Chapter Text
It’s not that Alicent isn’t happy, necessarily, when she spots her. It’s more like—some things deserve to be separate, you know? Like almond butter and nut allergies, or fish and bicycles. Or one’s roommate-slash-secret girlfriend and one’s extremely small, extremely talkative, trapped-there-all-summer new-age esoteric Herbartian workplace-castle.
(Honeyholt School, to be exact.)
But of course Rhaenyra in all her glory strides right up to her in the Great Hall, terribly arrogant and frustratingly attractive and openly gloating as ever.
Alicent raises a brow. “I distinctly remember leaving you in bed.”
Rhaenyra smirks. Alicent briefly considers slapping it clean off her. “I got up.”
She raises a brow, turning and pacing not at all slowly toward the espresso station at the other end of the hall, throws over her shoulder, “And whatever happened to the Rhaenyra who sleeps clean through midday, exactly?”
“Actually—” Rhaenyra bounces right along behind her, sure as ever. “—I felt you get up. And stretch, and whisper—what was it again?—oh, yes, I’m so sore, Gods, Rhaenyra, you absolute animal—”
“Stop.” Spinning on her heel, a hard finger, right to her chest. “Not here. I work here. I’m serious.”
Rhaenyra smiles again, infuriatingly, sticks out her badge like a hard-fought medal. “As it happens, I seem to work here, too.”
Alicent stares down at it, considers another witticism—and then merely sighs. Looks back at her with tired eyes. “Honestly, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Rhaenyra.”
And then Rhaenyra seems to drop the act, too. “Look, I know.” She sighs with her shoulders, like she’s in the naughty corner. “My father begged me. I mean it. Begged.”
“What are you even going to do—”
“I’m to teach High Valyrian. At least, according to Father.”
Alicent frowns. “But that’s Gerardys’ position—”
“Quit. Two nights ago. Packed up and turned in his letter. Father didn’t say why.” Rhaenyra gives her a sorry look. “Hence the seven rounds of cantankerous begging.”
Alicent folds her arms. “Right.”
“But it could be a good thing,” Rhaenyra ventures a hand on her elbow, then; tries to smile. “I might see you more often, this summer. Otherwise, you know. It would have just been me and Syrax. And that’s terribly sad.”
Rhaenyra does her best I’m pouting impression as Alicent merely grimaces. “Rhaenyra, your lizard still fucking reeks.”
“She’s not a lizard, she’s a bearded dragon.”
“—Which is a lizard—”
“She got a bath yesterday.”
Alicent shakes her head, throws up her hands. “I can’t—I really can’t get into it again, Rhaenyra, not now—”
“Morning!” Harwin smiles, hands on his hips, gilet half-zipped, looking between them with eyes that are far too knowing for Alicent’s liking. “You’re the new recruit, I’ve heard.”
He extends his hand and Rhaenyra shakes it. “Rhaenyra Targaryen. How d’you do.”
He gestures to the hall. “Well, I suppose you already know the place, from your lord father.” He grins, mischievous and warm. “But welcome to Honeyholt.”
Rhaenyra smiles. “Unfortunately the Right Honourable Lord Targaryen is more of a dogged check-signer than a meaningful sponsor these days, but in any case—more so heard the war stories from Alicent, really. We’re friends.”
Alicent grins, plastic. “We’re flatmates.”
Rhaenyra nods. “Friendly flatmates.”
“Ah-hah.” Harwin glances between them with something of a grin. “Well, in any case. Let me know if you have any trouble finding your way around. We’re happy to have someone else aboard—it’s a small staff in the summers, you’ll find.”
Rhaenyra nods. “Hate to imagine why anyone’s willingly got summer school, to be fair, rather than be resting at home—"
Alicent resists the immense urge to roll her fucking eyes—“Because some children can’t, Rhaenyra. For a variety of reasons.”
Harwin nods. “Right. I’ll see you soon. I imagine we’ll gather for the staff meeting reasonably quickly. Lyman and punctuality and all that.”
Rhaenyra and Alicent smile back, and he’s off.
“Rhaenyra,” she says, then, softly. “Listen, just. Why didn’t you tell me.”
Rhaenyra tongues her cheek, looks down, then back to her eyes. “I suppose I was afraid to. I didn’t want—you know, I didn’t want you to panic.”
She looks down at her shoes, picks her thumb with her finger, voice soft. “I wouldn’t panic.”
“I think you’re panicking right now.”
“Because you surprised me.” She retorts, stinging. Alicent looks around, again, then, to make sure they’re still alone. Folds her arms over herself. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine, we’ll just. I don’t know, we’ll just do our jobs, and, and it doesn’t need to be anything more, here—”
“It doesn’t.” Rhaenyra looks over her shoulder, again, and then takes her hands in her own. “Look, I’m sorry. It will. It will be fine, okay?” She puts a hand on her shoulder, runs it down the top of her arm, squeezes. “Promise. I promise. And if it’s too weird, I’ll quit. Okay? I’ll just tell my father I can’t do it.”
“No.” She closes her eyes; tries to resist the entire warmth of Rhaenyra’s touch. “No, we can’t, I mean. The children deserve it. The language is so important, and—and it’s why they’re here. Why we’re here.”
Rhaenyra smiles, small, just the tiniest half-smirk. “I can’t say I’m not excited to see you in your element.”
“Early childhood psychological development really riveting stuff to you now, is it?”
“Absolutely on the edge of my seat if Professor Hightower is holding the chalk.”
“I see you’re singing a different tune from uni, then.”
Rhaenyra smiles again. Thumbs her cheek. “I know this is important to you. I’m not going to jeopardize it, or let anything else. I promise.”
Alicent sighs. “I know. I know you won’t.”
Rhaenyra waits, for a moment; and then leans in, pulls her in quick and steals a kiss on her cheek. “You know, I’ve always loved it.”
Alicent resists the blooming blush, raises a brow. “What’s that.”
Rhaenyra only grins. “The summertime.”
And then, marching bright and cheery toward the staff room, she’s off.
Lyman Beesbury, Alicent concluded about ten seconds into meeting him, is both the most utterly perplexing eccentric alive and in every imaginable way the most wonderful man on earth.
(Like the time she once complained about how disgusting it is to get one’s fingers covered in the Walkers cheese & onion dust despite how addicted one is to cheese & onion and for the Festival of the Father he gifted her ten teeny-tiny plastic finger covers shaped like horses.
“Gallop to victory over the deep-fried enemy, Alicent! Happy holidays.”)
He was a gem.
(Even if Rhaenyra did just use them to reenact classical dramatic scenes in the bathtub.)
(What?—with that stupid beautiful face of blissful self-unawareness, knees peaking just above the top layer of bathtime bubbles—heartbroken Horselet has just discovered the body of Horsephelia!)
“This year,” Lyman begins—before anyone’s even introduced themselves, before Criston’s even had the chance to completely tactlessly eyeball them to make it known he’s taking mental attendance amongst the (now) nine of them—“I believe we focused on the bloom.”
Alicent ventures a sideways glance at Rhaenyra, who merely blinks, like he’s speaking in tongues.
Alicent suppresses a mirthful grin. Welcome, sweetling.
“There are many moments that have to build in perfect sequence to arrive at the final dramatic aria of the flowering plant—the emergence, violent and breathtaking, of that wonderful, single first flower.” He smiles. “Done with persistence, and in time. For years we’ve germinated the seed; built the stem, unfurled our leaves, grown tall, stood and captured the sun. But this year we bloomed. And we’re in bloom. It’s a wonderful thing.”
Harwin nods eagerly. “Super exciting.”
“Summer’s a time to enjoy it. Fewer courses, more focus on the moral character, the becoming of the person and not so much the training of the pupil—on the who of the student, not just the how. Herbart’s perfection and benevolence. Balancing competing volitions of inconsistent strength; closing the space between the good in one’s own will, letting it find satisfaction in satisfying the needs of the fellow man.” Lyman holds up his hands. “And what better time to mix and melt than in the heat!”
Alicent wonders if Rhaenyra might be entirely asleep.
(To her credit, she’s at least nodding.)
“And to aid in the alchemy, we have someone new aboard the ship.” He turns to Rhaenyra, then, smiles. “Rhaenyra, daughter of our sponsor, Viserys Targaryen. Student of many things, traveler of many faraway lands, I’ve heard.”
Rhaenyra smiles that brilliant smile that Alicent is almost certain is illegal or, elsewise, at least unfair. “I’m afraid in his rush to nepotism, my father might have oversold me.”
Lyman laughs. “Well, fluent in High Valyrian, at least, by which you’ve come in very handy. Professor Targaryen, the first of them all.”
Rhaenyra frowns, stammers. “Well, I’m a native speaker, of course, but I certainly don’t have a doctorate—”
“Ah, but you’ll profess.”
“Well—"
“You may already know,” he continues, “But each time we add a new player to our troupe, we go through the motions, the introductions, whatnot. Keeps the joints fresh. This is our pared down summer staff; only about thirty pupils remain and board through the summer months. That said, we’re spare to begin with—more hands does not, after all, engage more trust in the pupil. This is Harwin Strong, who teaches biology and athletics; Sibel Serret, history and writing; Laena Velaryon, technology and enterprise; Lionel Strong—”
“No relation,” Harwin winks.
“—law and ethics,” Beesbury finishes. “Erryk Cargyll and Bess Mott, our housemasters for boys and girls, respectively. And, of course, you know Alicent.”
Rhaenyra smiles anyway; gives her a little wave. Alicent tries very hard not to think about what that hand was doing only a smattering of hours before.
Rhaenyra nods to them, anyway, and they greet her, in turn, especially Laena, who seems to find Rhaenyra exceptionally interesting.
Great, she thinks.
“This castle has remained in my family for generations, but shan’t much longer.” Beesbury tells her. “I’m the last of my lot and I’ve never had children. Nose in too many books, I suppose, but I thought a score of years ago to put that to some use. Make this place something more than a museum.”
Rhaenyra nods. “It’s truly beautiful.”
“Made all the more by its mission. A renewed sense of purpose, Rhaenyra,” he says, winking. “That’s what keeps old and rickety things around.”
Alicent shows her to her new office in the main building, upstairs and south of the Great Hall.
And then summarily pushes Rhaenyra back by the sternum when she tries to—
“What?” Rhaenyra frowns. “The door’s closed.”
Alicent gestures to the general area, as though to say look around. “I’m at work.”
“Behind a closed—” Rhaenyra stops, then. “Okay. Alright.”
She shakes her head. “What did you think this was going to be, Rhaenyra? Quickies in my office? You going to finger me in the lunch line?”
Rhaenyra quirks a brow. “I’d wait until we sat down, at least.”
She huffs. Tips her head. “Rhaenyra.”
“Look,” Rhaenyra tempers, “I didn’t exactly choose this. I’m not trying to invade your space. If you want to draw a hard line, we’ll draw a hard line. Nothing on the premises. Promise.”
“We can’t.”
She can hear the half-panic in Rhaenyra’s voice, under the calm. “What?”
“We can’t draw that hard line.” Her eyes remain on her shoes. “Well, not the hardest.”
“I won’t try anything—”
“No, I mean.” She looks back at her, then. “Rhaenyra. During the week, you realise we’ll have to live here.”
Rhaenyra blinks. “We can’t just go back to the apartment?”
“The apartment is forty minutes away.”
“Well, yeah—”
“I suppose Lyman would allow us, but it’s not typical.” Alicent says. “I’d like to do this by the book. Even if it is only summer.”
Rhaenyra tongues the inside of her cheek. “Alright.”
And then Alicent half-smiles. “I was able to finagle one thing.”
Rhaenyra raises her brows. “Oh?”
“You see, Gerardys’ apartment was on the men’s side—the men’s quarters. And Lyman was concerned that might be awkward for you.”
Rhaenyra hums, reaching for her hand, drawing her just a bit closer—
Alicent takes it, squeezes. “—And so I offered, in my magnanimity—”
“—Famously—”
“Famously—offered to let you to room with me,” she says. “Since, well. It’s only for the summer.”
The corners of Rhaenyra’s lips upturn, then, just slightly. “I see.”
“Unless that might be uncomfortable for you,” Alicent muses, horribly teasing, looking away, shy and coquettish—“I don’t want to presume.”
Rhaenyra’s hand snakes around her waist, then, presses upon the small of her back. “I’m not entirely certain I’ll survive, actually.”
“Well,” Alicent returns her hands to Rhaenyra’s shoulders. “I’ll be sure to give you your personal space, of course.”
“Right.” Rhaenyra’s lips are wet and pink and inches away. “Appreciated, thanks.”
And then she leans in close—
And meets only Alicent’s pointer finger, brow raised, half-smiling.
“This isn’t the apartment.” She whispers.
“Right.” Rhaenyra sighs, pianos her fingers against Alicent’s hip. “Not the apartment.”
They have the weekend to move in before the pupils arrive; Rhaenyra has elected to mostly spend this time convincing her bearded dragon—IMAX or whatever she’s decided it’s called—that it’s perfectly safe and has no reason to worry and will destroy the lives of just as many crickets here as in the apartment before.
“I’m serious, what if she’s distressed,” Rhaenyra stresses, tank on her lap in the car.
Alicent approaches the next light and notices that while Rhaenyra’s buckled up, the damned tank is not, and she spends half a second considering whether to brake on a dime and send it through the windscreen.
Of course Viserys couldn’t have gotten her a fucking puppy or a fish or something. She knows where it’s from—Viserys’ great-grandfather’s own black bearded dragon from nineteen-fifty-fuck, the one that launched the business that started them on the path toward becoming the serious kind of rich. Balerion, the Big Black Dragon, the single best-selling British stuffy of the twentieth century. (A company that also spent fifteen million dollars unsuccessfully suing Clifford, the Big Red Dog.)
She’s pretty sure this lizard is literally even descended from it.
“Do you think she’s stressed?” Rhaenyra asks, again, worrying her jaw.
Alicent lets a hand off the wheel at a traffic light and glances over. The dragon stares back up at her, bored and condescending and—gods, shitting in its water bowl?
Seven above. “IMAX is fine.”
“IMAX?” Rhaenyra looks a hair past scandalized. “Her name is Syrax, thanks. For the Valyrian goddess of the hunt.”
“Interesting.”
“I think you’d like her better if you just held her.”
“You’re lucky you can do that and still hold me.”
They pull up to the school, eventually; Alicent grabs their suitcases off the top of the stack in the boot and keys in; sets them down and sheds her jacket on a chair by the breakfast table, as Rhaenyra ever so carefully places the tank on the window seat by the garden.
(A task that makes her triceps and forearms flex deliciously, among other things.)
“You know,” Rhaenyra says, padding toward her, wiping her hands on the back of her loose trousers, “We’re in the apartment.”
Alicent nods. Takes Rhaenyra’s hands when she offers them. “We are.”
“And I’ve been very patient.”
Alicent nods, brows raised. “You have.”
(Sometimes Rhaenyra can be the most discerning, the most serious, the most commanding and charismatic person Alicent’s ever seen. She’d played Julius Caesar’s part in the all-female production of the same at uni. Slipped into it like it was nothing. Hand-in-glove.
But other times Rhaenyra just wants to rearrange sticks in a lizard tank and get kissed, master of inconsistent consistency that she is; like the edge of a serrated blade.
And yet this side of her is the one Alicent finds most difficult to deny.)
Rhaenyra’s lips melt around hers and she snakes her arms around Rhaenyra’s neck, her shoulders, and lets Rhaenyra’s tongue in her mouth and her fingers in the hairs just behind her ear beside the base of her neck and hums—
“By the way,” Rhaenyra whispers, leaning back just slightly. “You remember about tonight, right?”
She steals another, leans in closer, kisses the juncture just under Rhaenyra’s ear, where she smells the most Rhaenyra of all—“What’s tonight.”
And then Rhaenyra does pull back, fully—seemingly equal parts nervous and incredulous. “Dinner,” she says, then. “Dinner with my parents. At my parents’ house.”
Alicent blinks.
No, she did not remember dinner with Rhaenyra’s parents.
“Right,” she says.
“Friendly dinner,” Rhaenyra says.
(She knows it’s still a question.)
“Friendly dinner.” She confirms.
(Rhaenyra’s patient, so patient.)
“Okay,” she agrees, and kisses Alicent’s soft lips again.
“Sweetling?” Alicent sticks her head out of the bathroom. “Have you seen my blow dryer?”
“I’ve hidden it,” Rhaenyra calls back. “Along with all your underpants.”
Alicent rolls her eyes and spreads a colorless moisturizer in smooth circles over her cheeks until Rhaenyra turns up with it, sets it on the counter, steals a kiss from her lips, ghosts her jaw with the tips of her fingers, smiles through it, in that indeterminately egomaniacally possessive way that Rhaenyra touches her sometimes (like she knows how much Alicent wants it, and she wants her to want it, too.)
“Love you,” Rhaenyra whispers, and smiles, headed back to the living area—
And then Alicent’s cheeks heat up with a warmth in her chest, like always, and so she tugs her back and draws her in close again. “Another.”
Alicent isn’t ashamed to be gay.
Even when she first came out to herself, that thirteen-year-old reckoning, it never scared her, never disgusted her. Been out to her friends since her first term at uni; never hidden from hers and Rhaenyra’s community, that tiny enclave of people shared just between the two of them.
It’s just unfortunate that her father happens to be a fairly prominent Tory, and, ever more unfortunately, happens to be the dogged and insipid church and family kind, the views of the church are clear and adopted children deserve stable traditional parents kind, the kind deliberately and perennially eschewing any moderation of his ten-toes-down crusade against sexualized lifestyles.
(One time he’d even tried her on for the old ‘men are no longer allowed to be men, but women apparently can be,’ and they’d barely spoken for a month.)
Viserys and Aemma, on the other hand—a far different story, the kind gelling infuriatingly perfectly with Rhaenyra’s purported childhood hooliganry and apparent alienage from every yardstick against which Alicent was ever measured. Viserys Targaryen, one of the vastly outnumbered Labour men with a hereditary seat in the House of Lords, had married the daughter of another peer, Aemma Arryn, who’d done so much work on AIDS in the ‘90s that she often recalled at banquets and dinners and charity galas when certain namby-pamby associates had refused to visit their home out of fear they might catch the disease. But still—Viserys and her father, they worked together, albeit remotely, and it felt wrong to put Rhaenyra’s parents in a position where they might have to lie. Especially Aemma, who, if not queer herself, had at least known so intimately the bitter fruits of that sort of dishonesty; who always touted silence is death and the like.
She and Rhaenyra had had a fight about it, once. A discussion, as Rhaenyra still insistently characterized.
Only the end mattered.
I’d rather be a liar than make one of someone else.
Rhaenyra had taken her hand. There’s a difference between lying and discretion.
But the idea of her father finding out—finding out that it was, and that it had been for so long, under his nose, that others knew—all that and especially from anyone other than her—it sent ice down her spine and then Rhaenyra probably saw the look in her eyes and relented.
(Relented with mercy, in her own way, with an alright, darling, okay, with a kiss to her temple, as always.)
She finds Rhaenyra sitting at the breakfast table, shoulders bent over a book—trashy American murder-mystery pulp, doubtlessly—dressed in a black suit jacket with the car keys between her fingers.
Alicent leans over, and puts her arms around her silk shoulders, brushes her pretty hair back to kiss her neck, her face; press her nose into her cheekbone.
It’s come to her as easy as rhythm, these days. “I love you too, my sweet.”
“Professor!”
Helaena’s always been her favourite student. Shamelessly, she’s admitted it to herself after the tried and true class dismissed, as Helaena bounced in and out of her classroom and fluttered from one social group to the next, oddball that she was, faraway and starry-eyed and always utterly unabashedly herself.
(And, slender and small for eight, with her silver hair and Rhaenyra’s nose and Rhaenyra’s eyes, something inside Alicent broke the first time she’d cried and hooked her arms around her neck and whimpered Professor, I miss Mummy, and whatever was maternal in Alicent’s heart had been triggered like a tripwire.)
She leans down, balances on the back of her modestly high heels so that Helaena can throw her arms around her neck; rubs her back and greets her with her jolly key stage one lilt, as she feels Aemma watching fondly from further down the hall.
“Is that a new dress?” Alicent complements. “Oh my gosh, how pretty!”
Helaena nods, excitedly, and twirls. It’s a ridiculous thing—purple with pink and blue poofs and ribbons and stickers stuck across and all over it—such a product of uncriticized, unedified whimsy that Alicent prays her parents’ wealthy ivory-towerism ensures Helaena never encounters the real world, for as long as she ever shall live.
Helaena grabs Alicent’s hand, again, holds it close while she peers up at her sister.
Rhaenyra smiles down. “Hi,” she intones, warm and tentative and half-singsongy. “Are you—are you excited for dinner, Helaena?”
Rhaenyra tries—Alicent’s always seen it, even that time years ago she glanced over and found how to talk to toddlers open on Google on Rhaenyra’s iPad—but for all her boundless love for her little sister, Rhaenyra’s never really known what to say.
Alicent squeezes her hand. “Your big sister missed you very much. All she’s been talking about is how excited she is to see your new dragonfly!”
Helaena collects insects entombed in amber, and Viserys brought back another one on his recent trip to South Africa. A look crosses Rhaenyra’s face, then; probably kicking herself for not remembering. Helaena doesn’t catch it, of course, instead darting up and around her mother to retrieve it from upstairs.
Aemma smiles, warmly, opens her arms. “Alicent.” She kisses her on both cheeks, fleeting and easy, squeezes her hands, smiles. “We haven’t seen enough of you, of late.”
“Certainly so—I only wish the school year had ended with a bit less chaos.”
“Nonsense, I’m sure I have only my daughter to blame.” Aemma raises an eyebrow, tugs Rhaenyra close for a tight hug, an utterly devotional rub of her thumb across her cheekbone. “It’s been too long, my love,” she chastises. “You can’t spend all your time in London.”
“Well, we’re on the countryside now.”
“An hour past the city is hardly the countryside.” Aemma smirks. “Come in, come, now, we can’t have His Lordship come find us holding court in the foyer. Drink, anyone, either of you? Red, white? Cocktail?”
They meander then through the massive hallways, the chef’s kitchen, down through to the parlour adjacent to the dining area. Alicent has always loved Rhaenyra’s home, though Rhaenyra’s always described it in terms like dark and never seems to be hankering to go back.
(But she knows why, and it’s not the drapes.)
“Is Viserys on his way home?” Alicent asks, taking a sip of the white Aemma’s poured.
“Oh, he’s here,” Aemma says. She pours another glass for Rhaenyra, who worries her cheek, like she already knows the answer. Aemma’s voice, though, remains untouched and even as ever. “He’s just upstairs with Baelon.”
Rhaenyra swallows. Looks like she’s about to say something, then opts for a more than healthy sip of her wine. Avoids Alicent’s gaze.
So Alicent turns back. “How is Baelon this summer? We’ve missed him so much at Honeyholt.”
Aemma nods. “That was a good term, wasn’t it. We’re still so happy he was able to have that time. I know Helaena misses having him there, too. He really did love it. Talks about it all the time. We’re hoping, if things improve, he can join you all again.” She smiles. “Run round with the other boys, like he should.”
Alicent grins back, but Aemma didn’t answer the question, and she knows that’s answer enough in itself.
She remembers clear as day, three years after the birth, Rhaenyra’s face in that beer hall in the student union, ashen.
It’s not Addison’s, she’d said, thumbing her glass. It’s leukemia.
(When he was six and a half, he’d entered remission. At seven, he’d started Honeyholt with Helaena, together like they were supposed to, like Aemma had no doubt envisioned for them as twins. After the fall term, he’d gone to the doctor for a check-up. Rhaenyra had come a week later and collected his things.)
Alicent’s never seen what Baelon’s quarters look like upstairs; it’s basically a second fucking hospital, Rhaenyra had told her.
When Helaena returns with her dragonfly token, she’s smiling bright, and without a thought climbs into Rhaenyra’s lap. Rhaenyra sets her wine down, a little surprised, but still relaxing into it, dutifully, and wraps an arm around Helaena’s back as she holds it up to show her.
“Wow,” Rhaenyra says, eyebrows raised, voice higher. “I—thank you! For showing me.”
Alicent smiles warmly, leads her a little—“Marvelous dragonfly, Helaena. How many wings do you think it has?”
“It has four!” Helaena replies. “It’s supposed to have two so that’s very curious.”
Aemma smiles on from beside the fireplace. “That is quite curious,” Alicent says. She raises her eyes to Rhaenyra, prompts her to follow. “What’s your favourite part about dragonflies?”
“Is it that they fly?” Rhaenyra asks. “Or that they’re dragons?”
Helaena laughs like a bell and stares down at the token, turning it over in her hands. “They’re not dragons, silly,” she replies. “Dragons go, roar!”
“And what do dragonflies say, my love?” Aemma asks.
Helaena thinks, for a moment. “Buzz?”
Aemma raises a brow. “Professor, is that correct?”
Alicent nods, mock-serious. “Most exactly correct. I’m sure even Professor Beesbury would have to agree.”
Rhaenyra still doesn’t know quite what to say, she can tell, and isn’t sure what to do with Helaena, clear as day; but still Rhaenyra smiles down at her little sister with a sort of natural easy fondness that Alicent knows is inside Rhaenyra somewhere; and Alicent’s sure that, at least for a summer, Professor Targaryen may yet survive.
Viserys joins them when dinner’s served; greets Alicent with delight, Rhaenyra with a delighted trepidation, as usual.
(Sometimes Alicent wonders if Viserys sees his eldest, even if only in the slimmest half-light, as the child who would have tormented him upon the schoolyard.)
“I wish I could spend more time at Honeyholt,” Viserys grins, fond and nostalgic, a little. “I can’t think of a man I respect quite like Beesbury. What he’s done with the place, it’s phenomenal.” Eyes on Rhaenyra, again—“And of course, such a wonderful thing that Rhaenyra could fill in, during their time of need.”
She doesn’t look up from her soup, but nods, smiles, perfunctory. “Of course, Father.”
“Who’s to say,” Viserys continues. “You might even find you have a passion for teaching.”
Rhaenyra sighs through the nose. “I doubt that’ll be my lot.”
“But you never know. And you’d ought to start trying things outside your beaten path. I know when you’re young it feels like you’ve got only time. Maybe too much. But you know, I would have relished that freedom you’ve got in front of you, now—”
(Viserys has always been prone to accidentally awful monologues, and Alicent is teetering on the edge of absolutely sure that this one is only about to worsen.)
“—if only to say, I knew my lot in life would be here, to manage the Landing. And Baelon will do that, now, when he’s older, but you—you could do anything, Rhaenyra. Whatever you like. You’ve only to find what you like. And who knows. It was Beesbury’s newfound raison d’etre, after all. Perhaps you’ll find a love for education, too. It isn’t what you studied at university, I know, I know. But—”
“No, it isn’t,” Rhaenyra mutters.
“—Though I’m sure the Professor will be able to show you the ropes.” Viserys takes a bite of pate and smiles. “How wonderful it is! Best of friends, flatmates,” he praises. “Now coworkers. At least for a summer.”
(Alicent can practically feel Aemma giving them that look from the other end of the table.)
“It was the best summer of my life, when I was a younger man—with Ronnel, that summer at the races,” Viserys continues. “Nothing like working with your mates, when you can.”
Aemma shoots her daughter a sideways glance and smiles, brows raised, just oh-so-barely. “So good to remain close with one’s friends.”
(Your mother knows, Alicent had told her, once.
She doesn’t, Rhaenyra protested. How could she.
Rhaenyra, she’d sighed.)
A while later, then—
“Rhaenyra,” Aemma entreats. “I was thinking—you ought to bring Alicent to our little knees-up at the end of the summer.”
(Alicent is familiar with this particular summer party; Rhaenyra usually wakes up the next day with a sunburn and a markedly lower Uber rating.)
“As we’d love to see her again soon.” Aemma adds. Alicent smiles. “And anyone else you should like to bring, of course.” She shrugs, lightly; swirls her glass. “Perhaps if you’re seeing someone.”
Rhaenyra coughs, a little, on her wine. Alicent becomes very interested in cutting her roast duck into teeny tiny pieces.
(Aemma almost certainly notices all of it.)
“Or Alicent,” Aemma turns on her, then, merrily. “If you’re seeing anybody—the more, the better.”
Alicent smooths her serviette in her lap, smiles, maybe a bit too saccharine. “Not at the moment, but I suppose one never knows.”
“Enjoy your stag years, ladies.” Viserys grins, then, takes a long drink. “And enjoy the summertime. It has a funny way of teaching you what you’re looking for.”
After dinner, Rhaenyra retreats upstairs, to see her brother.
She returns, gets in the car, slams the driver’s door. Always prefers the wheel in these sorts of moods, Alicent knows.
(Rhaenyra didn’t study education at university. She knew her way. She’d studied land management. Intending, of course, to manage their land.)
Viserys had wanted for a son when Rhaenyra was a child and apparently did a poor job of making it a secret. The years went by, though, and it seemed he’d have to settle. But by the time Rhaenyra was finishing secondary school and she’d enlisted to actually invest in her de facto inheritance, his luck had turned.
They were sophomores when the twins were born. Inheritance laws had changed for the monarchy, sure, but not for the peerage. Baelon—two full pounds underweight in the NICU, tied up in tubes like a supercomputer—was destined to become Baelon Viserys Arryn Targaryen, 17th Duke of King’s Landing. Rhaenyra was destined to have a mostly useless education in conservation, land management, and bloodstock.
And was suddenly free to do anything. Whatever you’d like.
“It’s the way they talk about him,” Rhaenyra gripes, hands hot, knuckles white on the wheel. “I know it’s horrible, for me to say it. Sometimes I cry in the shower about it when you’re not there because I don’t want to talk but it hurts too much to let it linger.”
Her face falls. “Rhaenyra, sweetling—”
“He’s not going to—” She swallows. “We are very lucky for every moment we have him with us. Very, very lucky. My mother knows that. I know that. Even Helaena seems to know that. My father lives in a fantasy world. The one where he’s gotten the son he wanted.”
Alicent takes a deep breath. “You can’t fault him for wanting to believe otherwise, my love,” she counsels, gentle and consoling and calm. “It’s his baby.”
“It’s his legacy.” She bites. Then, softer than ever—“I know that if the roles were reversed—if Helaena was the one—” She shakes her head. Wrinkles her nose, a snarling wolf. “He’d already have picked out a grave plot.”
She can’t chastise her on this, it’s not her place, she knows it, she can’t—but the visual so stains her mind that she turns toward the window, away from Rhaenyra, to staunch her tears.
“I’m sorry.” Rhaenyra says, eventually.
“Don’t.” She concedes, reaching for Rhaenyra’s hand, bringing it closer, into her lap, clasps it in both of her own. “Don’t be sorry, my love. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry for what’s happening.”
Rhaenyra doesn’t let go later so Alicent pulls away, puts Rhaenyra’s hand back on the wheel and reaches in between them. Makes quick work of Rhaenyra’s belt with one hand—practice—and arches long dexterous spindling fingers over, then down, explores through hot moistening flesh, back to that pleasure point, back to comfort, back to giving.
She makes tight circles. Rhaenyra clenches her jaw. Clenches her hands on the wheel. Pants. Alicent, she huffs.
She cums when Alicent presses at the next red light and leans forward and accidentally honks the horn.
There’s a philosophy to these quick ones, Alicent thinks, as she wipes her wet fingers on the fabric of Rhaenyra’s pants, just to give Rhaenyra a win, just a loosening of the joints, a little, just before they have to go back to the mundane and the duty of being who they are.
“She was crying all night,” Bess whispers, wringing her hands in the hallway as the older girls flit from the dormitories to the bathroom before her. “She’s been away for the two weeks since end of term, like the other girls, and I thought—maybe homesickness, she’s only young. So I went to check on her this morning, when they were dressing, just to make sure everything’s all right, you see—and—”
Bess gestures to her own upper arm, then grips it, grips it tight. “This bruise, Alicent. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Even on the boys. It’s black as night. And it’s of fingers, well it looks like—it looks like a hand.” Her eyes are insistent. “I’m concerned. I know that this is really Talia’s realm, with administration, but you know Criston and I—I just want to handle this carefully.” She swallows. “I thought you’d know how.”
Much as I love Criston for his faults, why Beesbury elevated him I may never know. Alicent rubs her brow, but nods reassuringly at her colleague, then, clear and collected. “I understand. I do, I hear you. I’ll just—I’ll have a quick chat with her, see if I can’t have a look. See if maybe Mellos can’t have a look as well, if it’s serious.”
Bess clasps her hands. “I’ll get back. Got to get them to breakfast in twenty. But Alicent.” She fixes her with a look. “It’s serious.”
The youngest girls all room in shared dormitories on the ground floor—in the summer, just one dormitory, really, for the four of them. When they’re packing their rucksacks by their bunks and tying their shoes, Alicent knocks gingerly on the open door.
“Dyana?” She calls, gingerly and easy. “Could we have a quick chat, just for a moment, please?”
She knows Dyana, a little. She arrived at Honeyholt at the beginning of the last fall term no less than three days after she turned seven and, something like Helaena, tiny for seven at that. She’d been in Alicent’s class this year; very quiet, very agreeable, and very very hard to discern.
She’d tried to get to know her—wonderful colouring, do you like to colour? Which is your favourite flower in the garden? Do you like maths best?—but Dyana seemed only to say yes, thank you, or this one is pretty or I like everything and leave the rest concealed behind thoughtful blue eyes.
Alicent leads her out to an empty area of the living space, kneels in front of her, smiles warmly. “We’re so happy to have you back, Dyana. Did you have a good time at home? With Mum and Dad?”
Dyana nods, but her face remains entirely passive. She worries her lip, a bit. Looks away from Alicent’s eyes.
“Dyana,” she coaxes, gently, “While you were getting ready, Miss Bess noticed you might have gotten hurt a little, on your arm. Is that right, sweetling? We just want to make sure you’re all right. Nothing hurting, no scratches or bumps before we start the summer.” She smiles, searches for her eyes. “Are you alright, Dyana?”
Dyana thinks, for a moment, still looking off; then nods. “Yes,” she says, simply.
(But it’s the clench of her right hand, the way her left remains limp at her side, that Alicent notices.)
“Dyana, sweetling,” she says, softly. “You don’t have to, okay, you don’t have to show me.” She shakes her head no, just a little, reiterating, promising. “But if you want to, okay, I’d like you to show me where you’ve gotten hurt. Do you want to show me?”
Dyana hesitates, just a little; and then draws down the zipper of her jumper, pulls at the shoulder with a tiny, uncoordinated hand—draws it down over her polo, below her elbow.
Alicent thanks the gods she’s able to stifle her own gasp.
It’s black, bright black, turning a worrying shade of yellow-green-blue at the edges, and so clearly a handprint that Alicent wonders if she couldn’t trace each finger with a marker—wrapping long and clear and hard around this little girl’s tiny arm, dark and swollen on her pallid skin.
She schools her expression. Places her hand against her elbow, ever gently, lifts it up to the sunlight, to see the swelling, and then reaches up, pulls up her jumper back over the gooseflesh, lifts the zipper back up snug against her collar. “Okay,” she says, calm and easy. “Dyana—does your arm hurt? That looks like it hurts.”
The girl waits, for a moment; then nods. Alicent draws her brows together, takes her little hand, gives her a soft squeeze. “Do you know how this happened, Dyana?”
Dyana swallows. Then—“We were crossing the street when a lorry driver ran the stop. Daddy told me to wait for him but I didn’t, so he had to wrench me out of the street.”
Alicent nods, rubs her good shoulder, understanding. “Okay,” she says, gently. Wrench? “Dyana,” she soothes, “Your arm looks quite bruised. Sometimes when you’ve got an injury, maybe if you’ve had a bump or a fall, your skin will bruise, a little, and that’s normal. I think Dr. Mellos might know what to do to make this feel better.” She assures. “Why don’t we show this to Dr. Mellos? Maybe he could have a quick look, please?”
Alicent knows she’s obligated to bring Dyana to their school doctor regardless of whether she agrees; but, as with all things, prefers lobbying to force.
(Or bribery; she’d gotten Joffrey Strong to take cough syrup once by strapping a head mirror on a stuffy and letting him take it from Doctor Frog.)
Luckily, Dyana only nods. “Okay,” she encourages, “Go on and get your rucksack and we’ll go and see him. Go on, good girl.”
Dyana scampers off. Trailing behind the older girls, out the front door, Bess meets her gaze.
Alicent stares back, eyes full of alarm.
She catches Harwin at the instructors’ table of the mess hall; smiles as he fills her mug from the kettle. “Well, you look to have had a grim sort of morning.”
Alicent looks around; warm air wafts in from the old windows of what used to be a massive formal dining space, and the students look as bright as the day feels, smiling and chattering away—and appropriately distracted.
And Aside from Bess and Erryk, who are seated with the students, she and Harwin appear to be the first to have arrived.
“Yes,” she confesses. “It’s not been my best.”
He frowns, scratches the side of his beard; reaches for the milk. “Alright,” he says. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She chews her lip, for a moment; then sighs.
“I’d like your opinion, actually.” She begins. “And it’s quite sensitive.”
He fixes her with a look. “Surely we’ve established a code of silence after the Finnegan’s incident.”
“I was in my cups one time—”
“It was quite a few cups.”
She huffs. “Look,” she continues, “Yes. I’m serious. This morning, Bess found Dyana Waters with a bruise the size of London on her arm.”
Harwin frowns. “Dyana, the little first year?” Alicent nods. “Where from?”
“Exactly the question.” Alicent tinks her spoon on the side of her mug, sets it down. “She claims her father pulled her out of the path of a lorry running a stop. But she said—” She shakes her head. “She said, my father wrenched me out of the street. Those were her words.”
Harwin furrows his brow. “Well—alright. Fair enough.”
“No.” She insists. “Not remotely. First of all, that bruise is black as pitch, and secondly—Harwin. What kind of seven-year-old child uses the word wrenched?”
Harwin shrugs. “It’s not an entirely uncommon word. Maybe she heard it somewhere.”
Alicent sighs, slowly, drumming her fingers. “Oh, I think she certainly did hear it somewhere.”
Harwin’s eyes are calm and tempering and solid. “Alicent,” he counsels. “This is a very serious thing—if I understand correctly your suspicion, it’s best not to make assumptions. We’ve had her a year. She’s never been bruised before. I don’t believe we’ve heard reports of any trouble at home. She’s a good student, I know. Does she socialize with the other girls? Does she eat all her meals, does she sleep alright?”
Alicent shakes her head. “As far as I know.”
“Well.”
“But—look.” Her eyes meet his own. “She’s quiet. She started out that way, but now that she’s back, she’s quieter than before. She barely spoke to me when I asked.”
“She’s probably embarrassed.”
“But why feel shame about an accident unless she’s been given the idea that there’s something to feel shameful about—”
“Good morning.”
They both look up to find Criston wearing a loose Honeyholt polo and a grin that doesn’t remotely reach his eyes.
“Good to see you both up and at it so early,” he greets, setting his tray down beside them. He pops a grape in his mouth, smiles again. “First day of summer term. Exciting.”
“Yes,” Harwin agrees, shifting in his seat, turning back to his newspaper. “Exciting indeed.”
Alicent only smiles. “My favorite time of year.”
Alicent’s gearing up for an at-home lecture when Rhaenyra is dead last of all the staff to enter the mess hall, looking half-asleep with wet fucking hair at that—
But then she sits guilelessly down with the youngest girls at their table, next to her little sister, and smiles bright and engages them all and makes a funny face with her banana peel and Alicent can’t help but wonder how the entire world is not hopelessly in love with her.
And so she joins her, of course, breakfast tea in hand. “Room for one more?”
“Always,” Rhaenyra smiles, and Alicent scoots onto the bench beside her.
But then Helaena points, and with an utterly delighted, utterly clueless grin—“You were at our house on the weekend!”
Of course Meria Blackmont, without hesitation—“Professor Hightower was at your house?”
The other girls just stare. Alicent hopes her face doesn’t betray her as she sweetly answers, “Did you have a fun rest of your weekend, Helaena?”
Helaena barely blinks. “Would you pretty please come back again soon?”
Rhaenyra smiles, then, gently, taps her leg comfortingly under the table. “But why think about home, Helaena,” she coaxes, “When we’re going to have so much fun here?”
Rhaenyra’s always loved the summer. (And contact sport, but that’s beside the point.) It’s something about how the sun always shines a bit yellow, in the morning and toward the height of day, and how green it all looks, how wonderful it is to feel heat on her skin after months of the din and drear, the joy of the Year 7 and 8 boys as they find their partners and lace their boots—
Thanks for offering to help out, Harwin had said. You’d be surprised how much chaos is a part of the football program, here.
(And, of course, how Alicent’s curls shine like rosy bronze in the midday sun, leading horticulture in the gardens just a score of yards away—how fresh the air smells watching her kneel down in the dirt and pick a strawberry and smile with her eyebrows raised and say something and place it, sweet and nurturing, into Meria Blackmont’s tiny hands.)
And how worth it it still is to stare at her when a football inevitably collides with the small of her back.
“Seven hells—”
The Year 7 starting team stares back at her. One of them burps.
She sighs. “Warm up.” And points to the field. “Two laps round. Go on.”
Surprisingly, though, they dart off without so much as a word—quickly forming a tight, tiny pack of hellions, shoving and yelling and utterly savaging the freshly cut grass.
One of them, though—curly-haired and bright—merely stands before her, big-brown-eyed and guileless as a retriever.
“Sorry.” He says, seeming far more excited than sorry. “I can’t do the laps today because I had an asthma attack this morning. Dr. Mellos said.”
Rhaenyra frowns. “Oh. Well, alright.”
He blinks up at her. “Are you Professor Targaryen?”
Rhaenyra watches one of the boys—a blond one—shove his way to the front of the running pack, maybe a bit too aggressively. “That’s right. What are you called—”
“I’m Luke. My brother Jace and my brother Joffrey all started here at Year One, but Joffrey just started because he’s just turned seven. Jace is fifteen and now his voice sounds funny but my mum says we can’t say that to him because he struggles with self-confidence—my favorite class is biology and I don’t like my dormmate this year, he’s Lyle Bracken, he can’t have lactose but he still eats cheese and you wouldn’t believe the smell—”
“Right, em,” she says. “Are you well enough to go two on two?”
Luke toes the grass. “With—with our partners?”
Rhaenyra raises a brow. “Well, yes—”
“Strong!”
When Rhaenyra looks up, it’s the blond boy—the shover—who trots off the field, sneering in brand-name boots. “Surely I hope you’re not going to snivel your way through this round, Strong. Come on.”
Rhaenyra frowns, glances down at her clipboard and back. “And what are you called?”
“Aemond.” He spits, like she should have already known. “His partner. Sadly.”
Rhaenyra’s about halfway sure that she can send him to the office for taking that tone with her, which she imagines Aemond knows and—perhaps most telling of all—doesn’t seem to particularly mind. But the others have collected their footballs and appear to be waiting, and it’s only just Monday, and all she has to do is get a handful of twelve-year-olds to play a few simple rounds of football, after all.
“That’s not very nice, Aemond. Go on, you two. To the field. Let’s have Aemond and Luke begin. You can be our first defending champions. And…” She looks down at her clipboard. “Ah. Lyle Bracken, Daeron Sunfyre?”
Luke smiles and offers him a high-five. Aemond merely glares.
Rhaenyra blows the whistle.
Lyle and Daeron are fast, to their credit, and not bad passers, either, quickly working to separate and outmaneuver Luke—happily still trying to coordinate with Aemond, who doesn’t seem to even acknowledge him.
Then—a couple minutes after studying Lyle and Daeron like a predator—Aemond takes his chance.
And gods—for all his cheek, he’s as dextrous as he is fast as he is clean. As soon as he finds an opportunity intercepting a pass from Lyle, maneuvering clean around Daeron like he’s a fence post and slamming the ball to the upper-right corner of the net.
He trots back without even a hint of satisfaction and waves the other boys off the pitch. “Who’s next.”
(All monsters are made, Alicent had once told her. Rhaenyra briefly wonders who made him so good and yet so utterly joyless about it.)
They clear six more rounds, beating the three other the teams twice over, each. Little Jon Fossoway—who, according to Harwin, has grown about a foot in the past year—is nutmegged by Aemond in an instant and nearly falls over his own legs.
Rhaenyra claps, anyway. “Good effort, there, Jon.”
He smiles and looks up and slides on a soft patch of grass and falls right back down.
After Rhaenyra sends them for water, they begin again. This time, Luke finds the ball—and he’s skilled, for his age, but clearly no match for Willem Blackwood, who’s a head taller and uses his size to swarm and then steal—Aemond goes for a valiant slide from the right but Willem uses his few seconds of a lead to shoot to the bottom left—and score.
“Fucking shit!”
Rhaenyra’s already opening her mouth to intervene—
Aemond marches right up behind Luke and, just as he begins to turn, shoves him down, clean into the dirt. “Twat—”
“Unacceptable.”
And they seem to hear that she’s serious—Aemond looks up suddenly into her eyes, which give no quarter. She pulls out her phone, dials for Criston Cole. “You’ll be on your way to the office.” She gestures to the main building. “Right now.”
Aemond kicks a clump of dirt out of the field and storms off.
“Bye-bye!” Lyle Bracken calls, waving sardonically, laughing. Jon and Daeron laugh, too.
(Rhaenyra helps Luke off the ground and shoots them a look, the kind she’s seen Alicent practice. Bracken immediately lowers his hand. Works, I guess, she thinks.)
Rhaenyra brushes a piece of grass off his back. “Are you alright?”
He only smiles. “I’m okay,” he says. “Aemond just hates to lose. But he’s nice, really.” His eyes are big and wide and earnest.
“He’s a prick,” Jon remarks.
“No he’s not.” Luke shoots right back. “He’s my friend.”
Rhaenyra wonders momentarily if it’s inappropriate to tell a child no, I don’t think he is; and opts simply to send them along for a conclusory scrimmage.
Behind her, Aemond stalks off to the office, hands balled at his sides. There’s laughter and cheers and calls for a pass from the boys on the pitch. None of them watch him go.
One time after a long time she’d taken Rhaenyra to Wakehurst to see the bloom. It had been the longest winter. Rhaenyra had turned toward the garden but she pivoted her to the pinetum, to beneath the canopy, where the brush had been cleared away and the leaves didn’t turn, down where the wildflowers hid behind the trees, un-caught, bold and separate and themselves, there, where it felt good, where they wanted to be.
Is it because they’re beautiful? Rhaenyra had asked why after the first time she’d grown and harvested her own manioc, nurtured the seed, the tube, cleaned and carved and pacified the supple flesh; cooked it in a sauce. Horticulture? Flowers?
No, she’d said. Yes. It’s because they’re beautiful on their own.
She’d put Rhaenyra’s hands in the dirt, once, that first summer outside London, after university; let her pull up a carrot, let her dunk it in the bucket, bite down with youthful relish. Let her search until she closed her hand around the first onion she’d planted with Alicent so many months before, looked at her with a triumphal verve—suddenly that painting of the Father with his hand clutched around the world.
We can nurse them, but they don’t need it, not really. A little dirt, a little love, when the sun’s warm and dry, she’d said. Water for the roots. They let us make them happy.
“Do you remember when we planted these?” She leans down by Meria standing at the strawberry bush as the others mill about, takes her hand, encourages her to engage, as she does with all of them, while they’re still small. The garden’s not a museum, she’d often explained. They’re alive, like you. They’re not perfect or pristine. You can touch their jagged edges. It’s okay to get dirty. They’re touching you back.
“They look different, now,” Meria says, running her finger along a tiny fruit.
“These are woodland strawberries,” Alicent explains. “Not the American variety, like the big ones, at the grocery shop. These are much smaller, see, look how small and round and pretty they are.” She plucks one and places it square in her hand, smiles up at her, happy and encouraging. “These grow up right here in Britain, all the time—wherever they like, in the forest, on the countryside. You can try it, if you like.”
And Meria does—Alicent watches the tentative bite, the squish, the sweet—the smile.
“I like it,” she grins.
Little Joffrey Strong looks on, shy; she offers one to him, too, but lets Meria pick it for him, twisting and pulling gently from the end, just as she was shown.
Thank you, he says, and smiles at her.
Alicent’s always loved the summer; and the bloom, but that’s beside the point. It’s something about how the sun always shines a bit yellow, in the height of the day and sloping into the afternoon drag, and how blue the sky shines, how welcome it is to feel dirt beneath warm hands after months of digging in with winter gloves and cold iron tools, the joy of the Year 2 and 3 students as they wander around the fruits of the seeds they’d only months earlier helped plant.
And, of course, how Rhaenyra’s silver hair shines like sunlight in the afternoon heat, how fucking utterly illegally excellent she looks in a loose school t-shirt and shorts and short socks and football boots, tall and lean and sweating.
“They were so sad and small before,” Meria murmurs, hands on the pretty leaves.
“Yes, that’s true,” Alicent says. “But all it takes is a little sun.”
Alicent isn’t sure if Beesbury got the idea for his after-dinner fireside chats from Franklin Roosevelt or the trappings of his own brilliant, beautiful, utterly idiosyncratic labyrinthian mind, but there they are, every night, without fail, gathered in the Great Hall in a semicircle around the enormous master hearth where Beesbury—entirely unironically—has sat himself in a wool rocking chair to each night read the entire school a book.
She helps Bess get the younger girls situated; watches, ever carefully, as Dyana sits on a soft area of pillows on the plush rug at Alicent’s feet, away a tad from Helaena and Meria and the other girls, looking down at her hands, a fresh ice pack still strapped gingerly to her arm—the strap double-wrapped because she’s so fucking little, and the fifth fresh ice pack of her day, because she’s so fucking bruised.
(Alicent wants to lift the little thing up into her lap and tuck her face into her neck and promise that in the entire world, nothing will ever be bad, ever again.)
Rhaenyra, with some of the seventh and eighth years trailing behind her, enters soon after and finds her place on the upholstered two-seater next to her and nudges her with her elbow and gives her a sweet, soft smile. (And then Alicent feels a little like in the entire world nothing will ever be bad, ever again.)
Of course Aegon Sunfyre and the Velaryon sisters—three of the oldest, wealthiest, and snarkiest students, and the only Year 11s attending summer term with the exception of Jace Strong—show up dead last; linger by the back row until Lyonel—seated next to Sibel Serret, and the only instructor they actually seem to fear—gives them a discerning look that’s as close to a physical expression of sit the hell down as Alicent’s ever seen.
(Alicent of course pockets that look for her repertoire to be practised later.)
Aegon rolls his eyes with a sneer and the Velaryons follow him to a row of chairs gathered in the back, equally apparently over whatever Beesbury’s about to do.
Beesbury only smiles.
“Who thinks they know the meaning of elegance.”
(Alicent glances sideways at Rhaenyra, who’s eyes have almost already begun to glaze over.)
“Colloquially, a stand-in for beauty; for elevated, divine design—that which is not only exquisitely stylish but indeed, exquisitely grand.” He raises a brow. “It also has a second meaning; that which is exquisitely, ingeniously simple.”
“Exquisite.” Rhaenyra mutters. Alicent flicks her knee.
Beesbury holds up a book. “Ran Gardner was a literary genius who won both the Newbury and Caldecott medals in his lifetime. He was well-read and well-educated and found a way, in his own way, to distill onto a page the complication of his real life. This book has sold millions of copies across the world, in all different languages. Won awards and been adapted to the stage. And it’s only composed of about thirty-five hundred words.” Beesbury smiles. “Ellyn Ever Sweet is elegant, as understood in both meanings, wouldn’t you say? Elegant in all ways.”
He begins to read; beside her, Rhaenyra’s gotten some sun on her face, and looks about five minutes from falling asleep in the firelight.
“My bees need a garden, said the King of the Bees; they need roots of fat bushels, sunny tops of your trees.”
Alicent rubs her hand as he reads, just a little—just in the dark, where no one can see them. Her blue eyes twinkle, almost purple in it. Her thumb rubs back, just gently. Alicent smiles.
“And Ellyn did take them, and the bees did go,” Beesbury reads, a calm and sanguine and cosy lilt. “But her garden was empty; she sowed her seed to grow.”
Below her, Dyana’s put her chin in her hands and looks happy—only a little, but enough, her jumper still bunched around her shoulder, her neck.
“I’ll tell you what I’d do with my seed,” Aegon snarks from the back. The Velaryons snicker.
“Hey.” Rhaenyra feels her hand withdraw and then Alicent is turned right around in her seat snapping her fingers within an instant. “Absolutely not.”
Aegon only scoffs. One of the Velaryon sisters mutters something, to another round of muted cackling.
Beesbury waits, an eyebrow raised—something thoughtful, nonjudgmental.
“She toiled for sprouts, for weeks, with no sight; she sang songs to her seeds, all day and all night.
“Your mum’s singing songs for my seed,” Aegon calls, a little louder this time.
Alicent whips around once more, but Lyonel beats her to it—“Mr. Sunfyre—” He makes to get up, rising quick out of his chair by the window—
“Aegon.” Beesbury says, and his eyes are wide and easy as ever. “Aegon, do you like Ellyn Ever Sweet?”
Aegon smirks at the Velaryons. “I’m liking it more and more, I think.”
“Wonderful.” Beesbury replies. “Why don’t you come finish the story for us, tonight.”
Beesbury rises from his chair. Alicent watches Aegon’s face twist. “I don’t—”
“Yes, come now, Aegon.” Beesbury gestures to his seat. “I insist.”
Chewing his lip with barely-concealed annoyance, Aegon rises; steps around the other students, toward the fire, until he makes it to the big chair in the front. Looks up at Beesbury. “Actually?”
Beesbury nods. “Go on.”
Aegon huffs. Takes the book and sits, gingerly—looks at the pictures and suppresses a laugh. Some of the younger boys notice and snicker, too. “Alright. Um. And the bees to her cried, where’s the garden I seek? Ellyn prayed to her father, my seed must be weak.”
“I’ll bet,” one of the Velaryons—maybe Baela—whispers.
Beesbury looks up and Alicent rises without hesitation, makes her way to the back and sits herself in Aegon’s seat, square between them.
(Rhaenyra watches and can’t help but register how hot it is, when she’s truly stern.)
“Continue, Aegon,” Beesbury prompts.
And Aegon does, even if somewhat sardonically. “But Greenhand said steady, work hard, they are strong; if you try and you toil, they’ll grow before long. So Ellyn nurtured and watered, and every night sang. And the seeds grew a sprout, and a lush garden came. At the tops of the trees, by the babbling brook, those bees had a garden, her love’s what it took.”
Beesbury smiles. “Give a hand to Aegon, for his very kind help, tonight, please.”
Above the smattering of applause, Aegon looks utterly uncomfortable, like he’s never wanted to be anywhere less, and yet, sort of happily stunned. “Can I—”
“You can,” Beesbury replies. “If you’d like. But after we read, we discuss. Why don’t you take a few questions and answer them, as best you can.”
Aegon frowns, wrinkles his nose. “But I don’t know a thing about this stuff.”
“But you do, don’t you! You read the book, same as anyone else—you just read it yourself, didn’t you. You don’t have any thoughts on what that could mean, Aegon?”
He shrugs. “No.”
“None at all? Well, let’s hear someone else’s, then. Why don’t you call on someone. Does anyone have anything they’d like to share, on what Mr. Gardner could mean, by this fable about this girl and her garden? After you, Aegon.”
Aegon frowns back up at him, then looks back at the crowd; calls on thirteen-year-old Rose Tully who, as Rhaenyra’s learned after only a single day, has essentially come to school already armed with an answer for just about everything, and Jon Fossoway, from the football team, who, as it turns out, absolutely loves to read, and Daria Dayne, who does not—but who’s apparently utterly taken with Ellyn Ever Sweet.
And then Beesbury looks back to him. “Aegon,” he prompts. “What do you think?”
Aegon sticks out his lip; crosses his legs. “I suppose it means that sometimes it’s not fun to work at something for a very long time,” he mutters. “But in the end it’s worthwhile. Because you have a garden. Or something.”
Beesbury smiles. “Indeed. Aegon’s quite elegant explanation is exactly correct, and he’s quite wise to say so. This may be a long summer, and a hot summer. And you may not always enjoy sitting in your courses, or playing your sport, or learning your craft, or your language. But at the end of the day,” Beesbury gestures to the book, “When you’ve read and sung and provided candlelight to them, all those little seeds you planted may yet sprout. And you’ll have a nice garden, too.” He clasps his hands. “Miss Mott, Mr. Cargyll—please lead our students back to their dormitories so they can retire for the evening. And we can begin singing to our seeds on the morrow. Good night.”
As the students murmur their goodnights and filter away, as Rhaenyra waves goodnight to her little sister trailing behind Bess.
Once the staff has gathered—the few of them there are, Lyonel in his wool sweater, Sibel with her reading glasses tucked into a loose bun of gray-white locks; Harwin, who spent a good part of the morning getting perpetually kicked in the shins by little girls, and Laena Velaryon, who appears to Rhaenyra to be hers and Alicent’s age, long and tall and lithe and, as far as Rhaenyra can work out (over the seemingly miniscule seventy-two hours she’s been on the campus, to be fair) a total and complete enigma.
And of course, Criston Cole, who stands ever-silently beside Beesbury’s chair and waits.
“Apologies for the behavior of my cousins, earlier,” Laena states, voice even. “I’ll be having a word with my brother, again.”
Beesbury shrugs. “Young people have to toe the line. It’s how they find it.”
Laena’s eyes draw, lazy and purposeful, over to Rhaenyra; raises a brow, almost in challenge. “Did you find our fireside chat elegant tonight, Professor Targaryen?”
Rhaenyra opens her mouth, but manages only to draw air in, rather than the other way round—“Ah—well, yes. An interesting tradition, definitely.”
Laena tilts her head. “Oh, interesting? Interesting how?”
Rhaenyra’s eyes dart from Beesbury and then to Alicent. “Well—”
“Any part in particular?”
“Laena,” Alicent interjects, low and warning.
Laena merely holds up her hands, turns back to Beesbury. “Sorry to delay, Professor.”
“Yes, well.” He rubs his hands together, looks at them with an excitement that Rhaenyra would peg as downright dangerous if she knew any better. “I have positively thunderous news. I have decided upon our project for the summer.”
Alicent blinks. “Our… project for the summer?”
Lyonel frowns. “Our summer project.”
“Yes, indeed, our project for the summer, the summer project, the embarkation, our white whale.” He holds his hands out, suddenly, as though to say ah-hah. “We’ll be staging a play.”
Alicent’s heart drops. Please gods no. “What?”
Thank the gods, Sibel seems to echo her panic—“Headmaster, the last time we attempted theatre, there were not one but two fires.”
“No fires this time.” Beesbury smiles. “It’ll be a very special production.”
Lyonel looks on, skeptical. “What of?”
“It’s an original.” He replies. “My very own.”
Oh fuck.
Alicent ventures a glance at Rhaenyra.
(Fittingly, her face also reads oh fuck.)
Harwin grins wide, apparently utterly none-the-wiser. “Fantastic! What about?”
“This play,” Beesbury begins, “Will tell the story of a young boy wizard. This young wizard is very great; born with all the power in the world. But he can’t use any of it, you see. It’s locked inside of himself, inaccessible—until he decides what he wants to use it for.” Beesbury smiles. “He must decide why it matters.”
“Oh.” Harwin blinks. “Harry Potter.”
Alicent resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Harwin, it’s clearly not—”
“It can’t be.” Rhaenyra interjects. “Harry Potter is a book.”
Harwin frowns. “No, they made it a play. Remember? ‘Harry Potter and the Child.’”
Alicent sighs through the nose. “The Cursed Child.”
“Harry Potter and the Curse of the Child.”
“No.”
Rhaenyra frowns. “So we’re doing a movie play?”
“It is not Harry Potter.” Beesbury states. “It is a completely unique and completely new play, which I have written, and will send to your emails, and I’m quite sure that you will all be thoroughly impressed or at least pretend to be since you all like me very much.” He nods to himself, satisfied. “Now. I’ll see you all on the morrow to break fast.”
The staff begin to make their way; but Rhaenyra moves to Beesbury, who’s sliding Ellyn Ever Sweet back into his bag by the chair. “Professor Beesbury.”
He smiles. “Professor Targaryen.”
Still, at the utter falsity of the title, she smarts—stutters, a little—"Well, I was just—I was curious, I thought I’d ask—why’d you do that, earlier?” She gestures behind her. “With that upper year. Why let him become the center of attention? Seems like that’s exactly what he wanted.”
Beesbury smiles, maybe a bit sadly. “Aegon is a young man who thinks he’s a very bad person,” he says, “And he wants everyone else to tell him so. Tonight everyone looked at him and listened to him—but this time, for having done something good. And in turn, he received gratitude. Not just gawks and snickers because he’d been reproved or reprimanded. Genuine gratitude, for having done a kind thing.”
Alicent bumps her elbow, just gently, and then Rhaenyra turns, realizes she’s materialized again beside her. “I fear Professor Targaryen may be new to our particular system of ethics.”
Beesbury claps Rhaenyra on the shoulder, gestures away. “Learning experiences all around, for us all, even those of us long in the tooth. We’re all working on our gardens.”
Rhaenyra follows Alicent out the door. When they’re alone, walking across the yard, Alicent looks around; and then she takes her hand.
“You know,” she says, drawing Rhaenyra closer, “There’s only one pub in this town, and it’s a shame you haven’t seen it.”
Rhaenyra smiles.
We’re all working on our gardens.
There’s something about Alicent in a leather jacket and tight jeans and her hair down that makes Rhaenyra lose the absolute run of herself.
“Love,” Alicent murmurs, fingers in Rhaenyra’s hair, freeing herself only momentarily from Rhaenyra’s insistent tongue—“We’re not going to make it if you keep touching me like this.”
Rhaenyra only holds her tighter against the gentle swell of her hips, crowds her closer against the back of the door, traces hungry lips to her pulse point—“Surely we can have pints here.”
Gods—“Yes but—” Hands against Rhaenyra’s shoulders, then, pushing her gently—maybe futilely—off, but Rhaenyra only uses the space to slot her knee devilishly between her thighs—She catches her by the chin, almost pouts. “I want you to take me out. Please?”
Rhaenyra shakes her head, then, steals a last quick kiss from her lips. “I worry over the things I’d do if you asked.”
Alicent hums. “I suppose we could always resume this at a later time, after all.”
“Put your money on it.”
Rhaenyra steps back, clasps her keys.
When she’d taken the job, they’d only been formally dating, dating dating a little more than a year—but they loved each other, she knew it; and it made sense to move in together—Alicent would be gone at the School on the weekdays, and Rhaenyra loved to travel, and there was no need to pay for two mostly empty flats, when they’d be trying to spend their precious time in the city together, anyway, and when everything save for Alicent’s fire-safe document box had already migrated to Rhaenyra’s flat.
There were the big questions—the fun questions, maybe; what neighborhood—spring for a guest bedroom?—hunting down one of London’s long-sought, far-between terraces; and then there were the smaller questions. The mundane ones. The mattress.
“We can keep my bed,” Rhaenyra had said, all too quickly.
(And then Alicent had had to be honest.
“It is not soft,” Rhaenyra had protested. “I am not a soft mattress person. I would never be a soft mattress person.”
Alicent had only stolen more of the duvet and sunk further into her feathery-light pillow mattress and laughed.)
Life had almost been too easy with Rhaenyra. She was a consistent grocery shopper, and never ran through all the hot water, a dreadfully good toilet roll replacer, and knew that when Alicent asked for quiet this evening just to do a few quick things for work what she really wanted was an empty apartment and never failed to drag a friend to the pub or head to the gym or run out on her errands and leave her to it.
The one thing she’d never really be good about was Otto; and Alicent felt to guilty most days to get in a real row about it.
(Don’t hold my hand, she’d have to say, at certain restaurants, in certain parks. My father comes here, sometimes.)
Rhaenyra’s eyes, always a bit sad, always a bit haunted—she knew what she was thinking.
(Are you ashamed of me?)
So Alicent made the extra effort, much as she wasn’t exactly touchy, not not touchy, but not horribly—whenever they were somewhere else, somewhere her father did not go; to hold Rhaenyra’s hand, and take Rhaenyra’s arm, and lay her head on Rhaenyra’s shoulder and kiss Rhaenyra’s cheek and say somewhat loudly to the hostess, Yes, thanks, I’m just meeting my girlfriend—I think I see her just back there, cheers; and to dance with Rhaenyra at the jazz club on Saturday nights, let her hold her and put her nose in her hair and spread her hands out along her spine—let her fingers linger along Rhaenyra’s jaw, rest her cheek on Rhaenyra’s back as she ordered up at a crowded bar.
(I love you, I love you, I love you, they said; in little ways, all the time.)
“This is Finnegan’s Wake,” Alicent says, as Rhaenyra pulls up curbside.
“This your mainstay?”
“We call it the teacher’s union.”
Rhaenyra shoots her a sideways smirk. “Glad to become a card-carrying member.”
They sit at an open booth toward the back, far from the band playing low and easy by the window, in the warm din, and Alicent slides across first and pulls Rhaenyra in by the collar for an easy peck on her cheek before she heads up to the bar.
“Want the usual?” She’s off, as soon as Alicent nods.
Rhaenyra’s always been such a friend to a pub; not just a great drinker but a great talker, really, always terrifyingly adept at making acquaintances anyway, and even more psychopathically excellent at remembering each and every one of them—months after, walking in to the same pub, on a different night, in a different outfit, going Jon! Jon! How’s things at the paper? Is that the sweater your wife was knitting?
Alicent watches as she chats with an older man to her right, in a simple jacket with a greying beard, one of the locals Alicent recognizes with a newspaper in front of him and a Guinness in hand—Rhaenyra nods to the bartend, once their pints have arrived, pays in cash, as always, and returns.
Alicent quirks a brow, slides in further as Rhaenyra re-joins her, places her drink on a coaster. “You have an extraordinary skill.”
Rhaenyra smiles. “What’s that.”
“You somehow always have cash.”
“Ah.”
“Thought I was going to say something else?”
“Making friends, maybe?”
Alicent merely laughs. “I don’t know if you should get too much credit for that. Sort of unsettling.”
Rhaenyra grins, playful and light—“Well, you’re the born politician.” Then she takes a long sip.
Alicent nods, thumbs her glass, a little, along the moistening edge. Tries to smile, like it’s funny. “I suppose.”
She feels Rhaenyra’s elbow in her side, then, just gently. “For now only a dedicated horticulturalist.”
“Yes,” She watches as the band begins to tune, as the drummer assembles his kit. “Curious what you think of the place.”
“What, the magical educational Eden of which I’ve only heard through my father’s songs?” Rhaenyra laughs. “It’s a quite a place.”
Alicent looks down. “I know it’s eccentric.”
Rhaenyra looks back at her, then, one of those looks Alicent can almost hardly discern. “I think what you do is important, you know.”
The drummer balances a cymbal; twists a knob on the snare. “I know you do.”
“First place my sister was happy, you know.”
Alicent looks back. “Don’t say that to your mother, please.”
Rhaenyra shrugs. “Surely not, but it’s true. Seeing her, even just for the day, just today. I’ve never seen her so in her element.” Beside them, a crowd of patrons filter in, find their places around the band, to watch. “Or you in yours. You, in the garden, today. With the children.”
Alicent nods, watches the foam dissipate like mist. “I love it.”
“The school?”
“Yes, but,” she tongues her cheek. “Mostly the garden, I think. And the children.”
Rhaenyra nods. “Those little girls in your younger class—gods, they’re adorable.”
(Alicent thinks of the wide blackened bruise on little Dyana and closes her eyes and takes a long, deep drink.)
“You seemed to enjoy running the football program round, yourself.”
Rhaenyra nods. “They’re good boys, the lot of them. Though one of them—it’s like you said.” She takes another sip. “Monsters being made, and all that.”
Alicent frowns. “Which monster would that be?”
“That blond one—Aemond. Sourest little prat I’ve ever met. Makes sense, I guess. Heard from Harwin he’s got a trust fund worth half of London.”
Alicent takes a breath; evens her brow. “Rhaenyra, I’m serious. You’ve got to be very patient with him.”
Rhaenyra only scoffs. “Don’t tell me you can’t already see the Oxbridge nightmare he’s going to become—”
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent tempers. “He’s an orphan.”
At that, she pauses; only for a moment, though.
“An orphan who likes to badger and bully.”
Alicent shakes her head. The saxophonist begins to tune in a low c, though she can barely hear it over the growing crowd. “Still an orphan.”
Rhaenyra is only silent.
“I see your garden has really come along.” She tries, again, a moment later. “I remember when you first pitched that idea. Beesbury seems quite happy with it.” She swirls her glass. “I know you’ve always wanted to really build something like that. Your father ought to be proud, too.”
“He doesn’t know about the garden.”
“Oh.” Rhaenyra drums her fingers against the table. “I suppose he doesn’t see how environmentalism could help his long-laid plans for your career as a loud-mouth Tory, I suppose—”
“Can we talk about something else?”
Rhaenyra’s jaw clicks shut.
She hesitates, for a second; seems to look toward the bar, again, as if deciding whether she can avoid a fight if she just gets up.
(That look of run like hell that Alicent absolutely hates.)
(I’m allowed to voice what I want without you running off—)
But Rhaenyra’s trying, though, she knows. “I—I’m sorry, if—”
Alicent puts a hand on her knee, squeezes. “No, don’t be.”
Rhaenyra moves a little closer, then; ventures an arm around the back of the booth.
“I’m happy we get to do this,” she says, then, quieter. “I missed it, I guess. A mundane sort of week night with you.”
“Better than earning a doctorate whilst I partied in Luxembourg?”
(Alicent’s too good, too practised, now, at pretending that’s still funny.)
Instead she raises a brow. “Wait until we’re replacing batteries together.”
Rhaenyra nods. “Folding laundry.” She finishes her drink, then. “Are you up for another round, or—?”
The door at the front slams open, loud enough that they both look up.
Rhaenyra raises her brows, tries her on for a grin. “Quite the Monday, for the teacher’s union.”
Alicent’s nodding, technically, but her eyes are locked following the three newest patrons working their way through the crowd—“Band’s popular around here,” she explains—gods above, is that really—?
Rhaenyra, though, must spot them first: “Fuck me.”
They clear to the bar area only a few paces away, grinning at each other and laughing like hyenas, all pomp and all teeth.
It’s Aegon, trailing just behind the Velaryon twins.
Alicent shuts her eyes. “Of fucking course.” She gets up, then, to intervene—
“Wait.” It’s Rhaenyra’s hand on her arm; she looks back. “Maybe—I don’t know.” Rhaenyra looks up at her with half-plaintive eyes, shrugs. “Give them half an hour where we pretend not to see them. Nothing we didn’t do, when we were young—”
“Rhaenyra,” she huffs. “If I don’t see it happen, I can momentarily pretend it’s not my problem. If, however, my students have snuck off the grounds against curfew gallivanting about town and happen to be illegally drinking meters from my face, I have an obligation to act. As do you, now.”
She sighs. “Right, I get it. So what do we do, bring them back—?”
“Hey!”
Alicent’s eyes snap back up; through the din and the crowd she spots it—Aegon, aggressive and sneering, standing over the old man at the bar with a half-empty pint. He hurls something else at him, but Alicent can’t make it out—
The man stands up out of his seat, chest-to-chest with him, eyes hard. “—Just spill that on my trousers, you little cur?”
She’s already getting up, without thinking; pushing on Rhaenyra’s shoulder to let her out, let her stop him—
“—Fucking bumped me, you old sod!”
The man again, low and warning, now with a finger in Aegon’s chest, his teeth in Aegon’s face—“—Don’t you be looking for a fight, young prick that you are—”
Aegon cowers, a little, then; the old man sits back down, shakes his head, returns to his newspaper, faces away—
She’s not even sure she’s really seeing it when it happens, it’s so fucking unbelievable.
Aegon hits him. Square in the back. Hard.
The man rounds quick as a greyhound—
“Stop!”
It’s Alicent’s voice, shrill and screamed over the music, shoving through the crowd watching the band—“Please stop!” Rhaenyra’s up, then, too moving between them; and the old man does stop, thank the gods, looks back, points.
“This little tosser belong to you?”
“He’s a student,” Alicent breathes, chest heaving, hands up. “I’m an instructor at the local independent school, he’s a student, he’s snuck out, please, I’m so sorry—he’s fifteen—he’s only fifteen.”
It’s then the bartend rushes up to them, points hard at Aegon, and then toward the door—“Out.”
Alicent doesn’t need to be told twice; practically horse-collars Aegon himself, shoots a look at the Velaryons stern enough to have them working their way toward the door without another word.
“I’m so sorry,” Rhaenyra says, again, as the man sits back down. “I really am.”
But he merely shakes his head. “Rich selfish pricks.”
Outside the pub, Alicent releases Aegon by the scruff, the Velaryon sisters looking on meekly from beside him. “What in seven hells were you thinking? How on earth did you even get here?”
“We walked,” Baela says, eyes on the ground.
Alicent looks to her, then, shakes her head. “Sweet seven above. Along the side of the motorway?”
Baela shrugs.
She sighs, then, pinches the bridge of her nose. “This,” she begins, “Is so unbelievably out of line. Girls—all of you—wandering along the side of the road at night is just beyond, but—” Her eyes return to Aegon, then, sharp and horribly disappointed—“You’re nearly a man grown and you think it’s acceptable to put your hands on strangers in public?”
Aegon merely scowls, like he finds the whole thing absurd—“He bumped me—”
“Absolutely not, Aegon.” She shakes her head, again; turns to Rhaenyra, gestures to the car with a tired expression. “Rhaenyra, would you please.”
She beeps the keys; the locks unfurl. “Go on. All of you, in the back, right now.”
They shuffle inside. Rhaenyra gives Baela a half-sympathetic look in the rear-view; re-starts the engine.
“It kind of smells like terrarium in here.”
Alicent closes her eyes. “Aegon, I swear to all the gods.”
Rhaenyra waits as Alicent stands at the door to the girls’ dormitories, hand on Rhaena’s shoulder, as Bess opens the door in her nightgown; appears to lecture them, a little, and then pull them inside. Alicent sees Baela and Rhaena through the door; explaining, then, probably, and bidding Bess good night.
Aegon waits, too, hands in his pockets. Watches.
“Prim dull bitch,” he mutters.
Rhaenyra’s jaw sets, still in the cold air beside him. “You didn’t deserve her intervention,” she intones. “But then, she’s not a believer in natural consequences.”
He only scoffs.
“I, on the other hand, think you might have learned more from the thrashing you nearly justly received.”
He meets her eyes, then, sour and mean. “I saw you. In the corner when we arrived.” Somewhere behind the door, she can hear Erryk coming down the steps. Aegon seems to register it too; shoots her a contemptuous sneer. “Never spotted Pretty Woman there for a dyke.”
It’s then Erryk opens the door, frowning and bleary-eyed in his house robe; Rhaenyra, lowly—“I’d strongly advise you to watch your mouth.”
Erryk looks between them, then; and back to Aegon with a knowing scowl. “And what have you just said to the Professor, Mr. Sunfyre?”
Aegon looks at her in challenge, daring and expectant.
(It would be so easy to put him in his place—but then, Rhaenyra’s played this game before.
Alicent, protect Alicent.)
“Aegon,” Rhaenyra begins, “Thought it would be appropriate to sneak off the grounds and go traipsing about town. Professor Hightower and I are returning him to his dormitory. I presume we’ll be having a chat with the Headmaster in the morning.”
(Aegon quirks a brow.)
“I should certainly say so.” Erryk steps aside, motions behind him with a jerk of the hand. “You, get inside. To your room. Now.”
But before the door closes, Aegon looks back at her with a grin.
Criston Cole paces across his office, cold Georgian den that it is; runs his hands along the mahogany desk, leans over, eyes cold.
“Do you like summer?”
Aegon and Baela and Rhaena just stare.
Rhaena frowns. “What?”
Criston shakes his head, leans up, paces around—sits on the edge, toward the windows. “I asked if you like summer.”
Aegon shrugs. “Sure?”
“Well you won’t anymore!”
Baela scoffs, lightly. Looks over at her sister.
“You try this sort of miscreancy again,” Criston threatens, working his jaw, “And I’ll see to it that your summer is miserable. Not a fun summer at all.”
Rhaena raises a brow. “Hence, miserable?”
Criston fixes her a cold gaze. “I’d watch my tone, if I were you.”
Aegon merely picks under his fingernails; and then, bored as ever, looks up. “You must think you’re very important.”
“Mr. Sunfyre,” Criston spits, “I will have you expelled.”
“Do it, then. Gods know the only solace I could find would be to get the hell out of this pit—”
“Silence—”
Aegon laughs. “You know what the upper years call you, behind your back?” He tilts his chin, eyebrows raised. "Criston Cunt.”
Criston points—“You listen here, boy—”
Baela tips her head, whispers. “I thought it was Criston Hole—?”
“Maybe I won’t expel you,” Criston levels. “Perhaps I’ll just call your father. Let him decide what we’re to do with you.”
Aegon’s smirk dissipates into a deepened scowl.
Criston sniffs. “Your free period and café privileges will be revoked, of course, in the meantime. I’d strongly advise remaining on your best behavior this summer.” He fixes his stare upon Aegon. “Especially you.”
Satisfied they’ve been appropriately cowed, Criston sits, huffs, then. “What in the name of the gods do you think you were doing at a pub?”
“Trying to fucking drink, of course,” Aegon sneers. “Which we would have, had we not unfortunately interrupted Dyke Debbie Harry and Princess Peach.”
Criston pauses. “Are you talking about the professors?”
Aegon rolls his eyes. “Of course. Making time with each other in the back of the bar. Couldn’t well get it on with the under-the-table lezzie handy in front of the children, I guess.”
Criston raises a brow; silent for a moment.
Then—frowns. “Wait, who’s Debbie Harry?”
“Gods, this place.” Aegon throws his head back in his chair. “From Blondie?”
“I’m sorry,” Bess murmurs, and Alicent takes her into her arms again, brings her against her shoulder as the girls ready for school downstairs. “I know it’s selfish of me. He was ninety-seven years old. And he lived such a happy life—how long can you expect—?” She pulls back, wipes her eyes, wipes her fingers upon her soft apron. “But he was my father. And it feels sometimes like that should make them entitled to live forever.”
Alicent only nods. “We’ll be just fine, here. I promise.”
“But I’ll be all the way in Ballybofey—”
“You could be in Shanghai for all it matters.” Alicent shakes her head. “He was your father. You should be with your family.”
Bess grips her arm, grips it tight. “Thank you.”
Later, Rhaenyra enters the apartment and finds her bent over her weekend bag and frowns.
“I was such a terrible instructor of school-age children that you’ve decided to leave me altogether.”
Alicent zips the last compartment, nods. “I’m afraid so. Please do tell IMAX that she’ll always be my favorite of my partners’ exotic pets.”
Rhaenyra snorts, flops on the sofa. “Where are you going?”
She sighs. “Bess’ father has just died, actually. I’ll be serving as the interim housemaster for the girls until she returns from his funeral.”
“In the girls’ dormitory.”
“That is where the housemaster’s to live, yes.”
Rhaenyra tuts; quirks a brow. “Well, your being gone is the perfect opportunity to go out and get that second lizard I’ve been daydreaming about.”
Alicent fixes her with a look. “I swear to all the gods, Rhaenyra, all kidding aside, that may be my final straw.”
Rhaenyra only laughs.
And then she lifts the strap of the bag, tips her chin, looks back at her with big brown eyes. “White-knight this up the stairs for me, sweetling?”
Rhaenyra’s never thought about kids; at least, not that much. But she does know she’ll either marry Alicent or run away to a Scottish horse ranch or lesbian convent. Not that she’s actually told Alicent that yet.
What kind of rings do you like, she’s asked, in that playful way, with some trash like Love Island on in the background, when she’s most sure that Alicent will believe it’s most unserious.
The big dumb flashy kind, she’s replied.
(Rhaenyra had laughed, and imagined something delicate and sweet and intricate; something small.)
She hasn’t thought about kids. But something about Alicent in the early hours of the morning in the dorms, kneeling down whispering about rabbit ears to Meria, who’d gotten so frustrated by her new laces that she’d almost started to cry; or asking Maege Reed if she was going to find a dry toothbrush if she looked, and is that how we care for our garden?
On the walk to the Great Hall, Rose Tully skips beside them and talks and talks and talks about the biology lesson they’re to have that day; Alicent only nods and paces along beside her and listens, truly listens, those eyes that Rhaenyra knows mean she cares, that she’s hearing every word.
Dyana is quiet, readying herself, that morning; and still quiet at breakfast, pushing her porridge around her bowl and staring out the window with an absent gaze.
“And then I have a dragonfly,” Helaena explains, still, humming along about her amber insects at a gallop—“And a beetle, and a Viceroy butterfly—they’re from America, and they mimic the monarch butterfly, and that butterfly looks exactly the same, so—”
Dyana swallows; taps her spoon. Alicent frowns.
“Dyana,” she interrupts, ever gently, “Are you excited for anything to come, today?”
But Dyana doesn’t say a word. Helaena glances back between them, almost unsure whether to be wary; lets her fork drop softly back on her plate, tomato still stuck on the end.
“Maybe you’re looking forward to starting Valyrian, this afternoon,” Alicent smiles. “Won’t it be so exciting to speak Valyrian? Maybe you girls can practice and write special notes to one another.” She raises an eyebrow. “You know, even I can’t speak Valyrian, and nor does Miss Bess; so we’d have no idea what you’re saying at all.”
A few of the girls giggle, whisper to each other, excited by the idea; but Dyana does not.
Alicent waits, for a moment; but the girl’s eyes remain down, and then flicker out the window; vacant and far away.
She turns to Maege, then, engages her about something she’d said about dogs, earlier; makes a mental note to try again with Dyana later on in the day—
Dyana reaches without looking for her apple juice and her cup topples with a thwack and floods across the table.
Alicent stands, immediately. “Alright, not to worry—that’s alright, girls.” She motions for them to put their serviettes down on the mess, stands to make her way toward the stack by the serving station—from the other end, she sees Erryk stand to come help, Rhaenyra look up from the staff table—
Dyana’s paled.
“That’s alright,” Alicent says, quickly. “It’s only an accident. Dyana, would you like to help me ask our kitchen staff for a very special cleaning cloth—”
“No!”
It’s louder than any sound she’s ever heard Dyana make, and her brow’s knotted in a scowl but her eyes are terrified, a fear she can almost feel—
Alicent holds up a hand toward her, across the table, clear and soothing—“Sweetling, be calm, it’s not your—”
“No! I hate you!”
Alicent barely has time to register it before she feels Dyana’s juice glass whizzing past her shoulder. She whips around just in time to watch Rhaenyra reach out and catch it only a moment before it hits the floor.
(Rhaenyra looks back up at her, surprised at herself, even.)
By then, Harwin and the kitchen staff are setting blue cloths down on the dripping puddle; Erryk sets the cup down, corrals the other girls away from the wet table—
“Alright.” She kneels in front of Dyana, and it’s the calmest, lowest, most comforting, most I mean it tone that Alicent can muster. She takes her hand, stands up. “Come on. Come with me.”
She kneels before Dyana out on the yard, out in the grass, away from everyone, in the sunshine.
“We do not ever throw things and shout,” Alicent directs, and her eyes are big and firm and clear. “Do you understand, sweetling?”
She nods. Tears pool in Dyana’s eyes.
“I know you do.” Alicent soothes. She smooths her hair, takes her hands, again. “You’re a good girl, Dyana, I know you don’t behave this way. What’s wrong? Is something wrong, that’s making you frustrated?”
She teeters on her feet. “I was scared,” she whispers, finally. “I was scared I dropped the cup.”
And then her tears fall in earnest and her face crumples and she whines and Alicent pulls her into her arms, hugs her tight, holds her.
“It’s alright, Dyana, it’s okay,” she promises. “Nobody should get in trouble for an accident.”
“Yes, I’m well, thank you.”
(Alicent twists the phone cord absentmindedly around her thumb and wonders how Beesbury still has them using phones that have a phone cord.)
She sets her jaw. “I’m actually calling just to check in about Dyana. She’s alright, yes; but she’s been having a bit of a tough time, lately, she’s a bit frustrated, a bit nervous. She actually seems to have quite the bruise on her upper arm, we noticed; we wanted to let you know about that, see if you might know what happened—we’re quite certain it didn’t happen at school.”
The man on the other end—who Alicent knows from the forms as Mr. Waters but whom everyone else seems to call and who apparently prefers to be known as the Colonel—merely sighs.
“Yes, we do. Is it healing? We’re concerned. When she was home on holiday a lorry driver ran through our zebra crossing and I had to wrench her out of the street. I think that’s what it’s from.”
Wrench. “Yes, of course.”
“She’s been misbehaving, is it?”
“No,” Alicent tempers. “She’s just been a bit nervous, a bit cross, of late. She did have a bit of an outburst at breakfast, this morning. We just wanted to keep you informed and check in for due diligence—ask if you or Mrs. Waters might have some insight that may help us help her, of course.”
And then he laughs; an odd sound. “Yes, well, I’m not entirely surprised, if I’m honest. She can be an evil little thing. But I’m sure you’re up to snuff over there, Doctor Beesbury and his philosophies and all. I’ve got to return, but I appreciate your phoning us.”
“Yes.” Alicent blinks. “We’ll be in touch. Cheers.”
The line clicks.
Harwin sighs through the nose, crosses his arms in his chair, office door shut and locked; Alicent rubs at her arm across the desk from him, eyes downcast.
“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard from any parent. Ever.” She shakes her head. “An evil little thing. I’m not saying—I don’t—it’s just fucking weird.”
Harwin nods. “It is. It’s very strange. But—”
“He used the word.” She looks up at him, then, eyes hard. “Harwin. He used the word wrench. He had to wrench her out of the street. That’s exactly what she’d said—”
“Look.” He holds up his hands; returns her expression with a steady and careful gaze. “I know you must feel as though I’m gaslighting you here, to some extent. But you’ve asked my advice, so I’ll give it. I understand your fear, I do. But all we know is that a student of ours who has gone home every weekend for a year, who has never once returned with an inexplicable injury or an injury of any kind, who has never had behavioral or social-emotional troubles, who performs well in school, has come back with a one-off injury.” He shrugs. “Maybe she did use the same word her father does, and likely because he explained to her what occurred. Nearly being killed by a lorry ought to be harrowing for anyone, especially a young child.” He tips his head. “If anything we should feel as though we’re looking at PTSD from that event; not from some abuse that’s magically begun just now.”
Alicent shakes her head. “Harwin,” she murmurs, plaintive. “Did you see the bruise?”
He works his jaw. A beat passes.
“Bring it to Beesbury, then.”
Rhaenyra turns over, drops her book on her lap. “It is a weird thing to say, I guess.”
She adjusts her pillow beneath her head, plays with the sheets between her fingers. “It’s enormously fucking odd.”
“An evil thing?”
“Evil little thing, he said.”
She sighs. “I don’t know. Some parents are just—not that I’m stereotyping his profession—drill sergeants. Some of the things my aunt used to say to my cousins were just asinine.”
“Rhaenyra.” She sits up, then, really looks at her. “An evil little thing. A father, about his seven-year-old daughter.”
Rhaenyra snorts. “Yes, there should be quite a bit of love lost between fathers and daughters, shouldn’t there.”
She can barely resist the ire that pools behind her eyes. “This isn’t about you and Viserys, Rhaenyra.”
“Like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Alicent takes a deep breath, runs a fingernail deep and aggressive over the groove of her thumb. “My father never raised a hand to me, Rhaenyra, as you well know.”
“No, he found other ways to cow you.”
But as soon as she’s said it, Rhaenyra looks up from her book, again, remorseful and meek. “I—I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know how we got on this. I’m sorry.”
Alicent turns over and shuts off the light.
Erryk toes his shoe to the ground in the lamplight, outside the dorm, dark and silent. “So I called my brother.”
Alicent nods.
“He ran the records. Arryk's just on the local force, so if they were traveling, or it happened elsewhere—well, anyway. I asked him if any lorries, or any other truck, was caught running a red.”
“And?”
“There’s no such report. But he said—you know, if they didn’t phone the police; and there are traffic cameras, but they’re new, and they’re not entirely accurate. It does it mean it didn’t happen.”
“It just means it didn’t happen in front of anyone who thought to report it.” She says. “Or any functioning traffic camera.”
Erryk shrugs. “I guess.”
She sighs. “Thank you, Erryk.”
His frown is deep and earnest. “So now what?”
She shakes her head. “That’s up to Beesbury, I suppose.”
When she enters his office, his chair swivels around—but it’s Criston who sits beneath its hulking leather form.
He smiles at her, that genuine expression of glee that still never manages to actually reach his eyes. “Alicent. I’m glad to talk to you.”
She nods. “Is Beesbury not in? I had a meeting.”
“He’s had to speak with the board. He’s asked me to speak with you.”
Alicent swallows; sits. “Ah.”
“So,” Criston begins, pulling out a pen and pad. “Ask away.”
She blinks. “Ask?”
“I assumed you had questions,” he says, then. “Needed advice.”
“On what?”
“On teaching.”
She raises a brow. “Criston—if there’s an issue with my instruction, I’d rather be corrected sooner rather than later—”
“No, no, no issue!” He smiles, again. She resists the urge to lean back. “But you know me. Beesbury’s right hand, he always says. His philosophy man. So I’m here, if you need.”
She works her jaw. “Thanks. I was actually here to speak to him about a student. It can wait until he returns.”
She makes to get up then, to leave—
“Which student?”
And then she folds her hands. “A first year girl.” Well, he’ll find out eventually, anyway. “Dyana Waters has returned from home sporting a serious bruise in the shape of an adult hand. She tells a very unconvincing unverifiable story about how it happened; but however it happened, her behavior at school has been noticeably affected. I’d like Beesbury to be aware. In case we need to take things further.”
His brow flattens. “Further.”
“Yes. In case we need to act in her best interest.”
“And what best interest would that be?”
She fixes him a patient gaze. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of our legal mandatory reporting duty, among other things.”
And then he chuckles.
Her fingers curl around the seat.
“Listen,” he says, wiping under his nose. “If you think I’ll allow a scandal like that to jeopardize this institution, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“I hardly think adhering to our legal obligations will make us a pariah in education—”
“You can’t really be so naïve.”
She tilts her chin in challenge. He doesn’t even blink.
“The Colonel,” he continues, “Isn’t a man to play around with. And we have no proof to determine how this injury occurred. Rather than debate its dubious necessity, let’s take this report to its logical conclusion. You say it looks so bad and so nefarious; perhaps the authorities agree. Who’s to say that injury didn’t occur here? Who’s to say it wasn’t you, or me, or Professor Strong or damned Bess for all anyone knows. You must have been around long enough to imagine what a prosecutorial investigation looks like.” He tuts. “We’re young. We’re unconventional. And we’re small. We’re not taking that risk over something that is more likely than not nothing at all.”
She shakes her head. Gods above, is he really—“Beesbury will want to know.”
“You’re not going to tell him.”
“For the love of the Seven, Criston, you cannot stop me from communicating with our headmaster.” She stands, then. “And you cannot keep me from fulfilling my own individual legal and ethical obligations. This is not a crime drama—that child may be in imminent danger from somebody at home, and you’re going to ignore it because you’re afraid the police will play Clue around the grounds—”
“Not me. You’re going to ignore it. You’re going to let me go about this my own way.” He waves his hand. “I’m not ignoring this. I’ll see to it. In time.”
“And will you inform the Headmaster?”
He’s silent.
“Beesbury deserves to know all that goes on here, Criston, it’s his school.”
“I’ve read about you, you know.” And then a stinging gaze falls upon her. “I see your name in the news. Well, not your name, exactly, but. I get the feeling you wouldn’t want your father to know what’s going on here, would you.”
She only blinks, furrows her brow. “I—what? What are you—”
“All that goes on here?” His eyes are hard. “After-hours activities included?” He looks down, again, strikes something with the flick of his pen. “Maybe his beliefs are different in private. I’m only surmising.”
She sees it in his eyes and stills. Her hands fall to her sides.
He smiles back up at her, just as cheery and insatiate as before. Then knocks on the desk, pushes his chair back, stands with a grin. “Shall we head to lunch?”