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Under the cover of night, the king arrived at Whitewalls. The roads churned to mire beneath every gallop, and the ceaseless rain stung his eyes, but it had not slowed them overmuch. He only prayed he was not too late.
Dozens of pavilions stood vigil around the keep. Baelor took note of their arms as he passed. He spied the three sisters of Sunderland, the quartered cups and roses of the Costaynes, even the three black castles of House Peake. Three castles that should be one, he noted. Two had been stripped from the Peakes after their participation and defeat in Daemon Blackfyre’s rebellion. A traitor’s tourney indeed.
Baelor rode past them all. The tent he was searching for would bear no house colors, nor sigil. But when he came to the western wall of the keep, where he spotted a modest camp, he was dismayed to find it abandoned. He had turned to leave and continue his search elsewhere when a boyish voice echoed across the milk-white stone.
“Ow! Watch where you’re prodding.”
Baelor looked up. Through the sheets of rain, he spied a faint orange glow flickering atop the tower above him.
“Sorry, ser,” replied another voice. “There’s hardly any part of you that’s not covered in bruises.”
Even muffled by the downpour, Baelor knew that voice. He smiled.
Slipping into the castle was easy enough. After a lifetime spent in the Red Keep, with its shifting and serpentine hidden passages, there was not a castle in the seven kingdoms that held any secrets from him. Baelor made his way up and ducked into the shadows of the room, unnoticed in the dim candlelight beneath his soggy cloak. A gaggle of knights murmured amongst themselves, though they did not look quite so knightly, dressed in their roughspun tunics and soiled robes. His attention fell upon the knight in the center of the room, who would have been impossible to miss even had he been a stranger, with his towering frame taking up nearly half of the already cramped chambers. Baelor noted his dented armor, half-removed, and the bloody bandages that snaked around his exposed arm. His face, too, bore a savage bruise that had only just begun to change from red to purple.
There was only one man in the room that looked in a worse state, and Baelor hesitated to call him a man at all. He looked more squire than knight, truthfully, though it was hard to tell his age with his face swollen and bloodied as it was. His body was covered almost head to toe in clumsy dressing. He could only imagine what the boy must have looked like before Ser Duncan began the admirable job of cleaning him up.
It was only then that Duncan looked up from his work and noticed the new presence in the room. His face tightened into a frown. “I told you lot already, he’s barely fit to stand as of yet, let alone ride. Run off back to your fiddle prince and tell him he’ll have his justice soon enough.”
For a brief moment, Baelor relished this world in which he was no king. Anonymity was a rare indulgence, and he had always found a certain pleasure in being underestimated. Alas, he had no time to savor watching his hedge knight squirm as he had when they first met. He lowered the hood of his cloak, and the color drained from Duncan’s face. “Your Grace!” He stumbled to one knee, bowing his head. Another of the knights followed suit. The others were mostly reduced to a stunned silence, mouths agape.
“Rise, sers, please,” Baelor said. “Whose company am I in?”
“Hedge knights, Your Grace,” answered the other man that had kneeled, a plump fellow with a ginger beard. “I am called Ser Kyle. It is a great honor, Your Grace, truly, a great honor.” He bowed so low, Baelor thought he was like to tip over.
“King’s got no need of your purring, Cat,” someone sneered. “Won’t be paying your ransom neither.” The hedge knights sniggered amongst themselves and Ser Kyle began to stammer, reddening.
“Sers, you are well met, all,” Baelor interrupted, “but I’m afraid I cannot offer proper introductions. I require an audience with Ser Duncan. Alone.”
Ser Kyle’s bushy brows shot upwards. He looked back and forth between Duncan and the king, and a spark of recognition dawned on his face. “Gods be good, I knew I’d heard your name somewhere before. Hah! This lad sups below the salt and sleeps in the hedges and he’s friends with the bloody king. Where does that leave the rest of our sorry lot?”
Ser Kyle bowed once more before he took his leave, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. The rest of the knights followed him, exchanging awed looks as they shuffled past. They were all no doubt familiar with the story of Ser Duncan the Tall, the lowborn hedge knight spared his cruel fate by the intervention of the eldest prince, who took a grievous injury in the attempt. Ever since that day, every knight of the hedges knew they had a protector in Baelor Breakspear. Would that an army of hedge knights could solve all the problems in the realm. The reminder of his old injury seemed to bring the pain up with it, a dull ache that lingered like a ghost within his skull.
He willed it away. Soon, the chamber was empty, save for Duncan and the young man he was nursing.
“Ser Glendon’s alright, Your Grace,” Duncan said, before he could ask. “I can’t say I have the faintest clue how you find yourself here at Whitewalls, but you can speak your piece here. I must prepare him for the lists in the meantime. Ser Glendon rides against the Pretender for his own justice.”
Baelor’s astonishment must have been plain on his face, for it was then that Dunk launched into the story of his misadventures since arriving at the castle for the wedding tourney. He told of the stolen dragon’s egg, of Butterwell and Black Tom and Egg’s boot, and of John the Fiddler, who was not a fiddler at all.
“Brynden had the right of it, then,” Baelor muttered to himself, frowning. His young uncle’s vast network of informants had brought him tidings of unrest and ill deeds surrounding this wedding tourney almost as soon as the marriage had been announced. When word arrived of the guest list, it seemed almost brazen. A nest of adders, Brynden had called it, but a nest of black dragons seemed more apt.
A second Blackfyre rebellion. Baelor had not wanted to believe it, at first. Brynden had kept his eye fixed across the Narrow Sea, waiting for signs of his half-brother Bittersteel’s plans bearing fruit, but Baelor had prayed nothing would come of it. Even as he rode ahead of an army that awaited to spring upon Whitewalls at the slightest sign of disorder, his prayer remained. Ever since his father had been taken in the spring, he hoped that his own reign would be able to shake off the stench of death that the sickness had brought and forge ahead in a lasting peace. A senseless hope, he knew, but one he could not help but nurture.
He regarded the younger knight for a moment. There was something familiar about him that he could not place. “Ser Glendon, was it?”
“Aye,” the boy said, straightening as much as his body would allow. “Ser Glendon Ball.”
Baelor’s eyes grew wide. “Ball? As in Quentyn Ball?”
“The very same, Your Grace. I am his son.”
He can hardly have been a seed in his mother’s belly when Fireball was slain at the Redgrass. Baelor studied him again in this new light. Glendon had close-set eyes within a round face, all beneath a brown mess of curls, with not even a hint of the red that had given Fireball his name just as much as his temper. In truth, Baelor saw little resemblance to the man who had once been his father’s devoted master-at-arms. He knew better than to voice it, though. He was familiar enough with snide remarks about his own heritage to know that imagined relations were oft as equally binding as the truest blood.
“Well, Ser Glendon, perhaps you may be able to rest and recover a while longer,” Baelor said. “I mean to challenge Daemon myself.”
Duncan did not have the chance to voice his own protest before Glendon spoke. “You’ll have to wait your turn,” he said sourly, which earned him a shove on the arm from the other knight.
“Ser Glendon jests, Your Grace.” Duncan stared daggers at the boy. “Mind your mouth, ser. That’s the king you’re speaking to.”
“There seems to be a surplus of those hereabouts.” Glendon pouted, rubbing the bruise that Duncan had pushed against. “I said what I meant, ser. I’m no craven. I’ll not let another man fight my battles, king or no king.”
Baelor fought to keep a smile from creeping onto his face. Glendon did remind him of someone, he realized, but it was not Fireball. Quentyn was a dour man, and willful, but never fond of blustering or overconfidence. No, it was Maekar in his youth that the boy made him recall, whose mouth had earned him more than a few bruisings from the end of Fireball’s blunted training sword.
“I knew your father, as I’m sure you know. I knew him very well,” Baelor said. “Quentyn Ball was a hard man, stubborn and tough as old leather. He taught me everything he knew of arms and armor, how to knock a man from his saddle, where to strike a killing blow. He was no craven, either.”
“My father was a hero.”
“Yes,” said Baelor softly. “He was, once.” He stepped closer to the boy. “If you are your father’s son, Ser Glendon, heed me. I shall champion your justice in the lists today, and when this mummer’s rebellion ends in the mud, we will speak again. You are young, ser, but I can see you are no fool. It is a rare and precious thing to be owed a favor by a king.”
“And to owe one in return,” Duncan added with a grin. Glendon looked at him skeptically.
“I cannot speak for my father’s decision to spurn yours. He no doubt had his reasons. But my father is gone now, as is your own. I will no longer fight the wars borne of my grandfather’s folly, nor will I foster the grudges of men long dead. Your father had a place at the Red Keep, once. I say again, if you are truly his son, mayhaps there is a place for you, too.”
Glendon’s eyes gleamed, and Baelor knew he had won him. “Think on it,” he added, warmly. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up at Ser Duncan’s concerned face.
“Your Grace. Might I beg a word in private?”
They stepped out into the hall, now deserted even of servants. Even so, Duncan spoke in a hushed tone, as if the walls themselves had ears. “If I might speak plainly. I have a poor feeling about this whole affair. You in the joust, I mean. You cannot mean to—”
“I cannot?” Baelor’s head throbbed. Anger took hold of him, like a taut cord finally snapping. “Am I not fit, ser? Did the blow I took in saving your life render me weak and infirm? Perhaps impotent as well, if we are to believe every rumor?”
“I’m sorry, I only meant… I worry, Your Grace. I can’t help it.” His mouth twisted into a nervous grimace, and Baelor felt a pang of sympathy for the man. He was certain that if asked, Duncan would gladly trot out onto the lists in his place, even with his arm in a sling and one eye swollen shut.
Baelor sighed. Pain pressed against his eyes, and he pinched the top of his nose to chase it away. “Your worry is admirable, ser. I understood what you meant. It is an opinion shared by many. No doubt you have heard it uttered by half the lords and sers at this very tourney. ” He balled his hand into a fist. “But when they see me unhorse the son as I did his father, all those years ago at a wedding not so unlike this one, those whispers will cease. These people must needs remember why I am called Breakspear. The black dragon is dead. I wish to have this nonsense put to rest at last.”
Duncan did not look entirely convinced, but if his concerns remained, he did not voice them. “It is sound enough reasoning, Your Grace.”
“My original intentions were to enter the tourney in secret,” Baelor admitted. “The people love a mystery knight. I would have liked to test my lance against those hedge knights before facing Daemon himself. But perhaps it was fortunate that my preparations were delayed, given the state of you. How fares your head?”
“Better than—” Duncan froze. “I mean, that is to say, er, I’m alright, m’lord. Your Grace.”
Baelor could not help but laugh. “I’m pleased to hear it.” It gladdened him to see Ser Duncan hale and whole, or at least mostly so, after he had heard of what befell him in the tourney. It had been over a year since they had last spoken, when he had returned to King’s Landing with Aegon for the coronation, and that affair was not a happy one. The Red Keep had become a rather dour place as of late, especially so without his favored nephew and the knight he squired for. It was his honesty that had endeared the man to him when they first met, and it was that honesty he had missed since, Baelor realized now. In the king’s ear, an honest opinion was as rare and as precious as the jewels on his own crown. “That offer I made to Ser Glendon is yours as well, I hope you know,” he said. “Should you and Egg ever grow tired of hard salt beef, that is.”
“You tempt me, Your Grace. But I’m afraid the lad has his sights set on Winterfell after our business here is done.”
“I’ll be shocked if he lasts half a week in that chill.” The image of the little princeling bundled up in layers of thick pelts and woolen coats made him chuckle. “Then again, it may be the best place for you. No knights to worry about in the North, no tourneys to stumble into.”
“No tourneys,” Duncan agreed. “Though, I only wish I could watch you joust under lighter circumstances for once. You can hardly fault me for my nerves, considering what happened the last time I saw you tilt your lance.”
“You needn’t worry, Ser Duncan,” said Baelor, offering a reassuring smile. “I have brought my own armor this time.”
The armor Baelor had brought was not his usual tourney armor, in truth. His plans had required a certain subtlety that dragonscale engravings and scarlet adornments did not provide. The armor he wore now was as black and smooth as polished jet, and bore no sigil at all. His helm was just as plain, with no crest, and a visor that hid his entire face. As the moon sank beneath the hills and the colorless sky grew lighter and lighter, he looked more shadow than man against it.
The world around him was awash with grey as the morning mists settled around the tourney fields. Baelor had hoped that facing Daemon would bring back sweeter memories, sweet like victory and Dornish wine and dancing with his Aunt Daenerys. Instead, the pale chill crept into his bones and brought him back to Ashford. It had been cold and sunless then, too. But this was not Ashford, he told himself. There would be no melee, no fight to the death, no battle-mad father desperate enough to see his son alive that he would cripple his own brother to save him. And though he rode for Ser Glendon as a formality, today he would fight for no one’s honor but his own.
Ser Duncan helped him onto his horse, a big beast of a destrier as black as his armor. It tossed its head and snorted impatiently. Baelor felt much the same. It was an odd feeling, having Duncan squire for him, but he was well-suited for it. Seeing him head towards the racks brought forth another memory from that last, fateful trial.
“Not a war lance, Ser Duncan. A—”
“A tourney lance, Your Grace?” The long, slender wooden lance was already in Duncan’s hands, and he offered it to Baelor. “I remember your lesson. One strike, hard and true, and he will never touch you.”
Baelor smiled. “We’ll make a tourney champion of you yet, ser.”
The hedge knight returned the smile, meekly. “Strength to your arm,” was all he could say. With a solemn nod, Baelor lowered the visor of his helm and spurred his horse towards the end of the lists.
Daemon Blackfyre was the spitting image of his namesake. At the far end of the field he sat astride his steed, boldly sporting the black-on-red dragon of his house upon his chest. Brilliant silver-gold hair spilled onto his shoulders and gleamed in the torchlight like a crown. It was the hair of Baelor’s brothers, and his father, and his father’s father. He remembered in his youth, listening quietly at the door of the king’s solar, to the voices of his father and grandfather growing louder with rage. He is everything that you are not. Unlike your son, his blood is untainted. He is worthy. It did not matter how many lances Baelor might break, or battles he might win. It never would. He did not look the part.
That does not matter now, Baelor told himself, pulling away from the memory. They are dead, all of them. Aegon the Unworthy, and Daemon Waters, and Daeron his father. Only King Baelor II remained, and he had nothing left to prove—nothing but this.
From his platform, the herald proclaimed the young lord’s arrival. “Daemon of House Blackfyre, the Second of His Name, rightborn King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, rides forth to prove the accusations against the bastard Ser Glendon.”
When he noticed his opponent, Daemon sat up straighter in his saddle and urged his horse forwards. The air felt like ice between them.
“You are not Ser Glendon,” said Daemon, frowning.
“And you are not a king,” Baelor replied. His voice rang hollow from within his helm, but no less sharp with contempt.
Daemon laughed incredulously. “Another mystery knight enters the lists? Has your Ser Glendon lost his nerves and wishes to deprive me of my justice? No matter. The gods shall deliver the truth regardless.” A smile played on his lips. “But I would know the identity of the man who champions the cause of a bastard from the hedges. Who are you, Black Knight? There shall be a great song of my victory here, and your verse will be better with a name.”
“If you want a song, you shall have to fiddle one yourself.”
Baelor lifted his visor. A ripple of gasps and whispers spread across the stands. The smirk on Daemon Blackfyre’s face melted in an instant. “You face Baelor of House Targaryen, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. You face Baelor Breakspear, who put down the Blackfyre rebellion at the Redgrass Field. You face the king’s justice, pretender.”
Out of the corner of his eye Baelor watched every lord rise to his feet, half their number scrambling from the stands in hopes of slipping away unnoticed. The herald himself looked ready to dive from his platform. For a moment, Baelor could see dread flicker across Daemon’s face. But then it was gone, and his laugh returned, sharp and manic like a wild animal. The prince reeled his mount to address the raucous crowd.
“Do you not see? The gods see to deliver me justice and vengeance in a single stroke! The falseborn king falls to my lance today, and none shall be left in the seven kingdoms to challenge my rightful place.”
Brynden Rivers will no doubt disagree there, Baelor thought, but he said nothing. Instead, he lifted his lance to salute what lords and guests remained in the stands. Among them he noted Gormon Peake, whose cold, flinty gaze was fixed upon him. Forget your last castle, my lord, he thought bitterly. For this, I’ll have your head.
“A dragon will hatch at Whitewalls,” Daemon said suddenly. The laugh was gone from his voice, and his eyes were bright with a simmering fury. “I have dreamed it. I shall have my dragon, and my throne, and not even you can stand in my way.”
Baelor took pause at that. He did not put much stock into his dreams, but few of his blood were known to glimpse visions of the future in their own, his nephew among them. If Daemon possessed the same gift, if he truly foresaw the return of dragons to Westeros at this very castle…
He banished the thought before it could take hold of him. Dreams are not truth. There has not been a living dragon in over half a century, and dreaming of them will not bring them back. The Blackfyre cause would no doubt do anything to see that egg hatch and prove their legitimacy in the sight of gods and men. Baelor needed no such sign.
He lowered the visor on his helmet once more. “Let it be finished here.”
They took their places once more at the end of the lists. Somewhere far away, a deep horn sounded, mingling with a rumble of thunder. At once, instinct overtook him, and the years since the last time he rode in a joust may as well have been a single day. There was no Ashford, no Whitewalls; only his horse, and his lance, and his target.
He swung his lance around his destrier’s head as it broke into a run. He felt the pounding of hooves beneath his legs, and deep within his chest, and in the back of his skull. His old wound screamed at him as Daemon grew closer and closer and closer. Baelor ignored it. He lowered the point of his lance and aimed for the black dragon.
A jolt of pain traveled up his arm and into his shoulder as a terrible crack rang out across the clearing. Baelor reined around for another pass and steeled himself for a blow that never came. Daemon’s horse, its red trappings now black with mud, dashed across the field. Its rider lay motionless in a puddle. For half a moment, Baelor thought the boy might be dead, trampled or broken from the fall. But as his men rushed to him, he heard a cry—not of mourning, but of shame.
For the first time that morning, the sun broke through the grim wall of clouds. Light shone upon the dew-slick fields, and the hills beyond, and glinted upon dozens and dozens of banners on the horizon. A horn sounded again, bright and clear as the dawn. Brynden’s army had caught up to him, but they were too late. The Second Blackfyre Rebellion was over before it had begun. Two kings had come to Whitewalls, and one would leave in chains.
The march from Whitewalls to King’s Landing was slow and arduous. The roads were still sodden, and they had to halt several times to dislodge a cart wheel from the muck, but not even the rain could dampen their good spirits. Ser Duncan busied himself with lively conversation as he weaved between banners, collecting tales of tourneys and knights who had known his old master. Glendon and Egg raced on their palfreys and sang songs to ward away the gloomy weather (innocent ballads when Baelor could hear them, and The Hammer and The Anvil when they thought he could not). Not a single sword had been drawn, and yet the entire army was abuzz with the ecstasy of victory—all, save King Baelor himself.
Baelor rode at the head of the column, trailed by three of his kingsguard and half a dozen more of his personal guard. Alongside them were another group of knights, black-clad and also bearing the crown’s standards, but sporting a white dragon instead of red. At their head, riding beside the king, was his master of whisperers.
To those who did not know him, the man called Bloodraven was a sinister sight to behold, and that was exactly how he preferred it. He had the look of a specter about him, with his gaunt frame and alabaster skin and the winestain birthmark marring his cheek. Beneath the hood of his shadowy cloak, his single red eye was constantly searching. Most of the men gave him a wide berth. To Baelor, though, Brynden Rivers was many more things; loyal ally and lethal spymaster and family.
“The boy will not be killed,” Baelor said suddenly, when the silence between them became too much to bear.
Brynden frowned. “Of course not. I am no butcher. I fear you have been letting the courtly gossip get to you.”
“If I have, it is only because you are spreading it,” replied Baelor, and there was the barest hint of a smirk upon his young uncle’s lips.
“He is far more valuable as a hostage than as a martyr. Though it is not as if his death would inspire much fervor, either, I should think. Even Aegor had enough sense to wash his hands of this so-called rebellion.” He let out a sigh. “'Tis a shame about the sword.”
Baelor grimaced. Shame was an understatement, they both knew, for the realization that the second Daemon Blackfyre did not even bear the very sword that was his birthright. He could be chained in the Red Keep for the rest of his days, but he would make for little more than a humiliating stain upon the Blackfyre legacy without the legitimacy of that symbol. Daemon had seven sons, four still across the sea, and no doubt one of them was being knighted with it even now. Bittersteel would continue to plot, and Bloodraven would keep his eye fixed upon him, and there would be no end to it until the black dragon had been bled dry.
Before the host had departed from the castle, Baelor had spoken to Daemon. The prince was fettered and bruised, and the mud that covered him had dried into a sickly grey. The confidence that had burned within him before the joust had completely withered away. In his tattered armor he looked no more than a boy playing king. He is Valarr’s age, Baelor thought suddenly, and anguish gripped him so swiftly that it nearly made him turn away. He stopped himself. There was only only one question he had to ask, one that had been nagging at him since the moments before the tilt.
“What color was it?”
“What?”
“The dragon of your dreams, the one to hatch at Whitewalls. The egg you tried to claim is red as ruby. Your dragon, was it the same?”
“It was…” Daemon’s voice wavered, and a forlorn look came over him. He stared at his boots. “It was black. Black as pitch, black as Blackfyre itself. The only red in my dreams is the blood that shall spill when my father and my brothers are avenged.”
Fool, thought Baelor, with more pity than malice. His lies are plain and his threats empty.
Yet, when he looked upon the boy, all he could see was the empty, frozen gaze of his father as he lay lifeless in that tall and bloodsoaked grass.
“I loved your father like a brother, once, you know.” The words came unexpectedly. Daemon did not appear eager to receive them, but he spoke them all the same. “When we were boys together, before my grandfather put that sword in his hand and whispered his poisons into his ear. I admired him, I envied him. I loved him.”
Daemon the Younger lifted his face to look his king in the eye. “Look where that got him.”
The boy’s words tumbled ceaselessly through his weary mind on the journey home. Look where that got him.
Baelor had loved Daemon Waters, just as he had loved his own father, loved his brothers, loved his children. He had even loved Quentyn Ball in his own way, though he had often been a hard man to love. But when Baelor had grasped a new lesson or succeeded at a joust and earned himself that rare, proud grin from his master-at-arms, it had made every hardship worth the effort.
But what had it gotten him? His love did not prevent Daemon’s betrayal, nor Fireball’s. It did not keep his sons from the pyre. Men might wage wars for love, but to end them, there was only blood.
Later, in his solar, Baelor sat at his desk and stared at the dragon’s egg that Brynden had presented to him soon after they arrived at the keep. He ran his fingers along the surface of it. It was rough under his touch, like unhewn stone, and the deep red seemed to trap reflections of the firelight within each tiny scale. Cold, he thought, and was annoyed to find himself disappointed by the revelation. Of course it’s cold. It’s naught but a rock.
Baelor set the egg aside. Perhaps there would come a day when dragons and magic returned to the world, but dreaming for it would not make it so. He had no room for dreams. He might not have dragons, but he did not need them. He had his love; love for his family, and for his subjects, and for the realm. It would have to be enough.