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Ser Lyonel had taken off his shirt.
Dunk didn't think this was anything specifically alarming – he thought if anyone was prone to taking off their clothes when they were in their cups, it would probably be Ser Lyonel – but Ser Manfred, who was standing beside and just behind his liege lord when it happened, had a strange, pinched look about him. No one else seemed to have noticed it, so it was probably nothing. Probably just something to do with his face. Dunk found that he was a bit less inclined to be charitable to the man, but – and this was crucial – he'd also had several cups of very good wine, the best he'd ever had in all his life, and this predisposed him towards a good humor that kept a smile on his lips and his toes tapping along with the minstrels and their fiddles and their drums.
Egg, sitting next to him, wrinkled his pert little nose. Dunk couldn't smell anything, but then, he had milder senses than those for whom the Andal blood ran truer.
"Do you suppose there was an Alice, ser?" Egg asked. They both watched Ser Lyonel cavorting atop a table; sweat glistened on his collarbones, in the black and silver hair on his chest, sliding like little beads of cut crystal down to his navel. He was an arresting sight, and between the drink, and the music, and the atmosphere of levity, Dunk found himself looking for a little bit longer than he would usually. It wasn't a smart thing, to look at lords for too long. They tended to notice.
Ser Lyonel got down upon his hands and knees. On the table as he was, it put him chest-height to every man there, but for Dunk it would be–
No. Best not to think it, really.
"A crippled girl who shoved her hand up men's arses?" he asked. A man, maybe a retainer, maybe a minor lord in his own right, put three of his fingers together, like a duck's bill, and mimed the act in question. Ser Lyonel arched his back like a cat, and the queer little furrow between Ser Manfred's eyes got a little deeper, a little more concerned. Perhaps he was worried about Ser Lyonel's reputation, but Dunk didn't think there was a man here who cared, and anyone who spoke an ill word about the Laughing Storm in the harsh light of day would surely get what was coming to them. He couldn't imagine anyone speaking against Ser Lyonel, anyway. He was a man of the people. One only had to watch the crowds when he tilted, observe their open, awe-struck faces. He was sure that even he had looked a fool, watching Ser Lyonel go nine rounds with Ser Robert Ashford, for his heart had been all the way up in his throat, and he, like everyone else, had been caught in the moment. And if he had noted a bit more than the men around him how the sun had flashed golden on Ser Lyonel's upturned, laughing mouth, if his gaze had lingered on the sweat-damp curls clinging to the man's forehead, well, that was his business and his alone.
"I think there probably was," Egg said.
This seemed to Dunk a foregone conclusion. "Of course, there probably was." There were men whose bodies remembered the promise made to Hugor of the Hill, when the Seven came down and proclaimed that he would be a king beyond the seas. 'Go forth and multiply,' they'd said – or at least, Ser Arlan had said, in his telling of the story. His attempts to educate Dunk had been infrequent and patchwork, but he'd done his best, and he'd only cuffed Dunk sometimes, when he was being particularly thick. But Dunk supposed that those were the sorts of men that the song was about, the men for whom desire came on fast and thick and cyclical, like the heats of hounds and the ruts of deer.
"Do you think her name was really Alice?" Egg asked. Ser Manfred had stepped forward, and had his hand on Ser Lyonel's shoulder. Dunk watched him bend his head down, whispering into the lord's ear. Ser Lyonel's response was to throw his head back and laugh, but there was a look on some of the faces around him – not all of them, only some – that mirrored Ser Manfred: something close to concern, but not (and this realization struck Dunk with the force of a runaway cart) in any genuine sort of way. He'd seen that look on countless faces in Flea Bottom, men and women who had glanced at half-dead children begging in the gutters, and for a moment there might have been some sympathy, but then it had slid away, cool and slick as rain.
The tent was terribly warm. Was it the wine, or something else? He didn't have any proper reason for his blood to be up, but he could feel it, his pulse hammering in his ears. "No," he said eventually, when the silence grew too long and it seemed to him that Egg wanted an actual answer. "I just think Alice is a nice name to write a song to."
Egg sipped his watered wine. He complained when he had to drink small beer, and he complained when he had to drink water they took from the creek, even though it was boiled first and everything, and Dunk realized that this was the first he hadn't heard his squire complain. The mite had expensive taste, which he supposed wasn't a bad thing, so long as he didn't let it go to his head. He thought about telling Egg not to grow too used to this, that a hedge knight's squire was more like to be supping on ground squirrel than venison, but his eye was dragged back to Ser Lyonel and Ser Manfred, who were arguing good-naturedly. Well. Good-naturedly on the part of Ser Lyonel, whose cheeks were flushed, eyes sparkling with mirth, while Ser Manfred was gesturing expansively.
"That means there was a cripple girl who was so good at pleasuring men in their bums that they saw fit to celebrate her in song, yet they could not bother credit to her true name?"
"Perhaps she wished to protect the men," Dunk said. "I reckon it were men with the blood of the Andals in them. You know."
"Not really." Egg kicked his feet, a little bit mournfully. "I haven't presented."
"Aye, and you might never. No shame in that."
"The songs make it sound dreadful."
"Songs make things bigger in the singing." Egg made a face, which made Dunk laugh. They both watched Ser Lyonel wave Ser Manfred off, and Ser Manfred threw his arms up in the air.
"Perhaps it is a story of honor," Egg said.
"Honor?"
"A misfortuned girl making the best of her natural gifts."
"One might wish for more," Dunk mused. Ser Manfred had spotted them – he did not think this was a difficult thing, as even sitting he was a head taller than everyone present – and was staring at Dunk with diamond-bright intensity. Dunk looked over his shoulder, but there was no one there to warrant such unblinking focus.
"But is this not the act of a dogged spirit?" Egg said. "Giving more than what is asked? 'The whole arm bone,' as it were."
"Perhaps the name doesn't matter." Ser Manfred was weaving through the crowd of people, now, making a beeline straight for them. Dunk hunched his shoulders, but there was no escaping it. He'd caught the lord's eye, and no amount of cringing was going to deter him.
The gods gave you tallness, man! So be tall!
He swallowed. Slowly straightened up. He'd been invited here, he told himself. Invited by Ser Lyonel Baratheon himself. He'd helped the Laughing Storm win the tug-of-war, he'd been recognized – well, Ser Arlan had been recognized – by Prince Baelor himself. Surely that was worth something, and yet he could not quite escape the feeling that any second now a stone would come flying at him, or a kick aimed at his knee, or any number of other small cruelties, as he'd known when he'd lived on the streets in Flea Bottom. Nothing good ever came of a titled man coming at you with such intensity.
If Egg had some sage wisdom to impart about the storied Alice, he did not get to say it, for Ser Manfred was upon them. He was also a bit red-faced, Dunk noted, and carried with him a waft of perfume, spicy and sweet. It reminded Dunk of pastries he'd smelled in Dorne; he'd never had the coin to try them, and Ser Arlan would never have given him leave to do so anyway, but sometimes he'd woken to that smell, of hot and heady spices from a distant land, and it had made his mouth water and his trousers tight in ways that had been terribly confusing to a lad of three and ten.
"You there," Ser Manfred said, "hedge knight. You've a strong back."
It didn't sound like a question, but Dunk nodded all the same. Part of his attention was still on Ser Lyonel, who had gotten back onto his feet and was dancing a spirited reel on the table. A few other men and one or two of the camp followers had crowded around him; some of them looked amused. Others had looks that Dunk recognized, but didn't make much sense, for they were hungry, hollow looks. He was sure he'd borne the same yearning emptiness in his own eyes, years and years ago.
"Good," Ser Manfred said, and grabbed Dunk by the arm, as if he meant to haul him to his feet. Dunk went easily enough, though he thought that, judging by the second where the lord struggled to move him, he could have remained right where he was until he was given an explanation. He was in too fine a mood, though, to be ornery, and it would have been a poor idea besides, to openly defy one of the Houses, even if Dondarrion wasn't one of the great Houses.
Still, a bit of explanation might be nice. "Ser," he said, as Ser Manfred pulled at him. Egg was looking a bit alarmed. "Ser, I've my squire with me–"
"For fuck's sake. I'll send you back to him as soon as things are dealt with."
"Go mind Thunder," Dunk said. "And see that he's brushed for the 'morrow, and that there's no stones in his hooves, neither."
"I just brushed him this morning!"
"An' if I say you'll brush him another dozen times tonight, that's what you'll do. Go on, now." And, because Egg was a good lad, he added, "Do a good job and I'll bring one of those molasses cakes back for you." It meant spending another penny that ought logically go towards more filling fare, but they had both feasted well tonight because of Ser Lyonel, so Dunk only felt a little twinge of unease, and even that was quickly soothed by Egg's beatific expression. He watched the boy hop down off the table, quaffing the rest of his drink as he did, and he watched as Egg darted off through the crowd, weaving like a pale fish through river grass, and he kept watching until the little bald head disappeared from sight, even though Ser Manfred was making noises.
"Finally," Ser Manfred said, once Dunk allowed himself to be moved again. He was dragged by the arm through the same crowd that Egg had woven so skillfully through, but where his squire had made it look graceful, the people simply parted to let Dunk pass, and if they didn't then they were budged roughly out of the way by Ser Manfred's leading shoulder. He never felt so big as when he was in a crowd of people, everyone looking up at him, marking him, expecting things of him. He'd lost count of how many girls had started to ask him 'Are you...?' only to cut themselves off, realizing that whatever he smelled like, it wasn't what they were looking for.
There was no shame in it, he'd told it true, and he didn't want Egg thinking that the only real men were the ones with knots or the ones with wombs blessed by the Seven, but gods, it did sometimes wear on him.
"Lyonel!" Ser Manfred shouted. They cut through the ring that had gathered around Ser Lyonel, still swaying on the table, his antlered crown askew. A few men didn't move, so Ser Manfred shoved them, and when one of them didn't shift even for that he made a deep, unhappy sound, and pushed Dunk towards the fellow. "Hedge knight, see this man off, will you?"
"My name is Ser Duncan the Tall, ser," Dunk said, but Ser Manfred didn't seem to care, and neither did the man he was gesturing at. He was one of the fellows with the hungry, hollow looks about them, and he must have drunken even more freely than Dunk or Ser Lyonel, because he was red all in the face and down his neck, and his mouth was half-open. Dunk could hear him sucking in whistling breaths even over the noise of the music and the crowd. He felt a bit bad for him; it was the perfume, maybe, because up here, by the lords' table, the smell of it was stronger. It was starting to make even him a bit dizzy.
"Sorry, ser," he told the man. He was a foot shorter than Dunk, and his shoulders were broad but Dunk reckoned he had a good seven stone or more on him at least. "You have to move, now."
The man's lip curled, like a dog's, but some measure of reason returned to his face. He shook his head slowly, and then he moved off, stumbling a bit; Dunk watched him go with a bit of concern. He walked like he was dreaming, not like he was drunk, but Ser Manfred didn't let him dwell on it for long. He pushed Dunk right up to the lords' table, where Ser Lyonel was swaying to and fro. The minstrels had transitioned from reel to ballad so seamlessly that Dunk had hardly noticed, probably to give the jongleurs a bit of a rest, but it meant that everything was a good amount quieter when Ser Lyonel looked down at him, beaming, and said, "Ser Dunk! Seven Hells, man where have you been? No dances left for your friend?"
A warm bloom of pride filled him. Friend. A sweet word from a sweeter mouth! Was it one he could count on when Ser Lyonel wasn't in his cups? Only time would tell, but for tonight it made his heart thrum double-time, and he could not hide his smile. Ser Lyonel crowed to see it.
"Come!" he shouted, and then tipped his head back and laughed, throaty and wild. The long line of his neck was sheened with sweat. "Come, my friend, a dance! Or two, or three!"
"No more dancing," Ser Manfred said. Ser Lyonel pouted down at them. He was the source of the perfume, Dunk realized – it floated off him, spiced and warm, tickling the hairs of Dunk's nose. He did rather want to dance with Ser Lyonel, but he didn't think it would be any proper sort of dance. Mostly a lot of...of rubbing, he thought. Probably not a wise idea, then. Greater men than he had probably had their pricks cut off for much less. And Ser Manfred looked very fierce indeed. "Lyonel, come down off the table."
"Shan't," Ser Lyonel said, sing-song. When Ser Manfred tried to reach for his ankle he danced back out of the way, quick as a summer storm, and then he stuck his tongue out. "Gods, but you're boring, Manfred! Live a little! You've got to...to grab life by the stones, man!"
"You're making a spectacle of yourself," Ser Manfred said. In truth, Dunk thought that Ser Lyonel wasn't making much more of a scene than he had the previous night, when they had performed their stomping dance through the tent, when he had first looked down into Ser Lyonel's eyes and at Ser Lyonel's red mouth and thought I could kiss him, and had been so terrified by the notion that he'd stepped rather harder than he'd meant to on the man's foot. But something must have been different tonight, because Ser Manfred was shaking his head.
"Big man," he said, and Dunk blinked. For a moment it had felt like a haze of sleep had fallen over him. He was, to his shame, not unaffected by the memory of Ser Lyonel so close to him, the saucy wink he'd thrown, the pink flash of his tongue. He was half-hard, but thank the Seven that his tunic gave him a bit of cover. No one would be able to tell so long as he was standing. He refocused on Ser Manfred, who was starting to look desperately frazzled. "You said you've a strong back." He tipped his chin up towards Ser Lyonel. "Get him down."
It was good as having a bucket of creek water dumped over him. Dunk stammered, but words weren't coming out – he couldn't think of any to say. Lay hands on a lord? And not just a lord, but the heir to Storm's End? The Laughing Storm himself? He was a man grown, a knight of renown, less a man and more a force of nature; Dunk could no more touch him than a fish could touch the clouds. Yet he felt his hands twitch with the wanting of it, and the thought of fitting his palms to that trim waist, lifting him the way he'd lifted those ladies last night who'd all wanted a go in the air...
"Get me off!" Ser Lyonel repeated. Drink and mockery made his silver tongue fumble, but he didn't sound offended, thank the Seven and every other god there had ever been or ever was. "You heard him, ser! Come, let's see those big paws of yours in action. Go on then!" He danced a bit closer, feet surprisingly nimble for a man whose every other limb seemed to have become liquid, and Dunk thought, this is another game. Like the dancing had been, like the tug-of-war had been. Ser Lyonel was issuing him a challenge, and if he failed it, if he was not forthright and true and decisive...
The thought of failing Ser Lyonel was as bad as the thought of touching a lord at all. Worse, maybe, because it made something deep and unhappy twist in his gut. And the consequences could not be too dire, he reassured himself, if both Ser Manfred and Ser Lyonel were telling him this was all right. Even if Ser Lyonel was making fun. He didn't much like Ser Manfred, but he and his liege lord were both men of honor, both knights sworn to truth and service to the realm. As long as he was gentle about it...
He did not have time to think. Maybe if he were a smarter man he would, but he could see his window closing, how Ser Lyonel was starting to turn, to flash away like a falling star, so Dunk reached out and grabbed for him.
He was faster than he looked, but he thought that Ser Lyonel was unbalanced as well, because Dunk caught him about the waist easy, with no more effort than if he'd grabbed a frog or a lizard off the ground. Easier, even, because frogs pissed on you if you held them, and Ser Lyonel only stood very still, trembling faintly under Dunk's hands. His waist was very slender, he realized, and while he couldn't get his palms all the way 'round, they did encompass a big span of skin, his thumbs resting over the jut of Ser Lyonel's hipbones, the heels of Dunk's hands pressing into the soft give of his belly. He wasn't a thin man, Ser Lyonel, but he was well-formed, and the muscles under Dunk's palms were sheathed steel. The fuzz on his belly was speckled with grey, but on his chest it was darker, black wires that stuck to his skin with sweat, a few threads of silver throughout. Dunk found himself memorizing patterns in the curls, the way he watched clouds when he was young. Everything seemed to have gone very still, and very quiet, as Ser Lyonel stared down at him, a flush high on his cheeks and his lips parted and his eyes so dark that Dunk could have put a foot in and fallen clean through.
"Fine," Ser Lyonel said. He had stopped swaying, but every few seconds Dunk could feel another tremor work its way through him. He didn't want to look away. "Fine, yes, yes, all right." He sounded distracted. He kept so many grand thoughts in that head of his, Dunk wondered what he was thinking that could divert him so – he wasn't paying close enough attention, and so it was a surprise when, instead of hopping down from the table like a man with reason, Ser Lyonel instead slung one leg over Dunk's shoulder. At first he thought that Ser Lyonel meant to mount him like a child playing at horses, and on instinct he grabbed handfuls of the first thing he could that felt stable.
"Ought I be worried for my maidenhead, Ser Duncan?" Ser Lyonel said. Dunk couldn't see his face – his eyes, his nose, his flaming cheeks, all were at a level with Ser Lyonel's groin, and Dunk didn't dare so much as whisper for fear that he would make a fool of himself – but he could hear the amusement in the lord's voice. He realized, with a bright spark of panic, that what his hands were gripping was no longer Ser Lyonel's hips, but the man's behind, which was...was...well.
"Ser," he said faintly.
"Maiden's bloody cunt, can we get a move on," Ser Manfred said, and the strength of the oath was what got Dunk's legs moving. Ser Lyonel had his thighs around Dunk's ears, and he couldn't see, but that was...that was all right, because this close to him that spiced, hot smell was overwhelmingly powerful. Like having hot wine in winter, it was, invigorating and comforting and delicious to the senses. He was more than half-hard at that point, and feared that his steps would show it, and it was only Ser Manfred's hand on his arm, guiding him, that gave him the confidence to put one foot in front of the other. All he could see was the black and gold of Ser Lyonel's breeches, and even his hearing was muffled. Ser Lyonel had a horseman's thighs, and kept his seat by clamping down around Dunk's ears. He could feel the flex of muscle in the man's arse every time he shifted.
"There's a good lad," he heard Ser Lyonel say. It was an odd tone he used, crooning and soft. "Good, strong lad, and all for me, hm? Lovely present just for me."
"Out here," Ser Manfred said. They had passed out of the hot, stinking press of the tent and into the chill of the evening. Dark was coming on, and Dunk spared a thought for Egg, who was with Chestnut and Thunder, and who would surely be keeping an eager, maybe even a concerned, watch out for Dunk's return. Then he thought of Ser Lyonel's eyes gazing down at him, and reasoned that as knights were charged to protect the innocent and serve their lords, it was probably all right that he was taking the time to make sure Ser Lyonel was all right before he returned to his bedroll. He'd clearly had too much to drink, after all, and Ser Manfred didn't seem all that interested in his friend's welfare.
Dunk exhaled sharply as clumsy fingers started carding through his hair. "Pretty," Ser Lyonel murmured, and then belched.
"I would apologize for getting you involved, hedge knight, but there's lords and ladies who'd gut a man to be in your position," Ser Manfred said. They were walking steadily up a slight hill; in truth, Dunk was more aware of Ser Lyonel than he was of the terrain. Every time the man swayed he felt it, and he knew when Ser Lyonel tossed his head back to look up at the sky. He felt the balance shift, heard the soft, indrawn breath, could almost sense the shift of the antlered crown. "The things I do for this man. Seven fucking hells. Gods bless the maester for bringing his stock of tansy."
"Tansy, ser?"
They paused, and just in front of them there rose the big, golden tent of House Baratheon, all decorated with antlers, banners snapping in the breeze, the crowned stag rampant. Ser Lyonel had moved on from petting Dunk's hair to petting his ears and cheeks. A thumb touched his mouth. "Always a bore, Manfred," Ser Lyonel said. He sounded a bit better, Dunk thought. A bit more clear-headed. Probably the evening air, which was thick with smoke from cookfires, but absent the stench of wine and beer. "And what if I did have a little fawn, hm? The next in line is Gowen, and we all know how that would go."
"Begging your pardon, sers," Dunk said, feeling suddenly, terribly, out of his depth. A niggling thought had occurred to him, but it was so beyond the pale, so outrageous – but why else talk of fawns and tansy? He'd never lain with a woman, nor a man blessed by the Mother, but he knew what moon tea was.
"Are you nose-blind, man?" Ser Manfred asked. The old refrain came to Dunk's lips – thick as a castle wall, slow as an aurochs – but he held it back with an effort. "Haven't you seen a heat come on before?"
Heat. A heat. Immediately, and without any choice in the matter, he remembered every scrap he'd ever heard about the Andals, how Hugor of the Hill had supposedly wed an equally-blessed Andal wife and between them had borne forty-four sons – half of them from his own womb, and half from his lady. And that was only what the septons said. There were a hundred songs, ranging from longing to lewd, about the legendary fertility of those with Andal blood, how they became like animals when their heats and ruts came upon them, how it was a fire that could only be quenched by a lover's caress. Ser Arlan had listened to the bawdier stories in the taverns where they'd sometimes rested, something wistful in his eye – women of Andal blood had breasts like mountain peaks, perfectly formed by the gods, and some of them had pricks, or so it was said, and men who married one as such were considered lucky, because those women bore twice as many sons as they did daughters. And there were no fiercer warriors than the men, so it went. There were stories of sons of the Great Houses birthing twins one day and rising the next to go to war, and all the stronger on the battlefield for it, for they fought then for their babes as well as their House.
It did explain quite a bit, Dunk thought. About Ser Lyonel.
He'd stayed silent for too long, though. He could hear the disbelief in Ser Manfred's voice when he said, "You didn't know."
"I could have told you that," Ser Lyonel said. "Green as new grass, this lad is. Fucking hells, it's cold as the Crone's tits out here. Bring me inside before I catch my death."
Dunk started. "Ser! Yes, ser." He tried to shift Ser Lyonel into the grip of one arm, but it was hard when he was being...well. Ridden. He heard Ser Manfred make another sound, this one painfully close to annoyance. Dunk's ears felt like they were on fire, and worse, his manhood didn't seem to find anything wrong with the situation, because not even his embarrassment had caused it to flag. Now it knew the source of that heavy perfume, and he couldn't get it out of his nose. Wet, he thought vaguely. Wet and ready. They said that in the songs, that both men and women gushed like waterfalls when their times came. He'd thought it sounded vaguely unsavory when he'd heard it as a lad, but now the thought sent a pulse of want through him so strong it just about knocked him out at the knees.
Get it together, Dunk, he told himself. This is Lord Lyonel Baratheon, not some peasant lad. He could have you clapped in irons. Or worse.
Slowly, carefully, he put one foot in front of the other. Ser Manfred held the tent open for him, and once they were inside Dunk breathed a sigh of relief, because at least now they weren't out in the open, where anyone could see and mark him...manhandling the heir of Storm's End.
"You can go now," Ser Lyonel said.
"At least let me put you down first, ser."
"Not you. You, stay. Manfred, get the fuck out."
"I'll just make sure Maester Sowyer has a nice big pot ready, shall I?"
"Or you could st...stop being such a bitter, joyless cunt." Ser Lyonel was swaying again, and humming a little under his breath. Dunk thought it might be 'The Lusty Lad' but he wasn't sure – he didn't think Ser Lyonel was sure, either. He kept stopping and starting again, and the notes wandered every which way. Dunk made his first tentative attempt to set the man down, and got clamped around the ears for his trouble. He vaguely heard the tent flap open, the soft hush of oiled canvas, the retreating mutter of Ser Manfred's unhappy oaths.
He was alone.
He was alone with a man in heat. A noble in heat. Him.
"I should go," he said faintly. As close as he was, he couldn't help but be intimately aware of every contour of Ser Lyonel's groin. The curve of his thighs around Dunk's cheeks. The bulge of his prick. Was he hard? Dunk couldn't tell. He felt like he was in a dream.
"Nonsense," Ser Lyonel said. He flexed his thighs like he was steering a horse, and in that way prompted Dunk, step by cautious step, further into the tent. Eventually he felt his knees bump against something more solid than a tent wall, and Ser Lyonel threw his head back and crowed in delight. "There we are," he said, and then abruptly sagged backwards, the antlered crown falling from his head and clattering off...somewhere. Dunk wasn't paying attention. He had his hands a bit full, of Ser Lyonel's arse, his thighs, holding his pelvis in place while the rest of the man bent back and back, his spine a graceful curve, his curls peeling back from his sweat-damp face revealing a broad, saucy grin. The position made the muscles of his abdomen ripple, made it so that Dunk looked at the dark hair on his chest and the little brown coppers of his nipples and he couldn't stop looking.
"Gently, lad," Ser Lyonel said. It was a bed he was standing in front of, the lord's bed, covered in thick, soft furs and silks and pillows no doubt stuffed with goose down. Dunk swallowed, and slowly lowered Ser Lyonel down, gently as he was bid, until the man's back was on the furs and his hair was spread around his head like a coronet; he was a vision of black and silver and sun-kissed skin, and Dunk looked at his hands, big and rough from chopping wood and mending clothes and currying horses, and thought that he wasn't worthy of touching something that was so obviously precious. Ser Lyonel wore his nobility on his skin: silver in his hair, pearls in his teeth, mouth red as a ruby. It felt like stealing, that Dunk was touching him so easily. It felt like he'd gotten away with something, even though Ser Lyonel was smiling at him.
"Ser," he said. He didn't know what to do. He'd been bid not to go, but now he was just standing there, clumsy and huge, and the air was dense with the smell of Ser Lyonel's heat, heavy and humid as a storm.
"I think we can dispense with the fucking...formalities," Ser Lyonel said. He stretched out, long and sinuous like a cat. His hips lifted from the bed.
"M'lord?"
"Call me Lyonel." Dunk stammered, ser and m'lord and beggin' your pardon all fighting to make their way out of him. Ser Lyonel put a booted foot against Dunk's chest. It ought have been insulting, except with his leg stretched out like that his breeches rode up at the calf, and Dunk caught a glimpse of Ser Lyonel's ankle, pale and surprisingly delicate. "That's an order, ser."
"Lyonel," he said, and Ser...and Lyonel arched up off the bed, grinning at the ceiling like a mad thing. "I don't...what do you need of me?"
It seemed the safest question to ask. Part of him still thought that the answer might be easy, like fetch me a cup of water or get the fuck out of my tent. He wasn't so lucky.
"What I need is a good, hard fuck," Lyonel said. All of Dunk's blood – or what little of it that was left in parts not his prick – went rushing south with such a speed that a dizzy spell struck him. "What I need from you is to know if you're amenable."
"A...amenable?"
"Have you ever tupped one of the Seven's get, hedge knight?" Dunk watched as Lyonel's hands skirted around the waist of his breeches, as they fumbled clumsily with the leather ties. He had strong hands, callused, the knuckles sharp and scarred. A knight's hands. Not the delicate, beautiful creatures in the songs, but just a man like any other. Maybe it's more like when a woman's moon blood comes, he thought, and that was reassuring. This wasn't some...some storied thing. It was just two bodies, two men in a tent, wanting each other.
Oh. Lyonel wanted him. That was...he hardly dared to think it again. He had to think at it sideways, in fact, like he was sneaking up on a rabbit. Lyonel had let Dunk pick him up, and handle him, and carry him back to his big, comfortable tent, and now he was all splayed out, not gold or rubies but warm, touchable flesh, and...
"I haven't tupped anyone," Dunk said. An admission that felt like pulling a tooth; not one he'd ever had cause to feel ashamed of, for a knight's first duty was to the realm, except now he was tenting his breeches as he stood over a beautiful man asking about his prowess.
But Lyonel just kept grinning at him, a sharper look. In the more generous songs they compared men of Andal blood to hounds, but Lyonel was a stag through and through, proud and challenging. Dunk had to fight with the urge to fall to his knees.
"Come here," Lyonel said. His voice was a low, sweet hum. "Unless you don't want to lay with me, in which case..."
It was only because Dunk was looking so hard that he saw – or thought he saw – something like disappointment in Lyonel's dark eyes. He scrambled to assuage it, almost falling over himself when his knees bumped the edge of the bed. He put his palms down on the furs instead, his smallest finger brushing Lyonel's hip.
"I think you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said, and was rewarded with another broad, blinding grin, and a throaty chuckle as Lyonel finally managed to get the ties to his breeches undone.
"Do you ride, Ser Dunk?"
"Yes, m'l–Lyonel."
"Good. Then come here." Even if Dunk had wanted to back away, he found that he suddenly couldn't. Lyonel had swung his legs up and around Dunk's waist, and was pulling him down with inexorable strength onto the bed. He had very little choice but to let it happen, and then he was on top of Lyonel, almost crushing him down into the bed, while a laughing mouth pressed feverish kisses to his cheek, his eyebrow, the lobe of his ear. Lyonel's hands roamed everywhere, even down the back of Dunk's breeches to cup his arse through his smallclothes. "Big lad," Lyonel said appreciatively. "Big everywhere, hm? Big hands, big thighs...all for me."
Lyonel undressed him with the same clumsy, unhurried movements as he had untied his own breeches. When Dunk's tunic came off it was flung over the side of the bed, and he wasn't even sure where his breeches or boots went when those came off. That same dreamlike quality suffused everything: Lyonel's hands on his back, fingers splayed to feel the flex of his shoulders; Lyonel's mouth pressing firmly against his, a hot, slick tongue pressing inside, the taste of wine at the back of his throat; his nose pressed to Lyonel's neck, breathing in the source of that spicy, warm smell. He tried to help where he could, but he'd gone thick and stupid, and he couldn't seem to get his hands to work, so the only thing he did, really, was pull Lyonel's boots and stockings off, and then hold his bared foot in his lap, marveling at how soft the skin of his ankle was, dragging a finger up and down over the bone until Lyonel laughed. It was a fond sound, and Dunk ducked his head to hide how he blushed.
He stared again when Lyonel's trousers and smalls came off, but this time the man seemed content to let Dunk look. There wasn't any silver in the thatch of hair around his cock, and his manhood was thick but only half-hard. His stones were smaller and higher up than Dunk's own, although still densely furred, but the true difference between them was the wet sheen that coated Lyonel's thighs, the smell of spice and lightning and heat rolling off of him, the pouting red edges of the slit that Dunk could just barely see. He'd never given much thought to how men like Lyonel were formed. He'd barely given any thought to how women were formed, except there were a lot more songs and stories written about that.
The sight of it, the way their bodies differed, gave Dunk pause. He spoke without thinking, "Is it true...?" and then stopped, unsure if it was an offensive question. Lyonel's response was to roll his eyes, stick out his foot, and plant it directly over Dunk's groin; it drove the air right out of him, a sudden, pleasurable rush.
"Recall what I said about the gods giving you tallness?" he said, and Dunk, nodded, trying to straighten up even though what he wanted was to hunch over Lyonel's foot and rub himself off against his leg like a hound.
"I've heard stories say that...those blessed by the Mother can only, ah, find pleasure with others like them...?"
"Utter shit," Lyonel said immediately, and then blinked, slow and considering. "You aren't?"
"No, ser. Lyonel."
"All the better for me, that I shan't be stuck on a great fucking knot for hours. Pleasurable as that is, I still need to ride tomorrow." He laughed at Dunk's unsure expression. "Chin up, man! Get your smalls off, let me see what you're working with, and I'll tell you then if you can please me."
He couldn't tell what emotion ran hotter: his fear or his longing. Still, Dunk obeyed. He couldn't imagine saying 'no,' not just because Lyonel was a lord, but because he was looking at Dunk like...like that, with his lip caught between his teeth and a smile in his eyes. This must be what it feels like to serve a good lord, Dunk thought, and finished untying his smallclothes, and pushed them over his hips. Lyonel blinked muzzily down at him, at where Dunk's prick had bobbed up towards his belly, and his mouth opened. Dunk caught a flash of his quick, pink tongue, and then Lyonel was laughing, big, rolling laughs like the beat of hooves or the peal of a thunderhead, but not mean. Dunk thought about riding Thunder, the day after the old man had died, how he'd taken the big stallion out for a gallop through a muddy field, how fast they had gone, how joy had bubbled up in him like a spring and the only way he'd been able to let it out had been to laugh like a loon at the empty sky.
"Good gods, you've been carrying a whole bloody tree in your trousers and you were worried about that not being enough? Come here. Lovely, sweet Duncan." He shivered, and Lyonel grinned at him. "Ser Duncan," he said, and Dunk laid over him, braced his forearms on the bed so he could rub his nose against the shelf of Lyonel's jaw. He was trembling. He didn't know why.
"You don't have to," he said. Lyonel tipped his head up so that they were looking each other in the eye.
"No," he said easily, "but you shake so prettily when I do."
Then they were kissing again, and the beard was new and strange and exciting instead of awkward, and Lyonel's hand, where it was cupped to the back of his skull, was big and strong, and it didn't feel anything at all like the awkward kisses he'd shared with that milkmaid north of Grassy Vale, where she'd had to stand on her own pail in order to reach him. There was no doubt as to who was in control, because Lyonel pushed and pulled at him, directed his head with tugs to his hair or a thumb pressed to the hinge of his jaw, swept in and took him until he was panting and grinding helplessly down, their pricks slotted together, sliding in the mess of slick between Lyonel's legs.
He felt Lyonel's foot hook behind his leg, but didn't even think to tense until his balance was abruptly upended, and it was too late by then to do anything but let it happen. Lyonel rolled him, and the bed was so big that he wasn't hanging off it at all, and now Lyonel was sitting astride him and grinning.
"Recall that I asked if you rode?" he said, and Dunk nodded, watching with breathless anticipation as Lyonel took hold of his manhood. It didn't look so large when Lyonel was holding it, he thought. But then, Lyonel was only half a head shorter than he was, and he had big hands, hands that were used to holding sword and shield. His fingers circled Dunk's whole cock with easy confidence, like it was just another weapon, and he moved with surprising grace considering how much he'd drunk that night, and the knocks he'd taken in the tourney, as he lifted himself up with his knees braced astride Dunk's hips. "You'll know this dance, then."
Then he hitched himself a bit forward, and the head of Dunk's prick brushed against flesh wet and blood-hot, and then inside.
He had nothing to compare it to. Nothing that sufficed. His own fist was rough and ungainly by comparison; this was living, rippling warmth, clutched tight around him as a well-made glove. Lyonel lowered himself down an inch, and then another, sweat dripping down into his eyes. He still wasn't fully hard, but inside he was fluttering and slick and the most perfect thing Dunk had ever felt.
"Oh, gods," he heard himself say, which made Lyonel laugh, a breathy, rousing cackle that boomed around the tent. He slid down another inch, then held there, thighs quivering.
"Bloody buggering fuck," he gasped. "Thought it'd be easier on my cunny than my arse. Should've ridden your fingers first. Fucking hells. Shit. Don't you dare apologize." Dunk, his mouth open to do just that, snapped his gob shut so hard his teeth clicked. It was hard to think through the haze of hot, wet, tight, but the notion that he'd hurt Lyonel somehow still stung.
Like riding, he realized. When a horse was pained, you covered their heads to distract them. There was nothing in here to distract Lyonel, no wine, no pretty ladies, no conversation while he worked himself down with agonizing slowness. What did the songs say, then? Nothing of much use. Lots of ruminations on breasts and naught else. Experimentally, Dunk skated his fingers up over the ladder of Lyonel's ribs. Brushed the pad of his thumb over one nipple. Felt it like a sweet shock of lightning as the muscles around his cock rippled and clenched, so he did it again. The flesh tightened, pebbled up into pretty little copper discs. His palm covered Lyonel's breast; he kneaded with his fingertips and Lyonel groaned, and sank a little more. He reached for Dunk's other hand and dragged it back to his arse, lean and muscled, the crack of it damp with sweat. Dunk could feel where his prick was spearing up into Lyonel's body, and the velvet tight furl of his arsehole, wet from the slick that had dripped from Lyonel's cunt, all of it greedy and grasping at him.
"Yes," Lyonel hissed, "yes, do it, good lad–" His breath hitched as Dunk pressed at him, just a questing little touch; the way he was soaking Dunk's lap was a more obvious tell. "Fill me up, sweet boy, my dear, want to feel you at the back of my throat..."
It was bedroom talk, Dunk knew – all the little endearments, the compliments, they wouldn't mean anything on the morning, but right now they did his head in, made him feel liquid and strong as an ox all at once. He supposed that was the real reason people found those blessed by the Mother so appealing. He felt a proper man, strong and careful, a protector, a knight, not just a big, dumb lunk with no armor and a dead man's sword.
He pressed a bit harder, and Lyonel's own slick eased the way; Dunk sank his finger in up to the first knuckle, and it was enough to make Lyonel yowl like a cat and drive himself down onto Dunk's prick. His chest heaved in bellows, a red flush from cheeks to chest, a bead of sweat hanging from the tip of his nose. Dunk couldn't even smell wine on him anymore, just spiced heat and musk and the sour-sweet smell of his cunt, which finally kissed the base of Dunk's cock with a wet slide and a shuddering moan from Lyonel's trembling mouth.
"Gods," he said, "gods," and then, thighs shaking, lifted himself up the slightest bit and dropped back down. The sound of it was obscene. "Mm. You're a fucking sight, hedge knight. Never seen eyes so blue before. How no one's snatched you up..." He tossed his head; for a moment Dunk imagined him with the antlers of his House, an old god, lusty and wild. He blinked and the vision cleared, but Lyonel was peering down at him, his grin a white slash in the flickering candlelight, his eyes bright with joy. Dunk wiggled his finger, still knuckle-deep inside him, and pulled a moan from that sweat-damp, stubbled throat. "Fuck. What I'd give to have you in both holes at once. Or your prick in my arse and your hand in my cunt. Oh, don't...."
"Shh," Dunk said. Lyonel whined, high and needy, when he slipped his finger free. Like riding, he reminded himself, dizzy with how hard he was, how the pleasure sparked and crackled up and down his spine. A man needed to have both hands on the reins to ride properly. "I've got you." He put his hands on Lyonel's hips – marveled at how much of him he could touch between the span of his fingers (perhaps there was something to be said for being big after all) – and then lifted him up, a slow, sweet drag along his cock that made Dunk moan and Lyonel's eyes fall shut.
It was like riding. Lyonel rising up, the silken walls of his cunt clinging, and then falling down again with a grunt, only for Dunk to catch him and help him rise again. The rhythmic slap of skin on skin was loud as a drumbeat, or the thundering of hooves, and every time he bottomed out Lyonel's eyes rolled back in his head and he said the most beautiful, filthy things. "Duncan," he said, as if that were real and not a name that Dunk had chosen, as if he were a knight, like he had the right to be touching and giving pleasure to such a man. "Put your fuh...fucking back into it, man," he said, and so Dunk met him on each downward slide, short, sharp jabs that made them both moan with the impact. "Sweet dove, my very dear, gods, there, yes, yes," he said, and Dunk had never been compared to anything but cows before, so being called a dove, a dear, a sweet boy. It did something odd to his insides, made him feel soft even though he'd never been harder in his life.
"Lyonel," he said, awed that he could say it all, that for however brief a time he was allowed...and then Lyonel leaned down, and their mouths caught and held, barely kissing at all, just messy tongue and lips and breathing hard into each other as Dunk fucked up into Lyonel as hard and as fast as he could. He was close, terribly close; he fumbled one-handed between them, found Lyonel's prick and rubbed his thumb over the hot, wet head of it, the velvet foreskin, still not fully hard but maybe that was normal because Lyonel groaned into his mouth, and sucked at his bottom lip.
"That's it," he said. The words seemed to vibrate at the back of Dunk's teeth. "Fuck. Harder, damn you! Spill in me, fucking hells, yes, give me, ah, a little blue-eyed fawn to…to…!"
He couldn't think of it. He'd go mad from wanting it if he did, so Dunk grit his teeth and tugged at Lyonel's prick, two firm strokes slick with pre and Lyonel's own fluids, and then he was coming and he couldn't hold it off any longer, waves of sharp pleasure cresting and rolling across him. He fucked Lyonel through it, the sound wet and filthy, fucking his own seed deeper with each thrust, and he hadn't been blessed by the Father but for a moment he wished he had been, that he could fill Lyonel's cunt so full of himself that it wouldn't have any choice but to catch.
He felt Lyonel's own peak around him, clenching and rippling, and a spurt of wetness over his fist while Lyonel moaned into his mouth. It felt like it went on forever, the way men described earthquakes and great storms – how seconds felt like hours, and he knew it couldn't have been longer than a minute, but by the time the aftershocks finished shivering through him he could have sworn that the whole night had passed. Dunk collapsed back onto the bed, and Lyonel draped across him, Dunk's prick still buried, twitching, inside him. They were both breathing heavily, covered in sweat and seed. His groin felt a proper, sticky mess the likes he hadn't felt since he was a young man, discovering all the arcane ways his body could feel good; he felt young, young and strong and like he could do anything at all so long as he could come back to this beautiful, noble man's bed at the end of the day.
If I do well in the tourney, he thought, for even a moment, if I don't shame myself, maybe...maybe...
It was a fantasy, of course. But it was a nice one, and he entertained himself with it for several minutes, sweeping his hand up and down Lyonel's back, petting his hair, listening to him breathe. Eventually, though, he softened enough that he felt a wet rush of seed trickle out over his groin, and Lyonel made a noise into his chest.
"Gods, that's filthy," he muttered, and then reached down behind himself. Dunk couldn't see what his fingers were doing, but he imagined them, with their sword calluses and their scarred knuckles, probing at Lyonel's wet, open cunt. "Worth it. Worth the soiled sheets. Worth the bloody moon tea, even."
Oh. It was just bedroom talk after all. He hadn't really thought that...it had been a very stupid thought. A stupid thing to want, that he hadn't even known he did want it until this very eve. Like how children didn't know they wanted a toy until they spotted a merchant selling them. Dunk let his hands go still. He cleared his throat.
"I could, ah. Go and find Ser Manfred, ser. He...he said he'd have the maester..."
"Manfred's back at his tent balls-deep in whores by now," Lyonel said. "I'll drink the fucking tea later. In a day or two. Heat's only just come on." He sounded far more sober than before; he sounded like he wanted to be anything but sober. He lifted up his head, propping his chin on his hands and staring at Dunk, his eyes heavy-lidded. "You weren't thinking it was done, were you? Mine sometimes last a week. I'll be ready to go again in, hm, another hour or two."
Dunk's eyes crossed a bit at the thought, and his prick twitched again. Lyonel shifted in his lap and grinned.
"I expect you to fuck me as many times as you're able, seeing as you haven't a knot to stick me with. Would you like that, Duncan?"
"Y...yes. Yes ser."
"And if I'm not walking bandy-legged on the 'morrow you'll just have to do it all again tomorrow night."
"Gods," Dunk said, and was hiding his blushing face in Lyonel's neck when a thought struck him.
"Lyonel?"
"Hm?"
"Does this mean I get the hundred gold? For sticking you best."
He felt Lyonel's shoulders start to shake, and then that became laughter, big and booming as he rolled off of Dunk and sprawled onto the bed next to him, arms and legs out like a star, cackling at the ceiling of the tent. Dunk found himself laughing, too, and maybe it was the laughter that made him bold enough to take Lyonel's hand up, to bring it to his mouth and kiss the first knuckle, and then the next, until he'd anointed each of them. If he asked me to be his man I would, he thought. There was no doubt in it. No hesitation. He'd heard the word 'devotion' tossed about, of course, but this was the first time he'd ever felt it.
He had another week, maybe. Not only to prove himself in the tourney, but to prove himself here, in the bedchamber, and...and in other ways, maybe. If he could make Lyonel laugh, if he could please him, if he could prove that he was steadfast and true...
He let himself think of it. Just briefly, chary like he was peeking 'round a corner. Let himself think of a little babe with dark curls and blue eyes and the biggest smile he'd ever seen. He didn't think it was possible, not for true, but it made him grin, quick and helpless, as he listened to Lyonel's chuckles slow, and his breathing even out, and then a soft, whistling snore start up next to him. Sleeping the sleep of the wine-sodden and well-fucked. Ridden hard and put away wet, Dunk thought fondly.
In a few hours, maybe Lyonel would have him again. And a few hours after that, and then tomorrow evening, and as long as Lyonel would keep him.
After all, Dunk was determined to be a good knight. And a good knight knew how to keep to his saddle no matter how winding the trail.