Chapter Text
Baelor knew the fight was over before the horn sounded.
He had seen, out of the corner of his eye as he blocked one of Maekar’s hammering swings, Duncan’s unmistakable massive form collapsing, and for a moment had felt his heart shudder in his chest- but he could hear little Aegon’s screaming, shrilly furious rather than heartbroken, and the horn to mark Aerion’s victory did not sound.
When next Maekar was distracted enough by Ser Lyonel that Baelor could spare the half-second to give them attention, Duncan was back on his feet and beating the living shit out of his vicious idiot of a nephew. He didn’t let himself feel the satisfaction even for a moment - Maekar was half-mad with rage and fear for his son, and it made him a damned menace to fight.
He hadn’t known what, exactly, had brought Duncan back to his feet, not until a bellowing roar of triumph echoed across the field, loud and familiar enough to make him flinch. Luckily, it caught Maekar just the same, on a backswing as he struck out towards Ser Lyonel - the blow caught Baelor’s helm, but faltered enough from Maekar’s own flinch that it only gave him one last clang about the head, useless visor cracking and digging cruelly into his face. Baelor grit his teeth through the pain and his ringing ears, and grabbed hold of his brother’s arm, not entirely trusting him not to resume his struggles once the shock wore off.
Maekar hadn’t, though - he’d known, as surely as Baelor had known, as surely as any man would know who had fought the Battle of Redgrass Field, the battle where Ser Buford Bulwer had accredited himself by slaughtering over thirty men single-handedly, and then stood above their corpses letting out that same roar to signal his victory to all who could hear.
They had both already known the battle was over, even as Duncan heaved himself to his feet, and dragged by the leg Aerion’s feebly struggling body to stand before the breathlessly cheering crowd - distantly, he could hear Ser Lyonel letting loose a torrent of astonishingly irreverent blasphemy for a man who sounded as though he were having a religious experience.
There, his worthless nephew had finally withdrawn his claim, and the crowd erupted into yet greater heights of hysteria. The massive, lurching form of his knight had shoved Aerion to fall into the mud, then turned and staggered towards them, unerring across the field even as he barely kept to his feet. Maekar had twitched forward as though to protect Baelor from him, but before he got too close Duncan simply collapsed to his knee, looking half a corpse.
“Your Grace,” he gasped, filthy with mud and blood and worse things, “I am your man. Please. Your man,” with one eye swollen so badly he was nearly unrecognizable, his other filled with the unmistakable maddened heat of a battle-fever.
And then, finally, the horn sounded.
—
“You are not going to that animal,” Maekar said, predictably.
Baelor repressed the urge to laugh, lifting his arm for a hovering servant to unbuckle Valarr’s tourney armor - it had fared abominably in the trial, bent in several places where Maekar’s mace had landed, and the less said about the helm the better. Tourney armor or no, he would have to speak with his son about finding a new smith. Still, the battle joy was sparking brilliantly through his veins, leaving him giddy. He grinned widely over at Maekar. “And what would you have me do, brother? He submitted before me.”
Maekar scoffed, then hissed as Maester Yormwell daubed some poultice at an already spectacularly colored bruise along his ribs - perhaps the same one Baelor had left when he knocked him clean off of his horse. “You’re heir to the Iron Throne, a fucking Lord Paramount would submit before you. For a nameless fucking hedge knight to lay that claim, after you had taken the field in his defense-”
“Ser Duncan was hardly in his right mind,” Baelor reminded him, and himself. The memory of Duncan slumped before him, one good eye begging wordlessly for instruction, the unbearable boiling heat of his skin as Baelor had reached out to cup his neck, was still fresh in his memory, a hot coal burning in his belly warming him through despite the damp cold of the churned spring mud plastered to his skin. “It’s a wonder he even kept enough of himself to permit your son to yield.”
Maekar scoffed again, more waspishly. “Barely. He had to be carried off of the field, or did you miss that while you were busy making cow eyes at the beast?” Maester Yormwell stepped back, evidently deeming his injuries sufficiently treated, and Maekar heaved himself to his feet with a wincing groan. He gestured impatiently for servants to step forward and clothe him - in full formal attire, the ridiculous man, but even in his ill-temper Maekar was always one for appearances.
Baelor felt another inappropriate laugh bubble up in his throat, and so spoke instead to shove it back down. “All the more reason for me to aid him. The Septons tell us that it is a lord’s duty to aid his knights, should they drink too deeply of the Warrior’s strength and lose sight of themselves. It is a privilege,” he added faux gravely, mostly to tweak his brother’s nose, “to be honored by the service of such a man as has been favored by the Seven.”
Maekar’s face screwed up in expected fury, an unbearably familiar expression. When they were boys together, screaming in each others faces for one reason or another, that was always the exact face he made before finally letting his fists swing to pummel his dearest older brother. “A privilege, is it,” he snarled, then wheeled on Baelor with a glint in his eye, nearly sending a servant sprawling as they affixed his surcoat. “You’re hardly some blushing fucking maid whose honor he defended, nor did he act as your champion - you have no such fucking privilege, and he has no claim to you. As far as I’m concerned, he got himself into this state, and he can fuck himself out of it. And if that’s not enough for your fucking honor to stomach,” he spat, “then he can go find one those dozen lords he claims to have served, and grant them the honor.” Tirade thus delivered, he spun round and strode for the door.
“Where are you going,” Baelor called after him.
Maekar halted in the doorway. “To care for my son,” he snarled, not turning round. “Since evidently I am the only one in this family who does.”
He stormed off, and the servants scurrying silently about finished gathering the last scattered pieces of armor before bowing and following him out. Baelor felt a twinge of regret for his japing - his brother was accustomed to the strangeness that so often took him after a battle, but it was unkind to needle him so when his son still lay with the Maesters. Likely the only reason he had come with Baelor at all was to express his disapproval of Ser Duncan, puffed up like an offended mother hen.
The last servant to linger was gently sponging away the mud and sweat of the trial, eyes carefully downcast. Baelor held still for him to wipe at his brow, casting his own eyes to his Maester. “You must forgive my brother’s temper. His concern for the dignity of the crown leads him to forget his propriety.”
Maester Yormwell, who had served him long enough to know perfectly well how forgetful Maekar was even when unconcerned, raised one massively bushy eyebrow, but only commented, “As you say, Your Grace.”
Baelor’s lips twitched, but he had little time for their usual sparring matches. “Enough,” he said to the servant, raising one hand to forestall him. “I am as clean as I need be for Maester Yormwell to foist his attentions upon me.” He leaned in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “He has a great fondness for his knives and cauteries - you should leave before duty demands you defend the royal body.” To his credit, the man did not react, only nodded and left with a quick “your grace,” closing the door softly behind.
Yormwell was too seasoned a maester to show any emotion so feeling as concern, but he had a certain look in his eye when Baelor beckoned him closer to to begin his examination. “I ill-like that wound to your head,” he said, weathered hands reaching up to feel at the long scrape dug along his hairline where Valarr’s visor had cracked.
Baelor groaned faintly in exasperation. “I’m perfectly fine,” he said. “This - levity - is but the battle leaving me. It will pass soon. And besides,” he added, wincing as his maester tested the edges where his skin had split, “you already checked my head.”
“Only enough to ensure you were not bleeding into the skull, Your Grace,” Yormwell said placidly. “It would have reflected most poorly on my skills had you keeled over dead ere I finished tending to your brother.”
He snorted, humor still bubbling irrepressible in his throat. “Scolding as a septa,” he said mock-severely. “Alright, you’ve made your point, go on and check that no other part of me is falling off.”
Yormwell’s mouth dug itself imperceptibly deeper into the craggy trenches of his face, but he moved on obediently.
Baelor waited as he raised his arm over his head, testing the motion. There was still a faint twitching at his fingers, the urge to jump and shout fizzling through him that he brutally repressed only with years of practice. Still, it had been years since he had last stepped onto a battlefield himself, and he was no longer accustomed to the aftermath; the silence of the room was intolerable, only the sound of his own rough breathing echoing off the stone walls.
Finally, he broke. “Maester Yormwell,” he said, addressing the question crowding at his throat, “what can you tell me of battle fevers?”
“More than most men, but less than some,” Yormwell responded unhelpfully, extending his arm fully and marking his grimace as the shoulder twisted. “It might be more efficient, Your Grace, were you to tell me what you know, that I might know where to begin.”
Baelor fought back another smile. “To prove that I am no fool wasting your time, no doubt,” he said gravely, then settled into the cadence of a recitation, familiar since boyhood. “The septons tell us that they are a gift from the Warrior and Maiden both - that a man may be blessed with the strength of ten, but to sip so of the Warrior’s strength, he needs must be brought low by the Maiden before he is fit to walk amongst men once more. It is the duty of his lord, should he have one, to guide him along that path, as payment for madness incurred in his service.”
Yormwell listened patiently, pressing at each of his fingers individually and pausing when he hissed at the little one. “Sprained, not broken, I think,” he said, businesslike, then, “Beginning with the teachings of the Sept is of course a most auspicious start, Your Grace,” just as professionally blank as ever. Baelor lost the battle against his smile this time. “There are other tales, though I would hesitate to repeat such sinful heresies before a Prince of the realm.”
Baelor had heard of those other, cruder variations, mostly comparing Northern berserkers to wild animals who needed to be mounted and fucked until they fell tame. He tried not to think of that now, Duncan hunched over Aerion like a roaring beast, only to turn to Baelor expectant as a loyal hound requesting praise, begging to be allowed to huddle at his feet within a warm hall. Baelor felt quite certain that Duncan would be more as a tamed hound than a wild dog, obedient and eager to please if only he were given a drip of approval, arching his back to bare the soft delicate skin of his belly.
He realized that Maester Yormwell was staring at him, eyebrow raised expectantly, and that he had not responded. “Indeed,” he said quickly. “I would not want you to face accusations from the High Septon.” He hardly knew what he was saying; he felt faintly fevered himself.
“Indeed,” Yormwell repeated, eyebrow still raised. “Your Grace, have you experience with battle-fevers?”
That served adequately to cool his ardour. “Only once,” he said flatly, “and not myself.” At Yormwell’s prodding silence, he added only, “Redgrass Field.”
“Ah,” the maester said, and fell silent, moving to press at his ribs. Baelor fell into a grim silence himself - it was not a pleasant thing to think of. No songs were sung of it, not the way there were of the Hammer and the Anvil, although it was not quite fearfully avoided in polite conversation in the way of Bloodraven’s sorcerous slaying of Daemon Blackfyre and his twin sons.
Ser Buford Bulwer had slaughtered over thirty men while in the grips of his battle-fever, and he would have killed thirty more, careless of whether they served the black dragon or the red. Had there not been a member of his liege House Hightower there that day to take him in hand, they would have had to shoot him down with arrows from half a league away, frothing and roaring like a maddened bull all the while.
Baelor had not been lying to Maekar when he said it was a wonder Duncan had not bludgeoned Aerion to death upon the field, and Maekar well knew it - no doubt he too had wondered, when they heard Duncan’s triumphant roar, whether his second son yet lived. No doubt his foul temper was as much the lingering taste of terror as any true offense at Ser Duncan’s supposed gall. Baelor himself could not bring himself to feel one way or another; for the sake of his brother, he could not wish to see Aerion dead, but for the sake of the realm, he could not truly wish him to live, either.
The grim thoughts were finishing what time had started, and he could feel the drunken lightness of the battle joy finally ebbing away. Left behind was a faint shivering that gripped his muscles, and a cold lump settled uncomfortably in his throat. He felt quite certain that Duncan’s own honorable nature was the only reason that Aerion yet lived, but he was yet unsure how much reason was truly left to the man.
He girded his loins. If he could stand to reveal himself enough to ride out on the field in defense of the man, in spite of tradition and filial duty and all sense, then he could surely reveal this niggling uncertainty.
“Does the Citadel,” he began, dragging the words out by the roots, “hold any writings on…how much of a man is truly left to him, in his fevers?” Yormwell made a questioning noise, distracted from where he was hunched over palpitating gently the massive swollen bruise of Baelor’s left side, so he forged on, wincing at the gritty pain. “Was Ser Duncan like to know his actions, or as my brother said, was it merely- instinct?”
Yormwell made another noise, this time understanding, but when he spoke his tone was apologetic. “I am afraid that that question is the topic of much heated debate within our order. The matter is complicated somewhat by how rarely such fevers occur without preexisting bonds of fealty.” Baelor nodded; he had feared as much. “If the validity of Ser Duncan’s claim is in question - I recall his grace your brother did say that Ser Duncan had served other lords in the past. If one of them should prove willing, it might indeed be a cleaner matter to send him to one of them.” Yormwell spoke as idly as though he were commenting on the weather, then, “You must loosen your muscles, Your Grace,” with a tap to where Baelor’s stomach had gone tense.
He carefully unclenched where he had gone rigid, his belly and jaw both, but knew that he had already given away much.
The thought had occurred to him briefly, but he had not permitted it to linger. The image of it - Duncan, staring up at him sweet and trusting, knowing that his lord would treat him well - had left Baelor feeling that he had something fragile as a newly hatched bird clutched in his hand, both terrified and protective. The idea of him turning that same gaze up at some other, lesser lord… And they would be lesser, Baelor was sure, he had no illusions about the scarcity of honor and even decency amongst the lords of the realm.
“I think it unlikely any would answer,” he grated out. “He squired for his master in service to several lords, but none will claim him. Ser Duncan approached the representative of each house here that he recognized to vouch for his entering the lists. None remembered his service, or that of his master.”
It seemed, suddenly, grotesque. When Baelor had first seen him, huge and awkward in Lord Ashford’s audience chamber, he had felt little more than distant pity for the man - that his master’s service was unremembered was wretched, of course, all the moreso for the lad’s visible grief at it, but what else could one expect? This fumbling giant would no doubt go on to be unremembered himself, or if he was it would only be in the snickering of his betters from behind their hands at his fumbling manners.
But now he felt that Duncan had- had offered himself up to those lords, body and soul, only to have them turn their noses away in distaste - at what? The roughness of his speech, or the mud smeared on his clothes?
He remembered involuntarily Duncan challenging him the night before - Seven above, was it only the night before? - jaw set and eyes blazing fearless at the future King of the Seven Kingdoms, demanding to know if a knight’s oath did not apply equally to all who swore it. At the time, Baelor had felt rather as though he had been stumbling blind through a forest in the dead of night, only to crash unexpected into a clearing and see the cold clean light of a full moon illuminate the world around him. He felt now savagely that if each one of those lords’ honor and worthiness were to be gathered up, all of them together would barely fill a goblet in comparison to the great sea that was Ser Duncan.
He shook his head - these ruminations were useless. “Besides, I fear I may have already accepted his claim. On the field,” he explained at Yormwell’s sharp look. “My brother was pulling me away, and he made to follow. I bid him instead to go with the maesters, and do as they said.” He paused, then reluctantly added, “and told him that I would call on him before long.”
Yormwell said nothing, which said enough.
Baelor sat with his own rapidly coiling guilt. When the words had left his mouth - My knight, these men will care for you. Be good for them, and I shall be with you soon - it had been with the heady taste of Duncan’s trusting sweetness sitting like honey on his tongue, pleasure at his heady obedience sliding molten through his veins. He had had no thought to how he was- taking a chain Duncan had placed trusting in his hands, and winding it tight around his throat - only of his own pleasures at the satisfaction of doing so.
“Well,” Yormwell said at last. “Removing him was likely the best action to be taken,” the medicine of his offered absolution bitter as poison. “But to give him the order does indeed imply acceptance that he is yours to order. Although if I may, it does not seem as though you wish to repudiate the claim.”
Baelor met his eyes steadily. “Any lord,” Baelor said firmly, “any man, should be honored to be judged worthy by one such as Ser Duncan.”
Yormwell nodded as though he had thought as much, eyes inscrutable, and turned to his selection of herbs and tinctures. “What is it, then, which gives you pause? Ser Duncan has claimed you as his lord, and you would be happy to claim him as your servant. It would seem a happy occasion all round.”
Baelor pondered his answer. It was a simple matter, but not simple to say; there was his duty, and there was his pleasure, and he was ill-accustomed to the two meeting in anything approaching happy matrimony.
The claim could still be repudiated, as Maekar would no doubt insist, but it would be monstrously cruel to leave a man in the grips of such fevers without recourse. Even if it had not, precisely, been incurred in Baelor’s service; privately, he thought that getting to watch Duncan bludgeon his least favorite nephew insensible with his own shield was enough to incur a debt of gratitude if nothing else, but he could hardly publicly hold to that. There was also the complication of raising a mere hedge-knight into the service of House Targaryen, but politics aside - Baelor wanted to claim him. Wanted, selfishly, the whole of Westeros to know that Duncan was his, his knight, his sword, his good and honorable man.
And so, he wanted it too badly, too greedily, to trust the roaring in his chest that this was right. There was none other with a truer claim to him, Baelor knew. If Duncan had not been taken by the fever, if he had instead turned to him under no greater influence than the normal battle joy which struck men as they fought for their lives, Baelor would have taken him into his service in a heartbeat. Ser Duncan was his man. If it was what he wanted, Baelor would gladly guide him through a dozen such fevers, a hundred-
If that was what he wanted. Baelor thought once again of Duncan knelt before him, his trust a fragile glass-boned bird tucked into his hand - then in his mind’s eye, his hand clenched carelessly, bird shattering, and Duncan flinched away from him, eye wide in betrayal, the way it might have been in the service of one of those lesser lords. He tasted bile in the back of his throat.
He finally unstuck his tongue enough to speak. “I have known him less than a sennight. Five days,” he laughed abruptly, but with little humor. “It is hardly enough to know a man. To be known by him. I would not wish to do injury to him, unknowing. To do aught he might consider a dishonor.”
Yormwell was silent a moment over his maester’s chest. When he turned back, a vial of some ointment in his hand, his face was still perfectly even, as though he had not just heard his crown prince admit to being affeared at the thought of offending a hedge knight of no renown; or if he had, it was so unexceptional as to not invite reaction, let alone comment. Baelor felt a stab of gratitude mingled with irritation at the man’s stubborn implacability.
“It would seem a conundrum.” Yormwell daubed the ointment at Baelor’s chest, the strong medicinal smell rising to tickle his nose. “Your Grace, I beg forgiveness for my insolence-” Baelor snorted, but he carried on without a pause, “-but the needs of the fever are clear. There is no doubt for your care to Ser Duncan’s honor, but for the sake of his mind, that care ought to be put aside. Ser Duncan is not himself - that much is certain. He is currently ruled by the animal that lives within all men, that knows not restraint unless it is at its master’s guiding hand - and he is not his own master. He will be ruled by his baser hungers until he is brought low by his lord, as many times as need be for the fever to burn out. Every writing of the Citadel proclaims it - he must be broken, as a wild horse is broken, that he no longer be a danger to men. And if you will not do so Your Grace,” he added, standing with a creak of his aged knees, “then needs must you find a man who can.”
Baelor lips had compressed to bloodlessness. “I suppose I did ask your thoughts.”
Yormwell’s head ducked modestly. “I am, of course, but your humble servant, Your Grace.”
Baelor glared at him, and wished not for the first time that Yormwell shared the trait of so many other men of being discomfited by his different-colored eyes.
Yormwell shot him a quick, assessing glance, then looked down at where he was wiping his hands clean with a cloth. “What a shame it is we are not in Essos, where Ser Duncan might have other recourse.”
Baelor felt himself go very still, a chill calm like the hunt falling over him. “‘Other recourse,’” he said steadily. “I do hope, Maester, that you have not been wasting all this while when another solution presented itself.”
“Oh, I would not describe it as such,” Yormwell said, waving one hand dismissively. “It is but one of those heretical traditions I had mentioned. In the Free Cities, where men are more like to be mercenaries than sworn swords, they have their own methods to temper a man lost to himself. It is said,” he went on, sliding into a lecturing tone, “that when a young bravo loses himself to battle, as so many often do, it is not his lord who calms him, as indeed many such wandering swordsmen recognize no master over them. Instead, it is one of those who knows him best - a brother in arms, perhaps, or a dear friend, perhaps even a lover. A bond not of obeisance, but of friendship, of trust.” He closed his maester’s chest with a decisive snap. “But then of course, we are not in Essos.”
Baelor stared up at him blankly. “Indeed we are not,” he said, voice even.
—
It was at once an answer to his fears, and a terrible blow to his heart.
Baelor stared blindly into the fireplace, slowly twisting a ring about his finger. Lord Ashford had provided him what were no doubt the best-appointed guest chambers in the castle, furnished with a lush four-poster bed and high-backed chairs sprawled before the cavernous fireplace, sumptuous with rugs and hangings to keep at bay the lingering early spring chill.
He saw none of it.
It had been hours after the trial had ended before he could finally call for Duncan. There was a great deal that had needed to be handled - celebrations ordered for the tourney-goers, Maesters for the wounded, septons for the dead - all of which demanded his personal attentions. All the while Baelor imagined the sands of an hourglass trickling away, and felt his jaw cinching tighter and tighter around his restrained smile.
He could not afford to pass along any of the work to his host - nevermind that it was Lord Ashford’s home, nevermind that Baelor had felt the screaming call to have Duncan brought to him straight away. To give any of it up, to permit Lord Ashford to do any part of it, or worse, to ask him to do so, would be as much as to admit weakness, to invite speculation as to how else the hedge knight might be distracting the crown prince from his duties, besides drawing him to risk his life on his behalf.
And that speculation, he knew, would only grow more salacious after tonight, no matter what truly happened. He had seen it burning in the servants’ eyes when he had given orders that Ser Duncan be brought to him, a light of treasured gossip that would by now no doubt be all over the entire castle; within the week it would be well on its way to King’s Landing.
He spun the ring.
It mattered not. Baelor had already decided, during the teeth-gritting span of time, on how he would best approach him. He would treat him- as a man, not a beast. Greet him as an honored vassal. Offer him refreshments, perhaps, and- ask him. If there were anyone suitable. And if there were…
If there were, he would have them sent for. He could do that much. He brutally barred away the snarling thing inside him, a dragon curled jealously around a treasure that it had won tooth and claw and was loath to hand willingly away.
He reminded himself firmly of the resolution he had made, a lifetime ago and yet somehow only that morning, to do his duty as a man as well as a king. It was an avalanche that had started in the hours that were so early as to still be night, the first pebbles clattering about him in his borrowed solar as Duncan stared him in the eye in stubborn challenge. By the time he had stood in Valarr’s tent, servants strapping his son’s borrowed armor into place, it had roared so loudly in his ears he could barely hear his son’s baffled questions.
He owed Duncan a great debt for that - for casting down the vast edifice of what he ought to be, instead of what he must. He would not betray that debt now.
There was a knock at the door. “Ser Duncan, Your Grace,” his guard called softly, muffled by the heavy wood.
The ring stopped. “He may enter,” he responded, and heaved himself slowly to a more upright position in his chair, repressing the wince at his aching ribs.
Duncan did not enter the room so much as expand to fill it. His gaze was still faintly fogged, but he had forgotten to hunch, and his head nearly brushed the eaves above. Baelor noted approvingly that someone had thought to acquire him new clothing, although it was not Targaryen-black, rough and home-spun by the look of it, though not so much as his old attire, and both the shirt and trousers were slightly too short on him.
He looked…well, like a man who had recently fought for his life. The swelling had gone down considerably at his eye, but it was still hideously black, and a vivid splay of colorful bruising was splashed like a child’s paint across his face. One hand was wrapped heavily in bandages, and although the rest of his wounds were hidden beneath his clothes, Baelor remembered the great splotches of blood on his armor and knew well that they were there.
He had a moment of fellow-feeling - Baelor had fared better, but his ribs were cracked in several places down his left side, and his head ached and swam when he moved too quickly. This not to mention the scattered bruising and aches of muscles used too-well, and the sprained little finger set in its splint. He had to be careful when moving not to strain anything further, and even looking at Duncan’s hurts made his own ache in sympathy.
Duncan was not, however, moving like a man wounded - he crossed the space between them in two great strides, then paused hovering an arms-length away.
Baelor smiled at him. “Ser Duncan,” he greeted him warmly, then gave an inviting gesture to the other chair. “Please, be seated.”
Duncan stared fixedly at him, but slowly lowered himself into the chair. His hands rested atop the arms, curled around the ends like he was ready to throw himself back out at a moment’s notice.
Baelor smiled again encouragingly. “Will you have wine?” he offered, and reached to pour his own goblet. “It’s no Arbor Red, but I confess I have a personal fondness for Dornish strongwines.” This was not exactly common knowledge - there was still a simmering indignation in the nobility at his mother’s heritage, and he was careful not to be too Dornish in the public eye, nor give them any excuse to see him as such - any more than his Martell-dark hair already offered, that was.
He noted that Duncan’s bad side was facing him; he was turning his head to keep Baelor in sight of his one good eye, a slow tracking.
He was not offended at the silence; Maester Yormwell had made him a report shortly after he had finished tending to Duncan. Remarkably biddable, had been his first conclusion, then, Aware of his surroundings, though he does not respond, even to nod or shake his head. He may follow instruction, but he will not be thinking in straight lines.
He poured Duncan a goblet, then leant forward to offer it to him, beckoning. “Go on,” he said gently. “You have had something of a difficult day.”
Duncan stared at him mutely, but his hand rose to take it, fingers bumping together. Each place he touched Baelor’s own hand left pinpricks of scorching heat.
Baelor settled back in his own chair, tongue thick in his mouth. He cleared his throat. “You must forgive me the delay in calling you,” he said, forcing his tone to conversational. “Matters demanded my attention.”
He was aware of the ridiculousness of the charade of normality, but it served a purpose. One of the greatest lessons his father had ever taught him was of how to not just know, but use the rhythms which guided men. One need not demand something of a man and raise his ire when an expectant open hand might prompt him to hand it over unthinking. Even before Daeron had ascended to the throne, many were the times Baelor had seen some lord or other invited by his father to a personal audience grumbling and prepared to stand firm against him, only for a careful display of civility and hospitality to leave them coming away amiably well fed and forgetful of their ire, convinced that whatever they had spoken of was truly their own conception.
Baelor had taken a gamble that the rituals of intimate conversation - warm words, sharing of wine, the fire crackling before them - might guide Duncan back to firmer ground upon which to stand. He was rewarded as he watched Duncan’s gaze turn down to his wine goblet, a faint frown forming on his brow as his eye cleared, and felt a satisfaction like when his opponent at cyvasse played an anticipated move, pieces falling into place.
“Are you back with me, Ser?” he asked, half-smile still pulling at his cheek. Duncan glanced back up at him, then looked away quickly, first to the fire then back to his wine, swallowing convulsively. His injured hand came down to join his other in cradling the goblet, clasping it between them like a talisman.
“Aye, your grace,” he said roughly, voice hoarse from disuse. “Though- I’m not rightly sure for how long.”
Baelor hummed in acknowledgment, watching the way the firelight played across his bruises. “Then I shall try to be brief. But first,” he said, “Now that you are present - I would have you know that I meant my apology truly. I had meant to call for you hours hence, and I regret that duty would not permit it sooner.”
Duncan was still staring down into his wine as he spoke, frown slowly digging itself deeper. “But you didn’t,” he said. Baelor paused, and he looked up, good eye unerring, the line of his jaw held stubbornly firm. “You didn’t apologize.”
Baelor- hadn’t, had he. He felt that he was back in the borrowed solar, having the falseness of his propriety held up before him like a banner. “Indeed,” he said, offense and yet an odd lightness suffusing him. “Then - I am sorry, Ser Duncan. Truly.”
Duncan nodded slowly, subsiding, but the tension did not fully leave his jaw.
Not forgiven, then, Baelor thought, charmed despite himself. He took a sip from his goblet, letting it sit savoring on his tongue - strongwine was headily sweet, and to down it too quickly would leave a man insensible.
He swallowed. “I ought to have called for you at once. Then we might have had this conversation already, and preparations made.”
Duncan was frowning again. Baelor turned his gaze to the fire rather than meet his eye. He owed him his honesty, but he feared staring direct into that piercing blue gaze would stopper his throat.
“I have spoken with Maester Yormwell of your fever,” he said, brisk as he could manage. “He has proposed- an unconventional solution.”
It was not strictly speaking true, but accurate to the spirit if not the letter - for all his prevarication, Yormwell would not have told him of the Essosi way if he did not mean him to take it into consideration.
“Most knights in your position,” he began, “would have already an oath binding them to their lord. That you do not,” and here he pulled in a breath, feeling his chest inflate, constricted slightly under the weight of his clothing, “is no fault of your own. You are a young man yet, only newly knighted, and there is time aplenty for you to find a lord who would serve you well.”
He saw Duncan shifting out of the corner of his eye. “Few enough of those to go ‘round,” he said, voice odd. Baelor’s grip tightened about his goblet.
“Mayhaps. Nonetheless, needs must we find someone to care for you now.” Duncan’s shifting halted abruptly, and he felt an expectant gaze burning into the side of his face where it was still pointed to the fire.
“I would not shame you by sending you thus to a stranger,” Baelor said firmly. “The alternative presented by Maester Yormwell is a tradition practiced in the Free Cities - it suggests that you may be served well by one in whom you place your trust.”
Duncan was still frozen, but Baelor imagined the heat of his gaze outweighed the fire’s blazing warmth.
“I know not if you have found a lover here, either in the town or amongst the lords,” he said, staring blindly into the flames. “Although I find it difficult to imagine they would not have made themselves known at the castle by now. If not, is there another you would have present? I urge you to think not of the presumption. If there were any man at this tourney you would ask to aid you through this, who would you so ask?
“Ser Raymun, mayhaps,” he offered, then remembered the glimpse he had had of the man earlier that day, being led off the field by a vividly red-haired woman and looking like a man who couldn’t believe his luck, and corrected himself, “or the smith you had befriended - Goodman Pate, was it?”
Duncan made a noise, deep in his throat. Baelor glanced at him and stiffened. He was- thunderous, sitting straight and massive in his chair, hands clenched around his untouched goblet so hard every muscle of his forearms stood out in vivid relief.
“But,” he said, voice shaking with rage, “that’s not what-” then he swallowed hard, and burst out with, “You promised,” a child’s plea, and Baelor felt a sudden rushing lurch.
“Duncan,” he started, hurriedly placing his goblet aside, then harshly corrected himself, “Ser Duncan,” but the man was still going.
“And I did, I went,” incoherent, and to Baelor’s rising alarm he could see that Duncan was trembling faintly in his chair, tears rising in his good eye. “I waited,” he said, voice cracking with audible hurt.
Baelor felt the cyvasse pieces slip through his fingers, the board upended - if indeed he had ever been playing on a board at all, instead of stupidly marching them across an unmarked table, he thought, so furious with himself that he could spit.
He shoved himself to his feet, heedless of the ache in his ribs or the way his head spun. “Duncan,” he said again, and reached forward to clasp the man’s beaten face in his hands, only for him to flinch away, an agonizing display. Baelor pushed through it and grabbed him, but Duncan was turning his face from side to side, a distraught negation, mumbling no, no, under his breath, even as he started to cry. His face was feverishly hot against his palms.
Remarkably biddable, Baelor heard echoing in his head, then, I waited, and cursed himself for a fool. He had that fragile bird tucked into his hand, and in his carelessness he had bruised its wings.
“My dear boy,” he said, “I am sorry. So very, very sorry, I’ve treated you abominably,” and Duncan’s tearful face finally turned back up to him, frantic and searching. He breathed out hard, brushing one thumb under his eye to gently wipe away his tears, and smiled down at him ruefully. “You of course did all that I asked, and so very well,” he praised, and Duncan shuddered, eye squeezing shut in either relief or further pain.
Baelor lowered one hand to pull the untouched goblet from Duncan’s unresisting fingers, setting it carefully aside. Duncan’s hands fell limply to his lap, leaning his head deeply into Baelor’s hand. He felt the strain of it, the weight, echo down his arm. He could take this weight, he thought, help him hold himself up, just for a moment, just enough to regain his sense, to reduce the hurting that Baelor had thoughtlessly caused. And then, he assured himself, rebuilding a scattered wall brick by farflung brick, if Duncan still needed, he could see to finding him another. There would be time. All he needed do was - take the edge off.
Clinging to this, he brought his free hand back up to brush Duncan’s fringe away from his forehead, an easy affection. “What would you have of me?” he asked. Duncan’s eye blinked open and he stared up, uncomprehending. “Go on,” he encouraged. “You need only speak it and it’s yours.”
Duncan stared a moment longer, waiting for the catch. Then- a desperate light came into his eye, and his shoulders heaved immensely, a quick up-down movement, and he- pushed forward, sending Baelor stumbling a half-step back, and slid out of his chair to collapse to his knees at Baelor’s feet.
It did not appreciably lower his height. Nonetheless he sat there, said thickly, “Your Grace, I need,” hands desperately reaching out to grab hold of Baelor’s thighs, then fell forward face first to bury himself against Baelor’s groin.
Baelor froze where his hands had moved without thought to catch at Duncan’s shoulders. The man was panting open-mouthed against him, making faint noises caught somewhere between relief and pain, and he could feel the hot damp breath, scorching even through the cloth of his trousers.
“Ser Duncan,” he said uncertainly, then his knees nearly buckled as Duncan mouthed sloppily at where he was yet soft and quiescent. He was no longer a young man, and the hour and his exertions that day left him slow to rise to the challenge. “Ser Duncan,” he repeated, more forcefully, and dragged him back by the hair, panting and whining like a dog.
“Please,” Duncan begged, blue eye huge and beseeching, “Your Grace, please, I need it,” except Baelor heard, unspoken, I need you, and felt a jarring clink inside him, like some restraining weight falling away, or perhaps something essential settling firmly into place.
“Hush,” he heard himself say aloud, watching one hand rise to run peaceably through Duncan’s mop of ruddy hair as though it were someone else’s. It had evidently been cleaned at some point; there was no trace of mud, and it was almost unbearably soft between his fingers.
His other hand fell to grip Duncan firmly by the back of his neck. He felt both distant from himself and yet immensely present, vividly aware of every hair and stitch of clothing on his body yet unsure what he was about to do or say even as he did them. “That’s what you’d have then, is it?” he said thoughtfully, “You would use yourself to please me,” and watched with viscous delight Duncan’s full-body shiver at his words.
He took the hand from Duncan’s hair and ran it down his face, gentle over the swollen riot of color across his nose and cheeks, coming to rest with his thumb pressed questioningly at his mouth.
Duncan took the hint with alacrity, ducking to suck it in with a desperate moan. His lips closed around his thumb, sloppy and more enthusiastic than skilled, but gods, the heat of him.
Baelor swallowed against his heart thundering in his throat, then, holding Duncan in place with the grip at his neck, used his thumb to hook in his bottom teeth and drag his mouth open. Duncan stared up at him, panting wildly, tongue soft and wet and writhing where it was exposed, the pupil of his good eye blown so huge it nearly eclipsed the blue.
“Is that what you want?” he asked gently. “To be of use to me?”
Duncan’s throat worked, but between the iron grip at the back of his neck and the finger hooked in his teeth, he was unable to speak, only make a thick “hggk” sound, drool already beginning to pool at his tongue. Baelor hummed in acknowledgement, as though he had responded with words.
“Well, then, I suppose you had best get to it.” He pointed his eyes meaningfully at the fastens of his trousers.
Duncan’s gaze followed his and he made a broken noise, but he stayed statue still, as much as to say that he feared his promised reward would be yanked away from him if he now erred, even unknowing. Baelor felt a hot rush of protective fondness, mixed with a darker instinct that he hesitated to name. There was something about Duncan that would be terribly easy to hurt, and he felt a dizzying urge to sink his teeth into his soft flesh hard enough to bruise, if only so that he could then gentle and soothe him as he wept.
Take the edge off, he reminded himself, forcibly gathering the scattered reins of his self control.
“Go on then,” he said, giving Duncan’s head a little shake. Duncan’s face shaded towards confusion, not taking his meaning, and he felt helpless against the smile that pushed out against his cheek. “Does a prince of the realm undress himself, Ser?” he asked, faux stern.
Duncan started a little as he understood, mouth still hanging open in Baelor’s hands, then seemed to remember his own hands were clasping greedily at Baelor’s thighs. He started again, harder, and pulled them away, only to have them hover uncertainly mid-air as he remembered that Baelor had all but commanded him to lay them on him.
Baelor took pity on him. “There is a hook holding the belt closed,” he instructed. “And then ties beneath.” He thanked the Seven that he had dressed only in trousers and a simple jacket - his longer surcoat, which hung past knees and had further belts and fastenings atop it to boot, would have required a full minute to disentangle.
Duncan’s hands flexed a little in the air, then slowly lowered to his groin. The fastens of his trousers looked ludicrously small in his grip, a doll’s button in the hand of a giant. He was fumbling at them, uncertain at first but then increasingly shaking and clumsy with impatience as they evaded his massive fingers. His brow creased in frustration, then finally with a loud tearing noise the trousers went slack.
He looked up, triumphant as any wagging-tailed pup who had dragged a festering piece of carrion into the home, heedless of Baelor’s chagrin.
He may follow instruction, but he will not be thinking in straight lines, he heard Maester Yormwell’s voice echo in his head, memory turning his tone faintly mocking.
“Very good,” he said anyway - it was hardly Duncan’s fault that Baelor had not been thinking, nor that the finest tailoring of King’s Landing had borne the consequences.
Duncan brightened further at the praise, then darted a look down before glancing back up, hopeful and sweet. Baelor felt that terrible fondness rise in him again and swallowed it back.
“Be still,” he ordered, removing the restraining hand from Duncan’s neck to drop down to the gape in his ruined trousers.
His cock was still not fully hard, he noted with frustration and a faint spark of humiliation, but it dimmed Duncan’s enthusiasm not a bit. He swayed forward eagerly, forgetting himself until Baelor jostled him admonishingly where he still held his jaw clasped and pinned open with his thumb. He paused, breath puffing against Baelor’s wrist, eye darting back and forth, up and down, a silent begging. The drool had begun to slip past his lips, sliding wet and dripping over Baelor’s hand.
“Still,” he reminded him, taking his half-soft cock in hand, and pulling him closer to feed it slowly into Duncan’s waiting mouth. His teeth clenched at the feel of it - if Duncan’s mouth had been hot on his thumb, it was boiling on his cock, soft and wet and his tongue already coming up to press eagerly against him even as the rest of him obediently held still. The drool that had collected in his mouth made it shockingly wet and messy, and now it slid from between Duncan’s lips to dampen the curls at his base.
Duncan made a muffled sound, thick in his throat, and Baelor slowly withdrew his thumb to press spit-damp at the corner of his mouth, air cool where drool had dripped down to his wrist.
“Mind your teeth,” he instructed. “Use your lips to- yes, good,” as Duncan seemed to find the trick of it, blue eye still staring up at him wide and watching, tears still trembling faintly in his eyelashes. Baelor swallowed hard around the lingering taste of the strongwine, sweet enough to make his teeth ache.
“Good,” he said again, voice shaking. He didn’t know what expression was on his own face, but Duncan’s was the same as it had been out on the tourney field when he had first removed Valarr’s too-small helm to bare his face; half as though he had been struck and half as though he wanted to fall down in near-religious devotion, an openness that ached to look at. Then as now, he had felt the urge to flinch away from the sympathetic vulnerability of it, the way one looked away from a gristly wound in a joust rather than shame the knight by beholding his weakness. Now as then, he instead found himself caught by Duncan’s gaze, letting the prickling sensation of seeing and being seen work its way inexorably through his skin to settle somewhere more essential beneath.
“Good,” he repeated inanely, hands clasping Duncan’s dear face, their eyes locked, “good,” and Duncan’s face finally screwed up and he ducked himself down, nestling into his groin with a strangled sob. His hands fell to cup the back of Baelor’s thighs, and Baelor felt a lurching rush of heat; he was not a small man by any measure, but Duncan’s hands were large enough to span the back of them entirely, warmth seeping into him even through his clothes, like the stones of the Red Keep on a summer’s day.
“Good boy,” he choked, “my dear boy, my good and true knight.”
Duncan nearly wailed where he was suckling desperately at him, and his hands clenched bruisingly tight. He bobbed his head, then when Baelor gasped aloud repeated the movement, settling quickly into a merciless rhythm.
The wet sound of it, muffled grunts each time Baelor’s cock approached the back of his throat and vivid slurping each time he pulled back, echoed loudly off of the stone walls. Baelor’s stomach clenched as he remembered the guards at the door, no doubt hearing Duncan service him-
Duncan yanked Baelor closer abruptly, a sharp movement that left him stumbling. Then, a greater shock, he lifted one of Baelor’s legs, shouldering roughly under it, leaving Baelor pinned midair, off-balance - Duncan was so tall that his leg needed to stretch up to go over his shoulder, a deeply uncomfortable stretch that he was sure to feel in the morning.
Baelor clutched gasping at his head, still moving furiously between his legs, and felt keenly that the situation had gotten well out of hand. He had- no leverage, less than no leverage in this position, one leg dangling midair, the other scrabbling on his toes to relieve the aching stretch through his groin, his hands scrabbling at Duncan’s head for balance.
Duncan was making full use of the newfound freedom of his one hand, shoving it into the gape of his ruined trousers to paw at his stones and buttocks both. He felt a moment of trepidation - he was spread wide and vulnerable, and in his foolish attempt to speak reasonably with Duncan, he had left the oil clear on the other side of the room - but his fingers were not questing, only mindlessly grabbing and pinching and stroking, a starving man at a feast desperately taking his fill.
“Duncan,” he said, grasping for any means to regain control of the situation, then when that elicited no response, “Ser,” but Duncan only snorted bull-like against his stomach at the distraction. Baelor kicked at him uselessly with his hoisted leg, and he made a muffled grunt of irritation, then wrapped his huge arm bodily under and around the thigh, leaving him pinned yet further in place.
Baelor laughed a little, helplessly. He was - a grown man, a seasoned knight, Blood of the Dragon, heir to the Iron Throne, and - utterly helpless, completely at Duncan’s mercy. It should have been intolerable, but instead he felt only the ridiculousness of it all, and warmed through by the undeniable sincerity of Duncan’s attentions, his sheer uninhibited greed for Baelor, seemingly in any way he could get him.
Duncan sucked at him brutally hard, and Baelor collapsed forward with a shout, bent nearly double over his head - brutal on his aching ribs. When his eyes could uncross enough to see again, Duncan was glowering up at him - at his laughter? Or at his moment of distraction? Either way, he couldn’t help a second chuckle from bursting up, ragged from the breathlessness.
Duncan grunted again mulishly, the vibration of it shivering through him, then shifted his grip on Baelor’s buttocks and- stood up, lifting him bodily into the air, and careened forward to pin Baelor against a wall with a thud that knocked the breath clean out of him. Baelor’s head flung back against the stones gasping, vision briefly shading dark - his ribs were screaming.
Duncan used the advantage of being able to pin Baelor against the wall to hold him in place, shoving his other shoulder under his remaining thigh, leaving Baelor perched squarely on his shoulders. Trapped between Baelor’s thighs, the black flag of his trousers hanging abandoned about his knees dangling behind him, his stubborn, handsomely broad face glowered up, mouth still spread about his finally iron hard cock.
Baelor gaped down at him in return. It was not an effortless position, he could see. Duncan’s shoulders beneath his thighs were hard and trembling with the effort, and he could not quite stand straight beneath Baelor’s weight, bent slightly over with his hands placed flat and bracing on the wall.
Still.
He had known Ser Duncan was tall, was strong, but being hauled around like a piece of meat was-
Was unwise, he reminded himself forcibly.
“Duncan,” he said, firm and scolding as he could manage with his cock in the man’s mouth, “you must put me down.”
Duncan’s glower darkened, stubborn and petulant. He ignored the command, instead ducking his head back down to resume his attentions - but without his hands, he could not control Baelor’s movement atop him. The roll of Duncan’s shoulders sent him lurching up, and he had to shoot one arm up to brace himself before his head knocked into the wooden eaves near above him.
“Duncan,” he said again, this time warningly, and clenched his thighs about the man’s head, feeling the wiry hair on them drag against his face. Duncan only moaned at the feeling.
The vibration of it ran through him like ripples in a pond, and Baelor became abruptly aware that he was frantically, desperately close. Stars bloomed across his vision - or perhaps that was the blow to his head.
A juddering shock of near-panic swept through him.
“Duncan, enough,” he finally snapped, and grabbed him by the ear to forcibly yank him away.
Duncan’s mouth came off with a dragging wet pop, trailing spit in strings that still clung, and hung open to let loose something approaching a bellow, a grunting moan near as loud as his roar on the tourney field; he shuddered, jerking erratically beneath his prince, then went still, heaving and shaking, eye rolled back in his head.
Baelor watched him, his own eyes wide, as he trembled there, blinking, then looked up and flushed hard, a blotchy redness that overtook his sweating face and spread down his thick neck to disappear beneath his borrowed clothes.
“Your Grace,” he choked out, voice a ruin, face slack with shock, but was interrupted by a timid tap at the door.
Baelor felt the urge to snarl like an animal.
“What,” he said instead, forbidding as thunder - he had given orders not to be disturbed.
“I beg pardon, Your Grace,” his guard’s voice carried clearly through the door, but there was an uncertainty to it. “But he demands audience, and says he shan’t leave until he is heard.”
Baelor’s teeth clenched in irritation, but he dragged his gaze up to the door. “Who dares presume to make demands of his prince?” Most men would be sent away without a second thought - that the guard hadn’t, and furthermore had interrupted them…
“It’s Ser Lyonel Baratheon, Your Grace,” the guard said, voice thick with bafflement. “He says...he says that he's here to do his duty for Ser Duncan.”