Gareth Bryne

Gareth Bryne held the office of Captain-General of the Queen's Guards, the soldiers who kept order in Caemlyn and stood watch over the Royal Palace in the Inner City. He served Queen Morgase of Andor, and he served her at close quarters: when weighty matters came before her in the throne room, he was among the few whose word carried enough weight to tip her judgment.

He was a soldier first, and he judged by what he could see and test for himself. He knew blades and he knew the men who carried them, and he trusted that knowledge enough to say plainly what it told him, whether or not it was what anyone in the room wished to hear. A man's youth counted for less, in his reckoning, than the sword at his hip and the way he wore it.

Command had not blunted his care for the people under it. He balanced his duty to the crown against his responsibility to the guardsmen who answered to him, and he kept his own counsel about both; caution, in him, was not hesitation but the habit of a man who thought before he committed anyone to anything. In Morgase's service he was, above all, the Queen's soldier.