Chapter Text
Ashford was a fine place if you liked sheep and things that smell like sheep. Ser Arlan had passed through it more than once in his younger days and the weather was generally fair, the folk generally mild-tempered. There were certainly worse spots for a young knight to try and make a name for himself than a tourney in such a place.
His wrist throbbed beneath the bandage, still hot and tender where the fresh stump lay wrapped snug. But losing his sword hand had likely saved his life. Not that he’d thanked the leering sawbones who called himself a Maester, no one had asked the man to remove his livelihood and leave him at sixty with no means of feeding himself or his squire. The butcher who called himself a Maester had done his work and the poison in Arlan’s blood spread no further but the fever raged on. When he’d woken from to find Dunk gone along with horses, armor and all, on to Ashford as he’d told the innkeeper, Arlan knew in his bones that the boy had turned not thief but utter fool.
So here he was, after days of walking and riding in any cart that would carry him, close enough to see the banners of the pavilions. And it was only the fourth day, likely Dunk had not entered the lists yet. The lad needed armor, sigil, he’d need a sponsor. Probably he’d have been turned away from even entering the lists. Really there ought to be little to worry him.
The manner of the crowd was odd for a tourney. There was none of the raucous shouting and shoving. And what was the spectacle? A melee? Ser Arlan was too near the back to make it out. He tapped a man.
“Your pardon ser, who fights today?”
The man gawped at him. “Have you been under a fuckin’ rock granddad? They’re having the Trial of Seven. It’s that man they said beat Prince Aerion.”
Ahead of them, through the crowd the appointed seven against seven were battering one another furiously. Arlan could make out several Targaryen sigils, which meant those muck-spattered fellows in what was no longer white must be Kingsguard but he could not tell any of the others. It appeared that the young Targaryen was calling for victory, his opponent lying motionless in the mud.
“Wait!- ” the cry from above was more shrill, more desperate and heartbroken than anything Arlan could remember in his long life. It was the sound he’d felt in his soul when he’d turned from the battle to find his sister’s boy, his squire Roger, lying dead on the field. Wait. Stop. It cannot be. “Get up Ser Duncan!” the small voice cried.
The crowd began to murmur. They echoed the child, urging the man to rise. And past the heads of the assembly before him Ser Arlan saw a figure struggle to his feet.
Oh no. Oh by the Seven. It couldn’t. Ser Duncan. Buggering fuck. Dunk, my boy, thick as a castle wall, what have you gotten yourself into?
There was a brief war between the evidence of his eyes could there be more than one man of that height and build at the Ashford tourney? and his heart Dunk could not, cannot be in such danger, such a thing is unthinkable so that man cannot be Dunk.
“What did you say that man’s name is?” he asked his neighbor.
“Damned if I know, he’s some hedge knight.” Fuck.
“He’s called Ser Duncan the Tall,” someone on his right added helpfully.
Well damn everything to seven hells. He couldn’t watch this.
He watched it.
It was not easy for a one-handed old man in rough-spun with no armor to find his way past the stands and into the lists where the surviving champions were limping off the field. Prince Baelor had been borne away by the time he reached the little group huddled around Dunk. A second stretcher had already been summoned.
“Where are they taking him?” Ser Arlan begged the gathering of bedraggled, glassy-eyed men watching the injured Dunk carried away.
“Who are you to know?” demanded a man in battered armor, his hair wild from his helm was black streaked silver.
“My name is Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Dunk was my squire until a week past, please I must see him. Will someone tell me what in the name of all the Gods has been going on?”
“Why did I think you were dead?” the man asked. “Nevermind. Ser Duncan will be seen in my tent, by my maesters. Ser Raymun, could you show this man the way and illuminate him on all the goings-on of the tourney. The relevant bits.”
“Your tent? Why your tent, who are you?”
“I’m Lyonel Baratheon. And someone had better bring me a godsdamned chair because I’m about to fucking collapse.” Then there were a motley of squires and servants around the man and Arlan was pushed out of the way as they tended to him and he could speak to the Baratheon lord no more. The young man who must be Ser Raymun gently tugged him away.
An hour later Arlan sat in the Baratheon pavilion beside Ser Raymun, nursing an Arbor gold he did not taste. He had wanted to go straightaway to Dunk but was told to let the maesters do their work first. Raymun himself, it seemed, was temporarily homeless, the Fossoway encampment belonging to the cousin he had so recently both denounced as a coward and soundly thrashed.
“Ser Lyonel’s squires will let me bunk with them until the end of the tourney. It’s isn’t really the done thing to house a knight with squires but I’m so new I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” the lad said more cheer in his voice than in his eyes. “Suppose I could always sleep in the hedges like Ser Duncan.”
“Where will they have put Dunk?” Arlan asked, "Some sick tent, surely?"
For the first time the youth's answer came cagey, “Well, most likely he’ll be in Ser Lyonel’s tent.”
“Not his personal tent?”
Raymun hid his nod in a sip of wine.
Arlan looked at him straight, “Why would he be in the lord paramount’s tent?”
“Hmm?” The man who had been a terror in the melee blinked at him with guileless brown eyes. Clearly a lad of multitudes.
“Raymun?” He rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Ser?”
“Which is his lordship’s tent?”
It was still daylight and no guards were posted outside the vaulted silk turrets of Baratheon’s private tent. Ser Arlan hesitated only a moment before marching in unannounced. There was a moment of dazzling darkness as his eyes adjusted to the change from sun to low candlelight before he could make out the room.
They’d given Dunk the proper bed, so that as something. Arlan crossed the room in two strides to kneel by Dunk, laying the back of his hand against the boy’s brow. At the foot of the bed, on a makeshift cot was Ser Lyonel, his head cushioned richly on one end, one foot raised on more pillows at the other. From where he was sitting, Ser Arlan could have sworn the man had one hand resting on Dunk’s ankle over the coverlet.
“By all means, come in. Nothing delights me more than strangers barging into my tent while I convalesce,” said Lyonel.
“Pardon my lord,” said Arlan with no real feeling, “But you’re the one who brought him here.” He nodded at Dunk.
“Oh yes. Ser Pennyknight.”
“Pennytree,” Arlan replied.
Lyonel waved this response away and leaned back on his cushions, closing his eyes.
Arlan looked down at Dunk. The man looked like a side of raw meat left too long. “How badly was he hurt?” he rasped.
“He took the lance to his gut, stab wounds all along his left side. But the mail held. I must find that smith your boy used. He knows his trade. Nearly lost an eye but the visor just saved him though he’s not likely to see out of it for a week. The maesters couldn’t say what harm the blows to his head had done, that will have to be seen when he wakes.”
Ser Arlan took this in. When he wakes. Gods be thanked. Time for his next question then. “What are you doing with my squ- with Ser Duncan?”
The storm lord regarded him impassively. “You would have to ask him.”
“Believe me, when he wakes I will.” He stayed, stroking Dunk’s hair a moment then spoke again. “Young Fossoway told me what has happened since Dunk arrived at tourney. He said you’ve made a great favorite of him.”
“What can I say? Your Dunk is exceedingly charming.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s kept you thoroughly amused. Laughing Storm indeed.”
“You disapprove?” Lyonel asked.
Arlan huffed. “A penniless hedge knight with no name and no reputation, tall and strong as an aurochs? I know exactly what you saw in him,” he spat, “And green as summer grass, I’m sure that made the whole tourney for you when you found that out.”
“There’s no law that says knights may not pass their time between jousts how they please, with whom they please. The Targaryens haven’t meddled in that at least.” The man’s tone made Arlan want to punch him.
“He’s a boy!”
“He’s a man grown!” Lyonel rolled his eyes, “Oh, and while we’re speaking of it, who’s fault is it that he came to me untouched? Hmm? How many years did he travel with you, and you never spent the winter at some lord’s keep long enough to let him dally with a kitchen wench? Seven hells, man! You never even bought him a whore!”
This retort stopped Ser Arlan as soundly as a hammer blow. He gaped at Ser Lyonel. Dunk had always looked to his eyes like that stringy boy he’d found on the road, longer and broader perhaps but just as wide-eyed and gormless as ever. Such a thing had never occurred to him. He knew Dunk had kissed a maid or two in taverns but had not pried, considering the lad’s business his own. Had he been remiss? Had he failed his squire in some vital way? “I- well- that is, he never asked!” he stammered.
Lyonel threw his hands in the air. “Would you not feed him his supper if he did not ask for it every night? Would you let the man run naked if he did not ask for new breeches when the old ones wore through? Mother save me, you’re not one of those pious types?”
Arlan ignored this.
Ser Lyonel sighed. He spoke as though drawing from a deep well of patience, “I assure you, Ser Arlan, I have done your hedge knight no harm nor have I besmirched his virtue. If I have you may call me out and I shall meet you on the field of battle when and where you like!”
“Now you mock me, ser,” Arlan said quietly.
“Yes, and it was badly done,” Lyonel admitted, chastened, “I apologize Ser. But truly you must admit there is nothing I can say that will reassure you that I mean your Dunk no harm and no disrespect.”
Arlan stewed on this.
“Now you must answer me something,” the storm lord continued.
Ser Arlan nodded for him to go on.
“With which hand did you knight Ser Duncan? Was it before you lost your sword hand or were you forced to use your left?”
Arlan froze. He knew. Somehow he knew that Dunk had lied. Surely even Dunk would not have been foolish enough to trust such a secret to someone he’d known for so short a time. By the warrior he’d give the boy a clout about the ear if he’d confided in this man! Merciful Gods- what power it gave Ser Lyonel over him! What might he do to him? Ser Arlan dreaded to think.
“Penalty for thieving is worse than for lying. He’ll not be taken for thieving,” he kept his voice level, “If anyone asks, I’ll swear I gave him the horses and armor.”
“Lying is one thing. Impersonating nobility is quite another. And if the gamesmaster were to ask you now how it happened that you knighted him? Do you think your tale would match the one Dunk gave him four days ago?” Lyonel asked.
Arlan winced but Lyonel waved the question away. “Be easy. I have no interest in causing trouble for your wayward squire. If any man was ever deserving of knighthood he surely is.”
This admission caused Arlan to look him straight in the face. He could see no sign of jest. “I would have offered to remedy the situation myself but I feared knowing he was found out might only make the matter worse. Better it stay between the two of you.”
They remained in silence a while, Ser Lyonel on his couch, Ser Arlan standing over his wayward charge. I shall clout you yet when you wake, Dunk the lunk, if only for the headache this conversation has been.
“If it isn’t rude of me to ask, exactly how long are you planning on staying in my tent?” said Ser Lyonel.
“Till he wakes.”
“I see,” said Lyonel.
“Or until you have me thrown out,” said Arlan.
“Whichever comes first?”
Arlan grunted.
Lyonel laughed at him. “Until then you’d be better off pulling up that chair- no, that one there.” He pointed his uninjured foot in the direction of a low slung chair. Arlan drew it over beside the bed and resumed his vigil. Presently a servant came to tell Ser Lyonel that supper had been prepared and did he want a tray brought or would he come to the pavilion?
“No, everyone’ll be chewing in silence mourning the dead prince. Put me right off my food. Send a tray over.”
The servant nodded, “Yes milord.”
“And one for Ser Arlan.”
“Yes milord.”
When she was gone, Arlan looked at Lyonel Baratheon with narrowed eyes.
Lyonel raised his open hands helplessly at him. “Laws of hospitality demand, ser, what else am I to do?”
“When he wakes,” Arlan stated, staring the storm lord down.
The other man settled back on his comfortable perch once more and shifted about, seeking a more comfortable position on his many bruises. “Believe me old man, you cannot be looking forward to it more than I.”