Chapter 71: You do not play with a man’s family
The feast was still winding down behind him when Arthur left the great hall.
He did not go to his chambers. He did not go to Cassie. He did not go to Mira. He walked out of the hall with his jaw and his fists clenched at his sides and started down the corridors of the Red Keep towards the small council chambers.
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[CLASS CHANGE]
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Squire → Knight
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Description:
You have been formally raised to the rank of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Your training, deeds, and accolade have shaped you into a true warrior of the realm. The path before you is harder, bloodier, and far more rewarding than the one behind.
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CLASS BENEFITS
• Unallocated Stat Points per Level: 3
• Automatic Stat Growth per Level:
└─ Strength +2
└─ Dexterity +1
└─ Constitution +2
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Even the notification was not enough the quell the rage he felt in his chest. The rage in his chest was a raging boiling thing. It was not the quick anger of a fight or the cold rage of a duel. It was deeper than that. It was the rage of a man who had been made a fool of by someone he trusted, and Arthur had not felt this particular way since Willem. Not since he had been betrayed by a man he thought he could trust. Tonight had a similar shape to it and he was finding that his body remembered how to shake in exactly the same way.
Prince Duncan had made himself scarce almost the moment the announcement ended. One moment he had been standing at the high table speaking to a cluster of outraged lords, the next he was gone, slipped away through one of the side doors. Word had spread quickly that the small council had followed him to the council chamber. Arthur had heard two separate servants whispering about it while he stood on the dais trying to decide whether to go after Cassie or throttle the prince.
He had chosen the prince.
Cassie would not want to see him right now. Cassie needed time and air and probably Mira's company, and Arthur had learned enough about her to know that forcing himself into her presence before she was ready would only make things worse. But Duncan. Duncan was going to hear every single thing Arthur had to say, and he was going to hear it tonight.
The corridor leading to the small council chamber curved around the base of the Tower of the Hand and then opened into a short hall lined with various tapestries. Arthur turned the last corner with his cloak snapping behind him. Ser Gerold and Llewyn Martell stood shoulder to shoulder outside the doors of the council room.
"Where is he," Arthur snarled as he strode forward.
Prince Llewyn raised a hand in a placating gesture and stepped a pace away from the door toward him. "Arthur. Take a breath. I know you are angry, and gods know you have reason to be, but you cannot go in there like this."
"Where is he!" Arthur repeated angrily.
"He is in a meeting with the small council," Llewyn said calmly as he looked towards him. "The lords are... having words with him. Strong ones. You will have your turn, I promise you that, but not now. Not like this."
Ser Gerold spoke up from where he stood near the door. "Arthur. Get a hold of yourself. You are a knight of the Seven Kingdoms now. Do not do something in this corridor that you will regret for the rest of your life."
Arthur did not stop walking.
Each word from them seemed to feed the fire rather than smother it. Llewyns placating tone, Gerold's lecturing, both of them standing between him and the man who had just stood up in front of the entire realm and thrown his family to the wolves for reasons Arthur did not even know.
They were trying to protect Duncan. That was what they were doing. They were trying to protect Duncan, and Arthur was rapidly running out of patience for anyone standing in his way.
"Move," Arthur growled without slowing.
Llewyn glanced sideways at Gerold, something uncertain flickering across the Dornishman's face. He clearly did not want this to escalate, yet as someone who wanted to become a Kingsguard he knew what he had to do yet he felt conflicted as Arthur was his friend.
Ser Gerold, on the other hand, had been a Kingsguard for a very time and he knew precisely what to do.
The older knight stepped forward in a single smooth motion and placed himself directly in Arthur's path. His hand settled onto the hilt of his sword in a way that was not quite drawing but was still a warning. His pale eyes met Arthur's and held them with an unwavering calm.
"Go back to your chambers, boy," Gerold said. "Sit down. Pour yourself some water. Do not come out until you have a cool head. I am telling you this as a friend, Arthur. Think of what the Lord Commander would say."
Arthur did not slow. He did not stop. He did not even flinch. "Get out of my way, Ser Gerold."
Ser Gerold's expression did not change. His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword and he began to draw. Half an inch of white steel cleared the scabbard with that familiar clean whisper of a blade being freed, and Arthur watched it happen in the strange stretched clarity that always came over him just before violence.
He was, distantly, aware that attacking a member of the Kingsguard outside the small council chamber was likely the most disastrous thing he could possibly do with his evening.
[The World]
As time froze Arthur closed the last few paces in a single explosive burst. Gerold's sword was still rising from the scabbard when Arthur's hand clamped down on it. He caught the weapon just below the crossguard with his right hand and wrenched it sideways hard enough to tear it clean out of Gerold's grip.
Time resumed
Gerold's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, which was the only sign of his surprise before his other fist came up in a punch aimed at Arthur's jaw.
Arthur shifted his weight and brought his own hand up to meet the punch. Gerold's fist slammed into Arthur's palm with a solid impact, Gerold tried to pull back, but Arthur did not let go. He hauled on the caught fist and yanked the Knight forward off balance, slid his other arm under the man's sword-belt, and with a grunt he lifted the white-cloaked knight clear off the ground.
Gerold Hightower was not a small man. He was also wearing white plate armour on top of everything else. But, in that moment, with the [Blood of the Dragon] burning hot in his veins and [Demon Back] lighting up along his back Arthur still lifted him over his head like he weighed nothing at all.
For one suspended heartbeat the member of the Kingsguard was held aloft above Arthur. Then Arthur pivoted on his heel and hurled him. Gerold sailed through the air for a good ten feet before he crashed into the stone wall of the corridor with an impact that rattled the hanging tapestries and sent a small cloud of dust drifting down from the ceiling. He hit the floor in a heap of white armour and white cloak and lay still for a long second, stunned, while his sword clattered to the stones a yard from Arthur's boots.
Prince Lewyn stared with wide eyes. "You are mad," the Dornishman breathed. "Arthur. You are absolutely bloody mad. You just attacked a Kingsguard. In the Red Keep. Gods above."
Arthur did not look at him. He stepped past the fallen sword, shoved Lewyn aside with a push that sent the smaller man stumbling into the wall, and strode the last few feet to the oak doors of the council chamber. He drew back his leg and kicked them open. The doors slammed inward with a crack that echoed down the corridor and bounced off the stone walls of the chamber within.
Duncan looked up at the sound of the doors bursting inward, and his eyes widened when he saw who was standing in the doorway.
Several of the small councillors shot to their feet.
"What is the meaning of this," one of them demanded in an outraged voice.
"Guards," another bellowed. "Guards. To the council chamber."
Arthur ignored them all. His eyes were fixed on Duncan and Duncan alone. He walked into the chamber. "You lied to me," Arthur said angrily. "You gave me your word, Duncan. You gave me your word that you would speak to her yourself. Face to face. As a father owes his daughter. You looked me in the eye and you agreed." Arthur's hands curled into fists at his sides. "Then you stood up in front of the entire bloody realm and you did this."
He reached the start of the long council table and stopped, he bent at the knees, slid his hands beneath the edge of the solid oak table, and with a roar he hauled the entire thing up off the floor. Papers and parchments and inkwells cascaded in every direction. Goblets shattered on the stone floor. One of the councillors made a high, undignified scream and scrambled backward so fast that his chair tipped over behind him.
Arthur heaved the table over his head, pivoted with a grunt of effort, and hurled it across the chamber.
The council table struck the far stone wall with an impact that shook the room. The table cracked in half, one of the legs snapped clean off and cartwheeled away across the floor. The entire chamber went utterly silent except for the faint trickling sound of wine running from an overturned goblet.
Arthur turned to face Duncan.
"You do not get to do this," he said as his anger continued to build and build. "You do not get to turn my family into pieces in the sick little game you lords play with one another. You do not get to stand up in a hall full of vultures and throw my pregnant wife to them because it suits some scheme of yours. I will not let you. Do you hear me!!!. I will not let you!!!"
The council members had gone very pale, many of them grabbed their swords though they wondered how much use it would be against this trained killer before them.
Duncan raised his hand. "EVERYONE!" the prince said. "Out. All of you. Now."
"Your Grace," one of the councillors began in protest.
"Out!" Duncan snapped.
The lords did not need telling twice.
They fled the chamber with an indignity that would have been comical under any other circumstances. In under ten seconds the chamber had emptied of everyone except Arthur and Duncan, and the oak doors had swung mostly shut behind the last retreating councillor.
Duncan rose slowly from his chair and sighed as he spread his hands in front of him. "Arthur. My friend. Please. Let us talk about this."
Arthur drew Sunset.
The sword cleared its sheath and Arthur levelled the point at Duncan's chest. His hand did not tremble. His breathing did not waver. He knew exactly what he was doing. "You gave me your word, Duncan," Arthur said quietly. "I put my life on the line for your family. I fought through a ship full of men for you. I bled on that deck for you. And this is how you repay me. With lies. With deceit. With a stage play for the whole realm to gawk at."
Duncan did not move. "Arthur. I know. I know how it looks. Please, put the sword down. Let me explain."
"Then explain quickly, for I find myself losing patience with you."
The doors of the chamber burst open behind Arthur.
Prince Llewyn strode in with his sword drawn. "Arthur, stop this madness. Sheathe your sword. Do not make me strike you down." Behind him came Ser Gerold, his armour dented and his cloak torn, a fresh red welt beginning to bloom along his temple. The Kingsguards sword was in his hand now and his pale eyes were fixed on Arthur.
Gerold did not rush. He did not lunge. He simply stepped into the chamber and began to circle to Arthur's left, putting himself in a position to engage if the need arose. "Arthur. Listen to me. I am going to tell you this once and one time only. Put the sword down."
Arthur did not even turn.
"Even striking a prince will lose you the knighthood and your hand," Gerold continued. "Attacking him with a drawn blade will lose you your head. There is no path through this door that ends well if you do not stop right now. Do not do something in this room that cannot be undone."
Arthur finally turned his head and fixed the Kingsguard with a look that had nothing civilised in it.
"YOU THINK I CARE!!!" he said, and his voice rose to a roar that filled the chamber. "You think I care about the knighthood? About my head? You think I will not slaughter every last one of you in this bloody keep right now if I choose to?"
He turned back to Duncan.
"You do not!" he said, very slowly and very clearly, "play with a man's family!"
Duncan closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again there was something in his face that had not been there before. The easy confidence of the Hand of the King was gone. The stubborn grin of the prince at the harbour wall was gone. What was left was a tired middle-aged man. "You are right," Duncan said. "You are right, Arthur. Everything you have said is right. I gave you my word and I broke it. I promised you I would speak to her privately and I did the opposite. I made your family a spectacle in front of the entire realm without your consent and without hers, and I did it knowing that it would hurt you both. I have no defence for that. None. I am sorry. I am more sorry than I know how to say." He paused and his voice dropped. "But I had no choice."
"Why," Arthur bit out. "What left you with no choice but to hurt people loyal to you."
Duncan drew a long slow breath. "Because I had a dream."
The silence in the chamber stretched.
Arthur stared at him and his arm trembled in rage. "A dream," he repeated.
"Hear me out, Arthur. I beg of you." Duncan's voice had grown quieter, almost pleading. "I dream strangely. I always have. Most of the time the dreams are just dreams. But sometimes they are not, and I have learned, over the years, to tell the difference. This one was not just a dream."
Arthur said nothing and the point of Sunset did not waver.
"In the dream I saw a dragon with nine heads," Duncan continued. "Every one of them wore a crown. Nine crowned heads on one great black body, and its shadow fell across King's Landing like a shroud. It laid waste to the city. The Red Keep burned. The Dragonpit fell. Flea Bottom was a river of fire. The nine crowned heads tore everything apart."
Arthur's breathing was harsh in his ears.
"But that wasn't the only dream I had, sometimes I had another one," Duncan said. "A different one. I saw a field of fire, black glass under burning sky, ash falling like snow. And in the middle of that field, standing alone, I saw you. Arthur. I saw you as clear as I see you now. You stood on that field with a sword in your hand, and at your feet lay a dragon. Dead. You had killed it. It can only mean that you will be vital in the days to come. ."
Arthur's jaw clenched so hard he thought his teeth might crack. He stared at the prince for a long moment before he finally shook his head disbelievingly "A dream..." he said. "You played with my life. You played with Cassie's life. You put us all in the path of every viper in this court because of a dream."
"Arthur."
"Of course you did." Arthur's voice was rising again. "Of course. Why would the Hand of the King not upend two hundred years of marriage law and throw a bastard into the royal line for a bloody dream?"
He took a step forward. Sunset's point tracked toward Duncan's throat. "Do you know what you have done?" Arthur said. "Do you understand it? Every lord in the realm will be looking at us now. Every single one. Cassie is a legitimised Targaryen carrying the grandchild of the firstborn prince. But not only that they'll look at me as the last man to take a second wife in this kingdom was Maegor the bloody Cruel. There are lords in this realm who will want her dead on principle alone. There are lords who will want me dead. There are lords who will try to kidnap my children. There are lords who will try to poison them. There are lords who will look at this and see a Blackfyre-shaped opportunity. You have painted a target on the backs of every person I love."
"Arthur, I know."
"All for a dream," Arthur roared and the chamber rang with it.
Arthur advanced another step. Gerold tensed on his flank and began to close in, but Arthur ignored him entirely and kept his eyes on Duncan. LHow do you know the dead dragon wasn't you," he asked suddenly. "In your precious dream. How do you know the dragon at my feet wasn't you."
"You would not," Duncan said quietly.
"I would not what."
"Kill an unarmed man."
Arthur laughed humourlessly. "I would kill every man woman and child in this keep," he said, "if it meant keeping my family safe."
He meant it.
Duncan knew he meant it.
"Arthur." Duncan's voice had gone hoarse. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. I know how it must look. I know it does not seem like it right now. But this will be a good thing. I swear to you on my own blood, it will be a good thing. Your children will have opportunities you cannot yet imagine. Cassie will have a name that cannot be taken from her. Any lord who moves against them will have to move against the royal family itself. I did not do this to hurt you."
Arthur stood there for a long moment. The rage in his chest had not gone anywhere. But underneath it, very far underneath, something else had begun to stir. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But an acknowledgement that Duncan, in his own broken and stupid way, believed what he was saying.
Arthur took one more step forward and he lowered Sunset, but he then punched Duncan Targaryen square in the jaw. It was a brutal, fully-committed punch with his full strength behind it, and Duncan's head snapped sideways under the impact. The prince's legs folded and he went down hard, hitting the stones of the council chamber floor with a grunt that drove the air out of his lungs. He lay there on his side for a heartbeat, blinking, while blood began to well up at the corner of his split lip.
"Arthur," Ser Gerold snarled. "That is enough."The Kingsguard moved.
He came in quickly with his sword leading, the heavy blade slicing in at Arthur's flank in a short cut that would have opened his ribs if it landed. Arthur brought Sunset up in a parry and steel meeting steel with a clang that rang off the stone walls. Arthur turned the blow aside before stepping back to give himself space.
"Gerold," Duncan rasped from the floor. "Do not—"
Gerold did not hear him and instead he pressed forward, his sword came in again with a thrust toward Arthur's chest. Arthur sidestepped and caught the blade on Sunset's flat to redirect it past his shoulder. The Kingsguard follow-up was already in motion, a cross-cut aimed at Arthur's neck, but Arthur ducked and came up inside his guard to drive the pommel of Sunset toward the older knight's jaw.
Gerold leaned back and the pommel whispered past his chin. His own armoured knee then came up hard into Arthur's midsection. The blow drove the wind out of Arthur in one explosive rush and he staggered back two paces with his teeth clenched, but he did not go down. His grip on Sunset tightened and he snapped the blade into a low guard just in time to catch the knights next thrust.
They circled.
Arthur could feel the difference between this fight and every fight he had ever been in. Gerold Hightower was not a drunk sailor or a desperate criminal or a half-trained soldier. Gerold Hightower was what a lifetime of dedicated swordsmanship looked like, distilled into a single man.
But Arthur was younger and faster and angrier, and for perhaps the first time in his life all of those things met something roughly their equal, even if his sword skills didn't yet.
Gerold's sword came in high. Arthur parried and riposted with a flickering thrust that Gerold turned aside with a twist of his wrist. Their blades locked at the crossguard for a heartbeat and Arthur drove his shoulder into the older knight's chest, trying to use his size, but Gerold rolled with the push and used Arthur's own momentum to throw him past and to the side. Arthur turned the stagger into a pivot, brought Sunset around in a horizontal cut that Gerold had to duck under, and followed with a sweep at the knee that Gerold stepped clear of with the barest inch to spare.
Arthur feinted high, however Gerold did not fall for it. The Kingsguards counter-thrust came in so fast Arthur had to bring Sunset across his body in an awkward cross-block, the older knight's blade skidded along his in a shower of sparks before the two swords locked once more at the hilt. For a moment they stood chest to chest, faces inches apart, both of them breathing hard through their teeth.
"Stop," Duncan shouted.
The prince had dragged himself to his feet, one hand pressed to his bloody lip, the other raised. "Gerold. Enough. Stand down. That is an order."
Gerold did not move for a long second. His pale eyes bored into Arthur's across the locked blades, and Arthur stared back with exactly the expression.
"Gerold," Duncan said again, and there was iron in it now. "Stand down."
The knight disengaged and lowered his sword, not quite sheathing it, and took two paces away from Arthur. His chest was heaving and his white cloak had a fresh tear along one edge that neither of them could remember making.
Arthur lowered Sunset to his side.
Duncan spat a mouthful of blood onto the stones of the council chamber and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "I deserved that," he said quietly. "The punch. I deserved every bit of it."
"Your Grace," Gerold began.
"Stand down, Gerold." Duncan's voice sharpened. "I mean it."
The Kingsguards jaw tightened but he said nothing more and obeyed the Prince.
Duncan turned back to Arthur. "In my capacity as Hand of the King," he said, "I hereby pardon Ser Arthur Pendragon for any wrongdoing, any insult, any offence, real or imagined, committed within this chamber tonight. Any lord, knight, or councillor who wishes to dispute this pardon may take the matter up with me personally."
Duncan then turned his full attention back to Arthur. "Arthur. I want you to know something. The knighthood. Tonight. That was not a bribe. I want you to understand that very clearly. I did not knight you to soften what came after. You earned that accolade a hundred times over on that ship at the harbour, and you earned it before that, and you would have earned it on your own without anything I did tonight. I gave you what you were already owed. That much, at least, was true."
Arthur stood there for a m momen not saying anything, he simply looked at Duncan. At the blood on the prince's chin. At the earnest exhaustion in his eyes. At the man who had, in the span of a single evening, granted him one of the greatest honours a common-born boy could ever hope for and then stabbed him in the back with the same hand.
The rage was still there. It had not gone anywhere. But it had, at last, cooled enough that he could be reasonable.
Arthur walked forward.
Gerold's hand twitched toward his sword again, but Duncan raised one finger in a small gesture and the man stilled. Arthur came to a stop an arm's length from the prince. Close enough to reach out and grab him. Close enough to put Sunset through him before Gerold could intervene. "I do not care," Arthur said quietly, "what games you play with me. Play them. Lie to me. Use me. Set me up on stages for your lords to gawk at. I will live with it. I have lived with worse."
"But promise me," Arthur continued, "promise me that from this moment forward you will keep my family out of it. That you will protect them. That you will not use them as pieces again. Mira. Cassie. My children. Promise me that, Duncan, and say it like a man who means it."
Duncan did not hesitate. "I promise you, Arthur. On my blood. On my name. On whatever oath would mean the most to you." He lifted his chin slightly. "Despite what I did tonight, Cassie is my only child. She is the only child I will ever have, and I did not know she existed for twenty years. I will care for her as a daughter should be cared for. My grandson too, when he comes. They will never lack for my protection again, not while I draw breath. That is my word, and this time I will not break it."
Arthur looked at him for a long while, then he nodded,, and slid Sunset back into its sheath. Heturned to where Ser Gerold stood a few paces away with his sword still half-lowered. "Ser Gerold," Arthur said clearly. "I owe you an apology. You were doing your duty and I attacked you for it. It was beneath me and it was beneath the office you hold. I am sorry."
Gerold studied him for a long moment and then the older knight dipped his chin in the smallest possible nod. "You are forgiven, Ser Arthur, but please do not do it again."
Arthur then turned to Prince Lewyn, who was still standing very still near the doors. "Llewyn. I am sorry for shoving you into the wall."
Lewyn managed a small crooked smile. "Think nothing of it, Arthur. I think I will be dining out on this story for the rest of my natural life."
Arthur huffed something that was not quite a laugh and turned for the door. He walked past both men and out into the corridor beyond, finally going to the place he perhaps should went to first.
Cassie.
(AN: So Arthur's Blood of the Dragon once again reared its head. It makes sense that he was mad but he went a bit cyberpsychosis there at the end. Anyway things are going to ramp up in the next few chapters. Hope you enjoy them.)
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