ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

The warning horn was still echoing when Gareth Caron’s column appeared on the western road.

One hundred and twenty household men marched beneath the black nightingales of House Caron, with ten knights riding before them. That was fewer than Gareth had brought the first time, but the column also contained two covered wagons, three Rainwood clerks, a cooper in a stained apron, and a pale drover wrapped in blankets despite the mild morning. This was not another attempt to frighten FireStorm with arithmetic alone.

Wayne had fifty guards behind the gate before the visitors arrived. Shields rested ready rather than raised. Women and children moved into the stone buildings, while Morton carried the production ledger from the distillery and stopped beneath the Storm’s End warrant displayed above the entrance.

Gareth reined in outside bowshot. He did not demand that the gate be opened. Instead, one of his clerks lifted a stoppered jug with the red sun painted crudely on its side.

”This was sold in Rainwood as Red Sun Flame,” Gareth called. ”Three men drank from it. All three became violently ill. Lord Elton has ordered the poison seized, the stills destroyed, and the maker brought to Nightsong until the matter is judged.”

The bundled drover bent over the side of the wagon and retched into a bucket. The performance was effective because it did not require anyone to believe Gareth loved the people of Rainwood. Bad liquor could blind, cripple, or kill, and every merchant who heard the accusation would care more about his customers than about FireStorm’s quarrel with Nightsong. Arlan descended from the wall and stopped inside the open gate. ”Which batch?”

Gareth’s expression tightened. ”Poison is poison.”

”Which batch, who sold it, and when?” Arlan asked.

The clerk looked down at his papers. Gareth answered instead. ”A tavern near the southern gate bought it from a peddler two nights ago. The bottle bears your mark.”

”A child can paint a sun.” Arlan held out his hand. ”Bring it to the midpoint. Morton will bring a sealed bottle from every batch we have sold. Your cooper can examine all of them without entering FireStorm.”

Gareth had expected denial, outrage, or a refusal he could name obstruction. A comparison conducted in front of his own knights was less useful, but refusing it would make the accusation look weaker than the evidence he claimed to possess.

The jug was placed on a low stool between the two parties. Morton came forward with six narrow bottles, each closed with dark wax impressed twice: once with the red sun and once with a small number cut into the seal. The numbers matched entries in his ledger. Beside each stood the date of distillation, the workers on the shift, the barrel filled, and the merchant or carrier who received it.

The system had begun after the first profitable batches. Arlan trusted repeatable work more than memory, and Morton trusted any practice that gave him another column to rule. What had seemed fussy three days earlier now separated FireStorm’s product from a painted jug found in a hostile market. The Rainwood cooper knelt first. He handled the suspect container, sniffed its mouth, and scraped the stopper with a thumbnail.

”Pine pitch,” he said reluctantly. ”These use beeswax and linen.”

Morton opened the ledger. ”And we sell bottles or marked oak barrels. Not clay jugs.”

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Gareth pointed at the painted emblem. ”You expect us to believe no buyer pours drink from one vessel into another?”

”No,” Arlan said. ”I expect you to identify the seller before destroying every vessel in my holding.”

He had a guard bring a shallow iron dish. Morton poured a spoonful from the suspect jug into it, then the same amount from one of the retained samples. Both liquids were clear enough in the morning light, but their smells differed. The FireStorm spirit carried grain and oak beneath the heat. The other smelled sharp, sour, and faintly medicinal. Arlan touched a taper to the retained sample. A low blue flame traveled across the dish. The suspect liquid guttered, smoked, and went out around a greasy residue.

The test did not prove what had sickened the drovers. It proved that the contents were not the product recorded at FireStorm’s still.

Murmurs moved through Gareth’s men. His officers were not alchemists, but they understood two samples behaving differently in front of them. The cooper examined the residue and shook his head. ”Oil in it. Perhaps bitter herbs. Water too. Whoever filled this stretched the spirit or wanted it to taste foul.”

”Or your people prepared a clean bottle for display,” Gareth said.

”Then take three at random,” Arlan replied. ”Choose the seals yourself. Take one bottle from the stores, one from the receiving room, and one from the barrel currently running. Record where each came from. Send all four samples to Storm’s End with your accusation and my ledger copy.”

Morton looked pained at the offer of surrendering good liquor, which made Wayne cough into his fist. Arlan continued. ”Name the batch and I will hold that run apart until Lord Renly’s men examine it. Any vessel that cannot be accounted for from still to seller will not be sold. I will not let you burn every still because someone painted our mark on a jug.”

That placed the choice where Gareth did not want it. He could accept an inquiry with sealed samples and named witnesses, or destroy the works after the alleged manufacturer had proposed the safer course. The latter would look less like protecting Rainwood and more like finishing a blockade that had already failed. One of the older Caron knights leaned toward him. ”Ser Gareth, a sealed examination answers the complaint.”

The older knight kept his attention on the numbered seals. Gareth looked beyond him at the distillery smoke. ”Keep your vats for now,” he said. ”No honest merchant will touch them once he hears men have been poisoned.”

”Then honest merchants will receive records with their purchases.”

Gareth wheeled his horse. He left the suspect jug behind because taking it would surrender control of the comparison, and leaving it allowed him to pretend it had never mattered. His men withdrew in ordered ranks. The covered wagon carrying the sick drover followed last. FireStorm did not cheer. The accusation would travel faster than any correction, and a frightened buyer did not need proof before choosing another drink.

Arlan carried the jug into the workroom without touching its stopper. ”Separate table. Nobody pours it away.”

Morton opened the ledger. ”We have numbers on the barrels, but not every bottle.”

”Then every bottle gets one. Two seals, different stamps. One retained sample from every run. The worker who closes it signs the line, and the carrier signs when he receives it.”

”That will slow packing.”

”So will poisoned counterfeits.”

The old blacksmith inspected the clay jug and found it had been fired in a common Rainwood kiln. That did not identify the hand responsible, but it confirmed how cheaply an enemy could imitate a painted emblem. Knowledge had broken Gareth’s blockade; reputation was the next road Nightsong meant to close. Red Sun Flame would survive only if buyers could distinguish FireStorm’s work from a hostile copy. More importantly, one product gave an enemy one target.

That afternoon Arlan summoned the blacksmith and three potters who had come with the recent refugees. They expected another still. What waited on the table was a horseshoe-shaped kiln with marked vents, hotter chambers, crucibles, blowing pipes, and proportions for materials no one in FireStorm had yet combined successfully.

The eldest potter studied the drawing. ”My lord, this is for sand?”

”Sand, limestone, and treated ash.” Arlan indicated the three ingredients on the drawing.

”Sand makes glass?”

”Not by itself. That is the useful part.”

Red Sun Flame had taught FireStorm to make one process repeatable. The next answer to Nightsong would require several crafts to work together, and no painted jug could counterfeit that overnight.