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When he wakes up with a shout, Dunk insists it was a horrible, horrible nightmare. He clings to that thought like a man to a ship’s rail in a storm.
The pit in his stomach starts to form though as he sees the knights Egg has assembled, as Lyonel Baratheon knights Raymun to take his cousin’s place, and Prince Baelor rides out in his son’s armor to be his seventh.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Ser Duncan,” Baelor says gently. “Have courage – I am with you. The Kingsguard oaths prevent them from harming a prince of the blood. You’ll just need to focus on Aerion.”
His eyes are sincere and kind, and it fills Dunk with equal levels of courage and apprehension.
The trial, though, is different than the nightmare. He is bleeding from a stomach wound taken in the opening joust – the lance pushed straight through. He lives long enough to pummel Aerion and sees Prince Baelor take Prince Maekar’s mace on the back of the head while charging towards Dunk. The blow is fiercer than what he remembers from the dream, Dunk thinks as he staggers to Prince Baelor.
The world drops out from under him again when Prince Baelor collapses and dies – again – in Dunk’s arms. Aerion’s sword through his neck turns everything black.
It’s a horrible nightmare – a living nightmare, Dunk’s sure of it. A curse from the Seven for killing a prince. It doesn’t matter to them that Dunk didn’t swing the mace, Prince Baelor dies because Dunk has created the circumstances that lead to his death.
The third time he wakes up the day of the Trial and Prince Baelor rides out, Dunk refuses his offer of aid.
Prince Baelor is quiet for a moment before speaking, “You will die if I do not aid you, Ser Duncan. It is seven knights, or no trial at all and you will be found guilty.”
Dunk swallows thickly, the weight of the mail on his shoulders making it feel like he is sinking through the mud into his grave. “Yes, m’lord, but I cannot let you put yourself in danger – even if it would save my own life.”
The Prince eyes him carefully – and what a fool Dunk thinks of himself, he’s dead for sure now – before slowly nodding his acquiescence. He kicks his horse towards the crowd.
“Ser Duncan, concerned for my safety, has declined my aid. Are there any among you who would take my place?” Prince Baelor asks, turning to the crowd of nobles assembled.
None stand to take his place, and the day ends with the headsman of House Ashford pushing Dunk to his knees. A stone of fear in his stomach, a righteous anger at the injustice of it all in his blood, and a quiet relief in his head that at least Prince Baelor will live.
Dunk wakes up the day of the Trial the fourth time and screams at the sky. He rages in frustration, drawing Ser Arlan’s sword and hacking at the tree over and over and over again until the despair and sobs take over from the anger.
What cruel lesson am I being tormented to learn, Dunk questions. The day proceeds the same as before. Dunk pleads before the Lords assembled, Prince Baelor rides out, Dunk is lanced through, and the Prince dies from his brother’s blow.
The fifth time, Dunk’s lance misses Aerion’s shield, but the Targaryen princeling’s lance skewers its target through and through even deeper. There is pain, a burning pain, and then nothing.
The sixth time, Dunk watches Aerion’s elbow shift and gets his shield in front of the blow. He survives the joust and tries to avoid Aerion in the melee to keep Maekar’s mace away from Prince Baelor. He succeeds, but catches the mace himself in turn. It is the hardest, strongest blow Dunk has ever felt.
On the seventh day, Dunk wakes up and does not shout at the sky. He stares at the first cracks of dawn breaking through the tree leaves and takes a moment. The birds chirp their morning songs – as they have done every day – and he takes it all in.
Raymun suggested running, and Dunk considers it. He thinks it over in his head as he packs his campsite and horses, and thinks it over and over still until he comes to a stop midway on a bridge leading away from Ashford Meadow.
Dunk glances down at the reins in his hand, fingertips feeling the leather grain. It is too early for anyone else to see him. Egg is still asleep, no doubt, and he’d never have to see the violence of it.
He waits on that bridge for what feels like an eternity before he sags forward, his sigh turning to a groan that becomes a single shout of frustration.
“Fucking hells,” he growls. Ser Arlan never turned away from hard things, and neither would Dunk.
Aerion’s elbow shifts and Dunk moves his own to catch the princeling directly in the breastplate. He can see Aerion’s eyes go wide when, at the second tilt, they push each other off their horses.
Dunk dies before Prince Baelor this time, a Kingsguard reaching him early in the melee.
And so it goes for the next three attempts.
On the eleventh day, he considers asking Lord Lyonel or Prince Baelor to switch lanes with him.
Daeron and Prince Maekar both have equal accusations that Dunk could reasonably use to justify the switch. Prince Daeron had already agreed to throw the fight and tilting against Prince Maekar might be enough to keep him away from his brother.
“Perhaps you are right,” Prince Baelor says when Dunk asks for his thoughts, eyes cast across the field. “But the difference you are not giving enough weight to is the Kingsguard. They will ride in proximity to my brother, nephews, and myself. The numbers work in your favor only if I take the tilt against him and melee.”
“I don’t doubt your skill, m’lord, but the chaos of the field.”
The Prince gave him a small smile, “Your confidence and concern are equally dear to me, but be without fear, Ser Duncan. I may lack your height or Lord Lyonel’s arm, but mine is still strong and my son’s armor fits just as well.”
Dunk bites his tongue, and the Prince of Dragonstone notices.
“Is there something else, Ser? Time is short, so best speak up.”
Dunk is quiet for a moment. “You helmet,” he starts. “I worry the helmet is too small for m’lord. I would offer you mine – it is larger, padded, and Steely Pate makes good armor.”
“A generous offer, Ser, but you will need it more than I. Now, prepare yourself – a joust is no trifle,” Prince Baelor says as he puts his hand on Dunk’s shoulder with a smile, and the larger man just feels hollow.
Dunk doesn’t ask Ser Lyonel to switch – he knows Lord Baratheon must be a fighter in his own right, but Dunk doesn’t want to risk his ally - his friend? Are they friends? Allies, at least - against the reckless chance of Aerion.
The knights all take their places in the tilt, and for the first time Dunk urges Thunder forward without hesitation.
Dunk watches Steffon Fossoway turn his cloak for the twelfth time and idly wonders if there’s ever a moment in the melee to trip him. The joust is a hectic, furious frenzy that typically ends too quickly.
“We’re short two fighters!” Raymun hisses. “Quick, Ser Duncan, knight me! I’ll take my cousin’s place.”
For the first five or so loops, Dunk spent the precious moments after Steffon’s betrayal pleading and imploring the assembled Lords to fight on his behalf. It did not matter whether he appealed to their honor, pride, or coin purses – none would stand with him, and Prince Baelor came to his aid all the same. The subsequent loops Dunk spent beside Lyonel and Raymun until this point.
“Any knight can make a knight,” Ser Lyonel notes beside him. Blue eyes watched Dunk like the calm before a storm.
“…I’ve never spoken the words aloud before,” Dunk admitted. “Lord Baratheon is a more prestigious knight – he should knight you.”
“Ha!” Ser Lyonel scoffed. “I am not the man at the center of the first Trial of Seven in a century. You win this, Ser Duncan, and your legend may well start here. Knight him and let’s get on with it.”
Dunk hesitates one more moment as he reaches for Ser Arlan’s sword. “Last chance, Raymun. It’s bloody business, this. You’ll be knighted in your own right merit later, I know it.”
“Hurry!” was the only reply.
As he moves to draw Ser Arlan’s sword, the trumpet blast announcing the Prince’s arrival sounds across the field. Dunk turns to look and Lord Baratheon gently pushes him forward. Dunk suspects that Lyonel knows what he refuses to say aloud, but he is grateful for the proffered escape.
“Go see what that’s about,” Ser Lyonel says. “I’ll see to our compatriot.”
He knows what comes next – the horn, the horses neighing, and the splintering of lances. The pains that will blossom across his body and later his soul when he catches Prince Baelor at the end.
(If he makes it to the end – somehow, he’s always the one to catch him.)
He urges Thunder forward with the horn.
In the name of the Warrior.
Sometimes, like this fifteenth loop, Dunk wakes up before the day of the Trial. It is a blessing at times, to know he’s got more time to prepare, but also a curse – he never wakes up the day he strikes Aerion.
Dunk wishes he’d wake up, just once, on that fateful day. He’d stay near Tanselle the whole day, Egg right with him. When Aerion shows up with his guards to break her fingers and puppets, he’d be there. To scare them off, to fight the guards again, to do something.
Maybe I’d just grab her hand in mine and run, Dunk thinks in the dark. He could rebuild her puppets, he thinks, but not her fingers.
He takes in the silence the cell, closes his eyes, and imagines the night sky.
“M’lords, do you have a moment?” Dunk asks on the seventeenth day.
“I should ask that of you, given your circumstances. Are you ready?” Ser Humfrey Hardyng asks.
“Given my circumstances, perhaps I am the most prepared of all of us,” Dunk said. Ser Humfrey Hardyng gave him a look over and a quirked eyebrow. “Mentally, m’lord.”
“My lord,” Ser Humfrey Beesbury corrected absentmindedly. “The proper address is ‘my lord’ – the enunciation.” He tightened a saddle strap and stroked his courser.
“My lord,” Dunk corrected.
“So you say,” Ser Beesbury demurred. “What can we help you with?”
Dunk hadn’t really taken the time to speak with the two Humfreys before. Their support of him was more to get at Aerion than any sort of loyalty Dunk inspired. The first loops Dunk spent in confusion, and the ones after that he spent trying to keep the Prince alive – too busy to take the time and speak with the men who also seem to lose their lives on his behalf.
Now though, Dunk figured he had more time than any lord or lady in Westeros.
“I wanted to ask you about why you’re helping me, my lords.”
“As my good-brother said earlier, the debt is Aerion’s. He is a scoundrel and wastrel, and we mean to collect. He has dealt him a dishonor and I will do what I can to remedy it,” Ser Beesbury said.
The simplicity of the answer struck Dunk as odd. “Is it so straightforward?”
“Did you expect something more? There is right and there is wrong, and my good-brother was wronged.” Ser Beesbury shrugged. “I am a fairer knight than most here, Ser, and so am confident in my capacity. Your cause is just, which certainly helps, and I am encouraged by the Prince’s own presence.”
“No, Ser, I didn’t expect something more, I just –“
“I understand, Ser,” Ser Humfrey Hardyng cut him off. “For you, this is a matter of life and death, justice and injustice. I know what you did for the Dornish girl. Aerion is a brute, and you stepped in between as you should.” He gestured around, “and this is the result of that justice. I feel strongly you are in the right, but I admit it is honor and vendetta on my part.”
It was as simple as right and wrong for Ser Humfrey and his goodbrother, Dunk thought. Three good men die for their belief in Dunk’s cause.
Later, at the first tilt, Dunk urges Thunder forward and pushes Aerion near off his horse. He turns, and watches as Ser Donnel of Duskendale’s lance glances off Ser Beesbury’s gorget and buries itself in his neck. Ser Hardyng, in turn, is overwhelmed when Ser Roland Crakehall delivers a deep cut to his inner thigh.
On the eighteenth day, Dunk finds them again before the tilts. “My lord, on the first tilt, be careful of Ser Donnel’s lance. The other day I saw many of them glance off the gorget to the side, but one needs be unlucky just once. And Ser Hardyng – I noticed that your inner thigh is somewhat exposed - I worry they will cut at your injured leg.”
In the name of the Father.
“Don’t be scared, Ser,” Egg says to him as Dunk looks over Thunder’s saddle.
“Who says I’m scared?” Dunk asks. There’s nothing really to be scared of anymore, given the number of times he’s charged these lists.
Egg looks at him with wide eyes, “Any reasonable man, facing three princes of the blood and three Kingsguard?”
“I’ve already shown I’m not a reasonable man, now have I?” Dunk said wryly. “Besides, it’s just two princes – Prince Daeron will just lay down, he said.”
“Two princes then,” Egg conceded. “But Aerion will fight dirty. He always fights dirty. You’ll need to keep an eye on his lance – once that breaks, he’ll use his flail for cruelty and sword to manage your reach on the ground. Have you ever blocked a flail, Ser?”
“I’ve blocked flail, sword, and mace more times than you could count,” Dunk said matter-of-factly. “I’ll manage.”
“If you say so Ser.”
“I have some questions though about your father and brothers,” Dunk begins. He can hear Maekar’s cry of anguish and call for Aerion in his ears, when Dunk manages to bring the princeling down into the mud and pummel him. “He wasn’t thrilled about this ploy from your brother. Why would he allow it to go forward?”
Egg takes a moment to reflect before he speaks. “Father doesn’t like us, I think, but he loved our mother. He’s disappointed and angry with Daeron and Aerion most of the time, and doesn’t pay too much attention to whatever Aemon and I are doing,” Egg said, furrowing his brow.
“He knows Aerion can fight for himself, but thinks this is just unnecessary pageantry. He was frustrated with all of it when I spoke with him about the Inn and getting here and everything.”
“Was he mad with you for spending time with me? He didn’t punish you too strictly I hope.” Dunk asked.
“No,” Egg said, looking at the ground and kicking a pebble. “I think he was angrier that I didn’t come home once I made it here than he was at anything else. He was furious with Daeron and Aerion though, between taking me to the inn and the puppets.”
A father’s worry, Dunk thought. “He is fighting for his sons on principle, despite the truth of things. I cannot blame him,” he said. “Is he close with your uncle? I’ve heard the song about the Hammer and the Anvil, but songs aren’t always true.”
“I think so. They’re never really that far apart except when father is at Summerhall or uncle is in residence at Dragonstone. Father isn’t the type of person to suffer in the presence of people he doesn’t like. When he and Uncle do argue, he usually stays in the Red Keep unless it was a really big fight and that’s when we go to Summerhall for a month or so before going back to King’s Landing.”
Dunk has never seen what Prince Maekar looks like after the Trial, when he learns his blow has killed his brother. He does not think Prince Maekar ever means to strike Prince Baelor either.
“About your brother’s threats - why haven’t you told your father what you’ve told me?”
The question surprises Egg. “I don’t know,” he says at first. He is quiet for a moment longer before he continues. “Aerion always threatens to hurt me if I tell. None of the guards can stop him and he doesn’t listen to father. He always promises he’ll get back at me.”
Dunk recalls the story Egg told him – that Aerion would cut him and take him for a wife. A mad, cruel princeling to be sure.
“Well,” Dunk says, “he cannot reach you in the lists, with me between you and him.”
Egg looks at him with wide eyes, and Dunk wonders if this is how he looked at Ser Arlan all those years ago.
In one lance, he sends Aerion to the ground. Dunk doesn’t get skewered anymore, and it’s a small mercy he’s grateful for. It is a lesson that has taken twenty-three jousts to learn. The princeling draws his sword, and Dunk makes the effort to aim his cuts for the other man’s groin.
In the name of the Mother.
“So, you’ve come to me at last?” Ser Robyn Rhysling grunts at him when Dunk approaches on the twenty-sixth day.
“What?” Dunk asks, coming to a stop.
“Never you mind. Here to ask why old Robyn rides?”
“I wasn’t – I mean – yes, Ser.” Dunk stammers, still stumbling over what he thought the old knight said. “I am grateful and in your debt - all your debts - and I mean you to know it. But it doesn’t make sense why such great Sers would ride for me.”
Ser Robyn watched him with his one eye. “I told you – Ser Robyn is a faithful servant of the crown, but Aerion has gone against the gods. You know it well yourself. After all, isn’t that why you’re here?”
Dunk rather thought he was here because he made some fool mistake, striking a prince of the blood and somehow drawing the ire of the Seven for getting Prince Baelor killed. “I am here because I attacked Ser Aerion.”
“Ha! Even now, you call him Ser – dispense with the courtesies lad, we both know he doesn’t deserve it,” Ser Robyn said. “In your own mind, you know he’s no knight.”
Perhaps Ser Robyn was touched by the Seven, Dunk thought, if he knew what was in his head.
“As you say, my lord,” Dunk said.
Ser Robyn gave a short laugh before digging back at Dunk. “You’ve not answered my question though – why are you here? That’s why Ser Robyn rides with you.”
It could be any number of things, Dunk thought to himself. Was he asking about this Seven-cursed torture of reliving this day, or just why he was at the Trial?
Ser Robyn watched him for a moment before letting out a deep sigh. He reached up to Dunk’s neck and pulled him down closer, just like Ser Arlan did when he wanted Dunk to pay attention to whatever he said next.
“You’re here because you did what you were supposed to do – you defended the innocent. That Dornish woman –“
“Tanselle,” Dunk blurted out.
Ser Robyn smiled at him. “Tanselle,” he said, “you stepped in where others forgot their oaths and did what needed to be done.” He released Dunk’s neck and poked him in the chest. “That’s why Ser Robyn rides with you this day. With this farce of a Trial, the crown has gone against the Seven, and so Ser Robyn goes against the crown.”
In the name of the Maiden.
For several loops, Dunk had tried to give Prince Baelor his own helm. It never works, but on the thirtieth loop he goes to Steely Pate directly.
“I am already in your debt, but would it trouble you much for a second helm?” Dunk asks. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. Dunk’s already relied so much on Pate’s generosity - the blacksmith is as consistent as Egg in every loop.
Pate looks up at him from his work bench, eyes evaluating him. “Do you think you’ll be twice as safe with two helms?”
“No – I just – in case someone needs it,” Dunk says, hoping he didn’t hesitate. “Your steel is strong, I know it is, and if someone else needs a helm today I’d sooner trust them to your work than anyone else’s.”
Pate looks at him stoically for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll bring some extra pieces with me to the Trial. I expect everyone will already be armored though, but perhaps if needs must I’ll be positioned well to make a sale.”
A wave of relief washes over him and Dunk can only smile. “Thank you, it means a lot,” he says as he turns to leave. He stops though and turns back to Pate. “Do you have any in black?”
“I am fortunate indeed that my son is of close enough size with me,” Prince Baelor says with a smile. “You look concerned though, Ser Duncan. Speak, what bothers you?”
“You helmet, my lord,” Dunk says. “I worry the helmet is too small for you. Might I see it?”
It is an odd request given the circumstances, Dunk knows, but they are odd circumstances. Prince Baelor obliges him though and hands Dunk the helm.
The helm was finely wrought, chased with three-headed dragons along the brow. Beautiful work. Too beautiful, Dunk thought, a helm intended for someone away from the blood and the spray. It is the helm of a man even younger than Dunk, yet the Prince thought it well enough to do.
He turned it in his hands, testing the weight. “It’s lighter than mine,” he said carefully. “Good for the tilt, perhaps.”
“I do not plan to be struck,” Prince Baelor replied mildly.
“No man ever does,” he replied absently.
Dunk made a show of adjusting his grip, and let his gauntleted fingers slip.
The helm struck the ground hard against a jut of stone half-hidden in the mud. There was a sharp crack of metal. Dunk cursed and bent quickly, but not before his mailed knee came down square upon the visor.
The dragon’s snout bent inward with a dull crunch. It had taken Dunk five tries to perfect this maneuver.
Silence fell between them.
“I am a great oaf, my lord,” Dunk said thickly, lifting the helm. The dent was unmistakable. It wouldn’t even fit Egg now.
Prince Baelor regarded it for a long moment then looked up at Dunk. His eyes were searching, not angry.
“It would seem,” the Prince said at last, “that I shall require another.”
The Trial proceeds, and while some things change, Prince Baelor still dies in a barn when Pate removes the helm. Dunk, dazed and bloodied and frustration boiling, notices how much shallower the wound is. A grazing blow, instead of a father’s panic-filled swing. It is a morbid piece of progress. Dunk decides to enlist Egg’s help in swapping the helms in the future when he can.
In the name of the Smith.
It is a loop where he wakes up in the dungeon before Aerion has requested the Trial of Seven. Thirty-seven loops, Dunk estimates. The inconsistency with when and where he wakes up has helped him to keep track.
The rain makes an easy tempo on the stones, a lullaby of sorts for him now, but this time he doesn’t close his eyes.
Dunk’s mind works through what’s to come and what might be available to him. There will be the trial before the Princes and Lords Tyrell and Ashford, but beyond that the day is his. It is an uncomfortable thing, Dunk thinks, that he has become so used to the loops that he already knows which paths he will and will not take when time allows. He knows, up until the Trial of Seven, what the preferred path is.
The day proceeds as he knows it will. Egg comes to the dungeon with dinner, as he always does, and news that Prince Baelor wants to speak with him. Egg is always so scared that Dunk will reject him in these earlier loops, but he’s got practice in smoothing over the young boy’s fears.
Prince Baelor (so alive, he thinks. Dunk is always aware of how alive the Prince is every loop) is there in the study, firelight fortifying the room from the cold of the rain. Dunk knows how the exchange between Egg and his uncle will go and speaks when his squire is told to pour him a cup.
“He won’t spill it, Your Grace. He’s a good boy and squire,” Dunk says. “It is misfortune, not malice, that led us here.”
“One need not be malicious to lead to harm, Ser Duncan,” Prince Baelor said evenly. “Aegon should’ve come to me when he saw what his brother was doing to those puppeteers, not you.”
“There was no time, Uncle, I –“ Egg began before being cut off.
“Instead he ran to you, Ser Duncan. That is no kindness,” Prince Baelor said, frowning at his nephew. “It has instead put you in the most precarious position.”
Dunk knows how the next part of the exchange goes, word for word. He has turned Egg’s words in his head over and over, wondering how deeply Egg had been hurt by his brother that he wished Dunk to be his instrument for revenge.
“I wish he had killed Aerion,” Egg muttered. Dunk alternates between believing him and thinking that, in the moment, he just wanted Aerion to feel as afraid of someone stronger as Egg had.
“Aerion is your brother,” the Prince scolded.
“And the septons say we must love our brothers,” Dunk said without thinking, only to realize he spoke over the Prince at the same time.
Prince Baelor regarded him for a moment, mismatched eyes catching his. “Precisely,” he said. “Leave us, Aegon.”
The door closed with a solid thud and the silence between the men settled in as the Prince massaged his temple. He broke the silence with a deep breath before speaking.
“I did not take you for a particularly pious man, Ser Duncan.”
“I am not, Your Grace, though perhaps these events are the Gods way of telling me to fix that,” Dunk said with a slight grimace.
That earned him a small wry smile from Prince Baelor. “Perhaps, Ser Duncan, perhaps,” he said as he moved over to the fireplace. “Yours is a difficult situation. The punishment for striking a prince of the blood is the loss of the offending hand.”
“It is his right, Your Grace, as a prince of the blood,” Dunk acknowledged, balling his hands together in his lap. “All the same, he is in the wrong of it. All knights swear the same oaths, and those oaths demanded action. I couldn’t just stand by. I wouldn’t.”
The Prince gave another sigh before coming back to the table and taking a sip of his own wine. “Yes, the same oaths,” he agreed mildly, looking past Dunk’s shoulder out the window.
“My brother returned to the keep a few hours ago. He found Daeron, drunk at an inn a day’s ride south of here. My nephew claims Aegon was taken a day ago by a robber knight, and I am afraid you have been miscast Ser.”
Dunk can’t help how his mouth tightens to a line. No matter how many times he hears it, Daeron’s mischaracterization and accusation make him angry.
“I have been gone four days from that inn, Your Grace, and Prince Daeron made no effort to pursue his brother. Egg will vouch for me that we arrived separate and –“
“Aegon has already spoken against his brother’s version of events,” Prince Baelor said, hand up in a mollifying gesture. “Forcefully. He says he sought you out. Says you tried to send him away more than once.”
“I did.”
“Yes,” the Prince said softly. “I believe that. But belief is a fragile shield in court, Ser Duncan. The word of a prince, even a drunk one, against a hedge knight of uncertain origin…” He let the implication hang. “My brother Maekar is also not inclined to generosity when his sons are concerned.”
Dunk inclined his head.
“I know how I must look, Your Grace.”
“Worse,” Prince Baelor noted. “You have been made to look worse.” He returned to the table and set his cup down.
“You are no robber knight. But you have been placed in the role of one, and that will stiffen the hand that judges you. So, I must ask you now - how good of a knight are you?” Prince Baelor asked intently.
Dunk remembered how he answered the first time. Amidst the gravity of everything, he had felt so inadequate. Ser Arlan’s ring tossing hadn’t amounted to much use. Yet now, things had changed. He had changed.
“A trial by combat would be in my favor, Your Grace,” Dunk said. “I’m not as quick, but I can ring anyone’s ears through their helm and shield together.”
Prince Baelor smiled at that. “Forgive me if I hope that it will not come to that, Ser Duncan,” the Prince replied. “I may find him frustrating, but Aerion is still my nephew. Tomorrow, you will be able to request a Trial by Combat. Gods be good and my brother fortunate, both Aerion and Daeron will withdraw their accusations and the matter can be put to rest,” he said, mouth flattening into a grim line. “I remain doubtful of Maekar’s success, though.”
Prince Baelor studied him a moment longer.
“You understand that tomorrow will not simply be about guilt or innocence,” he said.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Dunk nodded.
“It will be about Targaryen pride. About the question of whether a prince may be struck without consequence.”
Dunk swallowed. “I never meant to set myself against House Targaryen.”
“I know,” the Prince said. “Which is why I would rather not see you lose a hand for defending the weak.”
He moved toward the door, signaling the audience was near its end.
“Sleep, if you can. And pray, if you must. Tomorrow will demand both strength and restraint.”
Dunk rose and began to make his way to leave. “Thank you, Your Grace. For believing in me.”
The Heir to the Iron Throne paused, one hand on the door. The firelight danced shadows across his face.
“See that I have not misjudged you, Ser Duncan.”
The next day proceeded as it always did – Dunk would request a trial by combat, Aerion would counter with a Trial of Seven, and Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar would try to hide their frustration with Egg’s brothers. Aerion would be breaking walnuts the entire time.
Dunk kept quiet as he watched the older silver-haired Targaryen prince question his son.
“Are you cowering behind some 6,000-year-old Andal foolery because you’re afraid to face this hedge knight alone?” Maekar asked intently. His expression was thunderous. Dunk knew the question was coming, but the raw edge in Maekar’s voice still made him wince.
“No,” Aerion objected. He cracked another walnut. Dunk watched as the princeling avoided looking at his father. He always avoided looking at his father.
Maekar was quick on the reply. “Then why not slay the rogue yourself, hm?” Disappointment dripped from his question.
“Daeron has been harmed as well, father,” Aerion deflected. A walnut cracked. “He must pay for each one of his crimes in total. Or would we leave a matter of Targaryen honor in doubt?”
Dunk saw the fury flash across Maekar’s face. His jaw tightened and nostrils flared when angry, he noted, and his knuckles paled as he gripped the arms of his chair.
“Do not speak to me of honor, boy. This is fucking nonsense – you will drag, what, twelve more people down into your pettiness?”
“Aerion is within his rights – a Trial of Seven must take place on the morrow. So it is decided,” Prince Baelor said, bringing the trial to a halt. He turned to Dunk. “Find your champions and see to your preparations, Ser Duncan.”
Glancing at one another, Lord Tyrell and Lord Ashford stood to leave. Maekar was quicker, however, dragging Aerion by his doublet and letting the doors close with a thunk. Prince Baelor pinched the bridge of his brow, seeming to fight a headache from the display.
In previous loops, Dunk would leave soon himself, but he lingered this time. His mind went back to the conversation he had with the Hand of the King the day before.
The septons tell us to love our brothers, Dunk thought.
He waited until Lord Tyrell and Lord Ashford had withdrawn, their polite bows precise and restrained. When the door shut again, only he and Prince Baelor remained.
“Your Grace,” Dunk said quietly.
The Heir to the Iron Throne did not look up immediately. He breathed deeply and then stood from the table himself. He did not dismiss him though, so Dunk continued to wait patiently while the Prince made for a cup of watered wine.
“Yes, Ser Duncan?”
“I wanted to thank you, Your Grace. For ending it when you did.”
Prince Baelor let out a faint breath, not quite a laugh.
“I have ended nothing. Aerion chose his path and now we are here.”
“Maybe,” Dunk said. “He could’ve said worse?”
The Prince glanced at him blankly for a moment before taking a sip. “I’m not sure how things could be worse for you.”
Dunk let the irony win his smile, though the Targaryen heir would not understand. “I’m sure the Gods could think of something if they wanted. If it is possible though, Your Grace, I would ask a favor of you.”
The request prompted Prince Baelor to turn fully to face Dunk.
“You are bold for a hedge knight facing seven opponents, to ask a favor of the crown,” Prince Baelor said carefully.
“I have little to lose in asking, Your Grace, considering my circumstances,” Dunk said plainly.
“And what are you asking for?” he asked, moving back to the desk.
“A few minutes with your brother, Your Grace,” Dunk said quickly. “I would tell him how I intend to move on the morrow.”
“My brother is not inclined to hear from you in this moment, Ser,” Prince Baelor said as he stilled.
“I will not argue my case, Your Grace. The path is set and the Gods will determine how it goes. I will not question his judgement either, only what I intend. So there are no misunderstandings when steel is drawn.”
“And what is that?”
“To fight hard. And to end it quickly. I will force a yield if I can.”
“Aerion will not yield easily,” the Prince remarked idly. He studied Dunk carefully, and Dunk made the effort not to look away in deference. Ser Arlan always demanded Dunk look at him when being scolded or asking for something.
“At least you do not speak like a man hungry for glory,” Prince Baelor mused.
“I’m not.”
“You do still understand that this trial is no longer about guilt, yes? It is about standing. About whether a hedge knight may lay hands upon a prince of the blood and live.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“And whether my brother’s sons may be challenged without consequence.”
Dunk swallows. “I don’t challenge his sons. I only answer one and keep the oaths.”
That is a subtle but important distinction.
Another pause. Dunk could see the older man turning his words over in his head, weighing them.
“I’ll arrange it so you may have a few minutes,” Prince Baelor said at last. “No more. If you provoke him, I will not intercede.”
“I understand.”
Prince Baelor’s gaze lingered on him - thoughtful, almost searching. Dunk thought Ser Arlan had that same look time to time when watching his sword technique.
“Use the time well,” Prince Baelor says. “You will not be granted another. See that you survive tomorrow, Ser Duncan.”
Oh, if you only knew, Dunk thought.
The first time Dunk meets with Maekar, he speaks too bluntly.
Maekar listens without interruption, which is worse than anger. Dunk stumbles his way through talk of oaths and right and wrong and the duties of knights. He hears himself growing louder. He sees Maekar’s nostrils flare and knows he has made a mistake somewhere.
When he leaves the chamber, nothing has changed except the Prince’s opinion of him.
The next day, Maekar never looks at him during the Trial of Seven.
Prince Baelor dies all the same.
It is Dunk’s forty-second loop now, his fifth attempt at speaking to Prince Maekar. His chamber is not yet martial - there’s no armor hanging on the stand, no clearly displayed mace. Maekar stands at a table strewn with correspondence, as though the impending Trial of Seven were an inconvenience rather than an inevitability.
“You wished to speak,” he says without invitation to sit. Dunk thought Maekar could chisel rock with his voice alone.
Dunk bowed.
“I did, Your Grace.”
“You don’t think you’ve dug yourself a deep enough hole?” Maekar scowled, but Dunk did not let himself be cowed. He’d already been brained by this man’s mace one too many times to be scared.
The prince must have seen something in Dunk’s refusal to flinch and gave a deep sigh. “Come, out with it then,” he said.
Dunk got straight to the point. “Tomorrow, I mean to fight Prince Aerion cleanly.”
Maekar gave him a flat look. “You mean to fight him at all.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“For striking him.”
“For what he did to Tanselle and puppeteers.”
A flicker of irritation crossed Maekar’s face. His nostrils flared, Dunk noted.
“He is a prince.”
“And I am a knight,” Dunk said before he can soften the words. Silence drapes over them and Dunk sees the stirrings of anger in the Lord of Summerhall.
“I will answer for my actions at the Trial of Seven, Your Grace. But I have no wish to see Prince Aerion or Prince Daeron maimed. Nor to drag your House deeper into quarrel,” Dunk said. He was internally grateful that he didn’t spit Aerion’s title.
“You have already done that,” Maekar said dismissively. “My sons will be in this foolishness now. Aegon is insistent on supporting you and is contradicting everything his brothers say.”
“Yes,” Dunk admits.
That earns him a fractional shift – honesty registers well with the harsher man.
“I will fight to first blood if he allows it,” Dunk continues. “Or to yield. I do not seek his death or injury.”
Prince Maekar studies him. “My son does not yield,” he says simply. He says it the way one observes that water is wet and a mule is stubborn. He says it with an edge of exhaustion.
“Then I’ll give him cause to reconsider,” Dunk says. He has learned that Prince Maekar appreciates directness. I have made him yield before, Dunk did not say.
Dunk knows he is close to a boundary, but Prince Maekar only narrows his eyes at him. He’s thinking over everything he’s said, guessing at the strength in Dunk’s arms and steel of his spine in comparison to Aerion’s.
“If I may go, Your Grace,” Dunk says with an appropriate bow.
Prince Maekar does not dismiss him with words. He simply turns away.
Dunk leaves with the sense that something has shifted – perhaps not softened, but clarified.
In the name of the Crone.
It takes a few more loops of the same actions, of finding the right timing of things and hoping that Dunk wakes up early enough.
Forty-nine, Dunk thinks. He woke up in the dungeon again.
He knows the path now. He appeals his case to Prince Baelor, treats with Prince Maekar, asks Steely Pate for a second helm, and warns Ser Beesbury and Ser Hardyng. Sometimes the warning is enough, sometimes it isn’t, but Dunk has made it part of his ritual.
He is quiet through Steffon’s betrayal, familiar with the words and movement by now. Dunk is facing Raymun before the younger man even has a chance to fully process his cousin’s words.
“We’re short two fighters!” Raymun starts, but he goes quiet at the hissing of drawn steel.
“Kneel, Raymun,” Dunk says solemnly. Any knight can make a knight, Lyonel had said.
Dunk can feel the eyes of the makeshift arena on them, but they do not matter now. In every loop, no matter what Dunk changes, Raymun stays steadfast. He survives every time, so far as Dunk knows. Raymun bristles at the injustices every time, volunteers every loop.
Raymun looks at him wide-eyed and silent. Lyonel comes up behind him, places a hand on his shoulder, and nudges him down. The Lord of Storm’s End looks at Dunk with a quiet knowledge all his own.
“Do you know the words?” he asks quietly.
Dunk shifts his grip on Ser Arlan’s sword – his sword. He nods and lifts the blade, gently placing it on his friend’s shoulders as the sun finally began to burn away the morning fog.
“In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid, I charge you protect all women,” Dunk says quietly, his sword quietly tapping Raymun’s shoulders as he speaks each charge.
“Arise, Ser Raymun, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”
It is the first time Dunk has said the words aloud. He had thought them many times, listened to Lyonel speak them through so many loops. But Lyonel’s voice always carried the certainty of a man born to the words. Dunk’s voice is rougher, plainer. The oaths echo through him as the crowd quiets. Something settles in his heart – his soul.
He'd never had the chance to hear Ser Arlan say it, but perhaps that did not matter. Not anymore. For the first time, Dunk doesn’t feel like a mummer playing at being a knight.
Dunk watches Prince Baelor approach and notes the Heir to the Iron Throne is using Steely Pate’s black helm instead of his son’s. Egg had managed to swap them.
The Prince drew his horse before Dunk and evaluated him.
"You look steadier than I've seen you," the Prince said. “A different man entirely, one may suspect.”
Dunk didn't have an answer that would make sense, so he gave the true one instead. "I feel like a different man, Your Grace."
Baelor studied him a moment - a searching look like the one Ser Arlan used to give him over a poorly-mended shirt - and whatever he found seemed to satisfy him. He asked nothing further. There wasn't time for it, and some part of him, Dunk thought, had already stopped expecting answers that made sense.
"Then let's see it done," Prince Baelor said, and turned his horse toward the lists. Dunk could only nod and made his way to Thunder.
Astride the great horse, Dunk could see the whole of the lists. He knew the field the way he knew his own hands now. He knew the drift of Ser Donnel's lance and the tell in Aerion's elbow and the exact, patient way Maekar's horse would gather itself before it surged. He had mapped every death here a dozen times over.
The horses were stamping now and the crowd quieted. The fog was fading faster than it usually did – perhaps swearing Raymun’s oath took longer than Dunk realized. It did not matter, between the crashing of horses, shower of mud, and clashing of steel the visibility deteriorated regardless.
Ashford’s herald looked to both ends of the lists before bringing the horn to his lips and blowing. For a moment, no one moved.
In the name of the Stranger, Dunk thought. He urged Thunder forward, the first down the line.
His lance catches Aerion square in the breastplate at the first tilt. The princeling is unhorsed and hits the ground hard enough that the crowd's noise dropped for a heartbeat before roaring back to life. Dunk does not stop to savor it. He wheels Thunder around and yells out to Beesbury.
"Donnel's lance, Ser! Your gorget!"
Beesbury's shield shifts up a fraction higher and Hardyng shifts his weight off his bad leg before Crakehall's sword slides off his mail. The blow is enough to make Hardyng fall, but that was better than dying.
The battle rhythm of the Trial was familiar by this point, and Dunk knew the beats he could not miss. He urged Thunder forward again before Aerion could pull himself up fully. Dunk leaps towards him on the pass, tackling the Targaryen back into the mud.
“Fuck!” Aerion cries as Dunk’s weight slams into him and sends them careening into the dirt. His flail, just barely unclasped, went flying beyond his reach. Dunk hated that weapon and always tried to separate Aerion from it as early as possible.
“Come on!” Dunk shouted as he stood up first. Close the distance, Dunk thought, don’t let him draw.
The fight with Aerion was always a dirty, ugly thing. Dunk used his reach, weight, and strength to deny the princeling room to maneuver. Block, dodge, step in, shove – as long as the fight remained physical, it was Dunk’s to win. The cuts come measured, fast, and hard – body, arms, groin. No fury in it, only purpose. He has put Aerion on the backfoot.
Aerion spits a curse and lunges, and Dunk catches the blade on his shield and drives a gauntleted fist into the prince’s visor. Aerion staggers, and Dunk hits him again. And again.
“Yield,” Dunk says.
“Fuck you!” Aerion does not yield. Dunk did not expect him to yet.
With a solid shoulder check, Dunk sent the smaller man back into the mud. He gets up only for Dunk to kick him solidly in the chest back. He hammers the princeling to his knees, and when Aerion tries to rise a fourth time, Dunk puts his boot on the man’s sword hand and presses until he hears him scream. Reaching down, Dunk wrenches the sword out of Aerion’s hand and before pulling off the dragon-faced helm.
Aerion glared back up at him, wriggling to try and get out from Dunk’s weight but it didn’t matter. At this point, it never does. Aerion never gets out from under him once pinned. Dunk tossed his sword to the side, closed his fist, and punched Aerion solidly until the man’s head lolled, unconscious.
The princeling did not yield, but this would produce the same result. Dunk stood, grabbed his sword, and left him in the mud with a Kingsguard already moving to drag him clear.
The field is chaos around him, but Dunk has been here before. He turns in time to see Maekar break from the melee and surge forward. The Prince of Summerhall was rushing towards Dunk, mace swinging and calling for Aerion. Dunk expected as much, despite his assurances. Ser Robyn caught the edge of the mace’s wild arc and backed out of the way. Prince Baelor was approaching his brother from the other side.
Dunk lunged. He didn't try to catch the mace’s backswing. He threw his shoulder into Prince Baelor instead, driving him sideways out of the fight and down into the mud. Dunk felt the blow catch the edge of his own pauldron in a white flare of pain that took the strength out of his arm and spun him to the ground. But Prince Baelor was there with him, cursing, breathing, and alive.
"What in the seven hells —"
"Stay down, Your Grace." Dunk's voice came out rougher than he meant it. The wind had been knocked out of him. "Please."
Maekar was above and behind them, something like fear in the older man's voice as he shouted for his sons. A Kingsguard came up next to him. Somewhere further off, Raymun was fighting with a ferocity that didn't belong to a boy three hours into his knighthood, and Lord Baratheon's voice rang out over all of it like something out of the old songs.
Prince Baelor looked up at him. The visor on Pate’s helm, though dirtied, was uncracked.
"You knew," the Prince said. It wasn't a question.
Dunk had no answer that would make any more sense than the last one. "It's over, Your Grace. Or near enough."
He got Baelor to his feet using his good arm. Across the field, the fight was already unraveling. Daeron had never engaged at all, the Kingsguard were pulling back now that their prince stood breathing, Maekar had Aerion’s head in his lap and was checking him over for injuries. Steffon and Raymun were still wailing away at one another, but Lyonel and Ser Donnel were pulling them apart.
Steely Pate came over and slung Dunk’s good arm over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you looked at.”
They slowly made their way to the barn, but Dunk was able to move largely on his own. His legs were sore, his knuckles ached, and his shoulder was either deeply bruised or broken. Pate sat him down on a nearby stool then kneeled in front of him.
“Can you see straight? Take any blows to the head or chest?” Pate asked.
“No,” Dunk said. “Nothing to the head. My shoulder –“
“Is likely broken,” Prince Baelor interjected. He had followed them to the barn. “My brother’s mace. He’s strong,” the Prince explained to Pate with a small smile. His eyes flickered back to the hedge knight. “You both are.”
He set his sword into the ground and reached up to undo the helm. Dunk’s breath caught in his throat as Prince Baelor worked the clasps. He lifted the helm free.
“You make good steel,” Prince Baelor said as he handed the helm to Pate. “I can see the similarity between this and Ser Duncan’s own.” He watched as Raymun was helped into the barn by Lyonel.
“You have good allies, Ser Duncan. You have won the day,” he said, smiling.
Dunk could only nod at the words. Emotion was welling up in him.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Dunk said. He swallowed thickly. “Thank you, Your Grace. I am your man, Your Grace.” Dunk let himself slide off the short stool and came to a knee. “Your man!”
Prince Baelor watched him now, just as he had the first time Dunk had made this declaration all those loops ago. This time was different though – Dunk could see clearly, his eyes neither swollen nor blood-crusted. He could see the clarity in the Prince’s eyes, no fogginess or confusion setting in.
Prince Baelor smiled down at him, “I need good men, Ser Duncan.” He looked around the barn at the small motley crew. “The realm needs good men,” he affirmed aloud.
Dunk closed his eyes, and began to weep. He waited for the familiar darkness to take him, for the world to dissolve into sleep and deliver him back to the same morning, but it did not come. Prince Baelor stood there in support, his hand on Dunk’s shoulder while speaking softly to Pate, Lyonel, and the newly arrived Ser Donnel.
He sleeps without dreaming.
When he opens his eyes, the light is different. It’s not the grey of a trial-day dawn or the cold of a dungeon cell. It is warmer and comes from the wrong angle, slanting through a window he does not recognize. Dunk can feel a bed, a real bed, beneath him.
He lies still, heart hammering, waiting for the day to announce itself. For the birds to sing their same song. For the pit in his stomach to form.
Instead, he hears a woman’s voice from somewhere below the window, haggling over the price of bread while a dog barks and a cart creaks on Ashford’s cobblestones.
The door creaks open, and Egg appears with a bowl of porridge with a look half awe, half worry.
“You’re awake! You slept a long time, Ser. We moved you here from the field after you, um, collapsed from exhaustion. Lord Ashford gave you the room. How’s your shoulder?” Egg asks.
Dunk moves his arm experimentally. The pain is real – a deep, grinding ache where Maekar’s mace caught him. Not a memory of pain, but real pain.
“Sore,” he says smiling.
“Prince Baelor asked after you,” Egg says carefully, setting the bowl down. “Twice.”
Dunk looks at the boy intently and feels the weight of every conversation they’ve had across every loop. All the versions of Egg who told him about Aerion’s cruelty, Maekar’s distance, and a family that loved each other badly were standing like ghosts behind him.
“Egg,” Dunk starts. “When we leave here, you should tell your father about Aerion. All of it. What he’s done to you. What he’s threatened.”
The boy stiffens. “I told you, he won’t –”
“He will,” Dunk says. “He’s your father, and he worries about you more than you think. He loves you. Tell him. If he doesn’t listen, tell your uncle. But tell someone who can do something about it. That’s the job of a knight, and they are both knights.”
Egg is quiet for a long moment, then nods.
“Good,” Dunk says quietly before picking up the porridge. It is thick, bland, and the best new thing he’s ever tasted.