A pink-necked novice of the Citadel in Oldtown, five years a student and still without a single link of his chain. The son of westerlands smallfolk, he tends the white ravens of doddering Archmaester Walgrave and is desperate to win the serving girl Rosey from the Quill and Tankard. He is the point-of-view character of the prologue, in which a man calling himself an alchemist offers him a gold dragon in exchange for a stolen key.