Chapter Text
Baelor winces. Fuck's sake, he thinks lightly, seven fucking hells. What is that? What - it feels like the dome of his head is caved clean in, in the back. He blinks himself awake, torturously. He takes in a heavy, staggering breath. It comes back to him in brief memories, awash with a haze of indistinctness, shapeless and lagging. A wide, muddy field; overcast sky and plate armor shining dully; tall rafters filled with common-folk and lesser lords and ladies with their silks and linens flapping in a phantom wind; horses nickering as they rear, hooves kicking; a circle of six men and himself. Faint words. Be vigilant…don't die. The wry look on Lyonel Baratheon’s face as he said shame - no man fights so fierce as one neglected by his mother. A brief spark in his blood, at the irreverent regard. And then, a piercing screech, Egg's clear, sharpish words and a dizzying pitch, as he urged Ser Duncan the Tall on towards death - or possibly deliverance. Baelor had passed him on his horse as he flew past, a brief still spot in the roughshod madness.
"Awake, are you?" Baelor turns his head. "Gods be fucking good, but if you haven't taken your time. Getting in a laze while the rest of us flounder, it's just like Baelor the fucking great." He registers a pinched face, white beard mussed and pale hair limp with oil - Maekar talks a big show, but Baelor can see the sunken shadows under his eyes, the permanent groove of his frown. He is very good at dissembling - his sullen, childish brother. Baelor smiles at him, relieved. A cut jolts across his brother’s cheek and there is a reddened bloom under one eye, but if he is capable of bitching, he is in high spirits indeed.
"We…prevailed."
"You did," Maekar grumbles. "We did not. Aerion's a right sight. Going to banish him to the fucking Free Cities, see if that sobers him any. The crazy fucking nuisance-! Trial of Seven, my arse. Next time, I'll pummel that coward and that dratted hedge knight myself, and call it an end."
Baelor looks up at the ceiling of the room where Lord Ashford has placed him; a fine set of rooms, fit for a king, or enough as. He watches Maekar; his little brother rubs a hand across the crown of his own head, absently. Baelor frowns, feels a pang in his chest. His little brother.
"Twas my mace," Maekar mutters, pointedly looking out the window at a perfectly clear blue sky, "which took you down."
"Good," Baelor muses, "As befits 'the Anvil of the Seven Kingdoms'. No one can say you are a poor commander, if you can cull me."
"You're raving mad."
"I would be careful," Baelor murmurs, trying to sit up, and letting out a wheezing breath which cripples the gravity of his voice, "that would be close enough to slander, were you of lesser blood and stature."
"I am," Maekar whispers hollowly, turning his piercing pale eyes on Baelor. "Of lesser blood and stature…” He chews the words up, spits them out ferociously. “I thought you lost, surely."
Baelor shakes his head, though it feels like death. "I am not," he insists, slowly and firmly. It must've been eating him alive, he thinks faintly, good gods. To think of what it would do to Maekar, had his blow been any greater and Baelor's armor any weaker. But he had not taken Valarr's suit at the end, had listened to his son's earnest denials; he had loaned it from the armorer at Ashford instead, to suit his height and build, cheap and lacking the emblem of the dragon, but no matter. He was dragon enough, even if the lords never tired of whispering behind his back of his dark hair and half-foreign blood.
Maekar hums. "I did think Daeron was dead. Laying there in the mud, his stupid fucking green feather sticking up, I felt in my bones he was beyond my reach. And all I could think of was how he had Dyanna's smile. Only to find out he was putting up a mummer's farce, all the while, the spineless fucking prick! And he still got his ear cut off!" Maekar was fuming by the end of it, face the color of puce. "Imagine that! The gods would saddle me as such! I deserve it! I must!" he finished, and Baelor felt sudden, unbidden amusement well up. He laughed hard, delighted, and then squinted his eyes against the all-consuming pain.
"Laugh, go ahead! I'm certain your Valarr would never debase you so. Not even the Even Younger Prince would, and he is greener than them all."
"Easy, brother. It has ended more aptly than it started - we have the gods to thank for that."
"Your hedge knight has been hovering for days," Maekar says dismissively, standing up, brushing off the deep black velvet of his doublet. He rolls his eyes. "Been clamoring at the door to serve you. What would he know of medicine and maester business?"
Baelor considers this information. His head feels hollow. He is not well enough to comport himself in a way befitting a prince of the royal blood. But he wants to see Ser Duncan the Tall anyways - the champion of this misbegotten venture. Maekar eyes him suspiciously, before turning his head to the side and scoffing.
"Fetch him, shall I?"
"Please."
Maekar stands for a moment, frozen. He touches Baelor's foot, through the blankets which have been piled on him, keeping him in place. It is the briefest thing, there and gone, as if he has not moved a muscle. He doesn't say anything; the care doesn't come easily to him, nor do the words. But Baelor knows it is momentous. He doesn't say anything either, but the two of them know. The Hammer and the Anvil - they are lost without each other.
"Try not to overwhelm the boy," Maekar bites on his way out. "If you pull the benevolent prince act on him after you nearly died serving his side in the trial, he may actually drop dead."
"Perish the thought," Baelor manages, "he is the kind of knight this realm needs more sorely than anything."
"Hmm," Maekar says, his voice too high and saccharine for it to be anything but a taunt, but Baelor lets it go. He is gone in a flurry of black velvet and satisfaction before Baelor has a chance to dig his claws into him, at any rate. The flaxen head and massive build enter the doorway; he has to stoop to get in. He stumbles into the room rather than walking in - Baelor almost sucks in a breath. Fuck! He’s spectacularly battered. He shuffles in, collapses to a knee straightaway. Baelor is baffled.
“Rise, ser, there’s no need -”
“Your Grace!” His left eye is swollen entirely shut, his whole face a mottled mess of cuts and bruises - his voice is thick as it warbles out into the room. "Your Grace! It is my fault," he stammers, "my - my fault!" He places a trembling hand, fat with bandages, over his heart. Baelor sees blood in the middle of the hand, rendering the gauze sodden. He remembers something, half-uncertain, rising to the front of his mind. After the trial, the stable, the cracked visor, the same unsteady voice vowing to him. Your man, was it? Was that what he had said? Baelor is almost angry - almost. What the hell is this man?
"Rise, Ser Duncan. The gods have passed their verdict."
"Forgive me, Your Grace. You would not be in such a way if it were not for me. Ser Hardyng, Ser Beesbury - they were lost, for me."
"A noble deed was done by them, and their houses will remember their valor for years to come."
Ser Duncan straggles to his feet, leaning on the bedframe for support. Baelor watches him.
"No, Ser," he argues still. Baelor notices he is tearing up. "No, you don't understand. I don't know why they've seen fit t' favor me, I'm not worthy of bein' your man, beggin' your pardon. Your Grace."
"They knew, as did I, what the trial meant."
"No, ser. No. A knight may demand a trial by combat, t' determine their innocence. But a petty man may not. I -" Duncan swallows hard, swaying on his feet. Baelor wants to hold him up, if only he could, if he was well enough. "I was not knighted by Ser Arlan."
"No? That is as well, any knight can a knight make."
"No knight has knighted me," Ser Duncan whispers, so thoroughly beaten into a pulp that Baelor pities him. Every breath must feel like a lance to the chest. Baelor smiles.
"Alright, then."
Ser Duncan's brow twists in confusion, his eyes narrowing as if he suspects some kind of jape. "Alright? It's not, Ser, it's - I haven't been knighted. The trial is a sham! And so am I."
"It was my interest you might see to Egg's education. There is a master-at-arms at Summerhall, but the boy hasn't cleaved to any tutor or maester as he has you. It would be a harder life for him, to travel rough, to sleep under the sky. But it seems to interest him, and it would be an apt appointment for you."
Ser Duncan's face contorts into frustration. "I cannot guide him! I'm a fake! A liar, and a cheat. I shouldn't have won, by rights. I can't give him anything. I cannot even make of him a squire, for I am not a knight," he bites out. "Don't you see?" he pleads.
"I cannot. A knight takes vows which he guards with his life. You've done so. To protect women and children, to show courage, to guard the innocent and obey the will of the warrior, the father, the mother, the maiden, and the crone. What more could I ask of a knight of the realm?"
"You would trust me to keep Egg, after I have shown plainly my blunders to you? The prince Maekar will disapprove."
"Aye," Baelor admits, "but he will see sense, for he has narrowly passed this trial with Aerion and Daeron intact. He, nor I, would see Aegon turn to ruin for the sake of Targaryen pride. Maekar is of poor humor and possessing of little decorum, but he loves his make. He will see what is right done by Aegon."
"There is much I have to learn," Duncan says. "I am no knight to teach him tilting and swordsmanship - what I know is shabbily known and what I can teach is not noteworthy."
"I disagree. What you have to impart is honor, which Aegon will not learn by embroiling himself in rage and competition in Summerhall, against lords and lordlings. You said, I recall, he requires a firm hand. I daresay he will only submit to yours."
"I am not even a knight," Ser Duncan whispers, shaking his head at the ground, eyes winched shut as if in agony. Baelor is convinced Egg can save this man, and that he will save Egg.
"Give me my blade, Ser Duncan the Tall."
As if going to the gallows, the man stands and gives him his blade, and stands with his eyes shut and hands crossed over each other. He bows his head. Baelor grins. "Do you think I would strike a wounded man, unarmed and at my mercy? You have a shallow opinion of me, indeed." Before he can take to vehement protest, Baelor makes his demand. "Kneel, Ser Duncan."
He does.
"In the name of the Father, I charge you to be brave."
Ser Duncan's eyes fly open, one brilliant blue iris trained on Baelor's face. His mouth is open with shock. "You can't," he mutters, aghast, "you can't, Your Grace, my gods, Your Grace-!"
Baelor's the prince, the Hand, the Protector of the Realm, damn it. He finishes the oath even as Ser Duncan blathers through it, speaking louder and louder over the man's horrified mumbling. When he is done, his hand feels as if it weighs a thousand pounds. He drops the blade to the ground. His head feels heavy. "I should like if you would bring Egg back to the Keep on his nameday, and Maekar's. The king's, of course. On festivals, if possible. But otherwise his keep and care are yours to mind, gods help and guard you."
Ser Duncan is still crying. Baelor puts his hand against his warm, rough cheek and marvels at him. It is almost maddening, this power. Baelor has moved through his days determined to do right by the realm, by his people, and by his duties. But he is of Targaryen blood, after all. It runs like fire through him surely as anything else. He is no more a saint than any other man. He has had the measure of this hedge knight - his rope-belt of hemp, green-cloaked and bedecked with the shade of the sun, red-gold hair and flushed cheeks. He thinks of the proud elm on that sunset-dappled shield and wants. All his life he has sought to be a man of honor, of credence - to be as the storybook knights had been. Here is a storybook knight of his own, vowing allegiance to him. It's a dizzying notion, and Baelor has labored over the question since he posed it to this man, nights ago. How good a knight are you, he had asked him, twice, and then he had not slept, for the question had rung over and over in his head, posed to himself.
How good a fucking knight are you?
Baelor could not have known, from one instant to another, why he had said yes. Why he had fought, half a fraud, to stand at the hedge knight's side. For valor? For song? To prevent Valarr from doing the same, or to prevent Aerion from winning an empty victory to glut on? He had considered it, as he waited for the horns to sound. The answer had come to him, somewhat clear, as he looked at the kingsguard in their white armor and Aerion's dragon-helm and the wide, open, muddy plain. He had felt his horse's breath beneath his thighs, rising and falling. He had heard his heart echo in the weighty heft of his helmet. And he had realized that he wanted to be a good knight - a storybook knight - and here was his chance. A boy's gossamer dream which he could test the mettle of. Here was Baelor Breakspear's chance to prove he was worthy of his knighthood, his station, his reputation. No tourney, no tilt, no battle was more priceless than this - a chance to make of himself something fucking legendary. It was the hardest decision he had ever had to make. He had been certain he would piss himself, on that horse, before the horns sounded. But it was always like that. He was just a man. But here was another man, who he might've dismissed as lesser. Here was Ser Duncan the Tall, who had made of Baelor a man worthy of taking to king, one day. All because he had stood for a puppeteer girl who had no other avenue of rescue. And he thought himself forgettable - he thought Baelor could send him away and think nothing more of it. Unbelievable - that such a paragon of excellence might think himself dust. Half Baelor's years, and twice the man.
"Enough, Ser. You are my man, yes?"
"Always, Your Grace," he says, choking up. "All my life is yours."
"A bold claim - you have many years left to pass. All the same, you’ll see my will done?"
"You need only say it!"
"Go rest. See Egg. Tell Maekar of what I have told you."
"...As you will, Your Grace."
Baelor watches the man's figure as it limps through the doorway, and then the hall, and then beyond his sight. The door slides shut with a snick. Valarr will be up to see him soon, his dear son having been informed he is awake. Birds chirp willy-nilly outside his window. A faint summer breeze blusters through the room; leaves rustle outside, green sprites dancing in the embrace of the wind. He is growing hungry, his head hurts, he feels his mouth dry from lack of water. He smiles to himself. 'Your man', Ser Duncan the Tall had vowed. Here is a blade made for him, Baelor thinks greedily, a weapon to wield against the world. What force could stand against him with an Anvil and Elm by his side? He is deliciously sated, in that empty, unbelievable midmorning. Baelor Targaryen lies back, alive and ferociously awake, and knows he is king of the world.