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Soon Shahrazad’s words took over, becoming her shield against the sword hanging over her like an augury of dawn.
'All men are fools, all men are knights' remains evergreen. She'd quote herself, if she were someone worth citing. As it stands, Tanselle was a nobody, and what a relief that is. To be unremarkable enough to disappear before she was 'someone' enough to mean trouble.
"Be thankful it was just your fingers, girl," her uncle had told her, after all that's transpired. "If he had it his way, the princeling would have called for your head."
Tanselle wanted so little from life, expected so little, too, but she could not admit gratitude even if she tried. After the initial terror wore off, she had been so angry. Her recovery moved at a snails pace, and her fingers ached something fierce on her worse days. It made it impossible to paint, and the memories that followed would render her immobile at times.
In her memories where she sat motionless, Ser Duncan moved like a rushing river through the haze. She remembered his fury, righteous and blazing as he knocked out the prince's teeth in return for her broken fingers. He had the stature and strength to wield that anger, as well as the right to call for dishonor. But the knight that came to her rescue was not cloaked in white, nor did he carry a sword inherited from some lord. He was just a hedge knight, wishing to do right by a puppeteer. It was foolish, the same way the play was foolish. The gods retained some humor still, so a mere lowborn man was then sainted. All men are knights, indeed.
These were the thoughts that rattled in her head when she idly sketched that sigil on her easel. The lines shakier and unpolished now that her dominant hand was compromised, but an artists hand could always make out the shapes. An elm tree and a falling star, a tiny sign of hope.
A memory of a man who carried her anger and suffered it for her. She'll carry him with her now, too.
She didn't mean for it to be a grand thing, honest. It was a gesture to honor memory, she told herself and anyone who'd ask.
The sigil followed wherever she went. Elm and star on tavern walls and stone, if the paint would allow it. When a child caught her in the middle of defacing an inn's wall with it, she had to tell the story to keep him from tattling. Perhaps that's where it all started to spiral, she was always a better storyteller.
There was a knight, was how she would begin, tall as a tree and as steady as a castle wall. He arrived at a tourney with little coin to his name, but spared what little he had so a girl could paint his shield. He had nearly no renown to his title, but would stake it all in order to defend the young and innocent. He was kind, if not a little awkward. All the little things that would be lost amidst all the tragedy and blood that came out of the prince's trial. She did not mention his smile nor the way his ears turned red when he told her that she was not too tall, but just right. For the children would jeer at her, surely.
Now wherever the sigil was planted, there was bound to be a story there. The stories only grow, just as tall as the knight in it. A foolish lowborn knight that stumbled into a puppeteers tent, now a legend blessed by the gods. A sigil that was, at some distant past, only known by a painter the knight had paid and his peculiar squire, now could be found in the nook and crannies of Westeros. Time will pass that way, with shared stories of tall knights and vows made new. Held by a man, a boy, really, who once listened to her stories. Had listened and thought them worth saving.
She sees him sometimes. She sees him in men taller than her, bending down to count coin. In little boys that ran about with wooden sticks as they wave them around, shouting claim over the title of bravest warrior. On the long days she spent travelling, admiring the sun as it crawled down from the horizon. In the sketched out stars she kept in paper scraps. She sees him in every person who showed her kindness and in every person who needed help. And though her fury still lingered, she would be reminded of kindness, so kind she would be.
One day, the details of Ser Duncan the Tall might slip away from Tanselle's mind. The specific shade of his eyes, the rumble of his voice. Withered away by distance and time. But each stroke of that sigil is recorded by the muscle memory of her hand, and it might just be the thing that outlasts them both.
Dorne bore little bounty for the two of them. Dunk earned a bit of coin here and there, that much was true, but there were no puppet shows for them to stumble into. None that mattered, anyway. Egg had been kind and kept his teasing to himself, but Dunk knew a part of that boy wished to see that familiar tent, too. He sensed that his squire felt some guilt for the puppeteer over the trial, Dunk wished he wouldn't, but he shared that feeling all the same.
What he would give to see her whole and healthy, to know that she's safe. He thought that he might explain himself, if they were to meet again, but then again what was there left to say? He could not mend both their wounds with his clumsy tongue. No, she would not want to hear it. Perhaps it was for the best that they both stayed away. Well gone is well forgot, and so on.
Besides, it was too nice of a day (or as nice as the Dornish sun would allow) for him to keep on agonizing. Egg had been hounding him over going to a market, he had enough of hard salt beef, he said. Dunk had called him a spoiled princeling and threatened to clout his ear, but he relented to the idea of a proper meal in the end.
Egg darted into the market before Dunk could scold him to stay where he could see him, his curious nature winning out after years of lessons behind castle walls. Dunk could only shake his head as he perused the stalls himself, keeping an eye out for any little bald boys mucking about. He gestured for eggs and a few strips of beef to the seller, and declined the sellers attempt at selling him some spices.
Dunk was counting his coin when he felt a tug on his cloak. He expected a bald head, but was instead greeted by a mop of dark curls and wide brown eyes looking up at him.
"Your shield," the boy whispered in awe.
"Sorry?"
"Your shield," he said again, pointing at his elm. "Like the knight from the story."
Dunk could only blink, confused. The boy traced his shield with his fingers, and Dunk almost gave into the irrational urge to hide it away from him. He tried to patch up the old thing as best as he could, feeling oddly sentimental about his sigil. It was Arlan's, and then it was made his by Tanselle's work.
As if sensing Dunk's apprehension, the boy drew his fingers back, but not without a blinding grin directed up at him.
"They told me you were made up, but now I know I was right."
Dunk huffed, fond without really meaning to. "What are you yammering about, boy? I'm only a hedge knight."
"But you are a knight, you're real," the boy continued, "the lady was right, you're very tall."
His brows quirked at that, "Lady? I do not think that any lady knew of me." Though that was not entirely true, Lady Gwin was all the way back in her castle that was in no way near Dorne.
"Well she was not a Lady, but she told us a story of a knight that day when we found her painting something on the tavern wall."
Dunk stilled, he did not want to hope, but his heart had started drumming to its own beat then.
"Ser?" It was Egg's sweet, shrill voice that startled him back. His squire returned to his side, eyeing the other boy with suspicion.
Dunk looked between the boy and his squire, then strengthened his resolve.
"Will you show me? The painting?"
The boy's curls bounced fiercely at the speed of his nod.
The two boys raced through the crowd with Dunk lagging behind. He was much too big, too clumsy, to keep up with the speed in which the children wove through the crowd. He felt a little silly to give into hope as quickly as he did, for all he knew it could have been another painter and another knight bearing a tree on his shield. But he needed to know for sure, to at least know if she's around and to put whatever this restless thing was to rest.
The boy shouted something and Egg gave chase at the sound of his voice. Cursing at slippery little boys, Dunk excused himself to the crowd of people he had to bump into as he tried to walk faster.
The boy stopped in front of a tavern with brick walls, Egg panting behind him. He urged the knight and squire to follow him as he circled its wall, trying to find the spot he last saw the painted tree.
"It's here!" He exclaimed, urging the knight and squire pair to follow his voice.
As they drew near, Dunk could make out simple shapes on the wall. It was an outline of a tree, and a shooting star painted in orange next to it. Dunk touched his shield in reflex, surely this could not just be a coincidence.
"It's her, Ser." Egg gaped beside him, squire and knight sharing the same thought.
"We begged her to tell the story at least three times before we let her go," the boy explained with a grin. "She was fed up with us by the third time, but she could not stop smiling either way."
Dunk felt his feet move forward, then his hand, as he reached out to touch the elm on the wall. He dragged his fingers to the star, and traced its lines in near reverence.
"Is she still here?" He spoke in a whisper, his tongue suddenly so heavy.
The boy scratched his head, looking down as he did. "We saw her and her troupe off a while ago, Ser, I'm sorry."
Dunk swallowed down his disappointment as he turned to the boy, brittle smile on his face. He crouched down, near eye to eye with the boy, and offered him a strip of beef.
"That's alright boy, will you accept this as my thanks?" Dunk ignored Egg's indignant squawk behind him as he settled his offering in the boys palm.
The boy bashfully tugged at the meal he was given, and spoke. "She told us most importantly that the knight was kind, Ser. I am glad to know that too was true."
Dunk's responding chuckle at that sounded embarassingly hoarse.
"I could only hope to be the knight she described me to be, but thank you. Thank you, boy."
They waved off the boy after that and stood in front of the tavern wall together.
"We might still be able to catch up with her, Ser. They couldn't have gone too far," Egg said, always eager to support his knight.
Dunk placed his big hand behind his head, patting it gently.
"She'll turn up when fate decides so, Egg. For now let's just think about supper, yeah?"
"You just gave half of our supper away, Ser." Dunk could only laugh at his squire's noble pettiness, and gave a little smack to his bald head.
"Enough of that, the beef's all yours now."
All throughout supper, Dunk thought of her. His last memory of her, looking up at him on that ruined stage back at Ashford. His first memory of her, narrating over a burst of flames. Eyes alight with the force of a burning star.Then there were the glimpses of what she could be doing now. Was she painting his sigil on other walls? Was he Florian the Fool in her tales, or was he the kind knight the boy spoke of?
Dunk may never get the glory most knights dream of. He could fade away into obscurity, with no one but his princeling squire to remember him. No battles won and no Lord to laud him. But he was content to be remembered this way, too. To know that he was thought of fondly enough to be remembered by a painters hands. To be a part of a storyteller's tale. If he was lucky, he'd find more elm on walls. He'll think of its painter each time he reached out to trace the star.
To sing is either praise
or defiance. Praise is defiance.
—Margaret Atwood, Orpheus 2