looking at the few of the older looking sellswords, "But no matter who you are I have always placed my complete trust in you, in my company... and I would leave my back to any one of you in a battle without hesitation... and I know that you would do the same, WON'T YOU?!"
"WE WILL!!" came the collective shout from the crowd.
"Well, I thought so too...But sadly some of you don't agree with that sentiment..." Gared shook his head with a disappointed look on his face, "There are a few among those standing here today, who think that when their comrades present their back to them, it is an opportunity... an opportunity to stab them in the back to earn a few more coppers..." he said as his mouth curled up in disgust.
"They don't care that we've been through thick and thin, they don't care that we've been through so many life and death battles, they don't care if the information they are sharing with the enemies is going to betray everyone in our company, that it is going to result in their brothers being ambushed, they don't care... as long as they can make some money. After all, what is a brother's life worth compared to a few pieces of that shiny yellow metal..."
A hush immediately fell up the crowd as the commander finished his speech and all of them began to wonder about whom the commander was talking about.
"W-Who is it, Commander?!!"
"Y-Yes! Tell us their names, Commander!! We'll take care of these bastards!!"
"Traitors should just go die!!!"
"Yes!! We'll kill them for you, Commander!!! Kill them all!!"
"Kill!!" "Kill!!" "Kill!!" "Kill!!"
As the crowd began to get slowly riled up and started chanting together, swearing to kill these imaginary backstabbers. There were a few hidden faces in the crowd who became very uncomfortable with the hate coming from the sellswords surrounding them.
"Very Well," Gared shouted, the moment the chants died down a bit, "I hope all of you remember this hate you feel a few moments later when the names of these rats are being called out..." he said before taking one final look at the crowd with a complicated look on his face, before going back towards Jon, "It's time for your part, Jon..."
"Yes, Of course, Gared," Jon nodded his head before going to stand in the spot that Gared emptied in front of the fire. He looked at the crowd of waiting sellswords and began, "Not many among you know me, but my name is Jon Snow... and I am the one who was tasked with finding the rats amidst you by the commander but... I hope you don't hate me too much if the ones I am calling out are your friends..." he said with a smile but sadly was only treated with silent treatment from the crowd, "Ahem! Anyway, let's begin."
"The first name is..." He looked down at the list in his hand just for the sake of theatrics since he had already memorised it, "...Ros!!"
There was silence for a few moments before some of the eyes in the crowd turned towards a young naive-looking boy.
"W-What?! M-Me!!" the boy said while pointing at himself with horror-filled eyes.
"Hmm... No, Not you, the other one... Where's the other Ros?" Jon asked loudly after a short look at the young boy who almost peed his pants from relief, "Look around people! Find out where Ros is—"
"Here!! He's here!!" shouted someone, as he ratted out a short mousy-faced man in front of him trying to duck his head and hide amidst the crowd.
"Aha! There you are," Jon said as his face lit up with a smile, "Come on now! Come to the front, don't be so shy..."
Though the man seemed to be unwilling, the surrounding crowd wasn't so he was ultimately pushed towards the front by the friendly sellswords.
"Now, my friend, do you wish to confess to your—"
"W-What confess!! I didn't do anything. You are clearly lying!! I am not a spy," he screamed at Jon in a panicked tone, before turning to the second in command with a pleading face, "C-Commander Rickard! You have to believe me, You knew my uncle, right!! You know that I am not a spy, Help me!!"
The second in command contemplated in silence for a few moments before turning towards Jon, "He is right. Your word alone should not be enough to declare the man a spy, so unless you have some solid proof—"
"Of course, I have proof," Jon interrupted with a bright smile, "Why else would I accuse him like that..." he said before turning towards his friend with an outstretched hand, "Sam give me the one named Ros..."
"Y-Yes," Sam nodded hurriedly before lowering himself towards the half dozen brown sacks beside his feet and after searching for a few seconds he picked up the one with Ros written on it and placed it in Jon's eager hands.
"Hmm... Let's see," Jon said while putting his right hand inside the sack as if searching for something inside a magic bag before pulling out a single piece of parchment, "Aha! here it is. Tell me, Ros, do you remember what this is..." Jon asked in a gentle tone while waving the open parchment in front of Ros's eyes so that he could somewhat make out its content.
"How did you— I-I mean no, I don't know what that is," Ros almost gave himself away in his shock but stopped at the last moment and hurriedly shook his head to deny any involvement with the letter, "I-I've never seen it before in my life!!"
"You haven't? Really... Then shall I read it aloud, to jog your memory?" The question was completely rhetorical as Jon didn't wait for Ros's answer and immediately began reading the letter, "My dear friend, Ramos, How are you—Blah! Blah! Blah! Ugh! You say too many useless things, Ros—Aha! here comes the best part, 'This month's news is quite precious my friend so I hope you aren't stingy with the gold, unlike the last time... Our commander is soon going to launch an attack on the Gallant Men, completely unprovoked...which I think is quite stupid but then again what else can you expect from a brute like him—"
"No! Stop it!!" Ros hurriedly interrupted with a horrified look on his face. "Stop reading it!!"
"Why? Do you suddenly recall the parchment now, Ros?"
"N-No! No, I-I didn't... I just don't want you uh insult the C-Commander like that..."
"Still denying it, Huh? Then... What about this?" Jon asked while suddenly pulling out a small but heavy yellow sack from the big brown one, "Do you know what this is?"
"Why do you have—That's mine! You thief!!"
"Ah! So you do remember this one, Huh," Jon said with a mischievous grin on his face, "But when I opened it and counted the gold in it... there were something like 200 gold in it—" loud gasps abruptly came from the crowd at the big amount, "—That's right, that much," Jon nodded to the crowd's gasps before turning back to Ros, "So tell us... how did you come by this fortune, my dear friend?"
"I-I-I... s-saved it, Yes, I saved it!"
"You did?" Jon exclaimed with a very fake shocked look on his face before turning towards Gared, "I didn't know you were so generous with your salary, Commander..."
Gared didn't bother replying to Jon instead he just looked at Ros with a sullen expression and growled, "Explain yourself! Now!!"
"I-I H-He's lying, Comm—"
"THE TRUTH!!" he bellowed with such a fierce expression that it almost made the mousy man wet his pants and he immediately confessed.
"I am sorry!! I lied!!" Ros cowered as he cried out loudly, "I-I messed up, I made a m-mistake, Commander. It was a-an accident. B-But I only wrote that one letter, so p-please forgive me," he cried before immediately kneeling on the ground to beg for forgiveness, but sadly for him, Jon wasn't in the mood to be merciful that day and pulled out the last piece of evidence from the pouch.
"Then what about these, Ros?" Jon asked gently while waving a whole bunch of parchments in his hands, "These are all reply letters sent by your dear friend Ramos... why are there so many of them if you've only done this once, huh?"
"No, No, No! NO!!!" Despair filled the eyes of Ros as he realised at that moment that there was no way out for him after those parchments came out in front of everyone.
"Not burning these letters wasn't very smart of you, Ros..."
"No, No! Please, Commander! You have to forgive me! Give me one more chance! I'll do anything—"
"Men! Take him away!!" Gared interrupted with a disgusted look on his face.
Almost immediately two sellswords appeared from behind Gared and dragged the unwilling rat away to the Camp's temporary prison where he will remain until Gared announces his punishment.
"Phew! That took quite a while..." Jon said with a refreshed smile on his face before once again raising the list in his hand, "Ahem! Moving on, the next name on the list is... Jared. Where are you, Jared—"
Before Jon could pretend to look for this one, his next victim who seemed to have already been standing at the very edge of the crowd, abruptly broke away and took off towards the exit with all his might.
"Oho! Looks like we have a runner..." Jon said with an amused smile on his face as he watched the man run as if his life depended on it, "Don't worry men, no need to chase him..." Jon said when some sellswords looked ready to sprint after the escapee, "Because... we were prepared for this..."
The runaway man was very delighted to find that there were no pursuers behind him but just as he was about to reach the exit of the training grounds, five guards suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tackled him onto the ground and successfully nabbed him.
"No!! Let me go!! I didn't do anything!! NO!! The Golden Company will not let you off!!!"
The crowd watched with trepidation as the man was forcefully dragged back towards the centre, and it was only at that moment, did the sellswords there looked around them and noticed that the training ground they were in was completely surrounded by the lower-ranking foot soldiers of the company.
"It looks like this one doesn't even need me to bring out the evidence..." Jon said with a somewhat disappointed look on his face, "What do you think, Commander?"
"NO!! Commander, you can't do this to me!! The Golden company will not let you off if you harm me—"
"Take him away," Gared grunted without looking at the snivelling man even once.
It took a while before the unwilling man was dragged away and for the ground to fall silent once again.
"Hmm... Shall we get on with it then," Jon asked with an innocent smile which made everyone there shiver whether they were a spy or not.
"And the next one is...Caron,"
"NO!!"
And so it went on and on and on... as Jon kept calmly calling out the names of the spies on the list, and obviously most of them denied it vehemently, but the evidence he had prepared was so ironclad that none of them were able to maintain their composure for long and began resorting to begging and negotiating... saying things like how they had been with the company for a long time or that they had been forced or that they didn't know... but none of it worked on the Commander as he sent away every single one of them without exception.
The festive air half an hour ago now seemed like years in the past, as everyone there looked at Jon with anxious gazes hoping that their name wouldn't get called, even if they had never betrayed the company, the tense atmosphere around them still made them instinctively feel afraid.
"Hai... that was exhausting," Jon said while wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead with a smile on his face as the guards took away another spy crying and screaming profanities at everyone, "Now, for the last small fish... Daryn, will you please come out,"
Every single person in the training ground immediately turned to the next target, who was somewhat of a famous personality in the Company but... not for good reasons.
"M-Me?! Are you out of your fucking mind?! Commander! There's something wrong with this bastard, I've never written a single letter to anyone outside of this company, you have to believe me, Commander!!" he urged but none seemed to believe him.
By now everyone had already become familiar with the pattern here, so no one came to the fatso's defence instead they waited patiently for the scary man to present them with evidence of his wrongdoing and then derive some sadistic pleasure in watching Daryn's eyes cloud in despair...
"You know, I have to commend you, Daryn... for you are quite a cunning man," Jon began in a somewhat impressed tone, "You were actually the second hardest one to catch out of all of the rats... because unlike the others you were smart enough to never leave any evidence... you burnt all your letters and didn't keep any direct contact with anyone from the other sellswords companies and didn't even keep much gold on you... it was almost like you were not a spy at all..."
"T-That's right, I am not! T-This means you've got no proof and that you're making false accusations!! C-Commander, I urge you to kill this outsider right this instant so that he doesn't cause any more mayhem—"
"But—" Jon's clear-cut tone abruptly sliced through Daryn's chatter making the fat man flinch, "But you made one mistake my friend... you were just too hasty in sending that letter to your beloved son..." Jon finished with a smile on his face while raising a piece of parchment in the air which immediately made Daryn's eyes widen in horror.
"T-That's—"
"Oh, yes!" Jon nodded with an amused grin, "Quire the successful son you have, don't you... With two inns under his name, a modest house in Pentos and he's even got three pretty wives, all to himself... he's living the dream life isn't he?"
"T-That doesn't prove anything—
"You're right, it doesn't... After all, he could just be a very successful merchant and not be involved in any shady business, right," Jon said and Daryn unconsciously nodded along, "But... sadly unlike you, your son doesn't quite believe in burning all his letters... Maybe, because he adores you so much, he keeps every single letter you've sent him in a big beautiful box..." Jon said pulling an intricate box out of the sack Sam handed to him, he then opened the box to show a whole bunch of letters folded neatly inside, "Quite the method you have, don't you? Slipping in valuable information, amidst mundane things... and then your son makes easy gold by selling that information to whoever is buying... It's ingenious."
"I-I-I—" Daryn stuttered as his eyes rapidly rotated in his head while trying to come up with an appropriate answer but Jon didn't give him any time.
"And your son was kind enough to confess immediately when my men cornered him... so there's no reason to deny it any further, Daryn..."
"Y-You-You" About a dozen different emotions flashed through Daryn's face before it ultimately settled on anger as his eyes turned and he immediately lunged at the man whom he perceived to be the reason for his tragic fate, "Let go of my son, YOU BASTARD!!"
"Oho!!" Jon smiled as he simply sidestepped the bull-like charge from the fat man while at the same tripping him into falling face-first onto the floor with a loud thump.
"Uh, Uh, Uh," Jon tutted while placing his right leg squarely on the man's back when he tried to get back up, "You should stay down, my friend, if you don't want to get hurt..."
"L-Let me go!!" Daryn struggled with all his might but it was futile as the leg on his back was like a mountain, not letting him move a single inch, "C-Commander, you have to save me," he screamed, turning towards the only person he felt could help him, "I-I have the blood of Rsyswell in me! My ancestors have fought for the company for decades—Please, Commander, you need to help me!!" he screamed with all the power in his lungs.
There was a hesitant look in Gared's eyes for a few moments before he noticed the eagerly awaiting eyes of sellswords surrounding him and realised what would happen if he made an exception for this man, so his eyes immediately firmed up and he gave the expected command, "Men! Take him away!!"
"NO!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!! I AM A RYSWELL..."
Daryn turned out to be the most deranged one and it took quite a while and a few more guards to drag him away and for the fields to fall silent once again.
By now the sellswords had become somewhat addicted to the quick charges and swift judgments... the drama unfolding before them was almost like a modern crime series for the medieval world and they just couldn't get enough of it.
So they eagerly looked at Sam's legs to figure out whose name was written on the sack at his feet but unfortunately, they were disappointed to find that there were no more sacks left which meant that...
"That was the last of it, right." The second in command asked in an inquisitive tone that hid a small bit of relief in it, "I think this has been a very exhausting night for everyone so we should give the warriors—"
"What's the rush, Commander Rickard," Jon said with a raised eyebrow while looking directly into the eyes of the second in command, "While you're right in that all the small fishes have been dealt with... but there's still one very big fish left," he said while giving Rickard a meaningful smile, "Am I right, Commander Rickard...so should I call you Rattlesnake!"
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