The next day, a mystery knight, short of stature, in ill-fitting armor, whose device was a carved white weirwood tree, its features twisted in mirth, fought at the tourney. He defended the honor of Howland Reed by challenging and defeating three knights whose squires had bullied him, demanding that they chastise the squires in order to ransom back their horses and armor.
King Aerys II Targaryenbecame convinced
that the tree on the mystery knight’s shield was laughing at him. Furious, he commanded his own knights to defeat the Knight of the Laughing Tree when the jousts
resumed the next morning, so that he might be unmasked and his perfidy exposed for all to see. But the
mystery knight vanished during the night, so the King sent his son Rhaegar to search for the knight.
