Chapter Text
Dunk was lying on his back as they talked over him, gazing up into the roiling grey sky. It seemed to Dunk that it was still morning. He wondered how long the fight had taken.
“Gods be good, the lance point drove the rings deep into his flesh,” he heard Raymun saying. “It will mortify unless ...”
“Get him drunk and pour some boiling oil into it,” someone suggested. “That’s how the maesters do it.”
“Wine.” The voice had a hollow metallic ring to it. “Not oil, that will kill him, boiling wine. I’ll send Maester Yormwell to have a look at him when he’s done tending my brother.”
A tall knight stood above him, in black armour dinted and scarred by many blows. Prince Baelor. The scarlet dragon on his helm had lost a head, both wings, and most of its tail. “Your Grace,” Dunk said, “I am your man. Please. Your man.”
“My man.” The black knight put a hand on Raymun’s shoulder to steady himself. “I need good men, Ser Duncan. The realm ...” His voice sounded oddly slurred. Perhaps he’d bit his tongue.
Dunk was very tired. It was hard to stay awake. “Your man,” he murmured once more.
The prince moved his head slowly from side to side. “Ser Raymun ... my helm, if you’d be so kind. Visor ... visor’s cracked, and my fingers ... fingers feel like wood ...”
“At once, Your Grace.” Raymun took the prince’s helm in both hands and grunted. “Goodman Pate, a hand.”
Steely Pate dragged over a mounting stool. “It’s crushed down at the back, Your Grace, toward the left side. Smashed into the gorget. Good steel, this, to stop such a blow.”
“Brother’s mace, most like,” Baelor said thickly. “He’s strong.” He winced. “That ... feels queer, I ...”
“Here it comes.” Pate lifted the battered helm away. “Gods be good ... ”
Dunk could see nothing; the prince’s face looked as well as ever, if a little more ashen than usual. He wrenched his gaze downward to the helm held in Pate’s hands, and there was the blood, red on black, dripping slowly onto the grass. A queer troubled look passed across Baelor Breakspear’s face, like a cloud passing before a sun. He raised his hand and touched the back of his head with two fingers, oh so lightly. And then he fell.
Dunk caught him. Someone was screaming nearby. More than one person; Dunk paid them no heed. “Up,” he said, just as he had with Thunder in the melee, “up, up.” But this time it did not work. The prince did not rise.
From this angle, with the prince slumped forward in his arms, Dunk could see the wound at last. Strange that such a small thing could look so terrible, but a piece of skull jutted out so unnaturally that Dunk thought he might fall, too, just from looking at it.
“Up,” he whispered again, before his eyes slid shut.
—————
They were still screaming when Dunk woke up. He must not have been unconscious for very long, then. Just long enough for —
“The prince!” he yelled. Prince Baelor was no longer in his arms, no longer within sight as Dunk scrambled to sit up on uncooperative arms.
He felt an arm behind his back, supporting him, and Raymun’s face appeared above him. “Calm down, calm, Ser Duncan —”
“Where’s he? Where’s the maester? Where? I must go to him,” said Dunk, his clumsy tongue tripping over the words. He swung his head from side to side trying to look, and the world blurred again, growing dimmer; he realised how much he ached, his head pounding and ringing and his side burning where it had been pierced, and his knees, and his arms, and his hands, and his whole body hurting but he had to know where Baelor was.
“The maesters have him,” said Raymun, in what was probably meant to be a reassuring tone.
Dunk squinted up at him and tried to focus his eyes. “He’s alive?”
“He’s … His Grace is not dead. They haven’t moved him far,” Raymun pointed at a crowd of men perhaps thirty feet away, “can’t risk moving him too quickly.”
“Help me up.”
“You can’t mean to —”
Dunk grabbed onto Raymun’s arm.
“You’re supposed to be waiting for a maester yourself —”
He twisted himself onto his knees.
“What could you even do for him?”
He stopped. What can I do for him, he asked himself. Dunk the lunk, thick as a castle wall. The prince needs maesters, clever men who know all sorts of things, not some stupid hedge knight. But …
Dunk looked at Raymun. “I swore to him. I’m his man, and he needs me. I won’t leave him.”
He pushed himself off the floor, wincing as one of his ankles almost gave way. The group was a little farther away now, but not so far that he could not walk, he was sure. He could see the maesters, and two Kingsguard carrying the prince between them on some sort of plank. Prince Maekar walked behind them, supporting the end, and Steely Pate was there too, still holding the broken helmet. And the smallest figure turned around just then —
“Ser Duncan!” cried Egg.
Prince Maekar looked at his son, saying something that Dunk couldn’t hear. From the look on his face when Egg came rushing towards Dunk it had not been “Go to the hedge knight.”
“Ser Duncan,” said Egg breathlessly, standing before him a few moments later. “You’re alright!”
“Aye.” More or less. “You should go back to your family; I’ll catch you up.”
Egg levelled a glare at him that was more impressive than it had any right to be on a ten-year-old. He must have learnt it from his uncle.
“I am your squire, Ser, so I shall accompany you. Besides,” he said, looking Dunk up and down and wrinkling his nose, “on second thoughts, you don’t look very alright at all. Here, you can lean on me as we walk.”
Ser Raymun was trying not to laugh again.
Dunk let Egg position himself under Dunk’s hand — which was about as high as Egg could reach — and pretended to put some of his weight on the boy. He took a step forward. Ow. He took another step. Ow.
“Raymun,” said Dunk, a little annoyed and a little embarrassed. “Could you …?”
Of course, Dunk had not planned any further than getting to Prince Baelor. Prince Maekar’s glower, not to mention the Kingsguards’ incredulous looks, was not exactly welcoming. Even the maesters were uneasy.
As for Baelor himself, Dunk wasn’t sure if it was harder to look or to keep his eyes away. He had seen dead men before — no, not dead, just sleeping — but surely, a prince, a Targaryen, Baelor Breakspear himself should not look so helpless, should not be carried by his men while his crushed skull bled.
Prince Maekar had no time for Dunk’s musings. He turned his glower on Egg, barely softening. “What do you think you’re doing, bringing him here?”
“I was only —”
“My lord,” interrupted Dunk. “I mean, Your Grace.”
Maekar scoffed in disbelief. Raymun elbowed Dunk in his bruised ribs and Egg was shaking his head slightly, his large eyes even larger. Well, he’d already started speaking; it was too late anyway.
“It wasn’t his idea, nor Raymun’s; it was — I just …” Just what?
“Just thought you’d come and impose yourself upon the royal house? The heir to the Iron Throne?” Maekar spat. “Haven’t you done enough already? Get out of my sight.”
“Father!” protested Egg.
“Be quiet, Aegon. Now you two,” he said to Dunk and Raymun, “leave.”
Dunk looked at the ground. “I swore to serve him,” he mumbled. “I swore to be his man, and he said I was.”
“You’ll be serving the realm at the Wall if you say another word,” the prince warned.
Am I supposed to answer that?
Raymun saved him. “Yes, Your Grace,” he said, pulling Dunk into a bow with him. Dunk let himself be led away, sparing a glance for the mutinous-looking Egg who mouthed something at him that he didn’t catch.
“Come on, Ser Duncan,” said Raymun by his side. “We must find you a maester yourself.”
"His man," repeated Dunk. It seemed to be the only thing he could say.
Later, as he lay in the maesters’ tent with enough bandages on him to start a tailor’s shop, he realised what Egg must have said. The gods only knew how the boy had slipped his guards again, but there he was, at the other end of the table they had put Dunk on.
"I’m sorry," Egg said in a small voice.
Dunk snorted. "You’re sorry … Well, might be you ought to be sorry too, but I’m the one who …"
He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked Egg in the eyes. "Tell me true. Does your uncle live?"
Silence.
"Answer me, Egg." Please.
Egg swallowed. "He lives. But the maesters don’t — they don’t know if he will wake up."
That was it, then. Dunk had sworn himself to the most noble prince who ever lived, and killed him.