Author's Note: I just wanted to note that there are no original characters in this story. Asoka is the champion who tries to get the Dagger out of Alamut, only to lose it to Dastan, and Rohan is the aging high priest of Alamut. Neither are named in the film, but Asoka is named in the credits, and Rohan is a name I gave the old man because I couldn't have Tamina calling him 'high priest' all the time. If he is ever given another name in canon, I will change it in the story. And now, on with the show! :D
"Gutter rat? What does that mean?"
"Just what it says, Princess," Asoka replies. His demeanour is calm, but there is a glimmer of something in his eye that Tamina can't read. " 'Prince' Dastan never even entered the King's palace until he was twelve, unless it was to loot the kitchen heaps for scraps. The Persians insult you, Your Majesty, and with you all of Alamut. This cannot-"
Dumbstruck, she holds up a hand to silence her champion. There's a look on his face that says he has further thoughts to share on their Persian guests, but she is his Princess and he obeys without protest.
Gathering her wits, she turns to Alamut's aging High Priest, her former tutor and most trusted advisor.
"Rohan? Is this true?"
The old man meets her pleading gaze gravely.
"I fear so, my Lady. Although I cannot vouch for noble Asoka's claims regarding the young man's presence in the royal castle, there is no doubt that Prince Dastan was born in the slums of Nasaf, where he lived until roughly his twelfth year. We have not been able to ascertain the identity of his parents, but based on what our spies have been able to gather from the Persian troops…" He trails off, suddenly unable to meet her eyes.
"What?" she snaps impatiently. She can feel the tentative life she has been quietly building over the last seven days beginning to crumble, and it hurts more than she wants to admit. She has no time for courtly games – she needs to know, now. "What have you found out?"
The priest knows his Princess well enough to know that evasion will not be tolerated. He takes a breath, seeming to steel himself before plunging ahead.
"Based on our information," he goes on, "it seems very probable that his mother was a whore, who either abandoned her son or died within a few years of his birth, as is common for women of that… profession. As for his father- Well, who knows? He is unlikely to have been a nobleman, or even particularly wealthy, if he was paying visits in that part of the city. Perhaps a common soldier, or a labourer come to Nasaf for work."
For a long moment, all Tamina can do is be proud of herself for not flinching at the old man's use of the word 'whore'. She feels as if the ground has been ripped out from under her. She does remember Tus saying something about the Prince being 'noble in spirit' rather than by blood, but it hadn't ever occurred to her- She'd known that meant he wasn't a true son of King Sharaman, but she'd thought, she'd assumed he wasn't too far off. Perhaps the orphaned bastard of a trusted friend or advisor, the result of a pact made long ago, or something equally romantic. Someone who was brought up as a prince from a young age, at any rate, with all the education and instruction that implies.
Almost instinctively, her gaze travels over the royal balcony and down to the courtyard below, where the Persian nobles have been invited to make themselves at home. A sparring ground has been set up in the centre, and the three princes sit to one side, drinking mint tea and enjoying what shade there is. As usual, Tus wears a luxurious robe, Garsiv refuses to relinquish his light armour, and Dastan, while undeniably fetching in his simple white tunic, is ultimately indistinguishable from an ordinary servant. The distinction seems suddenly to have gargantuan implications that were not there only five minutes ago.
"And how old did you say he was?" Her voice sounds foreign and far away, even to her own ears. She can't help remembering that her first assumption of him was as a bodyguard, not a prince, and she has to suppress a small shiver in spite of the warm air. She catches herself wondering whether he can even read.
Asoka opens his mouth, but it is Rohan who answers her question.
"Somewhere between eleven and thirteen, ma'am. No one is sure when his birthday is, including, one has to assume, himself."
Tamina barely hears him. She stares down at the three young men, taking them in. Tus is writing a letter, while his brothers lounge idly in their seats, watching the sparring soldiers and talking about whatever young men talk about when there are only serving girls about.
"Princess?"
"Yes?" She can't take her eyes off the princes.
"What is-"
"How came such a boy to be raised up so very high?"
The youngest prince is bored now, and his older brother must pay the price. She can see her fiancé's smirk from here as Garsiv rankles under whatever ridicule is being inflicted upon him. The sight tugs unexpectedly at something in her chest – it's the same smirk that he uses to tease her endlessly during their walks around the courtyard, which she spends most of their time together trying – and sometimes succeeding – to wipe off his face, and which she for all that finds impossible to imagine ever being truly unkind. The thought that she might have to relinquish it is suddenly, unaccountably oppressive.
"I'm afraid I cannot say, Madam," Rohan tells her, oblivious to her turmoil. "The stories told by the soldiers are vague and contradictory. There seems to be a certain consensus that King Sharaman walked into the marketplace one day and chose the boy to be his son, but as for why, no one seems to know for certain. There is some talk of a great deed performed by the child which impressed the king, but the substance of the deed varies enormously from regiment to regiment. Some say he attempted to sacrifice his own life so that a common thief might live, while others say he was the common thief, and that it was his brazen nerve in attempting to pick-pocket the king's own brother which drew Sharaman's attention."
"I see." The thought makes her laugh. "So in one version he is a hero of the finest calibre, and in the other he is a scoundrel, and a foolhardy one at that?"
"And everything in between, Madam, yes, it would seem so. One can only suppose that the truth lies somewhere in the middle." The old priest looks grave, but Tamina hardly sees him. Below, Tus has given up on his letter, and is watching his bickering brothers, exasperation warring with amusement on his face, and gradually losing. A thought occurs to her.
"The other princes, they must have been young men when they met their 'brother' for the first time?"
"Of course, one must assume. Prince Dastan is generally thought to have some twenty-six or twenty-seven years, just a bit younger than Prince Garsiv, and if you'll recall, Princess, your Highness was invited to Prince Tus's thirtieth birthday celebration this year past. What-"
"It must have been strange for them, to suddenly find themselves called brothers to a poor street boy at such an age, simply because their father decreed it." She's thinking out loud now, barely hearing the old man. They're always bickering, she recalls, Dastan and Garsiv, with Tus invariably having to play peacekeeper when things get too heated.
Rohan is perplexed. "I suppose, my Lady, yes-"
"One might even expect them to feel some resentment about it, even if their royal father chose it. To be born a Persian prince, to be so privileged, promised the world from the cradle, and then suddenly have to share your station with a boy like that, uncivilised, uneducated in either books or the world. A certain resentment would almost seem natural."
"I- Well, perhaps so, but I fail to see-"
But she isn't talking to him, and hardly hears the bewildered agreement. In the courtyard, Prince Garsiv has had enough. He grabs a sweetroll from the basket at his elbow and lobs it at his younger brother, who jerks laughing out of the way. Having missed its target, the roll continues its trajectory until it meets the shield of one of Garsiv's own men and splatters, a delicate pattern of creamy white against the harsh black iron. Dastan laughs harder at the sight, and Garsiv, fuming now, makes a move to grab him. Tus is faster, though, reflexes lightning quick as he reaches out to lay a calming hand on Garsiv's shoulder, all the while speaking to the youngest prince, to distract him from his amusement.
Asoka has been silent since his revelation, but now he follows her gaze and nods as he sees where she is looking.
"It is true that the Persian princes do not get along well, Princess," he muses. "They are continuously at odds with Dastan, particularly Prince Garsiv, who does not yet have the experience of his older brother. As your Highness wisely remarks, it is hardly surprising, given the… peculiar nature of their 'brotherhood'."
His opinion supports hers implicitly, and her first thought is that he is right, about everything, and it makes her heart heavy in a way she does not care to understand. If even the princes themselves cannot accept Dastan as one of their own, the Tus's offer is not an attempt to make peace, but a mockery, of her and of all of Alamut. An insult, as Asoka said, to offer a street boy instead of a prince and expect her to be either too weak to refuse, or too foolish to know the difference. If that is the case, then she not only cannot marry him under any circumstance, but all out war with Persia will be inevitable.
The situation seems suddenly dire, made worse by the fact that it is useless to deny, even to herself, that somehow, the loss of Prince Dastan's laughing eyes and playful tongue seems almost as devastating as the idea of Alamut at war. She knows that it is not so, cannot be so, and yet she can't help it. She lets her gaze linger on him, knowing in her heart that this may be the last time she can permit herself to look upon him as anything but an enemy, to be destroyed at all costs. It is all she can do to ignore the lump that forms in her throat at the thought.
He's stopped laughing now, at least out loud, but although she is too far away to see, she is certain that it still lingers in those warm, blue eyes. He grabs a pot of tea from a passing servant and refills Garsiv's cup in a gesture of submission, although she expects that the submission is as much to Tus's stern glare as to Garsiv.
Garsiv is mollified, but barely, and all but snatches the sweetroll off the tray Dastan offers him, giving him a sideways glare even as he answers a comment of Tus's. It's such a simple gesture, such a basic expression of lingering anger and wounded pride, and yet it hits her like a thunderbolt, and suddenly she can see nothing else. Because no prince – least of all one with a temper like Garsiv's – reacts to mockery from a gutter rat with a thrown sweet and a half-hearted attempt at physical punishment. No prince would allow the calming influence of an older brother to diffuse the situation; indeed, no princely brother would want to diffuse a situation like that with anything other than death or imprisonment for the ruffian.
"No, brave Asoka, I'm afraid I must disagree," she says, and even as she says it, she can feel the tightness in her chest turn into something else entirely, something fierce and bright that threatens to fly off and carry her along with it. "I find the animosity between the younger princes very surprising, considering the nature of their relationship."
And she does. Because Garsiv's reaction of furious humiliation is not of a prince toward an unwelcome interloper imposed upon him. Rather, it is unmistakably that of an older brother, who, while not foolish, has never had either the brightness of mind or the quickness of humour to best his younger brother in a battle of wits, and knows it. It is the reaction of a man who is in a constant state of trying to reconcile an honest love and esteem for his younger brother with the fact that they are vastly different men, in every sense, and that he cannot help but find the youngster to be an irritating brat most of the time.
"Majesty?"
"Only true brothers could argue continuously the way the princes do without eventually killing each other." The grin that spreads across her face is one of pure relief, and she does not even try to suppress it. "I think you'll find that the sons of King Sharaman's blood think no less of their adoptive brother than they do of each other, and, that being the case, I believe it would be wise for us to do no less. What is your opinion, Rohan?"
"I think, Princess," says the old priest carefully, though he is unable to hide the relief permeating his voice, "that your Majesty is very wise, and that your wisdom has just managed to save us from a ruinous war with Persia."
She cannot help a proud smile at that, and sets to wondering how easy it might be to convince her future husband to take his place in the sparring ring for her amusement.