Chapter Text
The fish heads barely touched sand before Rafe had darted in among the rickety benches and scooped them back up. The fishwives, red-faced and squawky, their hands slimy with fish guts, kicked at her like she was a stray dog, but Rafe was too quick for them all. Their hands never stopped their work though, needing their baskets full of filleted fish before the market opened that day.
Dunk wasn’t as quick as Rafe and not anywhere near as small, but he was a good hauler. The worn length of cloth they had stolen from a wash line in Pisswater Bend was close to being filled, its corners threatening to slip away from him every time he gathered them close around the heads. They looked up at him dumbly, eyes like glass and mouths like death, but Dunk held his head high, waiting for Rafe to return with her next prize.
“There.” She threw three more heads on top of their pile. “I think that’s the last of it. Most of the fish have gone, and soon those old women won’t have nothin’ to use their knives on but me.”
“It’s plenty.” Dunk held out his arms, really feeling the heft of their work. The sun had barely risen, and already they were sure to eat that day. “D’you think we’ll get a halfgroat for this?”
“A whole groat if I’ve got anything to say about it. That’s fresh fish, is what that is. Better than whatever beetles and rat’s fur he usually puts into that stew of his.”
Dunk looked down at the fish heads. Their shiny scales were marred with spots of sand. “Best give ‘em a wash then, if we’re gonna ask for a groat.”
They walked along the shore until they found a peaceful spot equal parts distant to the offended fishwives and the watchful gold cloaks up by the Iron Gate. Kneeling by the water, they worked together quickly, the heads barely slithering out of their grasp before they had them all back in the sodden cloth.
As Rafe bent over behind him, trying to secure their bounty with a good knot, Dunk remained sitting by the edge of the sea. He turned his right arm over, pushing at the frayed edge of his shirt until he could make out the vague lines on his skin. Cupping some water in his left hand, he first splashed then rubbed at the dirt that seemed to have become one with his flesh. And with every pass of his fingers, the bright colours of the mark showed themselves ever more clearly.
“That’ll itch later on,” Rafe said over his shoulder. “Salt water’s no better than dirt on the skin.”
“I wanted the dirt gone.”
“Why?”
“Just… Just to look.”
The green of the tree was summer-bright as always. What tree it was, Dunk was never certain. No trees grew in Flea Bottom; nothing so beautiful could be allowed to live in a place like that. But it was a tree, noble and tall, and from its trunk a set of antlers grew. Wide and golden, their prongs pointed and sharp, like they could defend the tree from whatever would trouble it. Even the sharpest axe could do nothing against those antlers.
“Still there, is it?” Rafe had securely tied the cloth around the fish heads. She stood up, stretching her back.
With the pad of a finger, Dunk followed a bit of the antler from its root to its tip, liking its gentle swirls. “Still here.”
Rafe’s shadow fell over his arm. “They could be dead, you know. Could have been dead for almost all your life. A day after that woman you call mother pushed you out of her, that mark already branded onto your flesh, they could have been coughing out their last somewhere up north, the cold having got to ‘em. They say that it gets so bad in the winter, that the stones in their houses burst from all the ice.” She folded her arms. “We got nothing, Dunk, but at least we got nothing somewhere warm. Remember that.”
He covered his mark with his left hand, like he wanted to protect it from any mournful thoughts. “The septa said that it would start to fade if the other person died.”
“The septa said, the septa said.” Rafe spat. “Nice stories is what they trade in, ain’t it? You know what else the septa says? That the Mother watches over us all. Well, she may do, but she’s a right cunt if she doesn’t start doing anything about all that she’s seen.”
Rafe didn’t have a soul mark. Most people didn’t. And of those who were blessed by the Seven to carry a mark that pointed them in the direction of the other half of their soul, very few actually found each other. It was a big world, and if you didn’t own a horse or a mule to carry you forth, you got to see very little of it.
“Are you gonna help me with this, or are you gonna sit there and moon over some stranger’s mark?” Rafe toted the knotted cloth, heaving it up until it rested against her hip.
Dunk got to his feet, taking the fish heads from her. He held their loot in front of him, barely straining at its weight. Rafe turned and lead the way to the Iron Gate, not even needing to look back to know that Dunk was following behind her – he always was.
More gold cloaks had found their positions at the gate since the sun had risen. Dunk and Rafe hesitated at the bottom of the hill leading up to the Iron Gate, casting worried glances at the armoured men. There was no law stating that two children couldn’t pass through any of the gates of King’s Landing while carrying a load of fish heads, but there was also no law to stop bored members of the City Watch harassing any Flea Bottomer they disliked the look of.
Rafe was quick to think of an idea. She gestured for Dunk to cling to the opposite wall of the gate while she went straight up to the closest guard. “Ser!” Her voice sounded nothing like herself, all soft and weepy. “Ser! Please help me! Ser!”
The gold cloak looked above her head with a determined tilt of his neck.
“Ser! It’s my little dog. She’s gone missing! Her name’s Sweetcake and she’s gone missing, Ser! Won’t you help me find her?”
Dunk kept moving forward in a steady pace, trying not to openly stare. He was close to the inner gate when the gold cloak shoved at Rafe’s shoulder. “Get along with you!” he barked. “Don’t be blocking the King’s gate with your foolery.”
“Oh, please, Ser!”
“Go on, get!” Rafe almost fell to the ground at his final shove, but as she righted herself, Dunk could see the satisfied smile on her lips.
She ran to catch up with him, and then they were inside the city walls, the morning bustle having grown noisier since they last passed through them. “See?” she said with a smug sense of accomplishment. “If you want ‘em to leave you alone, they’re all over you. Ask ‘em for help, and they can’t push you along fast enough.”
They carried the bundle between them to the top of Gin Alley where the largest pot-shop in Flea Bottom sat, its ever-simmering stew always going and ready for more of anything to be added. Knuckle-Petyr, the proprietor, made a show of inspecting most of the heads sitting on top, sniffing at them delicately like he had any kind of standard for the sort of ingredients he plopped into the bowls o’ brown he hawked across his counter.
“They’re fresh,” Rafe said, “just hauled in this morning, clean from the sea.”
“How clean can they be if the two of you have got hold of ‘em?” he replied, letting a fish head drop from his hand and land on the rest with a wet smack.
It shouldn’t bother Dunk to be scorned at like that, but it still rankled him after all these years. He had lived all of his life as lesser than. Even street dogs were more tolerated than Rafe and him; they would be thrown bits of mouldy bread and get the occasional rough petting between their ears. On their best days, the most Rafe and he could wish for was to be ignored by everyone around them. To be noticed was to be kicked.
He went through this life, knowing he was unloved by the world, knowing that if he dropped dead, nobody would notice but Rafe and… and the soul that was bound to him. Rafe would survive, would probably do better once she didn’t have him to look after as well as herself. But the other person who shared the ownership of this mark, what would they do? The day they looked down and saw the green of the tree fade, like a shirt that’s been washed and beaten against the rocks too many times, and the shape of the antlers disappearing until what was left could be mistaken for a mass of freckles. Would they mourn the loss of him then? The loss of a small part of their soul – Dunk could never claim to make up the whole half of any person’s soul – but maybe just that missing sliver was enough to unsettle them for the rest of their life.
Sometimes late at night, with Rafe breathing slowly in her sleep next to him, Dunk would push a finger into the centre of the tree trunk where the antlers sat. And then he’d focus all of his mind onto one single thought, hoping that it would reach his soulmate.
When I die, you must keep living. If you love me, if you could ever love me, you will live for my sake.
They would never meet, Dunk and the soul that was bound to him; he may be thick, but he knew that much. But knowing they were out there, that maybe in some quiet moments they touched the same lines that were inscribed on his skin and sent him an affectionate thought, that was enough to keep him going most days. He may be unloved, but the Gods had set it down that he wasn’t completely unknown. For good or bad, his life was tied to another’s.
In the end Rafe managed to haggle a groat and three pennies from Knuckle-Petyr in exchange for the fish heads. It meant that they would eat both today and tomorrow, and right now Dunk agreed with her that real food was more important than just the idea of a soulmate.
“Are you listening to me, Master Lyonel?”
Down in the yard they had brought out the targets for practising the bow. The men had gathered around the barrels full of arrows – guards, knights, squires, all of them belonging to House Baratheon – and were laughing loudly as they bet on who would land the most hits.
“Master Lyonel, the sooner you return to your studies, the sooner we can finish for today.”
Lyonel rolled lazily around from his position by the window, glancing back at the new Maester. Lyonel’s father had recently called him in from Oldtown to replace ancient Maester Melvyn, who had choked to death while eating a dish of mutton. All that learning that had been poured into him at The Citadel, and the old man had never learned how to chew his food properly.
This younger Maester – Maester Lemuel – had even more links in his chain, a scrawny neck which could barely hold it up, and a superior manner towards everyone but Lyonel’s father, Lord Baratheon.
“The weather’s fine, Maester,” Lyonel replied. “Don’t you wish to be outside in the sunshine?”
“I wish to fulfil my duties to your Lord Father, and one of those is to teach his son all about his soul mark and the responsibilities attending to it. Now please, come sit down by me. There’s an interesting passage in this history of Lys I would have you study. It speaks of how its magisters of old went about finding their soulmates.”
That word hung on Lyonel. Responsibilities. What a perfectly stodgy word, the kind that sticks in your throat.
The first thwack sounded from outside the window as an arrow found its target. The sun would surely have set by the time Maester Lemuel released him from this senseless drudgery. The training yard would be filled with nothing but squires and servants then, hurrying to collect all the arrows before the dinner bell was rung.
He sighed as he ambled back over to the table. “How did they find their soulmates in Lys?”
The Maester pushed the open book towards him. “Well, you could read it for yourself.”
Lyonel lifted one corner of the book with a single finger, watching its leather binding bend. He dropped it with a muted thud. “You explain it to me, Maester, you do that so well.”
Maester Lemuel sighed, obviously wanting this lesson to end just as much as Lyonel. “I do not understand why you maintain this resistance to it. Others would rejoice at having been born with your advantages.” He pushed away from the table as he looked up at Lyonel. “You and your soulmate have been chosen by the Seven. Before your souls assumed their earthly shells, the Gods have bound you to one another, because they know that your destined meeting will enrich both your lives immeasurably.”
“But I haven’t resisted it, Maester. I allowed what’s-his-name, the painter, to sketch the thing onto his parchment. I allowed my father to send copies of that sketch to every House from Dorne to the Wall.”
All those pieces of parchment had hopefully all amounted to nothing. In the end, they would probably end their lives as either improvised bookmarks and put on some forgotten shelf, or as easy kindling for a much-needed fire. Nothing would please Lyonel more – at least they were put to some useful purpose.
“I have done my part, Maester.” Lyonel shrugged. “And now I only need to wait for my soulmate to present themselves at the gates of Storm’s End and leash me for good.”
Those wiry eyebrows jumped in surprise. “Leash you?”
“That’s what it is, isn’t it? I’ve been born with this collar,” he pulled up the sleeve on his right arm, displaying the soul mark, “and all my life it’s been threatening to finally pull tight around my neck.”
“That is how you describe meeting the other half of your soul?”
“Other half? My soul is whole, Maester, always has been. I have no need of whoever,” he flicked a derisive hand at the mark, “this is.”
Maester Lemuel steepled his hands in front of him, a familiar quirk of his which already annoyed Lyonel endlessly. “Maester Callister speaks about a total peace that descends on the mind when soulmates meet, and Maester Ronan wrote ‘The Lives and Achievements of Bonded Souls’ to record all the great deeds that could only have been accomplished by those thus blessed by the Seven.”
“And Maester Shitface says that boiled sweets shoot out of your arse once you clap eyes on your blessed soulmate.” Lyonel pushed away from the table, the force of it leaving it wobbling with several of the open books threatening to fall.
“I will not be provoked by your lack of respect for men much more learned than both you and me,” the Maester called after him.
Oh, do be provoked, Lyonel thought, do be anything other than the fucking tedious bore you’re being right now.
Outside a cheer rose as the men celebrated a decisive victory in their informal archery competition.
“I will just say this,” Maester Lemuel said as he stood up, starting to collect his books to save them from Lyonel’s wrath, “that you will think very differently once you meet the person sharing your mark.”
Every adult around him delighted in speaking variations on that very sentence. His father had stood over him many times, intoning that when you meet your soul bound, Lyonel, you will know what it is to have a true purpose. This will prepare you for the duties of a Lord Paramount, and you will need the support of your true mate when you take on that heavy mantle.
His mother had sat next to him at dinner, a comforting hand on his and had said, it will calm you down, I think, meeting your soulmate. You won’t want to race from one thing to another, always on the look-out for the next bit of fun. Your true love will offer you the direction you need.
Purpose. Duty. Calm. Direction. They might as well threaten him with torture and the darkest cells of Storm’s End, the ones where the stone walls had caved in during the latest storm.
Lyonel looked down at the mark on his right arm. The antlers were boringly obvious, of course. He ate from plates decorated with antlers, he slept under a headboard carved into a forest full of stags, and every new piece of clothing ordered from the tailor came with the decision of just how many antlers should be included in its design.
He understood what the antlers were meant to represent, and there they were – stuck inside of a tree, never to be dislodged again. The stag was supposed to roam free – the king of the woods went where he wanted, his head high and mighty. He was not supposed to be held captive by some rotten old elm tree.
If he was meant to be the antlers, then his soulmate must be the tree. And trees could do nothing but stay where they were put, their roots growing deeper and deeper. Nothing could move them but death. His soulmate must either be a fretting slip of a girl, cowering in some lord’s castle, or a boy pouring over his books in a dusty library, his eyes already weak and milky like an old man’s.
And so the only positive thing to be said for his soulmate, was that they were unlikely to engage in any active pursuit to find Lyonel. The stag could pass by the elm and never see it again, and the elm had no way of following.
If Lyonel never stopped moving, he would never be captured.