Duty and Dreams

When he dreamed of the nursery attacked by hurrocks, Wyldon never knew whether he woke or slept. The screams of Princess Lianne—who sounded too much like his youngest daughter Margarry—were terrifyingly real over the pounding of his feet as he ran up the hundred steps, tilted steeply to favor the sword arm of the defender, though they were deserted except for him, to the royal nursery. The fear that he wouldn't reach the nursery in time to save the three children trapped in that tower (almost unassailable by any enemy that didn't happen to have wings, as the hurrocks did) dogged his heels remained as intense as ever until he reached the threshold of the nursery and began swinging his sword at the hurrock barring the door, preventing any retreat for the royal children and their guards.

The wreckage around him—the ripped tapestries and upended bookcases—was as overwhelming in his memory as it had been when he experienced it for the first time. The moans of the dying pair of guardsmen, their blood staining the carpet a red that he knew would soon brown like rotting autumn leaves, rang inside his head, as the hurrocks flashed their talons at the remaining trio of soldiers. His relief that someone had the presence of mind to hide the royal children under a big bed with their nursemaids, where they were shielded from any aerial assaults the hurrocks might mount, coursed through him in his dreams the same way it did when he was awake.

Even in his dreams, the royal children were Contes to the core, not cowering behind the chests that had been pushed in front of their refuge as an extra line of defense, but using the trunks as cover to launch their own attacks. Princess Lianne, wildfires blazing in her brown eyes, was hurling shoes at any hurrock that came within firing range. Prince Jasson, green eyes storm-tossed seas, was pelting books indiscriminately, not seeming to care whether the tomes struck the targeted hurrocks, while Prince Liam, hazel eyes he had inherited from his unconventional mother hard with determination, swung a spear he must have snatched from a dying man-at-arms at the wing of a hurrock who dared to fly too close to the enraged royal children. There was more desperation than strategy behind the moves of the royal children, but Wyldon was still reminded of an old saying—one that had come into vogue before the Contes had ever seized the throne and had never fallen out of a favor because it described the Conte line aptly generation after generation—that a Conte was never so dangerous as when his back was against a wall.

In his dreams, Wyldon could not remember how he had managed to maneuver his way over to the bed where the royal children and their nursemaids were seeking shelter, but he did. Shaking a nursemaid's shoulder to ensure he had her attention, he shouted, "Get the children to safety!"

He paid for his distraction with a vicious swipe across the face. He could taste blood dripping into his lips almost instantly and feel his face swelling, obscuring his vision, but he could still fight—would still fight—for the Crown until he collapsed, and he did not intend to collapse until he had rescued the royal children. Turning his pain into motivation, he snapped at the still-living soldiers as the nursemaids pushed the royal children out from under the bed, "Cover their retreat!"

The soldiers obeyed, while Wyldon, fiercely committed to providing a distraction, leapt forward to attack the hurrocks savagely. For a moment, the untamed ferocity of his attack shocked the hurrocks into a retreat, but then the hurrocks recovered themselves, and Wyldon felt a talon gripping his arm, piercing through flesh and into bone. He fell backward but felt soft sheets instead of unyielding stone…

"Am I with the healers?" Wyldon tried to turn his head to look at his surroundings but found that strained his arm too much, so he sank back into a mound of pillows.

"Yes, my lord." That was Queen Thayet's voice, and Wyldon wondered if he was delirious. As if she could hear Wyldon's thoughts, the queen, seated in a cushioned chair beside Wyldon's bed, leaned forward so he could see her face, which bore an expression poised somewhere between concerned and commanding. "You are with the healers, and you will remain here until Duke Baird discharges you."

"That will be unnecessary, I assure Your Majesty." Wyldon attempted an awkward bow that almost blinded him with pain. Grimacing, he thought that as soon as moving became slightly less agonizing, he would bolt from the healers. He did not believe in being cooped up in bed when he had duties to perform and a realm to serve.

"It is necessary, and it is an order, my lord." King Jonathan spoke from Wyldon's other side. "Duke Baird says that your arm can easily be infected if it is not treated properly, and if infection sets in, amputation would be required to keep you alive. However, if your arm is treated properly, it should heal within a year, and you shouldn't lose use of your arm. We think that making you keep your arm and your life is the least we can do after you saved three of our children."

Wyldon hated healing but he thought that he would despise being armless even more. Healing, after all, was temporary, but being without an arm was permanent, and Wyldon didn't know how he would fight—and that was all he, as a warrior, had been trained to do, because he was just hands, a weapon that had been honed since childhood—without a limb.

"As you command, Your Majesty." Wyldon inclined his head, since any other kind of bowing was clearly beyond his capabilities right now.

"We will, of course, be giving you another gift." The king was smiling but Wyldon was wincing. Wyldon could never have accepted any reward for doing his duty, because then that might cloud his heart in the future. He had to remain committed to doing his duty just because it was his duty and not because of any favor that might be granted to him. He could never let doing his duty become about what he could get out of it rather than about sincere service. His soul should be devoted only to duty and honor, not to any kind of greed or ambition. Those who sought power and riches wasted effort that should have been directed toward doing their duty. "Titles or lands, anything within reason, name it, and it shall be yours, Lord Wyldon."

"I require no gift, sire." Wyldon's lips thinned. "I saved the royal children because it was my duty not because I wanted a reward."

"Of course. We were not implying otherwise. We would never question your honor, my lord." King Jonathan paused, as if weighing his words, and then continued, "Still you rescued our children, and we owe you a debt of gratitude, a token of our appreciation."

Wyldon would have been grateful if his saving the royal children was never mentioned again, but that was too rude to say to your king, so Wyldon said instead, "I have four daughters, Your Majesty. If anyone saved one or all of them and then demanded a gift from me, I'd give it, as honor requires, but I would always regard that person as scum because saving children wasn't the motivation, just greed. That person would've revealed himself willing to hold children hostage to his desires and so utterly deserving of contempt."

"Though we do not always agree, my lord—" Thayet waved her hand as if to dismiss all their disagreements as petty politics—"my husband and I could never hold you in contempt. We hope that you will reconsider our offer. It remains open if you ever wish to ask for a gift commensurate to your courage."

Wyldon did not reconsider the monarchs' offer, but, found himself showered in royal favors as he remained confined to his sick bed on Duke Baird's orders. Queen Thayet sent him a box of fresh oranges from the royal gardens that he could not fit on his nightstand. King Jonathan gave him a set of books on military tactics—battles illuminated in bloody but beautiful detail by the dedicated, embellishing hands of scribes—from the private royal collection.

Wyldon thumbed through these books to occupy himself, but his favorite gifts were the letters from Prince Jasson, Prince Liam, and Princess Lianne, thank you notes that tried so earnestly to be formal that they ended up only being—Wyldon knew that he had fallen victim for the classic Conte charm that had been the undoing of so many courtiers over the centuries who forgot that the Contes had claws to match the charisma whenever he found himself thinking this—adorable. He kept the letters on his nightstand to read whenever the pain in his arm swelled to borderline unbearable levels. Princess Lianne's note, which included a postscript where she noted with apparent seriousness that she had heard he liked dogs so she had drawn him one, did a particularly good job pushing away the pain, because it was difficult not to smile at least slightly at the dog Lianne had drawn which more resembled a shaggy sheep.

Think of the Contes, Wyldon thought as he folded up Princess Lianne's letter that was now crinkled from all the times he had read it, and one of them would appear, for in the doorway stood Prince Roald, bearing a bundle of bandages and salves Wyldon assumed with trepidation were meant for him. The not-yet-twelve Prince Roald had spent much of his days volunteering with the healers, and, because he was so mild-mannered in his ministrations, had become a favorite among the patients for his bedside manner, beloved as only a crown prince who healed his people with a gentle smile could be.

"My lord." As quietly as he did everything else, Roald stepped into the room. "Duke Baird asked me to replace your bandages."

"My bandages need removing, not replacing, Your Highness." Wyldon glowered at the cloths imprisoning his arms as Roald, becoming bolder, crossed the room.

"I'll start by removing them if you'll allow me, sir." His fingers deft, Roald unraveled the bandages around Wyldon's arm, baring raw and swollen flesh. "We should let your skin breathe for a moment."

The air was an almost painful pressure against Wyldon's broken flesh, so Wyldon's irritation was already elevated when Roald murmured, "You saved three of my siblings. Why?"

"You've been training as a knight for two years now, Your Highness." Wyldon's glare froze Roald in place as he was about to dab salve on Wyldon's exposed injury. "Yet you ask me that question. That is disappointing enough that I wonder if I've managed to teach you anything."

Roald appeared wrong-footed at the reprimand, but, his hand was steady as he rubbed herb-scented lotion into Wyldon's wound, and his tone was steady if soft as he answered, "I'm sorry, my lord, but I just don't understand."

"Then let me explain." Wyldon's jaw clenched. "Because they are royalty. Because they are children. Because why shouldn't I?"

"You don't agree with most of my parents' politics, my lord." Roald ducked his head as he continued to apply balm to Wyldon's ravaged arm.

Suddenly Roald, who always seemed like a miniature adult, appeared younger than his years, and Wyldon remembered that he was talking to a confused child who had carried the hopes and dreams of an entire realm ever since he was born in the midst of one of the worst famines Tortall had ever experienced when he had been the little baby boy who was supposed to bring the people so much joy. Roald was the promise of a better future for the whole country, and Wyldon was duty-bound to teach him all he could.

"Politics pale before duty." Wyldon shrugged with relief as Roald finally finished with the salve. "When your parents had children, they did their duty to secure the kingdom's future, and now it is the duty of every knight in the realm to protect that future with their very lives if they have to."

Roald was silent as he wrapped bandages around Wyldon, but, as he was nearing the end of this process Wyldon hated, he remarked hesitantly, "My parents wish you would accept a gift for saving my siblings."

"And I wish they would stop trying to reward me for just doing what duty requires." Wyldon massaged his temples, annoyed by the Conte persistence present even in the quietest member of the royal family. Talking to a Conte was a faster way to get a headache than bashing your head against a wall, because at least sometimes the wall cracked, but never would a Conte do the same. Jerking his hand in an irascible dismissal, Wyldon grunted. "Don't you have other patients to pester, Your Highness? May I suggest you attend to them instead?"