THE PECKING ORDER - BARATHEON SAGA EXCERPT

"I have never known boys or girls whose greatest pleasure arose from tormenting others, not in this life. I have known no one like that in this life. These guardians would not allow such a child near me." 

Cosseted, sheltered Rainer never imagined children could be so cruel and inherit prejudices of rank. Those lordlings. He'd heard time and again about the pecking order at Lichterfelde, the finest cadet college in the land, but when he got to know it first hand... It was unfair. 

Though he was so eager, from the moment he got the prospectus with the timetable...

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‘The way he goes on with his studies. He does everything he would do at Lichterfelde, and at exactly the same time that they do it.’

‘Bayonet practice you mean?’

‘Everything. He got the prospectus with their timetable straight away when he thought he was going. He gets up at six and salutes the Kaiser's picture – he can’t do proper reveille because he hasn’t got a bugle – but then he has his cold bath and does his exercises and then he has a kit inspection. He inspects everything and if something isn’t absolutely clean he polishes it. Then he does drill – all before breakfast – and then he arranges his tin soldiers on the carpet; he sets up a different battle every week. At the moment he’s doing the campaigns of Frederick the Great. . .’ All in a day's work: the fencing lesson, the horse riding, the shooting practice. . . ‘And he has to do everything himself. ’

Rainer's twelfth birthday present that spring took a long time to unwrap; inside the embossed paper was a leather box with the monogram Zwingli and Hammerman, goldsmiths to the president of Switzerland, stamped on the side. Inside the box were several layers of green felt, and inside that was a statuette, in pure silver, of General von Moltke on his horse.

The next two weeks were spent in getting him ready for Lichterfelde. This was not a simple matter. Now Rainer had a list of the things he had to have and they were many.

‘I shall need two dress uniforms and a new pair of riding boots and a uniform hard hat with a badge and my own pistol. . . and a double-breasted greatcoat with wide lapels. . . and six pairs of white kid gloves . . .’

Count Johann-Jakob von Lännister, his brother-in-law and a teacher at the cadet college, had been telling him about the things that were not on the official list but everybody had to have if they were not to become a laughing stock, like slippers made of deerskin and silver toothbrush mugs inscribed with the family crest. Since the Baratheons were commoners (although wealthy steel barons), Rainer was given a von Lännister toothbrush mug.

How much he longed to go to a place which sounded to others like a kind of prison. The boys had to sleep forty to a room -where there was enough space for all forty- on iron beds, they marched everywhere to military commands, and the punishments were awesome. They were obliged to obey their officers and march from dawn to dark, and the punishments were dreadful.

‘Sometimes they handcuff a disobedient boy’s hands to his feet or give him ten lashes.’

‘But wouldn’t you be terrified?’

‘No, because I won’t be disobedient. I’m going to win the Sword of Honour, you’ll see. And when I come out I’ll be an officer in a cavalry regiment with two horses of my own, and if there’s a war I’ll defend the Fatherland and win the Iron Cross.’

(Little did he know that, at the moment of truth, he would go down in flames like a phoenix, riding a pegasus of steel and propellers).

Because Rainer had to be measured for new clothes and boots, they had to drive to Sturmende town in his guardian brother Robert's new horseless carriage, Ilona (he had named the Benz after his lost lenore, but that is another story).

Their brother-in-law accompanied Rainer to the tailor, where his new attire, his dress tunics, were gradually taking shape.

The fitting took a rather long time, because the Count had told him that in spite of what it said on the prospectus for the college, the cadets were now wearing the collars of their uniform jackets at least two centimetres higher than the measures that were indicated in the prospectus diagram. This annoyed the tailor, who said that such a collar would scratch the young gentleman’s chin, but von Lännister had already written that a sore chin was regarded at Lichterfelde as a sign of manhood, even that friction blisters underneath the chin were regarded as the crowning sign of manhood, and the tailor was overruled and had to give in.

The following week Rainer left for Lichterfelde. Picture yourself the sight of him in his travelling clothes – the military cape, the peaked cap with the brass insignia of the college, the little swagger stick that cadets were supposed to carry so as to get used to handling them when they were commissioned officers – before he was driven to Sturmende Railway Station.

The little lad had asked that the staff could be assembled in the courtyard so that he could make a proper farewell speech. He knew that this was what the future master of the house was supposed to do, but the ceremony fell rather flat. Wenzel the coachman-turned-chauffeur was too deaf to hear a word that Rainer said without the ear trumpet, and the new maids hadn’t been there long enough to understand what an important occasion it was.

All the same, Rainer did well, asking the staff to give his guardians the loyal service they would have given him if he hadn’t been going away. Then Wenzel brought the carriage round, and they had driven off.

.............................................................

The huddled figure straightened itself and stepped out on to the cobbles.

It was Laurent Tyrell. Not in uniform with the cap and the swagger stick and the shiny boots . . . in pyjamas, a completely normal cotton-cloth jacket and trousers, with a woollen cap deeply pulled over his forehead. He looked pale and ill and sickly, and, as Rainer embraced him, he turned away.

‘Lau---rent?! What has happened? Why are you here?’

The half-French boy did not answer, and now Rainer saw that he was trembling from crown to toe. Nevertheless, he stepped down to the lower bunk bed and kept on clasping Laurent, stroking his golden curls like one would pet a fraidy kitten and humming "Nous n'irons plus au bois, les lauriers sont coupés" to reassure him.

The next day at classes, the Baratheon lad chanced to eavesdropp on two gentlemen in uniform: a captain with a weather-beaten face and the ribbon of the Iron Cross hanging in a ribbon from the uniform jacket on his chest, and a young lieutenant who turned and spoke to a third person, to someone huddled.

The huddled figure straightened itself and stepped out on to the cobbles.

It was Laurent Tyrell. Not in uniform with the cap and the swagger stick and the shiny boots . . . in pyjamas, a completely normal cotton-cloth jacket and trousers, with a woollen cap deeply pulled over his forehead. He looked pale and ill and sickly, and, as Rainer embraced him, he turned away.

‘Lau---rent?! What has happened? Why are you here?’

The half-French boy did not answer, and now Rainer saw that he was trembling from crown to toe. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was very thin. 

‘What is it?’ the younger officer asked the same that young Baratheon thought to himself. ‘Is he ill?’

The captain bent his head. ‘Yes, you could say that. It would be the kindest way of putting it. It is sadly so, but we have to expel him. He is not suitable for Lichterfelde.’

‘Not suitable! What are you saying? He has thought of nothing but the army all his life.’

‘Nevertheless he is quite unsuited to army life. I’m afraid, and it pains me that I need to say it, that the boy is a coward and a weakling. There will be a written report from the headmaster which we will send to Hautjardin. But there are absolutely no circumstances under which we would allow him to return to Lichterfelde.’

Rainer gasped --- saw Laurent in his mind's eye being fitted for a dreary black cassock and having to lay out a vow of chastity --- even pictured himself the Tyrell matriarch dying of a stroke in response to her favourite grandson's expulsion when he returned to their estate a broken lad --- he would prove the higher-ups wrong. That resolve would never falter, for the career and the reputation of someone who was more than a friend were at stake!

The two of them met on the terrace, where he stood upright, staring sightlessly at the lake.

‘Lau---, I can’t believe this. You wanted nothing except to be an officer, all your life.’

The blond cadet turned his head. There were still dark circles under his eyes and he was very thin. 

'René... I mean Rainer... you are and were the only one who tried to help me, when the others at school were cruel towards me. Since I didn't know what kind of toothbrush mugs I had to bring to this place, and besides having none being a half-French commoner, it was you who gave me your own mug to share, two toothbrushes in a silver von Lännister mug.'

Silence and afterthought, something quite rare for a young Baratheon, in response.

'When I first came, one evening already in the beginning, the other boys, the lordlings, pushed me on to the ledge outside the dormitory window and shut me out, shutting the window behind me. It was very a narrow ledge, and very high up – three floors. They required that I had to stand there all night and not make a sound. It was some kind of test... an initiation ritual. But after a few hours I got giddy, all light-headed, and I was sure, or rather afraid I was going to fall... and I called out and shouted for help, and a teacher came and let me in again. After that none of the other boys would speak to me. Except for... you.' This was the first time he said 'toi' instead of 'vous' to young Baratheon.

'How dare they use your fear of heights against you?' the dark-haired cadet balled his fists, veins bloodshot in his azure eyes.

'And then when you're gone away... the others used to amuse themselves by hanging me up from the hooks on the cloakroom wall and pretend to charge at me, or to stab me, with their bayonets.’

But that will nevermore happen again --- now that we are roommates and I will not let my guard down, Baratheon goes with Tyrell!

No more hearing 'Go eat frogs back to your country?'

'Pas du tout. I can picture myself all of Sierck and Hautjardin, all of Lorraine, hailing their latest hero like in a Dumas novel. Within five years he would ride in at his gates and into the courtyard, a freshly-examinated fully commissioned officer, and Grand-mère would hand him, and he would receive from her hand, the keys to his kingdom. Lieutenant Laurent Tyrell, the future master of Hautjardin and its villages and forests and fields (though at present only the spare, given the lecturer brother and the colonel brother who are next in line).'

'Easy on the flatterie! Some of it, but not too much... And what about you?'

'I have never known boys or girls whose greatest pleasure arose from tormenting others, not in this life. I have known no one like that in this life. These guardians would not allow such a child near me.'

Cosseted, sheltered Rainer never imagined children could be so cruel and inherit prejudices of rank. This was a military academy for the sons of the nobility, and future courtiers were not keen in rubbing shoulders with those of 'upstart' descent. Those lordlings. He'd heard time and again about the pecking order at Lichterfelde, the finest cadet college in the land, but when he got to know it first hand... It was unfair, no, far beyond unfair... It could not be this way. Even worse for Laurent, who was half-French on top of being a commoner.

'Sometimes I want to leave it all and take care of the estate and the mill at Sturmende instead of becoming a lieutenant and finishing these studies... but then I think of what the lordlings would do to you and how much it would hurt without my presence. It is your weakness that gives me strength...'

'And that strength of yours will give me strength to conquer my fear of heights and disregard the lordlings!" Laurent replies, sparkles in his eyes, as the two of them swear to stay together until the end of their studies, maybe being assigned to different provinces, do them part.

The taller cadet's mouth was firm and warm and at first clumsy and then assured, and he had one hand on that soft white chin, and his eyes were still wide open, Laurent realised, as his own closed. And Rainer seemed to have a hand in that cascade of golden hair, gently pulling the other cadet closer. As for the Tyrell boy... His knees were no longer weak but buckling. The temperature had, inexplicably, risen by at least ten degrees. "Oh," Laurent said, when he had a chance, and then Rainer tilted his head and they were kissing again, and why had Laurent Tyrell not thought of this before? It was the best of ideas, it was amazing, it was like breathing champagne instead of air. He made an wordless noise to try and indicate his approval of the whole situation.

For both of them, it seemed like all the air in their lungs was escaping out.
Silence ensued; a silence during which they did not break eye contact the slightest; looking one another straight in the eyes, blue on mossy green, ocean on hazel. Not even when Laurent smiled. Not even when he gradually began to step forwards. He had had no idea his neck was that sensitive. There were stars behind his eyes.
He only lost sight of Rainer's eyes when he shut his own as their lips touched. Quite slowly, quite slowly, without tearing himself from his grasp, his hand touched the dark one's, resting light as a feather, lily fingers entwining with knotty ones.
Seizing the leader's blond curls, Rainer Baratheon dragged Laurent Tyrell's head up and kissed him again, harder. After that first kiss, there came a second. 
Then a third.
Then a fourth one.


They gave one another so many kisses that, if all of them were poured together into the same flagon, it would be impossible to know how many kisses they exchanged throughout that evening and night.

With Rainer Baratheon's encouragement, and thanks to their friendship, Laurent Tyrell was not expelled.

-.........................................-

And of course Laurent had seen Rainer and been able to trust him... Aged eleven, diving into the pool, aged twelve, sneaking into a blanket bivouac that was cruelly interrupted by the hall guards, aged thirteen, sweetly embarrassed by his breaking voice, aged fourteen, growing into the size of his hands and the breadth of his shoulders, aged fifteen, consciously naked at the hot springs, an image that had replayed itself over and over in shameful repetition behind closed eyelids. Aged sixteen, laughing, aged seventeen, in uniform. Their first swords, the first time they tried to cook, the first time... Aged nineteen, now, Laurent sleeps on Rainer's lap on the train to Sierck, both of them lieutenants, golden locks petted no longer like a fraidy kitten, but like someone far more confident.