Chapter Text
Rain pours down from the sky, soaking Dunk to the bone as he digs a hole and lowers Ser Arlan’s body into it. Dunk leans on his shovel. “I don’t know the right words. Ought to be a septon here.” He sniffs. “You were a true knight. You never beat me when I didn’t deserve it.”
Memories flit through his mind of all the times Ser Arlan had hit him over the years. As he said, most times were deserved. However…
“Except that time in Maidenpool. It was the inn boy who ate the widow woman’s pie. Not me, I told you.” He shakes his head. “It don’t matter now.”
His nose burns like it always does when he’s about to cry. His tears mix with the rain running in rivulets down his face.
“I’d leave your sword, but…” Dunk sobs. “But it would only rust in the ground.” He wipes his nose on his arm. “I wish you didn’t die, ser.” He rubs furiously at his eyes. It’s for naught, since his face is still wet from the rain. “I’ll take good care of the horses.”
The oak tree stands proudly on its little hill above Ser Arlan’s grave. Dunk sits beneath it, hugging his knees to his chest, staring at the mound of dirt that covers the body of his old master. The horses graze quietly beside him, their tails occasionally swishing against their backsides.
Next to him, tucked into the oak’s roots, sits Ser Arlan’s belongings. There’s the cloth purse that holds three silver stags, nineteen copper pennies, and a chipped garnet. Like most hedge knights, most of Arlan’s wealth had been tied up in his horses and weapons. The chainmail hauberk he’d scoured the rust off a thousand times now belongs to him, along with an iron halfhelm with a dent on the left temple, a sword belt of cracked brown leather, and a longsword in a wood-and-leather scabbard. There’s also a dagger, a razor, a whetstone, greaves and gorget, an eight foot war lance of turned ash with a cruel iron point, and an oaken shield with a scarred metal rim, bearing Ser Arlan’s sigil, which is a winged chalice, silver on brown.
Dunk pushes himself to his feet. He looks at the shield, scoops up the sword belt, and looks at the shield again. The belt was made for Arlan’s narrow hips. It’ll never fit him, no more than the hauberk will. He ties the scabbard to a length of rough rope, knots it around his waist, and draws the longsword.
The blade is straight and heavy, good castle-forged steel, the grip soft leather wrapped over wood, the pommel a smooth, polished black stone. Plain as it is, the sword feels good in his hand. Dunk knows how sharp it is, having worked it with whetstone and oilcloth many a night before they went to sleep. It fits my grip as well as it ever fit his, Dunk thinks.
Ser Arlan had wished for him to go to Ashford Meadow. A tourney is to be held there, for young Gwin Ashford’s nameday. Dunk wants to go to enter the lists, but Arlan, in no uncertain terms, told him he should search for either an alpha to take him in, or a house to swear himself to. An omega alone in the world is a terrible thing, Arlan always told him.
Dunk is freakishly large for an omega. He’s tall, nearly seven feet, and built like an aurochs. As far as he knows, omegas are supposed to be small and frail, which should make the alphas around them want to protect them rather than harm them. Of course, this isn’t always the case. Dunk had thought himself a beta, like Ser Arlan. He believed a beta was the best thing he could be, since he’d have nothing stopping him from becoming a great knight. But now…well. The idea of an omega being a knight is laughable at best. Even as a hedge knight, especially as a hedge knight, the idea is silly.
Before Dunk leaves, he gathers a few flowers he finds around the oak tree and tucks them into the dirt above Ser Arlan’s body. Not only to mark that he’s there, but to make it lovely as well. Ser Arlan deserves a lovely place to rest.
Sweetfoot is more comfortable to ride than old Chestnut, but Dunk still finds himself sore and tired when he spies the inn ahead, a small daub-and-timber building beside a stream. The warm yellow light spilling from its windows looks so inviting that he can’t pass it by. He has three silvers. Enough for a good meal and however much ale he wants to drink.
As he dismounts, a boy with a bald head wearing a roughspun cloak steps out of the shadows to meet him. “Hello there. Are you the stableboy?” The lad looks to be no more than eight or nine, skinny as he is. “I want the palfrey rubbed down, and oats for all three. Can you tend to them?”
The boy looks at him with defiance shining in his eyes. “I could. If I wanted.”
Dunk scowls. “I’ll have none of that. I-I’m a knight, I’ll have you know.”
“You don’t look to be a knight.”
“Do all knights look the same?”
“No, but they don’t look like you, either. Your sword belt’s made of rope.”
“So long as it holds my scabbard, it serves. Now see to my horses. You’ll get a copper if you do well, and a clout in the ear if not.” He doesn’t wait for the stableboy to give him a response, and shoulders his way through the door.
With the lateness of the hour, Dunk expects to find the inn filled to the brim, but it’s nearly empty. A young lordling in a fine damask cloak is passed out at one table, snoring softly into a pool of spilled wine. Aside from him, there’s no one. Dunk looks around, uncertain, until a short, stout woman emerges from the kitchens and says, “Sit where you like. Is it ale you want, or food?”
“Both.” Dunk chooses a chair by the window, well away from the sleeping lordling.
The woman smiles. “There’s good lamb, roasted with a crust of herbs, and some ducks me son shot down. Which will you have?” The woman’s scent reaches Dunk’s nose, warm and inviting like a crackling hearth at the end of the night. He suspects she’s an omega, like himself.
“Both,” he says again. It’s been half a year at least since the last time he’d eaten at an inn.
The woman laughs. “You’re big enough for it.” She pours a tankard of ale and brings it to his table. “Will you be wanting a room for the night as well?”
“No.” Dunk would love nothing more than to be able to bed down to rest his tired soul, but he needs to be careful with his coin. The ground serves him as a bed well enough. “Some food, some ale, and it’s on to Ashford for me. How much farther is it?”
“A day’s ride. Turn north when the road forks at the burned mill. Is my boy seeing to your horses, or has he run off again?”
“No, he’s there,” says Dunk. He takes a sip of his ale. It’s nut-brown in color, and thick on his tongue, the way he likes it. “It’s…not as busy as I would expect it to be.”
“Half the town’s gone to see the tourney. Mine would, too, if I allowed it. I swear, I couldn’t tell you why. Knights are built the same as other men. And I never knew a joust to change the price of eggs.” She eyed Dunk’s sword and shield. “Bound for the tourney yourself?”
He takes another sip of ale. “Aye. I mean to be a champion.”
“Do you, now?” She answered, polite enough. “An omega knight.” She tuts to herself. “You are built well enough, I suppose, but still…I could never imagine being a knight myself, that’s for sure. No, I’m content where I am, thank you much.”
Across the room, the lordling raises his head from the wine puddle. His skin is sallow, his hair a sandy brown rat’s nest, blond stubble dusting his chin. He wipes his mouth and blinks at Dunk, a surprised expression on his face. “Ah, there you are,” he slurs. His hand trembles as he points a finger. “Was wondering when you’d show up.” He stands, unsteady on his feet, and leaves a gold dragon on the table. “Enjoy your meal. Eat well. You’ll need your strength.” And then he lurches up the stairs, swaying to and fro, singing under his breath.
“Never you mind that one, ser,” the woman says. “He’s…troubled. All he does is drink and talk about his dreams.”
“Oh, it’s alright, good-sister.”
“I’ll see about your food.” She smiles kindly at him and bustles off.
Dunk wonders why the lordling thinks he knows him. ‘Was wondering when you’d show up’? What on earth does that mean?
The lamb is as good as any he’s ever eaten, and the duck is even better, cooked with cherries and lemons and not nearly as greasy as most. The innkeep brings buttered pease as well, and oat bread still hot from her oven. He sucks the last bit of meat off the bone with relish. He has a second tankard of ale with the meal, a third to wash it down, and a fourth because there’s no one to tell him he can’t. He pays the woman with a silver stag and still gets back a fistful of coppers.
It’s full dark by the time Dunk emerges. His stomach is full and his purse a little lighter, but he feels good as he walks to the stables. Ahead, he hears a horse whicker. “Hiyah!” He hears a boy’s voice cry. “Take that! Yah!”
Dunk quickens his step, frowning.
He finds the stableboy mounted on Thunder and wearing the old man’s armor. The hauberk is longer than he is, and he’d had to tilt the helm back on his bald head or else it would have covered his eyes. He looks utterly serious, and utterly absurd. Dunk stops in the door and would’ve laughed, but his instincts surge up and he lets out an omegan peal of alarm instead.
The boy looks up, flushes, and hops to the ground. “My lord, I did not mean—”
“Take off that armor!” Dunk’s heart pounds behind his ribs. “And be glad Thunder didn’t kick you in that fool head of yours! He’s a warhorse, not a boy’s pony.”
The boy takes off the helm and flings it to the straw. “I could ride him as well as you,” he says, bold as anything.
“Close your insolent mouth. The hauberk too, mind. What did you think you were doing?”
“I can’t tell you if my insolent mouth is closed.” The boy squirms out of the chainmail and lets it fall.
Dunk sighs. “You can open your mouth to answer. Now pick up that mail, shake off the dirt, and put it back where you found it. And the halfhelm too. Did you feed the horses, as I told you? And rub down Sweetfoot?”
“Yes,” the boy says, as he shakes off the straw from the mail. “You’re going to Ashford, aren’t you? Take me with you, ser.”
He thinks back to what the innkeep had said. “And what might your mother say to that?”
“My mother?” The boy wrinkles up his face. “My mother’s dead, she wouldn’t say anything.”
Dunk is surprised. Isn’t the innkeep his mother? Perhaps he’s only apprenticed to her. Dunk’s head is a little fuzzy from the ale. His heart sinks all the same. “Are you an orphan boy?”
“Are you?” the boy throws back.
Dunk nods. “I was, once. Then my ser took me in. Taught me arms and riding and…and taught me everything, really. Best he could.”
“If you took me, I could squire for you. And you could teach me, best you can.”
“I have no need of a squire,” Dunk says.
“Every knight needs a squire,” the boy says. “You look as though you need one more than most. You’re an omega, aren’t you? Your eyes flashed gold when you saw me on the horse. And you made that noise. Omegas aren’t supposed to be knights.”
Dunk raises a hand threateningly, though he’d never truly hurt the boy. “And you look as though you need a clout in the ear, it seems to me. Fill me a sack of oats. I’m off to Ashford…alone.”
If the boy is frightened, he hides it well. For a moment he stands there defiant, arms crossed, but just as Dunk is about to give up on him the lad turns and goes for the oats. He can still feel the lad’s disappointment, though.
“Look, lad, I promise you, you’re better off not squiring for the likes of me.” Taking him in would be no kindness. He isn’t sure he can take care of himself, let alone a small child.
As he mounts Sweetfoot and takes up Thunder’s lead, he decides that a copper penny might cheer the boy. “Here, lad, for your help.” He tosses the coin down at him with a smile, but the stableboy makes no attempt to catch it. It falls in the dirt between his bare feet, and there he lets it lie.
“Sulk all you want. I know you’ll scoop it up as soon as I’m gone.” He turns the palfrey and rides from the inn, leading the other two horses. The trees are bright with moonlight, and the sky is cloudless and speckled with stars. Yet as he heads down the road he can feel the stableboy watching his back, sullen and silent.
When Dunk reins up on the edge of Ashford Meadow, the shadows of the afternoon are growing long. Threescore pavilions have already risen on the grassy field. Some are small, some are large. Some are square, some round; some of sailcloth, some of linen, some of silk. All are brightly colored, with long banners streaming from their center poles, more vibrant than a field of wildflowers with rich reds and sunny yellows, countless shades of green and blue, deep blacks and grays and purples.
The old man had ridden with some of these knights. Others, Dunk knows from tales told in common rooms and around campfires. Though he’d never mastered the magic of reading and writing, the old man had been relentless when it came to teaching him heraldry, often drilling him as they rode. The nightingales belong to Lord Caron of the Marches. The crowned stag is for Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm. There’s the Tarly huntsman, House Dondarrion’s purple lightning, the red apple of the Fossoways, the lion of Lannister gold on crimson and there the dark green sea turtle of the Estermonts. The brown tent beneath a red stallion can only belong to Ser Otho Bracken, known as the Brute of Bracken since slaying Lord Quentyn Blackwood three years past at a tourney in King’s Landing. There are some Blackwood banners as well, on the west edge of the meadow, as far from Ser Otho as they could be. It seems as though every lordly house of the west and south has sent a knight or three to Ashford to see the fair maid and brave the lists in her honor.
Yet however fine their pavilions are to look upon, he knows there’s no place there for him. A threadbare wool cloak will be all the shelter he has tonight. While the lords and great knights dine on capons and suckling pigs, Dunk’s supper will be a hard, stringy piece of salt beef. If he makes his camp upon the gaudy field, he’d need to suffer not only the silent scorn and open mockery, but the dangers that come with being an omega in a sea of betas and alphas. A few will perhaps treat him kindly, yet in a way that’s almost worse.
A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he’s no more than a sellsword. I must earn my place in that company. If I fight well, some lord may take me into his household, or some alpha might claim me. I will ride in noble company then, and eat fresh meat every night in a castle hall, and raise my own pavilion at tourneys. But first I must do well.
Ashford Castle is a stone structure built in the shape of a triangle, with round towers rising thirty feet tall at each point and thick, crenellated walls running between. Orange banners fly from its battlements, displaying the white sun-and-chevron sigil of its lord. Men-at-arms in orange-and-white livery stand outside the gates watching people come and go, seemingly more intent on joking with a pretty milkmaid than in keeping anyone out. Dunk reins up in front of the short, bearded man he takes for their captain.
“Beg pardon, men. I wish to speak to the master of the games.”
“It’s Plummer you want, he’s steward here. I’ll show you.”
Inside the yard, a stableboy takes the horses for him. Dunk slings Ser Arlan’s battered shield over his shoulder and follows the guards captain back of the stables to a turret built into an angle of the curtain wall. Steep stone steps lead up to the wallwalk. “Come to enter your master’s name for the lists?” the captain asks, as they climb.
“It’s my own name I’ll be putting in.”
“Is it now?” Is the man smirking? Dunk isn’t certain. “That door there. I’ll leave you to it and get back to my post.”
When Dunk pushes open the door, there’s a boy and a girl playing with wooden swords. The steward sits at a trestle table, scratching on a piece of parchment with a quill. He has thinning gray hair and a narrow, pinched face, with the mild scent of cedar that marks him as a beta. “Yes?” He says, looking up.
Dunk is looking fondly at the children as they play, becoming distracted.
“What do you want, man?”
Dunk is startled out of his thoughts. “I, uh, came for the tourney?”
“My lord’s tourney is a contest for knights. You a knight?” He looks at Dunk pointedly.
The girl smacks the back of Dunk’s legs with her sword, but he barely feels it.
“Oi!” Plummer shouts. He hisses at the children and shoos them away.
Dunk feels bad for the pups. They’re only playing.
“A knight with a name, mayhaps?”
“Uh…Dunk.” Why had he said that? “Ser Dunk. I was squire to Ser Arlan of Pennytree since I was a boy. He knighted me when he passed, with his own sword.” He draws it from its scabbard and lays it upon Plummer’s desk. “That’s his penny there, in the hilt.”
“Well. A sword it is, for a certainty. But I’ve never heard of this Arlan of Pennytree. You were his squire, you say?”
“He always meant for me to be a knight one day. As he was. When he was dying, he…” Dunk picks the sword back up. “He called for his longsword and bade me kneel, charged me to be a good knight, to defend the weak and the innocent.” He slides the sword back into its scabbard. “Serve the realm with all my might, and I swore that I would.”
“Any knight can make a knight, it’s true.” The man rubs his nose. “Though it is more customary to stand a vigil and be anointed by a septon before taking your vows. Were there witnesses to your dubbin’?”
“Only a robin up in a thorn tree,” Dunk says with a self-deprecating laugh.
“You’d need armor, horses, men, training, gods be good. Imagine the poor farmer charging down Lyonel Baratheon in the lists.”
“That would be…”
“A different sort of entertainment,” Plummer said lowly.
“Mm. Well. I’m no farmer.”
“Yet you’ve come dressed as one.”
Dunk looks down at himself. He supposes he isn’t dressed in damask like that lordling, or fine linen or silk brocade or whatever expensive cloth others of higher birth might be dressed in, but he doesn’t think he’s dressed as a farmer.
“Look, man, my Lord Ashford fancies himself of great import, gods know why. Well, that means I’m to ward off every landed knight and sellsword vying to challenge. You understand? There are princes about. And you’re an omega, besides. You look to be an alpha, gods know you’re big enough, but your scent…never met an alpha or a beta that smells that sweet.”
Dunk nods, his heart sinking down to his toes. “Of course.”
Plummer smiles and looks expectantly at him.
Dunk turns to leave, feeling as though he’s already failed Arlan and he hasn’t even been in the ground for longer than a day.
“Your late master,” Plummer begins.
Dunk turns back to face him, hope rising dangerously inside him.
“He’ll be known to the true knights here assembled?”
“There was a pavilion flying the banner of House Dondarrion.”
“Aye, Ser Manfred of that house.”
“Ser Arlan served his lord father in Dorne a few years past. Ser Manfred will remember us.”
“By scent alone, no doubt,” Plummer says with a smirk. “If he’ll speak to your good honor, bring him here before the tourney begins on the morrow. Leave your escorts behind.”
Dunk nods. “As you say.”
“Aye.”
Dunk turns back to the door.
“You’re aware that those vanquished in the tourney forfeit their arms, armor and horse to the victor, and must ransom them back?”
“Aye,” Dunk says.
“And you have coin to pay such ransom?”
“Oh gods, no.”
Plummer scowls.
“I mean,” Dunk squares his shoulders. “I won’t have need of coin.”
Back outside, Dunk retrieves the horses from the stableboy. He walks them over to the sea of pavilions. He ties the horses’ reins to part of a fence. “Mind those two. Good girl,” he tells Sweetfoot. He goes to the Dondarrion pavilion to ask to speak to Ser Manfred.
“He’s napping, ser,” a dark-skinned omega with curly red hair tells him. “Wake him for a stag,” she says with a laugh as she goes to sit beside her pale-skinned friend, whose hair is also red, piled atop her head.
“I—uh. I don’t have a stag.”
Red One wrinkles her nose. “What kind of knight don’t got a stag?”
“It’s a hedge knight, ain’t it?” Red Two asks.
“What?”
“It’s like a knight, but sadder.”
“No, I’m—I’m not sad,” Dunk tries to defend himself. Though, perhaps it is true—he hasn’t been particularly happy since having to bury Ser Arlan in the ground.
“It’s gotta sleep in the hedges ‘cause no lord will have it,” Red Two says with a grin.
“Aw. That is sad,” Red One tuts. “And Ser Manfred’s fucked its mate, too.”
Dunk shakes his head, cheeks heating. “No, I don’t have a mate.”
“Oh! ‘Cause we’re used to mates coming ‘round.”
“Likes fucking mates, that one,” Red Two says.
“Near as much as he likes fucking us.”
Dunk doesn’t think he’d ever had a conversation with so much fucking involved.
“Told me he’s on a mission to turn the whole world red,” says Red Two.
“Well, we’re already red.”
“So we are,” Red Two agrees.
They both laugh.
Dunk looks between them, eyes flitting back and forth, trying desperately to understand the conversation, but failing. “Well, um, when do you expect Ser Manfred to wake, then?”
“It might wanna try back at evenfall,” Red Two tells him.
“Evenfall,” Dunk repeats. He pauses.
“Goodbye,” Red Two says, shooing him away.
Dunk starts going one way, then realizes he’s going the wrong way, so he turns on his heel and goes the opposite way. “Arse,” he curses. The girls laugh, which makes his cheeks burn hot.
He goes back and frees the horses from where he’d left them. “Why’d she say that, huh?” he asks Sweetfoot as he walks. “We’re not sad. Certainly not rising-to-the-level-of-a-comment sad. Besides, Ser Arlan always said that…a hedge knight was the truest kind of knight. When we win our first tilt, we’ll have the loser’s armor, and horse, or his gold. Won’t be sad then.”
Elsewhere, men are training afoot, going at each other with wooden swords while their squires stand shouting ribald advice. Dunk watches a stocky youth try to hold off a muscular knight who seems lithe and quick as a mountain cat. Both have the red apple of the Fossoways painted on their shields, but the younger man’s was soon hacked and chipped to pieces. “Here’s an apple that’s not ripe yet,” the older says as he slams the other’s helm.
Sweetfoot makes a noise.
“I know. I said if we did win.”
She tosses her head.
“Look, it’s not a crime against the king to enjoy a nice thought for a trice.”
The knight kicks the younger Fossoway in the chest, sending him flying backward through the fence. Dunk barely manages to hold back a peal of alarm. He nearly chokes on it. Sometimes he wonders if this is really what he’s meant to be doing, if everyday violence can make him react this way. Perhaps omegas truly aren’t meant to be knights, as much as it hurts his heart to think.
Ser Arlan thought he was worthy of being a knight, despite being an omega. And Ser Arlan was the absolute last person he wished to disappoint.
“Do not muck about with me, Raymun,” the knight growls, advancing on the boy. “You’re a good-for-nothing useless rat.”
The boy, Raymun, gets to his feet and they go at it again.
The knight disarms him and slaps him so hard he crumples back down to the ground. The younger Fossoway is bruised and bloody by the time he yields, but his foe is hardly winded.
Then, the knight catches sight of Dunk, making him shift awkwardly where he stands. “What are you gawping at, you blue-eyed cunt?” He moves closer.
Dunk keeps his mouth shut.
“Is that a longsword you wear?”
Dunk wraps his hand around the hilt. “Uh, yes. It is mine by rights.”
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
Dunk swallows. Raymun spits into the dirt.
“I’m Ser Steffon Fossoway. Come try me. As you see, me cousin here is not ripe yet.”
“Do it, ser,” Raymun says. “I may not be ripe, but my cousin’s rotten to the core. Knock the seeds out of him.”
“Quiet,” Steffon snaps.
“I-I thank you, but I have matters to attend.”
“What, matters of the hedge, I have no doubt,” Steffon says scornfully. He laughs, as do the men around him. “Fuckin’ size o’ ya. Stupid bastard.” He turns away. “Ser Grance!” He shouts.
Dunk frowns. He doesn’t much appreciate being called stupid. Raymun gives him a smile and a nod as he walks off.
“Perhaps we should seek quieter accommodations,” he tells Sweetfoot.
On the outskirts of the great meadow, a good half mile from town and castle, he finds a place where a bend in a brook had formed a deep pool. Reeds grow thick along its edge, and a tall, leafy elm presides over all. The spring grass there is as green as any knight’s banner and soft to the touch. It’s a pretty spot, and no one has yet laid claim to it. This will be my pavilion, Dunk tells himself, a pavilion roofed with leaves, greener than even the banners of the Tyrells and the Estermonts.
His horses come first. After they’ve been tended, he makes absolute certain he’s alone, and he strips and wades into the pool to wash away the dust of travel. “A true knight is cleanly as well as godly,” the old man always said, insisting that they wash themselves head to heels every time the moon turned, whether they smelled sour or not. Now that he’s a knight, Dunk vows he’ll do the same.
He sits naked under the elm while he dries, enjoying the warmth of the spring air on his skin as he watches a dragonfly move lazily amongst the reeds. Since he can, now that he’s alone, he takes the time to pleasure himself. He almost never has the opportunity to tend to his needs. He’d hardly ever been alone when the old man was alive. Not that he wanted to be alone, of course, but some time to himself would’ve been nice every once in a while.
Now though, he closes his eyes, leans his head back against the treebark and lets his hands explore his body. He runs them down his neck on both sides, down his chest, tweaking each of his nipples between his fingers. He lets out a breath of air. It’s been such a long time since he’d done this last, he was afraid he’d forgotten what makes him feel good. But it seems his hands know where to go and what to do.
His hands skirt over his belly, pressing down slightly just above his mound. The pressure makes him groan. Then, finally, he teases his clit with the fingers of one hand, and uses the fingers of the other to dip into his cunt. He’s wet as could be. He spreads the slick over his clit so he won’t be rubbing himself dry. He thrusts his fingers in and out of himself quickly, circling his clit with his other hand at the same pace.
It takes him an embarrassingly short amount of time to finish. He ends up spraying his release all over the grass, making it shimmer in the sunlight. When he’s done, he wades back out into the water to rinse himself off, then returns to his spot beneath the elm to dry off again. The dragonfly catches his eye again. Why would they name it a dragonfly? He wonders. It looks nothing like a dragon. Not that Dunk had ever seen one. The old man had, though. Dunk has heard the story half a hundred times, how Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King’s Landing, and how they’d seen the last dragon there the year before it died. She’d been a green female, small and stunted, her wings withered. None of her eggs had ever hatched.
“Some say King Aegon poisoned her,” the old man would tell. “The third Aegon that would be, not King Daeron’s father, but the one they named Dragonbane, or Aegon the Unlucky. He was afraid of dragons, for he’d seen his uncle’s beast devour his own mother. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler.”
The air begins to cool as the sun dips below the tops of the trees. When Dunk feels gooseflesh prickling his arms, he beats his tunic and breeches against the trunk of the elm to knock off the worst of the dirt and dons them once again.
Dunk does not need to study his reflection in the water to know that he doesn’t look much a knight, so he slings Ser Arlan’s shield over his back to display the sigil. Hobbling the horses, Dunk leaves them to crop the thick green grass beneath the elm as he sets out on foot for the tourney grounds.
In normal times the meadow serves as a commons for the folk of Ashford town across the river, but now it has been transformed. A second town had sprung up overnight, a town of silk instead of stone, larger and fairer than its elder sister. Dozens of merchants had erected their stalls along the edge of the field, selling felts and fruits, belts and boots, hides and hawks, earthenware, gemstones, pewterwork, spices, feathers, and all manner of other goods. Jugglers, puppeteers, and magicians wander amongst the crowds plying their trades…as do the whores and cutpurses. Dunk keeps a wary hand on his coin.
He goes back out to the Dondarrion tent, though fully aware his efforts might be entirely in vain.
Red Two, who is seated outside at a table, tells him Ser Manfred is napping still.
“Still?” Dunk asks incredulously.
“Mm. On account of his gouty toes. One of life’s absurd little miseries, to be sure.” She gets to her feet. “Makes for restless nights. The poor dear.” She makes her way into a small tent.
“Right, absolutely, it’s just…” He follows her into the tent. “Well, it’s of some urgency that I speak with him, so that I may…enter the lists on the morrow…”
For a moment, Dunk isn’t entirely sure what he’s looking at. There’s a naked girl laid out over a bedroll on a table. Red One, whose hair isn’t red anymore but a deep, dark brown, is pulling a lace shroud up over her body. The girl’s eyes are hidden behind painted stones. Dunk isn’t certain if she’s dead or just playing at it.
“What’s this?” Red One asks.
“It means the joust,” Red Two says.
“Awful dangerous, that.”
“Yes, well, um, I’m not troubled with a wealth of options, am I? And if I mean to take service in a castle–”
“It must put its body at hazard for the pleasure of strangers,” Red Two says.
The girl on the table sits up, startling Dunk terribly. “Ain’t that our job?”
“Ah! Shut up!” Red One chastises. She cups the girl’s face in her hands. “You’re meant to be dead.” She guides her gently to lay back once more. “Find a safer trade, lad,” Red One tells Dunk. “You’ll be happier for it.”
“One whore to another,” Red Two says with a laugh, glancing between Red One and Dunk. Both girls start giggling.
An uncomfortable feeling takes root in Dunk’s core. “Must you mock me? I was only asking for a bit of help.” He shakes his head. “I’ll try Ser Manfred back in the morning.” He turns to leave.
“Sorry, lad,” Red Two calls. “Aye. We don’t mean to mock you. We see plenty of green boys every tourney.”
Dunk turns back to face them.
“All with glory in their minds but never in their hands,” Red One says.
“Well. Perhaps I will be different.” And Dunk believes he could be. He has to believe. What else does he have?
“Be good to your body, knight,” Red Two tells him. “Last one you’re like to have.”
Dunk leaves the tent and goes to watch a puppet show after grabbing a tankard of ale. He usually limits himself to one and never allows himself to get drunk. All sorts of things can happen to an omega when they are in their cups.
“Our brave hero forges on, leaving all he knows behind.
A father and a friend, may seem the world unkind.
Fate has set his lonely path through corridors of chance.
A boy from nothing risks it all, ignoring looks askance.
Perhaps he’s only stupid, holding fast his mirror shield.
Great honor his ambition, must keep a truth concealed.
For if his humble shape is bared, a foul and fiery demise.
Should the dragon discover none but a man in great disguise.”
There’s a magnificent dragon puppet and a knight with a great shield. The puppeteer walks the stage like a master storyteller. The dragon breathes fire, enchanting the audience.
Dunk is mesmerized. He’s captivated by the show, and enamored by the puppeteer. She’s beautiful, and tall like himself.
Once the show is over, Dunk sits his empty tankard down on an overturned crate. As he walks, Raymun Fossoway finds him and hurries over to him.
“Half-man! Half-man!”
“Do I look like a half-man to you?” Dunk asks.
“Aye. Half-man, half-giant. Look, I’m sorry. I should not have urged you to try my cousin. He’d have broken your hand or a knee, if he could. He likes to batter men in the yard, you know, in case he meets them in the lists.”
“He did not break you.”
“I’m his blood. Though he’s the senior branch of the apple tree, which he never ceases to remind me.”
“Will you and your cousin ride in the tourney?”
“He will. I would that I could, but I’m only a squire.”
Dunk swallows and gives Raymun a once-over. “Fight well for a squire.”
Raymun smiles, pleased. “You have the look of a challenger. Whose shield do you mean to strike?”
“It makes no difference.”
Raymun laughs. “That’s what you’re supposed to say.”
They stop for a moment. “Though it makes all the difference in the world.”
Raymun chuckles. “You hungry?”
Dunk grins, shaking his head. “Always.”
He has an…interesting time with Raymun and Lyonel Baratheon in the Baratheon tent. He’s feeling a little hopeful after the conversation he’d had with Ser Lyonel, who hadn’t seemed to care much that he was an omega. He’d treated Dunk like he was no different from himself, so unlike how all others had treated him thus far.
He tries to plead his case to Ser Manfred, but Ser Manfred dismisses him, claiming he does not remember Dunk or Ser Arlan. It seems unlikely that Dunk will be able to enter the lists after all.
The moon is well up by the time he turns his steps back toward his elm. Behind him, Ashford Meadow is ablaze with torchlight. The sounds of song and laughter drift across the grass, but his own mood is somber. “One victory is all I need,” he mutters aloud. “That’s not so much to hope for.”
He’s moving through a patch of weed, chewing over his chances in his head, when he sees the flicker of firelight through the bushes. There, at his camp, he finds the bald boy from the inn cooking a fish over a crackling fire.
“You! What…what’re you doin’?”
“Cooking a fish. Do you want some?”
“No! I meant, how did you get here? Did you steal a horse?”
“I rode in the back of a lamb cart.” The boy gets to his feet.
Dunk scoffs, shaking his head. “Lamb cart. Well, you best find another one.”
“You can’t make me go,” the boy says, impertinent. “I’d had enough of that inn.”
“Now, listen,” Dunk says, pointing his finger at the boy. “I’ll have no more insolence from you, boy. I should throw you over my horse and take you home.”
“You’d need to ride all the way to King’s Landing. You’d miss the tourney.”
“King’s Landing? You from Flea Bottom?”
“No.”
“Aye.” For a moment Dunk wonders if he’s being mocked, but the boy has no way of knowing that he had been born in King’s Landing as well. Another wretch from Flea Bottom, like as not, and who can blame him for wanting out of that place?
He feels foolish standing there with sword in hand over an eight-year-old orphan. He sheathes it, glowering so the boy will see that he’ll suffer no nonsense. I ought to give him a good beating at the least, he thinks, but the child looks so pitiful he cannot bring himself to hit him, and the idea of truly hurting the boy is something Dunk can't stomach.
He glances around the camp. The fire burns merrily within a neat circle of rocks. The horses have been brushed, and clothes are hanging from the elm, drying above the fire. “What’re those doin’ there?”
“I washed them,” the boy says. “I made the fire, caught the fish, and groomed the horses. I would’ve raised your pavilion, but I couldn’t find one.”
“There’s my pavilion.” Dunk sweeps a hand above his head, at the branches of the tall elm that looms above them.
“That’s a tree,” the boy says, unimpressed.
“Yes, and it’s all the pavilion a true knight needs. I’d sooner sleep under the stars than in some smoky tent.”
“What if it rains?”
“The tree will shelter me.”
“Trees leak.” The boy sits down.
Dunk laughs. “So they do. Well, if truth be told, I lack the coin for a pavilion. And you’d best turn that fish, or it will be burned on the bottom and raw on the top. You’d never make a kitchen boy.”
“I would if I wanted,” the boy says, but he turns the fish.
“What happened to your hair?” Dunk asks.
“The maesters shaved it off.” Suddenly self-conscious, the boy pulls up the hood of his dark brown cloak, covering his head.
Dunk had heard they did that sometimes, to treat lice or rootworms or certain sicknesses. “Are you ill?”
“No,” says the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Dunk.”
The wretched boy laughs aloud, as if that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Dunk?” He says. “Ser Dunk? That’s no name for a knight. Is it short for Duncan?”
Dunk shakes his head, then nods. “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “Yes. Uh. Ser Duncan of…” He trails off.
The boy looks at him expectantly.
Dunk takes a deep breath and stands up straighter. “Ser Duncan the Tall.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Do you know every knight in the Seven Kingdoms, then?”
“The good ones.”
Dunk scoffs. “You got a name, thief?”
“Egg.”
“Egg. Well, Egg, by rights, I should beat you bloody, send you on your way. But you look as though you don’t eat much. And if you’ll swear to do as you’re told…I’ll let you serve me for the tourney.”
Egg starts to smile.
“After that, well…” He crouches down before the fire. “We’ll see. I don’t have much, but if you prove worth your keep…you’ll have clothes on your back and food in your belly. The clothes might be roughspun and the food salt beef and salt fish, but you won’t go hungry. I promise not to beat you. Except when you deserve it.”
“Yes, my lord,” Egg says, almost reverently.
Dunk shakes his head. “Ser. I’m only a hedge knight.”
Later, they lie side by side on their bedrolls. Dunk wishes he could make a nest, but he doesn’t have the blankets or pillows or scented clothing he’d need to make a good one. He doesn’t even have anything of Ser Arlan’s that smells like him, since he’d left the man in his clothes when he’d buried him. As Dunk is in his thoughts, a falling star streaks across the sky.
Egg gasps. “A falling star brings luck to those who see it.”
“Go to sleep, boy.”
“All the other knights are in their pavilions by now, staring up at silk instead of sky.”
Dunk scowls at him. “Do you want a clout in the ear?”
Without a word, Egg turns onto his side, facing away from Dunk.
Dunk stares up at the sky. “So the luck is ours alone?”
Egg doesn’t respond, but Dunk can tell he’s smiling.
Dunk spends the morning circling round the tents gathered in the meadow, trying valiantly to see who might remember Ser Arlan.
“House Florent, Ser Arlan took service in your guard when your lord father lost his sight.”
“House Hayford, Ser Arlan fought side by side with your brothers at the Redgrass. His squire, his…his own nephew, was killed in the battle.”
Finally, he comes to Lord Leo ‘Longthorn’ Tyrell. “House Tyrell, Ser Arlan often spoke of his time in your service as his very finest. He said it was you, m’lord, who told him that a hedge knight was the bridge between lords and the smallfolk.”
Lord Leo spits off to the side before speaking, his mouth lined with red froth from the sourleaf. “I know him not, man.” He breathes in deep through his nose, his lips curling into a nasty smirk. “An omega? Shouldn’t you be off warming beds instead of bothering good men about some old hedge knight?”
“Was he a shit knight?” Egg asks later as they walk through the meadow, Dunk bringing Chestnut along by his lead.
“He was not a shit knight.”
“Well, he can’t have been a very good one if no one remembers him.”
“Pick up your feet, come on.”
“This is undignified, ser.”
“So hie back to camp and leave me be, if it please you.”
“I would not leave you, ser, not while you must suffer your master dying over and over again. Though it does not seem like these lords are even listening to you.”
Dunk sighs. “Nothing I can do about that.”
“You are a knight of the realm, ser, omega or no. You can say fuck their permission. Ride into the lists, call out Longthorn Tyrell, and turn his arsehole into a lance-hole.”
Dunk shakes his head. “That’s enough now.”
“Why do you treat these royal lapdogs like they’re your betters?”
“They are my betters. You’re too brazen for your own good. Ser Arlan was a great knight. Someone will remember him.”
There’s the sudden sound of trumpets, heralding someone’s arrival.
Dunk stops someone on their way through. “Hey, who’s come?”
“Can’t you see the banners, you giant cunt?”
Dunk looks up. He can see them now, riding over the bridge. A red dragon on a black field.
Egg seems unnaturally still beside him. “Perhaps I should go back, ser. Check on the camp? Make sure no thieves have been nosing about.”
“Aye. I have an idea.” Dunk hands him Chestnut’s reins.
“Can I have your sword to run people off with? Or a mace?”
“You have a knife. That’s enough,” Dunk says, pointing at Egg as he starts walking away. “You best be here when I get back. Rob me, and I’ll hunt you down. With dogs.” He wouldn’t, of course. The very thought makes him shudder. But Egg doesn’t know that.
“You don’t have dogs!” comes the insolent reply.
“I’ll get some.”
Egg throws his hands out. “Where?”
Dunk lunges forward and barks at him. He only feels a little guilty when Egg flinches back. He doesn’t want to scare the poor boy, not really, but if Dunk doesn’t assert himself, Egg will be spoiled rotten. Hah. A rotten Egg. Exactly that.
Egg tugs Chestnut along the opposite way, so Dunk keeps going. He moves off to the side as the royal procession rides past. Those gathered around begin to clap, shout and cheer.
“Our Lord of Ashford humbly welcomes the great and honorable Baelor Targaryen,” the herald cries, “firstborn son of King Daeron the Good, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand of the King, and heir to the Iron Throne.”
Dunk walks through the stables, watching as Baelor rides up on his horse. Dunk is mesmerized. The alpha is startlingly handsome, with short-cropped hair and a trimmed beard that’s dark and peppered with gray. His nose looks as though it had been broken more than once. His omega starts crying out for the alpha, something it’s never done before. It does the same, only louder, when he lays eyes on Prince Maekar.
“And his brother, Maekar,” the herald adds belatedly.
Maekar does not look amused. His straight hair and square-cut beard are so fair as to almost be white. He’s thickly built and powerful. Pox scars mark his cheeks, only partly concealed by his silvery beard. Dunk wants to kiss those cheeks, to feel that beard and those scars against his lips.
“My Lord of Ashford,” Baelor says after he dismounts, voice smooth and velvety.
“It’s a great honor to receive Your Grace,” Lord Ashford says.
“It’s a great honor to be received,” says Baelor, clasping Lord Ashford’s arm.
Alpha is so humble and kind, Dunk’s omega croons. He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind. It’s almost like his head is filled with cotton.
“My daughter, Gwin,” Lord Ashford says, gesturing to the young girl standing beside him. She curtseys prettily for the Prince.
Dunk is endeared, but jealousy burns through him at the same time. He watches as the princes, Lord Ashford, and his daughter retreat into the castle.
“Boy, stop gaping. See to my horse.”
Dunk blinks up at the princeling who has just pulled up in front of him on the back of a splendid blood bay. He smells like smoke and flame, and something ancient, unknowable and powerful. He’s an alpha, if Dunk is to hazard a guess. He clears his throat. “Um, I’m not a stableboy, m’lord.”
The princeling looks him up and down, eyes measuring, lips curving into a smirk. “Not clever enough?”
Rude. Dunk bristles. He’s plenty clever. He just stares at the princeling without uttering another word.
The princeling sighs, shaking his head. “Well, if you can’t manage horses, then fetch me some wine and a pretty wench.”
“Oh, m’lord pardons, I’m no serving man either,” Dunk tells him, laughing a bit incredulously.
The prince hops down off his horse after flipping his cloak out of the way.
“I have—I have the honor to be a knight.”
The prince’s nostrils flare as he stands before Dunk, head tilted back to look him in the eyes, the height difference between them noticeable. “An omega knight?” He scoffs. “Knighthood has fallen on sad days.” He walked off, shaking his head.
Dunk is left trembling with rage. He glares at the princeling’s back as he walks off toward the castle. Then, off to the side, Dunk hears the palfrey whinnying in distress. She rears up and kicks her handler in the face. He falls back, and Dunk nearly lets out a peal of alarm. He rushes to the palfrey’s side, pressing his hands against her ribs and flank, shushing her gently to get her to calm down. Once she does, he takes her reins and leads her off into the stable. “Easy. Come on. Yeah, it’s okay, it’s okay,”
“Easy now, come on,” one of the men says as he drags the injured stableboy to safety.
“There you are, girl. Far too many people around.” He secures the palfrey’s reins to a post. “I agree.” He gently pats her face, stroking her cheek and under her eye.
“The pretty ones are always temperamental,” comes a voice from behind him.
Dunk doesn’t turn around. He keeps petting the palfrey. “Ah, she just got a bit excited, that’s all.”
“He meant the princeling, not the palfrey,” another voice says.
Dunk finally turns to address whoever is speaking to him. He’s startled to see two knights of the Kingsguard. “M’lords. I am Ser Duncan the Tall.”
“Well met, Ser Duncan,” answers the one who spoke first. He’s the bigger of the two knights. “I am Ser Roland Crakehall, and this is my sworn brother, Ser Donnel of Duskendale.”
The seven champions of the Kingsguard are the most puissant warriors in all the Seven Kingdoms, saving only perhaps the crown prince, Baelor Breakspear himself. “Have you come to enter the lists?” Dunk asks anxiously.
“It would not be fitting for us to ride against those we are sworn to protect,” answers Ser Donnel.
“Prince Valarr has the honor to be one of Lady Ashford’s champions,” explains Ser Roland, “and two of his cousins mean to challenge. The rest of us have only come to watch.”
Relieved, Dunk thanks the white knights for their kindness and they walk off. Three princelings, he ponders. Valarr is the eldest son of Prince Baelor, second in line to the Iron Throne, but Dunk does not know how much of his father’s fabled prowess with lance and sword he might have inherited. About the other Targaryen princes he knows even less. What will I do if I have to ride against a prince? Will I even be allowed to challenge one so highborn? He does not know the answer. The old man had often said he was thick as a castle wall, and just now he feels it.
Dunk stands off to the side, thinking of what to do.
“The princes be needing their fucking hands washed!” a woman shouts.
“I’m on my way, ma’am!” a girl shouts back. He watches her enter a tunnel through a side door, and she leaves it wide open. Dunk sees an opportunity.
He walks over and steps through the doorway. The tunnel is long and dimly lit. The girl walks down toward the end, holding a lantern, and she disappears around a corner. Dunk makes sure to follow. There’s the groaning of a door up ahead.
Dunk waits a moment, then creeps through that same door and into a hallway. Voices come from further down the corridor.
“The spring rains have swollen many of our streams. Perhaps the young princes have just been delayed?” That would be Lord Ashford.
“Fuck me, ‘delayed’. They’re not delayed,” Prince Maekar snaps.
“Do not curse our gracious host, my love.” Baelor chastises.
Dunk’s heart does a queer little flutter. Alphas are here! He creeps as close to the entrance to the great hall as he dares. Truth be told, the great hall is not so great, as halls go, but Ashford is a small castle. He spies Plummer, the steward, there as well, standing with Lord Ashford, the Princes, and a dozen other men at the top of the hall.
“I said ‘fuck me’, not ‘fuck him’.” Maekar goes over to stand before the window. “It’s not his fault Father bade us attend this miserable circus.”
“Might we discuss this another time?”
Maekar stands by the circular window, glancing out of it. “I say we go hunting.”
“Daeron has done this before,” Baelor says as he washes his hands in a bowl that the girl from earlier holds out for him. “You should not have commanded him to enter the lists.” He then dries his hands with a cloth that the girl provided him.
“You’d be more concerned if it was your son, I’d wager.”
“You do recall that they’re mine as much as they are yours, now? Regardless of whose seed gave them life. And they have only been missing a day. No doubt, Ser Roland will turn him up and Aegon along with him.”
Dunk hardly blinks at the mention of Baelor’s relationship with his brother. It isn’t a secret that they’re together, even though they’re both alphas. But Dunk admires their bravery for putting their love for each other out in the open, without any shame.
“When the tourney is over, perhaps,” Maekar says as he crosses the room to the table.
“Daeron belongs on a tourney field no more than Aerys or Rhaegel.”
“By which you mean he’d sooner ride a whore than a horse.”
“That is not what I said.”
Maekar sinks down into a chair with an obnoxious groan. “I do not need to be reminded of my son’s failings. He can change. He will change, gods be damned. Or I swear, I’ll see him dead.” Maekar squints and leans forward. “You. Who are you?” He gets up out of his chair. “What do you mean by spying on us? Show yourself.”
Well, I’m caught now, Dunk thinks with a grimace. He takes a deep breath and steps into the doorway.
“He is the knight our good steward was expecting,” Prince Baelor says, smiling at Dunk in a way that suggests he’s been aware of him the entire time. “You and I are the intruders here, brother.” He looks at Dunk. “Come closer, ser.”
Prince Maekar drops back into his chair after a glance at his brother. Dunk edges forward, uncertain what’s expected of him. He looks at Plummer but gets no help there. The pinch-faced steward who had been so forceful yesterday now stands silent, studying the stones of the floor. “Um. My lords, I do apologize for my interruption. I…I have asked Ser Manfred to vouch for me so that I might enter the lists, but he has refused to do so. He says he knows me not, as others do as well. Ser Arlan served them, though, I swear it. I have his sword and shield, I—”
Lord Ashford scoffs. “Sword and shield do not make a knight. Especially not an omega knight, mm?” He looks to Maekar for approval, but instead, Maekar growls at him.
A bit of slick leaks from Dunk’s hole as he registers the sound. He shudders, hoping no one will be able to smell him. But from the way their nostrils flare, both Baelor and Maekar do. He realizes the alphas both smell quite a bit like the princeling, Aerion, had smelled. But theirs is muskier, a deeper, heady scent that Dunk wants to roll around in.
Lord Ashford flinches. “Unless you have better proof to support what you say. Some writing, or—”
“Do you remember him, Your Grace?” Dunk asks Baelor, knowing to tread carefully. “It was many years ago. You may have forgotten.”
Baelor lifts his chin. “Ser Arlan of Pennytree. He never won a tourney that I know. But he never shamed himself, either.”
“Yes, ser.” Dunk shakes his head, hope rising dangerously in him like a tide. “I mean, no. No, he didn’t.”
“He overthrew Lord Stokeworth in the melee at King’s Landing, and years before he unhorsed the Grey Lion himself.”
“He-he told me of that many a time.”
“Then you will recall the Grey Lion’s true name, I have no doubt.” He steps closer, eyes blazing, intense.
Dunk has to think for a moment, racking his brain. “Ser Damon Lannister. The Grey Lion, he’s lord of Casterly Rock now.”
Baelor smiles, bright and pleased. It makes Dunk squirm. He’s made alpha happy. He’s done well. Alpha is proud.
“So he is. And enters the lists upon the morrow.”
“How can you possibly remember some fucking hedge knight who chanced to unhorse Damon Lannister sixteen years ago?” Maekar asks, incredulous.
“I make it a practice to learn all I can of my foes.” He takes a seat.
“And why would you deign to joust with a hedge knight?”
“It was many years past, at Storm’s End. Lord Baratheon held a hastilude to celebrate the birth of a grandson. The lots made Ser Arlan my opponent in the first tilt. We broke four lances before I finally unhorsed him.”
“It was seven,” Dunk laughs thoughtlessly, remembering the times Arlan had told him the tale.
Maekar lets out a surprised laugh.
Oh…oh no. What have I done? Dunk blinks. “I…I believe.”
“Tales grow in the telling, I know,” Baelor says patiently. “Do not think ill of your master, but it was four lances only, I fear.”
Dunk immediately drops to his knees, his instincts firing off all at once. Both Baelor and Maekar are affected by the sight, nostrils flaring, eyes flashing. Lord Ashford, Plummer and the other men remain oblivious, but they can glean the significance of the gesture. “As you say, al–Your Grace. I-it was four. I do apologize. The old man, Ser Arlan, he used to say that I was thick as a castle wall and slow as an aurochs.”
“No harm was done, ser. Rise.”
Dunk obeys. “You gave him back his horse and armor and took no ransom. Ser Arlan often told me that you were the soul of chivalry…”
Maekar makes a noise of disgust.
“...and that one day, the Seven Kingdoms would be safe in your hands.”
“Not for many years yet, I pray,” he says with a glance at Maekar.
Dunk blanches, realizing what he’d said. “N-no, I did not mean that the king should—”
“You wish to enter the lists. Is that it?” Baelor asks, saving Dunk from any further embarrassment.
He nods. “Yes.”
“The decision rests with the master of the games,” Baelor says, turning his head toward Plummer, “but I see no reason to deny you. Even though you are an omega. But from the looks of you, I’d say you’ll be capable of holding your own.”
“As you say, m’lord,” Plummer says. He dips his chin at Dunk.
Dunk lets out a shuddering breath. “Your Grace, I—”
“You’re alright, little one,” Maekar murmurs. “No need for more groveling.”
Dunk blinks. He isn’t sure what to say to that, if he should say anything.
“You must forgive my brother, ser,” Baelor tells Dunk. “His sons went astray on the way here, and he fears for them.”
“I didn’t even say anything—”
“Oh,” Dunk breathes. His heart clenches at the thought. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure they will be found safe and sound, Your Grace. You needn’t worry so.” Dunk bows his head and turns to leave. He’s almost through the doorway before Baelor calls him back.
“Ser.”
Dunk turns around so fast his head spins.
“You are not of Ser Arlan’s blood?”
Dunk shakes his head. “No, I am not.” Truly, he doesn’t know whose blood runs through his veins.
“By law, only a trueborn son is entitled to inherit a knight’s arms. You must needs find a new device, ser.” Baelor smiles, inclining his head. “A sigil of your own.”
Dunk nods eagerly. “I will. Thank you again, Your Grace. I will fight bravely. You’ll see.” He bows his head again, and this time, he’s able to turn and go back the way he came.
Maekar doesn’t know what to do with the omega that had entered the great hall and now stands before him. The boy is magnificent, tall and broad, likely rivalling even Maekar’s own strength. He can hardly focus on what the boy is saying, instead losing himself in those beautiful blue eyes.
Maekar manages to find his seat again as he listens to the omega. He slowly remembers what the steward, Plummer, had said about him. Ser Dunk, he believes the steward had called him. Bit of an interesting name for a knight. Maekar wonders if Dunk was short for Duncan. Either way, Maekar’s alpha won’t stop whining about him. Maekar has to have him. He even smells beautiful: a hint of leather, a meadow in the spring, all sorts of wildflowers and green grass. It’s intoxicating.
Maekar growls at Ashford when the man makes the mistake of insulting Duncan. He doesn’t much like the idea of anyone talking about his omega like that.
Wait…
His?
The omega isn’t his. What is he thinking?
Oh, try as he might, he knows he can’t deny it. Duncan is his, whether he knows it or not, whether he’d like it or not.
Baelor decides to allow Duncan to enter the lists. Maekar isn’t sure how he feels about his omega competing in the joust. He doesn’t want him to get hurt, doesn’t want to see the life drain from those marvelous eyes.
When Duncan tries to thank Baelor again, he feels he has to intervene. “You’re alright, little one,” he finds himself saying. His voice is as gentle as he can make it. The last thing he wants to do is startle the poor thing. “No need for more groveling.”
Then, Baelor is telling Duncan to forgive him.
“I didn’t even say anything—” Maekar protests.
“His sons went astray on the way here, and he fears for them,” Baelor continues.
While that’s true, Maekar doesn’t need Baelor using it like it’s an excuse for a child’s bad behavior.
Then, once Duncan is gone, Maekar doesn’t know what to do with himself. He thinks about the last words Duncan had spoken. He has no doubt his omega would fight fiercely, but that doesn’t mean he truly wants to see it happen. No, he wants his omega to be wearing nothing but his own skin in a beautiful nest constructed by his own lovely hands that’s big enough to fit all three of them, safe and sound in the Maidenvault in the Red Keep. Though of course, by the time Maekar has Duncan home where he belonged, he most definitely won’t be a maiden anymore.
Later, for some reason, it feels as though someone has lit a fire under Maekar. He can’t sit still, can’t stop sweating. He snaps at anyone who tries to ask him what’s wrong. Finally, Baelor seems to understand what’s happening. He excuses himself and Maekar to their chambers for the time being.
Maekar leans on Baelor the entire way there. Belatedly he realizes he’s hard in his breeches, almost painfully so. He wonders if Baelor is affected the same way.
Finally, the door to their chambers is closed, and Baelor is bringing Maekar over to the bed and sitting down, with Maekar seated on one of Baelor’s thighs. He reaches down and unlaces Maekar’s breeches.
“Fuck, Baelor—” Maekar’s hips jerk forward involuntarily, the pressure and friction delicious against his aching cock.
“That’s it, little alpha, take what you need,” Baelor coos breathlessly. His fingers dig tightly into Maekar’s hips.
Maekar ruts desperately against Baelor’s thigh. Heat is coiling low in his belly already, and he knows he isn't going to last much longer. “Baelor, what—what’s happening to me?”
Baelor hums, leaning in and kissing the underside of Maekar’s jaw. “I believe you’ve gone into a false rut, my love.”
“What?” Maekar growls. “How?”
“I would say a certain omega hedge knight has something to do with it,” Baelor tells him with a laugh.
It makes sense, since Maekar hadn’t started feeling like this until after meeting the omega, but it still doesn’t explain why he’s like this. “Is he—do you think—”
“Hush, my love,” Baelor says, cupping one of Maekar’s cheeks in his hand. “Don’t worry about that right now. Focus on making yourself feel good for me. You want to make me happy, yes? Ride my thigh, just like that. That’s a good boy.”
Maekar whines helplessly. He throws his head back, riding Baelor’s thigh for all he’s worth. He can’t stop moving his hips. Baelor’s hands move down to cup Maekar’s arse.
“Baelor, please—”
“You can come for me, my love. That’s it. Give it to me.”
With just a few more erratic thrusts, Maekar spills into his smallclothes, crying out Baelor’s name.
“There we go, good boy. Such a good boy for me. Well done.”
Maekar rests his forehead against Baelor’s shoulder, fighting to catch his breath. “Fuck me.”
Baelor chuckles, cupping the back of Baelor’s neck. “Want to tell me what happened? You were acting a bit strange there, for a time.”
“I’m not entirely sure…” He takes a deep breath. “The moment he walked in, it was like…my alpha began to riot. It’s never been that loud before.”
“You growled at Lord Ashford, did you realize that?”
“He was insulting my omega,” Maekar grumbles.
“Your omega? I didn’t realize you had one, Maekar.”
“I do now.” Maekar leans back, Baelor keeping hold of his nape. “I don’t know if you felt it too, Baelor, but…he belongs to me. I have to have him. I won’t be leaving here without him.”
“Alright,” Baelor soothes, stroking the side of Maekar’s throat with his thumb. “We won’t leave without him. I promise.”