对于巴利斯坦这个角色,始终颇多感慨,虽然他的描写非常少。
他的强无用多说,“无畏的”巴利斯坦,大陆数一数二的骑士,多年来的御林铁卫队长。他的忠心耿耿也不必多言,即使是伊利斯那样的疯王,既然发出了誓言,就坚守到底。而他的气节,在离开瑟曦的君临城时,同样表露无遗。只是又让人感叹,这样一个英雄人物却在侍奉疯狂嗜血的伊利斯和胡天酒地的劳勃中,耗去了几十年的岁月,却还能如此贯彻骑士精神和气节。
当他向东去追寻丹妮莉丝的时候,我忍不住想问为什么。因为曾经的誓言么?因为对坦格利安家族的旧情么?还是因为七大王国已没有栖身之处?
第五本,已经被笑称为老祖父的巴利斯坦爵士,在敌人环绕的异乡,看着守护的女王骑着龙飞走了。满城都是丹妮已死的传言。终于连他,也忍不住唏嘘。
Ser Barristan felt very tired,very old. Where have all the years gone? Of late, wheneverhe knelt to drink from a still pool, he saw a stranger’s facegazing up from the water’s depths. When had those crow’s-feet firstappeared around his pale blue eyes? How long ago had his hairturned from sunlight into snow? Years ago, old man.Decades.
Yet it seemedlike only yesterday that he had been raised to knighthood, afterthe tourney at King’s Landing. He could still recall the touch ofKing Aegon’s sword upon his shoulder, light as a maiden’s kiss. Hiswords had caught in his throat when he spoke his vows. At the feastthat night he had eaten ribs of wild boar, prepared the Dornish waywith dragon peppers, so hot they burned his mouth. Forty-sevenyears, and the taste still lingered in his memory, yet he could nothave said what he had supped on ten days ago if all seven kingdomshad depended on it. Boiled dog, most like. Or some other fouldish that tasted no better.
Not for the first time, Selmy wondered at the strange fates thathad brought him here. He was a knight of Westeros, a man of thestormlands and the Dornish marches; his place was in the SevenKingdoms, not here upon the sweltering shores of Slaver’s Bay.I came to bring Daenerys home. Yet he had lost her, justas he had lost her father and her brother. Even Robert. Ifailed him too.