The Hedge Knight by George R. R. Martin
Dunk is squire to a hedge knight living in Martin's World of Ice and Fire almost a hundred years before the days of A Game of Thrones. Hedge knights are the bottom of the knightly ladder, not being noblemen or landed men. They work for hire much like ronin in medieval Japan, so they could just as easily be villains as heroes. Dunk's master is a good man and a good knight but he's dead at the beginning of the story. So Dunk inherits the armor and horses, making him a potential hedge knight. He goes to a tournament to try his skill and become the knight he wants to be. Circumstances and his desire to do the right thing cause complications.
The story is very interesting and has a lot more heart than I suspected, given its association with the HBO series that I haven't watched. Dunk often cites the opinions of others that he is not very intelligent. But he has a good heart and does do the right thing, which gets him into some big problems. Luckily, the GoT world is not so corrupt yet that he can't find friends and supporters who help him through the difficulties. The ending almost had me in tears, I was so happy with it. The writing is just great.
Recommended--unfortunately, I think this is an outlier in the GoT universe and doesn't represent the mainline storytelling, so I am not interested in jumping in to the rest of the novels or the TV show.
This story is discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find Podcast #326.
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