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End of summer. Dunk up to his knees in salty water, clear enough, beginning to burnish in the setting sun. He has a net and he is not catching anything. Also, Ser Arlan's spear, which he's left behind him on the sand, with which he was really not catching anything. Ser Arlan has a temper on him, muttering on the rocks. Dunk gets snatches of Dothraki on the wind. It is, maybe, the happiest he's ever been. Sunset like in a song or stained glass window in a sept. They have yesterday's bread, if he doesn't catch anything; they have mushrooms, and hard cheese; they have bedrolls, and a warm breeze to wrap themselves in as they sleep under the stars, tonight, that sea washing on the shore not so very far away.
"Boy," Ser Arlan says to him. "You're not catching anything."
"No," Dunk admits.
"You're very bad at that."
"Yes."
"Dunk the lunk," Ser Arlan says, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. In three years he will be dead, and it will be raining. Dunk will not be a boy any longer and he is hardly one now. Still. Still. If someone asks him about his boyhood, this is what he thinks of. In the Bottom he was a rat or a flea-bitten dog, not a boy. Not a person. Out here he might be a fish, shimmering in the water. He might be anything. Looking back at Ser Arlan, and his greatsword with its point driven into the sand. That, too, is shining in the sun.
The happiest he's ever been, thinking of how he might be.
#
The third time Dunk saves Baelor's life, Baelor tries to give him a castle. And the fourth. And the fifth through seventh as well. That is really the root of the trouble. Seven times: the seventh, it is not even on purpose, no dagger in the night or Tears of Lys, only Dunk taking breakfast with him in the solar and recognising, for ill, the mushrooms on his plate.
Later, hearing of it, Ser Roland draws his sword and Maekar threatens to whip the kitchen staff but there in the solar Baelor only pushes his plate away and says, "Now, there, what would I do without you, really?"
"I nearly fed one to Ser Arlan, once," Dunk tells him. "He gave me a clout, that I'd remember it for next time, made me swear to keep my eyes open, foraging. Think they only grow in the Crownlands. Some bright new cook from somewhere else must've gone out in the Kingswood and mistaken it."
"I wouldn't have had the first idea."
"You'd've known about it soon enough after you ate it. Acts on you quick."
"What is that," Baelor says then, resting his chin on a hand, the bad hand, "the sixth time, now? The seventh? This time is holy, if it is the seventh. These mushrooms are sacred. This plate."
"Stop that," says Dunk, still with colour in his cheeks, even with all this time between them. "I know what you're to say next."
"Oh, do you, now?"
"I do not want it."
"But it would suit you so well."
"It would not."
"It's not as though you have to spend all your time there. Many do not. Many only attend their own castles as the mood strikes them, when it is sunny and they miss the green hills. When their king comes to visit," said with brows lifted, intent behind it. "They take great delight in hosting him."
"Salt beef for dinner," says Dunk.
"Well, I am at my host's mercy. Whatever he should choose to feed me–"
Dunk shakes his head and stands to take the plates out to Ser Roland, who deserves to know, probably, that his charge nearly died a horrible death wholly by accident. "Enough of that."
"I do mean it, though, Dunk," Baelor says behind him. "That you should have some kind of– standing for yourself."
Dunk stands still for a moment. Does not say anything, fingers tightening on the gold inlaid rim of the plate. When he speaks to Ser Roland, his voice is perfectly even. Only the shadow in Baelor's face as he comes back says he knows he has erred, a shadow and a tilt to his chin, he will not admit to it; he does that, sometimes. And Dunk does this, which is hold the thing down inside himself, the frustration of a well-trodden path. Somewhere he is still that flea-bitten dog.
He says, "Egg and me'll likely ride ahead. Your retinue will be slow, I should think."
Baelor looks at him evenly. "That should not be a problem." And, "All your spare time at Summerhall, waiting for us. What will you do with it?"
Dunk shrugs. "We'll find something."
And he leaves, though he kisses Baelor roughly on the head before he does, and feels Baelor's hand touch his side, a brief grasp at his tunic before they separate. A nod of his head, and a Your Grace, to which Baelor says, "Stop that," and Dunk does not, but also does, mean it.
So this is the trouble. He is thinking about it when he and Egg set out for Summerhall, the winding road, cool glades and baking hot fields, meadows, wildflowers, grass. Bathing in rivers and pools with Egg sitting haughty beside the water, sharpening endlessly that bastard sword his father probably oughtn't to have given him, being that it's still slightly too big; he is four-and-ten, now, but small for it. Aloof with it, too. Dunk splashes at him and gets little more than a sneer. He will grow out of it, apparently. Dunk wishes he would and doesn't want him to all at once.
But Dunk is thinking about castles, mostly.
The third time he saved Baelor's life, it was a knife in the shadows, Ashford, when Baelor was still learning how to walk again. Blood. Baelor, ashen, grappling with Dunk's arm, holding him up, holding each other up; Dunk still remembers it, the sting of the knife, how it bled. Holds the scar like a lovebite on his hip. Baelor, managing, "At this point you really should have a castle for it," and there, so it began. Since then it does not stop. Even when Dunk is inside him, hard and hot, Baelor straddling his hips as they move together, fronts pressed flush, Baelor murmurs it into his ear: "But you deserve a reward, ser."
And Dunk grits out, "Your Grace has given me reward aplenty already," and thrusts up harder as if to prove it — Baelor keens — the subject is forgotten, at least until they are spent, and tracing idle shapes on Dunk's chest Baelor says, "I would see you with one anyway. A reward." And Dunk groans and rolls away to clean them up. So it goes.
"What would I do with a castle anyway," he says to himself, the morning before they hit Summerhall; Egg gives him a derisory look.
"What does anyone do."
"That's the point," Dunk says, low. Little else.
That afternoon, Summerhall: it is resplendent and white, arches, long windows. Pools for bathing and long lawns. It looks cold, Dunk thinks, who has spent so long in hedges and trees. He asks Egg what they do in winter.
Egg shrugs. "Fires and blankets. Or we go to court. Maegor's is not so draughty."
It's the answer Dunk might have expected, nothing other than he expected. He gives Thunder his lead and the old horse nods forward; he leans over his neck, says into his mane, All these bloody princes, eh?
Thunder snorts. Dunk has ridden him too hard and too far; he is not for the lists any longer, scarcely for the road. Baelor will gift him a new destrier, if he asks. If he doesn't ask. Especially if he doesn't ask.
He stokes his resentments. A pleasant eve, glowing insects flitting across the lawns. Sweet Arbor gold and the sound of Egg arguing with Rhae; Daella is five-and-ten, now, and believes herself above such things, shares a drink with Dunk out on the terrace. It seems to go unquestioned that this is where he finds himself, now. That he is entitled to it.
Then, also, that it feels wrong to be here for a different reason: that his other half is not. Baelor leaning in to say something, a low burr close to his ear. A hand, ringed, possessive, on his thigh. He regrets his haste all at once. Imagines Baelor out there on the road, the slow progress of the caravan, a wheelhouse he will refuse to ride in; how the sun might hurt his eyes, on a bad day, how he might stumble to climb down from the saddle. Dunk not there to steady him.
"Perhaps we should call you Maester Duncan, with how pensive you look," says Daella. "As bad as Aemon."
Dunk clears his throat. "Not nearly so clever as Aemon, though."
"I'm afraid no one is. Save perhaps Uncle Aerys, and he is dull as stone. Or Uncle Baelor," she adds, a sideways look. "He's frightfully clever."
"He is, isn't he." He does not add the other part, that that cleverness can be frustrating, elusive, too ready a tool at hand. They're all like that, a little bit. Even Maekar with his blunt edges or Egg, growing into himself on the road.
They spend hot days waiting. Bathing in the pools or hunting among the trees, fishing in the river, this the same river where Aerion liked to fish, Dunk imagines, a queer thought, the traces of others with their own claims to memory. Daella tries to teach him a game called cyvasse, a losing battle before it starts. It was her father who taught her, she says, and Baelor who taught her father; and it was old Maester Yormwell who taught Baelor, having learned it during a spell in Volantis. She plays it with Egg instead.
They see Daeron, sometimes; Kiera is pregnant, confined. He is nervous, cagey with the wine. Dunk has nothing to tell him that might help. He watched a woman giving birth, once, sent Egg running for a midwife while he guarded her back, wound up holding her hand; had half-moon scabs from her nails in his palm for weeks afterward. Daeron catches him at it, this thinking, and says, "I don't think your honour will do us any good in this one, hedge knight."
"It doesn't hurt."
"Doesn't it?" he says, and then shakes his head. "Sorry. I know not what I'm saying. Uncle will tell me off, my being unduly cruel to you."
Dunk winces. Doesn't say anything. It's supposedly breakfast, though Daeron isn't eating anything. Dunk's eggs and bacon and mushrooms — the edible kind — are long gone.
"Ah," says Daeron, looking at him closer. "Something come between you?"
"No."
"Well, that's all right then." He leans over the table, browses for a moment; picks out a slice of seeded bread and begins to shred it between his fingers, eat it dry.
Dunk watches him and then cannot watch any longer: "He wants to give me a castle."
"Oh. That's nice of him."
"I don't–"
"Oh. How cruel of him, how dare he, so on."
"You are not helping," Dunk says, putting his head in his hands. "For all you Targaryens being so learned and wise, you don't understand it."
"Wise is a strong word. So explain it to me, then. The trouble."
"The trouble is he is so bloody persistent with it. That he should– reward me. For all I've done for him. As though that is why I did it."
"You did it because of that damnable honour, no?"
"I– yes. That, and– yes, I suppose."
Daeron smiles, sharp. In the bright sun his yellow hair is closer to white-gold; he looks more the part. "You will work it out, ser. You and my uncle. I have seen it in a dream."
"You're lying," says Dunk, before he can stop himself. Daeron takes no offence. His smile deepens, and he snags a second slice of bread, takes it with him as he goes. Dunk, given to stress-eating, takes a second helping and is still chewing glumly, furiously, when Egg comes in to entice him out to the training yard.
The days pass. He spends hours in the stables, brushing the horses down, talking to them. There was the time with the horse, Baelor's horse, the great black mare named Meleys: riding back to King's Landing, of course Baelor refused the wheelhouse, it was blustery early spring and some animal ran afore Meleys's feet, she was nervous because her rider was nervous, sickly, on her back; she reared and only Dunk was close enough that Baelor did not hit the ground, though it was a close-run thing, Dunk grabbing at his arms, at his wrists, clawing him up. Dunk slid out of the saddle; somehow, Baelor was still in his hold. Both of them panting for breath. Meleys was stalwart and hadn't bolted anywhere. A good horse, Meleys.
I am a better rider than that, Baelor said, close into Dunk, his chest. I am– and the words failed him, he was in pain, he was all out of sorts. Dunk held him up. Said, to whoever was listening — Maekar, Maekar had drawn close, looked set to vault from his horse himself — that perhaps they should break for the night. Most concerning of all was that Baelor did not protest. Only said, later, strange that it was you that caught me. And Dunk apologised and Baelor smiled tiredly: Strange, I said, not a shame. Not something that troubles me. Many things trouble me, Ser Duncan. You are not one of them.
Dunk's cheeks always heat with the memory, even now. How he was. How they were — Baelor has since confessed how foolish it made him, chasing Dunk the way knights do maids in songs — and it is in the nature of things, to grow and evolve, the way plants do. And he does not miss it, not really. His own humiliations. How Baelor put on a good face about it but he was so very unwell, weak and confused, clumsy with his bad hand and hostile to sunlight. Needing things; princes, perhaps, needed things, but knights? The famous Breakspear?
They watch the sun set over the lawns. Arranged just so, that the sun touches the lake as it dips, falls, melts down into the water. It's not quite the Sunset Sea: close enough?
Kiera ducks her confinement, comes down to see him, hugely pregnant and strained in her face with it, her pink hair pulled back. Says, "You will stay, ser? After–" She waves her hand over her belly. Before, after. Said like she has no expectation of success.
He says, "The king wants me at court. This will be court, for a while. So."
"Do you want to be at court?"
"I want to be with him," said too fast; he flushes. She smiles at him, sideways. There is work to be done. The royal train will be here in a day, perhaps two. He imagines saying to Baelor, you are a better rider, the best. The best of them all. He imagines saying, do you miss that dragon-named mare of yours? You never did say what happened to her. If something did.
#
Much to be done, but not Dunk's for the doing. Servants fluttering around, stewards, guardsmen. Dunk takes himself out to the yard, so as to be out of the way; he starts by running a wide lap of the fields, barefoot, something Ser Arlan used to do, a thing he learned in the east. Earns him the strangest of looks. And the yard: he crosses blades with the master-at-arms and by now he is quite good at it; the master-at-arms looks at him with approval. After, he is dripping in sweat. "Going to see the king like that?" the master-at-arms says.
Perhaps the flush of exercise will hide his blush. Still blushing, even now. Shiera would tease him for that. But Shiera isn't coming; she and Maekar mislike each other, and this is, after all, Maekar's own castle. His own keep. To be kept for whomever he likes.
Bloodraven, however, is a necessary evil, goes wherever the king goes; Dunk feels queerly like they have something in common, that way. It is Bloodraven who spots him first. A thousand eyes and one: he is already looking down the lane, the long drive — Dunk has taken the scenic way around — and smiles, palely, behind his curtain of hair. Says something over his shoulder and then, of course, it is the king who turns. Tanned on the road, in the full sun. His noble profile as in paintings and on coins. His cheeks a little hollow, under the beard: has he been eating, Dunk wonders, has someone been making sure he eats? Surely not Bloodraven. Perhaps Maekar.
Baelor smiles to see him. Dunk ducks his head, quickens his pace. It will not do to keep them all waiting, and they are waiting; Baelor has held the whole train at the gates so Dunk can catch them up. When he is near enough: "Gods, man, you might as well have been swimming."
That is Maekar. Baelor brushes him aside and comes forward, holds out a hand. Dunk dips to kiss it, his ring. The taste of metal and salt, the king's own sweat, inside his riding gloves. The steady hand, it does not waver. Lingers just a moment too long by Dunk's face before he pulls it away and turns to the retinue again. Says brightly, declaratively, "Right. Dinner."
They wash up first. Servants come with platters of fruit and nuts and little stuffed pastries, cups of iced wine. Baelor lingers for a dignified drink and a word with the castellan before he is going up to his apartments, the king's apartments, the grandest of them all; Dunk follows, without being asked, without really deciding it of himself. The door has scarce closed behind them before Baelor is pressing against him, an open-mouthed kiss, hungry. Dunk says into it, "I am truly disgusting right now," and Baelor makes a noise of protest, his hand at Dunk's nape, dragging him down closer. Baelor is made for the heat somehow. Never reddens, sweats only politely. Still. Dunk's fingers are working at the laces on Baelor's tunic all on their own — it is a habit, being that Baelor is not so dextrous as he once was, not with two hands — and he says, as a compromise, "Bathe with me, then."
A servant fills them up a bath, one of those tubs that went beyond believing when he first saw them and remains somewhere beyond credulity now, that anyone could have a tub so large and fine, that anyone could need one. Large enough for Dunk and Baelor both. And they bathe together, the water warm but not scalding, a concession to the heat of the day or, more likely, Dunk's own presence; when they're done washing, Baelor seems content to sit back against him, fidgeting with Dunk's hand. Tired out from the road: "I do somewhat lack my youthful vigour," he says.
"Think I worked out all my youthful vigour in the yard today, personally."
"Ought I to be jealous?"
"Oh, yes, Master Rodner and me, you know, this week you've been away–"
Baelor pinches at his thumb. "I shall have him sent to the Wall forthwith."
Dunk smiles a little, but wonders what it would be like for him to mean it. They play a dangerous game, have been playing it for years. Maybe that is part of the point. How Dunk is so much bigger and stronger than Baelor, especially now. How Dunk would die for him. And Baelor, Baelor is not allowed to die for him; that isn't the point. But he nearly did. And so.
"The journey," says Dunk. "It did not trouble you too much?"
"It was fine."
"I suppose it would be fine, sleeping with silks and rugs. Never seen such pavilions as yours."
"Even Lord Lyonel's pavilions?"
"Well. Maybe." Dunk huffs a laugh. "But you know that isn't what I'm asking."
"It was fine, Duncan. I am well."
"Good," he says, though he's staring away without seeing, thinking of all the fell things that could happen out there, that do on a semi-regular basis. Dunk has been there for many of them but not all.
Baelor digs at him as he sits up, turns to face him. The water has cooled, but his skin is hot. His skin is always hot. "You're as bad as a white cloak."
"Well, they have a stake in your living. So do I."
"No," Baelor says gently. "You are concerned with the living of all. Men and beasts, too. You are a true knight."
"I always like to hear you say so," Dunk admits. "But it doesn't mean I can't be selfish in it, can I? I did– you remember the puppet girl? Tanselle?"
"How could I forget? She will go down in history, I fear. As will you."
"A knight defends the innocent but I wanted her to be my innocent. You see? I was–" He shrugs, blushes, waves a hand. "If you had died in the trial, gods forbid, it would have been a matter of honour that I would have stayed and pledged myself to your house anyway. The service of your son or your father the king, perhaps even your brother. Out of– respect. Gratitude. For your sacrifice. But I would not have done it. You're the best of them and without you what was I doing there? What am I doing here?"
"The way we treated you, I cannot fault your low opinions of us."
"But that's it. I am not–" Dunk shakes his head. "I cannot bring myself above it, like I ought. A true knight–"
"A true knight falls in love. Florian, the Rainbow Knight, Galladon of Morne. A true knight is improved by that favour, is he not? A true knight is made truer by it."
Before he can stop himself, Dunk mumbles, "A true knight does not accept a castle in payment for it."
Baelor looks at him colourlessly for a moment. Then he stands abruptly — wavers for a moment, and Dunk steadies him, unasked, scarce knows he's doing it — and climbs out of the tub. Leaving Dunk to slump back in the water, which sloshes up the sides. Watching Baelor dress through tired, narrowed eyes. This, why does it have to be this? Why does it have to be anything?
Of course it has to be something. Flea Bottom and the Red Keep, however could it be easy? Never that easy. Baelor goes into the other room and calls for a servant to help him with his surcoat, the laces, the clasps. Dunk has never been able to get used to it, all the people flitting in and around their life together, how there is no need that is not fulfilled, no want unanswered. Still, in the early days, on the road, there were those times when Baelor grew tired of being looked at. It would be Dunk, then, who might help him down from his horse.
Baelor has gone down to dinner already when Dunk gets out and dries himself off. But clothes have been laid out for him, garb befitting a sworn man of the royal house — some enterprising servant or Baelor's own instruction? Either way, Dunk is somewhat grateful he doesn't have to put his clothes from the yard back on, stiff with salt.
He finds them all down in the arbour overlooking the fields, the hills. Climbing plants overhang the table and there is chatter in the air, delight. They are all pleased to be together again. Of course they would be. Baelor is at the head, leaning back in his chair, holding court. A slow smile on his face. Hearing Egg tell some story, throwing his hands about. Rhae jabs him in the side with her elbow and says no, here, this is what happened. Daella says you're both horrendous liars. Maekar says your king is here, you would lie to your king? Baelor continues to smile and says nothing, twisting a ring around his finger.
Dunk hesitates. There is a space at his left hand, his right taken by Maekar, and no sign of Bloodraven to fill it. Egg spots him and snaps something at Rhae, like, I told you I was saving this seat– but then Baelor spots him too, and there is no argument in his eyes; he inclines his head to the chair beside him. "Join us, ser," he says. Kings have their favourites. True knights have their courtly lovers, Dunk tells himself, as he crosses the hot white paving to come under the shade of the arbour. The Kingsguard posted at the door — Ser Willem, sweltering — is watching him. They are all watching.
Daeron says, "Tell me, ser, how does the heat suit you? I've always wondered, your being so tall. The way big dogs feel the heat the worse."
"I find it hot," he admits. He sits and someone comes forward to pour him a cup.
"He is not blood of the dragon like the rest of us, which likely has more to do with it," says Egg.
"That's not actually– next you'll be talking about the blood of Dorne, too," says Rhae. Dunk glances at Baelor at that, finds his look even, without response. Not one of his rehearsed looks — Dunk has been learning to tell the difference — but genuine stillness, fondness, He is happy to be here, among his kin. It matters not what your kin say or offer you.
Dunk leans over to him. "I had thought– you know, that this was to be a courtly dinner."
"What, councillors and bannermen and such? There will be those, yes. But broadly speaking we are at our holidays, all of us. And I believe my lord Master of Ships, say, is fairly bored with my company by now."
"Court is wherever the king is," says Maekar, blunt. "Court is the king going for a swim or sitting his privy."
"Yes, thank you, Maekar, for that," says Baelor. "It is more descriptive than prescriptive, is what my brother means to say. I am holding court at Summerhall because I am at Summerhall, not because I am holding court. If that makes sense to you." He shakes his head at himself. "Gods, listen to me."
"Worse than Aerys," says Maekar.
"You offend me."
That does offend him; Dunk has met Aerys and found him to be dry, absorbed only in the workings of his own mind and whatever might lie on the page directly beneath his nose; he has few words to spare family, and fewer still for someone like Dunk. That's alright, Dunk has found himself thinking, I have no need of them anyway. And he does not. In the Bottom, you learn to live on little. Scraps like a dog.
Scraps that are the way Baelor looks at him, through this dinner, though they have quarreled and the family is watching — have they quarreled? Dunk can never wholly be sure — a sideways look, checking his plate and his cup, that he is being looked-after, that they are not neglecting him. Care in that look. And amusement, fondness, maybe even a frustration. Dunk has spent so many years now trying to puzzle him out. Frustration in those early days for how he had to adapt the way he ate, if something required two hands; frustration at his councillors for their pigheadedness or selfish agendas; frustration at himself, his own wants and desires. Dunk wasn't able to guess at that one. Had to wait until Baelor told him, forced him up from one knee and told him: ser, I cannot deny that I cannot do without you. No, that I shall not do without you. I do not want to.
Dunk had no plans to go anywhere, save the wide world and the road, but he would always be back, and he told the king so, that he would always be back. One of those things that Baelor never seems wholly to believe. Not until Dunk is there again, riding in through the gates, appearing over the crest of a hill. That same look as earlier, down the lane, when first he'd been spotted. Wonderment, a little bit. My knight, Baelor has taken to saying, mouthing close to Dunk's skin. Returned to me.
I said I would, Dunk says, but Baelor never hears him.
#
Dunk does not move into the royal apartments. He keeps his little room in the garrison, though truthfully he is not there all that often. Only those nights when Baelor has an early council meeting, or else a late one; the business of court does go on, it seems, holidays or no. Dunk is a light sleeper by necessity. Sleeping out in the wilds where anything can get you: bears, wolves, people. Baelor's featherbed is a sight more comfortable than the roots of an old elm but Dunk can't get used to that either. Waking, though, the waking is nice. Baelor's nose pressed into his neck, an arm slung loose across Dunk's chest. Snoring a little the way he does when he's tired. Never used to, he's told Dunk; started with the second break in his nose, Redgrass. Jena would shake him awake by the shoulder and say, that cursed battle wasn't content to take my brother; it had to take my peace at night as well?
And Summerhall is built a little like the Dornish palaces, so they say, to keep out the heat. Dunk is rarely too warm when he wakes unless Baelor is full on top of him. Then he has other, more pressing, matters to attend.
Hence, that if Baelor has duties starting early, it's best that Dunk does not stay. And he likes his little room, too, with the view over the courtyard and the stripe of the evening sun. He brings Baelor to it, once, when Baelor asks where they've put him. Baelor pinches his lips together and turns in a circle, surveying it. "You'd think they might spare something larger, for a man of your size."
"I like it this way," says Dunk, honest. "Not– I mean, I hate small spaces, you know that of me, but here I'm high up, can see out for miles. You know I don't need much."
Baelor's face twists further. "I feel so very indulgent when you say that."
"Oh, that's not– Baelor. Don't worry about that. There's no need to worry about that. You are– of all the indulgent kings–"
"Of which there have been many. Whose blood runs through me, through all of us. Even to be a king at all." He shakes his head, steps close to Dunk. Lays his hands on his chest and pulls him close. "What is it they call me?"
"Baelor the Bold," but it is not that he's talking about. "Baelor the Beloved."
"He would be nothing without his own beloved."
Dunk can hardly look at him for that. They fall into each other, even in that small bed, which creaks something fierce. The garrison walls are not so thick, or else the rooms are not so opulently far apart, as in the royal wing; they are likely overheard. How Baelor might praise him; how he might pin Baelor down and make him, make him–
Make him not say it, during or afterward. Do not say it. Please.
Baelor says, afterward, "I would come to you anywhere. If you were anywhere. No matter how small or ill-appointed."
"What are you getting at?"
"You are not my dog, ser."
Dunk can still hear the thud of his own heartbeat, hot in his ears. "I know that."
"I would follow you sometimes. As you follow me. I would– you know it pleases me, when you take charge of me. Arrange me as you would. My body is not the royal body but my body, those times. And I would have you feel as though your body is your own also."
"I do, I–" He shakes his head. "Out there, I am me."
"Only out there."
"Not only– Baelor. That worries you? That I am not myself?"
Baelor is looking at the ceiling. His limbs are hot, sprawled over Dunk; Dunk might trace the line of a scar down his upper arm, or kiss him on the shoulder, beneath the ear. "That you are only doing as I tell you. As everyone does as I tell them."
"You are the king."
Baelor shifts, looks at him. The dark eye and the light one. Dunk keeps forgetting which is the one with the poor sight, now. He seems keen enough with both but it is in his interest to seem keen with a lot of things. "I said–"
"I know what you said, Baelor," says Dunk, taking pity, rolling to lay an arm over him. Tight and close in this tiny, rickety bed. And a Kingsguard likely followed them here, too. "I know what you mean."
"You do? Because I do worry. That I do not make myself plain. That I am too much the king, with everyone as much as with you. And I would–"
"You talk overmuch."
"That is a part of it."
"Come out on the road with me," says Dunk. "Wear roughspun and sleep beneath a tree. Hard salt beef, it was only half a jest. Good for nausea, you know."
"I shall take it under advisement."
"They might recognise you, with the eye. Your face on the coins. Though I am not sure how I rate the likeness."
Baelor laughs. "Does it fail to do me justice, or does it flatter me?"
"Flatters you, for certain. You don't look nearly so old in copper."
"You are very rude, ser."
"So they tell me. It befits the road. Perhaps you would become rude too."
"With only coppers and salt beef, perhaps I would."
"No," Dunk says on an exhale. "You couldn't. You could never."
Baelor looks at him, goes to a murmur. "Could not become rude? Or could not join you out there?"
"I would have you. You know I would. Me and you and Egg."
"Yes," he says, distant, but it is too late, the lightness is gone.
#
You are not my dog, ser; but Dunk surely feels like one, some of the time. A hunt, a ball game, nipping at Egg's heels somehow and chiding at him in ways he has no right to, probably, this being where Egg keeps his princeliness, where it lives. Nobles of great houses drift in and out. Court is held, broadly; there are dinners, one night a ball, a small tourney. Dunk does not ride in it and Baelor does not ask him to. It was a weak field, Baelor says afterwards, like regretfully. Dunk is shedding his tunic and tells him, Little point in the victory, then. Which might ease him or not, Dunk cannot quite tell. The king is always so very tense.
Egg, a day later: "Did my uncle forbid you to ride in the tourney?"
"No."
"So why would you not? You have the horse, and the armour, and the squire. Not for so much longer, you know. I expect you to knight me the very moment I am ready."
"Your uncle will knight you."
"You will knight me. But you are avoiding the question."
"I am not. I told you no."
"So why did you not ride in it?"
"Because I–" They are out on a hill, away from all the guests, packing up, leaving. All Summerhall and its attendant lands, farms, septs and settlements laid out before them. Dunk squinting in the sun. He sighs and decides — resigns himself — to be honest. "Your uncle would never forbid it, but I know it displeases him."
"Displeases him? Why?"
"Not– that's the wrong word. Hurts him, maybe."
"Why on earth would it hurt him?"
"You are aware your uncle used to be the most renowned tourney knight in the Seven Kingdoms."
"Yes."
"And that he cannot do it anymore."
"Well, yes. But he's old. They stop doing it when they're old, most of them, save the Grey Lion." Egg frowns up at him. "It's not like you to spare others' feelings."
"It's not like– oi!"
Egg shrugs. "Is it, ser?"
Dunk sighs, deflates. Others', no, perhaps not. That rudeness of the road. Baelor's are quite another matter, though Egg doesn't know too much about it. Dunk knows not how he would bring it up. "I should not like to flaunt it, you know. My otherwise middling talent at the lance. That I am healthy to hold it nonetheless."
"And he has said this to you. My uncle the king."
"I– well, no. Tis not the sort of thing he would say."
"Well, then." Egg turns and starts to make his way back down the hill; he has spotted riders and a wheelhouse on the road, leaving, green apple Fossoway colours, and he means to intercept them. "You are valued for your stubborn honesty, ser. That you do not simply assume."
"I am?"
Egg does not reply. Stubborn honesty: stupidity, more like, if Dunk were to put a name to it. An incapacity to understand when a person is being subtle. It does not bother him particularly. These subtleties, courtly necessity and pride, the way they lie to each other, the way they're all continually lying — he's better off out of it. Ser Arlan would say so. Better off out of all of it, but that ship sailed, didn't it, when Baelor rode out to die for him.
The sky is changing, true end-of-summer, blushing burnished gold. When the maesters' raven arrives to warn of autumn, as someday soon it must, court will pack up and return to King's Landing; Dunk and Egg will pack up and go somewhere else. Anywhere in the world, the wide world, but increasingly the maps feel small.
For now, they go back down to the palace. That night, there is the news: the lady Kiera has had her child, a little girl squalling and red, the violet-eyed Vaella. All those premonitions and pessimisms worth nothing in the end. Something Ser Arlan used to say to him, he remembers it now, that it did not serve to worry about an uncertain bad thing because then it was bad twice over. Best leave it to be bad only once, or better yet, not at all. And the next day the hallways stream with light and everyone is smiling, even Maekar, even the servants. Dunk catches one of Lord Brynden's Raven's Teeth humming a tune. Dunk has an edge of wariness he cannot shed: he wants to go to Daeron and say, you will do it better than the rest of them, won't you? You will learn from your father's and your grandfather's and your great-grandfather's mistakes?
But he knows nothing even of fathers, so he does not.
#
It is Maekar who catches him by the servants' stair, some days later, a narrow, wry look: "My brother is indisposed this afternoon. He sends his apologies to all."
Dunk is by the servants' stair because he mislikes that grand sweeping staircase up, even now. He is known for this habit. Quietly — or, in Maekar's case, loudly and scornfully — mocked for it. Dunk says, "To all."
"Yes, ser, that is what I said. You know how he gets."
They look at each other for a moment. But what do you intend to do with him, Dunk heard him say to Baelor once, around a corner. Baelor, ever measured, ever polite: must something be done with him?
Dunk says, "Has a maester seen him?"
"Of course a maester hasn't fucking seen him. I repeat. You know how he gets."
Dunk smiles; so does Maekar, a little, begrudgingly. "I know," says Dunk. "I won't disturb him. You needn't worry."
"Needn't," Maekar is heard to scoff, just under his breath, as he steps aside. "He tells me what I needn't do."
Upstairs, Dunk is true to his word; he sits in the solar and practices his letters, leaves Baelor to whatever misery he endures behind those fine closed doors. At least for these first few hours, he cannot endure company. They learnt this the hard way. In the early eve, a serving girl brings up a meal; wide-eyed, doubtful, she looks between Dunk and the doors and then Dunk again, offers up the tray.
"That's all right," he tells her. "Just leave it with me."
She sneers a little, like she was expecting sarcasm, which stings. In Maekar's household she can hardly be blamed for it. Downstairs they are probably wondering where Baelor is, what has befallen him, will it go on long? It has been going on for years, Dunk could tell them. It will go on years longer, should he live that long, gods willing, no thanks to poisonous mushrooms or knives in the dark, and it was on my account, wasn't it? To bring me up here to be with all of you. That seems somehow away from the point. Like they've lost where they started; but they are reminded of it, each and every time, when Baelor is laid low and cannot get out of bed.
It has been some hours, now, so Dunk knocks lightly on the door. There's a murmur in response, something like assent. When he goes in with the tray Baelor is abed but awake, eyes glinting in the dark.
Dunk says, "Eat something?"
And Baelor says, "Not yet."
But he gestures Dunk closer anyway, and Dunk sets the tray down, sits on the side of the bed. Baelor's skin gleams with sweat and there are shadows beneath his eyes. I am a sick man, he said to Dunk once. Would you have a sick man?
Dunk was in no position to refuse any man, sick or no, but that was not the point; nor that sickness had nothing to do with it; the sickness had everything to do with it, it being the reason they'd fallen together in the first place. Dunk saw him at his worst, his lowest, and Baelor saw Dunk at his own very lowest, rope belt and humility and all, pleading for succour, a second chance. How it worked between them. How it still works, Dunk reaching out to touch Baelor's cheek, just lightly, watching the way his eyes flutter closed. The kind of touch that pains him but not enough that he'll pull away. Dunk wonders, sometimes. How much pain it would take. And himself, personally, would there be a cost too high? Anything that could stop this, this spiral they're in? How Dunk might die if he doesn't see him once a year, twice. Not worth thinking about.
"How long, d'you reckon?" says Dunk. Quiet in case it hurts.
"It is subsiding. How long it will take to be done with subsiding–" He gives a noncommittal look. "Perhaps a day, perhaps longer. I am not so young as I once was. Still, we are to receive the Carons two days hence, so I must needs–"
"Court can wait for you."
Wry: "I am the court, if you'll recall. This is the court, right here. You and me."
Dunk smiles a little. "The king and his fool."
"Quite. Though I am not so certain who is which."
Dunk does not dignify that with a reply. A question in his eyes, a silent answer; he moves around Baelor to get into bed beside him, tugs him down so they're laying together, Baelor yet unnaturally still, breathing shallow in the top of his chest. He smells bad, vomit and sweat. He's known Dunk to smell worse. All of it ceases to matter, like this. The food will grow cold. Dunk has eaten worse, too.
When he wakes again, the first lights of a summer dawn are seeping through a gap in the curtains: Baelor must have been up, he thinks blearily, or perhaps a servant. But, no, that tray remains where he left it, cold and congealed. Baelor is sitting up beside him, squinting at a letter by the flicker of a candle. Dunk tugs at his hand. "You should not be reading yet," he says, sleep-thick.
Baelor blinks at him and sets the letter down. "I feel much improved."
"And I would have you stay that way."
He smiles a little, but the smile doesn't linger. He puts a hand on Dunk's head, the bad hand. Strokes fingers through his hair. Unsteady and weak, tremulous, not fit to hold a sword but fit to do this, at least. Baelor says, "You slept like one who needed it."
"Your bed's too bloody comfortable. You ought to've woken me."
"To what end? It is barely dawn. And I was not fit for the traditional nighttime pursuits."
Dunk lifts himself, props his head on a hand. With the other, he finds Baelor's leg under the sheet, fine cloth and beneath it the hard muscle of his thigh. "And now? Since you feel so much improved."
Baelor smiles that dark smile he gets, somehow devious, but it, too, fades in a moment. "Perhaps later. I should like to– I have been thinking. When I am– the pain, it is my only distraction. I have been thinking on you."
"Best be careful you don't think your way out of me," says Dunk, just light, but he means it.
"That is my point, Dunk." Baelor rubs at the scar that splits his eyebrow, two fingers. "That is– there is too much thought, between us. Were you a woman, I might marry you. Declare it in the sight of gods and men. Were you a woman I could not marry, I might still give you silks and jewels, bedmaids, a manse to rest your head. But you are a knight."
"I've no wish to be a lord of anything."
"I know," he says, somehow miserably. "It drives me mad with affection."
"Well, then. I don't see where the problem is."
"The problem is that there is no matter to it. Do you see? That I cannot– pin you down. No, not that. That I cannot come to you, as you come to me. That I know not where I might find you."
Dunk stares at him. Frustration in his face, the fury of a limitation, a bridge he might not cross. All things are possible, to a Targaryen. Such is written. Closer to gods than men. And also–
Also, fear. A smallness. That look that is the same as every look, when Dunk is leaving; like Dunk might never come back. And Dunk squanders his doubts, then, casts them out with the wind. Reaches out again to take Baelor by the hip, to lean over him, close to his face, between them barely a hair. He says, "You know where you might find me. I am your man. And you, you are my my man too. That's it, isn't it? You– you saved me, once. My life would have been forfeit and instead you put your own on the line. I am tied to you. I do not doubt you in it. That you did it for– I care not what you did it for. Do you see?"
Baelor looks at him, a long moment, drawn out in a wire. Finally: "It is the terror of any king, that thing he cannot control. But this has not been in my control since Ashford. Nor myself; I have scarce recognised myself, these years. I admit perhaps to liking it that way. You have changed me, ser. But I ought not to seek to change you."
"You have changed me. You recall me, when we first met? How– green I was, how clumsy and foolish?"
"You were very young."
"Well, I'm not old now, thank you."
"Not like me, you mean."
"Certainly not."
Baelor smiles, fits a hand to Dunk's neck, thumb passing over his cheek. "I do recall you, yes. You were charming."
"Charming and green. And barely able to stammer a word out, to you, to any of them."
"You did more than stammer them out when it counted. I recall several complete sentences in our audience the night before the trial, some of them quite impudent."
"Maybe that's it. You've made me freer to be impudent."
"You've shown me its value."
Dunk kisses him, because he can't hold back any longer. Baelor draws him in, hungry for it: Dunk has always marvelled at the way he kisses, like any man might.
And Baelor says into his mouth, "No more talk of castles. I swear it."
"How about no more needing saving? How about that?"
"But you are so very good at it."
Dunk grunts and pulls him down, and they pass the dawn as though it's still night; as though they have all the time in the world.
#
End of summer. True end: there comes a raven out of the west. The great engine of court packs up its trappings and furnishings, its wardrobes, its wheelhouses. Dunk and Egg pack up too. Saddlebags and armour. The last night, they all watch the sun set over the lake. They talk about fishing. None of them have ever had to fish for their supper and Dunk keeps his mouth shut, most of it. Catches Baelor's eye and thinks at least to tell him about it later. The Sunset Sea, the spear. The net.
"I shall dream of you," Baelor says, the morning of. Watching Dunk work the laces of his jerkin. "In your roughspun, eating your salt beef."
"I imagine you there, sometimes. With me. I talk with you in my head. I know you passing well by now, so I hardly need the real thing."
Baelor laughs, slinks closer. "Only passing?"
"Well, I reckon there's mystery enough to you yet. To keep me entertained, like."
"To keep you coming back."
"I'll always come back."
A long, steady look. "I shall hold you to that."
And the court retinue rides north for the capital: and Dunk and Egg ride out in the lanes, deciding where they might go. North to Winterfell, to greet the true cold as it comes; south to Sunspear, to escape it. West and west and west.
"What about east?" he says, half to himself.
"East? You mean, take a ship? Essos?"
"Essos. Ser Arlan went to Essos. Why not? Might be we find where the sun rises."
"Or we lose our way."
"Aye. Or that."
But he does not think so. By the sun, he always knows where he is. At least where he is going.