Chapter Text
The murmur moved through the crowd. First a whisper, then a hiss, then a rising susurrus of disbelief.
Prince Baelor Breakspear would fight for the hedge knight.
No man there had sought it out: that the Hand of the King should throw his lot into this Trial of Seven... and on the side of the accused, against his own blood, against his brother and nephews, both seemed like the kind of story that singers might embellish, not one that the Gods would allow to be true.
Yet true it was.
In fact, it appeared that Prince Baelor himself had not anticipated it. The armour he wore was that of his son Valarr, not his own.
Still he sat his destrier as though born to the saddle, tall and grave beside the hedge knight.
The leather creaked faintly in protest as Maekar's gauntleted hand closed on the reins. But he never took his eyes off his brother.
Maekar had last stood against Baelor with steel in his hand when he was still a young boy, and his older brother had taught him how to hold a blade, how to turn the wrist, how to follow with the feet. Since then, Maekar had fought hard against many men, but never against his brother.
Baelor shifted in the saddle and turned his head slightly. Their eyes met.
He couldn't do it.
Maekar exhaled slowly through his nose. Then he swung one leg over his horse and dismounted. The motion was unhurried. But it was not what anyone expected.
Aerion’s brows lifted. “Father?”
Maekar handed his reins to a nearby squire without looking. “Hold.”
The boy scrambled to comply. Maekar turned to Aerion. Even from down there, he could glare him down. But, as usual, it had no effect whatsoever on his second son.
What had Maekar done to be cursed with children like this?
“What,” Aerion asked lightly, “are you doing?”
Maekar tilted his head a fraction.
“What,” he said, voice low and flat, “are you doing?”
Aerion smiled the thin, pale smile that never reached his eyes. “Preparing to win. I should think that obvious.”
Maekar’s gaze flicked once to the side of the field, where Baelor sat straight as a spear shaft beside Ser Duncan. Then back to his son.
“There is,” he said, “no fucking way I am riding against my brother.”
The nearest knight coughed into his fist. Aerion’s smug smile looked a bit uncertain now. Behind him, his champions shifted in their saddles. One spat. Another watched Maekar instead of Aerion.
“Are you being led by sentiment now, Father?” he asked and Maekar could tell that the boy was trying to overplay his nerves.
“No,” said Maekar. “Sense.”
Seven save him, he would be damned before he let this farce come to kinslaying! The very thought sat ill in his stomach.
What tale would they carry to their royal father, if steel were to drink a brother’s blood this day? 'Baelor and I slew one another for the sake of a boy’s wounded pride, for a puppeteer’s mockery and a hedge knight’s honour… the very hedge knight my youngest chose to serve as a squire'.
That road led only to shame. Whatever madness had seized this field, it would not end with dragon blood spilled by dragon hands, not while Maekar yet drew breath.
“My uncle has chosen his side,” Aerion summed up.
“And I will not choose mine against him,” Maekar told him.
It was utterly unheard of that such a thing should need spelling out at all.
Aerion let out a small, dramatic sigh, as if he were disappointed in a bad play.
Maekar drew closer. Close up, he was intimidating. His shadow stretched across the neck of Aerion’s horse.
“You will withdraw,” Maekar said. Aerion did not budge. “You will retract your charges. And you will do it now.”
Aerion studied the gauntlets over his fingers, unimpressed by his father's words.
“Aerion,” Maekar threatened.
No answer.
“Aerion.”
Still nothing.
Aerion's brother Daeron sat slouched in his saddle a little way off, reins loose in his fingers, watching as one might watch a cockfight not worth the coin. Somewhere behind them a man laughed, then choked it down when no one joined him.
Aerion cocked his head.
These bloody children would be the death of Maekar one day! Why in seven hells did none of these Gods-forsaken sons ever listen to him? How was it possible that a man might father six children and find every son among them wanting?
Maekar's own father had had four sons, and at least two had proved their worth. Maekar himself and Baelor most of all. Of course Maekar had never deceived himself so far as to think he might equal his elder brother. Baelor was heir to the Iron Throne, Hand of the King, beloved, capable, everything Maekar was not. Even Baelor's sons were better behaved.
Of all Maekar’s children, Aerion was the most promising. Regrettably so!
The misfortune of it was that the boy knew it well enough. Pride and provocation clung to him, and he had a gift for vexing a man past reason. What precisely was amiss in Aerion, Maekar could not have said. Yet of late the boy had taken to fresh nonsense daily, each new outrage sharper than the last upon his father’s nerves. Maekar had never cared overmuch when Aerion made a pastime of plaguing servants or smallfolk, nor that he lived ill at ease with his brothers, who all in turn had lodged the most absurd complaints against him.
The true trouble now was that Aerion shamed his House with these antics. The thought of explaining this day to his own father near turned Maekar’s stomach. He could not let it pass. He would be damned before he allowed it to worsen. He would set the boy straight if it were the last thing he did.
Maekar’s hand seized Aerion’s boot. There was a startled grunt, a flurry of silk and steel, and then a sharp yank.
Aerion came out of the saddle. He hit the ground with a clang of armour and a burst of mud. A murmur broke across the field. The horse sidestepped, snorting.
Aerion stared up, stunned, a strand of hair fallen across his face.
“Come with me now,” Maekar commanded. “I’ll have to have a word with you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Aerion snapped back, obviously embarrassed by the whole thing.
Maekar did not let him go.
Gods, if Aerion kept that foul temper of his, he would be lucky indeed if his father did not leather his disobedient arse before half the realm!
Maekar’s patience had ever run thin, yet the previous day had pared it to the bone. He had dragged his runaway firstborn from drink and disgrace to the tourney he had been commanded to ride. He had found out that Daeron had managed to lose his younger brother to a huge robber knight, only to return to Ashford to learn that Aerion had shamed himself worse than any hedge rogue. Aerion had stabbed a horse instead of his opponent in the tourney, lopped off some girl’s finger, and come to blows with a bloody hedge knight, who happened to be the very creature accused of stealing Aegon. And Aegon had chosen the robber knight's side over his own brother's and begged his father not to fight his captor.
Enough! Maekar was done with these cursed children.
He dragged Aerion across trampled grass, like a misbehaving animal.
Maekar had always said as much: horses and children alike understood best the crack of the crop. Soft handling was fit for soft-natured younglings, not for the hard-headed fools he had sired.
They made little progress. Aerion’s heavy armour, so useful when Maekar had dragged him from the saddle, proved a treacherous burden upon the ground.
“Father—” Aerion snapped, scrambling to right himself, gauntlets scraping earth. “Unhand me!”
Maekar did not even look back.
“You will listen,” he said.
“I will not be manhandled like some—”
Maekar stopped. Turned. And for the first time, the full force of his temper showed.
“What you will do,” Maekar said, “is cease speaking if you know what’s good for you, boy.”
Aerion’s mouth remained half open. Around them, knights shifted in their saddles. Squires pretended fascination with their boots. No one breathed too loudly.
Maekar leaned closer.
“You shame me,” he said.
Aerion’s eyes flashed, and for a moment Maekar thought there was something mad in the boy.
“I shame you? I defend our blood. I defend the honour of House Targaryen from gutter filth and hedge-born liars and you—”
Maekar’s hand hauled his son upright. Armour clanged.
“Enough of this, Aerion!”
The young man swallowed. Maekar’s voice dropped lower.
“Your uncle,” he said, “is the Hand of the King.”
Aerion’s lip curled as if he had just bitten into a lemon, and he turned his face away. It was only through a strength of will that Maekar did not slap him then and there, before the Gods and all of Ashford.
Such arrogance! Such accursed pride! That boy didn't know his place.
Maekar's hand rose instead, iron-hard, and clapped over Aerion's jaw, turning his face back.
“And the Heir to the Iron Throne,” he added.
It was plain enough in the prince’s eyes, the fiery combination of it all: anger, ambition, envy. Dangerous traits, one and all. It was perhaps fortunate that Baelor had been born first, and that Maekar himself had elder brothers yet before him in line after Baelor. Aerion, second son to a fourth son, would never even be considered heir to House Targaryen.
One of Maekar’s sons had Dragon dreams. And THIS fool believed himself one!
A fine jest the Gods had made of Maekar, it seemed. His firstborn lost to drink and visions, the other to pride and fire, and both sprung from his own loins. Some fathers were granted heirs of sense and steadiness. Maekar had been given prophecy in one cradle and madness in the next. Splendid. Truly splendid! Had the Seven wished to mock him, they could scarce have chosen a crueller sport.
“You will not,” Maekar continued, “raise a weapon against your own blood, Aerion. And you will not force me to choose between my blood and my honour.”
Gods be damned, Maekar would cure Aerion of that insolent attitude. The boy would learn his place, if it cost him pride, blood, or the ability to sit comfortably for some days.
Aerion’s nostrils flared. For a moment it looked as though he might spit. Instead he smiled.
“I hear you, Father.”
Maekar did not release him.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Silence. Wind moved through the banners overhead. At last Maekar let go. Aerion brushed mud from his arm.
“So,” he said lightly, “what now? Shall we all go back to bed? Shall we abandon the trial because Prince Maekar finds himself inconveniently related to the opposition?”
Maekar’s eyes did not leave his son's face.
“As I said, you will withdraw your accusations.”
Aerion looked past him to where his uncle Baelor waited. Then he looked back. And shrugged.
“No.” Aerion’s voice turned almost bored. “If the hedge knight is innocent, he has nothing to fear from judgement. If he is guilty, he deserves what comes. Either way, truth will out. Surely even you believe that, Father.”
Maekar studied him. The nerve of this boy!
“You are worse than your brother,” he said at last.
He did not trouble to say which brother. Aerion had three to choose from, and any one of them might have served the charge well enough, for each in his turn had proved a trial sent to test a father’s patience.
Daeron was forever running off, forever shrinking from the duties of a firstborn. Aemon, for all his courtesy, was ever convinced he knew better than those set above him. And the youngest seemed to gather up the worst of all his brothers and make a harvest of it: wandering like Daeron and with a sharp little tongue that never ceased its prattle.
It was humiliating!
Things had been easier when their mother lived. Dyanna had possessed some quiet art for managing the boys and him as well, if truth be told. By the Gods, Daeron and Aerion would have felt the rod ten times as often as they had, had their mother not stood between.
“This trial is my right! I am a prince of the realm!” Aerion complained now.
Maekar’s expression did not change.
“A prince because you are my son,” he said, cold and plain. “And if you possess a grain of sense, you will do as you are commanded.” His jaw clenched ever so slightly. “I have had my fill of this mummery. Enough of it.”
“But Father, I am—,” Aerion started again.
“You are a boy who has never yet been struck hard enough by consequence.”
… and not just consequence alone.
Aerion’s eyes glittered. “Is that a threat?”
“Yes.”
For a heartbeat neither spoke. Then Maekar turned away. He took two steps, then stopped and said without looking back:
“If you do not withdraw, you will fight without me.” He turned a hard glance upon his eldest son. “And Daeron will not ride beside you either.”
Not that Aerion had much reason to regret that fact. His brother was a shit knight and a worse drunkard, more burden than sword in any real fight.
Apparently, Aerion had not anticipated the course of events. That his own father would so openly reject him before the very face of the realm, that, it seemed, had never occurred to him.
“You would abandon your own side?”
“I would refuse a dishonourable one.” He gestured towards Baelor. “And I will not ride against my own brother. Not even for my children. Not for anyone. Not for any cause that begins with cowardice and some ancient Andal foolery.”
Aerion pursed his lips. The crowd murmured again, sensing the shift. Maekar faced him once more.
“This is your last chance,” he said.
One of Aerion’s sworn men shifted his shield strap. Another glanced towards Baelor, then quickly away.
Maekar knew that Aerion had never been a boy for true bravery. There was reason enough he had named a Trial of Seven rather than meet the hedge knight alone. It had been a cunning choice, if not a valiant one.
Now that his father had left him to stand with only four knights left, surely even Aerion must see the folly of pressing on with such a farce. And what honour was there in crossing swords with the Heir to the Iron Throne for the sake of a quarrel with a hedge knight and a puppet girl?
Yet it seemed Maekar had misreckoned the measure of his son’s pride … or else his madness. Aerion did not yield. He held his gaze.
Held it.
Held it ...
... and then looked away.
Not in submission, but with calculation. Maekar knew his son well enough to know that. Aerion's tongue touched the inside of his cheek. When he spoke again, his tone was careless.
“As you wish, Father. If you will not fight… then do not.” A small shrug. “I shall win without you.”
The boy had not just said that. He could not have. What in all the Seven Kingdoms was wrong with Aerion?
Gods be damned, Maekar was so used to dealing with Daeron that he could scarce imagine a son of his refusing to fold once the pressure was laid on. Daeron would shrink the instant Maekar raised his voice, let alone his hand. His firstborn had little enough pride left in him. Even now, grown though he was, he would lie down and take a beating without so much as lifting an arm to ward it off, as if he believed every blow deserved. It had always nettled Maekar, that acceptance of his fate.
Yet the defiance Aerion showed now was worse by far.
Oh, the boy had it coming!
“Aerion,” Maekar hissed, his voice low with warning, “mark me well. If you set foot in that stirrup again, I shall drag you down a second time ... and it will not be for talk. This is your last chance to do as you are told with your pride still intact.”
Gods knew the boy deserved to be beaten! Truth be told, all four of Maekar's sons had deserved a public whipping at one time or another, yet he had never acted on that impulse.
That would only make matters worse.
To lash out now would merely add to the disgrace those wretched children had already brought him. It would be an open confession that he had failed—that he could not even keep order in his own blood, let alone command the respect of others. A father who must discipline his sons in the open had already lost control within his own walls.
Maekar ground his teeth and held his hand still.
To his surprise it was Daeron who dismounted then, shaking his head, though a smirk lingered treacherously at his mouth.
Usually, it was Maekar’s firstborn who begged mercy for his brothers, for Daeron had plenty experience kneeling in the dust, pleading pardon for himself. He had even dared to beg that Aegon be spared the lash for acting as a most willing hostage to that accursed hedge knight, when it should have been Daeron correcting his squire’s outrageous behaviour.
But he showed Aerion no such consideration now. The truth was, he looked very close to laughing. That pricked Maekar’s temper. He gave his eldest a stern look. Daeron sobered quickly and found sudden business in staring elsewhere.
That was when Maekar heard the patter of small feet in the mud and saw his youngest come running.
The little wretch! Off again Aegon had slipped to attend that accursed hedge knight, as if he were squire born and bred to him. Had Maekar not weightier matters in hand, the boy would have found himself hauled across his father’s knee for a sound spanking.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Aegon panted, wide-eyed as a startled fawn.
Mud spattered the hem of his little tunic. He did not seem to notice
Aerion turned away in open vexation, but Maekar’s hand shot out and caught his arm, dragging him back.
“You will not turn your back on me,” he thundered. “You will do as I told you, or woe betide you, boy.”
“Father’s about to thrash Aerion,” Daeron supplied helpfully, as though the scene required a herald.
“Silence,” Maekar snapped. “Another word and you can join him! I am done with this ceaseless defiance.”
Daeron’s mouth snapped shut, but he frowned. Aegon’s gaze flicked from Maekar to Aerion, round and wondering.
Aerion wrenched free and made again for his horse. Maekar seized him once more, iron-hard.
“That's it,” he said. “You and I will speak of your conduct.”
And he hauled the prince towards the pavilions.