Baelor IV
"Put your hood back up," Baelor shouted through his helm. The old knight's armor fit him well enough, but keeping his face hidden meant the inside of his visor was dripping with the dew of his breath. "They'll see you."
"Little left they can do," Dayne replied, pulling the roughspun hood back over his sandy blond hair. "Even if they figure it out now, they'll make you look a craven if they force you to concede. And it'll make you look a rogue, like . . ." Dayne nearly uttered the name. It wasn't the same man, but it was the same name.
Baelor was glad he didn't have to hear it.
"You must not know my father. Or my mother," Baelor replied, taking the fresh lance from the friend posing as his squire.
It was just by luck Baelor overheard men speaking of the tourney as their boat docked in the harbor of Evenfall Hall. They were not near half as large as the docks at Dragonstone, yet as his family waited for their ship to be off loaded, another smaller vessel had landed. Among the passengers, knights with nothing but their armor, horses, and pavilion, clopped towards the steep path to the castle, and Baelor overheard them speaking of the tournament.
Baelor instructed Dayne to approach them and offer coin to ride in their stead. A grizzled knight of the hedges, Ser Thomas of Tunneltown, obliged, and offered the Prince his own armor to wear, even allowing Baelor to have his own sigil painted on his shield over his own. Baelor had never heard of any Tunneltowns, but the man seemed honored at the chance to be part of the Prince's performance, and eager at the prospects of guaranteed coin.
Yet the knight assumed Prince Daeron approved. Baelor hoped the kind man would receive no punishment.
Baelor looked to the stands. His father was glaring down at him with an intense expression.
Shit. He knows.
In the earlier rides, Baelor's father was not focused on the tilts. Or, at least not when Baelor looked up at him. Oddly enough, he seemed to be enjoying himself, something Baelor did not often see his father do. Mostly Daeron was worried, bothered, or brooding. Baelor thought it nice to see him laughing.
Yet as he stared back at the mystery knight from his seat in the high box, Prince Daeron was not laughing anymore.
The pale prince looked even paler, and Baelor feared his father's next move. Baelor shook his head as if to rid him of his thoughts, trying to imagine what Crabb would grunt in his gruff voice.
But Baelor felt his father's eyes on him even as he turned his horse away to his point on the rail.
Little he can do once I charge.
He tried to focus solely on his opponent. The Carrion King.
His first two tests were easy to pass. Both seemed ill fit to ride for the Prince of Dragonstone, yet who could tell if indeed the assembled Stormlanders had enough respect to employ their best for his family as they promised. The jousters could have all been plants for the richer more esteemed lords to win.
And if the other riders were plants, it meant the lords were less than skilled themselves.
Baelor thought of how easily Dondarrion would have beaten them too. He would have almost preferred a more suitable challenge.
But the Morrigen knight was different. Baelor wouldn't have been surprised if it was Ser Lucius that organized the entire joust, planting easy victories for himself to end as champion. Yet even so, he knew how to ride. He knew how to land a lance. And even when he was struck, he kept his seat.
The foreboding look of his armor was not just for show. Ser Lucius appeared to be a formidable knight and jouster. He was also the only other rider in the tournament that was bigger than Baelor.
As Baelor steadied his mount at the rail, trying to focus straight down it, he felt his father's glare from the stands to his left. He couldn't see out of the side of his visor, but the heat of his father's ire was nearly palpable even through the cheap steel that protected his vulnerable head.
What would Crabb say?
"He's aggressive, too aggressive. He assumes he's the better jouster. He leans too far over his mount. If you get him to lunge and he misses, he'll almost fall off on his own."
Baelor was not advanced enough a rider to attempt a thing like his newly legitimized half-nuncle had done to him in the Squire's Tourney. Baelor couldn't yet move out of the way of a whole lance.
Yet he could avoid it enough to make it only a glancing blow. But if Baelor leaned out of the way of the Crow Knight's lance, he'd have to compensate for his own lance to land with any amount of force.
Baelor had never attempted what he planned to do next, but as the black steed of the Morrigen Knight began to charge, Baelor kicked into his own mount, smiling.
Now's the fun part.
As he imagined, Ser Lucius leaned. The glancing blow from the sturdy knight still found a soft spot in Ser Thomas' cheap armor, and a slice of pain shot menacingly through Baelor as he contorted his body away from the attempt, torquing his core with a desperate release of all his strength, lifting and turning his lance into the charging opponent.
As Baelor struck, the lance shot upward, as Baelor's seat had shifted and coiled to avoid his opponent's attack, and the taller knight was leaning up and out of his own saddle.
Baelor removed the beak from the Crow Knight's helm, as his approach was near head first, and was really the only place Baelor's wild attempt could land. The force of Baelor's own blow nearly knocked the Prince from his saddle, leaning so far away from the rail. He held on for his life with his left hand on the reins, and had to pull himself back into the saddle as his horse continued to gallop past.
When he heard the roar from the crowd, he turned to see the knight off his horse, and the black stallion galloping, riderless, down the rest of the rail.
Baelor lifted his hand to celebrate. The roaring crowd began to join him, until they stopped and began murmuring. Baelor turned back to Ser Lucius, who had ripped off his helm and begun cursing, ordering his squire for his sword.
Baelor didn't understand at first. He was still yet green to tournament etiquette.
Then he realized he'd have to finish the fight with a sword to secure his victory.
No backing out now. I must finish this or be finished.
"Get me a sword!" Baelor shouted through his visor to Dayne.
"Are you mad? Jousting we might survive your parents' wrath, but if you fight him, they're-"
"A sword, now!"
Dayne ran to the racks for a practice sword. He ran back and threw it to Baelor as he dismounted.
"Hopefully he's no better than me," Dayne said to Baelor as the young Prince removed the sword from its scabbard. It was balanced well enough, but rather heavy, with a dull edge that nearly caught the air as he twirled it. "I beat you all the time."
"If you ever best me, it's because I've allowed it," Baelor replied, smiling beneath his dripping visor. "You'd never face me if you knew you couldn't win."
Before his father's ward could reply with his usual bit of banter, Baelor stepped toward his foe, his stance readied, his fire shield raised, and his sword hand firmly gripped around the worn leather handle of his weapon.
"What are you going to paint for your sigil, your Grace?" Torren asked Baelor the night before, as they readied the gear and horses for the joust the next morning.
Baelor thought about it a lot. It meant something to him. He didn't want to just paint a skull on a field of black and say he was a murderer, or paint the vague semblance of a dragon and have it be easy to figure out.
He was both Targaryen and Martell. Both proud strong houses, the only two houses to keep their sovereignty, the Martells even in the face of his ancestors' Dragons.
Both houses had a rich history dating back to before the Doom, and both had the legacy of great heroes and heroines.
He could not disrespect either part of himself. Both meant something to him, even if he disdained his Dornish side in private moments. But in those moments he felt persecuted for his mother's heritage, it almost made him more proud to be Dornish.
"Fire," he said aloud. "Dragons and the Sun are fire. I'll paint a blaze on my shield and fight with the fire of both of my houses."
"That's not bad, your grace. Better than a stupid star and sword."
Lucius stood ready. "I thought a knight with the cowardice to strike my head in a joust would not have the courage to stand against me," he yelled. His close-cropped hair was wet and stuck to his forehead with sweat. He had short dark stubble that covered his cheeks and chin, and a matching set of deep set eyes that glared angrily at Baelor under a flexed bent brow, standing menacingly with his sword held high. "Yet I'll still have my vengeance, peasant!"
"I did not mean to strike your helm, Ser," Baelor replied through his closed visor.
"I cannot hear you through your helm. Take it off and show us who you are, and so I can hear your craven pleas of repentance."
No, Baelor thought. You will not have the gratification to know it is but a boy who bested you until this is finished properly.
I'll show you craven, Crow.
Baelor feigned a wild strike, charging at Ser Lucius with his sword hand as far back as he could reach. When he closed the distance, he planted his left foot forward and his right foot back and coiled. He began to swing the forehand enough for Morrigen to ready his shield and shuffle his stance to absorb the blow.
Baelor pulled back the feigned strike, and launched his shield and body into his foe with a sharp controlled burst, crashing into Morrigen's chest plate with the fire symbolizing both sides of his heritage.
Ser Lucius was a bit larger than Baelor, and likely the Prince's match in brute strength, but once Baelor knocked the knight off balance, Baelor's training, and natural quickness and strength, were more than enough to finish him off.
Baelor pivoted on his front foot and tucked his sword hand back against his chest, spinning away from the moving sword of Ser Lucius, and launching a back hand strike. The ring of the practice sword against the Black Knight's gauntleted hand sang loud enough for anyone on the island to have heard, and the clangor of Ser Morrigen's sword tumbling against the yard floor was nearly as astonishing to the silenced crowd.
Baelor finished the move, as his opponent barked in pain, with another thrust of his shoulder and shield, forcing Lucius to the ground, on his back, his hands in a natural defensive stance.
"Yield!" Baelor ordered.
"Never," Morrigen screeched, his face as red as the Targaryen sigil, and his eyes as hot as the Martell sun.
Ser Lucius reached down into his greaves, pulled out a dagger, and slashed at the old steel protecting Baelor's gut.
Baelor lunged away in time, and came down with a hard overhead strike to the knight's arms as Lucius put them up to protect himself again after missing with his desperate last swipe.
"Yield," Baelor roared, his sword cocked and his heart as fiery as his painted shield.
Morrigen lifted his hands.
"Say it!"
Morrigen stalled.
Baelor pulled back his sword arm.
"I yield," the knight yelled hurriedly. "I yield," he finished in a whisper.
Now for the battle against my parents.
"I care not for the crowd, son," Prince Daeron replied, his face strained, like he was wincing in pain. "I care for you. Your future. I care for your health and your happiness. All these the maesters warned were at risk, you green fool. We all agreed you needed time."
"Father, I," Baelor started.
"Silence!" Daeron screamed.
Baelor's mother stood proudly next to her husband. She looked neither pleased nor angered, which felt more ominous to Baelor than if she'd been obviously cross.
"And as for you, Master Dayne," Daeron continued, turning towards Torren, who sat next to Baelor on the ward's feather bed in one of the guest rooms down a secluded corridor on the third floor of the keep. "Your presence here is subject to your ability to follow certain conditions. Putting our son, your friend, in grave danger, is certainly against the conditions our families agreed upon before your arrival."
The Prince of Dragonstone paused, his ire settling down from a full blaze to a smoldering coal. "Your comradery has proven distracting and harmful to you both. This stunt will come with severe consequences, so prepare yourselves, but what's done is done and appearances need to be kept." Daeron brushed off his stitched silk vest. "We have a ball to attend, and the Year End Champion need be present to capitalize on the goodwill your victories will win this family in the eyes of such base and shallow barbarians."
"Father, I," Baelor tried again.
"Silence," Daeron replied in a cool soft tone. "Dayne," he said, as if ordering a servant. "You are to be dressed in an hour and you will accompany us in. You may enjoy the night and the company of our sons and the other noble children, but upon the gods, if you step out of line in any way any further than you already have, I will make sure shame follows you for the rest of your days. Am I clear?"
"Yes, your Grace," Torren humbly apologized. "And it wasn't Baelor's idea, your Grace. The fault is mine."
"I told him to be silent. I expect the same from you, boy." Daeron turned to Baelor. "Son. Come with us."
His mother left the room first, then he and his father in short order. Baelor saw his father turn back to look at Dayne, and when his stern face caught the blond boy's, Baelor thought he saw his father smirk and wink.
It couldn't be.
When they reached Baelor's chambers, a room he shared with Maekar, Myriah ordered the servants to take his youngest brother out. Their lecture had likely only just begun.
His mother spoke first, focusing on how hard it was for her to see him after the Squire's Tournament, and how the realm had seen him nearly lifeless on the floor, their future king. Regardless of how enthusiastically they cheered his victories, they cheered his defeat even harder, and the whole show of it was a meaningless risk of health and status, to hear her tell it.
"In Dorne, the nobles look at the jousting knight in the same vane a mummer or fool. A life lived to amuse. You have been raised to rule, not perform."
"This isn't Dorne, mother," Baelor said, growing tired of words and negativity. "And I won. I even beat that Crow Knight when he challenged me."
Myriah's face finally turned furious, but Daeron extended an arm out to hold her back from stepping to her son in anger. "Hold your tongue, son. You will have your turn to speak, I assure you, yet you have not yet heard the last of our grievances. This is not just about the decision to joust. It was the deceit, and the secrecy, and the gall, and the blatant disrespect to your house and your father."
He knew what he was risking, though. He knew the consequences.
He also knew he had to do it anyway.
And in his mind, he had the right of it.
As his mother continued, droning on about his head, and the maester's orders to wait, that if he had just allowed for the proper time to pass he could have just as easily continued jousting safely, he felt for the first time since his loss to Daemon Blackfyre
His mind was at peace.
He had won.
All the rest was just the price he'd have to pay.
As his mother finished, Baelor looked to his father.
"Let us speak as men, my lady. We will have much and more to say once we depart from this isle on the morrow, and maybe that talk will distract you enough to keep you from the ship's rail."
"What you can say to him as a man, I can hear as a woman," she replied.
"Leave, wife. Please," Daeron turned to Baelor's mother with a fierce look he'd never seen. His father was no warrior, and Baelor held a certain shame in his heart because of it, but Baelor had never seen his father look a lord. A powerful, commanding presence.
He'd also never seen his mother listen without reply.
Baelor began to fear what his father would have to say next.
Myriah shot one last look of disappointment Baelor's way, shouting with her eyes as only she could, and left through the door holding the red train of her dress in her arms like a washer woman carrying linens.
His father was still standing near the door, steps away from where Baelor stood at the edge of the room's wardrobe. "Let's sit, son." The Prince gestured for Baelor to join him in the common area, where seating surrounded a woven blue rug with a flying stork in its center.
Baelor found himself unable to sit comfortably in the soft sofa closest to him. He didn't want to recline, nor found a position in which he could sit up without sinking into the plush ash colored cushions and feathery gray down pillows.
"Relax. The ire has ceased."
Baelor felt his body sink into the sofa.
"It is hard for a father to say without self-pity," Daeron began, looking off as he sat his frumpy body into the firmer chair across from Baelor, "but I admire you, son."
Baelor didn't know what to think, but he felt. His father turned his head, looking into Baelor's eyes. Daeron's were soft. Caring. Gone was the anger Baelor had seen in Dayne's quarters. Vanished was the helpless disappointment he saw as he pulled off his helm to reveal himself after winning his match against Morrigen.
"Ever since you were brought into this world, you've inspired me, Baelor. I have no greater purpose than to be a father you can be proud of."
Baelor had never thought of how his father's relationship with his grandfather nearly mirrored their own. Such different personalities could never find common cause. Could they?
"I was never either proficient or fond of swordplay and the like, so you see me as the soft and fatty paper twister I am. I understand that. As a child, my father was a warrior prince, and my uncle was the greatest Kingsguard there ever was. I understand the type of man boys admire. I understand the type of traits boys desire for themselves."
His father mussed with his gut, jostling it until they both smiled. "Not your grandfather's, but I know this is here. I know when you see it, you feel no pride. How do you think I feel when I look upon it myself? Or feel the stupid jelly thing folding onto my legs in front of me?" Daeron looked up with a sincere smile.
"Yet what did my father ever gain from his exploits at arms? What life did my uncle Aemon even get to live, as mayhaps the greatest warrior in the history of our realm? What happiness did the man truly ever experience?"
Baelor looked down, feeling the harsh tension from the words as his father's gaze made them all the more palpable.
"As a lord, what can a sword do against famine? What can the lance do to a whisper? Where does the army march when the commander is surrounded on the front lines by the enemy cavalry and men-at-arms?" Baelor looked back up at his father, getting his point, and feeling somehow guilty. "I admire you for getting back on that horse, and against men no less, without the safety of your station. A man who would lead his people by example and with courage is a man I would give anything to call my son. But to lead from the front is to not know what's behind your back, and if you continue to focus yourself solely on becoming the hero of the songs of lore, the closer you'll become the victim of those same heroes' fates."
Baelor had nothing to say, though his thoughts were certainly deep.
"And since none that love you have said as much as of yet," his father said smiling, "Congratulations, Champion." Baelor felt a tear in his eye.
"I'm sorry father. It wasn't Dayne, either, it was me. I'm sorry I could have shamed you, and that I could have gotten hurt, and that I scared mother." Baelor began to cry. He knew not why, but hearing his father and seeing him smile did something to him he couldn't explain.
His father hobbled over to comfort him and said, "I know it wasn't Dayne, son. He's a loyal friend, and a good lad. I would wager he warned you against this course, citing correctly this exact scenario." He was absolutely right. "And enough of this. The good thing is, you won. None of the bad things that could have happened, did. It was a calculated risk, which as an idiot, to be honest, son, was not calculated at all. The only known quantity in this risk you took was your own ability. You knew nothing of your opponents, or even your own limitations after your injury, and are lucky there weren't any true champions among them."
"You think they were plants?" the boy asked, wiping his eyes.
"All but that last one. I'll likely have to pay him off by the end of this. Never want a man with a Crow for a sigil as an enemy if you can help it. But he runs a little ring and has made a name for himself. Defeating him was no certainty. As I said, a risk, but a risk you made it out of with a victory and the love of the people here for at least the evening."
Baelor felt strangely at ease. Never before had he been able to talk with his father like this.
"Clean yourself up. I'll have someone sent to bandage up your scrapes. Enjoy yourself this evening. But no more nonsense. After your mother and I being as drunk as we were, you pulling a mystery knight, let's just be thankful Aerys hasn't done anything weird and Rhaegel hasn't thrown one of his tantrums."
They shared a laugh. Baelor noticed they chuckled nearly the same way. He had never noticed it before that moment.
"I love you, son." Daeron hugged his firstborn and kissed the top of his head.
There was something in the water here. There had to be.
After his father left, he undressed and sat on the bed, for the first time, able to ponder the moments that led to his parent's scolding.
"And the knight of Fire forces the Carrion King to submit, and will be crowned the Year End Champion! What a show Lord and Lady Tarth have put on for us today!" the caller yelled.
Baelor lifted his sword and smiled. The rush of the battle was hard to turn off, and just then he realized how sore and out of breath he was. He dropped to his knees, losing the strength in his legs, and Dayne rushed over to grab him, pulling him back to his feet.
"Now, will our Mystery Knight reveal himself to the esteemed Lords and Ladies of the Stormlands?"
Baelor didn't even realize the caller was speaking to him at first. His mind was still furious in the haze and wild energy of the fight. Swords were dulled in tournaments. Daggers were not. The attempt from his opponent could have seriously wounded him.
He was thankful he'd trained as hard as he had.
"Baelor," Dayne said, looking through Baelor's eye slit. "It's time to take it off."
He composed himself the best he could, and fought to gain strength back in his legs. He stood on his own, walking towards the center of the makeshift arena, avoiding direct eye contact with the high box his parents were seated in.
He remembered thinking it taking more courage to reveal himself than to enter the lists anonymously.
Baelor reached to pull off the helm, intending to remove it smoothly and deftly. Only he struggled, failing with one hand and having to use both to shimmy it back and forth awkwardly off of him.
"It is the young Prince Baelor! Gods! And the boy is yet but a squire!"
The crowd erupted after a stunned silence, and the smile stretched even further across Baelor's face. He let the warmth of the noise wash over him like a hot bath, cleansing him of the failure before. Absolving him of the pain of defeat, however briefly.
The Prince smiled thinking about it. Shortly after, the rest became a haze. The elation made the ceremony a jumbled blur as he tried to remember it. He awarded his mother the Queen of Love and Beauty, even though her enraged eyes, fighting hard against the feigned approval in front of the audience, made her face hard to provide credence to the boy's choice, and his father looked pale, drunk, and flabbergasted next to her, in full view of the entire crowd.
As soon as Baelor left the arena floor, his father's men escorted him and Dayne to Dayne's quarters, and since they'd heard nothing but ire. And that last bit of kindness.
Baelor nearly forgot someone was coming to clean and tend his wounds.
A knock at the door shook him from his comfort, and he jumped to his feet, stark naked and startled, looking for a cloth to cover himself. "Just a moment."
"Your Grace," Edmond Massey said, barging through the door. The Kingsguard were spread thin, and the Prince of Dragonstone's personal guards were now responsible for their safety. Edmond was a third son, and a loyalist to both his house and his father, but he felt his nobility afforded him luxuries uncommon in royal guards.
The young man found it amusing to push Baelor to decadence. "A young woman is here to attend to you. I would suggest you allow her to assist you in whatever needs befit a Year End Champion. I know I would," he said, winking.
"Ser Edmond, if you please," Baelor replied with heat.
Baelor's glare must have been intense enough for the man to easily understand. "Of course, your Grace. I forget myself."
Indeed.
Baelor slipped into a robe, realizing the gouge in his side a bit worse than he'd imagined, and the soreness of the rides and fight coming on almost all at once.
"You may allow them in, Ser Edmond," Baelor called. He chose the same sofa he sat when he had spoken with his father, yet this time, he allowed himself the comfort of its cushions. The boy had a certain type of smile across his face of satisfaction and certainty. The heavy weight of the loss to Daemon felt as if it had finally fallen off of his shoulders.
There could finally be more to his life than the loss.
When the serving girl entered, Baelor found himself unable to shake the images of his fever dream in King's Landing, of a girl somewhat similar in an erotic way. He knew not if it was his silk robe's supple caress against his vulnerable skin, or the way the young woman filled out her own garb, but Baelor struggled to focus on much else than the ample skin fit to burst from her corset.
"If your Grace desires, I may make ready a hot bath, but first, it would be best to check and clean any wounds," she said softly. Baelor hesitated to respond, or even move. "Come on then, off with the robe."
That morning, Baelor would have protested, or shyly denied her.
Something new in him allowed the robe to fall, though his heart was beating harder than when he was jousting, and his mind was swirling around thoughts needing just as much of a cleanse.
Her hands were soft for a serving girl, testing his bruises and tracing his muscles with her fingertips. She knelt down to inspect his legs and feet, and Baelor had to keep his eyes shut from looking down into her cleavage, and the suggestive positioning they found themselves in.
With his eyes closed, he felt her test his wound. "Deep," she whispered. For some reason, after making him wince with a light touch, she blew on it, the gentle air from her mouth cool, and soothing. "I'll clean and dress this, but where it is, you cannot sit in a bath. The filth could get to it, and that would be no good. I'll have to scrub you as you stand."
Baelor was in no position to go against her orders. She wasn't yet a woman grown, but she was clearly older than he. Her long dark hair was pulled up into a scarf, with a few loose strands swaying at the sides of her full cheeked face. Brown eyes, the color of wet wood, hid beneath long batting lashes, and a stray mark above her lip drew one's eyes to her full pouting lips, even when she wasn't smiling .
Baelor tried not to see her body, but her body fought hard to expose itself to him. What could a boy do but look?
"And I appreciate the compliment," she said, Baelor's eyes still closed. He knew not what she could be referring to, as he had barely uttered a word to her since she'd walked in, but when he opened his eyes to look at hers, she looked down, and then back up.
And all of a sudden Baelor felt how cool the air of the room felt against his naked body, and knew exactly what the young woman meant.
Embarrassed, things quickly returned to normal for the Prince, and his face began to blush so hot he felt like he might start sweating.
"Nothing to be ashamed of, your Grace. I will conduct myself as you see fit."
"I'm sorry," was all Baelor was able to get out.
"Nothing to be sorry for. As far as I see it, if you're man enough to win a joust, you're more than most men that dishonor me far further than a compliment."
Baelor froze in what he could only understand as fear.
"What did you do next?" Dayne asked, on the edge of his seat with a tankard of ale gripped tightly and still nearly full.
"I just stood there."
"What?" Dayne yelled incredulously. "You just stood there?"
"What was I supposed to do?" Baelor asked. In the moment, he knew not how to even cross the line of disgrace if he had the gumption to try.
The table had no response for him. Dayne, and his brother Aerys were all that remained at their table. Rhaegel and Maekar had wished to go to bed, though they were likely sneaking around the halls unattended, hopefully avoiding trouble. And when Baelor asked, each had no response to his question.
The raucous crowd made the awkward stillness of the conversation fade easier into the next moment, which luckily turned the attention of the table away from Baelor's uncomfortable time alone with a woman undressed.
"If it isn't the Year End Champion!" a gruff voice called through the noise of the drunken adults. A hard, heavy hand landed firmly on Baelor's shoulder, hard enough to jolt his cut sore. "If I knew they were letting just anybody enter the lists, maybe we could have had that rematch."
Baelor turned to see a face he did not recognize. The young man was fair skinned, with light blue eyes, with dark blond or light brown hair, and a patchy beard that looked forced, sparsely growing above his lip, chin, and cheeks.
Baelor had not met the young man before, but somehow he felt familiar. It was his stance. The squared shoulders and burly build. Dondarrion?
Dayne had risen from his seat, ever the protector, his face as gruff as the tone of the stranger's voice. "Who dares touch the second in line? Back off, friend, or else face swift recompense."
"Easy, Torren," Baelor said easily, sliding his chair back and standing up to the newcomer. "Erich Dondarrion, is it? We never officially met, have we?"
"I'd say we got to know each other pretty well with all those back and forths. I'd say your form is pretty much an image from the texts, but we both know form had nothing to do with our match." Dondarrion seemed surprisingly jovial for someone who'd fallen to Baelor's lance. Is this some form of intimidation?
"I'd say I was more sore from your match than against Daemon, though he rang my bell like a Sept at dusk," Baelor felt no more shame in admitting.
"He knocked that dragon clear off your helm like a target! I'm surprised he didn't kill you with that one," Dondarrion said. "And I'm glad he didn't. Never thought a prince would be as tough as me on a horse. I like you, your Grace. It'll be good to have another match one day, once we're knighted."
The young man reached out a hand, leaving it open to invite Baelor's for a respectful shake. "Congratulations on your wins today," he said. "I'm a staunch admirer, and the balls to enter as a mystery knight! I wish I had a mind to think ahead like that, though my Lord father would have me flayed. I was surprised your father and mother allowed it, to be frank."
"As was I," Dayne said, holding back a smirk. Aerys had sunken back and away, first from the talk of girls, and then at the sight of the aggressive Dondarrion. Then they all laughed, Erich himself joining in.
"I guess they didn't allow it, huh?" Erich cut in after he realized. "Good for you, your Grace. A little roguishness never hurt a Targaryen too much."
Baelor and Erich became fast friends. With their chaperones mostly silly by now, Dondarrion invited Dayne and Baelor to the table with some of the other noble children their age. Aerys sank back to the table, finishing his second slice of pie and requesting an escort to retire for the night.
Baelor kept an eye for where his father was, as he feared what he might say seeing Baelor with a tankard of ale, but in a brief moment when he was caught unawares, locking eyes with his father as he went to refill it, Prince Daeron just laughed and yelled, "With caution, son!" through the ever loudening hall.
Two tankards became a blur before Baelor even knew it, and passing thoughts of the buxom washer girl kept slipping in and out of his mind's eye. He felt embarrassed, and strangely manly. If he knew any better or was any older, maybe he even would have done something. Exactly what, he still did not know.
"You fucking Champion, you!" Dondarrion screamed so close to Baelor's face the spittle from his drunken mouth nearly sprayed in his eyes. "Don't you go full blown Targaryen prince or nothing, but this is my kid sister, the Lady Jena Dondarrion. Jena, this is the Prince Baelor."
Baelor could hardly catch his breath, but gone was the hesitance from earlier in his chambers.
She was nearly as tall as her brother, yet gracefully slender where Erich was brutishly bulky. Her hair was tumbled into elegant twirls, framing her face with a reddened gold shine. Through the drink, he struggled to focus on her features, and what he saw left his boyish mouth agape. He felt lost in her strikingly pale eyes, light like a crystal, and blue like the winter sky.
"A pleasure to meet such a beautiful lady, my woman," Baelor said as slyly as he could, not realizing the slip in his words.
"A Champion you may be at the joust, your grace, but maybe more time is needed in the library."
"I mean, a beautiful woman, my Lady," Baelor corrected over her. "Hey," he said, hearing what she'd said late. "I spend quite enough time with books, thank you."
"And which is your favorite, your grace?" she asked, her pretty face as combative as her tone.
"A favorite book? I read what I must, not what I wish."
"As evidenced by your attempts at conversation so far," she remarked back, smiling coyly as if she were winning a match of her own.
"I mean . . ." Baelor stammered, thinking of any book. As he thought, all that came to mind were the dirty ones he'd managed to find bits and pieces of hidden in the recesses of the Dragonstone Library. Mushroom's tales. The Songs of Fat Bobb, the Fool. And things he could never admit to such a lady as this.
"As long as you don't say The Seven Pointed Star, that would bore me even more than you being a brute with no knowledge," she said. For some reason, she seemed to want to keep speaking with him, despite his awkward attempts at catching up to her wit.
"I'm naught like that Baelor. And I may not love books, but I don't hate them as much as him either."
"So what's a favorite of yours? Come now, there has to be some story you're fond of."
"Florian and Jonquil. That's my favorite story," Baelor said. "Not really a book, but it's my favorite story."
"Mine too," she said softly.
"Did you twits forget I'm here?" Erich asked, wrapping his thick sweaty arms around them both.
"Or that I'm here too?" Torren chimed in.
Baelor had. So engrossed was he with Jena, he'd forgotten even the washer woman.
"If it isn't the Year End Champion," a deep voice sounded before them. Baelor looked up from Erich's heavy grip. Ser Lucius Morrigen.
"Ser Lucius," Baelor said as strongly as he could, mustering up a man's voice from his chest. "Well fought today. My sincerest apologies on striking your helm. As an amateur, I need to improve, and thank you for a true test."
Baelor thought he had spoken with courtesy and tact. He hadn't forgotten all his father had tried to instill in him.
"Maybe that is why you are yet but a squire. Good evening to you. May the new year find you well." Morrigen met his response with the least courtesy he'd ever heard from a stranger. A defiance Baelor felt as earnest as if it had been as blatant as a slap.
"Your Grace," Baelor finished for the knight. "May the new year find you well, your Grace. Since I'm just a squire, I may not have the right of it, but as a knight, surely you must know your obligations in referring to royalty with the proper title, no?"
Ser Lucius turned with ill intent in his deep set eyes, just as they'd been as he rose from the arena floor. The man stood tall, still defiant, to the boy Baelor, who himself squared his own broad shoulders as they stared each other down in the midst of the crowded Main Hall of Evenfall.
"And surely as a squire, you know to call me, Ser," he replied, as sternly as he could.
"I'm waiting for you to remember your courtesies first. Then, mayhaps I'll remember mine own. I'd ask you which would take precedence, but then again, as a Targaryen, I know where House Morrigen ranks in the hierarchy of the realm. Surely a knight of your esteem would know your place as well."
"Don't forget, your Grace," Torren chimed in, stepping to his friend's side. "He is a King. The King of the Carrion. Mayhaps that is the mix up? Does the King of Crows carry the official title of, 'Your Grace' as well? Or is it just a moniker like The Queen of the Brothel, or Prince of the Possums, with no prestige at'all?"
"You little pompous brat," Morrigen growled, aggressively stepping to Dayne.
Erich Dondarrion stepped between them, gently setting his sister and Baelor aside and behind his wide shoulders. "Take not another step!" The burly squire yelled, quieting the room around him. "This is the royal Prince Baelor, you blubbering fool. You were already fortunate your little tantrum with the dagger went unpunished. Continue your insolence, and I will personally see to it that your House finds ruin."
The crowd around them silenced, then the whole of the room.
"Ser Lucius. What seems to trouble you?" Lord Tarth asked with all the feigned courtesy he could muster to avoid provoking any further aggression.
"Nothing, my Lord. Nothing troubles me." Morrigen turned and stormed from the hall, flanked by the lickspittles that had ridden and fallen against him. All but Ser Thomas of Tunneltown.
"Did you ever pay that knight, Dayne? I haven't seen him since the joust," Baelor asked.
"Nor have I, your grace. Nor have I."
After another tankard, Dayne had to carry Baelor to his chambers, the Prince fighting haplessly all the while to return to the ball for one purpose.
"I need to keep looking at her, Dayne. My eyes are angry you've taken me from Jena," Baelor slurred.
"You'll close them soon enough and see one of the women from your night, I'm sure of it."
Once they'd reached Baelor and Maekar's room, accompanied by Ser Edmond, Baelor found himself in the privy, retching up the ale like his mother aboard the boat.
When the privy stopped spinning, he smiled, thinking of Jena, only for it to spin again, beginning another bout of emptying his stomach.
Year's End Champion indeed.
A/N
Please let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading! I'll be back as soon as I can with another POV at a year end Ball.