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It was a warm and pleasant evening when the prince learned that his sons were dead.
Spring had arrived in Dorne like a sigh of relief. The sea to the east carried in a salt breeze and the smell mingled with the orange blossoms that had just begun to bloom, filling the air with a crisp sweetness. The winter had been a short but bitter one, and the sun was a welcome sight. The marble pools and fountains of the palace gardens caught every glint of it as it moved lazily across the cloud-streaked sky.
When he had risen that morning, Baelor had found the sight beautiful, just as he had every morning for weeks now. But now the day was giving way to a starless night, and all beauty had gone from the world. My sons are dead. The letter trembled in his shaking hands. When Maester Gethan had delivered it to him and he had seen his father’s personal seal, unbroken, a profound dread had settled into his heart. It had taken him most of the day to gather the strength to read it. Now his eyes had run over the words for so long that they had ceased to hold any meaning; and yet, there they remained.
Baelor’s visit to Dorne was intended to be a short one, with dual purposes: facilitating an administrative agreement with the crown in his duties as Hand of the King, and paying a visit to Lady Daenerys Martell in his duties as her nephew. His journey had been uneventful, as had his arrival to Dorne’s capital. But not long after the Citadel’s white raven had arrived to herald the turn of the seasons, dark wings carried darker words from King’s Landing. Plague, read King Daeron’s careful hand, and not one known to our maesters. A man might complain of a chill at sunrise and be dead before dusk. It is safer for you in Dorne now, my son. Wait, and rest, and pray.
And so he did, as Lord Martell closed his roads and ports and left Baelor little choice but to heed his father’s advice. In the meantime, he indulged in his beloved aunt’s hospitality. His mother’s land had always felt a second home to him, and it proved the ideal environment to distract him from thoughts of his home in King’s Landing. He occupied himself with good food, good wines, and the company of his family—including his young nephew, Egg.
That had been the third reason for his visit, though this one he had kept to himself. Before he left the Red Keep, word had arrived that his nephew and the hedge knight he squired for had reached Sunspear themselves, and as the ship carried him south he could not help himself from wishing their paths might cross again. He told himself he was eager to meet with family, but in truth, it was the knight who most often entered his thoughts.
Ser Duncan proved himself to be wonderful company once he had arrived in Dorne. Baelor had not realized how long it had been since someone had made him laugh so much, and Duncan seemed to have a talent for it. It had been years since they last spoke, since that fateful tourney at Ashford that had nearly taken his own life. Without doom and death hanging above their heads, Duncan was an easy man to speak to. And one surprisingly well-suited for palace life, Baelor also discovered. Each morning he expected the knight to be gone, to have wandered off with his nephew in search of their next adventure, but each morning he had found him loitering about the grounds, or tending to anything in the garden that needed tending to. Baelor had his aunt to thank for that, he suspected. She doted on the hedge knight even more than her own kin, and he seemed more than happy to attend to her whims.
Baelor was glad to be with her, too—though aunt by blood, Daenerys was of an age with him, and had always felt like the sister that he never had. He relished their time together. He had not seen her since the birth of her second child, not long after the construction of these gardens were complete.
It was a visit not unlike this one had been, he recalled. He remembered his nervous excitement at the thought of bringing his family to the places he had spent much of his youth. Lady Jena had never seen Sunspear. Oh, my dear Jena. The reminder of his departed wife struck him unexpectedly, and threatened to compound his grief. Had it truly been so long since he had last mourned her? Our sons are gone, and so too I must lose you again.
The boys had been with them, too. The memory came unbidden as his eyes finally moved from the letter, coming to rest upon the clear, still waters of the gardens. Valarr was only five then, perhaps six, with a boldness that rivaled even Maekar at his age. He had declared himself Knight of the Waters, Baelor remembered, and soon found that the other little boys had no qualms challenging a prince or two. Matarys was a gentler boy in those days, but endlessly curious, and inseparable from his older brother. He had begged Valarr to take him on as a squire before he even knew the meaning of the word. With one riding atop the other’s shoulders, the pair of them made a clumsy champion, sparring with the other children who dared to challenge them until they fell together in a gleeful splash. Their laughter echoed in Baelor’s ears, filling the silent gardens.
Baelor smiled at the memory; that was when the first tears came, as if he needed a small act of joy to tear open the wound of his grief. A sob grew in his throat. He pressed his hands to his eyes, but the blackness only showed him visions of his boys as he had last seen them, so young and bright and alive. They will always be young, he thought. The seasons shall come and go, there will be long summers and longer winters, but my sons will never leave the spring.
Baelor sank to the floor, still clutching the letter to his breast, and succumbed to his sorrow.
That was how Dunk found him.
Truthfully, Dunk was still growing used to seeing him at all. Whatever he had in mind when Egg suggested they continue their travels in Dorne, it was not this. It began as a family reunion between uncle and nephew, once they heard that he would be arriving, and it quickly became an excuse for an extended stay at the Lady Martell’s private residence. Every day at the Water Gardens was like a dream. The palace overflowed with figs and fruit and all the sweet pleasures that the spring brought. Dunk had never eaten so much like a prince himself.
Egg, too, was no doubt glad for the respite from the life of a humble hedge knight, and from having no one else to talk to besides. He seemed to be enjoying the company of boys his own age at the palace. Dunk had scarcely seen him of late; in fact, it was with Prince Baelor that Dunk had been spending most of his time.
Dunk visited the prince often. Sometimes it was to discuss Egg and how he was faring in his training, or if there was any news from the villages they had passed through on their travels. They played cyvasse most afternoons, which Dunk was surprised to find himself quite enjoying, though he had not yet come close to winning. Other times they only sat together, watching the children play or listening to the seabirds that circled endlessly overhead. Dunk had never felt so close to another man, and yet still so distant. It was as if they danced around each other, like petals on a breeze, almost but never touching. It set his head spinning.
He did not want to press, though. Conversation came easy between them, but still he felt there was some invisible, impassable barrier through which he dared not reach. Baelor was a prince, after all, and princes were supposed to take what they want. And if he will not take me… it is no matter. I am a hedge knight, not a royal’s sworn sword. A palace is no place for one like me, anyhow. Egg and I shall head back onto the road, as we should have done days ago, and this dream shall end.
But Dunk had not expected the sight that awaited him. He had never seen the prince cry before, he realized then, standing frozen at the entrance of his chambers. Baelor was on his knees, shivering despite the warmth, shuddering with every anguished intake of breath. It had grown too dark to clearly make out his face, but Dunk was glad for that. There was something obscene about witnessing a prince like this, he thought, then quickly chided himself for thinking it. It was true, though—even in that suffering after Ashford, when he thought Prince Baelor might never rise or walk again, he had not seen him shed a single tear. He had the impulse to go to him, to take him into his arms and whisper sweet comforts, but he resisted it. Whatever happened, it is not something I can fix.
It was a long while before the prince noticed his presence. He did not look up, but Dunk heard the hitch in his breath when he had crossed the threshold. The candle flames flickered and bent at his sighs, as if the whole world bowed with his sadness.
“It does not say who died first.” Baelor’s voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. “Father thought that a kindness, perhaps. Painless, he wrote, and swift, and peaceful, all kindnesses. There is no kindness left, ser, when a father outlives his sons.”
It cannot be so, Dunk thought, despairing. Prince Valarr and Prince Matarys, both of them, dead? He could not imagine a greater cruelty. “Your Grace… I don’t know what to say…”
“It was his nameday,” Baelor said as if he could not hear him, his eyes fixed upon the darkening sky. “Before I left. He had been gifted a beautiful hawk from his grandfather, and I asked what name he had given it. Matarys liked to name all his animals. But it was bad luck, he said, to name a bird before you’ve flown it. He was waiting for me, for the spring, for us to go hunting together. It will never have a name now.”
For the first time, Baelor looked at him. The hollow despair that dulled his two-toned eyes pressed heavy upon Dunk’s heart. Those eyes were Valarr’s eyes, too.
“After I took that wound at Ashford, each morning I awoke was a miracle,” Baelor continued. “Some days the pain left me unable to even open my eyes, but I was alive, and so I thanked the gods for every moment. Life was the gift that they had given me. I fear now that it was no gift at all. Perhaps I was not meant to survive that day. Maybe life cannot be gifted, only exchanged. Is that the price, then, to lose all those I love?”
“No, Your Grace,” Dunk said suddenly, kneeling to grasp the prince’s shoulder. Fool, what could you possibly say to ease the grief of two sons lost? “You have Egg, and Lady Daenerys and her children, and your brothers and father.” The words felt stupid as they left his mouth, but he hadn’t any others, and the silence was even worse to bear. “You have me.”
Baelor’s voice had gone, but the look on his face shifted. To what emotion, Dunk could not say, but if his words pulled him even the briefest moment from his despair, he knew that he must keep talking. “You have me,” he said again, and grabbed hold of the prince’s hand; a reflexive action, as it had once been at Ashford, when he had caught that limp, heavy body in his arms. “As long as you have need of me, and to whatever end, I swear to you.”
For a moment, he feared he had overstepped. His grip loosened. But before he could shrink away, before his hand fell back to his side, he felt the other man’s grasp tighten. Their fingers curled around each other in the dark. With a knowing squeeze, Dunk stood, and the two of them rose together. Prince Baelor looked up at him and pulled him closer. “Stay, then. Please.”
And so he did.
