Chapter Text
Ashford Meadow
The Reach, Westeros
209 AC, start of the sixth moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dawn had brought a sharp chill to the air in Ashford Meadow.
The eager crowd was loud, unbearingly so - until the pleading words of the hedge knight brought it to sudden silence.
Laela, daughter of Prince Maekar Targaryen and his firstborn, was sitting next to the Lord Ashford and Lady Gwin Ashford in the royal high box in front of the tourney field where the Trial of Seven was to be held.
For how little she had slept, she was painfully wide awake. A restless energy ran through her, knowing her family was right at the heart of this ill-fated mess.
The hedge knight, Ser Duncan, was now asking the so-called noble lords and knights of Westeros whether they would fight by his side. Who of them would fight at the side of honour. She was not surprised no one stood up. Laela had met many lords and knights of plenty noble houses in all her twenty years, yet she could count the truly honorable ones on her two hands.
This was it, then. So it would end. Not with strength but with alliance. Or lack thereof.
Laela took a breath and exhaled slowly. She felt for the hedge knight. Truly. Yet, being spared to watch her father, Daeron, and even careless Aerion fight against seven others was a relief like no other she’d felt before. Even though Aerion should, at least for once, have to face his own consequences, at least her father and other brother would not have to risk their own lives for it this time.
Ashford meadow was silent. A collective breath was held, it seemed. At any moment, Laela expected, the end of the trial would be announced.
Suddenly, a loud noise was heard beneath the royal box as the two grand wooden doors were slanted open and a giant horse galloped through. The horse and its rider rode to the middle of the tourney field before turning before the crowd.
“I will take Ser Duncan’s side.” A calm but confident voice said. A familiar voice.
The man on the large, black destrier had taken off his helmet to show the face of none other than the heir apparent to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The crowd fell silent at once, nobles even rising in their seats to get a better look. No one believing what their eyes saw to be true.
Prince Baelor Targaryen. Joining the accused.
Laela couldn’t breathe.
Why, why, why, was uncle Baelor there?
Was she now also to watch her uncle Baelor participate in this ridiculous farce of a trial? As if it was not enough that her father himself was participating, as well as making Daeron too, just for the supposed honour of her arrogant, cruel, little brother.
Her father could scarcely believe it too, it seemed.
“Have you taken leave of your senses? This man attacked my son!” Maekar exclaimed to his brother.
Baelor remained calm under the scrutiny.
“This man protected the innocent. As every true knight must.” Replied her uncle.
“Let the gods determine if he was right or wrong.” He added with finality.
Both men turned their horses then to ride to their side of the trial. Laela saw it at once: the Targaryen three-headed red dragon on the breast plate of Baelor’s armour. Yet she was sure she’d heard her father talk of how his older brother had not even bothered to bring his own armour, in contrast to the younger one.
Maekar was always prepared for battle, Baelor for court.
The borrowed armor Baelor wore could only be Valarr’s armor. Even Valarr’s warhorse was now Baelor’s horse.
She tried to see said cousin, but he must have helped his father put on the heavy armor and still be down there somewhere.
Lord Ashford’s young septon was making it difficult to concentrate her thoughts. The septon’s booming voice was heard across the field, standing in front of the viewing stand where Laela was seated next to the lord himself and that silly young girl Gwin, the excuse lord Ashford used for holding a tourney only for his own personal betterment.
Aegon had chosen to stand at the side lines instead of in the box with the other lords and ladies to show support for his knight. Her loyal boy.
The septon was speaking of the Gods now, calling upon the Seven to look down and judge this dispute, and grant victory to the men whose cause was just. What a joke, Laela thought. Victory would be granted to whoever had the strongest knights, the cleverest strategy and vilest weapons. And all knew the chances a hedge knight had against a prince of the blood of the dragon.
Though the odds were balanced more to the middle with her uncle participating now too. He was a fierce and renowned warrior, she’d heard the Redgrass stories many times before.
Baelor Breakspear was standing at the south end of the field situated upon his black destrier, strategizing with the other defenders. She wondered what he said to them. What could be said at a time like this.
She would never know, but the results of their strategy would make themselves known soon enough.
———————————
The trial was a brutal blur of clashing weapons, men shouting, horses running rampant, and the unmistakable feeling of good lives wasted. Laela did not want to look, but could scarcely keep her eyes off the field. Her family was there, fighting each other. The men she loved with all her heart, risking their lives for what each believed a noble cause. She liked to think so, at least, since she knew her father only did so out of love for her brother, and what more noble was there to defend your family?
Or maybe that is what she used to believe, for why else would she now believe Baelor’s cause the most noble of all? He had the least reason to be there, yet he had thought it prudent enough to join the defenders. As a true knight must, he had said. She longed to tell him so, that she thought him the noblest of all. She prayed with all her might she would still be able to tell him afterwards. That all of them would walk away from this foolish trial unscathed. She kept repeating these prayers to herself while men were dying in front of her and the Gods supposedly were choosing a side.
Men.
With her eyes she followed her father now, a magnificent knight of his own might, the Anvil, they called him. She had never before seen him in actual battle, only on the training field. He was simply breathtaking.
Maekar was throwing two men off of him, Lyonel Baratheon and another. Laela did not understand his sudden feralness. He seemed solely focused on getting somewhere, not caring who he hurt in the process. He swung his mace left and right, hitting anyone coming in his way.
But uncle Baelor was there, too! Her father might strike him, with this carelessness, this blindness to get to….her brother?
So that was what she was hearing!
Aerion was weeping and yelling for their father, being beaten by the hedgeknight! How pathetic, he could just yield! But his pride was still in the way, having their father solve his problems must be the least pathetic course, in his stupid head, she thought. As if that was not more cowardly. It is how he was raised though, she supposed.
Maekar did not stand for any ill to befall his children. For good or for worse. Only his own hands could deal any correcting blows. Laela had always felt like an outsider to that, though, being the firstborn to parents who were children themselves at that time, and of course she was a girl.
Her father was still not even paying attention to anything or anyone but that stupid boy, and Maekar was getting closer to Baelor now? No…Baelor was getting closer to him! What are they doing? Laela’s heart was beating so loud now, and her hands were gripping her dress so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
Someone had to do something, anything, to stop this madness! But the Fossoways were occupied together at the far end of the field, Lyonel Baratheon was fighting the remaining King’s Guard away from Maekar, and… wait. Should the King’s Guard not be defending both Maekar and Baelor? The actual heir? She loved her father, but he would not be a good king. Not like Baelor would. Not even thinking about her other uncles in that regard.
There it was…
Baelor was in Maekar’s path now - just to keep him from getting to the hedgeknight - striking a blow that Maekar blocked with his shield. All, so Ser Duncan and Aerion could decide this trial between the two of them, as should have happened from the start in her unasked opinion.
She knew what would happen now. What could only happen now.
Before she knew what she was doing, Laela had stood up and gone to the railing.
“Nooooo! Father, nooo!”, she screamed at the top of her lungs before her father could swing his mace at her uncle.
Recognizing his daughter’s voice, Maekar hesitated for a second before swinging his mace again, but this time Baelor had put his full shield up and dejected the hit.
Maekar had now recognized his opponent as his brother, and she could hear her father shout for Baelor to “get out of his fucking way”. Her uncle would not, however, and they dealt blows back and forth. When she had thought her father would finally stop this nonsense, her younger brother let out another wailing sound at him. Once again, Maekar forgot all else and roughly swung his mace at Baelor, striking him hard across the back of his helmet. The blow looked brutal enough and probably would have felled a lesser man, but her uncle only staggered a step with it and remained on his feet, turning as his brother ran to his second son, who was weeping in the mud now.
It struck her then that she was still standing and gripping the railing and released the wood at once with a shuddering breath. Seeing her uncle safe, she slumped back into the seat and returned her gaze to her brother and Ser Duncan. The hedgeknight had gotten some malicious blows to the head, but her brother was not faring that much better with his injuries.
It seemed Aerion had yielded at last, and breath returned to Laela’s lungs.
As soon as the horn sounded the end of the trial, Laela was on her feet. She hurried down the wooden steps beside the royal platform, near stumbling in her haste, one hand gathering her skirts high to keep from tripping on the cloth. She had to get to them.
Her father was with Aerion now, helping him upright and barking for a “fucking maester to get there at once”.
She saw her uncle with the defenders, helping Duncan up together with the Fossoway boy.
They were injured. All of them! She did not know where to go first. Daeron was taken away by men she remembered not, but who surely must be part of their House as they wore the unmistakable Targaryen black and red.
Slightly limping, her father passed right by Laela to follow after Aerion as he was carried away with the elderly maester next to them. He had not even seen her there, not even acknowledged his own daughter standing about splintered lances and broken shields in her satin slippers and silk dress, silver gold hair loose at her back. Wholly out of place, frightened for her kin and wanting to aid however she could.
The tears did not register until they fell from her eyes. Her father had always seen her brothers first, not Laela. But back then her mother had been there to see her. Now there was no mother anymore.
Laela wiped her cheeks. Here was no place for weeping. Not when she had not even seen to the fate of the one she cared for most in this wretched place.
She kept her skirts up to run across the muddy and bloody field and had to avoid stepping into the debris left behind from the carnage. Metal and wood was strewn everywhere, and the few unfortunately slain knights, the two Humfreys and a King’s Guard, were carried off. She hastened her pace, running to where she had seen Ser Duncan’s group go inside one of the passageways beneath the stands.
Voices echoed faintly, she was almost there.
And then the voices became clear - Ser Duncan’s first, and another answering - her uncle!
“I need good men, Ser Duncan.” Her uncle Baelor said.
The answer was lost to her. Then Baelor was speaking again, even giving advice, telling the others to use wine for their wounds. He was a clever man, her uncle, her kepa, and he sounded like the Baelor she had known so well all those years ago. Before.
It was not her place to listen, yet Laela lingered all the same, unwilling to make her presence presently known for reasons she could not name.
“Ser Raymun, my helm, if you’d be so kind. The visor is cracked.” She heard uncle Baelor say.
Was he wearing one? Last Laela had seen him, talking to the Fossoway boy before leaving the field, she could clearly see his perfectly imperfect teeth beneath the helmet. No visor.
A lot of knights had lost parts of their armor in the trial, metal flying about the field in the fighting and her uncle had not been spared in the slightest. She had tried to focus on Baelor and her father as much as she could during the trial.
“Queer. My fingers feel like… wood.”
That could not be good…
Laela decided to enter at last.
“Uncle…?”
In her violet dress, she was a vision to behold. Her bodice was a light purple, while her skirts were the exact same deep violet as her eyes. Myrish lace trimmed the sleeves and edges of the skirts. A treasured gift from Dyanna. She had put on her best dress today, to make up for the nerves she felt because of the trial. But Baelor did not see her, though he would recognize his niece’s voice anywhere and was glad she sought him out.
“My dear. It seems your uncle’s age is catching up with him. Fighting is not what it used to be”, the prince said. He looked tired, with sweat and blood on his face, but still he had a small smile for her.
“Shall I help you, my prince?” She did not know why she said it, it was not as if she knew much about armor. She moved her weight from one foot to the other.
Her uncle, though, seemed pleased at her question, albeit surprised.
“Only if it is not too much trouble, darling.”
“Of course not, kepa.”
Baelor’s black armor was dinted and scarred by the many blows he sustained during the trial.
He was a tall man, and Laela had to stand on the front of her feet to fully reach the clasps at his shoulders.
Steely Pate commented on the state of the prince’s armour, walking around him.
“Your helm is crushed in the back, your grace. Good steel, to hold a strike like that.” He commented.
“My brother's mace, most like”, the prince replied. Baelor had an almost boyish, proud look on his face when he said it. “He’s strong”.
Laela knew all about her father’s strength. She had seen him practice in the training yard at dawn in Summerhall every time he was there.
But her uncle was strong too. He was not called the Hammer for no reason. She felt his muscles as she unclasped the last of the ties keeping the breastplate in place and freed his arms too of the steel around them.
Now the helmet.
Standing on her toes, she put her hands against the cold steel and lifted the metal from the prince’s head. Baelor lowered slightly to give Laela easier access. He grimaced when she touched upon the helmet and winced involuntarily when moving the helm up from his head.
“By the Seven..” She heard Steely Pate exclaim from behind him.
Laela looked into the helmet in her hands, the inside red with blood.
Baelor staggered a few steps, his eyes unfocused, until he collapsed to the ground.
Laela rushed to him, just when Ser Duncan was holding Baelor up sitting where he had gone down.
“No! Baelor, uncle, please!” Laela said, horror on her face, her hands on his arm.
Baelor blinked in her direction, his eyes still unfocused.
“My dear…”, he breathed out.
He tried to focus on her again, and then his eyes closed and his head fell down, his body going limp.
The prince had fallen, his fate uncertain.