Chapter Text
In boyhood, Arthur Dayne had squired for a now-deceased half-brother to the Princess of Dorne. Ser Olyvar Sand had been lively but strict, if fonder of books than fighting. He’d seen that Arthur had needed no encouragement to practice with weapons and left him to train as he liked, focusing instead on more abstract lessons.
Patience had been foremost among these. Whenever they visited the Water Gardens, one of Arthur’s duties had been to wrangle the most troublesome children. At Sunspear, Olyvar often had him assist new or incompetent servants, or to sit quietly for an hour or more while the other boys drilled. For one memorable year, he’d made Arthur give Prince Oberyn lessons in obscure Rhoynish law. Arthur had known nothing of the topic and needed to teach himself, then deliver the lessons to an eleven-year-old who grasped the concepts twice as quickly and thrice as well.
But for all that creativity, Ser Olyvar hadn’t devised an exercise in patience half as effective as having Jaime Lannister for a squire.
“I’m hungry.”
Arthur looked up from his book and said seriously, “Hunger is merely discomfort, and it'll cause you no lasting harm. A knight must learn to endure such pains in silence.”
Jaime met his gaze and said in an equally grave manner, “But we have been here for ages.”
Arthur’s eyes returned to the book in front of him. He’d been studying the page for five minutes, but every line looked unfamiliar. If he was being honest with himself, his attention had wandered long before Jaime had begun listing his grievances a half hour prior.
Rhaegar should’ve known better than to set me this task, he thought, but winced a moment later. He was as much to blame for his current predicament as his old friend. After Tywin spoke so favorably of Rhaegar at Duskendale, the prince had begun eyeing the Hand as a prospective ally. A dangerous one, one who’d turn on him soon as it suited his ends... but while Jaime remained Arthur's squire, that danger was drastically lessened.
Arthur had known this, so the day after he’d approached Tywin about the twins, when he’d heard Jaime was to finish squiring elsewhere—under the pretense that Tywin had decided his son should familiarize himself with the Westerlands and its lords, with the added implication Aerys’s madness was the true incentive for the change—Arthur had told him he was leaving on extended business for Rhaegar, and that Jaime could accompany him while still acting his squire.
“He has potential, and I am reluctant to part with him,” Arthur had said. “We will be gone several months. Perhaps he’ll have grown past his… imprudent impulses by time we return.”
Tywin had no doubt grasped the message behind the offer: Rhaegar wanted Tywin’s loyalty and, as a related matter, desired a continuation of Arthur and Jaime’s connection. Accordingly, Arthur would keep quiet about finding Jaime with his tongue in his sister’s mouth. The Hand had spent two days pretending to think it over before giving his approval. All that’d been left was for Rhaegar to devise tasks to keep Arthur occupied.
Arthur had fantasized about a tourney circuit, perhaps a long visit to the Water Gardens. He should've known better.
Rhaegar had instead requested he memorize a list of terms to look into at the Citadel’s library, then made him learn the Prophecy by heart. He’d refused to let Arthur write down either, not wishing to chance the parchment falling into a maester's hands. Rhaegar had theories about the Citadel, believing his great-uncle had been sent to the Wall because of his blood, and fearing maesters had played a role in the dragons dying out.
From anyone else, Arthur would’ve dismissed such fears, but he trusted Rhaegar implicitly. “You are sending me to the Citadel?” Arthur had nonetheless asked.
“That is your first destination. I’d have you visit various lords and glean what they’ve heard of my father's behavior after Duskendale. Gauge how they feel about it, determine what they might want from me. Express my interest in their concerns and further our cause by... “ A fond smile. “By acting yourself, I suppose.” He’d paused, and Arthur had known he’d not like what came next. “I also thought to send you to the Wall, so you might speak with Aemon and the officers of the Night's Watch. If the Long Night is to come, they will know first.”
“You wish me to go… to the Wall.”
“Are you a raven, to repeat things so?” Rhaegar had been playing his harp, his songs uncharacteristically pleasant. The two of them in the prince’s chambers, on a balcony with a view of the Blackwater. He’d paused to add, “You will stop at Winterfell on the way. They have a library old as any in the kingdoms, and perhaps protected from the maesters by the Neck… And of course, Lord Stark would be a useful ally as well.”
Arthur had squinted at the sun, burning bright above King’s Landing, and struggled to imagine what the world would look like past the Neck, in lands with summer snows. “You’d have me freeze to death?”
A jest, mostly, but Rhaegar’s gaze had sharpened. “You’d complain of cold winds as you ride from a dragon’s den? Do not think I fail to see how my father’s madness wears on you.” He’d frowned. “He won't like you venturing so far. I will tell him... that we quarreled about whether one of the recent executions was warranted. If I say you deemed me impertinent for questioning his choice, he'll not be angry, but may think you overstepped in offering your opinion. Thus justifying a temporary banishment."
“That is too direct a lie. My duty—”
“You also have a duty to me, and to… the Hand, and to your squire. My father would agree were he in the correct mind. He is not.” A winding trail of notes flowed from the harp strings, harsher and darker. “It is too late, anyway, for you to speak of duty. He’d burn us both if you told him a tenth of what we’ve discussed. There’s more at stake than your sense of honor.”
The memory pricked him to irritation, and Arthur shut his book. It was useless anyway, a text about the Age of Heroes that was naught but a treatise on how to separate fact from fiction in the old tales. The maester’s argument, repeated endlessly, was that they were all fiction. He claimed that relics people deemed magical, such as the Wall, were the product of engineering techniques lost to time. Rhaegar would scour the pages searching for a sign the words were intentional lies meant to dissuade imagination in future maesters, but Arthur had no head for such things.
Wearily, Arthur took in his squire. He’d given Jaime a thin volume and provided the partial explanation that Rhaegar believed the topic important. Jaime had flipped a single page when they first began, but he now had the book shut in front of him, his elbows on the table, head supported in one hand. He looked deceptively innocent, golden hair petaling around his face and his lashes thick like a girl's, but his flashing cat’s eyes belied increasingly spiteful irritation.
“We’re done,” Arthur said.
Jaime sprang from his seat. “Finally.”
“We have to put our books away,” said Arthur, but the words hit the boy’s back, glancing off it ineffectually as Jaime loped out of sight. Arthur took a deep breath to dampen a spark of annoyance, retrieved Dawn from where he'd leaned it against the table, then gathered the small stack of books. As he sought the shelf where he’d found them, a burly maester caught his eye. Remembering Rhaegar’s advice, Arthur took care to smile and said, “Well met,” in a casual way.
“Did you find what you needed?”
“We truly don’t need anything. The prince wishes me to gather material for his songs, is all. He wrote ahead that I’d be coming.” Arthur took a step forward. “I’m sorry, but I oughtn’t let my squire get too far. He’s…” A little shit. “He tends to find trouble.”
A laugh. “Don't let me keep you, then."
To Arthur's relief, the maester looked at him only a moment longer before he went on his way, and Arthur was left to return the books in peace. On exiting the library, he found Jaime in the yard outside, arms spread and head lifted toward the setting sun as if Arthur had kept him overnight in a cage.
“That’s torturous,” Jaime declared. He stretched in a manner suitably leonine for the heir of House Lannister, then yawned broadly. “The prince is a fool for wasting us on such a task.”
“You cannot say such things.”
Jaime rolled his eyes. “Why not? Will he burn me?”
Arthur ignored this and kept walking, mourning the troublesome but earnest squire who'd held him in considerable awe. If asked at the time, he would have claimed Jaime Lannister naive, a bit proud and vain, but remarkably likable.
After Arthur told Tywin what he’d seen, that boy had vanished, those good qualities shed like a snake’s ill-fitting skin. Sometimes he wondered if he shouldn’t have kept quiet. He suspected Tywin’s reaction had been harsh. All the same, the consequences if those two had been caught… it would’ve ruined Cersei at the least, would’ve put a stain on Jaime’s reputation. Too many people could’ve been hurt, and Rhaegar’s most powerful prospective ally dragged through the mud.
Speaking had been honorable. It’d been wise. But it’d torn Jaime’s trust to pieces, and turned Arthur’s loyal squire into a persistent brat. Would that Arthur had known about his transformation before he suggested they embark on a journey together. Gods, but there were times on the ship to Oldtown that Jaime’s mouth had nearly earned him a journey overboard.
“Are we done at the Citadel now?” Jaime asked as they walked.
“I’ve told you—”
Jaime smiled, said in a falsely sweet voice, “Pretend I wasn’t listening.”
“Prince Rhaegar suggested we linger a week. That will give us time to examine the library with reasonable thoroughness.”
“A week?”
“Knighthood is not all tourneys and battles. At its core, it is obedience and servitude.”
Jaime’s answering snort dripped condescension and disgust.
Near the Citadel’s gate, they passed a statue of the Young Dragon atop his horse, sword raised toward Dorne. Ser Olyvar had loved Oldtown and taken Arthur to visit four separate times, and he’d had a habit of frowning at the statue whenever they saw it.
“The Young Fool, more like,” Olyvar had liked to say. “All piss and pride. Tell me, Arthur, how many men died for his summer of conquest? How many more after reading his book and thinking to emulate his supposed heroism? A hero treats the life of every being as precious, not as coin to be spent on a whim.” Rhaegar had chuckled the first time Arthur shared this. He had most of Daeron’s writings memorized, and he’d insisted the conquest had worked out in the end.
“Were it not for Daeron,” he’d said, “you’d not be my kingsguard. It’s unlikely we'd be friends at all. The conquest didn't last, but it did lead to alliance.”
Arthur suspected the marriages that'd brought Dorne under the Iron Throne could've occurred without so many lost lives, but he’d not said so. Rhaegar was better read, more familiar with history; his perspective was surely the more legitimate.
Beyond the statue lie the Scribe’s Hearth, a collection of stalls where books and maps were sold and a handful of half-asleep acolytes waited to write wills or letters for the people of Oldtown. One of them looked up as Arthur passed in his white cloak, Dawn on his back. “Is that the Sword of the Morning?” he asked, but nobody answered, and Arthur and Jaime soon exited the gate that surrounded the Citadel complex, the sphinxes on either side seeing them out.
“I wish I had a horse,” Jaime commented. “We could buy a couple. I’m sure—”
“The streets are so narrow, a horse would be a hindrance. It shan’t hurt you to walk.”
“That man there is on a horse. And that one—”
“That’s enough,” said Arthur.
“What a convincing argument. ‘That’s enough.’ Your eloquence astounds me, ser. When will you teach me to converse with such finesse?” Jaime watched Arthur, waiting for a reaction. When Arthur failed to provide one, he scowled mutinously but said no more, remaining silent as they trudged along Oldtown's cobbled streets. For the first eighteen months of their acquaintance, Jaime had rarely stopped talking. Gallingly, the absence of chatter seemed louder. More annoying.
Arthur knew the layout of Oldtown well after his visits with Olyvar, three more for tourneys, and another two with the king’s court. Even so, he kept a close eye on their surroundings, aware of how easy it was to get lost in the labyrinthine streets.
It was no chore to remain observant, for the city was alive with gentle beauty. The Honeywine wound alongside their path, dark with twilight, and ahead, the black walls of the Starry Sept reflected shades of sunset. The Seven Shrines rose distantly across the water, the tops of autumn-bright trees just visible in its gardens. Still further along, the Hightower loomed from Battle Island, beacon fires ablaze for the night.
Eventually, the sunset over the western sea drew his eye, the view not so different from that at Starfall. Whenever their mother had fallen into one of her moods, Arthur had taken Ashara atop the Palestone Sword to watch the sun set together. Now their parents were dead, Ashara grown and at Sunspear as one of Elia’s ladies. The castle in which he'd grown would be strange to him with Mathos as lord, his wife and children bringing light to its halls. Allyria, as well. He’d never met his youngest sister and sometimes forgot she existed.
A shift in the air returned Arthur’s focus to the present. He slowed to a stop and put a hand on Jaime’s arm to halt him. A woman wove through the crowd, her eyes fixed on Arthur. “Ser,” she said when she noticed he’d paused. She ducked around two acolytes. “Ser.”
Her face was painted, her dress worn and cut low to show her breasts. He would’ve dismissed her as one of those whores who took the white cloak as a challenge, but the coloring around her eyes was smeared, her pallor ghastly. The crowd took on a note of unease, mutters rising. Arthur’s cloak made him recognizable as a Kingsguard, and Dawn’s scabbard was creamy white leather adorned with elegant designs of purple so pale it was nearly silver. Most onlookers could guess his identity, and they'd send the woman scurrying if Arthur’s reaction suggested he wanted it.
Jaime seemed like to join them until he saw the woman properly. Soon as he took in the tear-streaked face, before Arthur could decided how to proceed, the foolish boy puffed up and adopted an expression of affected gallantry. “Has somebody hurt you? If you point them out, we will take care of it.”
Arthur swallowed a startled laugh. It was as if the boy thought himself in a story, where strangers actually approached knights over their woes. To his bewilderment, however, the woman appeared reassured at Jaime’s manner and faced him instead of Arthur. “It’s—it’s more complicated than that, m’lord. Can I talk to you in quiet?”
Jaime stood up straighter. “Whatever you need, my lady.”
He might have been an actor in a puppet show or mummer’s farce. The urge to laugh returned, prompted by fondness Arthur would’ve thought the past weeks had worn away. But a closer study of the woman’s face dashed his amusement. Grief and horror darkened eyes that were pink from crying, and she held herself as if due to collapse at any moment.
The hour was too late to be chasing trouble, but there’d be no honor in dismissing her plight. “Our inn is not far,” he said. They were at the Quill and Tankard, on a small island on the Honeywine. The bridge that led to it wasn’t a quarter mile away.
“No,” she said. “No, no, you need to see him. Come with me.”
The request made Arthur wonder if this wasn’t a trap, friends of hers lying in wait hoping to ambush two naive highborns, but he couldn’t take the possibility seriously. He gestured for her to lead the way, and her evident surprise further convinced him of her sincerity. Without a word, she began to walk, looking back every few steps as if expecting them to sneak off. Twice, she appeared about to speak, but visibly changed her mind.
Arthur tried to keep track of where she took them but succeeded only until they reached the old Thieves Market. After, they disappeared down several twisting wynds before cutting into an alley so narrow they had to walk single-file. Though the buildings remained stone, they grew higher and built more closely together, no gardens or trees between them, the sky harder to see. The smell of flowers that hung over Oldtown gave way to the more unpleasant scents Arthur more readily associated with King’s Landing.
The figures they passed also took on a grimmer mien. If they looked up, it was not to gaze with admiration at the Sword of the Morning, but to eye he and Jaime with bafflement or disdain—or in the case of some, with speculation. Arthur ensured he kept close to Jaime and met every gaze that lingered on them too long. Each time, the eyes skirted away.
Jaime showed no sign of being unnerved, though his nose had wrinkled at the smell, his face hard in a way that made him look like Tywin. He’d grasped his sword hilt with loose fingers, and nothing in his manner suggested he wouldn’t use it if provoked. It was an unsettling, deadly expression from the boy who’d grabbed Arthur's arm not so long ago and pleaded, “Please, please don’t tell my father, please,” and who’d snarled, “It’s not fair,” as Arthur hauled him to Tywin’s solar with one hand, Cersei trying to soften him with tears while he towed her by the other.
Jaime noticed Arthur watching him and curled his lip.
Swallowing a sigh, Arthur turned his attention to the woman. “You haven’t told us your name.”
“Hanna, if it please you.” She couldn’t meet his eye. “We’re almost there, m’lords.”
The sun was all but set, and the drop in temperature had fog rolling in off the sea. It seemed to grow thicker by the step, settling grimly over the dilapidated buildings. Arthur pulled his cloak more tightly around him and longed for the Dornish sun. “I’m Arthur,” he said. “My squire is Jaime.”
“Ser Arthur.” Hanna breathed it in a tone of agreement, one that said, ‘Of course I know,’ and which placed a world’s worth of weight on the fact. “The Sword of the Morning. I—I knew it must be you, m’lord, when I saw the cloak and the sword. I’ve heard tales.” Like he might’ve misunderstood, she glanced over. “Good ones, ser. No one says nothing of you that isn’t good.”
Jaime made a noise that Arthur suspected was a laugh turned into a cough. Don’t, he might’ve said. I made you no promises, Jaime. I’ve made no one any promises save Rhaegar and the king, and Ser Olyvar when he knighted me. But that was a lie. Silent promises had been made when he accepted Dawn. Hanna had recognized him and approached him because of the sword, because she knew what it symbolized. It was Arthur’s duty to be worthy of that reputation.
Normally, he’d have thought nothing of it, but the business with Jaime had left him sensitive to the pressures of his title. His squire had expected him to be more than a man, had assumed the Sword of the Morning could never disappoint him, and learning otherwise had crushed his spirits. Should Arthur prove unequal to helping Hanna, it'd hurt her as well. He wanted to resent that, but what right did he have? He’d shouldered his burden willingly.
Hanna said, “Just ahead.”
She took them to a run-down whorehouse that was nestled between an equally run-down stable and smithy. From a second floor room, a man’s increasingly fervent grunts greeted their party, the thrown-open shutters making the noise loud as if they were in the room. His partner badly pretended she was enjoying herself as much as her client, but the whore’s moans mostly sounded bored. Jaime’s nose wrinkled further, but for once, he refrained from offering commentary.
On stepping inside, Arthur nearly mimicked his squire’s expression. The front room was a dank, low-ceilinged space with haphazard furniture that looked like it’d been fished half-rotted from the Honeywine. The whores appeared to have tried presenting themselves well, with varying success; the patrons had made no such effort, and Arthur found them collectively unappealing. One man had passed out without breeches, arse-up on the moldering rushes. Save his, every eye in the room went to their group.
“What are you all lookin’ at?” Hanna snapped. She must’ve claimed some measure of respect, because no one said a word as she led Jaime and Arthur through the main room and up a creaking staircase.
Their destination proved to be a chamber off a short hall, its door warped in the frame, the room dark save weak moonlight spilling through a small window. Arthur made out three straw pallets, two empty. The last…
Hanna said, “Light. We need light.” She ghosted away, and Arthur was so unsettled he remained in place until she returned with a lamp. Its glow confirmed what he’d suspected on first glimpsing the figure laid out on the straw.
Arthur kept his voice soft. “He’s dead?”
“I don’t know. Look at him.” A shiver went through her, making the lamplight waver. “My son. My Owen. Please.”
It’s too late for me to do anything, Arthur thought. But he drew nearer. His steps slowed, and he froze a yard away. From Hanna’s manner, Arthur had expected an unpleasant sight, but her son’s corpse was something else altogether. The boy was small, no older than eight. His shirt had been removed, making apparent that someone had sliced open his rib cage and taken out his heart and lungs, leaving a gaping chest cavity behind. “Jaime—”
His squire had already seen.
“Seven hells,” Jaime breathed. He tore forward before Arthur could stop him, then gave the body a long, horrified study. Wide-eyed, he blinked up at Arthur. “He hasn’t got entrails, either.”
Arthur crossed the final few feet and knelt at the corpse's side, struggling to construct a suitable response.
That was when the eyelids twitched.
I imagined it. But the boy’s head lolled, and a horrible, hollow gurgle emanated from its throat as parched lips parted and its bloated tongue flopped once, listlessly.
“Ser,” Jaime choked out. “Ser.”
Is this a wight? Arthur’s heart was in his throat. He did his best to steady his breathing and act like he wasn’t revolted. He wanted to run. He wanted to pretend he’d never seen this. He was a fighter. He knew how to solve problems with his sword. This… What was he supposed to do about this?
He strove to sound calm. “How long has he been…”
Hanna crept nearer. “He went missing a fortnight ago. My niece had been looking for him the whole while, had some of her friends keeping an eye out. She found him like this and brought him over last night. I don’t know… don’t know how long…”
“I can’t help him,” Arthur said. “He’s dead.”
“But.”
He has no lungs. No heart. No innards. Arthur met her eye and gentled his face. The sight of the boy made him wish to weep, though he hadn’t known the child at all. He couldn’t imagine if it were his family, his son. He wished words existed that would offer even sparse consolation. He wished there was a way to take on a fraction of the pain that lived in Hanna’s eyes.
“I think,” Arthur said carefully, “it is best we start a fire. Do you know an open place?” It took large quantities of wood to burn a body, but once people realized who he was, they were often willing to assist him with most anything. A coin and a polite request, and that’d be taken care of, no questions asked.
“Aye,” Hanna murmured, the word thick with tears. “There’s a yard not far off that should do.” Barely whispering, she asked, “Have you seen anything like this, m’lord?”
“I have not,” Arthur answered honestly, though he’d spent enough time with Rhaegar that his disbelief was minimal. If anything, the boy’s state felt like a confirmation. His friend’s fears weren’t the product of too much reading and too active an imagination; magic wasn’t as dead as most thought. All the same, Arthur had no idea who could or would manage this, couldn’t imagine it was related to the prince’s theories.
Hanna didn’t appear deterred by his answer. She put a hand on his arm. “Could you—is there a way to find out what did it?”
That isn’t my duty, he told himself. His duty was to the king and the prince, and it’d be safest not to involve himself in something of this nature, so far beyond his understanding. Arthur deliberated briefly before deciding he’d best put the matter in the hands of someone with the time and resources to do something about it.
“I’ll go to Lord Hightower,” he promised Hanna. “Jaime and I will, and perhaps he’ll know what to do. I swear to you, this… this bears looking into.”
As he finished speaking, he looked back at Jaime, expecting to have to offer comfort or perhaps convince him that going to Hightower would be prudent. But though Jaime had moved as far from the body as the small room allowed, and though his face was grim and scared, his eyes were bright, his hand back on his sword. Aemon the Dragonknight wouldn’t have looked more determined if called upon to defend his queen.
He thinks this an adventure, Arthur realized. He thinks we’re going to find who did this and bring them to justice, and fix it, somehow.
Arthur refrained from disabusing him of the notion. It wasn’t the time. Wasn’t the place. Jaime would realize how things stood once Lord Leyton put the City Watch on it. Until then, the misapprehension would make him compliant.
“It will take time to see the body burned," Arthur said. "Do you wish me to return you to the inn beforehand?”
Jaime set his jaw. “No, I’ll be fine.”
He said it too firmly, clearly trying to convince himself, but Arthur feared he'd only add to Jaime's stress by pushing further. He nodded, then turned back to Hanna and scraped together his composure, steeling himself for the night ahead.